WC 4 and WC 5 on Steam Deck

[Knobi Wan Penobi]

Was someone ever be able to get WC IV running on the steam deck.
I managed to get it installed via lutris. It more or less works on Desktopmode.
As @LividLiquid statet in another thread, I had to disable window manager controlling windows in the wine config. Pretty every version of proton runs the game (by now I use GE-Proton 8-23). The game starts plays the movies and I played the first mission.
I installed the HD movie pack and the game runs (the aspect ratio seems to be messed up - but hey...)
I even managed to change the inflight language by installing the dos version and copy the files from this installation to the dvd installation.

Two questions someone of you may be able to answer.

1. I cannot get it running in gamemode. When starting the game from gamemode, I can hear the sound of the game (the introvideo .vob is played) but the valve logo circles and I can only press steam menu or "B" to leave. The game (.vob file) is running in the background. Is there some setting I miss. The problem with Desktopmode is, that my controller scheme includes some radial- and touchmenus on the right stick and the left pad and these menus work, but were not visualized. Both is really needed to play WC games without a keyboard.
2. I was able to install the DOS Version too. This plays quite fine in Gamemode (with low-res video - but in the end better than nothing). Problem is, that - as soon as I am ingame - the game won't recognize the joystick. Even it recognizes it well as long as it is in "dosmode" (before the game starts it asks you to calibrate the joystick and there I can see, that moving the stick is recognized). This may be a question for dosbox...but maybe someone of you has encountered such a problem and can help.

If I enable "disable window manager controlling windows" the game runs even in gamemode. But unfortunately then the game is displayed only in the lower half of the screen, so that you can only see the upper half of the game picture and even if it works well it is unplayable.


Is there someone out there who can help. I play WC 1, 2 and 3 on the deck. And it is absolute fantastic (I use xreal air and have such a huge screen).

 

[kingjoma]

Hi @Knobi Wan Penobi, Ihave managed to get WC3, WC4, Privateer and Privateer 2 working great. All DOS versions. I enjoy the OG FMV with interlacing etc. Using the dosbox staging flatpak with full joystick and MIDI support. It is a dream. Cant speak for the Win95 versions of WC4 and Darkening but would assume they will run great on PCEm using a Win98 ISO/ROM. This is first peace of hardware since my OG PC from the 90s that I have been able to really enjoy these titles. Even the non DarkFix version of Privateer 2 runs at 60 FPS with no slow down at planets and big ships. In gaming heaven at the moment. Shout if you need to see the config files or Terminal scripts to get them running as non steam games in Game Mode.

 

[boatgeek]

Wotcha chaps. I have recently procured a steam deck and have tried a couple of WC games via my GOG account using heroic launcher. Not that interested in faffing around too much and have not had a huge amount of success. WC1 will launch but hangs fairly quickly. I couldn't get privateer to run at all but maybe I just need to use a different proton version.

 

[Chrithu]

Wotcha chaps. I have recently procured a steam deck and have tried a couple of WC games via my GOG account using heroic launcher. Not that interested in faffing around too much and have not had a huge amount of success. WC1 will launch but hangs fairly quickly. I couldn't get privateer to run at all but maybe I just need to use a different proton version.

Hi boatgeek. The problem more or less is that Heroic launcher will try to launch the windows version of dosbox that comes with the game through wine or proton. So an emulation in a wrapper. That is bound to cause issues.

My solution is to set up emudeck (I use that anyways since I run some switch games on my steam deck as well as amiga stuff). All the dos games run quite well through retroarch's dosbox-pure core, which comes with an added bonus of being able to run games from zip files, which in turn makes inclusion into gameing mode via Steam ROM Manager just working.

Got Wing Commander 1, 2 and 3 set up and running. Gonna try to tackle Wing Commander 4 next weekend in the Dos Version.

For Wing Commander 4 Windows Version and Wing Commander Prophecy my idea is to try and setup a windows95 install in dosbax and run the games through that.

Admittedly this is quite involved and not an out of the box solution. But for me all this try and error is half the fund of getting retro games to run.