Enhancement Patches for Wing Commander III and IV

M

Mash

Rear Admiral
Hi,
I been working on a patch for the Windows version of WC3 which came in the Kilrathi Saga compilation. It's finally reached a point where it seems playable so I thought it might be a good time to share it here.

My initial goal was to increase the resolution of the game so as to see more detail in space scenes. This has turned out quite well I think, with a few minor issues to work out.
I then turned attention to adding support for the HD movie created by ODVS. This currently works reasonably well but still needs work.

Anyway here's a link to the project on GitHub where you will find some more details and download the current release.
Wing Commander III Enhancement Patch

Looking forward to any comments. I hope it works :)

EDIT:
Something to keep us busy while we wait for the WC4 remake to come out. Enjoy:)
Wing Commander IV Enhancement Patch
 
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Gosh, if this works it would be crazy. Must try asap, which will be the weekend. But let me already congratulate you on releasing a very interesting thingy :-)
 
Damn! You beat me to the WC3 HD Videos :P... I was only one month away from completion. lol And might I say, yours is a bit better than mine. :D

I was having issues with getting the videos started fast enough before the original videos played and fixing the delay between libVLC videos. But you took care of all of that. The videos work seamlessly!

I think Wing Loader will recommended this patch for WC3 moving forward.

Amazing work!!!
 
Pedro said:
Has anyone gotten joystick working with it?
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I didn't have any issues with it. Worked right away. But then I'm using wine on linux. Not sure how that would effect things.

Oh I did throw his files right on top of my wc3 wing loader install with Destro's patches. Maybe something there is a requirement.
 
Destro said:
Damn! You beat me to the WC3 HD Videos :p... I was only one month away from completion. lol And might I say, yours is a bit better than mine. :D
Click to expand...
Sorry, I feel bad about that. I didn't realise anyone else was really working on this, until I read a post on the main page last week regarding your work.

Destro said:
I was having issues with getting the videos started fast enough before the original videos played and fixing the delay between libVLC videos. But you took care of all of that. The videos work seamlessly!
Click to expand...
Yeah, getting the movie segments to play seamlessly was the real tricky part. It's still not perfect, there are noticeable little hiccups between tracks on the launch sequence.

Regarding the launch sequence. The last track, where Blair looks down at the console is missing in the PlayStation version. So in that case the original movie plays instead, that's why the music gets a little louder at that point.

Pedro said:
Has anyone gotten joystick working with it?
Click to expand...
I haven't touched the joystick routines yet, so they shouldn't be affected by this patch.
I've had an xbox controller working ok. My joystick's buried in a box somewhere, I'll have to dig it up.
I was thinking of looking at controllers next, axis/button mapping and such.

wcnut said:
I didn't have any issues with it. Worked right away. But then I'm using wine on linux. Not sure how that would effect things.
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Great to know it works on linux.
 
:P Don't feel bad.

My method was external and worked by reading the memory addresses and creating a new layer overtop of the game, which had the issue of starting the original videos first for a frame or two before launch. I resolved this by messing with the moves.iff and redirecting to a dummy.iff but it was less that perfect. I also spend a lot of time just getting MP4's to play correctly and ffmpeg wasted a lot of my time until I discovered libvlc. Your method is much quicker, cleaner and works slightly better overall... So I can admit defeat. :P

I noticed the missing helmet video as well. The game calls video 20 and if I remember correctly there are only 19 videos (0-18) Also the lift sequence if not part of ODVS videos and the PSX.

My patch shouldn't mess up the joystick routines. It ust adds the missing files for the Kilrathi saga so it should be the same with my patch or original KS version. I think with KS you have to press ctrl+j to activate joystick mode but that all I can think of that would stop joystick activation.

Again amazing work! I bow to your greatness. Lol
 
Such an absolute joy trying this out last night! Seriously a dream come true. Thank you!

On a future update, i was curious if you had given any thought to adding in some of the cut content? news reels, Hobbs scene, ect.. Would that be possible with this method of playing video?
 
It plays great ! always liked the KS edition with the in-game music back playing via Windows, finished the first 3 levels, need to connect my Joystick next and give it a go....
 
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So to get the joystick working I did two things:
Set compatibility mode to Win95
In USB Game Controllers I set the default controller in advanced

Neither one on its own seemed to do it. Sadly the xbox controller keeps overwriting the default controller setting and not switching it back even when disconnected.

It's still almost impossible to control with mouse or joystick- is there a way to limit the framerate? Pretty sure the precision at high framerates are to blame.
 
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I plugged in the joystick (Thrustmaster) worked first time. Z axis also, WC3 feels so good with it, I have the bottoms joystick slider for engine thrust. Feels like old times ! I play with keyboard and Joystick in-game. Perfect. I love WC3 :)
 
wcnut said:
On a future update, i was curious if you had given any thought to adding in some of the cut content? news reels, Hobbs scene, ect.. Would that be possible with this method of playing video?
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I'd like to add the news reel at least. Not to sure on the how at this point.

Pedro said:
It's still almost impossible to control with mouse or joystick- is there a way to limit the framerate? Pretty sure the precision at high framerates are to blame.
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In space the frame rate is limited to 24fps as original so I wouldn't think that is the problem. I was actually working on increasing the fps in the patch but it was causing a lot of problems, so I've dropped it for now.
Better joystick/controller support is at the top of my list of things to do.


If anyone comes across any movies playing in the wrong place or order, let me know. You can also try fixing it yourself by editing the "movies.ini" file in the "movies" folder. You'll find an example in there where I've fixed some of the "Blair walking in and out of doors" scenes.
 
Mash said:
I'd like to add the news reel at least. Not to sure on the how at this point.


In space the frame rate is limited to 24fps as original so I wouldn't think that is the problem. I was actually working on increasing the fps in the patch but it was causing a lot of problems, so I've dropped it for now.
Better joystick/controller support is at the top of my list of things to do.


If anyone comes across any movies playing in the wrong place or order, let me know. You can also try fixing it yourself by editing the "movies.ini" file in the "movies" folder. You'll find an example in there where I've fixed some of the "Blair walking in and out of doors" scenes.
Click to expand...

I mean the precision issues were a problem in the original, this isn't a new problem - more a request.

The mouse and joystick seem to get stuck and jump at low rotation values. Most people playing back in the day would have been lucky to get 15fps.

The movies work great btw. It'd be amazing to get a replacement DVD patch for WCP.
 
Oh, terrific! Thanks to @Panther1.0 for pointing this out to me - and to you, @Mash, for finally making my remastered video pack more than a fandom curio 😁

I really hope to try this out when I can spare the time. As my colleagues on the WCIV Remastered project know, life and work are currently getting in the way of me doing pretty much anything - but when I (hopefully) get my life back, maybe I can do an improved HD pack to take advantage of them now being playable in-game. Both the tech and my experience with it have moved on quite a lot in the last couple of years.
 
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The movies work great btw. It'd be amazing to get a replacement DVD patch for WCP.
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Oh yes, absolutely. I've never been able to get the DVD patch to work for WCP or WC4 in linux wine. I know some people have had some luck but I find the whole thing extremely finicky. But this new libvlc method is working wonders for WC3. Here is to hoping!
 
ODVS said:
maybe I can do an improved HD pack to take advantage of them now being playable in-game. Both the tech and my experience with it have moved on quite a lot in the last couple of years.
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That's sounds great, it's amazing the level of detail you can pull from such a small bunch of pixels. Looking forward to any improvements you can make. :)

wcnut said:
Oh yes, absolutely. I've never been able to get the DVD patch to work for WCP or WC4 in linux wine. I know some people have had some luck but I find the whole thing extremely finicky. But this new libvlc method is working wonders for WC3. Here is to hoping!
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I was thinking of doing the same for wc4, once I'm happy with wc3. As I assume their quite similar internally.

Progress update:
At the moment I'm digging into wc3's joystick functions, trying to figure out the movement issues.
 
Mash said:
Hi,
I been working on a patch for the Windows version of WC3 which came in the Kilrathi Saga compilation. It's finally reached a point where it seems playable so I thought it might be a good time to share it here.
Click to expand...

This all sounds amazing. I probably won't be able to give it a try myself immediately - does anyone have some screenshots of the high res gameplay handy for a news post? Thanks,
 
Mash said:
Progress update:
At the moment I'm digging into wc3's joystick functions, trying to figure out the movement issues.
Click to expand...

They're not confined to the joystick, the mouse has the same issue. I'm convinced it's simply a precision issue as rotation will step as you pass certain thresholds - and I did do some testing back in the day that showed it was better with low framerates (because the lower the framerate the larger the requested rotation per frame). Happy to be proved wrong ofcourse but I'm not optimistic.

That said if you're playing around in there - the roll axis is too sensitive for me and needs a deadzone. Slightest touch of the stick and I start rolling.
 
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