User Manual

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User's Guide

Introduction

What is ScummVM

ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the game, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!

Some of the adventures ScummVM supports include Adventure Soft's Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution's Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep's Inherit the Earth; Coktel Vision's Gobliiins; Westwood Studios' The Legend of Kyrandia and games based on LucasArts' SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more. You can find a thorough list with details on which games are supported and how well on the compatibility page. ScummVM is continually improving, so check back often.

Among the systems on which you can play those games are Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Dreamcast, PocketPC, PalmOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, OS/2, PSP, PS2, SymbianOS/EPOC and many more.

At this time ScummVM should be considered beta software, and is still under heavy development. Be aware that whilst we attempt to make sure that many games can be completed with few major bugs, crashes can happen.

If you enjoy ScummVM feel free to donate some money to help us. This will help us buy utilities needed to develop ScummVM easier and quicker. If you cannot donate, help and contribute a patch!

Reporting bugs

To report a bug, please create a SourceForge account, then use our bug tracker to file a report (you can also reach it via the "Bug Tracking" link from our homepage. Please make sure the bug is reproducible, and still occurs in the latest daily build/current CVS version. Also check the list of known bugs (below) and the compatibility list on our website for that game, to ensure the issue is not already known.

Also, please do not report bugs on games that are not listed as being completable in <xref linkend="sec.supported-games"/> (<xref linkend="sec.supported-games" endterm="sec.title.supported-games"/>), or in the online compatibility list. We already <emphasis>know</emphasis> those games have bugs.

Please include the following information:

  • ScummVM version (PLEASE test the latest CVS/Daily build)
  • Bug details, including instructions on reproducing
  • Language of game (English, German, ...)
  • Version of game (talkie, floppy, ...)
  • Platform and Compiler (Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, ...)
  • Attach a save game if possible
  • If this bug only occurred recently, please note the last version without the bug, and the first version including

the bug. That way we can fix it quicker by looking at the changes made.

This should only take you a little time but will make it much easier for us to process your bug report in a way that satisfies both you and us.

Contacting the developers

The easiest way to contact the ScummVM team is by submitting bug reports (see reporting-bugs) or by using our forums You can also join and email the scummvm-devel mailing list (see [1]). Or chat with us on IRC (channel #scummvm on irc.freenode.net).

Please do not ask us to support an unsupported game -- read our FAQ for an explanation.

Getting started

Requirements

TODO: List Requirements (in terms of required/optional libraries, CPU power, memory, ... In particular it would be nice if we could e.g. say what PalmOS devices support ScummVM; not necessarily a list of all supported Palm models, but more a list of what OS you need how much memory, colors, etc.)

ScummVM is known to run on the following systems:

  • Unix-like (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, etc.)
  • Windows
  • Mac OS X
  • Windows Mobile (WinCE / PocketPC / Smartphone)
  • PalmOS
  • Dreamcast
  • MorphOS
  • GP32
  • GP2X
  • Symbian based smartphones
  • PlayStation 2
  • PlayStation Portable
  • Nintendo DS
  • BeOS
  • AmigaOS 4
  • Atari/FreeMiNT
  • Solaris
  • OS/2
  • Opie

Besides these, there have been many more inofficial ports in the past. Since they were not done by us, we can not say anything about their reliability, legality, or availability, nor can we provide support for them. Use them at your own risk!

Among those officially unsupported systems are:

  • XBox
  • RISC OS

If you plan to compile ScummVM yourself, you will need certain additional libraries. More on that in <xref linkend="sec.compiling"/>.

How to obtain ScummVM

Binaries

Compiling from sources

Installion

Debian

Fedora Core / Redhat

Slackware

Windows

Mac OS X

Windows Mobile (WinCE / PocketPC / Smartphone)

PalmOS

Symbian / EPOC

Nintendo DS

Dreamcast

GP2X

GP32

PlayStation 2

PlayStation Portable

First steps

Running and using ScummVM

The launcher

Managing your games (adding/removing a game)

Configuring a game

The (global) options dialog (this will point to the "Configuration" section)

Command line options

Hotkeys

Saving and loading

Macintosh games: Accesing HFS filesystems

Multi-CD games

Configuration

Using the launcher to change the the options

All config file switches in detail

Graphic filters

Music and Sound

Music drivers

Using compressed audiofiles

Volumes settings

Output sample rate

Appendix: Supported games (well this already exists on the wiki, so just link to these pages, but also see the extra notes below)

Appendix: Tools (describe each ScummVM command line tool in detail. Game pages might link to this.)