[Merlin-TC]

Hi everyone,

this is my first post but I am pretty sure it won't be my last
It was a long journey until I finally found this forum. At first I just wanted to play Freespace2 again and so I googled for the most recent patch.
One link brought me to the Babylon5 mod for freespace2 and there was a posting about open_fs2. Me being a linux fanatic and open source lover I wanted to check it out.
And so I did over the last days. I surfed on many more related sites and also tried the Freespace1 campaign in Freespace2.
What bugged me a little is that the cutscenes couldn't be played anymore because the MVE code is not open source.
So I started to convert all the movies into XVID. I think there has to be something changed in the missions of the FS1 mod so the videos are shown ingame (like it was done for FS2 in the thread:
Click ME!

And also when I tried the FS1 mod I accidently left my FS1 CD in my cdrom and was really surprised to see that open_fs2 actually accessed the drive to get the voice and ani files.
And this lead to my next thought and basically the reason for posting this thread.
Would it be possible to put all *.vp files on one DVD so FS2 could access them?
Maybe anyone has tried that already?
Is there a row in which FS2 checks where the files are? Like at first on hd and then on cd/dvd?

I hope you didn't mind the long introduction but this was my first post and my introduction to this forum as well

PS: Sorry for my english

[Setekh]

Welcome to HLP, Merlin. I definitely know that what you suggest is possible - because, in fact, a DVD version of FreeSpace 2 was released some time ago (though, to my knowledge, it is not widely available). I think it has been suggested a few times, because people are sick of having to swap out their FS2 discs frequently, though I can't rememeber how far it's been followed up.

[Black Wolf]

Acquire Target : Merlin-TC. Commence Plasma Core Isertion. Beam-Free-All. FIRE!



Welcome to HLP. There are exits to the left and rear. Do not attempt to use them. Under your seat you will find empty beer cans, cookie crumbs, dog eared dungeon Porn mags left by Shrike... oh, and a Flamethrower. Unfortunately, we're out of napalm, so you'll have to bludgeon people to death with them.

In the event of serious conflict, there are plasma rifles in the forward locker, thouigh these can be opened by an Admin, [V] God, or Hyperintelligent shade of the colour Blue. If, for whatever reaso, you find yourself crawling around in the ductwork, there's a better than average chance you'll encounter a Shivan. They're easy to spot with the five legs and all. If you're lucky, it's just Carl, who responds well to food rewards. If not, then at least you die quickly. Be aware that the entrance to the main control room is guarded by subspatial claymore mines.

Have a nice day.

Erm - I'm not big on howFS accesses stuff, but since Cutscenes are on CDs, in theory it should access stuff fine. The difficulty would be in tricking it into thinking it had disk 3 when it wanted it - though, I suppose if it found the cutscene/file it was looking for...

EDIT - Doh! Steak beat me.[/color]

[kode]

I think that the cutscenes has been converted already, although I'm not entirely sure.
and to my knowledge, it checks for the files on the hard drive first.

[SuperCoolAl]

i think fs2 just looks for the cutscene in the drive and if it doesnt find it it comes up with an 'insert disk x' but im not sure because mission files are on the hard disk but vanilla FS2 wants a disk anyway

[terren]

strange then how I've been running it with out a disk ever  since I beat the main campain a few months ago, I just started it up with Diablo2 in the drive and it worked fine.

[SuperCoolAl]

if ure using FS Open it makes it so you dont need a disk anyway

[Merlin-TC]

Thanks for the nice welcome, cool banner

I am still trying to find out how fs2 recognizes the cds.
I guess I am quite close now and as soon as I have news I will post it here.

My intention is to actually put all the animation and voice files of fs1 and fs2 on one DVD.

@all developers:
Is it possible to somehow change the folders etc. where fs2 looks for videos?
Maybe it would be possible that it checks a optical drive too?
This would be really awsome and shouldn't be that time consuming...I hope.

Maybe if anyone can give me a clue I could try it myself.

[Flipside]

Which is just as well, cos I bought my FS2 3 days after it's release and it's now more scratchy than Mr Scratchy in Scratchyland

A DVD release would work, I even saw a proggy once for DVD burners that almost partitioned your blank DVD and convinced the computer you had 4 CD roms or the like But I use SCP, which doesn't need the disk, so, at least as far as I'm concecerned, it wouldn't really be much use for me

Flipside

[Merlin-TC]

Well I am using SCP as well (that's why I am posting in here).
I just want to create my own DVD so I have all media files on one disk and can actually use them all.
I think the bigest problem are the cutscenes for the freespace1 campaign.
I converted them all but how to start them out of freespace?
Also I finally found out what makes fs2 think there is a fs1 cd in my dvd-drive.
The file setup.exe from the original cd, seems like it is checked.
But now the voices from the fs1 campaign are still missing but I am sure it worked yesterday with the cd inserted :-/

[Taristin]

You people really need to take better care of those CD's. I got mine the first day they came available in stores. (I was really dissapointed they said a September release, but all of the files weren't burned onto the CD's until my birthday, Sept. 15, which I was hoping to get the CD's for...)

My CDs are still in great shape. Of course, I mutilated the paper box it came in, and fitted it into a hard plastic 3 CD-holding case, but still

[WMCoolmon]

It's possible. Freespace 2 does look in the CD-Rom, I think. It was a while since I last poked around in the loading code.

The easiest way to check is to burn a CD (or DVD) with some VPs on it. Then change the originals' .vp extension to something else and try to run FS2.

Oh, but the Freespace 2 exe must be run from the HD, or else it can't write campaign and pilot saves.

[übermetroid]

A DVD would be a great way to have everything backed up....  All the PORT files, FS2_Open, INF everything.  The only problem I see is that I like everything to run smothly, I dont like to have to move .vp files around to get a campaign to work right.  And if everything was burnded on to a DVD that would  be alittle hard...

[Bobboau]

we realy should try and suport this sort of thing, cause then I could bring a DVD in to school with me and make everyone else **** there pants

[Flaser]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
It's possible. Freespace 2 does look in the CD-Rom, I think. It was a while since I last poked around in the loading code.

The easiest way to check is to burn a CD (or DVD) with some VPs on it. Then change the originals' .vp extension to something else and try to run FS2.

Oh, but the Freespace 2 exe must be run from the HD, or else it can't write campaign and pilot saves.

That's not a problem.

The important part is that you don't have to keep all the data and the movies on your HD which take up a lot of space, wheras a decent DVD should be able to hold around 4Gigs IIRC *I'm not familiar with recent DVD-R standards, so anyone who is correct me- and that's a lot of space.

You can put everything on it, and would still have space for a video wuth the SCP team.

[Merlin-TC]

That is what I am trying to do actually.

I just put together most of the Freespace1 stuff in one *.vp file and convertet all the videos.
Now the only thing I need is to tell freespace to check a drive for it.
Would it be possible to integrate this into fs2_open?
Maybe that you can just set one drive where it can check for additional data if it cannot be found in the freespace2 dir?

One more questions about *.vp files. for example I have two different vp files but some files in both of them are the same.
Which one does it actually use in the game then? Is there a special schema it follows?

And you can fit 4.5GB on one DVD-R or DVD+R

[kode]

I believe it goes through the vp's in alphabetical order. what files are the same?

[Merlin-TC]

I am just asking because I am trying to create a DVD with the stuff like animations etc.
So when never versions are released and I put them on my hdd for testing that the new one is used and not the one on the DVD.
But first I have to get it to work that it checks the DVD for the files

[Bobboau]

the file loading prefrence is, root directory, data subdirectorys, VPs in alphebetical order, cd drive