[ZmaN]

I believe i posted this once before, but its gone so im posting it again.....  I got my XP machine up and running with my new video card, but freespace 1 still has this little keyboard problem....  It gets backed up in commands and then just stops taking keyboard controls until i let go of the controls, then it lets me do it again, and then it fails again...  


help?

[StratComm]

USB or PS2 keyboard?  Because PS2 is limited to the use of at most 3 keys at any given time.

Besides compatibility mode, there isn't much that can be done with FS1 these days.  There's talk of making the SCP support it, maybe, but even optimistically that's a LONG way out.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by StratComm
Besides compatibility mode, there isn't much that can be done with FS1 these days.  There's talk of making the SCP support it, maybe, but even optimistically that's a LONG way out.

You've got that almost 180 degrees backwards. Freespace 1 support has been in the Icculus Linux build since 2003, and merging that into the SCP is one of our major goals for the short term.

[StratComm]

I knew I'd seen it before.  Doesn't help out immediately, but I guess the timeframe for getting it in is much shorter than I thought.

[taylor]

I'm probably going to get the icculus.org version up-to-date for Windows as well as help bring some of my FS1 work to SCP.  The icculus.org version has already got MVE support and just needs PXO support now.  A few Windows specific bug and build fixes and it will be ready to go, but with with an extra OpenGL renderer.  The icculus.org version is still the closest to the retail version and will pretty much stay that way except for bug fixes.  Doesn't really compete with what FSPort is doing but I hope it will end up replacing Tom's build so that there aren't 3 different major code bases floating around.  Enough people have compained about the problems with the retail versions and newer computers (not just XP) that I think it's worth the effort to have the icculus.org version in a position to come to the rescue in those cases.

The icculus.org version of FS1 isn't network compatible with the retail version since pretty much FUBAR'd that code but pretty much everything else works exactly like the original version.  The only thing missing that I would like to support but haven't been able to is the original pilot and campaign file formats.  Unfortunately I still don't know what those formats are and never could find docs describing them.  It can't even upgrade original FS1 pilots either which pretty much sucks.  I had some kick ass stats going in FS1.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by taylor
Unfortunately I still don't know what those formats are and never could find docs describing them.

Descent Network much?
http://descent-freespace.com/ddn/specs/plr/

Emailing Heiko Herrmann might give you more info, as he's the one that wrote all those tools.

But I would think the FS1 info should still be there in the code, just buried beneath all those version numbers.

[taylor]

Yeah I saw that but it's really not much help since many things are unknown and at least 4 of those are data blocks.  Also doesn't cover the campaign savefile format.  And some of that info is actually wrong with respect to the FS2 format so I'm hesitant to use it as a guide for FS1.  I'll probably just reverse engineer them and document it myself.

The pilot file formats is one of those things that got largely changed from FS1 to FS2.  I already know that the stats block and details block are different in some ways.  I'm not sure about campaign or controlconfig blocks.  Most of it is basically the same or something I can figure out from comments but the sticky points are pretty sticky.

[Mongoose]

When you mention SCP "support" for FS1, do you mean some sort of FS1_Open project to add improvements to the original?  Or would this involve some sort of incorporation of FS1 into FS2_Open, so that FS1's content can be used natively within it?  Or would it be limited to fixing whatever bugs that FS1 has?  Or do you mean something entirely different that I'm too dense to understand?

[StratComm]

What it would entail would be FS2_open being able to load and run FS1 mission and data files with a similar experience to that of vanilla FS1.  However, I suspect that it will not necessarily attempt to emulate things like the rendering engine.

[WMCoolmon]

Something along the lines of putting an FS2_Open exe in your FS1 folder would make it run FS1 instead of FS2. And if you put the mediaVPs in with it, they'd enhance any of the ships common to FS1 and FS2 (eg you'd be protecting a high-poly Orff.)

At least that's what I'd like to see anyway. Mmm, high-poly Galatea...high-res graphics...


high-poly Lucifer going with m5_bttl2.wav playing in the background...



I'll be in my bunk.