Gabriel Knight II and XP

Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within (with English subtitles patch)

By Steve Metzler (Last updated: 16th June, 2010)

I probably wouldn't have bothered documenting this game if a reader hadn't recently directed my attention to a patch for The Beast Within that enables the game to be played with English subtitles. Oddly enough, while a lot of people consider this game to be their favourite of the series, it's my least favourite. No accounting for taste, eh? So even though I've got the game up and running again, somehow I don't feel compelled to replay it. This page is therefore brought to you as a public service more than anything else...

It took me several days to get the whole thing working, primarily because the subtitles patch does a few nasty things to throw you off track. Anyway, here's what you need to do to get it running:

Download and install the latest version of DOSBox if you haven't already done so. You can use my DOSBox FAQ to get it configured. The rest of these instructions assume you've made a folder called: C:\DOSGAMES to put all your DOS games in.
Now we can install The Beast Within. We do this while running DOSBox, so place the first disk of the game into your CD drive, launch DOSBox via the desktop icon, and enter the following 2 commands once it comes up:
```
d:
install
```
(Note: if your CD drive letter is not D:, then substitute whatever letter it is for the 'd:' above). Take the installation defaults, which are SOUNDBLASTER audio and C:\sierra\gk2dos as the destination folder. When it comes to selecting the size of installation, you must type in 'L' (Large), or some of the following instructions will not work correctly.
Once the game has finished installing, you wind up back at the DOS prompt in the right place to run the game from. So just type gk2dos (and then hit the Return key) to make sure the game runs correctly out of the box. Might as well hit PLAY and watch the movie for the first chapter, but don't bother to save your game as we are going to install a patch that invalidates any saved games. If the game doesn't work, then please review the instructions in my DOSBox FAQ carefully. You most likely got something wrong in the DOSBox options file. Once satisifed that it all works, you can exit DOSBox and proceed to the next step.
Now we need to install a patch to fix some game lock-up problems. So download gk2pat11.zip, and place it in the following folder:
```
C:\DOSGAMES\Patches\gk2dos
```
Note how we don't actually place the patch in the folder where the game itself is installed. That's because there's no uninstall process for DOS games. So if you just delete a game when you want to get rid of it, you would also inadvertently delete any patches you downloaded for the game. And you might have had to hunt around on the Internet for quite a few hours to find a patch... like I did.

Next, unzip that patch you just downloaded into the folder where you installed the game, which should be:
```
C:\DOSGAMES\SIERRA\GK2DOS
```
(or, if you installed to a different place, adjust accordingly). Overwrite any existing files of the same name when prompted. Almost there, just one more patch. Download GK2Subtitles.exe, placing it in the same folder where you put the previous patch. Double-click on the file you just downloaded to begin the installation process. You have to be a bit careful here, because of the aforementioned mistakes in this patch. But not to worry, as all of the problems can be overcome. Firstly, it's going to offer to let you browse to the place where The Beast Within is installed, which should be:
```
C:\DOSGAMES\SIERRA\GK2DOS
```
But note that in the dialog box after you browse to there, it leaves a '\GK2' hanging off the end of wherever you browsed to, like this:
```
C:\DOSGAMES\SIERRA\GK2DOS\GK2
```
And you have to go into the dialogue box and manually remove that '\GK2', because we absolutely do not want it there or the patch will be installed to the wrong place. After you get the path to where the game is installed right and click on next, the installer is going to warn you that the game won't run without DOSBox, and that it must be installed to C:\Program Files\DOSBox, do you want to download and install DOSBox? Well, we already have DOSBox installed and configured just the way we like it, thank you very much, so answer 'No' to this question. Then the patch actually installs, and the patch files should wind up in the following folder:
```
C:\DOSGAMES\SIERRA\GK2DOS\SUBPATCH
```
So far so good. But now we have to fix up the game's RESOURCE.CFG file, because the patch installer has made a right mess of it. So in Windows Explorer, navigate to the GK2DOS folder and open up RESOURCE.CFG in Notepad. This is what you should see:
```
videoDrv  = VESA.DRV
soundDrv  = MIDNONE.DRV
audioDrv  = DACBLAST.DRV
joyDrv    = NO
directory = \sierra\gk2dos
cmd        = GK2DOS
mouseDrv   = NONE
memoryDrv  = NONE
minMemory  = 1600k
brightness = 0
language   = 1
minCPU     = 486
cd         = YES
smartdrv   = YES
                            		
cdSpeed=2                     		
resAUD=CD:\                   		
resSFX=CD:\                   		
resMAP=CD:\;C:\sierra\gk2dos             		
rescdisc=CD:\                 		
patchDir=C:\sierra\gk2dos;CD:\               
movieDir=CD:\movies           		
robot=CD:\robot               		
discID=GK2R1								
CD:=D:;

patchDir = .\SUBPATCH;.\PATCHES
```
Note how it has written a second copy of 'patchDir'. This will override the original one, and you don't want that because the game won't know where to find any of its patches (as I discovered when I went into the inventory in the first chapter and tried to look at the Barely-started Manuscript that Gabe was composing in the opening movie. You get dumped straight out to DOS, because it can't find the '9944.V56' resource file). But not to worry. Just delete that second 'patchDir' line, and replace the original 'patchDir' line with the following:
```
patchDir=C:\sierra\gk2dos\subpatch;C:\sierra\gk2dos;CD:\
```
Also, in order for the subtitles patch to work at all, you need to change the language to '351' (believe it or not, that's Portuguese, which is the language the patch must have been originally written for). So your final version of RESOURCE.CFG prior to attempting to run the game should look something like this:
```
videoDrv  = VESA.DRV
soundDrv  = MIDNONE.DRV
audioDrv  = DACBLAST.DRV
joyDrv    = NO
directory = \sierra\gk2dos
cmd        = GK2DOS
mouseDrv   = NONE
memoryDrv  = NONE
minMemory  = 1600k
brightness = 0
language   = 351
minCPU     = 486
cd         = YES
smartdrv   = YES
                            		
cdSpeed=2                     		
resAUD=CD:\                   		
resSFX=CD:\                   		
resMAP=CD:\;C:\sierra\gk2dos             		
rescdisc=CD:\                 		
patchDir=C:\sierra\gk2dos\subpatch;C:\sierra\gk2dos;CD:\               
movieDir=CD:\movies           		
robot=CD:\robot               		
discID=GK2R1								
CD:=D:;
```
OK, so that was all a bit messy, but hey, it's a fan-made patch and you have to give the guy credit for the tremendous amount of work that went into it :-)
And now, we should finally be able to run the game in all its glory. And, by the way, that subtitles patch also includes another patch that gets rid of all the black interlace lines in the movies. So don't try installing any interlace patch you may find for The Beast Within because not only do you no longer need it, but it will actually undo the subtitles patch! (by replacing the 11.HEP and 11.SCR files with its own versions, which do not support subtitles).

To run the game, start up DOSBox and then execute the following 2 commands:
```
cd sierra\gk2dos
gk2dos
```
Now when the opening movie starts playing, you should see the text 'Capítulo 1: Filme de Abertura' appear at the top left of the screen (Portuguese for 'Chapter One: Opening Movie'). This tells you that you have struck pay dirt with the subtitles. And don't worry, they are in English nonetheless ;-)