[spazurek]

Hi,

Newbie here, sorry if any of this has been covered before.  I just got the game and am enjoying it immensely (still making my way throught the tutorials -- I'm a slow learner).  I'm finding that some of my HUD elements aren't displaying properly.  In particular, the aspect angle, the direction to target indicator, the triangles under the off-screen target indicator, and (most troubling) the direction to missile indicator either don't show up at all or they show up sporadically.  It's possible I misunderstand the nature of these indicators, but I don't think so.  I've gone to the HUD settings control screen and made sure all these elements are turned 'on'; no help.  I should note that the game runs smooth as silk otherwise.

My specs are: Dell Inspiron 5160 (a laptop), NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 video card (the probable culprit...).  I'm running v. 1.2 of the game (the 20th anniversary edition), and my OS is WinXP SP2.

The main question is whether there's anything I can do to fix these things.  If not, will I survive without them?  As I mentioned, the missile indicator seems like it might be pretty important...the audio proximity indicator helps a lot and allows me to know when to launch countermeasures, but I feel like it might be a problem not knowing which way to dodge.  Any help is appreciated!

[phatosealpha]

You running vanilla FS2 or the SCP?

[spazurek]

Well, not sure what the SCP is (I really am a newbie), but that likely means that it's the plain vanilla variety.  I'm running the game that shipped in the Freespace 2 20th anniversary ed. box, to be precise.

One thing I neglected to say in the original, my OS is WinXP Pro, which appears to have some known incompatibilities from what I see here.

Also, if anyone is feeling like indulging me, I have a couple of other issues.  My afterburner seems not to work; when I press the button I get an acceleration but no faster than the 'a' button, and the afterburner guage never changes no matter what.  Actually, the weapons energy guage never changes either, and I never seem to run out of weapon energy as far as I can tell, and setting the weapons energy setting to minimum also has no impact on my weapon behavior.  Feel free to ignore all of this....

[karajorma]

Aha!

Click me

[spazurek]

Excellent -- my afterburner actually works now, I had no idea what I was missing!  Gracias!

It seems like my other problems are mostly aesthetic, although I'm still afraid I'm going to get pulverized by missiles, but the audio indicator helps a lot.  I still don't seem to ever lose my weapon energy, but I probably shouldn't complain...

[karajorma]

YOu're still using the Subach? You won't ever see that make a dent in your energy stores. In fact whenever I have double Subachs I shunt power to engines and shields and still never run out

[spazurek]

I'm currently in training mission 5 where I'm driving a Hercules that has both a Subach and a Promethius.  Double firing these has no effect...

[karajorma]

Well basically that's like just firing the prom R on it's own. Come back and complain if you don't run out when using the maxim or Kayser

[Athenor]

Okay, I think I've got a related problem. Noticed it before installing the source project, and it has persisted after the installation of the source project + upgrades.

Namely: The central HUD options are off-center by about 1/4 of the screen.

The friendly and enemy shield indicators, the HUD hull/shield indicator, the weapon energy/afterburner indicators, the escort monitors, and more likely than not the missile lock-on arrows are all off-center. The only one I'm able to see is the HUD hull/shield indicator, which is halfway on the screen, down where the enemy ship profile would be shown. The rest of the on-screen indicators are fine, or at least seem to be, although no box popped up around the comm menu.

I just recieved the game today, and installed the source upgrades.. but like I said, I saw this before said upgrades were made.

I am running WinXP SP2, an ATI 9600xt card, 1 GB Ram, DX 9.0c December 2005 update, Omega Drivers 6.1 revision, and the P4/XP/64 version of the source upgrade.

[karajorma]

Does this happen if you run in 640x480?

[Athenor]

Nope.

And the strange blue border that appeared on the upper edge and the left edge of the buttons/sprites/screen has gone away as well.


... of course, I don't want to play this game at 640x480, but it is good to know it's a problem with a remedy, if extreme.

[karajorma]

I thought it might go away in 640x480 mode. Check your main freespace folder for a file called sparky_hi_fs2.vp. This is the file that contains the data FreeSpace uses to run in other modes. If you don't have it then you probably didn't install it when you were installing the game (or you deleted it afterwards). As a result FS2 is stretching the 640x480 graphics to fit the higher resolution you are using. With predictably bad results.

Best thing to do if the file is missing is to simply reinstall FS2 again and this time check that you do install the high res graphics files.

[Athenor]

Okay, get this.

I didn't know that full versions were floating around, and thus I bought one off of eBay. this particular copy was chineese, possibly bootleg (I can't tell, it has all the copyright info and a manual), but worked 100% in english.

One problem: The shipping from China? Yeah.. it didn't survive that. There's a horribe concentric scratch on it, and installing the high-res files crashes the game.

So... I don't have the high res pack, and probably can't grab it.

=(

Edit: so if anyone knows where I can get -just- that file, i'd greatly appreciate it.

[Descenter]

you running DSL? I can mail it to you if you are

[Athenor]

I'm running cable modem, but I'm not sure what the mail size is.

I have Trillian.....

[Charismatic]

This is the 2nd thread without a welcome beam. Where is your manners HLP!!!

[Athenor]

*laughs*

It seems kinda cool around here. I'm a big fan of Homeworld/Homeworld 2, and I know it drew a lot of influences from Bab 5 and Freespace... but I've always loved this.

It looks like getting the 250 meg .vp for the high res stuff did the trick. Now, I just need to tweak the display to get it more readable, and I'll be all set. Well, that, and the slight slowdown in the techroom and the missions when new models are loaded, as well as getting the movies to play now that I've downloaded .AVI versions.. but beyond that. =)