Wing Commander 4 DVD in WindowsXP (w/ DirectShow)

So now that we have WC4 DVD working smooth, we just need Prophecy DVD to top things off. Talk about Holy Grail... Or maybe not, the actual grail of biblical fame may be easier to find than Prophecy DVD... LOAF?
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Who? That one was really released? Wow, always thought they never published it but it was a thought... - Where can I get one? Would pay over $100 for sure :)
 
It wasn't released, but its supposed to have been completed and is likely lying in a vault somewhere... (either that or its on some programmer's floor next to a 4 week old piece of pepperoni and a broken copy of Freespace 3: The Suck getting tramped and scratched every day by swivel chair wheels)

Mantor
 
It wasn't released, but its supposed to have been completed and is likely lying in a vault somewhere... (either that or its on some programmer's floor next to a 4 week old piece of pepperoni and a broken copy of Freespace 3: The Suck getting tramped and scratched every day by swivel chair wheels)

Mantor
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Ok, thx for reply. Wondering if it will ever be found, IF it really exists, that is.

@gulikoza: Do you think it's possible to get the WCV Videos working without video stutters with a similar trick or so? Would be really great, too :) (Cause the methods known so far do not work in 100% nor near it. Personally I got it running with two out of 6 I tried.)

P.S.: Don't get me wrong, I'm extreme happy you got WCIV DVD working this way. But thought cause you seem to be good at tweaking/programming video stuff, I thought you might be able to get that one patched, too :)
 
You're giving me too much credit...this was only my first video related project :D. Well, I'll take a look but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. WC4 DVD uses standard windows routines to play valid dvd files, so it's easy to fake it and play it with directshow. AFAIK WC5 uses the same proprietary origin codec as wc4 cd version does. I've wanted to see how wc5 works anyway but I wanted to get wc4 working first...
 
Hello everyone. Most of you used to know me as Angel C. Little from eons ago but I have ditched that name for going by Brian The Demolition Man Little but if you want to folks you can just call me Demolition Man. Anyways, I just downloaded the patch and on my box it works about 98%. But let me cut to the chase and explain the problem along with my system specs....

My system specs:
AMD Athlon 2100
512mb RAM
80 gig HD x 2 (that means 160 gigs total)
Windows XP Pro SP1
Sound Blaster Audegy 2 NX
ATI Radeon 9600 with 128 MB RAM

The only problem I have notice so far are the following..

1) Joystick issue but someone pointed out a fix so I will try it in a bit.
2) The sound/volume levels seem to be very unstable. The movies are very low in volume so I have to turn my speakers up yet when something else plays like, say, Mark Hamill's voice over while making a decision - the volume goes from soft to nearly blasting me to Mars. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Otherwise great patch, it works like a charm. I might end up buying a new joystick because of this since my aging Sidewinder USB is finally starting to break down on me. Many of the buttons are starting to become harder to get response on (I have to press down really hard sometimes to get them to work), plus the stick itself is starting to feel way too loose. I didn't spend much on it anyways, about $1 at a garage sale about 2 years ago so I'm not out of much. Heck, I found a nice copy of The Book Of LOAF there too for 10 cents so I won't complain (lol)!

Brian The Demolition Man Little
 
You're giving me too much credit...this was only my first video related project . Well, I'll take a look but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. WC4 DVD uses standard windows routines to play valid dvd files, so it's easy to fake it and play it with directshow. AFAIK WC5 uses the same proprietary origin codec as wc4 cd version does. I've wanted to see how wc5 works anyway but I wanted to get wc4 working first...
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Hehe :) - So even greater work what you have done with WC4, if that is your first video project ;) And yes, I already guessed it would be different, but cause you wanted to check that anyway, that's cool. And I can wait, no problem. I personally can play it with a diff. soundcard anyway. I also didn't want you to start that at once. - Getting all WC4 DVD bugs that still exist fixed is more important at the moment.
So: Just keep on the great work :D
 
I've also got an e-mail about the sound volume issue so perhaps it's better to explain it here. First...my patch has nothing to do about it :D. It doesn't do any decoding, it just sets up DirectShow to play the files the game asks to. WC4 DVD, lucky for us, has 6-channel AC3 audio, much the same as any other commercial DVD Video. You may remember that everytime you play your favorite movies the volume of let's say conversations is low, but when the explosions come to play you get blasted away. Same thing here...AC3 files are mastered with maximum possible dynamic range. This makes "normal" volume level low, so that there's enough left for the loud parts to be really loud. But the rest of the game (such as selection dialog & gameplay) is not AC3 and uses a different volume level. Now, I am, for some really strange reason, used to keep having my fingers on the volume knob so I don't really notice this since I'm always turning the volume up and down :D. But most of the AC3 decoders also have a setting where you can change Dynamic Range, and set the volume to your desired level. I didn't really get into the settings, but I believe AC3 filter installs a control panel icon where you can set the volume level.
 
I'm sorry but I did not get your e-mail!

@THE_WUQKED: I've checked Prophecy and it doesn't look good. Seems the decoding code is inside prophecy.exe, so at the moment I don't see any way how to change it...
 
@THE_WUQKED: I've checked Prophecy and it doesn't look good. Seems the decoding code is inside prophecy.exe, so at the moment I don't see any way how to change it...
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:( Already guessed there would be problems with the WCP-files. - No way to get it out of there, I guess? Or adding a patch-proggy which launches the exe with diff settings or so. - Maybe even like the High-Res patch does change the exe? But I guess for working with it you would need the source-code, or am I wrong there? - To be honest: My knowledge about that stuff is ~0%
But it was worth a try nontheless, so thx for trying and once again thx for the WC4 DVD patch :D
 
In now played WC4 on DVD till the end. Three strange things happened:

1) The video is darker than it should be. Faces are harder to see, etc. When I play it with WinDVD everything's normal.

2) The music in the movies (ingame is fine) always just (2,3 exceptions) plays on the right speaker but speech and fx is normal! Once again WinDVD doesn't have this prob!

3) Two scenes didn't have sound.

Any suggestions?
 
gulikoza said:
I'm sorry but I did not get your e-mail!QUOTE]
ok. i sent it once again. i hope you got it. i've had this game for a while(it came with my Compaq Presario when i got it in 1998)
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@TurboTim07: The last mail got through. Fix on my page ;).

@THE_WUQKED: Yes, I've done a bit more researching. It might be possible to change the decoding routines in similar way as the high-res patch changes the exe. Unfortunately my assembly knowledge is not really up to the task :( I'm sure the author of WC Movie Player could do it (since he already wrote a working WCP movie decoder)...in any case it would certainly be an interesting project!

@Sordid: I'm very glad the patch works through the whole game! Again, I believe your problems are related to DirectShow...if the games uses WinDVD filters the video should look the same. Of course different filters will produce different results! The same with sound...there might be a bug in ac3filter which does not show with WinDVD filters. I've included mpeg2dec & ac3filter on my page because they are free, but as previously mentioned the game does not require them. In theory it should work with any DirectShow filter, so use the ones that give you the best results! As for no sound in the scenes...I think that some clips are already without sound on the DVD. The scene with Col. Blair walking through the corridor on the Lexington comes to my mind (I really can't remember if the cd version had sound)...I don't know if there are any more scenes without sound...
 
Ok, I uninstalled all filters until the videos could'nt be played anymore.

Now I installed WinDVD5 Platinum and I have sound but NO PICTURE!!!

I get an error message that some parts of the stream can't be played (s.th. like that)

??????? I don't want to use the free Mpeg2 decoder cause the picture it gives is way too dark!!
 
it works

Woohoo! thanks gulikoza. it works this time and everything plays perfectly. dude thanks a million. now i can play WC4 again. dude thanks again. :D :)
 
Anybody still having problems with playback make sure you do NOT have Reclock filter installed. I've left it on yesterday when I watched a movie on TV and when I played the game first few movies showed ok, but then I only got blank screen.

@Sordid: WinDVD might only install the filters but not register them with DirectShow. If this is the case try to search for ivivideo.ax & iviaudio.ax, go to that directory and type 'regsvr32 ivivideo.ax' (the same for audio filter).
 
I don't get it! I registered the filters manually but the picture's still darker. I'm pretty sure it uses the filter now (cause before I registered them picture quality was really bad). It seems that there's just some kind of bad gamma setting...
 
I found :
-PowerDVD + WC4 => Program Crash
-WinDVD + WC4 => Works perfect on my PC

Thanks you very much!!
Now I can play WC4 DVD without the Realmagic Card!!
^_^
 
This is just an awesome patch... I had a look at the DVD version of WC4 some years back, when a friend of mine got it together with his DXR3 card... then, about a year ago I found it on eBay, and didn't hesitate to buy it. Unfortunately I didn't work with the DXR3 card that I had (at least not under WinXP). So it just stayed on the shelf for the time being (I just watched the movies several times with PowerDVD and on our home cinema system). But now you've finally enabled my to play this version of the game... AWESOME!

Though, I have a few problems. Video works fine, no stuttering, no skipping and perfect quality, but I found to have some sound issues. While the game works fine at the beginning, the surround sound starts to behaves strangely when I talk to Eisen for the first time. I can hear the center sound (the voices and stuff) only at VERY low volume, while all the other channels (the rear channels for the atmo-sound, and the left and right channels for the foley) are played at normal volume. From this point on all the videos show this strange behaviour... if I play the clips with media player the sound is correct. And yes, restarting the game helps... though I don't want to save and restart all the time.

The second thing is when it comes to choices in movies... when I start the game I can't pick a reaction in movies. Although I can fix this by returning to the desktop (via a task-switch or the windows-key), and then returning to the game.
 
I am technologically challenged, so you'll have to explain certain things explicitly :) If I acquire the WC4 DVD, do I use this new patch with the WC4 windows 95 patch? Or do I use gulikoza's patch by itself?
 
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