Wing Commander 3 – Today Show Feature

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I see I got another mention on WCNews today. It’s certainly flattering but I’m not so sure about this place being called “one of the most fantastic websites on the entire Internet”. I can imagine some dashed hopes when people actually click the link. However, in honour of the occasion I thought I should post something Wing Commander.

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This is a short feature I’ve got on VHS from The Today Show on Wing Commander III. It has some behind the scenes footage and also interviews with Mark Hamill, John Rhys Davis and Malcolm McDowell.

I can’t post anything these days without a short update on the VFX-1. I tried swapping to a floppy cable as a VESA connector and moving the graphics card to another slot and it has actually improved the picture slightly but it still doesn’t look as good as it should. I couldn’t find any other cards that worked at all but I did win the Trio64 for 99p so that is on the way and will hopefully do the job. However, I found a warning in my motherboard manual that old S3 cards could cause lockups so there is a strong possibility I won’t actually be able to use it. As a backup plan, I’m also going to buy an ET4000 if possible and have my eye on one on Ebay at a price I like. It’s in Papua New Guinea of all places but is still the cheapest option by a mile if I’m looking for one of the officially supported cards. Tempting as it is, I’m going to hold off actually playing anything on the VFX-1 until I get this sorted which could be some weeks if I’m waiting for a parcel from PNG.

That should give me time to play another game or two in the meanwhile. I’ve been hunting around on some more Japanese auction sites and have picked up Ultima 6 and Ultima 1-3 for FM-Towns as well as a pair of Japanese Ultima cluebooks but I won’t be getting any of those for a couple of weeks. I think Ultima 4 on the NES has to be next.

F-15 Review – PC Zone

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I’m still busy playing around with the VFX-1, so here is a review of F-15 from the June 1998 PC Zone:-

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The VFX-1 review is on hold for a little while as I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t entirely get along with the ATI graphics card the seller included. The card I’ve got could just be plain faulty as I’m seeing some interference when using it both on the monitor and VFX-1. It might explain why it refuses to work with my CRT monitor altogether.

I have managed to get stereo-3D working in Descent 2 and Quake and it is quite something. Those two games use a 3D mode where the image is shown on a regular monitor as alternating lines which the hardware/software splits into two images. System Shock and Magic Carpet use a different mode with two side by side images. This refuses to work no matter what I do. System Shock is especially strange as I can see the cursor floating around but none of the scenery behind it although it’s clearly there on my monitor.

I was looking at a review at http://www.vrtifacts.com/hmds/retrospective-photo-review-of-forte-vfx1-virtual-reality-system/ which has some pictures taken through the lenses and the images shown there are way sharper than what I’m seeing. That reviewer was using a Trio64 graphics card and there happens to be one on Ebay with no bids ending in a few hours for 99p which I fully intend to pick up. In the meanwhile, I’ll see if I can’t turn up some more cards to try out, and maybe swap the VESA cable.

Setting up the VFX-1

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I spent about 4 hours messing around with the VFX-1 last night. This isn’t going to be a review as I can’t say I’ve formed much of an opinion yet due it not proving to be the easiest bit of kit to set up. This post is more of a catalogue of my misadventures in getting it working. There aren’t going to be any photo’s or anything yet. My games room currently looks like a bomb has hit it with game boxes and PC parts all over the place.

The first problem with running one of these is that it comes with a separate ISA card which you connect to your video card’s VESA connector. The video is passed through to the ISA card via this cable and then on to the headset from the back of ISA card. The problem with this interface is that it can only cope with 256 colours and is picky on which video cards it will work with. My Voodoo 3 isn’t supposed to be one of them but I found a list of working cards in a 15 year old FAQ. I was originally going to buy a Trio64 but the guy I bought the card from threw in an ATI Mach 64 card. The cable supplied to connect the cards is ridiculously short. It wouldn’t be a problem if the connector wasn’t right at the far end of a fairly long ISA card. I just about got it to reach by moving everything around to get the two cards in adjacent slots but it’s still a stretch.

Everything’s connected up so I turn on my PC, swap the graphics to PCI instead of AGP in the BIOS and when it reboots I have nothing on my screen. The PC is booting up OK but I can’t see anything. I mess around with the graphics card trying different slots etc, I drag out another old PC or two to test the card but I’m getting nowhere and start to think the card must be faulty. After turning the place upside down looking for another PCI graphics card (and not finding one), I figure I could try connecting it up my Voodoo 3 to see what happens. The supplied cable is too short to reach between the ISA and AGP slots but I figure a floppy cable ought to work.

I connect the cards with a floppy cable, set up the VFX-1 software and try again. The good news at this point is that my VFX-1 is clearly working as the software picks it up and the screens light up. I’m not getting a picture though so it clearly won’t work with the Voodoo 3. I’m thinking that maybe the Mach 64 might not work with a monitor but may still connect up with the VFX-1. I set all that up again and actually get a picture on the headset now I have the software installed. I should be set to go here but the resolution isn’t fantastic on these things so reading text in a dos prompt is a non starter. It still isn’t a workable solution and I need to get my monitor working

As a last resort, I swap from my CRT to LCD monitor and as soon as I do that I’m getting a picture. If a 1995 video card wasn’t going to work with a monitor, it surely should have been the other way around. Having wasted an hour or two on that, I then proceed to try setting up the headset.

The headset has adjustments for each eye. It’s possible to slide each eye piece left and right with the aim of centering the view on your iris. Each eye piece has to be focused individually. This sounds simple enough but whatever I did, I couldn’t get it so that I had one single image in front of me. It just looked like two overlapping images and I had to close an eye to be able to make any sense of it. I spent ages messing around with different helmet and eye positions, then out of the blue while running the Magic Carpet intro it slides into one image. It’s like looking at one of those 3D images that suddenly clicks into place. I never could do those things which might explain why I had so much trouble with this. It turns out that the key for me is to have some sort of moving landscape on the screen, at which point my eyes focus and it looks like the one screen floating in front of me.

I’d like to say that was the last of my problems but trying to get head tracking to work in games proved just as tricky. I’d start them up but they wouldn’t detect the headset. The VFX-1 uses a TSR and I eventually learn that this doesn’t like being loaded into memory before the mouse driver. I only found this out relatively late last night and support in games was still temperamental. I expect a lot of driver tweaking is going to be in order. I’ve got stacks of versions of the VFX-1 software. The fact that the relevant sites see fit to store all these versions is probably telling me something.

The final thing I wanted to get working was Stereo-3D. This is only supported in a few games but true 3D is one of the main appeals of a VR headset. I tried this with numerous games unsuccessfully. Magic Carpet and Descent just give me two side by side images. System Shock goes dark and I can only see the cursor. Darker is all flickery like it’s alternating frames shutterglasses style. I’ve not had chance to search the web for help on this yet, so I hope I’ll be able to get it working with some tweaking. It may only be a driver issue but I’m suspicious that I may end up needing to swap graphics card. There are plenty of supported cards on Ebay at £1-2 so I’ll pick one up if I can’t get it working tonight.

All this struggling with the technology has meant I’ve not actually tried to play a game for more than a minute or two. I can say that the low resolution is a serious problem if you want to read text. I can just about make it out most of the time but it’s not great. The help screen at the start of System Shock is a mass of gibberish. The in game graphics don’t look bad at all though. The colours are good, possibly not as bright as I’d like but there are some little adjustment screws for each screen if I feel the need to tweak that. I’m impressed with the field of view which is far larger than I was expecting. I tried a pair of Vuzix VR920’s some years back and the screen size on the VFX-1 is considerably bigger. From the little I saw, it was extremely immersive flying around in Magic Carpet and the game looked great even in 2D. If I can only get it running in 3D, I’m going to seriously enjoy playing that one in VR.

The weight on my head isn’t too bad all things considered although you certainly won’t forget you are wearing it. I still feel kind of like I’m still wearing it hours later so it leaves its mark. It’s as much the snug fit as the actual weight. I like the ability to be able to flip the front up and down and it’s pretty much required if you have to stop and read text off your screen. The built in headphones are great and provide a real seal on outside sound. A volume control would have been nice but I can sort something out by rerouting the sound through my other PC. It all looks promising so far. I wish it had a higher resolution but I was aware of that limitation and from what I’ve seen I don’t regret spending the money. Even when it’s not working, it’s a cool looking bit of kit and worth having around for decorative value. I’ve set all of tonight aside and should be able to put it through its paces properly when I get in from work.

Bioforge, System Shock CD & Wings Of Glory Demo Tape

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I have my freshly delivered VFX-1 sat here which I’m dying to try out but unfortunately I have some work and other things to do before I can start setting it up. I should hopefully manage an hour or two tonight and might post my first impressions tomorrow. In the meanwhile and by way of filler, I thought I’d post this VHS tape of demos for 3 Origin games.

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The tape has gameplay videos of Bioforge, System Shock and Wings Of Glory which loop over and over and was presumably used in either a store or show to market the games. I’ve uploaded a complete loop to Youtube but I didn’t spot anything unusual in there so it’s not the most exciting viewing. It is at least relevant for today since two of the games are supported by the VFX-1 and I hope to try them out later.

The tape includes the entire end sequence from Bioforge, which is surprising as I would have thought was something of a spoiler to people you were trying to sell the game to.

Wing Commander 3 3DO Demo – Attempt 2

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I didn’t get too far when trying to run this demo on Freedo a couple of weeks back. I’ve got the real hardware now though so I burned it to a CD to give it another go. Capturing screenshots off a 3DO presents a problem. I did try running the console through a video capture card which worked but caused a lengthy delay which would have made it unplayable. A few extra cables and I suppose I could have routed it through that and the TV in parallel but for now I’ve resorted to taking a couple of pictures of my TV with my phone.

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The demo starts with a familiar FMV trailer. I was hoping that the FMV would be much better quality than on the PC. WC3 was the first game I ever played that used full screen SVGA FMV with any sort of fluidity. With only 256 colours and early compression techniques, this came at a cost with major compression artifacts. It probably does look slightly better on 3DO but it’s marginal if there is a difference.

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After the FMV, I get to play the start of the game. I can’t go into the lift but I can talk to Hobbes, attend the briefing, etc.. What I really want to get to is the flying thanks to rumours from Loaf that this is quite different to the PC.

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There are definitely plenty of changes in the cockpit. Firstly it’s a lot more colourful including full colour FMV in the VDU. The 3D engine runs really well and a lot smoother than I was expecting with more detail on the Victory than normal if anything. Also, the cockpit slides around the screen slightly as I steer which could take some getting used to. There isn’t any music but I’m assuming that was just to keep the demo size down.

The maximum speed of my Hellcat is now only 188. This does mean I can adjust speed a lot more quickly and probably makes sense. Getting up to full speed on Sega CD WC1 took ages. I’d be lying if I said I knew what all the controls were when I finished playing this but I got the most important ones from the help screen and it wasn’t too hard to change weapons and command my wingman. How I lock onto an opponent remains a mystery.

The mission itself is a simple patrol in which I come up against a lot of Darkets and one small capship (which I can’t recall ever seeing outside of this demo). This capship is a sitting duck but the explosions do look good with all the extra colours when I’m shooting it. There is a whole lot more debris when things blow up here also which is satisfying if a little unrealistic. I’d have to say this version definitely wins over the PC in looks. Where I do have problems is actually shooting anything. There seems to be a steep learning curve getting to grips with the different control systems every time I swap Wing Commander ports. My missiles get me through but if I’d had to shoot the Darkets with lasers I could have been playing this for some time.

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While I’m flailing around space trying to shoot them, these 3DO Darkets have a new taunt or two for me + a few manoeuvres I can’t recall seeing before. After clearing them from 3 nav points, I autopilot back to the Victory and the demo ends as soon as I ask to land. The flying in and out of the Victory at the start and end of missions appears to be missing completely presumably for performance reasons but it’s not a huge loss.

I expect there is nothing original to this demo over the full game but it does give a good idea as to whether it’s worth getting the full thing in the first place. Having recently bought it for 54p, I didn’t really need that question answering but I do think this looks good enough to justify hunting down a 3DO flightstick. I expect I could play it with the regular 3DO controller but if it’s really going to be fun this deserves to be played with a joystick. On that basis, I’ll save it for a while in favour of the PS1 version but with the VFX-1 arriving tomorrow, I won’t be looking at either of them for a while.