Release Wing Commander Saga


ptitSeb

Serial Porter
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Here is Wing Commander Saga, on free game based on Wing Commander storyline and universe, using a fork of FS2_Open.


preview1.png



This game is *HUGE*. The data themselves are more than 7Gb. You can either copy the data yourself, or simple grab the wcsaga_data.pnd from the repo. Note that this data PND is also quite big, at a woopping 3.9Gb, so you need a very up-to-date firmware (at least 1.72 update 6) for this package to register.

The port itself use latest gl4es, using TextureStreaming for the movies (there are more than 2Gb of hires movies), NEON optimised Tremor & Theora (for sound and streaming video), and as many optimisisation to make it as smooth as possible. Even with all this, on a gigahertz, you will have a few stuter on some movies (not much), and some capital ships (composed of more the 50k triangles) make the game a bit shoppy. Because you start the mission inside that ship (and you end a mission by going back inside), it may be a bit difficult to fly at beggining end of mission, especialy on lower model than the Gigahertz. The game is smooth in dogfight, and the graphics details, ship models and ambiant sounds are awesome.
Anyway, I still recommend to use lower Model detail and Lower Texture details in the config screens

The controls have been adapted to the Pandora, using mostly the same layout as the other FS2 port.

Note that the Left nub is the mouse (to navigate in the menu) and the Right nub is a joystick (to fly the ship). Mouse buttons are on the shoulder (to click the menus or to fire primary / secondary weapons), but the ".noshouldermb" trick is available too.

Also, the game was designed to be played on a 1024x768 screen. It fit the smaller 800x480 screen of the Pandora quite nicely, exept for most of the text that were to small. So I enlarge the smaller font (2 times) to make it more readable. Unfortunatly, some menu now overlap a bit, and some text in some mission breifing is missing (no scroller). Luckily, the whole breifing is also read alound, so just listed to the missing part. I'll try to find a better workaround for this font issue later.

In fly, navigating from Waypoint to waypoint can take time, so don't hesitate to use Alt-A to use autopilot to next waypoint.

History log
=========

Build 02
-----------

  • Fresh build
  • Updated libs
Build 01
-----------

  • Initial build
  • Automount optional wcsaga_data pnd if data are missing
  • Many pandora optimization and customisations
 
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Boah wow realy Great and Big,Download start here now ^_^


Tomorrow i will have my free Day,maybe i make a little Video from it.


Realy Great....Thhhxxxx :D
 
weeee! wing commander! i have never heard of this project, always loved the old series and privateer. thanks so much ptitseb!
 
Thank's Seb


I think that with my CC Pandora it will not run at decent speed...so i'll wait for the Pyra release. :)
 
About 10 gb, for PND and Datafiles thats a lot..


But i also wait for the Pyra release, i got me a 128 gb SD Card for it, and i have now realy fast internet since oktober ( 30.000 instead of 500 )...


As i have still my CC Unit..
 
About 10 gb, for PND and Datafiles thats a lot..
But i also wait for the Pyra release, i got me a 128 gb SD Card for it, and i have now realy fast internet since oktober ( 30.000 instead of 500 )...


As i have still my CC Unit..
It's not 10gb but 4gb if you take the data pnd.
 
It wouldnt work well as i have the CC Pandora

Did you notice this comment in Ptitseb original post before trying it? Notaz had to update a few things with PND system to be able to for large PND files to work properly.

so you need a very up-to-date firmware (at least 1.72 update 6) for this package to register.
 
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Even so, he also said:

Even with all this, on a gigahertz, you will have a few stuter on some movies (not much), and some capital ships (composed of more the 50k triangles) make the game a bit shoppy. Because you start the mission inside that ship (and you end a mission by going back inside), it may be a bit difficult to fly at beggining end of mission, especialy on lower model than the Gigahertz.



In other words, it should be playable, but your definition of 'fun' may not hold on a CC unit, especially to begin with. With the Pyra apparently so close now, I can understand people wanting to wait.
 
This looks awesome, but I always get errors trying to run it.


Error, cannot find Data files or Data PND.
You need to get the data of WCSaga or install the Data PND somewhere (missing: hermes_sounds.vp hermes_movies.vp hermes_movies_prologue.vp hermes_modles.vp hermes_maps.vp hermes_interface.vp hermes effects.vp hermes_core.vp hermes_cbanims.vp )


I have both PNDs, wcsaga.pnd and wcsaga_data.pnd from repo.openpandora.org and they're in the same folder, so I'm not entirely sure what could be wrong.
 
This looks awesome, but I always get errors trying to run it.


Code:
Error, cannot find Data files or Data PND.You need to get the data of WCSaga or install the Data PND somewhere (missing: hermes_sounds.vp hermes_movies.vp hermes_movies_prologue.vp hermes_modles.vp hermes_maps.vp hermes_interface.vp hermes effects.vp hermes_core.vp hermes_cbanims.vp )
I have both PNDs, wcsaga.pnd and wcsaga_data.pnd from repo.openpandora.org and they're in the same folder, so I'm not entirely sure what could be wrong.
Did you update your firmware ?


(to check if the data pnd is registered, see if you have a Wing Commander Saga Manual shortcut in the Document menu)
 
Breaded Butter said:
This looks awesome, but I always get errors trying to run it.


Code:
Error, cannot find Data files or Data PND.You need to get the data of WCSaga or install the Data PND somewhere (missing: hermes_sounds.vp hermes_movies.vp hermes_movies_prologue.vp hermes_modles.vp hermes_maps.vp hermes_interface.vp hermes effects.vp hermes_core.vp hermes_cbanims.vp )
I have both PNDs, wcsaga.pnd and wcsaga_data.pnd from repo.openpandora.org and they're in the same folder, so I'm not entirely sure what could be wrong.
Did you update your firmware ?
(to check if the data pnd is registered, see if you have a Wing Commander Saga Manual shortcut in the Document menu)
Maybe i have the Solution for this:


Yesterday with my short Test i had the Same Error.


Both PNDs wered copied to


/media/sdcard/pandora/desktop


And i had this Error.


Move the Data File then to


/media/sdcard/pandora/menu helped and it run fine.


Maybe a Bug in the PND Search Script for not searching the Data Files on /media/sdcard/Desktop ?


Or maybe an internal PND Naming Problem that the 2 PND not working in the same Directory?


The short Test from yesterday was wonderfull.


Videos are nice,Gameplay perfectly for me.


Unfortunaly no Time for a Video yet,but come soon :)


This Game is Epic,thx for your hard work and relealing it PtitSeb Yay :D
 
Did you update your firmware ?


(to check if the data pnd is registered, see if you have a Wing Commander Saga Manual shortcut in the Document menu)

Derp >.<


I double-checked the firmware after I posted and it turned out I did need to update, but that didn't solve the error. So then I double-checked the pnd and it was smaller than it was supposed to be at 2GB exactly. I'm guessing that's related to the fact that I downloaded it under the old firmware, then updated. I'm now re-downloading the data pnd and will post the results tomorrow, but if my guess is right it may be a good idea to make note for those of us less familiar with the Pandora's architecture that re-downloading after updating may be necessary.


UPDATE: It's working now.
 
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The data pnd search mecanism use the shortcut "Wing Commander Saga Manuel" to find and mount the data pnd. If you don't have this shortcut, it will not discover the pnd automatically. I am not sure putting the data pnd on a desktop folder create the entry (looking for /usr/share/application/wcsaga_data*.desktop) indeed, better to put it on a "menu" or "apps" folder.
 
Ah, is that why the data package is called the manual?  I thought that was a little odd when I was downloading it.


FWIW, I was unable to download it using PNDManager, so I switched to downloading it using Firefox from the repo.  I noticed while I was doing that that I had about half a dozen package updates to do so I did those.  Once firefox had finished, it didn't notify me that a download had completed, and checking in its history it claimed the pnd was of size 0 bytes, but checking in my download folder there seemed to be 3.something GB of it, so I moved that to my PNDs folder, and it seems to have worked.


But the firefox thing struck me as peculiar.  Is misreporting the size of downloaded files something that was also fixed in that recent firmware update?  I'd assumed that only applied to pnds being parsed by libpnd.


Edit: Can you produce an sha1sum of the data pnd so I can verify I've got it all?
 
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Ah, is that why the data package is called the manual?  I thought that was a little odd when I was downloading it.


FWIW, I was unable to download it using PNDManager, so I switched to downloading it using Firefox from the repo.  I noticed while I was doing that that I had about half a dozen package updates to do so I did those.  Once firefox had finished, it didn't notify me that a download had completed, and checking in its history it claimed the pnd was of size 0 bytes, but checking in my download folder there seemed to be 3.something GB of it, so I moved that to my PNDs folder, and it seems to have worked.


But the firefox thing struck me as peculiar.  Is misreporting the size of downloaded files something that was also fixed in that recent firmware update?  I'd assumed that only applied to pnds being parsed by libpnd.


Edit: Can you produce an sha1sum of the data pnd so I can verify I've got it all?

Anyway, if you have the shortcut, it means you have it all because the icon and PXML are simply appended at the end of the squashfs container to make a PND. So you the end of the file correct (and thus I assume what is before too, but checksum is more safe of course, so I'll get them tonight).
 
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