Panzer Corps V 1.11: Intros distorted

[spillblood]

Installed the new DLC (42/43) and Afrika Korps today. I'm experiencing heavy distortion in the intro movies now. Previously they played normally. My PC is a Pentium Dual Core 6400 (2*1,86 GHz), 2GB RAM, Win XP SP3, GeForce 440 GT. Since I can't attach the screenshots here:
https://rapidshare.com/files/1281288133/intro bug.rar

[Rudankort]

This is strange, because neither videos themselves, nor the code showing them was changed in 1.11, compared to 1.10. When did you try it with 1.10 last time? Are you sure that no hardware or software changes (including video codecs and the like) happened on your PC since then?

[spillblood]

Hmm, must be related to something else. I tried reinstalling the game and only installing the 1.10 patch to see if it's related to the update and had the same problem. Maybe it's somehow related to the latest driver update I made, from GeForce 308.23 to GeForce 308.81? Or could it be related to some codec problem?
Which video codec does Panzer Corps use, and can I reinstall that somehow?
Hmm, it looks similar to the issue reported in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=146&t=35630&p=334701&hi ... ec#p334701

[VPaulus]

It seems to be something related with video codecs.
Panzer Corps don't need any video codec to be played. The only thing you need a video codec is for watching the intro videos.
Those videos are encoded in WMV, that means that you don't have to install any video codec because these are native to Windows.
However when you're installing some of those codec packs, like K-Lite for example, you end up messing sometimes those codecs/filters.
So have you installed any of those codec packs recently?

It could be something related with Graphics card drivers, but I really doubt that is the culprit.

You can install a codec pack and see if it solves the issue. But you can end up messing more the system.

If you don't want to deal with it, just rename "Video" folder to "_Video" and you won't watch anymore the video intros. And, like I've already told, you don't need any video codec for anything else in Panzer Corps besides for watching the video intro.

[spillblood]

This is definitely a codec related problem. Tried the game on another Windows on the same PC (on another HD) that is relatively freshly installed, and the playback there is flawless. I have used several different versions of K-Lite Codec Pack on the Windows installation in question, I guess my wmv codec was messed up like you described.

[VPaulus]

You could uninstall the codec pack and check if the video play well.

[spillblood]

No, doesn't work. I think I'll just run it on my newly installed Windows, can't figure out how to fix the broken codec.

[VPaulus]

No, doesn't work. I think I'll just run it on my newly installed Windows, can't figure out how to fix the broken codec.

Sometimes just for installing again. Sometimes it's not even a broken codec but rather a conflict.
Yes, unfortunately sometimes it's a really nightmare.

[spillblood]

Since I know how to migrate my savegames between my systems (laptop and desktop PC, both of them have Panzer Corps installed) and between the the installed Windows OSes on the desktop PC, this is not such a big deal, but thanks for the help!

[spillblood]

Hey, if someone else is experiencing this problem, I've found a solution. Download the Windows Media Player 11 redistributable package here:
http://www.microsoft.com/de-de/download ... px?id=8163
and install it. That fixes those codecs, if they're broken due to some Codec pack. If you don't want to do the Windows Genuine advantage test, download the file elsewhere, for example here:
http://www.chip.de/downloads/Windows-Me ... 01267.html
and follow these instructions:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2577/wmp ... ypass_wga/
Basically, you have to unpack the file using winzip, winrar or 7zip, and run wmfdist11.exe, then restart and then run wmp11.exe. Worked for me. If you're using a newer version of WMP, try to locate it's redistributable.

[VPaulus]

Thanks for the tip, spillblood.

[chemkid]

hi there!
another thing i did - not helping against distorted videos, though...

just put the intro files elsewere to watch.
panzer corps will start so much faster (without the intro)!

cheers!
chem!

[spillblood]

Yeah, I guess that's because the intro video implementation isn't done so clever. But I really love the style of those intro vids. Would be nice if they'd introduce some more cutscenes into the game, at least some kind of victory or defeat videos at the end of each campaign! That's something I also found was missing from Unity of Command. It's bad if a game just ends with some text or credits (or nothing at all, in the case of Unity of Command, campaigns just end, there's no special screen or anything!), doesn't feel as rewarding as a cool ending video.