[Svizel]

Recently after i updated my media files on effects_c and textures_b game started to hang and it become kinda unplayable, especialy in shivan missions, so i thought about a "lite" version of those files to have an alternative which provides at least some level of eye-candy but still keep reasonable memory usage / performance on slower PCs. I know you all have a lot of your own work  to do so i tried to do it myself.

First of all thanks to WMCoolmon, Lightspeed and Cetanu who had the patience to answer my stupid noob questions and sorry to everyone who's masterpices i destroyed.

mv_lite_effects_c1.vp

• no .tga files
• all original .pcx effects
• all weapon effects resized
• .pcx versions of .tga only efects

mv_lite_textures_b.vp

• no .tga files
• no larger textures (except for Lucifer which needs it badly, i just resized this texture on half)
• all shine/glow maps in .pcx format and FS2 retail texture sizes

If you never had a problem with current media files don't even bother with downloading, game will only look worse for you...
If you have problem with hangs in game or high memory usage problems even with -jpgtga flag and large textures turned off, give it a try... :)



...and one bonus on end:
Black Ares textures

• original texture artwork from Cetanu
• added shine/glow maps
• .pcx version only

[jdjtcagle]

That's the "real" Ares!!!
*downloads*

[karajorma]

Nice work.

I don't need these but I'm sure there are many who will.

BTW for those who play multiplayer and single player it may be worth creating a special multiplayer -mod folder and adding these to it. That way the high res textures only cause a slowdown in singleplayer.

[Singh]

sweeet!
this is gonna make playtesting a lot more eye-candy like

[DareDevil]

Looks great Sviz

Although I personally won't need it (yet) since I am one of the lucky few that can run the original VPs without too much probs so far  

[Kosh]

I noticed that the jumpnodes suddenly vanished. Did this include Raa's jumpnode fix? If not, here is the link to it:


http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,25699.0.html

[StratComm]

There's a new version of the jumpnode out, look for it in FS Modding.

[Kosh]

So it's all Bob's fault the jumpnode dissappeared. Thanks Strat.

[Svizel]

Originally posted by Kosh
I noticed that the jumpnodes suddenly vanished. Did this include Raa's jumpnode fix? If not, here is the link to it:


http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,25699.0.html

Those files only repleaces effects and textures media files. Fix for jumpnode problem is part of mv_core.vp, in current version (b) it includes older 2 lined jumpnode model. You will have to ask someone who's taking care of media files now (when WMCoolmon is gone) to repleace the model in core to this newer version.

[Kosh]

I just dl's Bob's new jumpnode, and it looks really cool.

[Svizel]

While i was experimenting with DDS format for effects (which turned out to be completly unusable for this job) i revisited lite effects package and made few updates:

• Resized static weapon effects on half (who will find visual difference during gameplay gets cookie )
• Fixed some weird-sized animations on the "nice numbers"
• Added 2 missing animations (oopsy )
• Resized all nebula background files on 32x32 (they are only one-colored so no need for them to be large :))
• Removed resized shieldhit animation, older actually looks better than new one resized imho...
• Converted missile maps on dds format (works fine for maps)

Also i'm working on lite version of Lightspeed's new texture pack. It's far from complete so a lot of larger ships with shared textures looks kinda weird, but i might post here link on some pre-release later.
New lite texture pack will not keep original FS2 texture size but also will not include huge textures. For example fighter and bomber textures will have 256x512 or 512x512 pixels large A version textures which in DDS format takes 128k or 256k for shinemap and 64k or 128k for main texture (no alpha channel). This will offer quite nice graphic enchantment while keeping memory usage on reasonable value.

[Taristin]

LS's new texture pack is basically a 'lite' version. DDS versions of everything...

[Svizel]

Originally posted by Raa
LS's new texture pack is basically a 'lite' version. DDS versions of everything...

emm.... sorry but 1MB large textures are far from beeing "lite"
DDS format isn't all... If you create 1024x1024 image it won't be small just because you save it as DDS... if you make it only 512x512 it will be  4x smaller and if you save it without alpha channel it's 8x smaller than 1024x1024 original... that is what i call "lite"

[Taristin]

Oh... but without the alpha channel, environment mapping will be messed up. As in ships with reflections over the entire hull, and at maximum strength...

[Svizel]

Originally posted by Raa
Oh... but without the alpha channel, environment mapping will be messed up. As in ships with reflections over the entire hull, and at maximum strength...

That would be for sure if there was removed alpha channel from shinemaps... But hey i'm not going to do that
I was speaking of base ship textures which don't need alpha at all cause they have it all on 100% anyway and it makes texture to have half size without alpha.

[Svizel]

Here's preview for new "lite" texture pack... It's build on current ShineLT-build5.0 containing same number of files but with different texture sizes. Note that this is not final version, texture sizes and maybe even format (for glowmaps) may change.

[pecenipicek]

could someone please make one full list of alll files needed to run FSO?

[Goober5000]

fs2_open_r.exe

That's it.  All the others are optional.

EDIT: Well, yeah, you need Launcher.exe when you first install it... to set up the video card.  Thanks, karajorma.

[karajorma]

A full list is easy. To run FSO you need

The launcher
The Exe

That's it. Everything else is 100% optional. Looks at Goobers post. Well you can do without the launcher but it would be a pain to do so.

[Lightspeed]

Check out the SCP installation guide and SCP files list for extra content.