Kilrathi Saga, WC4DVD etc.

Phox

Rear Admiral
Hi,

got some questions on what exactly Kilrathi Saga and that WC4 DVD versions are.

I own the disk versions of WC1,2 and Academy, the CD versions of WC4,5,Prophecy,Privateer,Privateer2,Armada and some WC1/2 CD which has SM1,2 and SO1,2 and until recently I thought I owned pretty much everything there was on Wing Commander games. Of course my pc doesnt run the older games which I'd like to play again (never thoroughly tried with the slowdown tools, couldnt find a good one yet).
I'm not really in touch with online communities and what is going on nowadays in the wc universe and just read a few lines on wcnews like every 3 months.

Now I've heard of that Kilrathi Saga boxed set and WC4 DVD versions, both weren't sold in germany. From what I gathered from ebay.com these seem to be rare items not sold anymore so please could anyone explain me what exactly these versions are, do they add better video quality, windows compatibility, new missions even? Seems to exist a one-side and a two-side DVD which adds to the confusion. Are they worth aquiring? Did I miss out on any other important releases? (I know about RF and secretops.com and read about the fan projects)

Unfortunately the Products section on wcnews.com doesn't provide the information I am looking for.
 
There are two different Wing Commander IV DVDs. Both were 'pack in' items - meaning you had to buy a DVD Player or a new computer to get them. They weren't available individually in stores.

The single sided version is essentially 'shovelware' - it's the six Wing Commander IV CDs on a single DVD5. The version on the single sided DVD is the 'Windows 95' edition of WCIV - which has simply had the free WC4Win95 patch pre-applied. The only 'unique' thing included on the single-sided Wing Commander IV DVD is 'SHPSTATS.TXT', the file with ship specifications accidentally missing from the original release. This version of WCIV isn't especially rare - but it's not really in demand, either.

The double sided version is a different beast: it has the Windows 95 version of Wing Commander IV with newly transferred, high quality videos. The movies look just like a DVD movie - they're high quality mpegs (.vob files) rather than super-compressed Xanmovies. The change in quality is *enourmous*. The caveat is that it was designed before there was an agreed upon software standard for viewing DVD movies on computers - so it's hard-coded to *require* a special type of DVD pass through card (it works with the Creative Labs DXR2, DXR3 or the RealMagic Hollywood+). This version frequently goes for a lot of money on eBay... but there are plenty of copies out there. I find that it's usually *cheaper* to look for a Creative Labs DXR2 DVD Drive Kit (which includes WCIVDVD) than it is to look for just the disc.

Kilrathi Saga is a set which includes Windows 95 ports of Wing Commander, Wing Commander 2 and Wing Commander 3. They have new digitized music (rather than MIDI) and run at normal speeds in Windows 95/98. There are a lot of problems with the game - WC2 acts very strangely at times and is missing pieces of music... It came out in 1997, when Windows 95 hadn't entirely replaced DOS for gaming needs - so it wasn't particularly popular, and very few people bought it at the time. That, added to the fact that people assume it will magically allow them to play WC in modern Windowses (it won't - getting WCKS to work in XP is just as tough as getting the original DOS version to run...) has artificially inflated the price. The really cool thing about the package was the manual - which took the WC1, 2 and 3 manuals and expanded them with notes and mementos from Blair's service.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It came out in 1997, when Windows 95 hadn't entirely replaced DOS for gaming needs - so it wasn't particularly popular, and very few people bought it at the time. That, added to the fact that people assume it will magically allow them to play WC in modern Windowses (it won't - getting WCKS to work in XP is just as tough as getting the original DOS version to run...) .

Well... you just have to right click on the .exe file and select the Win 95 compatibility mode
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Anyone have a Kilrathi Saga manual they want to cut up for scanning (G)? I didn't think so.

Someone must have one of the coil bound versions..

Monsieur Devero said:
Well... you just have to right click on the .exe file and select the Win 95 compatibility mode

I think the point is that WC1-3 aren't especially hard to get running, compared to Privateer or Armada at least.
 
thanks bandit, thats just the information i was looking for

guess im gonna look for a creative labs dvd kit then.

it doesnt look like I can get a hold of a kilrathi saga copy though. not meaning to be disrespectful to the forum rules but do you think it would be immoral and/or illegal to provide access to the w95 versions of the games to owners of the dos versions of the games for free? after all it looks like this kilrathi saga box was released in small contigents only which I think is kinda unfair to all those die-hard wing commander players especially outside of the usa. mind im not asking you to send me those, only asking for your opinion. I am in no way encouraging or supporting software piracy!
 
If a patch could be made available, I'd be happy to distribute it. As it stands, the KS versions of WC1 and 2 are significantly different... (for instance, they have hundreds of megs of digitized music, making hosting a download tough...).
 
I'm very glad I got a hold of KS when I did, especially considering how hard a time I had finding a copy, and then the "company" I bought it from went out of business about a month after they shipped my KS to me... :D
 
well hang on... will kirathi saga work on XP or not??

any major problems with it??

i was just about to pick one up !??

cheers

joe
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I have a coil bound one... it still doesn't flatten itself enough to scan right...
It's a huge pain to mess with but is it the coil bound type that can be uncoiled then reinserted and coiled again (hopefully ;) )?

C-ya
 
ahh, kewl - thanks WW... just that bench alluded to some propblems and the reviews on some web page said the same thing.. :(

oh well - i'll give it a try anyways !
 
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