Hi all,
Both
@Pedro and
@Silverhawk were having issues with the WC4 HD Video Pack causing considerable lag when loading the videos in-game. I had a bit of a chat with Silverhawk to try and find a workaround and I think we hit on a solution that should fix the issue for most people if you're experiencing it.
Please only follow these steps if you're experiencing noticable, painfully long lag when loading the HD videos in-game. If you're not, there's no reason to go tinkering around under the hood.
First, as has been mentioned in previous posts, please install the
K-Lite Codec Pack (the Standard Edition should be fine for our purposes - more further down on whether you'll need the Mega Edition). During the installation process, using the standard/default settings should be fine for most users - feel free to do an advanced install if that's your bag.
Once K-Lite is installed, you should find it's installed the
Codec Tweak Tool, and this is where we can try to fix the lag issue. Fire up the Codec Tweak Tool (I'm not sure where it resides, but hitting Start and typing Codec Tweak Tool should let you launch it).
Hit that "Preferred Decoders" button in the bottom left.
What we're interested in here is the settings for H.264 (because that's the codec I used for the HD pack). Silverhawk found it was set to "USE MERIT". In his case, we found that switching it to "Microsoft" fixed the load lag issue for him. I'd encourage you to try "Microsoft" and "LAV Video" one at a time and test the game with both to see which gives you the best results (if any - Silverhawk found using LAV meant it didn't work at all).
Just be sure to change the settings in
both columns each time (32-bit and 64-bit) as I'm not sure which type is applicable to the game. Obviously the game itself will be 32-bit, but given that it plays video back via DirectShow, the player might run in a 64-bit mode - not 100% sure.
If neither work and you want to try the ffdshow renderer (as seen in my screenshot above), that only comes with the Mega Edition. However, in 99.99% of cases, the Microsoft Renderer should work.
Unfortunately, there is no one "right" setting, as the right setting for you will be bound up in the hardware and software setup of your particular machine (which is why some people are having this issue and others aren't). Hopefully, if you
are experiencing the massive lag issue, one of the above settings should sort it out for you
EDIT
As a further note, Silverhawk did some more experimenting and let me know the following:
If you're using
HCl's GOG WC4 Video Patch, it appears to prevent the HD pack from working. Your mileage may vary. In Silverhawk's case, he was using it to fix a bug whereby the dialogue choice options (Straighten him out/Help him out etc.) would persist on screen after the next video loads. This understandably becomes very frustrating (especially in the finale against Tolwyn, where multiple dialogue choices will start to pile on top of each other to the point they become completely illegible).
Reading the page on the above link, it seems the patch is also used to fix several other "Windows Compatability Mode" issues, so there may be other reasons to use it. So just a heads up that you may find if you need this patch, it may prevent the HD pack from playing.
