[BlueSpawn]

Like many I've recently rediscovered FreeSpace: The Great War after dusting off my old WingMan Force joystick. The game runs fantastic for the most part, with the exception of a few lags and some crashes. One crash, however, is consistantly happening on every try, preventing me from continuing with the game.

The crash occurs in the mission called Big Bang, when you are called in a red alert to save your base from a shivan attack. The game crashes to Desktop without an error message about 1 minute into the mission, every time.

Here are some of my specs:

Pentium 4 equivalent AMD processor
516mb of RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro



I have not yet tried OpenGL, but I'm also wondering if I need to patch Freespace to get rid of the crashes/bugs.

Problem is, I can't test to see if the patch works because I can't find the patch 1.6 ANYWHERE.

Help would be most appreciated!!

--BlueSpawn

[Macfie]

I have posted the patches for FS1 and FS2 retail on FreeSpaceMods.net.  These are for the US version of the game.

http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?list.46

[Jeff Vader]

I'd like to take a moment to once again promote the joys and wonders of FreeSpace_Open. With it you could play FSPort, which allows you to play the FS1 campaign with the new and spankin' FSO engine and with all the graphical glory. But suit yourself.

Edit:

I have not yet tried OpenGL

OpenGL support only occures with the FreeSpace_Open engine. You shouldn't find it in FS1.

[BlueSpawn]

Thank you for the patches.

I've heard a bit about this Open Source. Is it a mod for FreeSpace 1, or a mod for FreeSpace 2 that re-creates the first campaign?

In any case, I'm wondering if the Open Source stuff will get rid of the constant crashes I've been having.

[Jeff Vader]

In 2002, Volition was not doing so well, so since they had nothing to lose, they released the source code of the FreeSpace 2 engine. A collective now known as The Source Code Project started working on the engine, adding new features when necessary, thus creating the FreeSpace_Open game engine. More details here.

FSO doesn't "recreate" anything. It simply is an improved version of the FS2 engine. And multiplatform, as well. Numerous Mac and Linux users are now able to play FreeSpace at least with a bit less hassle than before.

The FreeSpace 1 to FreeSpace 2 Port, or FSPort, is a mod for FreeSpace 2 and FSO. It ports the missions, ships, voices, sounds, music and the whole lot from FS1 so that people can play the original main campaign (and Silent Threat) with FS2, or with FSO.

The MediaVPs are a collection of graphical improvements, such as higher-detail models, textures, effects. Also, certain hi-fi music tracks are included. Using the MediaVPs requires the FSO engine.

Your computer specs aren't that comprehensive, but I'd say you should have better luck getting FSO to run. Then, as I said, you could play the FS1 campaign with FSPort. Also, your rig should have enough juice to run the 3.6.8 Zeta MediaVPs. Turey's FSO Installer (link in my signature) will install everything necessary.

Note that OpenAL, a, open source, cross-platform audio API is required to run FSO (link in my signature).

And use a 3.6.10 build. 3.6.9 has certain issues with red-alert missions. I think the Installer downloads the correct one nowadays (linked in my signature as Recommended build for Windows users).

[karajorma]

Just to nitpick. are doing just fine. It's Interplay who were (and still are) in trouble.

[BlueSpawn]

Can't thank you enough!

I had been searching the Internet for hours and it seemed like every FreeSpace fansite was a dead link. Then I found this place. Kudos to all the people that've put their work into the mods & applications.

[Jeff Vader]

Just to nitpick. are doing just fine. It's Interplay who were (and still are) in trouble.

Really? Hmm. I've always had the impression that had financial trouble or something like that in the past. I do know that they're in business now and seem to be doing fine. Oh well. You live and you learn.