What will play on Win XP PRO from WC and Mods

[Christopherger]

Hello all,
I am posting here in hopes that this is a general enough topic for putting here, but if it should go in the tech section or mod seciton please move, admins.

I just am setting up a newer system after repeaded frustration with my previous Win 98 SE Pentium III which was just fast enough to be hard to use on WC and not old enough to be comfortable with the Win 95 games or the DOS...

Will I be able to use the XP on Privateer 2 Deluxe, which I have, or the Privateer
mods like Gemini, and Privateer remake....or Wing Commander Universe?

I am hopeful of being able to play secret ops too, with all the great mods there
for it too......has anyone here used XP on SO successfully and or with the mods?
I was hoping that it would work as it was a 1999 release. I havent figured out which screen resolutions are best either, though the games I have tried so far Privateer 2 Deluxe re set at a fairly low screen setting. I am assuming the newer mods are higher.

I am hopeful the new system, AMD 300 GB Hdrive, 1 GB RAM, Geforce 6600 vid card, Audigy Z2S snd card....will work for Freelancer and Starlancer, as there is a
Wing Commander mod for FL, but that may be outside this forum...and i dont mean to bring in other nonWC stuff here, I would prefer to stay just in WC,
but many of the games I havent been able to play yet as they are so old and I havent been able to get more modern copies, my copies are all orignal DOS's...
and I dont have WC III or IV yet....sigh..... I have gotten FL and SL because Chris Roberts was involved in them I and so followed his trail into this newer area.

any success or otherwise with WC and XP Pro ....i certainly will try compatabiltiy mode but hope to avoid DOS box if pssobiel or may be use a newer version of it that I think I saw ...

 

[Edfilho]

There is no avoiding the DOSBox, as it is the single best way to play old DOS games. I rank it higher than actually having an old-game box (a working old pc geared towards playing pre-windows WC games), because it is cheaper and requires less mucking about with configs.

BTW, there are many, many guides and threads on the Tech Support forum about making ALL WC games work on current pcs.

Starlancer should run fine, same with Freelancer.

Oh, what are the specs for your processor and video card?

Try EBay for WC3, 4 and prophecy, you can't miss them, they are as good and important as any of the older ones.

 

[Christopherger]

Thanks, I will resign myself to DOSBOX, thanks for that word. I have looked at
the various threads in the tech section and ended up a bit at sea, confused with all the differences, for almost every game has differnt challenges, and then there were later re releases, and even some last ones on DVD, ....so I guess I got a bit swamped with it all.

I shall take a fresh look, I think if I can get one or two of the WC's to run
properly that will be a great encouragement.

I will get my specs I dont remember them in total detail presently, but will report
shortly. thanks again.

 

[ChrisReid]

I am hopeful the new system, AMD 300 GB Hdrive, 1 GB RAM, Geforce 6600 vid card, Audigy Z2S snd card....will work

any success or otherwise with WC and XP Pro ....i certainly will try compatabiltiy mode but hope to avoid DOS box if pssobiel or may be use a newer version of it that I think I saw ...

Yeah, like Ed said, there's really no avoiding it if you want decent compatibility at all there. You'l be limited to just mostly the Windows games without it. With DOSBox, virtually all DOS and Windows Wing Commander games, along with all the main mods and fan projects, will be playable in XP. What is the processor speed associated with that system above? That will be a more deciding factor than the rest of that hardware.

 

[Tripmeister]

If you don't mind characters mouths moving way too fast in certain cutscenes (Nothing else other than that), VDMSound works great for Wing commander 2/1. Wing commander 3 works for some people without dos-emulation, and if you patch WC4 it works fine as well. I just like VDMsound because theres less setup involved, just right click, run the default profile, and it works for almost any game.

I haven't tried privateer though, so no comment on that.

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=2071

This thread has the latest version of VDMsound that i can find, 2.1.0, i'm using it currently and it runs great.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

Is the official site for VDMsound, but it hasn't been updated for 2.1.0, which, technically 2.1.0 is beta, so it might just be that the creator never finished the beta, so it never made it to the official site.

WARNING: Don't use the 2.1.0 version on Windows NT4, says there in the thread that it could cause some problems.

 

[Edfilho]

Oh, yeah, Trip is right, it is better to run 3 and 4 on plain WinXP... Unless you have the new AMD Athlon 4000+ processor . But the windows patch makes running WC4 on windows XP an easy task, and WC3 kinda runs...
But I still find DOSBox the easier option for running WC1-2, academy, Priv and armada.

 

[Christopherger]

Hi and thank you Chris and Tripmeister and Edfiho,....I am
very appreciative and honored to have so much and such kind
advice...I was hesitant to post but really want to get into the
WC worlds...

My new systsem is an AMD 3400 cpu, with a 1 GB RAM, 300 GB
Hard Drive, GeForce 6600 Vid Card, Audigy Z2S Sound Card,
with DVD 32X RWB Drive, running WIN XP Pro.....I am using
just keyboard, for a number of reasons, but have all the
keyboard control cards for all the WC games and manuals,
with the games that I have, WC I, WC 2, WC Academy WC
Armada, WC Privateer 2 Deluxe, and part of the Kilrathi Saga,
as I posted earlier, only someof the CD's as it was a gift and
I have to get the full set, and I have WC Special Ops with
the 8 orignal mssion packs, and a ton of the MODS for it,
some of which look really great!

I need and am looking for WC III and WC IV maybe even
the DVD versoin, and I should get WC Prophecy it sounds like!........

Mod wise I have Gemini Gold, and Privateer Remake,
WC Universe which is a Vega Strike Mod I think, and
WC FL, and some of the MODS for Private Ops Which I can't
remember the names of, I have been collecting so many
differnt files and mods.....Any suggestions re mods would
be wonderful......but in the end I hope to get them all
collected.

I tried WC Privateer 2 Deluxe on my Win 98 SE 1.1 GB
Coppermine with 40 GB HD, 512 RAM, but it froze repeatedly
in the PUD at the beginning.....and tried installing the part of
the Kilrathi Saga but it would not install all the way, some
strange screens.

So now I will try DOS Box and VDM Sound, I apprecaite the
links for that Tripmeister, thanks very much I had an older
version in my files....i will look for the one you recomend...

I do really apprecaite all your help ..and support, at times
trying to get the compatability challenges worked out I feel
a little at sea at times, but it is worth it I know.

 

[Dyret]

You don't want to play WCU.

 

[Delance]

WC1-2 with Dosbox plays better on XP than Kilrathi Saga?

That would be cool, because then we'd have the original music. And not that music bug.

 

[Christopherger]

Thanks Dyret re the warning re WCU ....I am fearful that some of
mods may be far from canon, thought I know that the only real
canon are the actualy WC games...I have seen some pretty
extreme things in images from some of the MODS.....

thanks again.

(goes off to get DOS BOX adn VDM sound 2.1.0, and i will run
WIN XP Pro, not NT4. thanks for the alert.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

It's not so much that it isn't 'canon'... it's that it isn't fun or well made. There are some amazing 'non canon' games -- Unknown Enemy, Standoff, Gemini Gold... WCU just isnt' one of them.

 

[Dyret]

Thanks Dyret re the warning re WCU.

You're welcome.

I learned about the "awfulness" of WCU myself when, after being badly banged up by a six-turreted pirate drayman, I was jumped and nailed by a Concordia carrier and it's compliment of 42 Stilettos... I wasnt even a enemy of Confed.

 

[Christopherger]

That could ruin your whole day.....

no WCU for me....

I have found DOS Box, the front end for it, D FEND which sounds nice
as the maker says it will eliminate the need to do configs and command
lines...an nice break, and also several versions of VDM Sound as there
do appear to be some probs with the latest release re WIN XP, but
I am not sure if WIN4 is the same as XP Pro....more to fine out.

Yes I got GEmini Gold, Unknown Enemy and Standoff already in my
WC collection of MODS< thanks.....

and thank you so much for all your patiences for I see many somewhat
similar posts in the WIN XP posts in the tech forum, but some of them are
very technical and I would have been scared off by them so thanks for
your kind answers here.

 

[Christopherger]

PS> I am about to run off and look at the forum master page, but do we have a patches page here on the WC CIC forum for WC games? I see there are various patches, WIN 95 for one, others for others, for the WC games, do we have them in one place?

just a thought.....but I am off to look later....just wondered if you WC Masters knew of a stash?

 

[ChrisReid]

Most patches are available at https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml Sometimes a newer version might get mentioned on the news page and not get updated there, so it's a good idea to start with the Files Section and then do a News Archive Search to see if there might have been a newer update.

 

[Christopherger]

THANK YOU very much Chris, very much appreciated. I shall go and
peruse the patches and add to my collection accordingly. thanks
for all the kind help and generous answers I am very grateful.

 

[Edfilho]

Chris,
Your machine is pretty good, you'll have no trouble.

concerning Priv2: there is a guide here: http://originalthp.solsector.net/ that explains how to make any version of the game work in WinXP.

WC1 and 2: Both original and KS versions are cool... Nowadays I prefer the original one, but as I said, both are cool.

WC3: You can try both running it on DOSBox or plain winXP. results vary from system to system. The specifics for each method are detailed on the Tech forums.

WC4: Run the Winpatch, set the compatibility, play.