Remastering

[Anarchist420]

How does gog get the games they sell to work on windows7 64 (e.g., rayman2) and how were they able to upgrade the fmv quality for some games (e.g., wing commander)?

What are other things that can be done besides using the latest official patches, compressing the audio, upgrading the Fmv, and making the games work with windows 7 64?

I think they do a decent job for the games they sell, the only gripe I have is that the audio from most games that used redbook is changed to ogg vorbis.

 

[SunnyD]

DOSBox.

 

[Cerb]

How does gog get the games they sell to work on windows7 64 (e.g., rayman2)

Most games work fine on Windows 7. Installers and patchers make them difficult to impossible to install or patch, however. Some games may need some paths adjusted, as well, since the Vista change in folder permissions.

As a non-GoG example, I had to install Mechwarrior 3 on a XP box, patch it, then copy it and its relevant registry keys over to my desktop for it to work. The game itself is perfectly compatible. The issue with installers is that the ancient code wasn't broken, wasn't written in a nice portable language, and would still run in new versions of Windows. So, why change it?

Some games can be fixed by replacing DirectX DLLs. Throwing in a special or updated version of d3dx[_xx].dll, FI, can fix some games. Most loaded DLLs are first looked for in the application path, before system32 and such.

Really ancient games, OTOH, that really run in DOS, do get put in a customized DOSbox launcher.

and how were they able to upgrade the fmv quality for some games (e.g., wing commander)?

Don't know. Obviously, the higher quality video must have existed and been ready to go, though.

What are other things that can be done besides using the latest official patches, compressing the audio, upgrading the Fmv, and making the games work with windows 7 64?

Custom patching. Some old games have gotten community patches that actually re-assemble the exe for 64-bit compatibility. System Shock 2 requires this, but I never could get it working (not on GoG).

Most games since the mid/late 90s have been 64-bit compatible. 64-bit removes legacy addressing instructions that nobody in their right mind used, once they could reliably use protected mode with a big flat memory space. A handful of game devs were not in their right minds, but most of the problems are either fixable by means of updated DLLs, wrapper DLLs, minor config changes, or making new installers--the game EXEs were fine, in and of themselves.

I think they do a decent job for the games they sell, the only gripe I have is that the audio from most games that used redbook is changed to ogg vorbis.

For size/bandwidth, I guess. What games would these be?

 

[Anarchist420]

Most games work fine on Windows 7. Installers and patchers make them difficult to impossible to install or patch, however. Some games may need some paths adjusted, as well, since the Vista change in folder permissions.

As a non-GoG example, I had to install Mechwarrior 3 on a XP box, patch it, then copy it and its relevant registry keys over to my desktop for it to work. The game itself is perfectly compatible. The issue with installers is that the ancient code wasn't broken, wasn't written in a nice portable language, and would still run in new versions of Windows. So, why change it?

Some games can be fixed by replacing DirectX DLLs. Throwing in a special or updated version of d3dx[_xx].dll, FI, can fix some games. Most loaded DLLs are first looked for in the application path, before system32 and such.

Really ancient games, OTOH, that really run in DOS, do get put in a customized DOSbox launcher.
Don't know. Obviously, the higher quality video must have existed and been ready to go, though.

Custom patching. Some old games have gotten community patches that actually re-assemble the exe for 64-bit compatibility. System Shock 2 requires this, but I never could get it working (not on GoG).

Most games since the mid/late 90s have been 64-bit compatible. 64-bit removes legacy addressing instructions that nobody in their right mind used, once they could reliably use protected mode with a big flat memory space. A handful of game devs were not in their right minds, but most of the problems are either fixable by means of updated DLLs, wrapper DLLs, minor config changes, or making new installers--the game EXEs were fine, in and of themselves.
For size/bandwidth, I guess. What games would these be?

2 that I know of are mdk 1 and kingpin. I believe the digital downloads of the 7th guest and the eleventh hour are also lossy (haven't bought them , but the hard drive requirements for both seems very small) and Im pretty sure the cd rom versions used wav files. Fortunately, the alone in the dark trilogy I bought from them isn't lossy.

I've just never seen lossy compression to be worth the extra bandwidth and space, but unfortunately I m in a tiny minority. Lossy textures are even worse than lossy audio IMO, but few games have lossless textures.



However, gog isn't the only digital download seller that made their download ver of Mdk have lossy audio.

 

[Cerb]

I've just never seen lossy compression to be worth the extra bandwidth and space, but unfortunately I m in a tiny minority.

They either pay by MB/mo, of Mb/s, and/or pay for use of file cache/proxy servers, none of which are cheap. The originals probably didn't have any options, other than some form of 22.05-48k PCM.

Lossy textures are even worse than lossy audio IMO, but few games have lossless textures.

BS. Lossy textures are fantastic. You can get 4:1 and higher at a given resolution, allowing far more detailed textures for a given amount of VRAM space and bandwidth. Recent GPUs (not sure about Geforces, but Radeons definitely) have even gotten to keeping the compression right until they need pixel samples, reducing on-chip space and bandwidth use, too.

If you can see that a texture is compressed, blame the dev, not the texture compression technology.