Hi, I'd like to show you something I've been working on for quite some time, I'd like to share it with you Outcasters :D.
First, I have to say that sadly, I'm not going to be able to make Outcast playable at high resolutions, It's too complex, at least for me, even more than the 640x480 patch, which is indeed very hard to do. Also, It wouldn't have much sense since the performance is very low at high resolutions.
But, I've been able to, altough very unstable and with errors in some details of the graphic engine, run Outcast at high-res. And, I thought that maybe you'd like to see how It looks. I've made some screenshots and two videos, all in 1280x720. I'm Sorry but there is no playable example because some things are needed to be done in realtime
The performance in my pc, with and without the demanding Depth of Field (DOF) effect is:
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PERFOMANCE
-----------
800X600 NO DOF 25-30 FPS
800X600 WITH DOF 20-25 FPS
1024X768 NO DOF 15-20 FPS
1024X768 WITH DOF 12-15 FPS
1280X768 NO DOF 15-20 FPS
1280X768 WITH DOF 12-15 FPS
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Now the screenshots.
First, two "Work in progress" screenshots. Yes, they are ugly XD, but It was really amazing when I managed to finally see something at high-res, something diferent to a windows crash that is XD
http://xenohexx.heliohost.org/gfxp/outcast/f1err.jpg
http://xenohexx.heliohost.org/gfxp/outcast/f2err.jpg
And after more and more "fighting", at last.....
http://xenohexx.heliohost.org/gfxp/outcast/f7.jpg
http://xenohexx.heliohost.org/gfxp/outcast/f8.jpg
http://xenohexx.heliohost.org/gfxp/outcast/f13.jpg
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LINKS TO MORE SCREENSHOTS AND VIDEOS
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More ScreenShots: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VHB38DP9
Video1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9IMRB0ZF
Video2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TPBFI971
Sometimes the link is unavailable for short periods of time. Sorry about that, I don't know why. Maybe that happens when the file has been downloaded a certain number of times. It it says temporarily unavailable please try again later):
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Well that's all, thank you very much for reading all this and I hope you enjoy the screenshots and videos
Regards

Wow. Just wow. I'm just so impressed with what you've managed to do. But it's sad that this will not be playable :)
A fair word of warning: if you should somehow manage to make a playable version after all, you won't be able to dodge those thank you GOGs people have been trying to give you so easily anymore. We'd track you down and shower you with gifts!

I'm very, very impressed by all your work Zenger. It would be absolutely awesome to run Outcast in this resolution, but my PC wouldn't be able to handle it anyway :) Thank you for all the work you've done on this great game, and thank you for these awesome screenshots and videos!

_Zenger_ i am not so sure about this you said. Because i am playing the game using only the original patch for 640x480. And i am able to play the whole game at this point and i am so advanced in the story.
I detected the problems about to play as 640x480 and i am able to bypass them returning to the 512x384 to bypass the problem. But these points are only a few !!. But as i said i play the original DVD game with the original 640x480 patch and i am not sure if i can use your V4 patch with the original game, can i ?

arfgh You can try, if the version of the executables aren't the expected by the patch, the program says It can't be installed and doesn't touch anything, so there is no danger in trying

Sooo good. This is truly amazing. GOG and Atari should work with you to get this work properly!
EDIT: Here's a comparison between the original and the patched version
http://bit.ly/cHBYBq

Zenger, would it be possible to provide a higher resolution patch for those with the hardware to run it? I'd like to give it a try on my machine.

Hi, I'm sorry I didn't answer. I've not entered this forum lately, but I've been working hard on this patch
Some screenshots and a video of the actual state of the patch:
1280x720
--------------
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4387/s17g.jpg
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/4543/s16.jpg
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/5135/s10.jpg
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/4820/s18v.jpg
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/4314/19039826.jpg
more here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A5NXD4NI
800x600
---------
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/9529/22590006.jpg
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/387/91944751.jpg
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/2899/57717598.jpg
More here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OA8F8MM3
Video, at 800x600 this time:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DR1TOOQC
Regards

Zenger, your patch is so small; I guess it only patches a few bytes of loader.exe. If this is true, could you please upload a zip containing both unpatched and patched exe? Compairing those would allow me and/or other to extend patch to the large loyal community of people who own the CD/DVD version (and the corresponding loader.exe) What do you think?

Hi terence_13
Sorry for answering late, I mean the ofher post you wrote, well, You and other people who also wrote things about this subject, sorry to you all :D, I've been kind of out and I haven't read the forum at all.
About the patch, well... If I remember correctly there are like 10 bytes changed in LOADER.EXE and around 30 bytes changed per OCX.EXE.
OC2.EXE and OC3.EXE are the same in this version, but OC1 and OC3 are not, so we have: 10+30+30=70 bytes changed, of course some of this bytes are grouped
I guess the OC1.EXE,OC2.EXE,OC3.EXE are diferent from the CD version so the number of bytes to change would be 70
About what You say... well, I don't know what to tell You, I'm kind of paranoid with this subject, very paranoid I'm afraid, that is so that when I posted the patch I started to think that maybe I shouldn't have done this patch in the first place, I don't know, I don't want any trouble.
So, taking it further like what you suggest.. well, I would prefer not to be involved in that.
Don't get me wrong It's not that I don't want to help, I've spend a lot of time with that patch just so we can all play this magnificent game in better conditions, so It's not that I don't want to help really. You don't know me but I can tell you that if I'm able, I always try to help, the problem is that I'm totally paranoid.
Maybe It sounds rare to You, I'm sure it certanly sounds that way, but I prefer to stay in the safety of this version, what I mean is that I've made a patch (that maybe I shouldn't have done) for the version of this store, so I guess I'm not doing any harm to the store or the publisher posting this patch here, for this version, but going to another versions.... well...
I'm so sorry Terence, I'm sure You don't agree with my logic at all, but I prefer to do it that way, I'm sorry
regards

Well, I will not try to persuade you..was just an offer. Perhaps sombody else will upload the patched and nonpatched exe.
Thing is, that apparently GOG was only ablt to releas a bug free version by implementing a patch that originates from me and took me hours to locate and atomicJo wrote a nice patcher. Here:
http://www.planet-adelpha.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=121
All this for the CD/DVD version. So you might understand that your argumentation (of not stepping on the GOGs-feet) looks a bit weired from my perspective...
Anyhow, Thanks for your contribution to the community!
Terence_13

...

I tried to track it down but the forum seems temporarily/permanently down. For those who are curious the webarchive has one snapshot: http://web.archive.org/web/20100825155856/http://www.planet-adelpha.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=121
(first post with description copied below)
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Hi
Ever been bothered by
1) Mud in Shamazaar slows you down to virtually zero on a modern (fast) computer
2) Twon-HAs are unridable?

The release of the Openoutcast-Demo has inspired my to finally sit down and try two find the cause of these two bug. After some hours with Ollydbg I finally nailed down the cause of the first bug.
I can offer two solutions:
1) remove the slowdown entirely. Use this file to patch:

----------Update------------
Twon-Ha Bug is also solved. Thanks to AtomicJo's nice "smart-patch", patching of all up-to-date version of Outcast (CD, DVD) should be trouble free:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/fallout-world/OutcastPatch4.zip
----------Update------------

For people having experience in assembler: this patch just changes a JNE into JMP to avoid the slowdown-sub-routine. You find the caller of this subroutine by searching for "move state" in "referenced strings" using Ollydbg.

*UPDATE* the final patch differs, skip to second page for exact description *UPDATE*

2) Adjust the slowdown-factor to match modern PCs. I could do this if desired (i have found the corresponding variable), however, I would prefere to first solve the unridable Twon-Ha Bug first. (I have not found a solution yet. It must be hidden somewere in the "ride in state"-subroutine).

Have fun,
Terence

Why does this game slow down so much are hi res that it makes modern pc's come to a crawl?