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Recent Posts

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51
FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) / Release: 25.0.0-RC9
« Last post by SirKnightly on January 03, 2026, 08:22:20 pm »
Change log: (chronologically ordered)
PLACEHOLDER

Deprecations:
PLACEHOLDER

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. Any features listed under Deprecations will be removed or changed when the target version of a mod is at least the version released in this post.

Previous 23.2.1 Release Thread

Launchers, if you don't have one already:
All platforms: For every day use, we recommend Knossos.NET, an integrated solution for downloading and launching mods.

Hidden Text: Alternative Launchers • Show
Cross-platform: wxLauncher 0.12.x Test Build (legacy project for a unified launcher)
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 3.0
Linux:  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 2019

64-bit: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-x64-SSE2.zip

32-bit: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Win32-SSE2.zip
This one is based on the SSE2 Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.

Hidden Text: Alternative builds • Show

64-bit AVX: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-x64-AVX.zip
This one is based on the AVX Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler (fastest build if your CPU supports AVX instructions).


32-bit AVX: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Win32-AVX.zip
This one is based on the AVX Optimizations from the MSVC Compiler.

What are those SSE, SSE2 and AVX builds I keep seeing everywhere?
Your answer is in this topic.
Don't want to deal with that? Use Knossos.NET and it will download the best build specifically for your PC!

Linux
Compiled with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, GCC 9
x86_64: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Linux-x86_64.tar.gz
arm64: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Linux-arm64.tar.gz

These 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.


macOS
macOS 10.9+
Intel (64-bit): fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Mac-x86_64.tar.gz
Apple Silicon: fs2_open_25_0_0-RC9-builds-Mac-arm64.tar.gz

These builds are not signed and so by default will fail to launch. To run them simply right-click on the app, click open, then click open again on the security confirmation dialog. You should only have to do this once for each app.
If running the game through Knossos or Knossos.NET this step should not be necessary.

NOTE: macOS builds currently have limited support and may exhibit issues not present on other platforms.


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:
52
FreeSpace Discussion / Re: Transferring data to new computer
« Last post by ShivanSlayer on January 03, 2026, 10:35:46 am »
No success.  I copied the files and it still shows an empty list and medal case in game.  Sucks to lose those, but it would have been worse if the old laptop died in middle of a playthrough
53
The Babylon Project / Re: B5 Digital Art
« Last post by Trivial Psychic on January 02, 2026, 03:53:06 pm »
"It was the dawn of the 3rd age of Mankind."
54
The Babylon Project / Re: B5 Digital Art
« Last post by emi_100 on January 01, 2026, 08:57:39 pm »

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
A present for all of you! Enjoy! 🎁😁

Have a great year! 🤍

Thank you to everyone who has supported what I do all this time with kind comments and words of encouragement! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!


https://linktr.ee/DigitalEraStudios

55
Gaming Discussion / Re: Current FREE Games Promotions
« Last post by Antares on January 01, 2026, 05:13:40 pm »
Today's Epic freebies are Total War: Three Kingdoms and Wildgate. These are the last games of the holiday giveaway; they will remain free until January 8, when Epic resumes its regular giveaway schedule.

Sadly, GOG had nothing special to offer throughout the holidays, apart from its regular discounts.
56
FreeSpace Discussion / Re: Screencap Contest: December 2025
« Last post by Colt on December 31, 2025, 06:10:50 pm »
God a couple Typhons to add to the mix  :p


57
General Discussion / Re: The Size of the Universe
« Last post by Mobius on December 31, 2025, 12:10:17 pm »
Not quite my field of expertise, but this reminds me of the controversial dark flow hypothesis (there's a rather interesting video by PBS Space Time about this particular topic), as it also points to vast regions of the broader universe located beyond the cosmological horizon.
58
FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support / Re: VR resolution (24.2.0)
« Last post by Mr_Maniac on December 30, 2025, 03:44:01 pm »
I think I'll settle for 2500x2500 with SMAA. Actual missions are looking pretty good... I think big ships far away are the main "problem" (looking more blurry)...

My new Joystick arrived today and I started FS2 campaign in VR - played until first mission in nebula just now. Yes, cockpits are very nice (switches/displays in cockpit - ATM Herc2 - are looking a bit small sometimes - should I play around with FOV or something?) and it's also nice to be able to look around and follow my target with my head.

Only the "floating" HUD elements (targeting rectangles etc.) would still need some work in FS2, I think. They're only correctly aligned with target when in center of my view and then it looks somehow... Strange... The Z axis seems to be misaligned sometimes. I don't know how to describe it best (but I can imagine that it's hard to align a 2D HUD element to a 3D model in a 3D/VR view)...
But it's a very solid VR experience / VR space sim and especially considering it's something implemented in a near 30 year old game (oh, I'm old...) by a still very active and awesome community!

Big thanks to everyone involved with FS2 SCP / FS2 Open and all Asset/Mod/Mission creators!
59
FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support / Re: VR resolution (24.2.0)
« Last post by Mr_Maniac on December 29, 2025, 01:00:17 pm »
Yes! Changing resolution with 25.0.0RC8 works great. But I'm a bit confused... The Valve Index doesn't have a very high resolution (1440x1600 per eye). So 2500x2500 (default) should already be quite above that. But it seems that it only starts looking better/good at about a resolution of 3000x3000 or higher (also HUD is looking blurry+aliased at lower res)...
Which can be bit more demanding performance-wise - it runs smooth until there's a certain degree of action (like dozens or more beams^^) (still running good enough - but noticable).

Maybe I'll play around a bit more with resolution and Anti-Aliasing Settings (3000x3000 and Medium SMAA for now looking quite good for things that are "near", but big ships that are more far away can still show quite some aliasing - especially textures with straight lines)...

Do other games use any "tricks" to look good in VR? Any tipps/advice for settings/mods/something I could try to make FS2 VR look even better? ;)
60
General Discussion / The Size of the Universe
« Last post by BengalTiger on December 28, 2025, 04:08:39 pm »

So this video says that the whole visible universe is less than 1000x that of the Planck luminosity.
Thus I declare that the Big Bang was at most 1000-something times bigger than all the stars in the visible universe.

Since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, the Big Bang dissipated into the universe, and therefore the universe is 1000-something times bigger than what we can see.

How's that for being a nerd?

For the lazy, the d00d comes up with this at just after the 7:30 mark in the video.
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