No sound in Wing Commander: Prophecy HD cutscenes

Noel Shourai

Noel Shourai

Chief Petty Officer
I saw that there was a thread about this, but it's more than two years old so it might be better to start a new one.

I've been trying to get ODVS' Prophecy HD cutscenes to work, but I haven't been able to get them to output any sound. It's not that the audio is quiet either, it just isn't there. However, the video itself seems to be working perfectly, though the game still sporadically crashes from playing them. Both the video and audio work in Media Player Classic, just not in-game. I've also already tried switching between the various iterations of wcphr.dll with the same results; I even tried using the original DVD cutscenes (VOB format with AC3 audio, instead of MP4 with AAC) and they have the same issue. I'm playing the GOG version of Prophecy on Windows 11, running (to my knowledge) the OpenGL version with the latest Model Update pack, and I have the latest K-Lite Codec Pack installed.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
I haven't had the best luck with K-Lite (or any codec pack) myself - I don't use them - but then again I'm on Windows 10. You could try reinstalling the DirectX runtime just in case you're missing anything; it won't do any harm either way.

Do you have multiple audio playback devices? You could try disabling any you aren't using - e.g. HDMI outputs and such - in Device Manager (under "Sound, video and game controllers") to make sure it's only using the one you actually want. You could also check the advanced output quality settings in Windows - try setting the device you're using to 16-bit 48000Hz if it isn't already. It's been a while, but I've had issues with 24-bit output (or output frequencies higher than 48KHz) misbehaving with some apps/setups in the past.

That's about all I can think of!
 
I do have multiple audio devices, but I've already tried looking through them while a cutscene is playing and none of the devices were outputting any sound. I can try reinstalling DirectX, but I'm not sure if that will do anything.

The closest I could find was that apparently K-Lite doesn't install AC3Filter at all, so I tried installing it after reinstalling K-Lite. If anything, it resolved an unrelated issue with Wing Commander IV cutscenes having low volume issues, but Prophecy cutscenes kept crashing afterwards so I have no idea if it actually works.
 
Noel Shourai said:
I do have multiple audio devices, but I've already tried looking through them while a cutscene is playing and none of the devices were outputting any sound. I can try reinstalling DirectX, but I'm not sure if that will do anything.

The closest I could find was that apparently K-Lite doesn't install AC3Filter at all, so I tried installing it after reinstalling K-Lite. If anything, it resolved an unrelated issue with Wing Commander IV cutscenes having low volume issues, but Prophecy cutscenes kept crashing afterwards so I have no idea if it actually works.
Click to expand...
Exactly the same problem here, HD video works fine if I follow the guide. For now once I start changing K-lite settings via the tool for some reason I get crashes after a few seconds of black screen. I did notice when I alt-tab during a black screen I somehow have 2 running WCP windows but that might just be the video trying to load. If I somehow manage to find the right settings I'll update you on my changes but give it a week I'm tired of uninstalling and starting from base GOG install for now. :D
 
For what it's worth, I had the same issues on Windows 11. If you can dual boot to Windows 7 the problem will probably go away. Worked for me.
 
It does seem like a Windows 11 thing. The only cases I've actually heard of WCP working properly under Win11 is via Virtual Machines (e.g. VMWare) running WinXP or similar. :p
 
Is that the final verdict? WCP will not work on Windows 11 no matter what?

I've installed and installed and added the wcphr.dll file that seems to work, the hd upgraded videos (mp4 format) the latest k-lite, the ac3filter and even the upscaled models. The entire game works perfect except the movies. They display crystal clear but without sound... No sound man...

I've tried various configs on k-lite and ac3filter but to no avail. Anyone care to help me a bit? I feel it's just one small step and wcp will run on my machine
 
Hmmn, maybe you could re-encode the videos to use a different, simpler audio codec?

You could try using ffmpeg to convert it via something like:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec mp3 out.mp4

Maybe find the intro video and try it on that...

I have no idea if it'll solve the problem - I'd test it myself but I don't have a Windows 11 test install (and it'll never be my main OS unless something very drastic changes).

If it works it'd be easy enough to make a batch script to convert all the videos in one step.
 
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Thanks. It's not my primary os. But it is my gaming os.

That was a great idea, and I tried it. Unfortunately, it did not work :(
I even tried to "borrow" a VOB file from Wing Commander IV, which has no issues, but it, too, was running without sound. I don't get it.

The output of ffmpeg seems to suggest that the files use aac as encoder. The K-Lite configuration has everything set to "Microsoft". I tried switching but it made no difference.

I want to note that all instructions found here in the forums were followed to the letter except trying to install this mpeg encoder: https://download.wcnews.com/files/utility/mpeg2dec.zip as described here: https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7428.

How does WCP decode these videos? What components does it use? What codecs? Is there a way to emulate this procedure outside the game (i.e. getting those videos to run on the wmpclassic WITHOUT sound and go from there).

edit: I've tried at this point the following audio codecs: aac (of course), mp3, mp3lame (I think it's the same), mp2, ac3, flac and vorbis. I keep getting the same result. No sound on videos.

Wing Commander IV works flawlesly with the latest AI enhancement pack. It's a great looking game. Also Prophecy looks amazing with the enhanced textures and high game resolution... Man I feel like I have this amazing cool game at the tips of my fingers and can't play it!
 
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Yeah, it's frustrating... I wonder if DirectSound is used for videos, or if it's WinMM, or something else...

I have something silly you can try... I've attached the 32-bit build of a DirectSound->OpenAL wrapper, which you can extract into the same directory as prophecy.exe. The actual project is here if you'd prefer to get it from the original source.

If the videos don't use DirectSound, this will do nothing helpful (I noticed some issues in-game while using it). But I think it might be worth a test if you don't mind giving it a whirl, just for another data-point if nothing else...

It doesn't replace any game files - just be sure to remove the files it adds afterwards (assuming it doesn't just magically work, but I don't have high hopes there).
 

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Thanks. It didn't work though

I also noticed something. If I rename the movie folder to movie.del or smth, the game still runs and gets the original movies. These play perfecty WITH sound. What sound codec do these movies use in movies.tre?
 
I have a feeling that this might be connected to microstofts stupid HEVC/h265 support policy. They removed it from shipping with some versions of win10 but it was a free download. Now it's a paid add-on. From what I'm reading in win11 VLC/Codec packs will work for playing files independently they could have compatibility issues playing in windows. I'm not currently running win11 so I can't test this out but I'm kinda wondering if they did something screwy to it behind the scenes that is breaking audio for files.

From what I read there's also the possibility that the codec pack implementations in k-lite could be conflicting with whatever implementation MS is actually using, so you could test disabling the various 3rd party implementations kin the K-lite config tool and see if it fixes anything (don't forget to check both the video and audio sides)

My other hypothesis here would be something around how WCP and WC4 are essentially using a video overlay for playing the highres movies... it's a separate window from the game essentially, and that maybe it's not transferring "focus" to the proper window as there are settings in windows that will mute the windows that aren't the priority window.
 
Hello do you mean the settings in the DirectShow filters configuration?

Here is mine:
Screenshot_k-lite_settings.jpg


Do you mean the Codec and Filter Management? Like DirectShow, ACM/VFM or preferred splitters?

Or maybe the Preferred Decoders?
Screenshot_k-lite_settings_main.jpg


I have most set to recommended... Well not most, All are at recommended. Most of those are MS decoders. The configuration is so complex though I'm lost in it... I would appreciate it if your suggestions mentioned clearly the setting I had to change to avoid confusion.
 
Yeah, in this case there's a couple things it *could* be but in general what I was talking about would be the preferred decoders, so in this case you might check numbers 10 and 11 on your list and disable the k-lite codecs as long as there are alternate "codecs from windows". You can also experiment with choosing different splitters, but what you're looking for is more likely in 10 and 11. You can also check to make sure that your desired directshow filter also isn't disabled in 8 and 9 (if it's checked, it's disabled).

On another note, you might also want to double check that your system in the windows sound settings isn't passing through AC3 audio to a digital output that you might not be using
 
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