wc4 in dosbox

skycom

Spaceman
Hi, I've got the CD version of WC4, which I am running in Dosbox as I have WinXP, however, it runs painfully slowly. I have played with the frame rate: around 7500 seems to be optimal, however it is still very slow. I notice in the forums that it is suggested to run in win98 compatibility mode... where/how do I do that?
 
I tried out the win95 patch, but I'm not sure if what I'm doing is correct. I copied the first CD onto my hard disk, then extracted the win95 patch files to the same directory... it does ask to replace a few files, such as install.bat... I assume I press "yes to all" to replace them all. Is that all you have to do? Or is there something I need to "apply"?
 
I copied the first CD onto my hard disk
Edit: THis is unnecessary
Install wc4 normally first.
You need to download the patch first here: http://download.wcnews.com/files/wing4/wc4win95.zip

edit: then to manually install Wing Commander IV for Windows 95 you will need
to copy the following files from the self-extracting archive that
you downloaded to the directory that contains your DOS version of
Wing Commander IV : WC4W.EXE, XANLIB.DLL and README95.TXT.

To do this through Windows 95, simply:

1) Open Explorer and go to the folder that contains the
extracted files.
2) Highlight the files WC4W.EXE, XANLIB.DLL and README.TXT
by holding down the "CTRL" button on your keyboard while
you click once on each of these files
3) Once you are sure that these files are highlighted, select
"Edit" from Explorer's tool bar (it's in the upper-left hand
corner of the Explorer window)
4) Select "Copy" from the drop down menu
5) Go to the folder that contains your DOS version of
Wing Commander IV
6) Select "Edit" from Explorer's tool bar
7) Select "Paste" from its drop down menu

At this time you should see Windows copying these files. Once completed,
you are ready to play!


Do not forget that now you will be running the file wc4w.exe to play the game


Once the patch is installed, if you still have trouble running the game in XP, right click on the shortcut or executable and chose properties then the compatibility tab. Chose either win95 or 98.
 
Great! Remember kids, WC4 DOES NOT need DOSBox because of the win patch. And that is good, because it would demand a couple of A64 5GHz to run...
 
i have dosbox and really dont know how to use it...I have Win XP and WC4 on CD
How do I install it...because i get the error message
"C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe
C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NY. The system file is not suitable for running MS-Dos and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application."
 
Who ever put together that patch is awesome! thanks very much
 
oh really? I have been lookin for something like that for a while. I didnt know there was an official one. I just Finished playin WC4 after a long time. Now im going to see if there is one for WC3 and Privateer 2.. I hope so.
 
oh really? I have been lookin for something like that for a while. I didnt know there was an official one. I just Finished playin WC4 after a long time. Now im going to see if there is one for WC3 and Privateer 2.. I hope so.

There was an official Win95 version of each but I don't believe there exists any official patches. THere are however patches for both of those that make them the Win95 version. The P2 one though requires burning and entire new CD apparently. I don't think the makeshift patch for WC3 is available though. It involves using the DOS cd's with the kilrathi saga exe. It also breaks the music in WC3 because it will be looking for the kilrathi sagas redone digitized tracks instead of using the MIDIs.
 
Great! Remember kids, WC4 DOES NOT need DOSBox because of the win patch. And that is good, because it would demand a couple of A64 5GHz to run...

oh really? I have been lookin for something like that for a while. I didnt know there was an official one. I just Finished playin WC4 after a long time. Now im going to see if there is one for WC3 and Privateer 2.. I hope so.

Fortunately, time has been kind to us since this thread was originally started. Yeah, at the beginning of 2005, DOSBox was kind of useless for WC3 and WC4. Both DOSBox and processor power have improved considerably since then though. It's worth giving both WC3 and P2 a try in DOSBox if you can't conveniently run them in Windows any other way. The setup is not too overly difficult: https://www.wcnews.com/techsupport.shtml My Core 2 2.4 GHz runs them pretty smoothly these days. I was doing some shopping earlier this week, and now a well-outfitted Core 2 3.0 GHz is only around $1000, and that would run every DOS/Windows WC game just fine.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Once the patch is installed, if you still have trouble running the game in XP, right click on the shortcut or executable and chose properties then the compatibility tab. Chose either win95 or 98.


Ah, that helps and ends my problem with the cd-changing in DOSBox - but i have a question now:

I'm playing the german version of WC4. Now i have english Text in thecut-scenes, in communication etc., but german speech. Is ther a possibility to change the text to german like without the patch? It's not really a problem, the game ist running fast and without trouble, it would like "nicer" with the right text-language, that's all
 
Hi there,

just been playing all my old gems from WC1 to WC3 (man, what a feeling :)) and have now reached WC4 and have encountered the same problem as you, the windows patch changes the text language from German to English.
However, if you make a shortcut to the WC4W.EXE and add the parameter -l1 to it (that being an L), the text changes back to German. :)

This is how it should be: X:\PathToWC4\WC4W.EXE -l1
 
Another additional info (unregistered, so cannot edit my post), if someone happens to have the DVD version of WC4 (which only exists in English) and wants to have the high res videos (I'd really like to have that... :() together with German language, here is an instruction on how to create a German DVD version out of the English DVD video files and German CD files:
http://www.wingcenter.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,32/topic,332.0/
 
wc4 in winXP sound problems

I am running the game in win95 mode with winXP. Every thing is setup the movies are ok, but the sound is choppy. In prophecy there was a software fix that fixed the problem. Any idea on WC4?I am using the sounblaster 16 with the correct settings I had read about in the forums.
My sound card is Realtech 97AC.
 
I am running the game in win95 mode with winXP. Every thing is setup the movies are ok, but the sound is choppy. In prophecy there was a software fix that fixed the problem. Any idea on WC4?I am using the sounblaster 16 with the correct settings I had read about in the forums.
My sound card is Realtech 97AC.

is the sound choppy in the whole game or just the movies? You could try and adjust your hardware acceleration settings in your sound controls or in your directx diagnostic panel.
 
Choppy sound is normally the result of incorrect IRQ/DMA settings for the sound card. Make sure that your WC4 installation has the sound ports configured the same way that they are in your DOSBOX configuration file.
 
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