I still own this fun set of Wing Commander games, the only good way to play without old DOSBox GoG stuff or doing it yourself. The problem is while I had no issue with Win7, something changed in 8. I can NOT install or run this game.
The installer just straight fails, won't copy the files and tanks.
If I manually move the files off the disc which is just what the installer does anyway, if I run it the game bombs too. It will try and set the native 320x240 mode and then be stuck on a black screen. If you alt+tab out, WINDOWS is now stuck at that resolution with no recovery other than a restart. NO compatibility mode settings or odd tweaks I can find will get this thing going. I really do not want to sell this set as it's a favorite, and it's expensive on the after market.
I know someone weeks ago at the wcnews.com (wing commander cic) posted a story to a forum post of someone making a directx9 loader/replacement file set for (so far) just WC1 to work on modern machines. The link there is dead, and the link at that guys website is dead too. This may solve part of the problem right there. If this doesn't has anyone got any odd ideas as I can't dig up squat on google.
Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga and x64 Windows 8/8.1
Re: Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga and x64 Windows 8/8.1
Windows x64 in general removed support for 16-bit apps, outside of specifically handled cases (Installshield and such), if that applies.
Windows 8/8.1 apparently have some performance issue emulating older DirectX versions as well, but that's usually a massive performance drop rather than outright crashing. You may need to install DirectPlay though. Some things will stop and say it's needed, but maybe just lacking it leads to crashing.
Windows 8/8.1 apparently have some performance issue emulating older DirectX versions as well, but that's usually a massive performance drop rather than outright crashing. You may need to install DirectPlay though. Some things will stop and say it's needed, but maybe just lacking it leads to crashing.
Re: Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga and x64 Windows 8/8.1
Win7 has the same problem with 16bit stuff, it just won't run it at all. The game though is 32bit with a 32bit installer, it's not the usual bomb where it says it's too old to fire up.
The game itself is probably having the issue you said second though, hating old releases of directx. I tried to explore that using a program (dll) called dxhack that did work to fix that problem in Win7 64bit, but it had no such luck again in Win8 so whatever they changed yet again broke it.
Hopefully that dude fixes the line at the Wing Commander CIC site, that one redoes all the directx calls into DX9 format so it works perfect.
The game itself is probably having the issue you said second though, hating old releases of directx. I tried to explore that using a program (dll) called dxhack that did work to fix that problem in Win7 64bit, but it had no such luck again in Win8 so whatever they changed yet again broke it.
Hopefully that dude fixes the line at the Wing Commander CIC site, that one redoes all the directx calls into DX9 format so it works perfect.