Complete WC GOG fixes and tweaks

I'm trying to run WC3 with the upgraded movies with no avail. I replaced all the files inside the DATA.DAT file, saved it (used MagicISO), changed the shortcut to WC3 NoScanlines, and the program throws me back to the desktop everytime. Now even WC3.exe does the same (desktop crash). What am I doing wrong, please?
 
Upgraded movies only exists for WC4 and WCP... that might be your problem ? ;)

I think he means he tried the Windows patch for WC3 which ends up adding scanlines to the video You have to do add a modifier to your exe pathway of your windows shortcut ( -no_interlace ) to remove them.
 
When installing the Wing Commander 3 Windows 95 patch, I get sound effects everywhere and music in the videos, but I get no music at all during gameplay. It doesn't even seem to be trying to fire up my midi device. Is there a config file somewhere or something that I can set to tell it what to do? Is it expecting redbook audio that I don't have? I'd much rather play the KS version than the Dos version of this one, because it actually supports the twist and throttle on my joystick, and because I like the black space, but no music would be a deal breaker for obvious reasons.
 
You can try running the game with the command line switch "-NO_SOUND" (without quotes) to disable Wing Commander 3's use of DirectSound. That might kick it into working. The biggest thing these days is to try different compatibility modes (95 vs 98, etc) for the game's executable as well.
 
I just tried the WC3 GOG fix and my joystick is still not working properly: during calibration, the current vertex jumps around really fast like it's getting a constant stream of split-second inputs, and does not work at all in-game. Is this a hardware detection issue with my joystick? I'm on Win7 with a Logitech Extreme3DPro.
 
I just tried the WC3 GOG fix and my joystick is still not working properly: during calibration, the current vertex jumps around really fast like it's getting a constant stream of split-second inputs, and does not work at all in-game. Is this a hardware detection issue with my joystick? I'm on Win7 with a Logitech Extreme3DPro.

You could try the other alternative joystick patches at https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Category:Wing_Commander_III:_Heart_of_the_Tiger#Patches_.2F_Addons

They say they're for Colorado Spectrum or Thrustmaster, but I'm not sure how much they are customized for those brand as much as they are just additional different routines.

Alternately, you can manually edit the .conf file that GOG pre made for WC3 with some other variables. Try Joystiq timed=true for starters.
 
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I just tried the WC3 GOG fix and my joystick is still not working properly: during calibration, the current vertex jumps around really fast like it's getting a constant stream of split-second inputs, and does not work at all in-game. Is this a hardware detection issue with my joystick? I'm on Win7 with a Logitech Extreme3DPro.
Does your joystick work fine in other, non DosBox, games? I think DosBox uses the windows joystick config. Though I do know WC3 has its own calibration. When you run it make sure you push the joystick to the extremes for top left and bottom right. I also remember the center being annoying in the past as my joystick had a bit of a "wiggle" when rested.
 
You can try running the game with the command line switch "-NO_SOUND" (without quotes) to disable Wing Commander 3's use of DirectSound. That might kick it into working. The biggest thing these days is to try different compatibility modes (95 vs 98, etc) for the game's executable as well.
Thanks! I'm not sure which switch fixed it, but I turned on all the usual compatibility settings (Win 95 mode, disable desktop composition, run as administrator, etc.), and it worked. Not sure why I didn't think to check that before, guess it didn't cross my mind that even though it's a more modern version of the game than what GoG gives out of the box, it's still an "upgrade" from a DOS game to a Windows 95 one.
 
I've recently purchased the GOG collection, and like others have had issues with Munt MT-32 emulation under Windows 8.1. Fortunately there's a simple workaround, which I thought I'd add to this thread for the benefit of others. Install and configure Munt and copy the modified Wc1 and Wc2 files as outlined in the first page. Open dosboxWC.conf for editing in notepad, and look for the [midi] section. Change midiconfig=0 to midiconfig=1 and save. Repeat for Wc2, and Viola.
 
I've recently purchased the GOG collection, and like others have had issues with Munt MT-32 emulation under Windows 8.1. Fortunately there's a simple workaround, which I thought I'd add to this thread for the benefit of others. Install and configure Munt and copy the modified Wc1 and Wc2 files as outlined in the first page. Open dosboxWC.conf for editing in notepad, and look for the [midi] section. Change midiconfig=0 to midiconfig=1 and save. Repeat for Wc2, and Viola.
There's also some third party software that can make the change -- the option still exists in Windows, there's just no built in menu option that toggles it. I use a software synth for general midi (very useful for games that, while still old, are more from the SC-55's day than the MT-32's) that has a pull down menu that lets you choose which midi device you want both as the global setting and for the Windows Media Player default, which lists all of the ones you have installed, not just itself and the Windows synth. It's called Coolsoft Virtual Midi Synth, and it's a free download.

Edit: After writing that, it's kind of surprising that Munt hasn't added such a menu yet. There hasn't been a way of doing it without third party software and/or manual registry edits since, what, the launch of Vista?
 
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There's also some third party software that can make the change -- the option still exists in Windows, there's just no built in menu option that toggles it. I use a software synth for general midi (very useful for games that, while still old, are more from the SC-55's day than the MT-32's) that has a pull down menu that lets you choose which midi device you want both as the global setting and for the Windows Media Player default, which lists all of the ones you have installed, not just itself and the Windows synth. It's called Coolsoft Virtual Midi Synth, and it's a free download.

Edit: After writing that, it's kind of surprising that Munt hasn't added such a menu yet. There hasn't been a way of doing it without third party software and/or manual registry edits since, what, the launch of Vista?

I don't think MIDI is exactly a priority for Microsoft, though why the mapper was removed boggles the mind. If you have multiple MIDI devices installed, you can also use the dosbox command "mixer /listmidi" to show all the drivers that are installed and their associated ids (Munt would probably only be ID 1 with no other drivers installed). That way you could set wc1/2/academy to use the Munt MT-32 driver, but set Wc3/armada/privateer to use your General MIDI synth (with some nice soundfonts maybe?), without having to change your mapper for each game.
 
@OP - thanks for your work! I needed to replace the DVD playback .dll (wphr it's called I think) with another one from the CIC (there's the one linked on the Wiki page, but there's also another one that's specifically made "compatible" with the OpenGL patch).

I had to switch to the "special" one as the one supplied in your patch didn't scale the DVD movies properly (they were played in their native resolution in the upper left corner of the screen).

Hadn't enough time to check the other fixes, but will report back in time (have finished the WC3 and WC4 GOG releases ~1 year ago).

I have one more interesting caveat regarding DVD playback in Prophecy (which I haven't read about on the forums):

I have LAV filters (which are based on improved ffdshow filters) installed on Windows 8.1 for AC3 and MPEG2 playback. I've configured the audio decoder to "pass through" AC3 and DTS content as I have an AV receiver hooked up to my PC. This doesn't work with the Prophecy DVD playback - the movies' sound will get stuck in a short loop and after that the game loses all sound playback and the game speed ups unnaturally. Only when I disable AC3 passthrough for the LAV audio filter will the game play back the movies properly. I don't know if this is an issue with the LAV filters, the playback system of Prophecy or both, but at least that fixed the immediate problem.
 
You could try the other alternative joystick patches at https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Category:Wing_Commander_III:_Heart_of_the_Tiger#Patches_.2F_Addons

They say they're for Colorado Spectrum or Thrustmaster, but I'm not sure how much they are customized for those brand as much as they are just additional different routines.

Alternately, you can manually edit the .conf file that GOG pre made for WC3 with some other variables. Try Joystiq timed=true for starters.

Silly me, I simply re-installed Wc3 (GOG apparently updated it) and it works swimmingly now. Thanks though!
 
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I'm stuck on SO. Installed and upgraded WCP following the directions here, but SO doesn't get past the Callsign screen. It immediately crashes. Tried Standoff to see as well and it crashes after a few seconds of the intro with iff:iff open file 'mission\block127.iff' not found and not optional.

I tried reinstalling in case I'd done something wrong but that didn't help.

Any ideas?
 
Pete figured out my problem. Apparently, the install path I used was too long and was making SO angry.
 
Hi again guys.

I have updated some patches , because some people are confused. I re-did the WcP patch ,now it includes the OpenGL installer,the latest DVD dll and I removed the Prophecy.exe ,because there was an issue with the game requesting the Cd`s to play.

Privateer 2 has updated with the latest Test3 release for gog
other minor patch improvments .

EDIT: Removed OpenGL from WcP patch , WC CIC doesnt allow me to upload 18mbyte patch :p ,so just download it seperatly from the first post link .
 

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Does the P2 patch look for registry entries by chance? I re-installed windows, but had P2 installed to a seperate drive. Now it just wont load. Fixed the issue by looking at DARK.FIX and changing the first two entries to from C to D.

In addition, having had a quick play through, pressing the left ALT key to access teh nav map or diary makes the screen flash and makes the windows notification beep. Right ALT doesn't work at all.

Also get the following unhandled exception error when running darkfix_setup:
Code:
See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
   at darkfix_setup.Form1.readRendererCfg()
   at darkfix_setup.Form1.Form1_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5485 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
darkfix_setup
    Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///D:/Games/GOG/Privateer%202%20-%20The%20Darkening/darkfix_setup.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5483 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5467 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5483 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.
 
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Did you overrite renderer.cfg when unzipping the package? I added a few more parameters to that file on this version, and the exception you're getting are apparently related to failing to read those new params.

In addition, having had a quick play through, pressing the left ALT key to access teh nav map or diary makes the screen flash and makes the windows notification beep. Right ALT doesn't work at all.
This is more or less known: i don't see any kind of flash in my machine, but i do hear a beep when accessing the nav map or options (ALT+O). In my experience, however, this only starts happening once you return to the game after ALT+TAB'ing away to some other program. Does this happen all the time for you?

In any case, i'm looking into it. Hopefully i'll have news on this soon.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
Does anyone know how to get the mouse working in GOG Armada as steering input? For me it somehow doesn't work. Privateer works fine, for example.
 
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