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Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? / Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? / Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time cover
Developers
Brøderbund
Publishers
1997-1999 Brøderbund
Re-release The Learning Company
Engines
Mohawk Engine
Release dates
Windows 3.x August 13, 1997
Windows August 13, 1997
Mac OS (Classic) August 13, 1997
Taxonomy
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Relaxed
Perspectives Cinematic camera
Controls Point and select
Genres Adventure, Educational
Art styles Cartoon
Themes Sci-fi, Historical
Series Carmen Sandiego
Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time on Wikipedia
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? 1985
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? 1986
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (v2.0) 1988
Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego? 1988
Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego? 1989
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? 1989
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (Enhanced) 1990
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (Enhanced) 1990
Where in America's Past Is Carmen Sandiego? 1991
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1992
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1993
Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1993
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (CD-ROM) 1995
Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective 1995
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996) 1996
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996) 1996
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?/Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time 1997
Carmen Sandiego Word Detective 1997
Carmen Sandiego Math Detective 1998
Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge 1999
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge 2001
Carmen Sandiego Returns 2015

Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time is a 1997 point and select educational adventure game in the Carmen Sandiego series developed by Brøderbund. A more traditional game in the genre compared to past franchise entries, the player, an ACME Agent, must travel through time to capture Carmen Sandiego and her V.I.L.E. henchmen before they permanently alter the course of history. The game itself is partially based on the PBS game show Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? and features its theme song.

This game was originally released in 1997 as Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? and is titled as such in-game. It was rebranded by The Learning Company in 1999 as Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time.

There are issues when attempting to install the game under a 64-bit operating system (see Installing on a 64-bit OS). Even then, the game has issues running under a modern OS (see Issues unresolved).

General information

Game manual (as Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?)

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Windows 3.x
Windows
Mac OS

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\[Note 1]
Mac OS (Classic)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\[Note 1]
Mac OS (Classic)
Save game file is mostly encrypted; the only parts of the file that are not encrypted are player names.

Video

Game options.
Game options.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
The game runs at 640x480.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
Full-motion video cutscenes are 10 FPS.
120+ FPS
Color blind mode
The colors of kimono jackets and linings in Case 4 are described on mouseover.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
A mouse is required to play the game.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
On/off switch for sound and music. Sound only turns off speech, not sound effects, and does not affect the FMV cutscenes.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Is turned on by default. FMV cutscenes do not have subtitles or captions.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Issues unresolved

When using DDrawCompat, the QuickTime movies only show a single frame, and cutscenes don't render. The game refuses to stay windowed even when forced using a DirectX wrapper.

Microsoft's compatibility mode does not fix the graphical glitches.
Both dgVoodoo2 and WineD3D are unable to resolve the graphical glitches, DDrawCompat is the best solution currently.

Issues fixed

Installing on a 64-bit OS

Recommended only if you do not have access to a virtual machine with an older OS (see Issues unresolved).

When attempting to install the game on a modern 64-bit OS, the SETUP.EXE Autorun from the CD's base folder does not work, as it is a 16-bit program.

Install on 64-bit OS[citation needed]
  1. Insert the (first) disc into your optical disc drive.
  2. Open the CD as a folder.
  3. Open the Install folder and run SETUP32.EXE. When the 32-bit Autorun menu pops up, select "Install/Uninstall".
    1. If the 32-bit Autorun menu does not work for whatever reason, then try using 7-Zip.
    2. Open the 7-Zip File Manager and navigate to the game CD's Install folder through 7-Zip.
    3. Run _SETUP.EXE (note the underscore) through 7-Zip (see Notes below).
  4. Install the game as normal.
    1. At some point, you will be prompted to install QuickTime for Windows 2.1.2, which is required to run the game (modern versions of QuickTime won't work). When it asks you to check for existing versions of QuickTime, click "Skip" and continue installing as normal (you'll want to skip version checking as the QuickTime installer can crash while going though your files, which will cause the game's installer to abort installation).
  5. You can now run the game though either the SETUP32.EXE Autorun menu or by going to the game's installation folder and running TIME32.EXE.

Notes

This fix method was done using the 1999 (Great Chase Through Time) release of the game. There may be differences with the original 1997 (Where in Time) release.
_SETUP32.EXE does not work when opened normally through Windows Explorer, as the installer will bring up a severe error that says, "This product does not support Windows NT." This is oddly bypassed when it's opened from 7-Zip or using the normal Autorun menu.

Black screens and graphical glitches

Use a DirectDraw wrapper[1]
Stabilizes gameplay and fixes severe graphical glitches.
Cutscenes and quicktime movies only show a single frame, movie audio is unaffected.
  1. Download the DirectDrawCompat wrapper.
  2. Extract the contents from the .zip file into the game's installation folder.
  3. Run the game.

Notes

If using G-SYNC and the game only shows a black screen, G-SYNC must be disabled (either globally or manually)
If the the cursor disappears, clear DPI compatibility settings.

Other information

Hearing-impaired assistance

Case 16 has a music sheet-reordering puzzle that requires players to listen to parts of the openings to Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth symphonies, which can be difficult for players with hearing problems like that of the composer himself.
Enabling "Hearing-impaired assistance" in the game options will change the descriptions of the different-colored sheets from their colors (written as "[Color] Score", e.g. "Blue Score") to their correct ordered positions (written as "[Ordinal Numeral] Sheet", e.g. "First Sheet"), allowing deaf or hard-of-hearing players to complete the case.

Other information

API

ExecutablePPC16-bit 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
Windows 3.x version might be playable on a 64-bit OS using winevdm.
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 3.1, 95
Processor (CPU) 66 MHz 486DX or faster
System memory (RAM) 8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 MB
Video card (GPU) SVGA video card 640x480, 256 colors
Sound (audio device) Windows compatible
Other 2X CD-ROM drive or faster
Mac OS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 7.1.2
Processor (CPU) PowerPC required
System memory (RAM) 9.5 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 MB
Other 2X CD-ROM drive or faster
13-inch or larger color monitor, 256 colors


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

  1. GitHub - last accessed on 26 May 2023