Another year, another release!Change log: (chronologically ordered)
- More OpenGL optimizations
- Full type information output for Lua documentation. Very useful for writing Lua scripts.
- A new -weaponspew command-line option for printing MediaVP-style statistics, plus a weapon comparison spreadsheet, to the debug log.
- Improved ship lookup behavior in SEXPs for improved performance.
- BPTC/BC7 texture compression support
- Refactoring and new features for the ship lab.
- Missile multi-lock. It's finally in an official build!
- Enhancements to the model code in preparation for cool features in 21.2.
- IPv6 support for multiplayer
- A lot of general fixes for multiplayer.
For a summary of changes from a modders point of view, you can check out EatThePaths summary here:
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=97094.0Deprecations:- Dropped support for Windows XP
- Scripting:
- ba.getFrametime(): The parameter value was used incorrectly inside the implementation. To avoid breaking existing scripts and to improve readability this has been split into ba.getMissionFrametime() and ba.getRealFrametime().
- gr.drawMonochromeImage(): gr.drawImage() got a new parameter for drawing monochrome images and is more flexible in general so the monochrome variant is no longer needed.
Deprecations are a mechanism in FSO where a certain feature or aspect of the engine has changed or is no longer supported. Since this would normally break existing mods we have the mod table feature "
$Target Version:" with which a mod can specify what version of FSO it was developed with. The features listed above will be removed or changed when the target version of a mod is at least the version released in this post.
Previous 19.0 Release ThreadLaunchers, if you don't have one already:
All platforms: For every day use, we recommend
Knossos, an integrated solution for downloading and launching mods.
Hidden Text: Alternative Launchers • Show Cross-platform:
wxLauncher 0.12.x Test Build (ongoing project for a unified launcher, you should upgrade to the latest RC/test build if you have not yet)
Important: For best compatibility with FSO 3.8 and later you should use at least wxLauncher 0.12.
Windows:
Launcher 5.5g (
Mirror) (
Mirror) Not compatible with Windows 8+, use wxLauncher above
OS X: Soulstorm's
OS X Launcher 3.0Linux:
YAL or
by hand or whatever you can figure out.
Windows (32/64-bit)Compiled using GitHub Actions on Windows Server 2019 (10.0.17763), Visual Studio Enterprise 201964-bit: fs2_open_21_0_0-builds-x64-SSE2.zip32-bit: fs2_open_21_0_0-builds-Win32-SSE2.zipThis one is based on the SSE2 Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.Hidden Text: Alternative builds • Show 
Linux 64-bitCompiled with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit, GCC 5fs2_open_21_0_0-builds-Linux.tar.gzThese builds use a mechanism called
AppImage which should allow these builds to run on most Linux distributions. However, we recommend that you compile your own builds which will result in less issues.
Alternatively, if there is a package in your software repository then you should use that. If you are the maintainer of such a package for a distribution then let us know and we will include that here.
OS XNot available We recently lost access to our Mac CI environment which we usually used for compiling these builds so for the time being, there will be no builds for this OS.
Hidden Text: TrackIR Users • Show Important!!An external DLL is required for FSO to use TrackIR functions. The following DLL is simply unpacked in to your main FreeSpace2 root dir.
TrackIR is only supported on Windows.
TrackIR SCP DLL (
Mirror) (
Mirror)
Known issues:
