Wing Commander IV - Online! (August 11, 2010)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
We've decided to burn bandwidth like it's going out of style... by posting all of the movie files from the Wing Commander IV DVD! Now you can see Wing Commander IV's film segments better than they were meant to be seen--and I feel condident fans will soon create an 'upgrade patch' for the CD-ROM version of the game...

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Original update published on August 11, 2010
 
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I cooked up an small installer to allow owners of the CD edition of WC4 to install it as a DVD version. The installer includes Gulikoza's patches, so most people should be able to fire off the game straight after the installer ends and having copied the high-res movies to into the game's folder. You can download the installer here.

To be honest no hacks or new patches is included in there; all it does it automate a process of copying the right files and configuring a few things. It also contains a few files from the DVD version of WC4. The result is an installation of Wing Commander 4 DVD playable disc-less.

I couldn't test it much, please try it and tell me if it works for you. Comments also appreciated
 
What would I need off my own DVD version to make this work (i.e. without having to download all the vobs from the CIC!) Is there any way to get it working reading the videos off the disc?
 
If you have the dual-sided DVD, you shouldn't need anything to have it work discless. Just copy the DVD files (both sides !) onto your WC4 folder, including the VOB folder, then run Gulikoza's DXMCI configuration and specify the path of the VOB folder (the copy on your on your hard drive) there.

If you have the single-side DVD (that one has the low-res movie), you can use my installer to convert it into the high-resolution DVD edition.
 
I updated the installer a bit to add simple extraction of the patch files instead of doing a full Wizard-install, and enhanced/corrected a few things.

I'd love it if a few people would try it and comment ! :D
 
PopsiclePete said:
I cooked up an small installer to allow owners of the CD edition of WC4 to install it as a DVD version. The installer includes Gulikoza's patches, so most people should be able to fire off the game straight after the installer ends and having copied the high-res movies to into the game's folder.

To be honest no hacks or new patches is included in there; all it does it automate a process of copying the right files and configuring a few things. It also contains a few files from the DVD version of WC4. The result is an installation of Wing Commander 4 DVD playable disc-less.
Click to expand...

I'm having some trouble understanding what this means. The first paragraph makes it sound like it allows the CD owners to view DVD movies while playing. The last line of the last paragraph seems to be talking about something else. Can you describe what the patch does again?
 
It allows an owner of the CD version of WC4 to install it on his hard drive as a DVD version of WC4, using the high-resolution movies now available at the CIC. While the necessary files to patch the CD version into a DVD version of WC4 could have been simply distributed in a ZIP file, I found my first attempts at explaining all the necessary installation and configuration steps very difficult. That's why I decided to make a simple wizard-install. (the installer also have the option of simply dumping the files and let you do all the config if you prefer).

My intent in the second paragraph was to make sure I would not be credited for creating new patchcode; some files contained in this installer were make by Gulikoza and some by Origin.

Sorry, I think I tried to say too many things in the same sentences and it made my sentences confusing. They are.
 
So just to be extra clear, it does allow CD owners to view the VOBs cleanly while playing the game? Did you also need any of HCl's WCP CD to DVD patchwork? If you've already told me this three times and I'm asking again, it just sounds like more of a big deal than tweaking Gulikoza's patch should produce.
 
ChrisReid said:
So just to be extra clear, it does allow CD owners to view the VOBs cleanly while playing the game? Did you also need any of HCl's WCP CD to DVD patchwork? If you've already told me this three times and I'm asking again, it just sounds like more of a big deal than tweaking Gulikoza's patch should produce.
Click to expand...

It does all this. You don't need any extra patches (Gulikoza's or HCls..). This isn't for people who have a physical DVD... It's for people who have the CD version and have downloaded the VOBs from the CIC. This patch makes the CD version use the VOBs... Gulikoza is mentioned because his patch is necessary for Making the DVD version run in XP/Vista/Win7 and this patch essentially turns a CD version into the DVD version. But users don't need to download extra patches like Gulikoza's since this one patch does all that for you. For the most part, most users trying to turn their CD version into a DVD version shouldn't need to do any extra tweaking because pete put it all in one simple installer... Basically you put all the movies in a VOB directory in your WC4 install and away you go.
 
Stuff like this really makes me wish my wc4 cds weren't damaged beyond repair years ago. But if you can't play it again rifling through the clips is the next best thing.
 
Sound is not working with new DVD upgrade

I have WC4 on 6 CDs and i grabbed these new dvd res movies that wcnews has posted and I also used PopsiclePete's installer. Once I try to watch any of the movies, the video is improved to DVD quality for sure, but the movies also have no sound. I am running Vista64 bit. Anyone know how to fix this issue?
 
Also testing - on a Dual Centrino 2.53MHz Win7pro64bit Laptop with Intel Mobile4 Graphics.

What can I say, it works fine - after stopping explorer.exe and alt-tabbing in and out to get the keyboard working.

The only quirks I noticed up to now:
- There seems to be no sound in transition (walk-from-place-to-place) scenes
- Sound in the movies is considerably lower than ingame sound & dialogue
- Flickering captions in "Jumping to..." scenes

Otherwise smooth. Great installer, just the right thing for us guys distracted by real life, makes life easier. And seeing the game in full DVD is just a blast.

Thanks for putting this together!
 
Predator80 said:
I have WC4 on 6 CDs and i grabbed these new dvd res movies that wcnews has posted and I also used PopsiclePete's installer. Once I try to watch any of the movies, the video is improved to DVD quality for sure, but the movies also have no sound. I am running Vista64 bit. Anyone know how to fix this issue?
Click to expand...

As this is kind of a test release, it's important to let us know what kind of system you have. Operating system and sound board are potentially big factors. You might try installing the mpeg2dec over top of your installation: https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7754
 
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criticalmass said:
The only quirks I noticed up to now:
- There seems to be no sound in transition (walk-from-place-to-place) scenes
- Sound in the movies is considerably lower than ingame sound & dialogue
Click to expand...
These are, unfortunately, issues directly from the DVD version. If there is a fix or workaround for those, I am not aware of it.

criticalmass said:
- Flickering captions in "Jumping to..." scenes
Click to expand...
That's new, I've never seen this. Have you tried changing the compatibility setting of Gulikoza's patch ? He says in his readme that it should fix problems you may encounter when a second movie is played with no gameflow in between (which is usually the case for jump sequences). Look for the configuration tool in your Start Menu, "Origin Systems\Wing Commander 4\Troubleshooting", try the other compatibility levels and report back !

criticalmass said:
Otherwise smooth. Great installer, just the right thing for us guys distracted by real life, makes life easier. And seeing the game in full DVD is just a blast.

Thanks for putting this together!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback !
 
Thanks for the help, Pete - but Win7 64bit steadfastly refuses to run the DXMCI tool due to non-Win32-ishness.

But the flicker is no big deal really.
 
Does this patch work, if you have a non-English WC4 CD version?

I am aware, than the movie themselves would be still in English of course...
 
Please do test and tell us ! In theory it should work, as teh language files are in the TRE files you copy from your CDs.
 
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