Prophecy and Secret Ops in XP (was: WCP video question)

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Unregistered said:
I've also downloaded the DVD VOB files and applied the patch to replace the old cutscenes with the high quality videos, however the old cutscenes always play. I've followed the instructions at CIC to the letter so I'm not sure why it isn't displaying the new movies.
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The patch does *not* replace the movies. You need to make sure all the VOB's are in a folder within the prophecy folder called "movie". Note that it is *not* named movies. If they still don't play, also check to see if you have the latest version of the Prophecy enhancement pack.


About the crashing, this sound similar to what happens with the WCIV DVD if you have PowerDVD installed.
Was it crashing before you installed the patch? Does it do the same thing with a fresh install and only applying the compatability mode?
 
I should of mentioned that the game crashes at this point before I apply the patch. I've tried all the steps to get Prophecy working with a fresh installation and it still crashes at the same point, hence why I thought installing this patch might help. But if I can't get Prophecy running correctly before I apply the patch, would that be a cause for the hi-res patch to crash?

Sorry, I didn't mean "replace", I meant "display instead of".

I haven't heard of the WC5 DVD issue but I do have PowerDVD installed.


Jim
 
Unregistered said:
I should of mentioned that the game crashes at this point before I apply the patch. I've tried all the steps to get Prophecy working with a fresh installation and it still crashes at the same point, hence why I thought installing this patch might help. But if I can't get Prophecy running correctly before I apply the patch, would that be a cause for the hi-res patch to crash?

Sorry, I didn't mean "replace", I meant "display instead of".

I haven't heard of the WC5 DVD issue but I do have PowerDVD installed.


Jim
Click to expand...

First off, you really should register because it makes tracking your problem in such a long thread a lot easier.

The fact that you don't seem to have any problems with Secret ops makes me think that something is breaking during the install process. What kind of condition are the CD's in? Do they need cleaned? What happens if you set the compatability mode of the installer before running the install process?

Is there any kind of software that's running in the background that might be conflicting? It sounds like the crash point is the first point in the game where the game actually shifts to user control with your mouse. Do you have any third party controller software installed that might be interfering? Is your mouse USB? Is there also other usb controllers plugged in? It might also be an issue with multimedia drivers. It could be an issue with it switching resolutions or shifting display modes (as it goes from video to the interface). Sometimes cheap unsupported sound hardware can conflict. What happens if you turn down the sound hardware acceleration settings?
 
Registered now. :D

The CD's I have are pretty old now. It wasn't till I found this website that I thought I'd have another go at playing WCP. They appear to be in good condition, no scratches and I've cleaned them. Using compatability mode on the installer makes no difference. I still get the game crashing at the same spot in the FMV. No errors are reported during the install and swapping the disks when the installer requires doesn't cause any errors to appear.

The only software running in the background is AVG antivirus and turning that off when trying to install or run prophecy makes no difference.

I have a USB mouse that uses the default WINXP drivers. I also have a USB joystick plugged in.

I have a SB Audigy and I've tried turning sound acceleration off but that doesn't help either.
 
After much uninstalling and installing of Prophecy and gnashing of teeth, I decided to try a new disc out. It appears my old discs were the cause of the error as AD pointed out earlier.

I can now get Prophecy up and running. I applied the hires patch and everything looks great at 1280x1024! I have noticed 1 issue though. When I go to the simulator to fly a mission, the mission selection screen appears smaller (probably due to the higher resolution) but the spinning fighter graphic is HUGE. Instead of it spinning in the centre of the selection screen, it is as if I have zoomed right into the ship as I can see parts of the fighter as they spin around and come into view.

The other problem I have with the VOB files patch is that the movies play in the background. What happens is that the VOB movie flashes up for an instant, then disappears but I can still hear the sound of the movie in the background, as if it has been minimised. Then the CD movie starts playing. If I hit escape to skip the movie, the next VOB file starts playing and again disappears but I can still hear it in the background and then CD movie starts up. Using Alt-Tab, I see that each VOB movie is playing in the background while the CD movie is playing in the foreground. I've downloaded the 2 recommended codecs (ac3 and mpeg) but this does not solve the problem. I've tried changing to all the different video modes as well as turning off subtitles, etc.

Anyone know what could be wrong?
 
Jim said:
I can now get Prophecy up and running. I applied the hires patch and everything looks great at 1280x1024! I have noticed 1 issue though. When I go to the simulator to fly a mission, the mission selection screen appears smaller (probably due to the higher resolution) but the spinning fighter graphic is HUGE. Instead of it spinning in the centre of the selection screen, it is as if I have zoomed right into the ship as I can see parts of the fighter as they spin around and come into view.
Click to expand...

That's a known issue with the high res patch. It was fixed at one point, but I think it might have crept back by the time the version of the enhancement pack for the DVD VOBs made it out.

Jim said:
Using Alt-Tab, I see that each VOB movie is playing in the background while the CD movie is playing in the foreground. I've downloaded the 2 recommended codecs (ac3 and mpeg) but this does not solve the problem. I've tried changing to all the different video modes as well as turning off subtitles, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't think I've ever heard of both playing like that. Could be something related to PowerDVD. If you can reinstall it later, I'd try taking that out.
 
As it turns out Chris & AD, you were both right. PowerDVD was the culprit. I uninstalled it and all the movies work fine. Thanks for all your help.
 
Vid Fix and Question

Hello, Im running a 3.0g nvida 7800gs 2gis of ram, setting the sound acc on DX to zero fixed the video speed issue.

I wanted to ask however, after setting my video card to Direct3D, the special effects for "fog" and "lens flares" are not options ... is there a go around for that? Since, obviously, my card should be able to do that.

Thanks! :)


Me VII
 
Hello, Me again ...

...I just registered, and wanted to say sorry, for posting a fix, for something that was explained back in 2005. ~~~
I still need to know how to get lens flare and fog to work with my vid card.
This is a great site, I have alot of things to download.
Did I read right that theres a patch to make WC Prop multilayer??? Could someone direct me to were on the site the info for that is?

Thanks!

Me VII
 
Your card can do those, but the direct3D renderer in the Vision Engine might not be able to do so. It may be worth trying to run in Glide mode with a glide wrapper - the glide renderer is known to give better results than Direct3D.

The WCP multiplayer patch is here:
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7277
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Right, Prophecy was designed to work best with the 3dfx video card standard, not DirectX. Certain effects like fog and lens flare do not work in D3D mode (I believe we have a patch to enable Lens Flare in the Files section). It's not just about these 5 effects though. Things like the HUD and basic graphical effects throughout the game look better in 3dfx mode. It's possible to trick your system into thinking you have a 3dfx card with a glide wrapper, however the most popular one might not have been updated to work with 7 series Geforce cards. http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/index.html
 
Hi....
This might be a little bit off topic, but I'm having another issue with WC Prophecy of a similar nature. At the beginning of one of the missions I recieve a message upon launching from the ship reporting my carrier has been lost, would i like to restart, etc... It's during a mission on the third disk. Hopefully somebody knows the answer to this one or has a patch so i can actually finish the game...~~~.
 
Ace High said:
Hi....
This might be a little bit off topic, but I'm having another issue with WC Prophecy of a similar nature. At the beginning of one of the missions I recieve a message upon launching from the ship reporting my carrier has been lost, would i like to restart, etc... It's during a mission on the third disk. Hopefully somebody knows the answer to this one or has a patch so i can actually finish the game...~~~.
Click to expand...

Apparently the solution is as simple as going into the simulator and playing either simulation 6 or 7.
 
I can't install WCP Gold.

I Just got Wing Commander Prophecy Gold as a gift in the mail from my brother through an Amazon.com seller. The seller advertised "BRAND NEW + PERFECT!~in original jewel case w/inserts!" The back of the jewel case has Ultima Online and nothing of Prophecy (not sure if that's how the Prophecy jewel case is). It's quite obvious it's NOT brand new and perfect as the third CD had two pieces of scotch tape in an 'x' over the top of it. When I took the tape off, it peeled a small square section of the cd artwork up with it and a portion of the shiny part that shows on the underside of the cd can be seen stuck to the tape. I did my best to put the tape back in place, but now while installing, it gets hung up at that third disc.

Even when I just inserted the first CD (NOT including the scotch tape 3rd CD), the drive on my laptop began making a loud sound similar to a prop engine airplane taking off. Now, on the 3rd disc, my disc drive keeps clicking and whirring even as it awaits me clicking "OK" for inserting disc 3. At first when I clicked "OK", it continued to click and whir, then said "The drive is not ready for use; its door may be open. Please check drive E: and make sure that a disk is inserted and that the drive door is closed". After a few tries, clicking ok just gives me the timer icon, continuing clicks and whirs, and the insert disc 3 window pops up again. [EDIT: tried installing again with the same results.. hung up on disc 3 with continual clicks and whirrs]

Is this an issue with the CD's or my computer? Do I need to set up some kind of Windows 98 compatability before installing this on my Windows XP laptop? Do I need to have a joystick plugged in to install this? I'm assuming it's the discs, but I thought I would ask here and try to get to the bottom of things before I tell my brother and he asks for his money back.
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
I can't install WCP Gold.

I Just got Wing Commander Prophecy Gold as a gift in the mail from my brother through an Amazon.com seller. The seller advertised "BRAND NEW + PERFECT!~in original jewel case w/inserts!" The back of the jewel case has Ultima Online and nothing of Prophecy (not sure if that's how the Prophecy jewel case is). It's quite obvious it's NOT brand new and perfect as the third CD had two pieces of scotch tape in an 'x' over the top of it. When I took the tape off, it peeled a small square section of the cd artwork up with it and a portion of the shiny part that shows on the underside of the cd can be seen stuck to the tape. I did my best to put the tape back in place, but now while installing, it gets hung up at that third disc.

Even when I just inserted the first CD (NOT including the scotch tape 3rd CD), the drive on my laptop began making a loud sound similar to a prop engine airplane taking off. Now, on the 3rd disc, my disc drive keeps clicking and whirring even as it awaits me clicking "OK" for inserting disc 3. At first when I clicked "OK", it continued to click and whir, then said "The drive is not ready for use; its door may be open. Please check drive E: and make sure that a disk is inserted and that the drive door is closed". After a few tries, clicking ok just gives me the timer icon, continuing clicks and whirs, and the insert disc 3 window pops up again. [EDIT: tried installing again with the same results.. hung up on disc 3 with continual clicks and whirrs]

Is this an issue with the CD's or my computer? Do I need to set up some kind of Windows 98 compatability before installing this on my Windows XP laptop? Do I need to have a joystick plugged in to install this? I'm assuming it's the discs, but I thought I would ask here and try to get to the bottom of things before I tell my brother and he asks for his money back.
Click to expand...

Is there Four CDs? Gold should have a fourth CD for Secret ops. I sounds like you got hosed though. The tape was obviously holding a broken disk together, whether it sort of worked before hand or not. Have you tried to read the disk itself? Put it in and don't launch the installer and see if you can browse the files on the CD.

Also, the case that came in my regular non gold prophecy was a double wide jewel case with Prophecy on the front and an ultima online ad on the back of the cover. None of the manuals like the ICIS manual fit in the case. I should really dig out my prophecy box because it has my manuals and my Map in it still.
 
AD said:
Is there Four CDs? Gold should have a fourth CD for Secret ops. I sounds like you got hosed though. The tape was obviously holding a broken disk together, whether it sort of worked before hand or not. Have you tried to read the disk itself? Put it in and don't launch the installer and see if you can browse the files on the CD.

Also, the case that came in my regular non gold prophecy was a double wide jewel case with Prophecy on the front and an ultima online ad on the back of the cover. None of the manuals like the ICIS manual fit in the case. I should really dig out my prophecy box because it has my manuals and my Map in it still.
Click to expand...

Thanks AD. I can't read disk 3, all it does is continually click and whir for several minutes, I finally gave up waiting. Disk 1 launches the installer when inserted and Disk 2 pulls up a window with disk files listed. I decided to insert disk 4 and attempt to install Secret Ops, but it ended with a window saying "This application has failed to start because glide2x.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

So I guess disk 3 is ruined perhaps due to the scotch tape issue. I might guess I'd need to find something called glide2x.dll and install it, or else it was in one of the earlier CDs that didn't get installed. Sadly, I guess I need to send this back and have the seller give my brother his money back (IF it's that easy to get his money back). It's frustrating to get excited when the game arrives only to find out it has to be sent back.

Thanks again for the help.
 
I would keep the game and try to find a cheap copy of WCP for a disc 3. I'd try to get some of your money back or work something out with the seller.
 
Dundradal said:
I would keep the game and try to find a cheap copy of WCP for a disc 3. I'd try to get some of your money back or work something out with the seller.
Click to expand...

So I could use regular Wing Commander Prophecy's disk 3 in place of Prophecy Gold's disk 3 in installation and during gameplay? They have the same files and wouldn't conflict with each other?

My brother is communicating with her, I'll propose that to him if it would be a possible substitute.
 
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