WCP/SO OpenGL Patch Beta Released (August 12, 2007)

Quick note

This isn't quite the same version as that pictured/ videod.

To enter the CICs bday I created a hi-res nebula patch for this dll that is NOT included (as it is not finished, I need to identify and override every nebula in the game, and ideally need new nebula graphics, and a seperate starfield, not one in the same).Additionally Fillers hi-res HUD is not complete.

This is very much a beta designed to address certain graphical glitches (for some people, with working 32bit and who have the DVD patch this will not be a good option for them), but I wanted to get it out there to get bug reports from as many different types of hardware as possible.

If you can't run in 32bit and are plagued by glitches such as the lens flare then this may be a good option for you, and reporting any problems will help us track them down to improve future versions of the patch and off Standoff.

Yikes, I'm just terrible at public announcements, hope that clears things up)

Does this patch address things like the crosses in lens flares? Those drive me nuts! It's amazing what people are able to do with this engine.

Yup! This release may not do much, but I can assure you it does that, it also adds 3DFX style transparency. The code for fog is in there but I disabled it as it looked odd in one of Standoffs cutscenes (I'll re-enable it in a later version).
You can combine it with the many upgrades of HCls patches by installing his first but NOT setting a higher resolution (or if you do set a higher resolution disable scaling GLOpenGL.cfg, be aware if you do this movies will still be scaled but bitmaps and HUD elements will not be).

Hey Pedro, I used Zeckensack's Glide wrapper to run my Prophecy/Secret Ops in OpenGL. In this patch, there were some graphical differences between your patch and the appearance using Zeckensack's Glide wrapper.

When I used Zeckensack's glide wrapper, there was transparent missile trails and transparent capship bullet hit effects.

When I used this patch, however, they were completely Opaque.

Are you sure you selected OpenGL from setup.exe?

If so I should note that not all missile trails have alpha, some of them do, some of them don't. I'll check the 3dfx patch to ensure that's the same, but yes some missile trails are transparent and some aren't. There's a LOT of ways transparency is handled in prophecy (they certainly made use of the tools at their disposal) so if I've missed one its not the first. I'll look into it.

As for capship shield effects if thats truly the case its going to be hard to track down as they're not opaque on my system (tracking down nvidia specific bugs was a pain in the noodle, sending test after test to Quarto)

Any chance of screenshot comparisons?

Keep the reports coming.

I was running the WCP Enhancement Pack without the High-res patch before I installed yours. I'll try and copy prophecy.exe from my CD now.

Yeah, as I wrote in the readme file, you need to copy the original "prophecy.exe" from your CD-ROM back to the WCP folder because HCl's WCP enhancement pack overrides your GL choice. Be sure to rename the the prophecy.exe that came with the Enhancement pack to something like "Prophecy-enh.exe" before you copy the original file back in.

Oh I should quickly note the dynamic lights are not quite ideal. This is a result of using hardware lighting which I do not think was available in 3dfx, but I am quite certain of how to improve the matter, I simply did not have the time.

If I've read it correctly, per rule 9 I am unable to respond, I suppose under the circumstances it is best if I remove myself as much as possible. For now please continue to post reports here, I will try and relay less critical feedback through pete whom is infintely more diplomatic than myself. You can also PM me directly but I'd preffer to see some active debate on the matter to attempt to determine the frequency of any given problem.

Whilst I'd like to focus on bugs feel free to post requests, there's a limit to what can and can not be done. Mario has already generously pledged to help combine the patches but please be aware that I am not editing the exe (and have no experience in such things), please try and bare in mind that requests should be centered around graphical improvements.

Are there any plans to release the source code for use by the community? Mario released the WCSO HighRes source, which has made it possible (though aside from Standoff I'm fairly certain it hasn't been done to date) for fan-made mods to WCSO use of the high-res pack, and it would be nice for them to be able to do the same here.

I have noticed that Shields dont "fade out" like in 3dfx and also some trails are indeed opaque and don't fade out. This is with my work PC which is only a GF2, ill try on my 7800 when i get home but I would imagine its a similar result. The shields do actually appear transparent, just dont fade out.

Either way, its a fantastic option which could be a replacement to HC1's resolution changer which doesnt resize the VDU screen and ICIS screens etc. Very nice addition.

For resolution increase at home, when I had my ATI card I used zekenzacks 3dfx wrapper with try diff res enabled at 1280x1024 which was great and resized vdu, but it doesnt work with nvidia so this will be a nice alternative. The small vdu in hc1''s rez pack hurts my eyes a bit. However, the work HC1 has done and the time he's spent is very much apprecieted and this is not ment as a bitch and a moan.

update:

Explosion shockwaves don't fade out. The pattern seems to be that transparency is fine on the most part, but fading out doesnt seem to work. The one missile that I did notice had no transparency was the Artemis ELRIR missile in SO.

Pallet flashes from hits are white rather then blue for shield and red for hull, but at least theyre transparent. Unlike dreaded D3D

Some graphics glitches still exist with spaces. Own ship VDU has one. Although its a vast improvement over D3D and high res 3DFX. Keep on moving up! (Oh, and be nice to the moderators )



For a bit of fun, i though I would try a lower resolution for SO. 320x240. Almost like playing armada, but with better effects. The laser effects look pretty neat

I was actually referring to the WCSO High Res DLL source that was released, that it makes it possible to add your own .tre files to the WCSO exe.

Also I would submit that a fan project need not take several years to complete, but that a project such as Standoff had not only to force the vision engine to do what they wanted but hack it to death to give it the feel they were going for.

A fan mod, for example, that followed another Cerberus or Midway around the galaxy wouldn't have the need to to hack everything the same way, or to create all new (and graphically beautiful!) ships and textures to fit with their designated 'theme'.

However, on the same page, Standoff has set the bar so high I doubt anyone making a mod of that nature would even be sneezed at. =) Not that that's a bad thing.

... Wait a minute. This patch lets you use OpenGL to do the rendering instead of Direct3D? So... if you're using Linux, and have been getting awful five-frame-per-second performance because Wine won't handle hardware acceleration for Direct3D... this will allow you to have decent performance?