Enhancement Patches for Wing Commander III and IV

That's a bummer.
All sounds in P2 are handled by the miles sound system(WAIL32.dll). In the patch I've rerouted function calls to a newer version of miles(MSS32.dll), to get midi music working at all and to reduces a lot of the crackle and other distortions. There are many versions of "MSS32.dll" out there. The one included was chosen by trial and error, searching for one with the least crackle. I was hoping I'd chosen one which was good on all machines but it looks like I was wrong.
The MSS32.dll in the patch was obtained from here. If you want, you could try out some of the other versions listed and see if you get better results. No worries otherwise. The dll's need to be renamed back to "MSS32.dll" to test. The one used in the patch was originally listed as "6.1d-mss32.DLL". If you do find one that works well for you I'll include it in the patch as an alternative.
 
This might be due to my installation method. I copied the entire contents of the Deluxe Edition into one folder, including the p2_patch_test3 from the download section, along with Darkfix.exe (because the game only starts with this), your patch p2_dark_en_v0.0.5, and of course the required libvlc_min_pack_3.0.21.
I guess I made that mistake somehow. The Game Works fine ..but only without in Space Midi .. but thats ok for me
 
Mash said:
That's a bummer.
All sounds in P2 are handled by the miles sound system(WAIL32.dll). In the patch I've rerouted function calls to a newer version of miles(MSS32.dll), to get midi music working at all and to reduces a lot of the crackle and other distortions. There are many versions of "MSS32.dll" out there. The one included was chosen by trial and error, searching for one with the least crackle. I was hoping I'd chosen one which was good on all machines but it looks like I was wrong.
The MSS32.dll in the patch was obtained from here. If you want, you could try out some of the other versions listed and see if you get better results. No worries otherwise. The dll's need to be renamed back to "MSS32.dll" to test. The one used in the patch was originally listed as "6.1d-mss32.DLL". If you do find one that works well for you I'll include it in the patch as an alternative.
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it works !! The solution was this file - 3.6b-mss32.dll .. now the music play normal
 
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You shouldn't use other patches with this one. The deluxe edition + this patch should be all you need.
After running the deluxe edition installer, copy the cd's to the install directory then install the patch and you should be good to go.
Edit: Sorry just read your edit, I'll include a copy of that dll in the next version
 
This relates more to the previous issues I was having with WC4 and libvlc. I recorded a video that highlights the problem I was mentioning earlier, as well as some new ones I found.


This was recorded on wc4_en_070 on the GOG version of the game. The mission is Tyr 1 (recon the three military complexes):
  • I loitered at the Lexington at the start of the mission because I was testing the music loop there.
  • To get music to play via libvlc, I had to extract the WC4 music from the TRE files, convert them to OGG, put them in a folder and have wc4w_en_alt_music.ini point to them. If I don't do this step, there is no music at all. I think this is by design, though, but just in case it isn't...
  • It doesn't happen all the time, but if you skip to the moments when I score a kill, sometimes the victory music plays properly and other times it cuts early.
  • FMV cutscenes on the carrier seem to be fine, but the atmospheric re-entry and exit FMVs have no audio for some reason. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to.
  • At 5:20, when it says "Objective Accomplished, proceed to next waypoint"; during this time, the music volume is lowered, if I autopilot at that moment the volume noticeably stays lowered until the next "update" that restores the music volume to normal. I don't remember if this was an issue with the game on a real DOS/Windows 95 environment, but I don't think so.
 
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@Noel Shourai: I gave that mission a run through and i can see what you mean about no sound in the entry/exit cutscenes. Volume seems to be more global then I thought, I'll see what I can do about that and other volume issues. I haven't experienced the victory fanfare being cut short but I'm using the original tracks. I'll try ripping these to OGG's when I get the chance and see if I get the same effect.
What troubles me the most is that you don't hear the original tracks at all. It would be helpful to get some extra debug info there. If you could open "wc4w_en.ini" and in the "DEBUG" section set "MUSIC" to 1, and also temporarily remove your OGG files and replay the game. No need to do a whole mission, just travel to the next way point would suffice, then exit. And if you could attach the resulting "wc4w_en.log" to your next post, that would be great.
 
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I didn't do the debug thing but I did test again with the OGG files removed altogether and the alt_music.ini reset to default (empty) settings, and for some reason the original music data is working correctly now. I was certain I was having this problem though, maybe it was an issue I was having with the first few builds that implemented libvlc music? Either way, my mistake on this one.

Using the original music without the OGG tracks, the victory fanfare seems to play correctly and there appear to be no issues with music loops, I'll have to test thoroughly to make sure this really is the case. The other two issues however, the lack of audio in in-mission FMVs and the lowered volume bug, are still present.

By the way, in my test recording I set SPACE_REFRESH_RATE_HZ=24 as how it was in the original game; this was because I found that animations i.e. enemy craft's death roll, were playing way too quickly, even if ship behaviour at 60 Hz appeared to be correct.

Edit:

I just want to bring this up for reference with Wing Commander III:

- If AllTinker's Originator is something to go by, I think the MIDI music is actually still in the Kilrathi Saga version of the game, it's just unused in favour of its own music.
- If you have played the DOS version of Wing Commander III, then you already know that some tracks are missing from the Kilrathi Saga version and are not present in wc3music.tre, and many of the ones that do exist are very truncated compared to the original music.
- I have the Kilrathi Saga CDs. Out of curiosity I discovered that the wc3music.tre files on each disc are actually different, upon closer investigation it's actually because the rec room audio (labeled recroom1.wav) is completely different in each wc3music.tre file; so there are actually four rec room tracks in the KS version, depending on which disc the player is on at that point in the game. In the DOS version, I think there were five rec room tracks?

While the truncated loops can be resolved with replacement music, I don't suppose it would be possible for the new music system to reference the DOS music events (i.e. minor victory fanfare vs. a major victory fanfare, missile launch music, etc.) and the additional rec room tracks?
 
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Hello, Mash.
In Wing Commander 3: Alcor Mission 3, the funeral video after Cobra's death has incorrect subtitles. The actual videos are sc_214a.mp4 and sc_214b.mp4, but the subtitles are sc_214aa and sc_214bb. Is this a problem with file name recognition?
 
CharmSeul said:
Hello, Mash.
In Wing Commander 3: Alcor Mission 3, the funeral video after Cobra's death has incorrect subtitles. The actual videos are sc_214a.mp4 and sc_214b.mp4, but the subtitles are sc_214aa and sc_214bb. Is this a problem with file name recognition?
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My personal opinion is... playing WC3 with the standard original videos... that preserves the nostalgic charm... And I also think the AI-scaled videos look terrible and far too artificial 😊👍
 
I think there aren't really any good sources for upscaling WC3 videos, unfortunately.

But what would be really great is if they could somehow integrate Barbera Miles' news broadcasts into the game, like in the PlayStation version.
That would be a really cool upgrade

tnc.PNG
 
On that note, a new version of the wc3 patch is up. Links in the first post.
And it so happens to includes the necessary data files to enable both the TNC News and Hobbes explanation holo.
Edit: For those who prefer the original movies, only the missing movies from ODVS's movie package need to be installed for these to work.


Noel Shourai said:
I didn't do the debug thing but I did test again with the OGG files removed altogether and the alt_music.ini reset to default (empty) settings, and for some reason the original music data is working correctly now. I was certain I was having this problem though, maybe it was an issue I was having with the first few builds that implemented libvlc music? Either way, my mistake on this one.
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Glad to hear that :)

Noel Shourai said:
By the way, in my test recording I set SPACE_REFRESH_RATE_HZ=24 as how it was in the original game; this was because I found that animations i.e. enemy craft's death roll, were playing way too quickly, even if ship behaviour at 60 Hz appeared to be correct.
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Yeah, that annoys me a bit as well, haven't found a solution as yet.

Noel Shourai said:
- I have the Kilrathi Saga CDs. Out of curiosity I discovered that the wc3music.tre files on each disc are actually different, upon closer investigation it's actually because the rec room audio (labeled recroom1.wav) is completely different in each wc3music.tre file; so there are actually four rec room tracks in the KS version, depending on which disc the player is on at that point in the game. In the DOS version, I think there were five rec room tracks?
Click to expand...
That's interesting, I wondered why they were different sizes but never explored it further. I actually have my hdd install setup correctly with the 4 wc3music.tre's renamed cd1music.tre,cd2music.tre... etc. with matching references in "wc3.con" I think the DOS to Windows patch only has one of the tre's.

Noel Shourai said:
While the truncated loops can be resolved with replacement music, I don't suppose it would be possible for the new music system to reference the DOS music events (i.e. minor victory fanfare vs. a major victory fanfare, missile launch music, etc.) and the additional rec room tracks?
Click to expand...
Haven't really looked at midi yet, it's possible the flags for those extra track are still present but unused in the windows version, but it would likely be difficult to get it functioning exactly like the DOS version.

CharmSeul said:
Hello, Mash.
In Wing Commander 3: Alcor Mission 3, the funeral video after Cobra's death has incorrect subtitles. The actual videos are sc_214a.mp4 and sc_214b.mp4, but the subtitles are sc_214aa and sc_214bb. Is this a problem with file name recognition?
Click to expand...
Should be fixed as of the current version.
 
That's incredible... you actually brought it back to the game... you're a true wizard and I'm really impressed... simply perfect, thank you so much for your outstanding patch. This is Wing Commander 3 Perfection

I tested it with the German PSX videos... and it runs really great... The patch feels like a complete overhaul and like an add-on thanks to the TNC news broadcasts in the pilots' lounge... In my opinion, it's the best project ever for WC3... simply unique.
Cover Case Front.png
wciv_dvd.jpg
 
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