Earlier this month, we informed about a new technique via which modders can enhance the outdated textures of older games. And a few days ago, Shiba Inu has released a HD Texture Pack for Return to Castle Wolfenstein using ESRGAN.
As we’ve already reported, Enhanced Super Resolution Generative Adverserial Networks, or ESRGAN, is an upscaling method that takes an low-res image and adds realistic details to it. By doing it over several passes with the goal of fooling its adverserial part, it will usually produce an image with more fidelity and realism than past methods.
Shiba Inu has released the HD Texture Pack to the public and you can go ahead and download it from here. In order to install this pack, you’ll simply have to place the pak1.pk3 file into Return to Castle Wolfenstein\Main dir. Unfortunately, though, this pack does not contain any TGA format textures with alpha channels.
Shiba Inu has also released a video comparison between the game’s original and HD ESRGAN textures and as you can see, there is a noticeable visual difference between them. The good news here is that while the new updated HD textures look cleaner and sharper, they retain all the atmosphere the original textures had.
Since we’ve already gotten ESRGAN textures for Morrowind, the classic Doom games and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, I’d really love to see this technique used in even more older games so here is hoping that modders will be able to release such texture packs for a variety of games.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
I don’t understand if this is a joke or
Why?
Idk i watched like half of the video, and the differences are basically non-existent.
c’mon man…I thought I was blind!
The differences are quite significant is many places…but overall while playing its a bit subtle, but overall the game looks much sharper!
Enhancing some of the textures won’t make the whole game “much sharper” there’s no doubt some of them are sharper, but while playing they’re basically the same, unless you stop and watch stuff like walls in point blank. I mean if you’re content doing that…
ESRGAN will have Minecraft looking like Battlefield V. True fact.
Still the best Wolfenstein
Without a doubt! RTCW is one of the greatest FPS games of all time!
I just installed this on top a HD texture pack and it enhances everything even more! The game looks incredibly sharp in 1440p @165Hz!
original better
yeah but we’re talking about actual games and you don’t know what ideas they had. you are trying to hide the fact that you have low iq unlike me.
Holy sh*t bud, just give it up. You know if you were hired by John you’d be slobbering all over his kn*b right now instead. You’re not fooling anyone.
Don’t feed that troll. He is extremely vile, clever and dangerous. I’m pretty sure he is the same guy, john banned few days ago. Thanks to MM for bringing that up, but it seems he is back with a new account.
Lol, I wouldn’t call him clever or dangerous, but yes he is back with a new account and he’s trying to act normal so as to add credence to his criticisms of John.
I highly recommend this game for anyone that hasn’t played it. It’s a classic FPS. You can pick it up for $1.25 on Steam or on GOG for $1.50 right now.
There’s also a website called wolfenstein4ever that has a lot of mods for the game.
You come to a gaming site to complain about a gamer liking a game?
Wow…
I’m going to buy it and have a good time. You enjoy not enjoying.
Troll account created yesterday. Probably one of the recent banned retards.
They do seem to be numerous. Wish they could do an IP ban or something on these guys…
People need to stop voting for option 1 which is unrestrained policy when there’s the vote liberalism and freedom of speech isn’t always a good thing, actually, it’s often a bad thing considering some kind of people who live on this planet.
Instead of asking john for cleansing, just vote in a different way next time, so that they’ll be forced to ban these people, otherwise they’d be lying to us about the website policy.
Also. For now, the B.L.O.C.K function is the best option….Just b.l.o.c.k users, so you won’t be able to read their replies, and you won’t even get notifications as well.
Problem solved. Don’t know why peeps don’t bother using this function instead, if they are so much pi****/annoyed by others, that too being an on ONLINE forum !. sigh
If anyone is getting so much triggered here, then he/she shouldn’t be here on DSOG, in the first. People voted for option 1 policy, so just ignore, and move ahead.
Yeah that i know, because people is just obsessed with “freedom”, but i think not everyone is stupid, and eventually they’ll understand that unrestrained policy isn’t at all a good thing on such website, we just need more of these trolls to make sure everyone understands.
>freedom of speech isn’t always a good thing
OLAM
??
Also. For now, the B.L.O.C.K function is the best option….Just b.l.o.c.k users, so you won’t be able to read their replies, and you won’t even get notifications as well.
Problem solved. Don’t know why peeps don’t bother using this function instead, if they are so much annoyed by others, that too being an on ONLINE forum ! sigh
If anyone is getting so much upset here, then he/she shouldn’t be here
on DSOG, in the first. People voted for option 1 policy, so just ignore, and move ahead.
I agree that is a useful feature, but i’d really love to read every comment and not see “This user is blocked” just because people can’t vote for a proper policy here.
Yeah that’s correct, but why can’t this “Paul86” guy understand such a simple thing, is beyond me !
Even I love reading all comments here, so blocking users makes little sense for me….Takes away the FUN….Hehe.
I kinda understand his point but yeah maybe he’s taking this too seriously.
There is no freedom of speech with exceptions, especially not vague ones like “trolls”. Wtf is the test to see if someone is 100% a troll? There is none. The power to ban trolls is the power to ban ANYONE YOU WANT. No way around this.
“Wtf is the test to see if someone is 100% a troll? There is none.”
Perhaps one day a proper scientific approach like this one will lead us to that ability :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
“Common sense” is another completely undefined term that people keep throwing around when they mean to say “I’m right and anyone who disagrees is wrong”. Best example: Both political camps in the USA love the term and constantly use it to mean “what my party wants”.
Nice.
GTFO
You guys should also try RTCW Venom Mod 5.5 which looks even more awesome!
A poorly aged FPS game? Are you serious?
Just ignore them…Problem solved. Not sure why this is so hard for peeps to do this !??
Wrong. If you add them to your block list, then you won’t be able to read their comments at all. Deal with this.
You should bring these issues to Disqus then. His previous account was banned mainly due to impersonating others and spamming. Right now, even if he’s rude, he is not spamming. Also, you can put him in your ignore list as others have said
+1.
Paul86, you seem like a pretty nice guy. Can I give you some advice?
When you overreact to someone taking a shot at you it’s funny to some people to keep yanking your chain to get a big reaction. If you hadn’t overreacted so much then that guy or guys would probably have left you alone long before now.
Right on the money !
A couple of things that I don’t understand in your comment. If you blocked those usernames then how do you know that they are posting rude comments about you? You shouldn’t be able to see their comments.
Also why do you hate Metal Messiah? He adds a lot of good info to this site and he doesn’t bother anyone or troll anyone.
“”For example I hate Metal Messiah””
Hello, I’m sorry to hear that you actually hate me. I’m kind of stumped, but I can also understand your point. I also apologize, if I have done something wrong recently, either intentionally, or unintentionally.
But if I can know the reason behind this, then it would have been much better. Maybe I can CORRECT myself, if possible, so that I don’t repeat that mistake again in future ?
But I’m not forcing you to share your reasons for hating me. It’s your wish. In this so-called world, there is either love or hate, dark/light, and good/evil, but I’m always neutral when it comes to anything. Maybe you dislike me, but I don’t.
But I know why there might be such a change in your mind towards me. Maybe because I didn’t support you enough when needed, like in this topic, and/or maybe I Up-voted some guy/troll by mistake, which you actually dislike ?
You think I haven’t taken any steps to bring some law/order/peace here on DSOG’s comment section ? Ask JOHN, I have sent him multiple emails requesting him to change/alter the “Unrestrained Voting Policy”, even at the time when the voting was active, but he denied my request. Apart from that I still brought up this issue with him, on several other occasions, but it seems he is not that much bothered about his own website.
You also tried to convey to John, a similar issue, under this topic.
That’s why I have lost all hope. Now, I take this comment section very lightly, even up-voting some of the trolls from time to time, so that they also feel I’m a part of this community. But I do this sometimes just for fun, not in a serious way.
You think I haven’t been the target of attack/vulgar abuse by trolls here ? I have lost count on how many occasions peeps here have insulted me, but I have just ignored them. There are many at least 10-12 members, even more than your list. But I’m helpless. Mark my words, fast forward the time to 10 years or so, and then again come back here again to visit DSOG, you are going to find this site’s comment section totally unchanged, same as before.
Nothing will change here, unless and until JOHN takes some serious initiative, which I doubt…Maybe he will realize this some day ? That’s all I have to say. You can continue hating me, because I don’t have any problem with that, but sometimes it hurts me deep within my heart !
Cheers….
**edited post few times for typo errors, additions etc.**
Ruin the site? Why would someone responding to your comments in a rude way ruin the site? The only person bothered by it is you and you can block them. As for seeing their posts when you are logged out, stop logging out! Makes me wonder if perhaps you have multiple accounts like the people you accuse.
Well said.
I won’t change my name or profile pic though, you can always spot me. I have a tendency to play devil’s advocate, and I have some rather edgy opinions which is why I am hesitant to call “troll” on anyone saying something controversial.
As for your situation, I believe it makes more sense to try to contact Disqus about that sort of thing. They are the provider of this comment functionality after all. One of the reasons many sites use Disqus is that they don’t want to bother with moderation etc. themselves. So owners of sites using Disqus are always going to be reluctant to help you.
That’s not correct….lol….If you already did block others before, then their replies won’t be visible to you. Then how can you say, he/she has still be following your posts……!
Damn, this comment section has totally been “derailed”….Please stay on the Game’s TOPIC discussion guys.
Thanks.
It seems to me this ‘Paul86’ guy has a personal vendetta against some other peeps as well. Always whining and crying to an extent that he loses control of himself.
On TOPIC, RTCW is one of the best old school FPS of all time !! Gotta try this MOD.
Aye !
What a great timing, thank you for posting this!
I was actually in the middle of the game, purchased RTCW on GOG a week ago 🙂
Is it just me or is the difference really minor?
IMO, the difference is surely there, but I won’t call it a very HUGE or a major one though.
You are welcome…
A bit “artifacty”. The algorithm here seems quite aggressive, creating stretched lines where there was no detail at all in the original. A slightly less sharp upscale that leaves monochrome patches like the snow be rather than inventing detail for those areas might create a more cohesive look.
sure, but the real question is do YOU deserve the spanking you’re getting on that table?
IDGAF what anybody says this game is better than every doom and quake released up until a few years ago imho. It deserves way more praise and love…TY Shiba Inu and DSOG for sharing this!
Ummm….the textures are barely any better. This is probably the worst implementation of texture upscaling I’ve ever seen.