Escape From Monkey Island Forum

I've been able to install EMI without a problem (CD swap during install wasn't a problem for me using Crossover 7.1), but I can't for the life of me get the game to play its video, pre-rendered cutscenes. The audio plays just fine during those scenes (dialog, music), but the entire sequence is on a black screen with a "busy" CD icon in the bottom-right. I've tried 98, 2000, and XP bottles, I've tried changing the sound settings in winecfg, I've tried a full and a minimal install, and I've tried the Emulate Desktop option in winecfg, all to no avail. I've set the game to run using OpenGL.

Does anyone have any tips on what I might be missing?

Thanks,
Rafi

I was going to suggest changing the renderer, but I missed the fact that you had already done that when I read your post the first time.

When I run into problems like this in Linux with CrossOver, it is usually because there is a codec or support application (like QuickTime) that is not present or not working. You might try to see if you can play the cutscenes outside of the game. If you can't, then that would suggest that you are missing the software to play the cutscene format.

Thanks, Stewart. I'll give that a try today, although I suspect that the game uses its own proprietary video format based on the files I saw on first glance. One would imagine that the installer would make sure the correct codecs were available, but who knows...

One other thing that might be worth a try is this alternate launcher in a WinXP bottle:

http://quick.mixnmojo.com/emi-launcher

Good luck!

OUCH! Man, I thought you had the cure there with that alternate launcher. It seems to provide a couple of features that would bode well for my problem. Unfortunately, it apparently HATES Crossover bottles! Tried in both a 98 and XP bottle and got a very nasty exception error window replicated on top of itself a couple hundred times. Thanks for the suggestion though; I feel sheepish that I didn't find that first before coming here and posting.

Rafi

Hi.

Installed it today (in CrossOver 7.2.2) and while the installation did not give me any problem, I have the exact same problem as Rafi (cutscenes on a black screen with a "busy" CD icon in the bottom-right).
Any new developments in trying to get the game to work correctly?
Thank you!

Steve

The alternative launcher (replacement for "Monkey.exe") won't help here. "Monkey.exe" and the alternative launcher are just wrappers for the actual game executable "Monkey4.exe" in the same directory. You can actually launch "Monkey4.exe" directly using the "Run Command..." in Crossover. You can pass the following options on the command line:
-gl use opengl rendering (seems to default to directx). (Required option, see below).
-w run the game in windowed mode (an option not available with the original launcher!)
-16 set 16 bit colour depth

Note: I found the executable immediately crashed if I didn't set the "-gl" option. You might see an error on quitting the game also, even with this option set. I don't recommend running the game executable directly, unless you specifically need to run in windowed mode.

The cutscenes are in bink format. The bink files appear to be embedded in the ".m4b" files in the Movies directory, instead of being in separate ".bik" files. The game executable plays the embedded bink files using the DLL binkw32.dll. An incompatibility of this DLL with Crossover with respect of the video rendering routines is likely the cause of the black screens. (I've been unable to find an updated version of this DLL).

I have no working solution for playing the cut scences in game, but I have found a (convoluted) workaround for viewing the cut scenes outside of the game.
To play a cut scene open (a copy of) an ".m4b" file from the Movies directory with a Hex editor and strip the start of the file (should begin with "SMUSH") before the bik file header "BIK". Save the resultant file with the extension ".bik". The contents of the file should now begin with "BIK". ENSURE YOU SAVE TO A COPY of the original file to avoid overwriting the original! You should now be able to play the resulting file with either Radtools through Crossover or the BinkCarbonPlayer, both available from Bink Downloads.

It should also be possible to write a wrapper script or wrapper application to play the original cut scene files directly with radtools or BinkCarbonPlayer. I leave this as an exercise for the reader.

When using the 8.2 beta of CrossOver Games (available in the My Account>My Downloads>Unsupported Downloads section on the website), I can finally see the cutscenes as long as I enable Direct3D in the game's configuration options.
However, some of the colors are not quite right (I haven't been very far into the game yet, but in the first playable scene, most of Guybrush's face is blue and in subsequent scenes, Elaine's hair and mouth and other characters' features are also blue).
If I enable OpenGL instead, I get a white screen with the sound playing in the background unless I play in windowed mode, in which case the colors in the game are fine, but the cutscenes won't play (except for the audio, of course).
At least, the game is more playable than ever before!
Any ideas on how to fix the colors? I tried every (all 4) combination of OpenGL, Direct3D, 16- and 32-bit colors to no avail, but that's pretty much it.

I'm running into the same issue. Cutscenes work fine in Direct3D mode, but the textures in the game are screwed up (blue face) — game works great in OpenGL mode, but video in the cutscenes.

Granted even if the game worked fine, lack of controller support would be another minor stumbling block :(

I just tried a fresh install in the latest version of CrossOver Games (10.2.0) for Mac.
No real changes since my previous comments.
I tried various combinations of Direct3D, OpenGL, 16- and 32-bit colors.
I tried emulating a virtual desktop or not.
I tried LucasArts' launcher or Quick and Easy's.
The best I can get is with a virtual desktop emulated (which ends up playing the game in a small window in the top left corner of my computer).
If I use Direct3D, I can see the cutscenes (with no virtual desktop emulated, there is a flickering during the cutscenes as they play behind a frozen screen from the credits) perfectly, but Guybrush (and other characters later in the game) has a blue face.
If I use OpenGL, I can't see the cutscenes (with no virtual desktop emulated, I get a white screen for the cutscenes AND the game itself), but the in-game colors are fine.
I just awarded the game a bronze medal (I hesitated for a while between silver and bronze, as the game is fairly playable, but these problems take away a little too much of my enjoyment) but don't have great hopes of an improvement in the future as I doubt that there is much demand for an 11-year old point-and click adventure game, even though its designated CrossOver Games forum has been pretty busy in the past.