Thanks for the feedback @Maze59077, really happy to hear you got through wc3 without issue.
I'm currently trying to hunt down the cause of the Flashpack crash, but it's proving elusive so far. I've also put the mouse acceleration issue on my list of things to do.

kingmakeress said:
Out of curiosity, have you patched the original WC4 game so that you are able to fly through the carrier you are supposed to capture in Speradon?
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I'll check that out as well :)
 
Mash, your dedication remains exemplary 🤗. Once again, a big thank you is in order.

I also had a feature idea last night, coming hot of a replay of WCP, which I played with the Keyboard just like in the old days:
How about including a setting that reverts the keyboard-nerf, especially in WC3?

We all know that flying with the keyboard does prevent you from ever achieving the turn-rates that fighters are actually capable of. While full on new input routines with ram-up and the whatnot are likely off the table, a code modification that translates a pressed up-key to a 100-stick value instead of a about 40-one would be pretty cool already.
 
Mash said:
Thanks for the feedback @Maze59077, really happy to hear you got through wc3 without issue.
I'm currently trying to hunt down the cause of the Flashpack crash, but it's proving elusive so far. I've also put the mouse acceleration issue on my list of things to do.


I'll check that out as well :)
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I played it through to the end in one go, and everything worked very well. Of course, I couldn't explore every possible situation in the game, but I think it's very close to perfect.
WC4, on the other hand, still needs some fine-tuning, but I'm convinced it will be perfect soon too. In any case, it's the best patch project I've ever seen. I never would have thought it was even possible, and you proved it was.
 
Hey folks - sorry to barge in here but I've just started playing with the Wing Commander 4 cutscenes using Topaz Video AI's Starlight model and apparently Mash is working on the enhancement patch actively right now? Would it be possible to play the upscaled files (h.264 codec 1080p mp4 files) in-game using the enhancement patch?

Here is what I have so far. Happy to share the raw mp4 files.

 
z2kretro said:
Hey folks - sorry to barge in here but I've just started playing with the Wing Commander 4 cutscenes using Topaz Video AI's Starlight model and apparently Mash is working on the enhancement patch actively right now? Would it be possible to play the upscaled files (h.264 codec 1080p mp4 files) in-game using the enhancement patch?

Here is what I have so far. Happy to share the raw mp4 files.

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You can already do this. If you have the current highres/dvd patch for the game you should be able to replace the videos in the movie folder with your upscaled ones. You need to make sure the filename part matches and you're good to go.
 
AD said:
You can already do this. If you have the current highres/dvd patch for the game you should be able to replace the videos in the movie folder with your upscaled ones. You need to make sure the filename part matches and you're good to go.
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Right, but those are VOB files, right? I'd think they'd be massive using DVD compression.
 
z2kretro said:
Right, but those are VOB files, right? I'd think they'd be massive using DVD compression.
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The patch should recognize MP4s as well.. You just need to make sure the actual filename part (not the extension) matches.

I haven't looked at the setup I have here in a while so my memory might not be 100 percent accurate, but in general you don't need to re-encode it as a VOB. though it's possible you might have to just change the extension to VOB it if it doesn't immediately see it, but I'm fairly certain that won't be needed.
 
More updates to the wc3 and 4 patches. Most of the reported issues should now be fixed. Links in the first post.
- Fixed the Flash-pak crash for wc4.
- Fixed movies sometimes being silent during missions.
- Greater control when using the mouse to adjust speed.
- other stuff.

@kingmakeress: Couldn't get the game to crash when flying through the carrier on the Speradon mission. I tried a few times without issue, although I may not have the right circumstances at play. If anyone else is getting this one, let me know.

@z2kretro: You can change the file extension in the "wc4w_en.ini" under [MOVIES], "EXT=mp4". Changing the movie folder might also be a good idea, to keep things separate eg. "PATH=mp4\" in the ini. If you change the folder you should also copy the "subtitles" folder and "movies.ini" from the "vob" folder to the new path.

Vidmaster said:
We all know that flying with the keyboard does prevent you from ever achieving the turn-rates that fighters are actually capable of. While full on new input routines with ram-up and the whatnot are likely off the table, a code modification that translates a pressed up-key to a 100-stick value instead of a about 40-one would be pretty cool already.
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Holding the Shift key down when using the arrows should give you full movement. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean. I do like the way WCP handles keyboard control.
 
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Mash said:
@kingmakeress: Couldn't get the game to crash when flying through the carrier on the Speradon mission. I tried a few times without issue, although I may not have the right circumstances at play. If anyone else is getting this one, let me know.
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Good to know! I will try again then.
 
Mash said:
More updates to the wc3 and 4 patches.
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Still very much appreciated :)

I have one additional question:
I dont particularly like the HD movies for WC3. I think the low res ones are indeed better. Considering the deleted scenes are available on the CIC (and so are the PSX movies, supposedly of higher quality but still full of beautiful chunky pixels), can I also use these?

As far as I understand your readme, movies are simply looked up by name like "sc_138a" and the suffix, correct?

...but I've just started playing with the Wing Commander 4 cutscenes using Topaz Video AI's Starlight model...
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For the most part, these are impressive results. Faces are a tad too uncanny still. And, of course and akin to previous upscaling efforts, distant people's faces (like in the Assembly scene) become disfigured trolls...
 
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Vidmaster said:
(and so are the PSX movies, supposedly of higher quality but still full of beautiful chunky pixels), can I also use these?
As far as I understand your readme, movies are simply looked up by name like "sc_138a" and the suffix, correct?
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Yep you should just have to rename them. I thought I'd test this out, to be sure. There's a mix of file extensions used among the Holovid movies but renaming the .avi's to .mp4's seems to work well. Let me know how it goes.
 
Vidmaster said:
Still very much appreciated :)

I have one additional question:
I dont particularly like the HD movies for WC3. I think the low res ones are indeed better. Considering the deleted scenes are available on the CIC (and so are the PSX movies, supposedly of higher quality but still full of beautiful chunky pixels), can I also use these?
Click to expand...
Isn't there a way to extract the 3DO cutscene videos? I've seen a couple of people on youtube already play the 3DO version of WC3.
 
Mash said:
@z2kretro: You can change the file extension in the "wc4w_en.ini" under [MOVIES], "EXT=mp4". Changing the movie folder might also be a good idea, to keep things separate eg. "PATH=mp4\" in the ini. If you change the folder you should also copy the "subtitles" folder and "movies.ini" from the "vob" folder to the new path.
Click to expand...
Extremely cool. Is there any best way to format the upscaled videos in terms of resolution, codec, or anything else? Just stick to 1080p h.264 MP4?
 
SiG said:
Isn't there a way to extract the 3DO cutscene videos? I've seen a couple of people on youtube already play the 3DO version of WC3.
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No, the 3DO uses a different format than all the other games, and while work has been done towards that end, there's no currently available tool to do this. The people that have put up footage of the game are generally speaking screen-capturing an emulator or capturing the output from a 3DO which isn't the worst idea but also not really the ideal way to convert the videos to use with the PC version.
z2kretro said:
Extremely cool. Is there any best way to format the upscaled videos in terms of resolution, codec, or anything else? Just stick to 1080p h.264 MP4?
Click to expand...
The "ideal" format is kind of subjective. The format really doesn't matter as long as your PC can handle the decoding. You'll save disk space with h.265 but it will be more CPU intensive to decode. h.264 can look pretty good but it too will suffer if you encode it at too low of a bitrate. With the upscaling, there's not really any reason to go to 4k if you're running a 1080p monitor. Given the quality of the source files too, you'll probably find that most normal resizers with 1080p footage will look fine expanded on a 4k monitor and the gains may not really be worth the extra time or file size to have proper 4k files.
 
@Mash Thank you for your awesome work. These games are one of my favourite MS-DOS memories. I alway wanted to play these games again in a perfect condition on modern hardware. The old Kilrathi Saga never cut it for me. Because of the game breaking Locanda mission bug in the German version. Now I can relive these classic.

Regarding the two minor nitpicks, too fast tumbling of blasted ships on high frame rates and the too small targeting HUD-Elements and space assets in higher resolutions.

For me the sweet spot is
SPACE_REFRESH_RATE_HZ=30
SCALED_SPACE_HEIGHT=540

The additional 6 frames to the standard 24fps are just enough to get a relatively smooth frame rate without the crazy tumbling like a fidget spinner.
540p is just enough to eliminate uneven pixels because it is exactly half the horizontal resolution of 1080p. It preserves the old pixel style but looks crisp and the HUD elements on space ships and the space assets are almost the same size as in the original 480p resolution.

Thanks again for ending my 30-year wait and keep up your great work.
 
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Marco Wanke said:
@Mash Thank you for your awesome work. These games are one of my favourite MS-DOS memories. I alway wanted to play these games again in a perfect condition on modern hardware. The old Kilrathi Saga never cut it for me. Because of the game breaking Locanda mission bug in the German version. Now I can relive these classic.

Regarding the two minor nitpicks, too fast tumbling of blasted ships on high frame rates and the too small targeting HUD-Elements and space assets in higher resolutions.

For me the sweet spot is
SPACE_REFRESH_RATE_HZ=30
SCALED_SPACE_HEIGHT=540

The additional 6 frames to the standard 24fps are just enough to get a relatively smooth frame rate without the crazy tumbling like a fidget spinner.
540p is just enough to eliminate uneven pixels because it is exactly half the horizontal resolution of 1080p. It preserves the old pixel style but looks crisp and the HUD elements on space ships and the space assets are almost the same size as in the original 480p resolution.

Thanks again for ending my 30-year wait and keep up your great work.
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Bin schon froh das Wing3 nach so vielen Jahren endlich rund und perfekt auf Windows läuft .. war bisher durch den Locanda Bug leider nur mit der englischen Version möglich .. noch cooler ist es allerdings auch hochauflösende Videos einbinden zu können
 
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Maze59077 said:
Bin schon froh das Wing3 nach so vielen Jahren endlich rund und perfekt auf Windows läuft .. war bisher durch den Locanda Bug leider nur mit der englischen Version möglich .. noch cooler ist es allerdings auch hochaufläsende Videos einbinden zu können
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Ist schon irre was er geleistet hat. Hab die Patches auch auf PCGamingWiki verlinkt, musste einfach sein. Er hats verdient.
 
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