[shdon]

The CD-ROM version of SQ4 was especially insidious. It has many timing issues that the floppy version just plain didn't have (including the one you mention). Also, the scan quality of the VGA backgrounds was just better in the floppy version, with a much better gamma curve, the CD version looking rather more washed out.

It's assume that the CD version was developed alongside the floppy version and that the code forked at some point. The floppy version got the fixes, whereas the CD version didn't.

Somebody in the retro adventure gaming community with the handle NewRisingSun made a patch that used the floppy disk background images and has patched script resources to solve the myriad timing issues, whilst integrating seamlessly with the speech of the CD version.

[skhr0680]

> the CD version looking rather more washed out

I remember reading somewhere many, many years ago that the graphics were adjusted to have less colors to work in Windows, which reserved 20/256 colors for system use.