Recently, we've had a number of posts indicating that the instellation process, particularily for the 3.3a patch, have lacked some degree of clarity. This thread is a step-by-step attempt to remidy this. It may come across as a bit too much in-depth for those more familiar with the Freespace engine, and what kinds of things can cause problems, but this is written so that someone who is completely unfamiliar with it can understand the process.
What You Need:TBP Base 3.2 Installer - exeTBP Base 3.3 Upgrader - exeTBP Base 3.3a Patch - rarOpenAL fix - exe (if you don't already have it installed)
Should the above links fail, all three Base Downloads can also be found on the
The Babylon Project - Base Downloads page. You may be redirected to another link. If the links on the redirect page don't work. Close the new window, and attempt the download again from the Project's webpage. If this doesn't work either, then
THIS may be to blame.
For the OpenAL fix, go to
THIS thread.
Step 1 - Install TBP Base 3.2Base 3.2 is a self-installing executable file. You only need to activate it and follow the instructions. You may find that it appears to sit idle for some time during the install. This is unfortunate but normal. Just give it time to do its thing.
Step 2 - Install TBP Base 3.3 UpgradeBase 3.3 is an upgrade to the 3.2 Base and is a self-installing exectutable file as well. It will modify the Core VP file that the 3.2 Base installed, and change its name to reflect the change. It too will likely have the period of apparent dormancy experienced during the 3.2 install. If the upgrade instellation completes, but the core VP file is nowhere to be found, it may be due to space limitations on your hard drive. The install needs a certain amount of space for the swap file.
Step 3 - Install TBP Base 3.3a Upgrade PatchSeveral key fixes missed getting into the 3.3 upgrade, so a patch was necessary. The 3.3a patch is a RAR file containing several items both to solve the oversights in 3.3, and to take advantage of new features and changes for a variety of cases. Most notably, the patch contains another VP file, which because of the way its named, will be loaded before the core VP, allowing the fixed contents to override the obsolete files in the Core VP. It also contains several new builds of Freespace Open and FRED Open, as well as a readme file describing their intended uses.
There is also an embedded directory called data/cache, containing a number of files with the .ibx extension. These files correspond to files in the data/models directory (which in this case are within the VP file). The game will generate them automatically for a model if one is not present. The ibx format is both smaller in size than the typical .pof format, and easier for the new Freespace Open engine to read, but no program exists to edit the ibx files, so pof files are still necessary. Depending on the size and complexity of the pof file however, it can take some time to generate an ibx file, so TBP includes pre-generated ibx file for its models to save loading time for the user.
For a successful instellation of the 3.3a patch, you must have a copy of WinRAR installed (the newer, the better) and you must extract the contents of the patch, to the base directory where you installed The Babylon Project. For example, the default install location for TBP is "C:\Program Files\The Babylon Project". Do not extract the contents of this patch into the "data" subfolder.
Step 4 - The Launcher SetupMany new features included for 3.3, require the use of newer builds of the Freespace Open engine (most notably, the use of animated subobject code to set multi-part turret default positions), than the one included with the Base 3.2 install. The build included with Base 3.2 was FSO 3.6.5, which was new at the time, but it is since become superceeded by 3.6.7, but the 3.2 install still selects the 3.6.5 executable by default, and the 3.3 Upgrade and 3.3a Patch do not change this. Therefore, you'll need to change which build is used when you launch The Babylon Project manually. Go into the Start Menu and find the program folder for The Babylon Project, and select "Launcher (configuration)". Near the top of the launcher window, you should see a location bar, indicating where TBP has been installed, and to the right of that there is a "browse" button. Select it, and in the folder window that comes up, select a new build of Freespace Open. Among the builds included, you should find fs2_open_367.exe. This is the earliest build recommended for use with your install of TBP. You'll also see a build labelled fs2_open_367_d.exe. The "_d" indicates that it is a debug build, which is used for detecting errors that release builds (sometimes with a "_r") won't warn you about. They are more memory-intensive however, and can throw up some error messages that are of little consequence but that act will disrupt gameplay. All the same, its best to use a release build for general gaming.
You'll also see a bunch of other FSO builds in the directory, with different dates included, and some containing "-P4" in their name. The -P4 is for advanced computers with more hard-coded media instruction sets such as SSE. If you're using a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP or higher processor, its probably best to use a -P4 enabled build (though none are available for the 3.6.7 builds). If you wish to use a more modern build than the basic 3.6.7, there are a couple of options, but they may require some more manual changes to enable properly. The most recent build I would reccommend for use with default 3.3a install status, is the build containing 2005-12-22 in its name. Builds newer than this have some changes to how subobject animation entries are written, and will give errors unless you make certain changes (to be covered further down).
When you select your desired build of Freespace Open, you may encounter warning messages regarding command line options. This is due to certain command line options being renamed or replaced. For 3.6.7, you should have the following options enabled under the "Features" tab:
GraphicsEnable Specular - (can be disabled for slower computers)
Enable Glowmaps
Enable jpg,tga textures
Disable Motion Debris
Stops Fog Intersection Hull
Enable More Realistic Lighting - (highly recommended for anyone playing under OpenGL)
HUDAnother Pair of Scanning Lines
Enable Info Next To Target
Enables 3D Radar
GameplayDisable Beams Piercing Shields
Use Models For Ship Selection
Enable 3D Warp
Toggle Features For The Babylon Project
AudioPreload Mission and Game Sounds
You should also see a -ambient_factor 65 in the "Custom Flags" section. It is also recommended that you do not select the "enable 32-bit textures" flag under "Graphics". It uses more memory for very little change and has been removed for newer builds.
If you select the 2005-12-22 build, you will get a message about -tbpwarpeffects. This is because the command line option has been renamed -tbp, so be sure to re-enable it under "Gameplay". If you enabled "Enable More Realistic Lighting" under "Graphics", and have played TBP a bit under 3.6.7, you'll also get a message about -rlm. This has been enabled by default in newer builds, so the option isn't there. Because some additional flags have been enabled, I'll try to cover them.
GraphicsCache Bitmaps Between Missions - can help in overcoming some crashing issues. Enable it if you have a problem.
Apply Lighting to Missiles - as advertised. Asthetic only.
GameplayEnable Flash On Warp - An effect for this is included with the patch. It doesn't match the B5 effect, but it is cool, so its your choice.
These changes also mean that you will have to run TBP through the launcher each time. Should you wish to use the "Play The Babylon Project" selection through the Start Menu however, you may have to edit the build that the icon runs. To do this, go into the launcher and highlight with your mouse pointer, the entire program location at the top of the window (to the left of the "browse" button), right from "C:\" on the left, to ".exe" on the right. Then right-click on the highlighted section with your mouse, and select "copy". Then go into the Star Menu folder where The Babylon Project is, and right-click on "Play The Babylon Project", and select "Properties". Highlight everything in the "Target" line, right-click and click "paste". Be absolutely sure that the quotation marks present in the existing target line, stay there, so the entire new location line you've just inserted, should be within quotation marks (if you've accidentally removed them, you can replace them yourself). Then click "Apply", and then "OK". If you've also setup the Launcher correctly, The Babylon Project should now be launchable from this icon without needing the Launcher program to be open.
Step 5 - Using Builds 2006-01-09 (Advanced)You may wish to use a newer build than 2005-12-22, and the most recent one recommended by the team at this point, is 2006-01-09, also included with the 3.3a Patch. However, changes to the subobject animation code mean that a certain file called ships.tbl, won't be compatable with it. To solve this, you'll need a VP viewer and extractor program, such as
VP-View 2.0. Open the program and tell it to open a VP file and select the directory where you've installed The Babylon Project. Find and select the VP file called "B5-A-Patch-3.3a.vp". You should see a folder structure on the left containing "data" and subfolders "effects", "maps", "models" and "tables". Select the "tables" directory and find a file called "ships-adv.tbl" and select it. Then select the "extract" feature (commands and options will change depending on what VP viewer program you're using) and then select the directory where you've installed The Babylon Project, but also select the "data" subfolder within it, and then the "tables" subfolder within that (you'll likely need to create the "tables" subfolder there), and extract it to that folder. Then, using whichever program you wish to use, find the ships-adv.tbl file where you've extracted it to and rename it, removing the "-adv" part from its name. This will force the game to use it instead of the ships.tbl file included in the Patch VP file. Then, select the 2006-01-09 build you desire from the launcher as covered in Step 4 and proceed from there. You may also wish to change the build selected by the "Play The Babylon Project" Start Menu icon, also covered in Step 4.
Step 6 - Using Builds 2006-03-01 or Newer (Advanced)As noted in Step 5, FSO has been making some changes to the subobject animation code, but as of March 1st of 2006, it was changed again. The 2 differences of note are in the spelling of the word "initial", which up to that point had been mistakenly spelt "inital", without the "i" after the "t". The second is the removal of the quotation marks around the word "initial", to match up with the word "triggered" above it, which also has no quotes. This change occured since the release of 3.3/3.3a, so there is no updated ships.tbl file for this situation, so you'll need to make the change yourself. We recommend that should you attempt this, that you begin with the ships-adv.tbl file, located in the 3.3a patch VP file, and extract and rename it as stated in Step 5. Once that's done, open the file which should now be named "ships.tbl", in wordpad. Click on the "edit" tab at the top of the screen and select "replace..." from the drop-down menu. Tell it to find words
"inital" (include the quotes) and replace them with
initial (without quotes). When it's completed, save the file (make sure it doesn't save it as a .txt file), and then you're set. Unfortunately, this edited ships.tbl file will now be incompitable with older builds.
The other relevant change affects builds as of late May. The command line -nobeampierce has been removed, which means that beam weapons will now penetrate energy shielding. You'll know immediately if a build has this change, as the launcher will warn you that the above-mentioned command line flag is not recognized. You may think that since no ships in B5 have shielding, that it doesn't matter, but all ships DO have shields as far as the tables are concerned. They're just there to take the bite out of shockwave dammage. Running without any form of anti-pierce measures will throw-off gameplay ballance. Therefore, you'll need to make changes to the weapons.tbl file. Use the VP tool you used for Step 5 and access the B5-Core-3_3.VP file, select the "tables" directory, then select and extract the weapons.tbl file to the "tables" folder you created in Step 5. Open up the file in Wordpad and scan each weapon entry for its "$flags" section. All flags are located within brackets to the right of this. Find every weapon with "beam" in its flags, and add "no pierce shields", making sure to include the quotation marks. Make this addition to all beam type weapons, then save the file and you're done. The major advantage of this particular change, is that its completely backwards compatable, as far back as 3.6.5 as far as I know.
A special bonus for users of builds newer than late May 2006. Thanks to Taylor from the SCP team, Environment Maps have been enabled for OpenGL. The command line -env will be found either under the "experimental" tab, or more recently under "graphics". When enabled, the game will generate what's known as a cubemap, based on the mission being played. However, if your video card cannot generate one, Taylor has also created a default cubemap, which can be downloaded
HERE. Extract the VP file from the .rar file and place it in your game's base folder. It will do the rest. Environment maps reflect the background on the hull of an object in-game, according to the texture's reflectivity, based on the shinemaps.
Problems & Solutions:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problem - I'm using 2006-01-09 and I'm getting an error when I start the game:
Error: Error parsing 'ships.tbl'
Error code = 1.
Solution - Odds are you haven't properly enabled the updated ships.tbl file. Either you didn't rename it properly or you've extracted it to the wrong location. Re-read Step 5.
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Problem - I've got 3.2, with 3.3 Update and I've extracted the 3.3a Patch properly, but I'm getting some ships with missing textures.
Solution - Somtimes ibx files become corrupt, and the game won't regenerate proper ones on their own. A quick way to confirm if this is the problem, is by going into the launcher and under the "features" tab, under the "Troubleshooting" list, scroll to the bottom and select "Don't Use Cached Index Buffers (IBX)", then run the game. After you've selected your pilot and you're into the options screen, hit "F3" which will bring up the "Lab". The Lab can allow you to view many things regarding the models included, and can be quite useful. It will also display ALL ships in the ships.tbl file, even those the Techroom won't show you. Select the "Ship Viewer", select a species ("Terran" for all EA ships except Raider cap-ships and Vorlon ships, and a few exceptions, "Vasudan" for most alien ships, and "Shivan" for Shadow, Drakh, and the raider cap-ships... these are soft-coded from the original Freespace game) for the ship you've been experiencing the problems with, then select a ship and a LOD (usually LOD0 is the one you want). You'll notice that it will take some time for the model to load, ranging from a few seconds, to possibly minutes depending on the complexity of the model. This is because it is generating internal IBX files on the fly, rather than loading them from the saved ibx files in the "cache" folder. If the model you've been experiencing missing textures with, is fully textured, then the saved ibx file is the cuprit. Close TBP, disable the -noibx flag in the launcher, and then delete the ibx file for the problem ship. If you don't know what its called, looking in the ships.tbl file will tell you in the $POF file: field for the ship in question. You may need to extract ships.tbl from the patch VP file if you haven't done so already, to reference this. Once you've deleted the ibx file from the offending model, restart The Babylon Project (again, without the troubleshooting option enabled before) and go back into the Lab (F3) and select the species, ship and lod of the offending ship. It should take some time to load again this time. It should appear fully textured.
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Problem - I'm getting weird crashes and audio problems.
Solution - You probably haven't installed the OpenAL fix. See "What You Need" at the top of this post.
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Problem - I'm using a low-power computer, and even though I've disabled Specular Lighting, backgrounds still cause slowdowns
Solution - TBP uses extensive use of dds files for maps and some effects, but there are still some other files of different types that aren't as memory-friendly. For some time, there has been a launcher option that converts non-dds files into dds format on the fly. It's located under the "Game Speed" list and is called "Compress PCX" under 3.6.7, though it was a bit buggy back then. Newer builds are far better at it, and have it as "Compress Non-Compressed Images". It may help. You should also try to disable as many background programs before playing as possible, such as virus scanners and any spyware especially (which you shouldn't have anyway). Just don't shut-down anything critical. If you go under the "Experrimental" list, and you see an option called "Convert 32-bit TGA to 16-bit", don't enable it, especially it you have texture compression enabled. Recent builds have it removed entirely.
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Problem - I tried using a recent build, but the launcher gave me an error about "-nobeampierce" flag not being recognized.
Solution - See Step 6, paragraph 2. It will cover this.
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I hope that this covers your install as thoroughly as possible, and heads-off any pitfalls. If however, you do have a problem that isn't covered here, or feel that I've missed something during the install proceedure, post it and I'll update this list.
