[Mustang19]

Several months ago I released the Merkar Campaign Demo. That was back before my sister downloaded FS2 for me and I was playing FS1. Now, I'm playing FS2 Open and Retail. I do most of my gaming and mission design with retail, I don't see anything different about FS2Open (where's those amazing graphics? isn't it supposed to "feel like playing a whole new game"?) other than that it runs poorly on my system. The big problem is that the FS1 mission conversion feature doesn't work in FRED Open. It crashes when I click on it, although the rest of FRED Open runs fine. All I ask is that someone download the attached files- the 6 missions of the Merkar campaign demo- and convert them to FS2 misisons. It will take you about two minutes and I'll worship you for a week.

In case you're wondering about my OS, I have a 1.2GHz Windows XP, 256mb RAM, and an Intel 815-whatever graphics card (sexy HP Avalon monitor: $5/yardsale 1.2GHz Windows XP: $15/Shockwave CTDs in FSOpen: priceless). Although FSOpen runs very smoothly even on max detail, it has a tendency to freeze for several seconds or crash when an explosion has to be displayed. I think that this is more of a RAM issue than a graphics card incompatibility one, because it seems to cut down on the crashes a lot if I reduce my FSOpen resolution to 640X480 and reduce Lighting detail. Just curious, does anyone here run FSOpen on a slow computer? Does anyone else have Intel graphics cards?

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[Game_Master64]

i dont really know the min requirements, but it's either a ram or cpu deficiency. and about those graphics, you are using the mediavps, right?

[Turey]

i dont really know the min requirements, but it's either a ram or cpu deficiency. and about those graphics, you are using the mediavps, right?

And do you have the mediavps folder selected in the launcher?

[Mongoose]

With those specs, no wonder why you're having so much trouble running FS2Open.  My family's PC has about the same processor, 384MB of RAM, and an GeForce 2 32MB card, and I'd never even consider trying to run the SCP on it.  From everything I've heard and experienced, you need a minimum of 512MB of RAM to prevent XP from bogging things down, and that's before you try to run anything even remotely graphically intensive on top of it.  The reason you may not be seeing the SCP's graphical enhancements may be because your video card (which, although I don't know much about system hardware, I'd venture to say is an integrated card) doesn't support them.  I can certainly say that you shouldn't be running adveffects.vp with that setup; removing that would eliminate the super-hi-res shockwaves and prevent those crashes, at least.

Regarding your original request, if no one else takes care of it beforehand, I can give the conversion a whirl this weekend when I return to the computer on which I have FREDOpen installed.

[Macfie]

Here are the missions converted for FSport.  They are still compatible with retail.  I noticed that these missions are not exactly the same as the ones in the demo you released.  Was that intentional?  I also included a copy of the original demo converted for FS2 and the FSport.  Merkar 3 has the missions you posted in this forum and Merkar 2 is the original demo.

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[jr2]

In case you're wondering about my OS, I have a 1.2GHz Windows XP, 256mb RAM, and an Intel 815-whatever graphics card

With those specs, no wonder why you're having so much trouble running FS2Open. 

True.  The 815 is an integrated graphics processor (its soldered onto the motherboard).  Most IGPs share memory with the system, so you prolly have your 256 megs cut by either 32 or 64...

See if your mobo has an AGP expansion slot, where you could stick a graphics card upgrade.  (Then again, given your specs, it'll only be either a 2x or 4x port, and the max memory will be prolly 512, maybe 1 gig of RAM).

Google CPU-Z and get that if you want to know your model #s and all that jazz.

[Mustang19]

Thanks for the help, guys. Very useful advice for someone who doesn't know anything about graphics cards because I've never had a really good one. I'd like something better than Intel, but my parents aren't going to pay for it if its over $50, and especially not the $300 latest NVidia.

Thanks a ton, Macfie! Now I just have to put them in campaign. As for the changes, I just corrected two or three typos in the campaign in my original post. Very slight change, I don't know how you noticed it. File dates, I assume.

[Macfie]

When I first converted the missions I used the FSOpen import feature.  When I opened the missions in FRED I got a message on several of the missions that Alpha 1 had no secondary weapons.  I thought that somehow FSOpen might have messed up so I converted the missions by hand, but with the same results.  I went back to the original downloads and opened the missions as FS1 missions and noted the problem existed in the missions that were posted on the web.  I also found in one mission that the briefing said that Alpha 1 was supposed to be flying a bomber but the mission showed an Apollo armed with a tsunami bomb.  I had played the demo release in FS1 and didn't remember having those problems.  I went back to the demo campaign and compared the missions and the demo did not have these problems.  That's why I went ahead and converted the original demo and included that.

[Mustang19]

Oh yes... on one of the missions I wanted to show off that cool bomb-cam feature I discovered. If you use boresight-target to target your own bombs, you get a video of them hitting the target.  8) The player's ship in the campaign is an Apollo, so I decided to go with arming an Apollo w/tsunami, as wierd as that seems, to demonstrate this trick. BTW that's the only mission in the campaign with the player having secondaries. I wanted to create a guns-only campaign.

Thanks again, Mac. If you have any need for  a FREDer/storyline writer let me know, I have time on my hands.