how to make overseer dvd work

post from gog if anyone wants to give it ago,

Sorry for being late to the party(as usual), but I wasn't able to install the DVD version on my 64bit edition of Windows 7(this fix does not work with the gog version of the game, you have to do a fresh install from the dvd) and only today had a chance to run a quick test on one of my old computers. It seems to work fine, even though I didn't play for very long.

Edit; I would advice all of you to read through the whole post before you begin so you don't get any nasty surprises midway through conversion.

So, lets get to the good(tedious) stuff.

I've uploaded a package of tools here:

http://maybe.means.no/overseer/OverseerDVDtools.rar

all of which you will be needing to make the game work. I haven't scanned this for viruses so feel free to do so, but it should be fine.

Step 1 - Install the game:
Do a fresh install from your DVD. Place it where ever you like. DVDExpress is no longer needed but you still need to install RTX Audio for sound to work ingame.
Copy Patch 104.exe from the downloaded tools folder into the directory where you installed the game. Run it and update Overseer to the latest version.
Next, we are going to permanently set the processor affinity for OVERSEER.exe(the games main executable) to 1. This will force the game to run on a single cpu as most modern have multicore processors which causes problems for older games like this.
Go to the folder where you installed the game, copy OVERSEER.exe and place in C:\ (root).
Copy IMAGECFG.exe from the tools folder to C:\ as well.
Open up a command prompt window and go to C:\. Type in:

imagecfg -a 0x1 OVERSEER.exe.

There should be a message telling you that processor affinity was changed. Copy OVERSEER.exe back into the install directory and overwrite the one already there.

Step 2 - Video conversion:
This is going to take a long time, so be prepared. Go into the DVD and copy the DATA folder from it to C:\. You can really place it where ever you like, but the batchlists in the tools package will only work if the video files are in C:\DATA. I always prefer to work from root anyway.
Run and install ac3filter_1_63b.exe(required for audio decoding) and ReNamer.exe(batch renaming tool) from the tools directory. Start ReNamer and use it to add a .vob extension to all the files in C:\DATA. If you can't figure out how to do it, feel free to ask for help, but I'm not going to explain it in detail here because it's really easy to figure out.
Next, go to the Virtualdub folder in the tools folder and run VirtualDub.exe. If you want to use the same presets as I did to decode the video, you can load them from overseer.vcf(also included in the VirtualDub directory). To do this, press File->Load processing settings. I "fixed" the video up by deinterlacing and adding some filters.
We are now going to decode all the vob files to raw avi. This takes up a HUGE amount of diskspace(at least 500 gb), but if you don't have that available, you can process 3-5 directories at a time, encode them to mpeg1 and then do the next 3-5 directories. Having a lot of diskspace is, of course, a lot easier:P After you have loaded the presets or tweaked the setting to your own satisfaction, press File->Job control, then in the window that pops up Edit->Process directory. Add all the video folders you want to decode, then press 'Start'.
Then go to bed.
Virtualdub will convert all files that are valid video objects and skip the others. Once conversion is done, you can go into all the filders in C:\DATA and delete all the VOB files, leaving only the decoded avi.
Next, we need to encode the video back to mpeg1 for it to work in the game. Go to the tools folder and start up TMPGEnc.exe from inside it's directory. Again, if you have decoded all the videofiles in one go, the easiest approach would be load all the batch files in the folder Batchlists for Tmpgenc at once and run it. For those short on disk space, I've created batchlists that will convert 3-5 directories at once.
To load a batch file in TMPGEnc press File->Batch Encode->Open list.
TMPGEnc is already set up to use the same settings as I did, and I've used various filters to clean up the video.

IMPORTANT NOTE! Bacause of the high bitrate I used to encode the video(makes results a bit better) the encoded mpeg1 files will actually be bigger than the original vob files. This results in a new finished DVD size of 5.39 gb. If you want to change the bitrate or any other settings, you are free to do so, but this means you will also have to create new batchlists of your own. For this purpose I have included the script I used, tmpgenc-batchcreator.vbs, in the tools folder. Left click->Edit to use it, instructions are included in the script, but if you don't get it, you can ask me.

When you have added all the batchjobs you want, press Run in the batch job window.
Go to bed.

Rise and shine, time to play Overseer DVD HD edition!:P
Fire up ReNamer again, delete all the avi files in the directories and remove all the .mpg extensions from the remaining files. You should now be left with a DATA folder containing only the reencoded, renamed video files. Ta-da.
Since there is no crack available for the DVD edition of Overseer, you are going to have to create your own modified DVD. Create a new directory called C:\OVERSEER1\. Copy all the files from the Overseer DVD into this new folder. Then copy your reencoded DATA folder into it as well, overwriting all files when prompted. Now create an ISO or burn the contents of the folder to a DVD using something like imgBurn. Making an iso and then mounting it in something like Daemon Tools works best because it is more stable and reads the video quicker from you hard drive then from a dvd rom. It is important that you label the dvd OVERSEER1 or it won't work.

When done, all you should need to do is to start Overseer, select the Mediamatix DVD Express decoder and play the game. It is possible to tweak the game somewhat through the various *.ini files in the game folder and the registry so play with it if you like.