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Cider: Bik Video bypass (black screen sound no video)


magic0200
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I'm working on a classic game (2000 release haha) and got COH 2097 build to load it but it gives a black screen with perfect sound due to the BIK Intro video. I was wondering how I can remove that and if any other steps are requied to get to the main screen? I have tried deleting the bik video and renaming but that just stops cider from opening at all (crashes).

* The bik video can be skipped by hitting ESC but that just closes Cider.

*Also noted there are about 3-4 logo screens after the video (EA, Developer, Publisher) that you simply have to hit a key to get past.

 

Hope this helps :rolleyes:

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Here's the problem: I read cider does accept bik video but I'm using 2097 and it doesn't have bink32.dll in the file structure which makes me wonder (also need to see where that dll is placed when I grab it). The ONLY way to skip the vid is esc but that kills Cider. Trying to rename or delete just crashes cider. I was thinking about trying to track down a blank bik file (used on old Xbox games) or a really small bik video and replace it. However the video is in loop control until you hit esc (which from what i can tell at that point the resolution changes).

 

The file structure is weird on this game. It has Video.BIK and Bikplayer.exe, when I removed or renamed these on osx it crashes cider but on my pc running vista it loads past the video just fine.

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To be honest, it's global operations :| lol (yea I know it wasn't the best game but i found it lying around and wanted to give it a try).

 

The structure of the game is what is throwing me off. It has bikplayer.exe and video.bik in the main folder (no bik video folder) and I'm thinking maybe there's a command file that I can alter to remove the video but can't find it yet. The video is ran through it's own exe and then when you hit esc it drops to windows and then switches resolutions and brings up the game full screen. I have a feeling that this problem will be the biggest hurdle (the dropping from intro vid to actual menu screen).

 

I was planning on taking older games and porting due to their smaller file sizes, performance (speed and full rendered graphics), and cider's chance to 100% emulate a dx 9 or 8 game would be 10x more probable than current titles.

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i tried this a few weeks ago, and i could not get around this problem.

All of the Games i ported (KOTOR1, KOTOR2, Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition, Jade Empire) had this problem.

I could not get around it, and i spend weeks figuring out what was wrong.

My Oblivion Port plays .bik files just fine, but all other Bioware Games had this Problem.

As of now, my guess is that the main .exe files themselves have trouble playing .bik files in the Cider environment.

 

But i'll watch this topic here carefully, when someone figures this Problem out, i'll probably release about a dozen games. ;)

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Dev,

 

Excellent reply! :) As I don't have take failure easy I started running the Cider bin on it's own and came up with some very interesting information (well at least for me).....

 

First I noticed that 2097 was missing Cshell.dll and bik32.dll(bik dll) which it then calls upon through /c/windows/system and then pushes them into another format in /contents/resources to the extent of cshell=libcshell.dilyb (or close enough). I went ahead and loaded the files but it gave me an error when trying to retrieve them in the system folder. However, that's not what caught my attention.........

 

I actually saw cider call globalops.exe along side these two files which is normal, but what wasn't normal is that it was calling for it in /c/windows/sytem??????? This to me matches with what you said that the EXE and the bik call inside of it is causing the crash and that's due to the fact that the video plays first (in the vids native res) and then calls up the game.

 

For my skill level I'm a little stuck but if anyone wants me to post my error txt let me know and I'll gladly do it.

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so i haven't been seeing ghosts after all...or maybe NOT seeing them (Movies) is the problem.

i have been banging my head on the table for the last four weeks and i couldn't figure this out.

Until last week. i switched the wrappers so many times and ported Kotor 1&2 NWN and Jade Empire over and over again with different wrappers, and i found something out.

With ALL Bioware Games the movies do this kind of {censored}, and only with Oblivion the .bik files Play.

Loading Kotor's movies into Oblivion and renaming them, the movies play just fine. (heh, Oblivion playing KOTOR movies, thats kind of funny) So its not the movies that are at fault, like i first thought, but rather the main .exe has trouble playing them under the Cider Environment. All Bioware Games can't play the movies, and it sounds like other Games (Global Ops and some others) do this as well.

Tried multiple versions of the bik32.dll and Windows System files as well.

I even used a code injector/decompiler to figure out what's wrong when the movies play, but sadly only OpenGL information can be obtained this way.

So i don't think there is an easy solution for this (like swapping a few Files) but like rather editing the main Cider dilybs to support whatever way the devs of the game used to play .bik files. (and add layers that support multiple simultaneous resolutions for one Game, like one for the Games and the video files have another resolution layer; that brings Cider to its knees, something we all know...)

That all being said, i don't think this will ever work... <_<

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Not necessarily Dev...

 

This is WAY past my understanding but what about scene groups that released pc games with No-Intro? I remember a few times that games I bought that had our video problem actually were released with vids removed (to save space). Is there anyway of modifying the exe or game itself to remove the video from playing at all before it gets to cider? This would inherintly make the games look like any other game that has no intro video.

 

Just a thought :D

 

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

 

You can download the RAD video tools from the link above. Using them, you can convert any movie file to BINK (.bik) format, and insert it into your civ mods.

 

WARNING: Unlike all other files I've modded, I have found that simply putting new movie files into the CustomAssets folder doesn't work; the original files in the Assets folder have to be renamed or removed for the game to use your new movies instead.

 

Here are a couple movies I made for test purposes. They change the intro movies to a couple of 1 second long black screens (essentially removing them). Put them in "Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets\art\movies\intros" and rename the files in "Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\Art\Movies\Intros" to get them to work.

 

Hope this helps somebody!

 

http://www.radgametools.com/binkh2ex.htm <---- check

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Well, most of my Games that i have installed on the mac or PC side don't have Intro movies. Thats because i don't want to sit 30 seconds in front of the monitor every time twiddling thumbs and watching those AWESOME company logos play in their full glory, before i can play a quick session.

So naturally, the first thing i do when i have installed a new game, i go to the data folder, trash all the EALOGO.mov, BIOWAREHQINTRO.bik and SERIOUSLYLONGCOMPANYMOVIELOGO.wtf files and viola, the games go directly to the Title Screen after a double click in the Finder.

That works because almost all application binaries have failsaves builtin, meaning if the main executable cant find the movie, it just skips them without changing the resolution or waiting (hanging) forever until the movie miraculously shows up.

 

I did this with my Cider Ports as well. The only Problem with the Cider Ports is that the executables don't play ANY movies files at all.

When you are ingame, playing as usual, then a cutscene comes in thats pre-rendered (.bik movie) the monitor goes dark, sound plays, and you have no idea whats going on until the game engine comes back in.

 

Converting those .bik files to executables isn't going to help, because Cider can only run one executable at the time.

 

But, it was a nice idea :D

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Thanks for the reply again ;)

 

I guess what I was trying to explain is can you actually edit the EXE of the game to....

 

1. Remove the Bik Video command that launches the video so therefore it goes straight into menu screen launch?

2. Can you change the button to exit the video ie ESC to say Spacebar so that it doesn't close out cider?

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About that, i don't know.

 

You'll need to have a Windows hacker (like a no-cd hacker/cracker) to actually manipulate the Windows executable.

And most Games accept the escape key to skip the playing movie files witch is also hardwired into the Windows executable...

 

Easier way of skipping the intro movies, look at my last post. Manually rip out the intro movies; the exe launches and it doesn't go to video mode, because it can't find the Movies. BUT not all Games like this, some crash right away, if the movies are missing (no built in failsaves)

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Actually a ton from what i've read around the net, but to be quite honest I can't remember for sure which ones ( i was reading to fix my problem).

 

I dont' know if it was CIV or Obilvion but both had bik video and one guy on another forum talked about how it's the videos that give a problem too. (can't remember which one so dont' quote me) he switched lets just say OBLIV BIK vids with CIV vids and they played fine. If he tried vice versa the game(S) wouldn't load. So something else to look into. :|

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the problem isnt the wrapper, i have Jade Empire wrapper from Transgaming, it is an old one and the bik doesnt crash only with the uncracked exe ... Why ? because i think they made some dirty hacks on the fly so the bik plays fine, but if you change one byte / the size of the exe, the hack wouldn't work (logical) that's why the bik crashes :(

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  • 2 weeks later...
the problem isnt the wrapper, i have Jade Empire wrapper from Transgaming, it is an old one and the bik doesnt crash only with the uncracked exe ... Why ? because i think they made some dirty hacks on the fly so the bik plays fine, but if you change one byte / the size of the exe, the hack wouldn't work (logical) that's why the bik crashes ^_^

 

is the official mac cider JE main .exe different from the normal PC version? could you upload the main .exe and/or the Official Cider Wrapper?

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