Everything runs OK, but when I'm in a mission, and there is to much stuff on the screen, laser, ships, etc, it gets slow. Its annoying but playable.

I'm running windows 7 64bit.

Any recommendations for configuration on the graphic mode setup?

Its the dos emulator. it has a virtual cpu speed, you can adjust in with ctrl + f12 to make it faster or ctrl + f11 to slow it down. but when there is only one enemy left it will run too fast so, you will have to regulate that time by time.

regulating the speed and fighting of cats...

I will take my changes in the slowmotion shooting.

Thanks for the help.

Wing Commander doesnt run fine in dosbox.

In my opinion, they shouldn´t even sell this game here

They should sell the Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga versions. They run better, and the music is redone and improved.

http://download.wcnews.com/files/wing1/

Check out the Pcgamer files for WC1.

You may need this if you are using win 7.
http://sol.gfxile.net/ddhack/

Not sure how to actually use the direct draw hack though.

Edit: Just stick the files into the same folder as the WC1.EXE.

Note, I do not know if there is any easy way to patch it to include the expansion packs.

Well the dos versions of wc1+2 were not auto timed. unlike the windows 95 ports, but the win95 ports are their own can of worms and harder and harder to get running on modern systems. hence the dos versions. of course the guys over at wcnews.com have done a great job finding ways to get these running but they are still a pain. I for instance keep having the music hang every few minutes forcing me to restart.

In my experience wc1 doesn't run that great in vanilla dosbox. (for all the above reasons and having to manually set cycles takes one out of the game) If on windows i'd look into taewong's build as it has some performance boots and auto cycles does a better job (not to mention built in mt32 emulation which is a real improment over the soundblaster sounds imo).

The mac versions powered by boxer however are perfect, though if you are like me and running a 5 year old macbook pro with nvidia8600, its probably best to run it in just the default original scaler shader as oppose to the other options. (particularly the smooth setting) At least as of the time of this posting. I'm sure alun will look into it when he has time .

BTW, I think according to WCNews.com, the new GOG.com release (with expansion packs) includes dosbox tweaks made by people from their site.

The thing is I'd like to see GOG packs include both the dos and the Kilrathi Saga versions (with hacks). For one it gives you alternative option to try if one doesn't work on one setup, perhaps the other will work better. Plus Kilrathi Saga suffered from requiring the cd to load the game. It would be great to have versions that have cd-less copy protection (see WC1 PC Gamer version link above for an idea).

I don't care if they split the Kilrathi Saga up by putting first two games in the WC 1+2 pack and the improved WC3 with WC3 pack; but it would be nice to get Enhanced experience in all three games.

Plus Kilrathi Saga version includes a number of improvements as well including real digital sound effects, and the music.

[1.2] Features

+ Utilizes Microsoft DirectX library!

+ Full digital music and sound effects for all three games!

+ Instrumental orchestrations of music by the Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV Composer, George Oldziey!

Wing Commander I and II Specific Features

+ Optional full screen mode for enhanced visibility!

Wing Commander III Specific Features

+ Throttle and rudder pedal support for Wing Commander III! When set up in the Joystick Properties, the throttle and rudder pedals can be used in Wing Commander III for Windows 95. The throttle will affect your set speed, and the rudder pedals will roll your ship. Additionally, when selecting the Control Type, you can choose from Keyboard, Mouse, and whatever joystick you have selected in the Windows 95 Control Panel.

+ Play the game full-screen or in a window! (Wing Commander III)

AFAIK the KS version of Wing III is all but unplayable on any OS other then win9x as the movies would freeze instantly. For the others, personally I'm glad they went with the dos ones. Mac support if nothing else. Also prefer the mt32 sound effects/music to the digital ones, which again would freeze and loop on me within 5 minutes of playing at least for me on winXP. Is this better on newer OSs?

With WC3 it might be possible to extract the updated soundtracks and incorporate them into the game with less work. The updated joystick features probably outdated anyways and would have to be reconfigured.

The videos in both versions are the same as far as I can remember (so no need to update that).

Otherwise I agree there is less of a need to reproduce a native windows version of WC3, or include two different versions of WC3 in a 'pack'. Other than the fact that win Kilrathi Saga version runs, it generally runs more efficiently and 'faster' than the dos versions.

The main reason to have the windows versions for WC1 and II (I think they should be included with and as an alternative to the dos versions) is mainly for the completly digitized sound effects (digital weapon sounds, the water drip in WC1 barracks, alarms sounds, etc) and redone/improved music. Unfortunately the music breaks on modern systems and would need to be fixed.

I don't own an MT-32 so that isn't going to help me much!

Easier said than done, unfortunately. They would need the source code of the dos versions to make use of said music. Which doesn't exist AFAIK.

I'll admit, I haven't tried the KS versions in Wine which tends to do well with some win9x games where modern windows fails.

Edit

few own a mt32 though they are fairly affordable on ebay.

But the emulation scene has done a great job of fixing this for us. Just make use of a dosbox build like taewong, or mac's boxer that has it built in. (Even the gog standalone release of boxer has this but you need boxer.app to set it up) and a google search for the roms. Voiia. Give it a try.

http://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/windows-7-and-wc3.23414/

Seems to be mixed results, but it appears some people apparently have found Kilrathi Saga version of WC3 works flawless on their Windows 7 systems.

If I had my cds close at hand, I'd test out to see what happens on my system.

One of the big complaints was the colors going weird, but that's something DDhack should fix.

I've been messing around with the PC Gamer version of the WC1 Kilrathi Saga (semi freeware edition), and with DDhack I haven't noticed any problems. I haven't noticed any issues yet, with the music. However, I can't say I have had it going continuously for five minutes exactly or not.

My experience with it is an old one. so they may have found a fix by now. I've only long since given up on it. XD

It was a real shame, I discovered the semi freeware and sat down to play wc1 after many years, and only having played the SNES port before, I was pumped to say the least. I got through a couple a missions and that would then happen to me. It just killed the experience.

Well apparently there is one other major 'difference', and a negative one at that between the dos and KS version of WC1/2. Apparently for whatever reason, the backgrounds with the planets, stars, and nebulas, etc, don't show up. Don't know if this is a bug in newer machines or a 'change' made when they ported the games into windows.

There are a few other differences such that the game automatically names you Blair callsign Maverick, instead of leaving it up to you to name it (though you can go in and change it to anything else), that's kinda cool.

Well, the good news is apparently WCNews has a copy of the WC1 Sourcecode
http://www.wcnews.com/news/update/11167

THis should make it much easier to make mods to the game, if they can EA's permission.

Yah its there for archive purposes on their offline storage. There is no way one could have permission to download and mod it. Just look how hard it was for gog just to get the expansions from EA's very skilled lawyers.

Only way I can see it working is if they can get permission from the lawyers to make the mod, and that mod is only distributed via official source such as GOG, and that EA and only EA makes profits from the mod. Only problem is that is a very touchy position. There are alot of legal issues that could get in the way.

However, I should try to hunt down the threads where the ones who were 'working' on the mod, and leave a post and see if its still active...

Also if the lawyers were really sticklers they'd be stopping all the Wing Commander related 'fan games'... Activison for example has been pretty bad about that in the past :p, and other companies Lucasarts is always shutting down fan games...

EA might actually be one of the more 'understanding' game companies, at least with this franchise.

EA was even understanding enough to allow Pilgrim's Truth to finally be released through the fans!