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Ghost Recon: Heroes Unleashed


ApexMods

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@Alex: Thanks for the feedback! Glad you like the update. BTW - you can of course watch the video outside GR, e.g. with VLC. There's a way to fix the video playback issues in Linux/Wine. Don't remember the details now, will have to look into that.

Haven't messed with that particular problem for years, but IIRC, the major problem with intro/outro videos was that Wine doesn't have the codecs. I used to install the K-Lite codec pack, that took care of most of them. Frostbite used a really wierd codec, I had to track a separate installer down for that.

What I never got working was the original GR videos. Far as I can recall, they use an old Microsoft codec that's not available as an installer. In theory, you could copy the .dll files across from a Windows install, but I never found a way to make that work. I think I got as far as sound, but never a picture.

Anyway, the trick is to use a regular video player to tell you what the video and audio codecs are, then you can go hunting for them. VLC or the standard Ubuntu video player (Totem) will both do that. :)

- Gache

P.S. Apex, how do you do it? Every time you release a new version of HU, people start digging up my internet so I can't download for days. I think they're afraid of you ;)

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I just got the original videos to work with an older version of Wine, but they are stuttering horribly. Will experiment a bit further and post my findings when I'm fully satisfied with the results.

Hah, Gache! Nice to see you pop in! Hope they get your connection sorted pronto, so you can tell me what you think of b7. :thumbsup:

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The RSE videos in GR were encoded with a version of the Indeo codec.

Might google Indeo codec to see if they are still available.

Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeo

I haven't had a chance to play b7 much but I'm very impressed as I always am with any version of HU.

Sounds, textures, interface, you name it , this is very refined work.

Even the blood splatters are much improved. Thanks Apex

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I just got the original videos to work with an older version of Wine, but they are stuttering horribly. Will experiment a bit further and post my findings when I'm fully satisfied with the results.

Hah, Gache! Nice to see you pop in! Hope they get your connection sorted pronto, so you can tell me what you think of b7. :thumbsup:

Working on it, Apex, I'm working on it... (Can't speak for the guys messing with the cables though!) I managed to extract the actual download URL, instead of the obfuscated one they show off, so I've fed that to a download manager. Right now it's 28% done and says there are another 4 days to go. :yay:

Can't wait!

The RSE videos in GR were encoded with a version of the Indeo codec.

Might google Indeo codec to see if they are still available.

Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeo

Are you sure, Wombat? Can't check now, but as far as I can remember, Frostbite used Indeo. Their videos worked fine after installing it, but it made no difference for the original vids. The originals reported themselves as something like 'MS MPEG-2 v4', which turned out to be a Microsoft-only codec that wasn't available to download. Been years since I looked into it though, so maybe my memory's playing tricks on me.

- Gache

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Sorry for the confusion Gache. You are probably correct. Like you say it has been awhile.

I have Win7 now but when I had XP when opening the file properties for a video it would state the codec.

Win7 doesn't do this.

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I haven't had a chance to play b7 much but I'm very impressed as I always am with any version of HU.

Sounds, textures, interface, you name it , this is very refined work.

Even the blood splatters are much improved. Thanks Apex

My pleasure, Wombat, and thanks a lot! Hope you'll find some time to give GRHU a thorough test soon. :thumbsup:

OK, got all GR videos working in Wine without installing ANY additional video codecs. :)

Found it strange that you'd need 3rd-party codecs to see the game vids, as you didn't need to install those back in the day GR was released. Turns out it was just a matter of configuring Wine with the help of Winetricks to (re-)install DirectX9's quartz.dll from a redistributable. GR/DS/IT intros and outros work perfectly now.

While I was at it, I've created a Wineskin wrapper for Ghost Recon to play the PC version of Ghost Recon on Mac OS X. As Apple has removed the Rosetta binary translation engine for legacy 32-bit Carbon applications from the default installation of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and removed Rosetta completey in OS X 10.7 Lion, I hope this may come in handy for Mac GR fans. I'll upload the wrapper shortly and will provide download links here.

Are there any servers we can link to play this mod? :wizard:

Have a look here. :)

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Hope to see you on the battlefield soon, Namjagbarwar! :thumbsup:

Alex, I'm still working on that Wine solution for the videos. While I got it to work for the original game and expansions (and Heroes Unleashed, as that uses the exact same file format and codecs as original GR), I'm still not one hundred percent happy with the results, because many other mods use more "exotic" video/audio codecs which will cause the game to crash.

A temporary workaround for the mods in question would be to turn videos off in the game options, but I hope to find a fully working solution. Once done I'll post results and that Mac OS X Wineskin wrapper. Don't know if there's anything like that for Ubuntu/Linux?

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Hey Apex,

I just downloaded your mod the other day and it has reminded me why I love the original GR so much. Great work! One question though. One of the best things for me about the original game was the fact that the Ghost's used the old woodland camo uniforms. I can't stand ACU and UCP, (although the new uniforms look great! ^_^) Is there any way to maybe alter or delete a file to get the original uniforms back?

Thanks!

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Apex, Im having a strange CTD with HU.

I choose "quick mission", select a mission, the briefing goes normally, and then when I click to proceed to the squad selection screen, the game crashes ("this aplicatin stopped working"). I even reinstalled your mod all over again (totally virgin , without any of my personal modifications :) ) and it keeps crashing.

The weird thing is that, if I begin a campaign normally, the game works perfectly. The problem seems to be only with the "quick missions". And this didn happen before, as I used to play quick missions normally with HU here.

Any ideas how to solve this ?

EDIT: I just noticed the problem occurs also with vanilla version (HU deactivated). So I think its a problem of the game isntallation, not the mod. I must have messed with something (or Steam just ######ed up with my install). I ill install again.

Sorry to bother. hehe

Edited by silva
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Hey Apex,

I just downloaded your mod the other day and it has reminded me why I love the original GR so much. Great work! One question though. One of the best things for me about the original game was the fact that the Ghost's used the old woodland camo uniforms. I can't stand ACU and UCP, (although the new uniforms look great! ^_^) Is there any way to maybe alter or delete a file to get the original uniforms back?

Thanks!

I'm afraid it would be slightly more complicated than altering or deleting a single file. As a workaround you could play with BDU camo in multiplayer co-op. All soldier configs labeled "Legacy" let you play with Ghosts in BDU. I may do an add-on mod to switch back to BDU if there's enough interest for it.

Apex, Im having a strange CTD with HU.

I choose "quick mission", select a mission, the briefing goes normally, and then when I click to proceed to the squad selection screen, the game crashes ("this aplicatin stopped working"). I even reinstalled your mod all over again (totally virgin , without any of my personal modifications :) ) and it keeps crashing.

The weird thing is that, if I begin a campaign normally, the game works perfectly. The problem seems to be only with the "quick missions". And this didn happen before, as I used to play quick missions normally with HU here.

Any ideas how to solve this ?

EDIT: I just noticed the problem occurs also with vanilla version (HU deactivated). So I think its a problem of the game isntallation, not the mod. I must have messed with something (or Steam just ######ed up with my install). I ill install again.

Sorry to bother. hehe

Sorry to hear about your issues, although I'm still glad it wasn't caused by GRHU. :)

Yeah, sometimes a reinstall becomes necessary for whatever reasons, but you should always check the IkeCrash.log and Ike.log files first to see if there might be an easier fix.

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Yup, it happens here too Riley. THe weird is that last version of HU didnt take too long to load, but this one does.

And where is this interview with Apex ?

EDIT: oh just found it. GREAT interview! It nails perfectly the Ghost Recon strenght over other shooters in the industry. Being a fan of OFP/ARMA myself, I agree it never manged to translate its squad-tactics aspect in a simple and coherent way as GR did, always felting awkward and unresponsive in this.

By the way, those splash screens in the interview page are awesome! Why arent they in the last version of HU ? (or they actually are there and I didnt noticed ? :blink: )

Edited by silva
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For anyone else wondering, my interview with GhostRecon.net is here.

The loading time of Heroes Unleashed is directly related to the amount of content. Upon game launch, Ghost Recon parses all XML files (actors, weapons, vehicles, sounds register, missions, game types, map environments, equipment kits, multiplayer restrictions etc.) into its database, basically creating a sort of catalog for all available game elements. The more is added, the longer it takes, although this also depends on hardware performance e.g. HD and CPU speed. On my Mac the loading time of GRHU is less than 10 seconds.

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Yup, it makes sense. In fact, I think only the first load takes long, after that it goes faster. Maybe some content are kept in memory ?

And how about those cool splash screens from the interview, Apex ? Arent they hidden somewhere in the last HU version ?

Edited by silva
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