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Wing Commander seriesWing Commander I: is it playable now?(23 posts)(23 posts)
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Posted August 12, 2016
This might be heresy to most of you, but I fell in love with Wing Commander through the terrible Super Nintendo port ^_^ I didn't have a PC at the time, so the SNES WC1 is the only game from the WC series I've ever played. And I still loved it, believe it or not.

Years later, the games got released on GOG and I thought: "I'll finally play the superior PC version of WC1."

Then I bought it. I loaded it. And the speed was all over the place. I tried many different cycle settings, but still the speed would go up and down, depending on the action on the screen.

It's been a while since GOG released WC1. Is the game playable now through some mod or whatever? I really want to play this.

Thanks!
Posted August 12, 2016
Sadly tuning the cycles while playing was the only way for me (plus a bit of cheating).
WC1+2 actually have a frameskipping function build in by pressing Ctrl + and Ctrl - if I recall correctly, so it was always the only way to go to play these games, even back in the day they were new.

There are the Kilrathi Saga versions of WC1+2 which don't have cpuspeed dependent gameplay but those are not on gog.
Posted August 25, 2016
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Strijkbout: There are the Kilrathi Saga versions of WC1+2 which don't have cpuspeed dependent gameplay but those are not on gog.
And kilrathi saga versions have a lot of other issues. In fact I would qualify them as completely broken even at the time. They are nothing to wax nostalgic over...
Post edited August 25, 2016 by herecomethe2000
Posted September 14, 2016
Don't know if this helps but for me, I had great results when I used the energy options in windows to have the CPU always run with a fixed clock (turned min/max processor usage to 50%). Have the German version of Win7, so don't know the exact English name.

For me it seemed that the old Wing Commander games didn't run too well with CPUs where the clock changes all the time.
Posted October 08, 2016
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Strijkbout: There are the Kilrathi Saga versions of WC1+2 which don't have cpuspeed dependent gameplay but those are not on gog.
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herecomethe2000: And kilrathi saga versions have a lot of other issues. In fact I would qualify them as completely broken even at the time. They are nothing to wax nostalgic over...
What are some of the issues? I recently played through them and noticed two issues;

It runs slightly faster than it really should. Not unplayable fast, but just fast enough that the game is a little more difficult.

Sometimes it wouldn't count kills that I had definitely gotten during missions.

Anything else?
Posted October 11, 2016
I've been playing it few months back and it seemed fine, if bit fast. Can't compare to the original release because I never played it back then.
Posted October 13, 2016
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herecomethe2000: And kilrathi saga versions have a lot of other issues. In fact I would qualify them as completely broken even at the time. They are nothing to wax nostalgic over...
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BelatedGamer: What are some of the issues? I recently played through them and noticed two issues;

It runs slightly faster than it really should. Not unplayable fast, but just fast enough that the game is a little more difficult.

Sometimes it wouldn't count kills that I had definitely gotten during missions.

Anything else?
No cockpit damage, endless replaying of the victory jingle, missing space scenery sprites. All sorts of weird timing issues. Those were all issues at the time but now it doesn't run very well on modern versions of windows (even XP), it crashes all the time and it doesn't scale well on wide screen monitors.

There is a guy who fixed many of the issues, but not all. Hopefully he gets arround to it. To be honest I find the laser sound effects very grating over time. Definitely prefer the dos version with mt32 emulation.

http://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/introducing-wcdx-kilrathi-saga-for-modern-windows.27685/
Posted October 13, 2016
I just played it last month. Had cycles at around 6000 +-1000 and it ran pretty well. I also bought a snes remake usb controller and configured parts of it with joytokey. Was really great but i also had some issues.

WC1

Game:
ran a bit too fast when there weren't enemies.
ran a bit too slow when many cats were present.
--> Edit: but i think it was OK. If you remember the attack on space station also had at around 10FPs on Snes.

Don't remember any gamebreaking bugs (only some Tiger's Claw ships exploding for no reason) but it went quite well.

Controller (ibuffalo SNES Controller replica):

- The D-pad was way too strong so i couldn't aim that good. A tap on d-pad was around 2x too strong as i remembered from SNES --> I can't find a solution that the D-pad simulates e.g. 50% Joystick direction, its only 100% and that waytoo strong.
---> Does anyone know a solution?<---- (also have to use arrow keys sometimes)

- Had to delete most of the keys in DosBox (i only left Snes "B") because it would do strange things like rolling while shooting missile and so on.

WC2

--Just worked like WC1 but i played it with 8000 cycles.
--I don't remember that many problems. It worked a bit better than WC1 but aiming with my pad was still horrible.

Greetings :)
Post edited October 13, 2016 by Kilrathi89
Posted October 14, 2016
Sorry never mind.
Post edited October 14, 2016 by herecomethe2000
Posted October 14, 2016
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Kilrathi89: I just played it last month. Had cycles at around 6000 +-1000 and it ran pretty well. I also bought a snes remake usb controller and configured parts of it with joytokey. Was really great but i also had some issues.

WC1

Game:
ran a bit too fast when there weren't enemies.
ran a bit too slow when many cats were present.
--> Edit: but i think it was OK. If you remember the attack on space station also had at around 10FPs on Snes.

Don't remember any gamebreaking bugs (only some Tiger's Claw ships exploding for no reason) but it went quite well.

Controller (ibuffalo SNES Controller replica):

- The D-pad was way too strong so i couldn't aim that good. A tap on d-pad was around 2x too strong as i remembered from SNES --> I can't find a solution that the D-pad simulates e.g. 50% Joystick direction, its only 100% and that waytoo strong.
---> Does anyone know a solution?<---- (also have to use arrow keys sometimes)

- Had to delete most of the keys in DosBox (i only left Snes "B") because it would do strange things like rolling while shooting missile and so on.

WC2

--Just worked like WC1 but i played it with 8000 cycles.
--I don't remember that many problems. It worked a bit better than WC1 but aiming with my pad was still horrible.

Greetings :)
A snes controller is the worst controller for this game, this game has been made with either mouse or an analog joystick in mind, not a D-pad.
The reason the D-pad turns faster is because when you use a mouse you could use the arrow keys for continuous turns, the joystick of course doesn't have that problem.
You are better off using an x-box controller or a proper joystick.
Post edited October 14, 2016 by Det_Bullock
Posted October 14, 2016
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Kilrathi89: I just played it last month. Had cycles at around 6000 +-1000 and it ran pretty well. I also bought a snes remake usb controller and configured parts of it with joytokey. Was really great but i also had some issues.

WC1

Game:
ran a bit too fast when there weren't enemies.
ran a bit too slow when many cats were present.
--> Edit: but i think it was OK. If you remember the attack on space station also had at around 10FPs on Snes.

Don't remember any gamebreaking bugs (only some Tiger's Claw ships exploding for no reason) but it went quite well.

Controller (ibuffalo SNES Controller replica):

- The D-pad was way too strong so i couldn't aim that good. A tap on d-pad was around 2x too strong as i remembered from SNES --> I can't find a solution that the D-pad simulates e.g. 50% Joystick direction, its only 100% and that waytoo strong.
---> Does anyone know a solution?<---- (also have to use arrow keys sometimes)

- Had to delete most of the keys in DosBox (i only left Snes "B") because it would do strange things like rolling while shooting missile and so on.

WC2

--Just worked like WC1 but i played it with 8000 cycles.
--I don't remember that many problems. It worked a bit better than WC1 but aiming with my pad was still horrible.

Greetings :)
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Det_Bullock: A snes controller is the worst controller for this game, this game has been made with either mouse or an analog joystick in mind, not a D-pad.
The reason the D-pad turns faster is because when you use a mouse you could use the arrow keys for continuous turns, the joystick of course doesn't have that problem.
You are better off using an x-box controller or a proper joystick.
Thank you very much. Using a XBox Controller would've been my second solution but i really wanted to get the SNES WCI Feeling because i played that back in the days. :( So I'll go with XBox Controller instead complicated and not tryin' to bring back the dead. :)
Posted October 14, 2016
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Det_Bullock: A snes controller is the worst controller for this game, this game has been made with either mouse or an analog joystick in mind, not a D-pad.
That honer most likely goes to the Sega Genesis controller. Or worse, the 3DO with supper wing commander. XD
Posted October 29, 2016
Is there a mod to get rid of the slowdown when there's too many ships?
Posted October 31, 2016
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BananaJane: Is there a mod to get rid of the slowdown when there's too many ships?
Increase your dosbox cycle count as you need it. Wing commander 1+2, like many old dos games, are dependent on the cpu for their timings.
Post edited October 31, 2016 by herecomethe2000
Posted November 01, 2016
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Det_Bullock: A snes controller is the worst controller for this game, this game has been made with either mouse or an analog joystick in mind, not a D-pad.
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herecomethe2000: That honer most likely goes to the Sega Genesis controller. Or worse, the 3DO with supper wing commander. XD
In the optic of a game that's made for either a mouse or a joystick they are equally bad, I tend to prefer the 6-button Mega Drive controller myself (I play using knock-off ones) because the three button pad is too big and you can't play Super Street Fighter II with it.
Post edited November 01, 2016 by Det_Bullock
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Wing Commander seriesWing Commander I: is it playable now?(23 posts)(23 posts)
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