Wing Loader (KS/WCDX) Loader & Voice Over Mod

Hi all, I found out about this after getting back into Wing Commander after several years. I have the GOG versions of the games and so I tried out Wing Loader v0.92. I patched both WC1 and WC2 following the instructions above.

Wing Commander 1 works fine. The audio plays well in the Tiger's Claw and I can hear the voices in flight as well.
Secret Missions 1 works fine.
Secret Missions 1.5 crashes right in the middle of the first briefing. I never get to launch.
Secret Missions 2 works fine.

Wing Commander II doesn't load up the intro properly. It entirely skips the section of the intro where the Tiger's Claw is destroyed, and goes instead right to the Emperor and Prince Thrakhath. The game also seems to be playing pretty fast. Also, unlike WC1, the game is not in a 4:3 screen ratio. I wonder if something got messed up? An error message appears that says:
"ERROR: 145 in DIBcascade CreatePalette"
When I launch the game using WC2_wcdx.exe, it plays in 4:3 ratio but the intro still skips the Tiger's Claw destruction.

Wing Commander II - Special Operations 1 - it's been a while since I played but when I launch this in Wing Loader, WC2 just plays (still broken intro as noted above). I end up flying the first mission of WC2. Not sure if I need to finish WC2 before playing this or not. When I launch the game using SO1_wcdx.exe, the Special Operations 1 intro plays and I can jump right into SO1.

Wing Commander II - Special Operations II - same issue as Special Operations 1. It just plays WC2. When I launch the game using SO2_wcdx.exe, it plays SO2 just fine at 4:3.

I haven't tried WC3 yet but I will.
 
Kel9509 said:
Hi all, I found out about this after getting back into Wing Commander after several years. I have the GOG versions of the games and so I tried out Wing Loader v0.92. I patched both WC1 and WC2 following the instructions above.

Wing Commander 1 works fine. The audio plays well in the Tiger's Claw and I can hear the voices in flight as well.
Secret Missions 1 works fine.
Secret Missions 1.5 crashes right in the middle of the first briefing. I never get to launch.
Secret Missions 2 works fine.

Wing Commander II doesn't load up the intro properly. It entirely skips the section of the intro where the Tiger's Claw is destroyed, and goes instead right to the Emperor and Prince Thrakhath. The game also seems to be playing pretty fast. Also, unlike WC1, the game is not in a 4:3 screen ratio. I wonder if something got messed up? An error message appears that says:
"ERROR: 145 in DIBcascade CreatePalette"
When I launch the game using WC2_wcdx.exe, it plays in 4:3 ratio but the intro still skips the Tiger's Claw destruction.

Wing Commander II - Special Operations 1 - it's been a while since I played but when I launch this in Wing Loader, WC2 just plays (still broken intro as noted above). I end up flying the first mission of WC2. Not sure if I need to finish WC2 before playing this or not. When I launch the game using SO1_wcdx.exe, the Special Operations 1 intro plays and I can jump right into SO1.

Wing Commander II - Special Operations II - same issue as Special Operations 1. It just plays WC2. When I launch the game using SO2_wcdx.exe, it plays SO2 just fine at 4:3.

I haven't tried WC3 yet but I will.
Click to expand...
Hey Kel9509.

I haven't expirenced this Secret Missions 1.5 crash myself. I'm currently away for a wedding but should be back to my PC in a few days. I'll see if I can reproduce the issue and get back to you.

In regards to WC2... WCDX is not a great experience with WC2. Framerate are weird and Becuase of that when you hit play it registers a second click to skip the first scene in the intro. I have found that CNC-DDraw works better for WC2 or Dgvoodoo2.

I might have a scripting error, I'm not sure but I'll take a look when I'm back.
 
Destro said:
Hey Kel9509.

I haven't expirenced this Secret Missions 1.5 crash myself. I'm currently away for a wedding but should be back to my PC in a few days. I'll see if I can reproduce the issue and get back to you.

In regards to WC2... WCDX is not a great experience with WC2. Framerate are weird and Becuase of that when you hit play it registers a second click to skip the first scene in the intro. I have found that CNC-DDraw works better for WC2 or Dgvoodoo2.

I might have a scripting error, I'm not sure but I'll take a look when I'm back.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much! I must say that what I've seen so far is very impressive. I'm sure there's a slight error with WC2 that hopefully can be fixed.

Anyway, playing WC2_wcdx.exe, I tried CNC-DDraw in my WC2 installation folder. It didn't seem to make much of a difference, at least as far as I can tell with its default settings. The game runs fast outside of flight mode, but during flight it seems ok. That's the reason why I wanted to try this version, since DosBox has issues with the framerate and game speed otherwise.

However, either with CNC-DDraw or not when using WC2_wcdx.exe, I noticed that if I use my joystick to select the intro, there is no "second click" and the intro plays normally with the Tiger's Claw destruction. Very odd that the mouse has an issue but the joystick doesn't. I wonder if this can be fixed also somehow or not?

CNC-DDraw doesn't work at all with WingLoader. I meant, it's still not at a 4:3 ratio and didn't appear to make any bit of difference whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm happy to report I also tried WC3 with the HD videos and it runs perfectly!
 
Hi Destro, New user here, and I wanna thank you and kudos for your hard work this is a stellar mod/launcher!

I have a question, the demo Youtube video you have, the hornets look to be in better detail. I was trying to find out where to get that mod, do you have any idea where to get the graphics for those ships?

Thanks.
 
Vackscene said:
Hi Destro, New user here, and I wanna thank you and kudos for your hard work this is a stellar mod/launcher!

I have a question, the demo Youtube video you have, the hornets look to be in better detail. I was trying to find out where to get that mod, do you have any idea where to get the graphics for those ships?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Thanks Vackscene!

I got the better detail hornet from the the link below. Scrolling through the forum are several ship replacements including the Tigers Claw and much more. :)

https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-sprite-enhancement-experimentation-and-information.29588/
 
Destro said:
Thanks Vackscene!

I got the better detail hornet from the the link below. Scrolling through the forum are several ship replacements including the Tigers Claw and much more. :)

https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-sprite-enhancement-experimentation-and-information.29588/
Click to expand...
Wow, those new sprites are awesome. Did they just do the Hornet, Tiger's Claw, and the Exeter? It'd be awesome if those could be incorporated into the patch as well.

Have you had any luck in figuring out why WC2 and its Special Operations don't load, when using the GOG version of the game as patched? Also, same deal with Secret Missions 1.5?

If not using the GOG version is the issue, I can give other versions a try....
 
Kel9509 said:
Wow, those new sprites are awesome. Did they just do the Hornet, Tiger's Claw, and the Exeter? It'd be awesome if those could be incorporated into the patch as well.

Have you had any luck in figuring out why WC2 and its Special Operations don't load, when using the GOG version of the game as patched? Also, same deal with Secret Missions 1.5?

If not using the GOG version is the issue, I can give other versions a try....
Click to expand...
Hey sorry. I've been really busy lately but i have been looking into that... Unfortunately. I wasn't really able to reproduce your issue but I have a thought as to what is happening.

Wing Loader will always run the patched Wcdx version of wing commander 1 & 2, regardless to if ddraw is Installed, as wing loader calls for WC2_WCDX.exe rather than the original file WC2_KS.exe that my patch provides.

If you want to use Ddraw you need to run WC2_KS.exe instead.

If you want Wing Loader to use the Ddraw version go into the data/scripts and open main.se and search for WC2_WCDX.exe and replace that with WC2_KS.exe

As for the 1.5 missions not working. That I can't reproduce. I'm sure you've tried but full reinstall and re patch is all I can think of. Or for some reason you downloaded the dos version of the 1.5 mod? But I don't think it matters too much.
 
Hey everyone! It's been a minute! :P

I figured I'd give a brief update on what's new and what I've been up too.

Now that Wing Loader is out there and WC3 HD videos are patched into the game, I want to take a step back from Wing Loader for a bit as I realize I've been working on this one app for about 4 years now! :P Don't worry, I'll still support it, add features and be active in the community but I want to get back to what Wing Loader actually was built to be... a space sim engine, using Wing Commander as it's inspiration. I'll admit it's wasn't ever a really great one as I'm a self taught programmer and don't know all the best practices, but never the less, I've learned a lot over the years and going to take another crack at it.

I'm still a long way off, working on development tools, updating the code to have more dynamic and interesting features such as collisions and spawn rendering for projectiles and enemies, physics etc. I'll put out an update later once I have something fun stuff to show off.

In the meantime. I made a Brief History to show off several stages of the engine. From it's beginnings as a Wing Commander 1: Reamke engine, very early c++ and opengl tests to a version of a more moderen space sim before Wing Loader started. I had some more polished versions, but they were lost, however it still gives a taste of what it was capable of such as Live Chroma Keying (Darth Vader), projectiles, flyby camera, instancing asteroids, planet orbiting, subtitles (hope you like sublime lol)

Enjoy and hopefully I'll have something fun to show off in 2025!

 
This gave me massive vibes for early Vegastrike engine development. Back when HellcatV was writing the engine in university we had a super limited play area and the original skybox textures were ripped from Quake 2. You could fly for about 50 meters before you flew out of the Z-buffer.
 
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