Question: Cutscenes in the Mega Man collections

[CrowRising]

All of the Mega Man games in the various collections (Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, Mega Man X Legacy Collection, Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection) which have animated or pre-rendered cutscenes, or any included anime shorts or trailers (Day of Sigma, etc.) often don't run well for me.

On rare occasions I will get lucky and experience no issues, but usually I get various levels of stuttering and in rare cases the video playback will just freeze altogether, forcing me to skip the scene. I can play the video files just fine outside the collections, they only stutter in-game.

This issue doesn't happen for any other game I've played, and while my PC isn't super high end it's definitely no potato either and runs games with much higher requirements just fine. Does anyone have an idea what's wrong, or even better a way to fix it?

My OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit

My Specs:
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1050
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
RAM: 16GB

[Kaed✩Wolf]

Did you tried in Fullscreen/Windowed/Borderless, V-Sync ON/OFF, filters OFF, wallpapers OFF, making a exception on the AntiVirus?

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Kaed✩Wolf:

Did you tried in Fullscreen/Windowed/Borderless, V-Sync ON/OFF, filters OFF, wallpapers OFF, making a exception on the AntiVirus? :lunar2020thinkingtiger:

Yes on all fronts.

Also a clarification just in case I wasn't clear enough: The games themselves all run fine. It's just animated/pre-rendered video files which stutter and/or freeze. It happens in every game that has such scenes within these collections, but not for anything else I've played.

[Kaed✩Wolf]

Originally posted by CrowRising:

"...Also a clarification just in case I wasn't clear enough: The games themselves all run fine. It's just animated/pre-rendered video files which stutter and/or freeze. It happens in every game that has such scenes within these collections, but not for anything else I've played."

I understanded. I remember some more people having the same problem when the collection launched. For some the problem fixed when the collection received a patch, for others the problem still persist. Did you also tried to play the collections with all others programs closed?

Another sugestion I can make, is that for you to reconvert the movies files again with Windows Media Video codec, but this time you use less bit rate than those 10.000 kb/s Capcom encoded these videos. Maybe this way the files can play normal in the collections?

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Kaed✩Wolf:

Another sugestion I can make, is that for you to reconvert the movies files again with Windows Media Video codec, but this time you use less bit rate than those 10.000 kb/s Capcom encoded these videos. Maybe this way the files can play normal in the collections?

I could try this sometime. Is there a bit rate you would recommend?

[Kaed✩Wolf]

I would say make some tests. Try with 5.000 kb/s, if still have the problem, 2.500, 1.000. Just to check if it will make a difference.

This remembers me that the user Naxshe re-encode the videos from MMX4 with less bit rate (around 6.000 kb/s) and burned subtittles in the videos. Did you tried to play the game with these files to see if it will works better for you? You can find the video files on this guide (Version 1 - Full):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1526114657

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Kaed✩Wolf:

I would say make some tests. :lunar2020thinkingtiger: Try with 5.000 kb/s, if still have the problem, 2.500, 1.000. Just to check if it will make a difference.

This remembers me that the user Naxshe re-encode the videos from MMX4 with less bit rate (around 6.000 kb/s) and burned subtittles in the videos. Did you tried to play the game with these files to see if it will works better for you? You can find the video files on this guide (Version 1 - Full):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1526114657

I have actually been tempted to try out the undub mod, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll probably give it a test sometime soon and report my findings here.

[Kaed✩Wolf]

You could make a backup of the original video files from MMX4, and play the game with the videos from Naxshe, just to see if they will work as intended, without stutterings or freezes.

This kind of stuff can be done in MMXLC1, MMXLC2 and MMZ/ZXLC, but unfortunately with Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, the video files seems to be packed in some format I'm not aware of, and I don't know how to extract it.

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Kaed✩Wolf:

This kind of stuff can be done in MMXLC1, MMXLC2 and MMZ/ZXLC, but unfortunately with Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, the video files seens to be packed in some format I'm not aware of, and I don't know how to extract it. :zagsad:

That's fine. I don't really play MMC for the story anyway.

I tested the undub mod for X4 and so far it looks like the cutscenes are playing just fine. I'll probably have to go through all the video files for the other X/Zero/ZX games and lower their bitrate, since that seems to be fixing it.

[Kaed✩Wolf]

Originally posted by CrowRising:

That's fine. I don't really play MMC for the story anyway.

I tested the undub mod for X4 and so far it looks like the cutscenes are playing just fine. I'll probably have to go through all the video files for the other X/Zero/ZX games and lower their bitrate, since that seems to be fixing it.

I hope that's really solve the problem for you, CrowRising.
And if you really are going to re-encode all the videos files with less bit rate, maybe in the future you could make a Guide with these videos to download. So anyone experiencing these stuttering and freezes can solve the problem too.

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Kaed✩Wolf:

Originally posted by CrowRising:

That's fine. I don't really play MMC for the story anyway.

I tested the undub mod for X4 and so far it looks like the cutscenes are playing just fine. I'll probably have to go through all the video files for the other X/Zero/ZX games and lower their bitrate, since that seems to be fixing it.

I hope that's really solve the problem for you, CrowRising. :oxinablanket:
And if you really are going to re-encode all the videos files with less bit rate, maybe in the future you could make a Guide with these videos to download. So anyone experiencing these stuttering and freezes can solve the problem too. :lunar2019piginablanket:

If it ends up working for me, maybe. I'm not really sure where it would be best to host files so others can download them, and just because it fixes it for me doesn't mean that it would fix it for others, or that they wouldn't be able to run the files just fine at a higher bitrate than me.

It might be better just to make a guide acting as a tutorial on how to do it yourself so people can make their own personalized versions to suit their hardware.

[Kaed✩Wolf]

Originally posted by CrowRising:

"...It might be better just to make a guide acting as a tutorial on how to do it yourself so people can make their own personalized versions to suit their hardware."

Yeah, that seems to be the better way.