Hi there guys, glad to see that this game hits the GOG.

I have recently found this great mod for RtcW, it have also unofficial patch inside, so it is complete bundle of great features, like says author of this mod:

- RTCW Venom Version 5.4 - GOLD

Release Notes: http://media.moddb.com/images/members/4/3112/3111708/profile/Venomlog.jpg

• Widescreen patch 1.42d by Knightmare. (ONLY FOR SP)
• Reordered files, widescreen assets not more on sp_pak4 (part of 1.41 GOTY patch).
• Ported HD textures, weapon pack and effect for WolfMP!
• HD skins, reflective leather uniforms and traslucent armors, HD helmets, some improved vehicles.
• HD textures for all weapons by OSJC, TehSnake, AidenDemon, modified for shader support.
• Enhanced shader effects for all weapons and environment (metal surfaces, armor, floors, etc).
• New mg42 model ported from Wolfenstein: ET.
• New mp40, thompson and fg42 3rd person models.
• Ported items from WolfMP and Wolfenstein: ET.
• Radical revision of AI for all levels, balanced in some points.
• New detail textures on materials (required r_detailtextures 1).
• Implemented and improved additive effects for levels and characters.
• Corrected and improved all shaders on characters, improved environment.
• New HD effects, blood and muzzleflashes, new HD crosshairs and HD game fonts.
• Included complete autoexec.cfg file for max graphic quality with better colors, fixed hunkmegs.
• Upscaled original textures with new shader effects and HD textures from Eugeny pack 0.4 and Return to Wolfenstein v0.03 by AidenDemon with some corrections, modified for SP and MP play, now 70 % game textures replaced.
• Retextured 60% of mapobjects with different effects ( U-boot, electric chairs, gold items, aircrafts, generators, halftracks, and much more).
• New light flares.
• All effects made for original engine game Id Tech 3.
• Full compatibility with other mods. Iortcw still in development and not definitive (v1.42d), not fully supported.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/rtcw-venom-mod/downloads/rtcw-venom-mod-v54

Just download and extract to your RtcW directory and overwrite if needed.

The mod is frequently updated, so keep checking the Mod DB site and of course, all credits goes to author, HellBaron89.

Get Psyched!!

Wish I had some extra money to grab RTCW but alas I could only the get original, I am now tracking the mod on modb till I can get the money.

Wow... that looks awesome! Downloading ASAP...

Not recommended, at least not on the GOG version.
Crashes when loading the last save after dying. I tried fixing the mod's sp_pak*.pk3 filenames so as to not overwrite sp_pak4.pk3 but that didn't help.

Wow, that got me by surprise. It's only half a year I finished my beloved RtCW the last time, but I didn't know about this fantastic mod! Just played the first level with it. No crashes here (I let the guys kill me some times to try it out), but phenomenally redesigned textures! Beautiful effects and the enemies are clearly acting more intelligent now. Thank you for the recommendation, I'll play it through again. :)

That is strange, because author of this mod released a quick fix recently, not quick fix literally, because he revised entire mod, but this issue should be fixed now:

"Little Upgrade for Venom Mod 3.5.

For reducing crash ingame in case of death and quickloads I've optimized all shader textures ( different format and less space/ram required for the rendering) to help the old engine, the quality is UNTOUCHED"

I am using it on Steam version and I do not encounter this bug yet.

Thanks for recommending this mod VenomSK, it's really good. It keeps the look of vanilla but pretty much improves everything. It runs with no hiccups at all on my Win 8.

I have a couple of a noob questions though:

- 1. Is there a way to make this mod optional i.e. is there a way to turn it off and on?
I got the mod working fine. TBH I couldn't understand the creator's instructions so I just copied everything from the mod into the 'Main' folder of my main RTCW installation. This worked, but as you can probably imagine, this means the mod is now 'always on' because I replaced the files.

- 2. Is there a way to utilise this mod so that it can be used from the 'MODS' option in the main menu of the game?
As it is right now, there is nothing listed under that option.

First of all, you are welcome, I am enjoying this mod too and it ist very refreshing experience. For the first your question, yeah, some files are overwritten and only thing that I can advise is to make a backup of that very files and in case of need, replace them over the modded ones. For second point, the best should be answer the author on ModDB right there as I can not provide you with answer if this is possible. You can post here, I have already asked author for a few things and he always replied.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/rtcw-venom-mod-v20

//edit: Do not know if IoriBranford's method will work, give it a try but as I said, dunno.

First uninstall and reinstall RTCW, then rename Venom's Main folder to "Venom" before moving the Venom files into RTCW.

Thanks VenomSK and loriBranford; all good advice.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been meaning to post this sooner, but one thing and another... life getting in the way of 'Wolfenstein-ing' = unacceptable, I know ;)

loriBranford, I trawled through the comments on the moddb.com page and saw that the author also suggested similar to your method of creating a new folder named Venom. He said to create a new folder. I tried this a couple of days ago and it worked. The only slight drawback is that the menu screens were all glitched out. Otherwise - and most importantly - all is fine in-game; the Mods are in the menu and can be switched. :)

*edit* tried it exactly as you described and it all works perfectly now. Cheers :)

Just one thing: In the console, upon loading a level, there are repeated lines of text.
It reads like this: "r_lowMemTextureSize forcing reduction from 1024 x 1024 to 512 x 512".
Is this texture reduction normal?

After a few plays with the mod, I too had this problem. I ran as an administrator and Windows XP Service Pack 3 compatibility and so far, the crash problem seems to have gone - bizarrely, even when running as a standard user as I am now. Could be a fluke that it now seems magically cured though. *Now watch, I bet it crashes :D

*edit* It suddenly started crashing constantly. No saves except the quick save would work, so I used Razer game booster to turn lots of processes off for quickness. It now works 100%, so the crashing seems to be related to a process, not sure which one though.

The mod was updated to definitive final version 4.6!!

I'm getting 100% load game crashes as well. Can't use this mod.

On Mod DB, this issue was debated with author:

Issue:

Mod still crashes on quick load :(

Author's response/solution:

Sometimes happen in older versions, I've replay and tested in last week all levels and I can tell you Gold version is almost perfect, no one crash during my game, maybe because I've deleted most of "death code" of original developers, it's really optimized now, I have seen also that old savegames are part of this crashes, so must begin new game. Hope you will have same good playing with latest update!

I am not experiencing any crash either, so everybody, download latest version, try this method and see if something gona happen.

thanks for this, i really enjoy and appreciate it. sync every frame in options is vsync? and what does the particle on/off option mean and i'm also curious what corona distance is?