[bacchuspup]

Hi... okay, just installed everything (29 GB! sheesh...) and had some questions for anyone willing to help...

1) I know the recommended install says to put this into a C:\Games folder, but I generally install games to my 4TB external hard drive, which is what I did with Freespace 2 - especially when the full install with the mods is so large.  Is this going to cause any issues?  I'd really rather not hit my internal hard drive with 29GB devoted to one game.

2) I just started the game with the wxlauncher with the only mod selected MediaVPs 2014.  I noticed the intro movie looks pretty much exactly the same as vanilla Freespace 2.  Are there no graphical improvements to the cutscenes, or am I missing something?

3) When I start the game and get to the screen that shows a "New User Tip" window in the foreground and the game menu in the background, the background flickers badly and my mouse cursor leaves trails in the background.  This seems to happen whenever I have an in-game message window in the foreground and the game in the background.  I did a search, and couldn't find anyone who's had this problem - wasn't in the FAQs either.  I can live with it, since the message windows don't flicker and the mouse doesn't leave a trail otherwise, but it's going to bug me if I don't figure out why it's happening.

Thanks!

[The E]

1) I know the recommended install says to put this into a C:\Games folder, but I generally install games to my 4TB external hard drive, which is what I did with Freespace 2 - especially when the full install with the mods is so large.  Is this going to cause any issues?  I'd really rather not hit my internal hard drive with 29GB devoted to one game.

We recommend C:\Games as it is a reasonably short path name, but it is by no means required. As long as the overall path is short and not some monstrosity like "D:\Games\GamesFrom1999\SpaceSims\ActuallyGoodOnes\Best\FreeSpace\FreeSpace2\", everything's going to be fine.

2) I just started the game with the wxlauncher with the only mod selected MediaVPs 2014.  I noticed the intro movie looks pretty much exactly the same as vanilla Freespace 2.  Are there no graphical improvements to the cutscenes, or am I missing something?

There are no higher-res versions of the cutscenes available. Everything is as expected.

3) When I start the game and get to the screen that shows a "New User Tip" window in the foreground and the game menu in the background, the background flickers badly and my mouse cursor leaves trails in the background.  This seems to happen whenever I have an in-game message window in the foreground and the game in the background.  I did a search, and couldn't find anyone who's had this problem - wasn't in the FAQs either.  I can live with it, since the message windows don't flicker and the mouse doesn't leave a trail otherwise, but it's going to bug me if I don't figure out why it's happening.

What sort of GPU are you using?

[wardog300k]

3) When I start the game and get to the screen that shows a "New User Tip" window in the foreground and the game menu in the background, the background flickers badly and my mouse cursor leaves trails in the background.  This seems to happen whenever I have an in-game message window in the foreground and the game in the background.  I did a search, and couldn't find anyone who's had this problem - wasn't in the FAQs either.  I can live with it, since the message windows don't flicker and the mouse doesn't leave a trail otherwise, but it's going to bug me if I don't figure out why it's happening.

I've had a similar problem, setting the game to run in compatibility mode with XP SP3 fixed it.

[bacchuspup]

Thanks for responding E & Wardog... I've got a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960.

Wardog, I tried compatibility mode, and no change.  Still have flickering and mouse trace when I have a window in the foreground.  I'll try some other compatibility modes and I'll post if they work, but so far no bueno.

I also tried using different executables (I started with 3.7.4 RC1 SSE2, then 3.7.2, then 3.7.4 RC1), all three in XP SP3 compatibility mode, and the flickering and mouse trail persisted in all three.

Oh, and my path is relatively short... A:\Video Games\PC\1996-2000\Freespace 2.  (I've been told not to use A for my external hard drive because A was historically reserved for floppies, but c'est la vie - it's too late now, and I haven't yet had any problems doing it).

[FrikgFeek]

Freespace port has some redone custscenes by mjn, FS2 doesn't. So you'll just have to live with the in-game graphics looking quite a lot better than the cutscenes.

For the flickering, are you using any sort of OSD like fraps or a similar FPS display? The Freespace mainhall and menus don't really like those for whatever reason. It should be fine in-game though.

[bacchuspup]

Thanks Feek... I was all ready to thank you and consider myself a moron, because I was using fraps... but I turned it off, and the problem persists.  Annoying that I appear to be the only one experiencing this (or at least where a compatibility switch doesn't correct it).

Oh, and yeah, it doesn't appear to be a problem in-game anyway (like I said, only when I have a text window open in-game does it appear to show up).

[OverDhill]

One issue I have had in the past was that the game was not running the native resolution of the monitor.  I know it sounds weird but it drove me nuts just recently when I was setting up a new profile for the launcher... I disabled everything in the Advanced screen and still would flicker and had a mouse tail... check that

[AdmiralRalwood]

We recommend C:\Games as it is a reasonably short path name, but it is by no means required. As long as the overall path is short and not some monstrosity like "D:\Games\GamesFrom1999\SpaceSims\ActuallyGoodOnes\Best\FreeSpace\FreeSpace2\", everything's going to be fine.

Although actually even a monstrosity like "D:\Games\GamesFrom1999\SpaceSims\ActuallyGoodOnes\Best\FreeSpace\FreeSpace2\" shouldn't actually cause problems as long as you're running FSO 3.7.2 or newer; it's just very poor form regardless.