Wing Commander IV DVD & Windows 7

D

dczanik

Rear Admiral
I can't get Wing Commander IV DVD to run the game in Windows 7 Pro.

I can get the videos to work, thanks to Gulikoza's and Striker's patches. However, once that's done, I can't get the flying part of the game to work. I've tried Windows 95,98,2000,and XP compatibility modes without any luck. I seem to have the later build of the game, so the alternate mpeg2.dll works for the videos. I've read everything I can find on how to fix it, but still no luck.

If I replace the MPEG2.DLL file with Gulikoza's update, the videos run great, but it crashes before entering the flying part of the game.

If I keep the original MPEG2.DLL, I can play the game, though there's issues like color palette issues, and the AI seems to run a lot faster than it should. I'll get killed in 3-5 seconds if I don't run away and then use missles. Now, I've beat WC1,WC2, and WC3 dying on the very first mission seems.........odd. Videos just state 'can't find xxxxxx.vob'.

Has anybody gotten the DVD to work on Windows 7 or Vista? I never got a chance to play WC4 when it was new (PC wasn't fast enough), and decided I had to buy it after seeing queeg's videos.

Thanks for your help!
 
Ugh.

I knew this was going to happen. I somehow got the game to work shortly after posting. I'll try to recreate what I did, and post something for others having similar problems. Frankly, I blame the Kilrathi.

Loving the game! :D
 
Did try XP compatibility mode.

I am running it compatibility mode for Windows 95. Nothing else was working for me including XP mode.

I ended up configuring running the DXMCI configuration to
1. force VMR9
2. Force Mpeg2Dec
3. Use an alternate path to the .VOB files (copied them to c:\VOB)

Not sure what exactly fixed it, but I don't want to start testing each setting to see what works and doesn't work. It works just fine now and I'm happy.

Also I'm forcing it to run the following Compatibility Settings:
1. 256 colors
2. 640x480 resolution
3. Disabling visual themes
4. Desktop composition
5. Disable scaling on high DPI settings.

Once that's done, I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL and End Explorer.exe in Task Manager to fix the color palette issues. After playing the game, I need to turn back explorer :)
 
dczanik said:
I am running it compatibility mode for Windows 95. Nothing else was working for me including XP mode.

I ended up configuring running the DXMCI configuration to
1. force VMR9
2. Force Mpeg2Dec
3. Use an alternate path to the .VOB files (copied them to c:\VOB)

Not sure what exactly fixed it, but I don't want to start testing each setting to see what works and doesn't work. It works just fine now and I'm happy.

Also I'm forcing it to run the following Compatibility Settings:
1. 256 colors
2. 640x480 resolution
3. Disabling visual themes
4. Desktop composition
5. Disable scaling on high DPI settings.

Once that's done, I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL and End Explorer.exe in Task Manager to fix the color palette issues. After playing the game, I need to turn back explorer :)
Click to expand...

Wait... you turned it to 256 color... did you do this before you had problems? That might explain the palette messups. Still, you can add the switch "-true_color" to your game shortcut. THat might fix the pallette mess up and let you not force 256 color mode.
 
OK, I totally geeked out my setup. I was getting the same errors as mentioned here even with the patches (Vista Home Premium SP2) so I burned a copy of the VOBs off on a DVD and threw it in my PS3. The PS3 can play the files (and up-converts them) along with playing on my HDTV w/ surround sound. All in all, I walk to the room with the PS3 when movies are to be played (I have run into no issues so far with actual game play) and get the absolute full cinematic experience. I'm so ecstatic to get back into the game and can even play the multiple branching scenes very easily.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top