Wing Commander Games Very Compatible With Windows Vista (February 7, 2007)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
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Last summer we gave the Windows Vista Beta 2 a spin to see how well Wing Commander games designed for Windows 95 would run, and the initial results were promising. Now that the final release is available, Sarty has been able to completely play through a battery of WC games for an update. Although his trials reflect compatibility with just one system, the results are surprisingly positive. It appears that virtually every Wing Commander title designed for Windows runs well. Not only is compatibility mode rarely needed to achieve stability, but some traditional Windows XP bugs have even disappeared in Vista! Here's his complete report:

  • WC1 (KS) - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. Colors invert and stay inverted whenever I alt-tab out.
  • WC2 (KS) - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. No obvious problems.
  • WC3 (KS) - Runs okay without compatibility mode activated. Colors invert and stay inverted whenever I alt-tab out. Problems with random colorization, running on Win95 compatibility seems to fix the problem.
  • WC4 - Both CD and DVD versions run fine without compatibility mode activated. No obvious problems.
  • WCP - Runs fine without compatibility mode activated. Even the typical video-skip bug that I always had was not a problem.
  • WCSO - Requires compatibility mode to be activated, Win98 worked fine. No other problems during run through of the game.
  • DOSbox works just as well as it did on XP with Privateer, Academy, and Armada.
No explanation for the color inversion. Even running in compatibility mode doesn’t seem to fix it, so I’m assuming it is something to do with my hardware.
Click to expand...
Note that Sarty is still working on testing Privateer 2, but the game already functioned properly during our initial beta trials. We still expect there to be occasional hiccups and issues with specific hardware configurations, but we're quite happy that the new operating system won't hold back Wing Commander fans trying to play their favorite games in the future.




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Original update published on February 7, 2007
 
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Inverted Colors

Yep , this still happens even today. Its not a specific issue with that application but rather applications that utilize a 256 colour pallete for display graphics.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why that happens :(
 
which version of vista are we talking about here?

i'm running the 64-bit edition of vista, and when i play either WC1 or WC2 from the kilrathi saga pack, the game seems to run fine, only the display is garbled.

just like this, only the palette seems inverted when i take a screen grab for some reason

garbled_wc1.gif


now, it could be the nvidia drivers as i have a geforce 6600 card, so what i'm hoping is that someone has tested or can test the KS WC1 & 2 on 64bit vista and tell me the results?

i'll certainly harass nvidia to fix it if it turns out to be a driver issue.

note: WC3 runs fine. it's just the first 2 that run in 320x200. my card does support these resolutions as i can use powerstrip to set the desktop to 320x200x8 with no problems.
 
vista compatibility problem

hey, I go to run wc3 and wc4 in vista and the command prompt program gives me an "program can't run in full screen" error and then closes. I've tried telling wc3 and 4 to run windowed and full screen, and it doesn't effect anything. I'm desperate for wc, what can I do?
 
Unregistered said:
hey, I go to run wc3 and wc4 in vista and the command prompt program gives me an "program can't run in full screen" error and then closes. I've tried telling wc3 and 4 to run windowed and full screen, and it doesn't effect anything. I'm desperate for wc, what can I do?
Click to expand...

If you have the dos versions, Try getting them to run in dosbox (not just a command prompt) using the tech support walkthroughs linked to from the CIC main page
 
wc3 wc4 problems

ok, I got dosbox and tried to set it up according to the instructions from cic. the video freezes after 2 seconds of play time on wc3, and I can esc and move to the nest scene, but I can't watch any video. in wc4 it runs, it just skips pretty badly. and suggestions?
 
What version of dosbox are you running? What operating system? How fast is your processor and what cycle level are you running at?
 
dosbox 0.70, vista, amd sempron 3500, I have tried the cycles at virtually every setting, including the ones recommended in the faq on compatibility, which I believe was 30000
 
A Sempron 3500 can probably only do about 10,000 cycles without choking on core=normal, so it's possible that your computer isn't fast enough to smoothly run WC3/4. Did you try core=dynamic? You can get up to 30,000 to 50,000 then, but this is somewhat hit and miss.

That might not explain the freezing though. Did you start from a fresh DOSBox install when going through the tutorial? Do other videos run later on? A scratched disc could produce something like that. Do you get sound in the videos? Can you try installing with sound disabled? Maybe try running the videos in VGA instead of SVGA as well (this could also help the chopiness).
 
A few important notes for anyone editing WC SO/P:

-Treman doesn't work with Vista, this is probably do to folder permissions being so strict (you need to authorize access to edit/remove/create/delete files.
-The specific problem seems to be it's inability to create the subdirectories stored within the TRE. (NOTE: Creating the folders yourself and attempting to extract the files doesn't work)

This can likely be corrected by tweaking your Vista permissions settings.

-WCSO does not seem to create autosave.gsw or replay.gsw files in the main directory, and if it does, it flags them in some way that prevents WCSO from displaying them. Don't ask me to explain, but whenever I go to delete them they simply aren't there.

Due to these (and many other) difficulties, I've actually moved all my modding files back onto my XP desktop, and recomend anyone wanting to edit WC SO/P do likewise. (Probably useless to 99% of the community, but maybe I can save the Standoff team some headaches).
 
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