WC4 runs too fast + minor video bug + controls?

[Unregistered]

Hi, I hope this is hasn't come up before, a search gave me nothing. Anyway, when I was six ('98), Wing Commander IV was the first videogame I ever played, so now, having acquired a copy on Ebay, I've decided to give it another shot. I got the DVD version, and after finding that the game wouldn't run in Win95 compatibility I applied the Win2k patch, and then ran it in Win2k compatibility mode. Well, it works, however with the general crappiness of mouse flight (which I assume is due to the age of the game) I'm finding it extremely difficult to hit anything without spamming missiles. This has led me to the conclusion that the game is probably running too fast, because while I'm very good with games like I-War and Freespace, WC4 has just blown me away. Is there a way to reduce the game speed?

Also, I notice that if I hit escape during a movie that calls for dialog, the movie freezes wherever I hit escape but the speech choices appear for me to select. Is this normal? It doesn't really affect anything either way (who would want to skip the movies on a game that cost $10mil to produce?), but I wanted to know if this is a bug.

Lastly, if I wanted to edit the controls, where in the files should I look?

 

[Wedge009]

Interesting that you managed to get a DVD version working with only a Windows 2000 patch. Is it the single-sided or double-sided version? The single-sided version is the same as the original CD version (but on a single disc, of course), whereas the double-sided DVD has the better quality movies and requires a DVD patch to run on anything other than the original Creative hardware it was designed for.

I'm not familiar with the characteristics of the mouse flight, but as far as I know, WC4 does not have frame rate issues on a sufficiently fast enough computer. Besides running the game on an old computer like a 486, there's no way to reduce the game speed.

Skipping the movies via the Escape key will make the game appear to freeze if there are any player choices provided in that movie sequence. You need to make a choice to proceed with the cutscene and carry on the story. This is normal and not a bug, but was noted in the WC4 'post-mortem' as being insufficiently documented, resulting in lots of Tech Support complaints. (Personally, I think any WC veteran should know what has happened, but I grant that not everyone who's played WC4 is necessarily a WingNut.)

Finally, I don't think there's a way to change controls (remember, this was made 12-13 years ago), but pressing Alt-O during missions will give you some gameplay options.

 

[Unregistered]

Thanks for the help. I'm not sure if it's a framerate issue or what, but the mouse flight just doesn't feel as smooth as in, say, Starlancer, and it's a good deal more difficult.

Having gotten past a few missions, I think the game is actually running normal speed, but those Razors are a real pain in the neck.

I got the DVD double-sided version. I installed the 'DVD Version without DxR Board' patch, then the Windows 2000 patch. I just put it in Windows 2000 compatibility mode and it works great.

It amazes me. The game is almost like a movie- so much live footage to watch, and it's quite a long game. When I originally had the game, it was the CD version, and I remember that there were so many discs I couldn't play through it all, so I just loaded the last one and nuked the Vesuvius...

As for controls, I meant not in-game but where in the files- I notice that many games of the age of WCIV don't follow any sort of standardized controls like nowadays, so I often re-map the keys in the files. For me it's more than just familiarity- since I have a laptop, I have to use my right hand to control the touchpad and my left hand for all the keys. Taking a finger off Tab in order to press U can be disastrous.

Thanks for the quick response.

 

[AD]

Thanks for the help. I'm not sure if it's a framerate issue or what, but the mouse flight just doesn't feel as smooth as in, say, Starlancer, and it's a good deal more difficult.

I've never had issues with the mouse flight not being smooth so it could possibly be a framerate issu. I remember way back in the day that applying the win95 patch to the CD version did something similar when my cousin and I were trying to run the game in win95 on a P90.

Having gotten past a few missions, I think the game is actually running normal speed, but those Razors are a real pain in the neck.

Yeah, when I first transitioned to WC4 I had a really hard time because the combat seemed so much faster than in the previous games. Honestly though, even WC2 feels fast now because I think my old 386SXE 16MHz machine was slowing the game down.

It amazes me. The game is almost like a movie- so much live footage to watch, and it's quite a long game. When I originally had the game, it was the CD version, and I remember that there were so many discs I couldn't play through it all, so I just loaded the last one and nuked the Vesuvius...

I don't think that's possible, unless you mean that you played it through once and then would only bother loading up the fourth disk after that. (Or downloaded someones saved games).

As for controls, I meant not in-game but where in the files- I notice that many games of the age of WCIV don't follow any sort of standardized controls like nowadays, so I often re-map the keys in the files. For me it's more than just familiarity- since I have a laptop, I have to use my right hand to control the touchpad and my left hand for all the keys. Taking a finger off Tab in order to press U can be disastrous.

If you press tab with either your pinky or the finger next to it you should be able to hit "U". Also, How old of a laptap are we talking about. THere shouldn't be any reason that you couldn't attach an external USB mouse or Joystick.

I don't think Remaping keys is an option though. However, If you are running a mouse with more than a few buttons like logitechs MX series or Fancy joystick you should be able to map certain keyboard keys to those buttons using the controlers software.