WC4DVD on XP64

Glabro

Spaceman
Hey there,

finally got WC4DVD (again, after over a decade).

However, problems arise: I can't even run the setup on my XP64 pc. I can, strangely, run the exe on the DVD which results in the well known black screen with the two dialogue choices, but as I was stymied over at XP side I installed 98 VM and the game installed just fine there, and I tried multiple versions of dxmci, but no luck.
I get the same old video error and the game can't find the .vobs. I also installed a 98-compatible AC3filter.

The problem is that I can't seem to register the MPEG2DecFilter (no surprise, given that the code calls for regsvr32 which 98 doesn't have. I also can't configure dxmci because that calls for rundll32 (which I can't use on XP64 or 98) so I can't force the game to look for the vobs on the cd drive.

Any suggestions besides just getting rid of XP64 and going back to XP? Or maybe Win 7 with its XP mode?

Thanks.
 
Did you try settting the compatability mode on the installer itself before installing?
 
Yeah, I did.

The strangest thing happened. When I was shutting my computer down for the night, blam, the installer is there. I quickly installed the game before the PC shut down....and it works! I guess some runtime was blocking the installer...who knows...

Anyway, movies works now, there's a weird flashing going on at the very bottom of the screen when they play. More importantly my joystick doesn't seem to be installed at all and I'm having a really hard time trying to find drivers compatible for XP64! More and more it seems like XP64 is a miss...

My stick is the good old MS Force Feedback Pro (or was it 2).
 
Yeah, I did.

The strangest thing happened. When I was shutting my computer down for the night, blam, the installer is there. I quickly installed the game before the PC shut down....and it works! I guess some runtime was blocking the installer...who knows...

Anyway, movies works now, there's a weird flashing going on at the very bottom of the screen when they play. More importantly my joystick doesn't seem to be installed at all and I'm having a really hard time trying to find drivers compatible for XP64! More and more it seems like XP64 is a miss...

My stick is the good old MS Force Feedback Pro (or was it 2).

Does your stick calibrate fine in windows itself? If so, then are you enabling it in the game? Don't forget that you sometimes have to go to the inflight options menu (alt+o) and pick joystick and then save your settings.
 
Nope. it doesn't register in Windows and I know why. It's because M$ dropped gameport support from XP64 onwards in order to sell new joysticks for USB ports.

My options are to install XP32 again (dual boot I guess for now...), buy a gameport-usb adapter or try Windows 7 with XP mode (no idea if that works).

Obviously, giving up on Wing Commander is not an option! I didn't remember how much the cinematics have improved over WC3 in 4 (granted, it's the DVD version, but I mean the settings and cast etc.)

Edit: Oh yes, or to get someone to help me to get the movies in the win 98 virtual machine working....does WC4DVD even support 98...?
 
Nope. it doesn't register in Windows and I know why. It's because M$ dropped gameport support from XP64 onwards in order to sell new joysticks for USB ports.

USB joysticks have been fairly standard for the last decade. How many people would really be forced to upgrade? I would think the reason would be the cost to support older standards and a variety of standards. If they build in compatibility for gameports, then they have to support compatibility for gameports. I wouldn't expect a company to support much out-of-date 1990s hardware in the 2010s.

Edit: Oh yes, or to get someone to help me to get the movies in the win 98 virtual machine working....does WC4DVD even support 98...?

WC4 DVD and Windows 98 were released at almost the same time, years before Windows XP. Win 98 is pretty much the OS the game was made for.
 
USB joysticks have been fairly standard for the last decade. How many people would really be forced to upgrade? I would think the reason would be the cost to support older standards and a variety of standards. If they build in compatibility for gameports, then they have to support compatibility for gameports. I wouldn't expect a company to support much out-of-date 1990s hardware in the 2010s.

The thing is, these old MS joysticks still work better than any of the new fragile usb sticks. I've no interest in buying one of those. If my hardware is not worth supporting, I guess that's one more reason not to support M$, especially considering that the it's not a question of cost for them. They just don't care.


WC4 DVD and Windows 98 were released at almost the same time, years before Windows XP. Win 98 is pretty much the OS the game was made for.

Yeah, must be the virtual machine that's messing things up then.
Oh, and I'm not too young for Win98, I was around in the C-64 ages, in case you were wondering.


Anyway, I decided to tough it out with mouse control, something I haven't done since WC1...I guess it plays adequately, though some of the "feel" of flying is missing.
 
The thing is, these old MS joysticks still work better than any of the new fragile usb sticks. I've no interest in buying one of those. If my hardware is not worth supporting, I guess that's one more reason not to support M$, especially considering that the it's not a question of cost for them. They just don't care.

Well, there are some really good (and pricey) USB sticks out there as well. My only gripe is that there doesn't seem to be any good USB force feedback sticks :-(

Yeah, must be the virtual machine that's messing things up then.
Oh, and I'm not too young for Win98, I was around in the C-64 ages, in case you were wondering.

Chris is wrong AFAIK. WC4 DVD was designed for Windows 95/98, BUT the hack that makes it playable without the special hardware was not. It need a flavour of NT/2000/XP/... in order to work. Maybe it could be adapted for Win98, but it never was.
 
The thing is, these old MS joysticks still work better than any of the new fragile usb sticks. I've no interest in buying one of those. If my hardware is not worth supporting, I guess that's one more reason not to support M$, especially considering that the it's not a question of cost for them. They just don't care.

That's not really their job, and in a business setting, I think most people would make the same decision. There's all kinds of fancy obscure hardware from the 80s and 90s that numerous subgroups of people are probably very irate about, but they're a tiny fraction of the people as a whole that the company has to support. From Microsoft's point of view, do they spend their finite resources to support old tape drives or do they work on eliminating issues that are going to affect a larger population? They're not a charity to classic gamers (like say, the makers of DOSBox). If you really really need gameport support, then by all means, don't get the new version of Windows.

Chris is wrong AFAIK. WC4 DVD was designed for Windows 95/98, BUT the hack that makes it playable without the special hardware was not. It need a flavour of NT/2000/XP/... in order to work. Maybe it could be adapted for Win98, but it never was.

From gulikoza's page: http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/

3. Will this work in Windows 98?

Yes it will! Just follow the above rules (minus the compatibility mode issue). Make sure you have Mpeg-2 filters which work under DirectShow. Mpeg2dec did not work for me, but I've got it working with Ligos filters.
But the game can also run without this patch although it didn't work for everyone since it requires real MCI drivers. I've used WinDVD 2.1 to make it run for testing purposes.
 
I stand corrected. Last time I tried it under '98 it didn't work. Looks like gulikoza added that compatibility in as well. :)
 
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