Chronology of games

Y

yoyoyojo

Rear Admiral
I am trying to figure out the order thegames came out, and hence which game engines are used by each game.

I have only played WC 3, 4 and Prophecy. So I am particularly interested in finding out if Secret Op or Privateer use any of the 3d game engines and if they are known to work with XP.

I do have Kilrathi Saga (only played WC3 on it), WC4 dvd and Prophecy all of which I managed to get working with XP.
 
I believe the games came out in this order:

WC1 followed by SM1 then SM2
WC2 followed by SO1 then SO2
Academy
Privateer followed by Righteous Fire
Armada
WC3
WC4
Privateer 2
WCP
Secret Ops

WC1 all the way to Privateer use bitmaps for the in-game graphics, but the quality of them noticeably improved as the next game came out.
Armada, WC3 and, WC4 use the same 3D engine, but it was tweaked by the time of WC4.
Privateer 2 has its own engine (which is also 3D)
WCP and Secret Ops both use the Vision Engine (I wonder were this is familiar Standoff guys :p )
(Someone please correct me if I made a mistake anywhere)

Most of the modern wing commander games can be made to work with windows XP. http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=9221. This thread should help.
 
luminon said:
Armada, WC3 and, WC4 use the same 3D engine, but it was tweaked by the time of WC4.
Privateer 2 has its own engine (which is also 3D)
WCP and Secret Ops both use the Vision Engine
Click to expand...


Just to clarify, wc3,4 and armada have a 3d engine but do not use 3d acceleration. Same goes for priv2. Only games with the vision engine (prophecy and secret ops and their mods) use your graphics cards 3d capabilities.
 
The WC3/4 engine is called "Realspace", and it was also used in Strike Commander, Pacific Strike and Wings of Glory.

Privateer 2's engine is called "B-Render", and it was licensed from some other company.

None of the games were designed for Windows XP -- but all of them can now be played with a little fooling around.
 
Thanks for that LOAF. I don't think I ever knew the names of the engines for the other WC games. I suppose everyone knows Vision though because of the excellent mods for it.
 
The best low-res realspace engine WC game is Armada. The emulated low-res mode of WC3 doesn't look nearly as good.
 
You know Vision because of Origin's advertising dollars... there was a big campaign to promote the "new Vision engine!" back when Prophecy came out. :)
 
I have to admit - the Vision engine has aged rather well.
 
It wasn't my favorite look when it came out*... but I've got to admit that there's a certain element of style to Prophecy's engine/artwork, distinct from its contemporary lets-super-detail-gray-boxes games.

* - but then I played in software mode. I got a 3Dfx card that Christmas and was absolutely amazed by the difference.
 
Maybe it's just me but I don't remember seeing anything advertising prophecy's vision engine in the UK. There might have been things on the internet but I never saw them.

I also first played the game in software mode as I didn't have a decent graphics card at the time. I was actually really impressed when I could finally enable all the special effects and enjoy the superior (at the time) graphics.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It wasn't my favorite look when it came out*... but I've got to admit that there's a certain element of style to Prophecy's engine/artwork, distinct from its contemporary lets-super-detail-gray-boxes games.

* - but then I played in software mode. I got a 3Dfx card that Christmas and was absolutely amazed by the difference.
Click to expand...


Haha, same thing happened to me. When I played WCP the first time I didn't realize I had it in software mode and though it was neat I still remember my awe when I accidentally switched to 3d graphics. Night and day!!! The nebulas were so beautiful...the explosions so pretty...the Nephilim ships still so ugly! :)
 
Privateer 2

Well it sounds like I would wnat to get Privateer 2. However reading the tech forum I get a little confused. Is Privatter a DOS game or a Windows Game? I find DOSBOX kind of suck for 3d graphics so if i have to use that I probably wont want to mess with it.

Also is there a difference bewteen Priv 2 and Priv 2 delux?

I can play WC3 KS, WC4 DVD and WCP fairly well in XP. The bumer is I can not get full use of my joystick (there is no key map program for my FF Sidewinder 2 joystick in XP).
 
yoyoyojo said:
Is Privatter a DOS game or a Windows Game? [...]
Also is there a difference bewteen Priv 2 and Priv 2 delux?
Click to expand...

Privateer 2 Deluxe is the Windows 9x version of the game. Standard Privateer 2 is the DOS version.
 
One last question

So I'm looking on Ebay and it is hard to tell which is delux and which is not.

Here is one listing where the box art looks different than most so I guess this might be the delux:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...9509744&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW#ebayphotohosting

Here is a listing of a typical looking box:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11047&item=8180377886&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW


Is there a way to tell by the box?

So will the Delux work better on XP than standard?
 
I'd say #1 is classic while #2 is deluxe. My DOS version looks like #1.
The Deluxe version should be easier to get going on XP.
In any case if you have a CD writer you can create the deluxe version out of the DOS one by a patch found here...
 
That's funny, cause the second link looks exactly like my cousins dos version (not deluxe)

Maybe it's a region thing, depending on which country the game was bought in.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a region thing. The First one is the UK box as I understand it.

The North American Privateer 2 Deluxe box was very similar to the non-deluxe version. I'll attach a photo of the two North American boxes side by side. There are a few more differences on the sides and back, etc.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0456.jpg
    IMG_0456.jpg
    57.3 KB · Views: 114
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top