W.C.A.T. - WC1 DOS Overhaul Mod [Beta v0.8 R4 Released]

[Sadic]

Hi! I just tested version R3.
I managed to complete the first 3 missions and, once calibrated, the joystick behaved properly. I had to re-calibrate it before launching the game, but after that it was stable.
However, in my very first test of R3, I had this "Runtime overlay error", just after staring the Vega Campaign.
If you have an executable that produce some traces when something goes wrong and want me to try it, I would be glad to help.

 

[AllTinker]

Thanks for the info! The runtime overlay error is another new one... Seems very strange that it would be random. Oh how I wish I had a debug build which produces traces! Perhaps one day the full source code will be found/released and this will all be trivial... (The CIC has some very partial source privately archived, but my work is all based on the release EXEs).

Anyway, I'm working on a pretty extensive review of the input stuff - fixing a couple of shortcomings, shuffling some things around a little. I'm hoping to do some more testing on real hardware myself tomorrow, and hopefully my Sidewinder 3D Pro arrives sooner rather than later...

 

[darrenor64]

This is such a great project, thank you very much for working on this.
I recently revived a compaq Pentium II with the Orpheus II sound card, and plugged it into my Roland MT-32, and a multi-button stick. This is probably my first time truly playing Wing Commander at the correct speed on real hardware. I went all the way through Vega and SM1, and am getting into SM2. As far as I can tell, everything seems to be working fine. I have been using 0.8 r3.

If you're collecting ideas for enhancements:
- I was wondering how feasible it would be to have an alternative 640x400 graphics mode for better details when scaling the ships and objects during combat.
- What about rendering more frames between the frames currently being rendered for smoother action (or is each individual frame tied too tightly into the game logic?)?

But no worries. Looking forward to seeing what you can do to make WING2 more playable. Thanks for helping me play Wing1 the way it was intended. I will now force myself to take a break from SM2...

 

[darrenor64]

While playing SM2, I ran into a mission transition bug. I don't know if this is due to the patch or SM2 itself.
After finishing the first Jazz mission in the Dralthi, I revert back to an older Iceman mission in a Hornet, the one before the FIrekka cutscene.
Attached is the savegame file.

BUDDY4 is the savegame before starting the mission.
HUH is the savegame after completing it.
The other savegame title contains spoilers.

I imagine the super handy savegame manager will allow me to repair this...

(It appears that any mission with the Dralthi results in backtracking to previous missions)

 

[AllTinker]

This is such a great project, thank you very much for working on this.
I recently revived a compaq Pentium II with the Orpheus II sound card, and plugged it into my Roland MT-32, and a multi-button stick. This is probably my first time truly playing Wing Commander at the correct speed on real hardware. I went all the way through Vega and SM1, and am getting into SM2. As far as I can tell, everything seems to be working fine. I have been using 0.8 r3.

You're welcome! And thanks for letting me know it's (mostly) working for someone! As with all this stuff you only tend to hear when it's not working.

I was wondering how feasible it would be to have an alternative 640x400 graphics mode for better details when scaling the ships and objects during combat.

I'm working on a separate project which will address this sort of thing. For DOS though, even with full source code this'd be an undertaking... Patching it into an existing EXE? That'd be for braver/crazier souls than I...

What about rendering more frames between the frames currently being rendered for smoother action (or is each individual frame tied too tightly into the game logic?)?

This is definitely more feasible, but would still be a mountain of work. The game logic is 100% tied to the frame rate, and virtually all of the velocities and every other relevant value is hardcoded in the EXE for WC1. I may attempt this down the track, but I have no definite plans.

(It appears that any mission with the Dralthi results in backtracking to previous missions)

Thanks for letting me know - doesn't look like your save attached, but if that's the case then testing should be easy enough!

EDIT: So it does... Hmmn. I'll figure it out!
EDIT 2: It happens if I launch the mission directly without loading a save too, so it's not a transfer bug...
EDIT 3: OK I've found where it's happening, just not why yet - it'll be fixed in R4!

 

[AllTinker]

OK Beta 0.8 R4 is out - the SM2 progression bug should be fixed... I've tested it many times.

I've also added quite a few new recognised file versions, and W.C.A.T. will now ensure the various DRV files the game uses are at the same version as the EXEs... This may improve stability with some installs - I honestly haven't seen any specific bugs in this regard myself, but better safe than sorry.

The input review is still in-progress (next release, probably); I wanted to fix that progression bug ASAP.

 

[CarlosTex]

Freakin amazing! Cant wait to try R4!

 

[TCSTigersClaw]

Hi! I just tested version R3.
I managed to complete the first 3 missions and, once calibrated, the joystick behaved properly. I had to re-calibrate it before launching the game, but after that it was stable.
However, in my very first test of R3, I had this "Runtime overlay error", just after staring the Vega Campaign.
If you have an executable that produce some traces when something goes wrong and want me to try it, I would be glad to help.

Sadic ! The Sadic? I think you haven't posted in decades

 

[Vidmaster]

Indicative of the fact that this certainly is a great and impressive project.

 

[AllTinker]

OK so my Sidewinder 3D Pro arrived; flew through a few missions on 2 different DOS PCs without issue (486 DX/66, Pentium 233MMX, both with DOS 6.22, very basic EMS config with mouse loaded)... But I did realise something.

The Sidewinder 3D Pro isn't a "normal" 4-axis stick, so I had to use it as a 2-axis 4-button stick; it only supports CH Flightstick Pro, Thustmaster, or its own protocol to properly access the upper 2 axes (and obviously the upper 4 buttons/hat switch).

I'll look into the feasibility of supporting one or more of these modes - DOSBox can also simulate them I believe... I'm not sure about the details yet, but I'll be looking into it.

 

[Sadic]

Sadic ! The Sadic? I think you haven't posted in decades

Indeed, my last post was from 2003 😅
I'm glad to see that the community is still thriving!

 

[Whiskey_Juliet]

Just reporting a small bug I've been getting on a Pentium-S 75mhz system with a Sound Blaster 16 in DOS 6.22. When the game launches and is initiating the sound engine it resets all the volume levels to some very low base level, specifically the SB16 Gain multiplyer which i have set to 4 because its a very quiet card, this get reset to 1 and the sound is almost inaudible.

Also tested it on a AMD K6 450mhz with an ESS Audiodrive 1869f (DOS 7.10) which works flawlessly, it seems to be only that sb16 gain value thats being reset. Great patch fantastic work!

 

[AllTinker]

When the game launches and is initiating the sound engine it resets all the volume levels to some very low base level, specifically the SB16 Gain multiplyer which i have set to 4 because its a very quiet card, this get reset to 1 and the sound is almost inaudible.

Oh, that's interesting, thanks for letting me know - as a temporary workaround, you should be able to just clear your BLASTER variable via set BLASTER= before running the batch file; or add it to the batch files themselves just after @echo off, like so:

@echo off
set BLASTER=

This will prevent the launcher from initialising your SB16 DSP, which I imagine should fix it - Wing Commander doesn't use the BLASTER variable anyway. I'll incorporate a proper fix in the next release.

 

[MoneySquirrel]

I tried out R4 on a Pentium 4 2.8ghz and it actually works pretty well. The comms menu felt like it was still affected by the fast cpu, but everything else seemed properly slowed down. I'm also using a Sidewinder 3d Pro with the 2 axis option and I've noticed that with the joystick enabled, the mouse becomes unusable (the pointer just goes to the top left). But other than those minor issues, it seems to be playable on a Pentium 4. Would be neat to have Thrustmaster support for the Sidewinder! I should also add that I'm running this in pure MS-DOS 6.22 with a Yamaha ymf724 PCI sound card.

 

[AllTinker]

The comms menu felt like it was still affected by the fast cpu

It shouldn't be - I set up my own Pentium 4 (3.2GHz w/ SBLive) with DOS 6.22 today, and it seemed fine... Is there something specific happening? It's locked to the spaceflight speed, and the keyboard is "de-bounced" correctly as far as I can tell (i.e. you can't accidentally jump through multiple screens while a key is held - a thorn in my side in many places elsewhere!).

I've noticed that with the joystick enabled, the mouse becomes unusable (the pointer just goes to the top left).

Assuming it's the same thing (slow drift to the top left); I noticed this on my P4 today; I'm looking into a fix - it's tricky, the faster the machine the less leeway there is for deadzoning the sticks nicely... I have some ideas on how to stabilise it. It also seems to "glitch" somewhat regularly, where it gets sudden low axis values, not sure yet what that's about, but hopefully I can address that too one way or another.

Worth mentioning that keyboard/mouse flying are effectively disabled in joystick mode... I may explicitly disable them entirely in a future build - I don't really have the code space to allow it to switch cleanly (keyboard/mouse switching still works as it did).

There was some other weirdness on my P4 - e.g. can't allocate DPMI memory on cold boot, works fine second time - which I think may be a matter of EMM386 options/alternatives on such fast machines, I'm not sure yet. I notice Quake has the same issue...

The next version will at least handle those memory errors more gracefully if they occur.

Anyway thanks for letting me know how it went!

 

[CarlosTex]

I've been playing and enjoying R4 a lot lately. Already on Secret Missions 2 and it's been flawless. I still find myself using the keyboard for afterburner despite using a Sidewinder 3D Pro too, but in 2 axis mode only. I would need to increase the deadzone for the Z axis not be a bother in 4 axis mode and i don't want to do that at the moment, i'm using a deadzone value of 15 with great precision and i'm racking up the kills.

@AllTinker:

Do you have a roadmap for this mod up to version 1.0?

Can i suggest something? The savegame editor needs to be able to change the number of kills and number of sorties too. I'm saying this because when we finish the last mission those kills/ last sortie / medals are never counted, and when you transfer for the next campaign its almost like that last mission never happened. I'm using the old DOS tool called WCSAV, but wondering if you have any plans to expand on your savegame editor.

 

[kingmakeress]

but wondering if you have any plans to expand on your savegame editor.

That would be a great feature to add, if possible of course.

 

[AllTinker]

Do you have a roadmap for this mod up to version 1.0?

The obvious #1 thing is to make it as stable as possible. I've been trying to jump on bugs as soon as they come up, and the next release should fix some more exotic issues - mostly in (or caught by) the launcher.

#2 is trying to finalise the joystick support, which should cover issues as well as new features... I've bitten off an awful lot here, and now I need to figure out which of the more advanced protocols can actually be made to fit into the available space / logic. At first glance they seem to rely on very fast polling; ironic since I've spent so much effort slowing the game down. I'm hoping we can have the cake and eat it too, but that's all I can say for now.

I'll likely sneak in some other minor improvements, but in terms of other major things which might happen before 1.0 - the two things I'm thinking about are a combat difficulty setting, and localisation. Localisation is pretty huge though, and there's different possibilities for how it might work on several fronts, so I'm not 100% sure.

There's other things I'll be looking into post-1.0, but I don't want to make any promises - some may end up being beyond the time I have available. I don't have a particular timeline; I'd like to be out of beta within the next month or so though, but we'll see how that goes.

Can i suggest something? The savegame editor needs to be able to change the number of kills and number of sorties too. I'm saying this because when we finish the last mission those kills/ last sortie / medals are never counted, and when you transfer for the next campaign its almost like that last mission never happened. I'm using the old DOS tool called WCSAV, but wondering if you have any plans to expand on your savegame editor.

I can definitely add the ability to alter those; it's also an interesting point though that the results of the final mission are never saved... I honestly hadn't really given that any thought, and now I'm wondering if there's something which can be done about it. I'm not sure about the details or viability, but I'll be looking into it.

 

[CarlosTex]

All that you said about up to ver 1.0 sounds great!! Personally if u move to Wing Commander 2 after 1.0 might be a good plan, so that you don't get burned out. This is pretty epic as it is right now.

I can definitely add the ability to alter those; it's also an interesting point though that the results of the final mission are never saved... I honestly hadn't really given that any thought, and now I'm wondering if there's something which can be done about it. I'm not sure about the details or viability, but I'll be looking into it.

If you need any reference to what can be done you can take a look at the DOS program WCSAV. It allows to change about every characteristic of the savegame. I mainly use it to set the statistics of my savegame correctly before i transfer it to the next campaign. If it can be done awesome, if not i'll keep using WCSAV, its not big deal. As i said this is pretty awesome as it is, and the joystick support is pretty great already.

 

[Vidmaster]

I have tried W.C.A.T. last weekend and it is truely something special, I am very glad it exists and wish you that it blows up at least in the retro scene once you go 1.0. Personally, I will also try to nudge some of the GoG staff I have access to into take a look into your work at this point, given we now have the official Mod program on there (and thus shipping improvements via GoG is a thing).

That said...

Localisation is pretty huge though, and there's different possibilities for how it might work on several fronts, so I'm not 100% sure.

I strongly recommend to avoid the feature creep and not go to deep with this project. This is such an impressive piece of work, but I do thing that further features will come with diminishing returns, especially considering the how of your work here.
As you have already stated, you have bitten off an awful lot already. So, my recommendation is to not open the mouth wider unless the food tastes better.

...like on that delicious plate filled with Confederation 😀, which can be cooked using real program languages in modern environment using proper kitchen tools. No more assembler and hot irons.

Anyway, great work 👍. Have not seen (a full release of) finer modernization work since Jorio's Pangea ports. Will send some credits via ko-fi.com or itch.io your way, selfishly hoping it will keep morale up and increase the chances of Confederation seeing the light of day eventually, ideally with Super Wing Commander support (my childhood favorite).