Return to Castle Wolfenstein

[czarman]

Widescreen Grade: C
Ultra-Widescreen Grade: C
Multi-monitor Grade: C
4k Grade: C

Read Full Detailed Report - Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a first person shooter video game published by Activision and originally released on November 19, 2001 for Windows. The single player game was developed by Gray Matter Interactive and Nerve Software developed its multiplayer mode. Id Software, the creators of Wolfenstein 3D, oversaw the development and were credited as executive producers. The multiplayer side eventually became the most popular part of the game, and was influential in the genre. Splash Damage, an independently-owned game developer in London, created some of the maps for the Game of the Year edition. A sequel, titled Wolfenstein, was released on August 18, 2009.

4:3

16:10

16:9

21:9

3x1

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[The_cranky_hermit]

RTCW's source code was released under the GPL last Friday. I've been working nonstop since then on putting together a widescreen optimized version. Anyone want to test this out?

Read ALL the notes before using or else!

Features:
[list]
[*]cg_fov value now corresponds to fov_y, making gameplay hor +[/*:m]
[*]cg_fov is no longer a cheat[/*:m]
[*]cg_fov defaults to 75 instead of 90 (this is the correct value for fov_y)[/*:m]
[*]Ingame cut-scenes are hor +[/*:m]
[*]HUD scales and stays centered[/*:m]
[*]Menus and other 2D graphics scale and stay centered[/*:m]
[*]Skyboxes are corrected for wide aspect ratios[/*:m]
[*]FMVs work correctly, scaled and centered[/*:m]
[*]Provisional tallscreen support[/*:m][/list:u]

Limitations:
[list]
[*]Ingame resolution menu does not list widescreen resolutions - use method below instead[/*:m]
[*]Some incomplete weapon animations (they were always incomplete - you just wouldn't know it in 4:3)[/*:m]
[*]Only the first level has been tested - problems may exist later[/*:m]
[*]Multiplayer is not supported at all[/*:m][/list:u]

Instructions:
Make sure RTCW is installed. If you are using the Steam version, find the game directory (should be steamappscommonreturn to castle wolfenstein) and MOVE/COPY it OUTSIDE of the Steam directory.

Download this: (link removed)

Source code is here: (link removed)

Extract the files inside to your non-Steam RTCW directory, overwriting any existing files. Edit the file "res.txt." Change lines 2 and 3 to set your resolution. As long as this file is present (and the game can parse it properly), it will override the resolution selected by the ingame menu. If you get rid of this file, you should be able to use custom resolutions by editing Wolfconfig.cfg like before, but you can leave the FOV at 75.

Let me know how it goes!

[Tanuki]

Couldn't you have a toggle for HUD centering?

[thales100]

RTCW's source code was released under the GPL last Friday. I've been working nonstop since then on putting together a widescreen optimized version. Anyone want to test this out?

Amazing work, ill buy the game on steam just to try your stuff :rockout

Edit: Shit the olldddd game costs $20 ?! :cry:

[GeneralAdmission]

Great stuff, cranky! I'll test this out as soon as possible, though it may take a day or two. (back-to-school crazies)

[TBZ]

With the old CFG edit, the game would crash when loading the map after you escape from the Castle (the level with the tram), but it worked like a charm now, loading the next level in the village, and starting it, without issue.

Great job, Cranky! :onethumb

[Jackal Frost]

I tried it out, but I forgot that all games with a q3 base refuse to launch on my computer, I'll try it on my laptop.

Thank you sir, glad to see the source code is being put to good use so soon.

[The_cranky_hermit]

Big update. I pretty much redid this thing from scratch, applying some lessons I learned while doing Quake 3 widescreen.

[list]
[*]Menus and other 2D graphics scale and center correctly, not just the HUD[/*:m]
[*]FMVs now display in widescreen (and scale too)[/*:m]
[*]Better tallscreen support (still not fully tested, though)[/*:m][/list:u]

[scavvenjahh]

Multi-mon and tallscreen support uh ? Yummy. Really curious about the "funky" grenade throwing, too. If I can find my RTCW disc before my AoE2 one, I'm definitely giving this a whirl.

[Leapo]

Should we patch the game to the latest version before using these modified files, or is using these updated files equivalent to running the latest patch?

[StingingVelvet]

This is great of you Cranky, I look forward to the results. This is one of my favorite FPS games of all time :D

[GeneralAdmission]

So when I tried to run the game I ran headlong into the 'All Q3 engine games are non-functional due to borked OGL in any Catalyst driver higher than 10.4' problem. I got things sorted through a community fix, but I'm shocked that AMD hasn't rectified this problem in any of the 3 more recent driver releases.
/rant off

On to the new RTCW executable...great work, Cranky! I followed your instructions and the game ran at 3840x1024 for me the first time. No errors or anomalies noticed thus far. Some screenies:

Apparently there was some residual Google Earth imagery in VRAM? The intro video played fine, though.








One question: is the game based on a 4:3 base AR? I noticed that the green energy bar is actually pushed out onto my left monitor, and the main menu extends a little onto both side monitors. Is there a tweak I should do since I'm running 3x5:4 or is this correct functionality?

Thanks again. I've never played this game before and now I have a very good reason. ;)

[Leapo]

Ran across a bug after picking up the sniper scope. There's some HUD stretch going on here:



To match the original game, it should look something like this (this is just a Photoshoped example)

[The_cranky_hermit]

Should we patch the game to the latest version before using these modified files

I would, if you aren't running the Steam version. The modified files are the binaries, and the patch probably contains updated data files as well as new binaries.

Apparently there was some residual Google Earth imagery in VRAM?

Interesting. I don't quite understand how the movie player works - I just sort of messed with the code until it played at all (retail RTCW will not play FMVs at wide aspect ratios at all), and after that, changed the screen scaling code to make it keep the aspect ratio. I can't reproduce this myself, and even if I could, I have no idea how you would flush the VRAM, so don't count on me fixing it.

One question: is the game based on a 4:3 base AR?

Yes. If you want the HUD to stay on the center monitor, I would recommend you create a 3840x960 custom resolution. This should cause the middle 33% to be a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Ran across a bug after picking up the sniper scope. There's some HUD stretch going on here

Thanks for catching that. Fixed, and new version uploaded. Should work fine with your old saved game, as long as you didn't quicksave while zoomed in.

[Leapo]

Thanks for fixing the scope so quickly! :bowdown

It's almost perfect, but there's a gap in the texture on the right side. Any way to close that slit?

[GeneralAdmission]

Apparently there was some residual Google Earth imagery in VRAM?

Interesting. I don't quite understand how the movie player works - I just sort of messed with the code until it played at all (retail RTCW will not play FMVs at wide aspect ratios at all), and after that, changed the screen scaling code to make it keep the aspect ratio. I can't reproduce this myself, and even if I could, I have no idea how you would flush the VRAM, so don't count on me fixing it.

This seems to have been a random fluke since subsequent launches don't show residual imagery anymore. Not sure what the cause may be, but I'm guessing it's more something to do with my system than the game code itself--no fixing expected on your part.

Thanks again.

[The_cranky_hermit]

It's almost perfect, but there's a gap in the texture on the right side.

I don't see anything wrong with the zoomed view. Are you talking about this?


(if you're talking about something different, please show me a screenshot and disregard the rest of this post)

I'm guessing that they didn't bother drawing the lens texture on the ViewWeapon model, as they never expected anyone would be playing in triple monitor mode. If that's the case, then there's nothing I can do about that. I did look into the possibility that the scope is penetrating the zNear plane, but after messing around with the ViewWeapon function and getting it to draw the weapon from different angles and distances, that texture still is missing.

[Leapo]

Nah, the missing geometry is understandable. The issue I'm talking about is directly related to the scope fix you just made:



Look to the right side of the image, where the 4:3 boundary would normally be. There's a texture seam where the scope overlay ends and the black overlay starts.

[The_cranky_hermit]

It doesn't look like that for me. At the same resolution as you:


Also, is that the mauser with scope? My crosshairs look different. I checked my unmodified version of the game, and it matches my shot, not yours.

Could you upload your saved game and config files to me? Just to be safe, I'd like to have everything inside your "main" folder, subfolders included, except for the pk3 files that are greater than 1MB, and also except for your "rtcwkey" file (don't share this ever).

Also, if you have time for this, I'd like to know the names and size (in KB) of each of the pk3 files in main that are greater than 1MB.

[Leapo]

I was running at 5292x1050, I just cropped it to 1680x1050 so the thumbnail would be bigger. The black area to either side was just wasted space anyway.
By the way, this is the original version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, not the Game of the Year Edition. It's possible they modified the scopes slightly between versions.

Here are the files you requested. I only included one saved game file, where I have the gun and scope already equipped.
http://www.mediafire.com/?3ncv0u26sf58d89

As for the sizes of the pk3 files larger than 1mb
mp_pak0.pk3 == 61,730 KB
mp_pak1.pk3 == 4,346 KB
pak0.pk3 == 308,422 KB
sp_pak1.pk3 == 287,000 KB
sp_pak2.pk3 == 10,768 KB

Can you just shift that boundary over by a couple of pixels to fix the problem, even if you aren't seeing it? There's quite a bit of boundary space, so the overlap wouldn't be visible at all.

Edit: I'm also not seeing any missing geometry on this gun or scope. Did you crank the FOV really high to show the problem, or is specific to that particular weapon you're using?