Wing commander 4 dvd video quality

A

Akrovah

Guest
Ok, based on the sample video clips that were posted in the files section i just bought the dvd version of WC4 off of ebay, and the video quality is exactly the same low-res interlaced video on the original CD version. Is there something i need to do to have it use the high quality that was demonstrated by the video clips on the site?
 
A weird DVD exists that is just all 6 WC4 CDs copied to a single DVD. The real WC4 DVD (the one you watched the samples of) is a double-sided DVD that came with the Creative Labs Encore 2x and 5x kits. So I'm afraid you got stuck with the weird DVD. :(
 
Ah, damn, well i guess i got screwed out of 50 bucks. Thanks for the info.
 
$50? There's usually Buy-It-Now copies for $25 every other week or so. What you have isn't worthless though, it could very well be worth $50 in the near future.
 
$25? Geez - I should have bough more of them I guess. I payed less then 1/2 of that.
 
Well.. to be fair it's one speculator with dozens of copies selling those.. Other people put their copies up too, and they usually go for a little cheaper.. Didn't I help you get that WC4 DVD like five years ago?
 
Yes, 50 bucks, me and some other guy both really wanted it. it kept going back and forth on the last day of the auction. I've been looking on ebay for another wc4 dvd but i havn't found one yet.
 
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2790234129&category=3754 is an Encore 2x kit. I think these included Wing IV DVD and a game called Claw. It's rather expensive and I think you can get a much better deal if you wait for a seperate WC4 DVD to show up. (and then got a $5 DXR3 card, which is better quality than the DXR2 that came with the Encore 2x and 5x). Be sure to ask the guy if WC4 is still included if you do go for it. He might have sold it seperately.
 
ChrisReid said:
Didn't I help you get that WC4 DVD like five years ago?
Click to expand...
Indeed you did. But not that one. You helped me get the two sided version. Which despite that I still cannot play it due to the lack of proper DVD hardware I am very glad that I have.
 
It's required to play the DVD version of WC4 that has the high quality video. It's a hardware DVD decorder. WC4 was made before there were standards for software decoding, so the dxr board is required.
 
Akrovah said:
Even if you have hardware decoding on your primay video card?
Click to expand...

Its more complicated then that. You need a MCI interface that works together with the WC4 DVD. The drivers that came togehter with the DXR board is compatible.
In theory you don't need ANY hardware. It just seems that all software DVD players do something a slight bit different (probably the DXR has a BUG that WC4 abuses).
You an still watch all vids OUTSIDE of the game with any DVD player. Just not ingame.
You might be one of the lucky guys however where their DVD player actually plays WC4DVD. Especially the ATI DVD player seems to work for 1% of people or so. Also some version of WINDVD had worked for 2 people IIRC. Nothing reproducible by the mass however.

@Kris: I'd buy the hardware if you can tell me where to fit it - I have neither a free PCI slot nor a free IRQ (have already disabled my IDE controllers and ACPI do have anything running at all).
 
Share an IRQ and/or replace a card with a USB device? I'm only using two (PCI) cards at the moment, everything else is onboard.
 
KrisV said:
Share an IRQ and/or replace a card with a USB device? I'm only using two (PCI) cards at the moment, everything else is onboard.
Click to expand...

Unless you can tell me of a
a) USB SCSI controller
b) USB Voodoo card
c) a USB network card (ok, those exist, but I'd rather not like to walk that road)
there really isn't much crap in my system.

Granted I could remove my scanner interface card, but that one is 8 bit ISA, which wouldn't help the DXR.

The only really scrapable card would be my Mystique/Rainbowrunner. But then considering that I'd loose
a) compatibility in DOS games - some don't like my GEForce at all
b) would loose my video cutting hardware
c) would loose dual monitor support
that would be a bit too much for just WC4.

Regarding IRQs - I have some that are triple shared already...
 
cff said:
You might be one of the lucky guys however where their DVD player actually plays WC4DVD. Especially the ATI DVD player seems to work for 1% of people or so.
Click to expand...

I doubt that it would be only 1%, it seems more likely that some people didn't manage to install the drivers correctly because it is not very straightforward to do so.
I followed the instructions to install ATI DVD 4.1 in this tread:

http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=8328

and everything worked fine.
Problems are:
- This only seems to work on Windows 95/98/ME.
- The Video-Quality of ATI-DVD is not very great. (Therefore I use another decoder for other DVD-video games.)
 
Believe me I KNOW how to install that stuff. And I tried 20+ DVD players. None worked (various errors even).
 
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