Big props to you guys for that. So far that's been the only one in my CD collection that I've had trouble fixing. Since you say that this will be fixed in another way, I'll definitely pick it up sometime to replace the CD I have. I wasn't able to find a working no-cd "patch" for it anyway.

http://blog.macuyiko.com/p/palettestealersuspender.html

A much more elegant solution to the DirectDraw palette bug.

I've posted this quite a few times on various threads now - maybe we should sticky it?

Thanks for pointing it out. I'm not sure having to use a launcher is a more elegant solution, but I will try it out sometime.

EDIT: I see it has a console mode, so it might be useful for what I want to do.

Just picked up the game, and I'm now wondering about your definition of "OK". It certainly can't mean "no bugs encountered", as there are obviously discoverable issues that are clearly (from the forums) affecting every user, and which are unnavoidable in the plot.

I've added a wishlist item that games be sold with a "known issues" section on the game card. I hope others will vote for it. This one looks like another dropped ball from GOG.

If you find doing it every time a hassle, you can write a very simple .bat file that kills explorer, launches the game and relaunches explorer when you quit the game.
Look for it in google!

I know about using the .bat file. I just don't like having to kill explorer unless absolutely necessary. Just a personal preference.

I was upfront though. That's my point. A lot of people want this game here. Myself included. We just don't want to be led to believe it's a fully compatible build when it's not.

If GOG said "Here's Silver, we know you're all dying to play it, but we can't get it working that well. It's completeable though, so if you want to try please do". I'd fully support them. Hence the wishlist item.

It's the pretense that it works that annoys me.

Voted also. Great idea to help people know what they're getting into.

It would be nice if they did, but it's not like any other stores do that. Yeah, there are the system requirements on the box, but that's still no guarantee.

Yes, but we're here because GOG isn't like other stores. That's not a bar they should measure themselves against.

Thanks for voting for it.

This is definitely true.

It would also be nice if the game cards displayed related information like "last updated on" and maybe "last tested on". I think they have something in the works for the updater, but something on the site would be great, too.

I just tried out Gorky 17 and I get the disappearing characters bug with the hardware renderer and slowdown when using the software renderer. So that's no fun. I also want to get DK2, but I hear it's hit or miss, too.

Hopefully they decide to add this information.

wpegg,

one of the thing I requested in the OP: a list of known issues and, possibly, community solutions. Voted!

As I'm myself a developer, tester, etc., it's really rare that "macro issues" aren't known in house, especially with a 30 machines testlab and with a so strict and extensive test procedure.

Generally they are simply ignored and left for the customers to be dealt with.

And that what's happen.

While I voted for it, I think that this would (at least for the time being) be the better solution.

We just have to propagate the wiki more

Eg,

http://www.gogwiki.com/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper

I think these are two different things.

When I buy a game, a list of known issues or incompatibilities should be presented, since many games selled here on GoG were developed many years ago on different systems.
These informations should be reoported to potential customers on the game page, not on external community pages.

Maybe I have a different edition of Fallout, because my CD version had an installer that would not work in Win7 64bit, and the rainbow colors problem. I presume the GOG version fixes both of those issues, no need for additional third-party fixes or workarounds.

GOG versions have also fixed issues for many other originals I have, e.g. I was unable to get Return to Krondor FMVs to work in Win7.

So do you think GOG shouldn't have released e.g. Rayman 2 at all, until they are able to code "proper gamepad support" into the game, whatever that means? Is the game not playable on PC without a gamepad? If this is some kind of "X-Input versus DirecInput" issue, I think GOG can't do much about it.

I would try to separate severe bugs from e.g. small graphical issues or other things which really have very little effect on the game. I'm not sure if the "sound issues" and "water issues" you mention above make the games pretty much unplayable or at least very distracting, or can be detected only with a magnifying lens.

Also, in-game bugs that were there already when the game was released are something that can't be really blamed on GOG, and should not be the reason to block GOG from releasing the game. For example, if GOG ever releases Magic Carpet 2 here, I presume people will be bitching that the game may crash on some of the busiest levels.

But the thing is, IIRC the original game does that too, both when running in DOSBox, or even in a real MS-DOS machine. But someone playing the GOG version today couldn't really tell if the problem is in GOG's territory to fix, from his point of view the GOG version simply has an issue, and a pretty bad one too. Obviously GOG cannot probably fix issues that the source code had. So, does this mean that Magic Carpet 2 should never be released on GOG either?

I'm all for mentioning known (major) issues in the gamecard though, just like they have done with e.g. Dungeon Keeper 2 already. But it seems people's threshold for these issues are quite different: some will not tolerate even the first minor graphical glitch, for others it is already worth it that GOG has been able to make the game run pretty good on e.g. Win7 (e.g. Dungeon Keeper 2 for me, even though I have ATI hardware which is affected). I'd hate to think that GOG wouldn't have released DK2 due to the remaining issues.

So far, I've personally been surprised how minor the issues in e.g. Gorky17 and Dungeon Keeper 2 are. Reading the bitchings before, I was under the impression that they'd be pretty much useless in Win7. Far from the truth. Yes, there are some minor issues on many systems. Minor.

List of issues and community solutions for silver: http://www.gog.com/en/support/silver , also available for any other game: http://www.gog.com/en/support