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Freespace 2 OS X!

Nice to see you are really working on this...

I thought I should make a post here for you to relieve you of the guilt to make double and triple posts... :) :)
 
Anyone know how to play the game windowed?

In the FS2 forums they said use the command line -window, but it crashes if I try launching it from terminal with -window

I also tried adding it to the ini file, but still a no go :(
 
ZildjianKX said:
Anyone know how to play the game windowed?

In the FS2 forums they said use the command line -window, but it crashes if I try launching it from terminal with -window

I also tried adding it to the ini file, but still a no go :(
Click to expand...

Think I figured it out, you have to run it through terminal from the FS directory.

Edit - Anyone know how to invert the mouse? :)
 
ZildjianKX said:
Anyone know how to play the game windowed?
Click to expand...
Add -window to ~/Library/FS2_Open/data/cmdline_fso.cfg. The cmdline_fso.cfg may not exist so just create it.

And the versions of FS2_Open that I distribute aren't meant to be run from the command line. Doing so could cause other issues.

ZildjianKX said:
Edit - Anyone know how to invert the mouse?
Click to expand...
In the options screen of the game, go to control config, click on the action that has the mouse axis assigned to it, click the "Invert" button at the bottom.
 
mtr said:
Add -window to ~/Library/FS2_Open/data/cmdline_fso.cfg. The cmdline_fso.cfg may not exist so just create it.

And the versions of FS2_Open that I distribute aren't meant to be run from the command line. Doing so could cause other issues.


In the options screen of the game, go to control config, click on the action that has the mouse axis assigned to it, click the "Invert" button at the bottom.
Click to expand...

Many thanks!

Edit -

Windowing works fine on my PPC mac, but crashes on my intel mac w/ the universal binary build.

2006-03-08 22:06:14.788 FS2_Open[240] *** -[NSBundle load]: Error loading code /Library/InputManagers/SIMBL/SIMBL.bundle/Contents/MacOS/SIMBL for bundle /Library/InputManagers/SIMBL/SIMBL.bundle, error code 2 (link edit error code 0, error number 0 ())
Floating point exception
 
ZildjianKX said:
Windowing works fine on my PPC mac, but crashes on my intel mac w/ the universal binary build.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I'm hoping that's just an SDL thing. I didn't do much of anything special for the universal binary build of the SDL framework, but I think some code changes are needed for proper Intel Mac compatibility. I don't know that for sure though as I only browsed the SDL mailing list very quickly.

I believe that the next version of SDL will have real universal binary support so if it is SDL then we'll just have to wait. I'll use a CVS version of SDL for the next FS2_Open nightly build and that should give a better idea of the problem.
 
Kimi said:
I've done all that, but the game is the same. Nothing has changed except there's now a splash screen when I first open the game (pops up before the into movie). Am I meant to open a different file or have I missed something with the config file?
Click to expand...

Same problem here. I was using the build on VersionTracker, but just downloaded the build linked above. With the debug version of that, my log file says that no cmdline options were passed-----despite the presence of cmdline_fso.cfg in the correct directory.

EDIT: Turns out that it really sucks that TextEdit doesn't have a "Save as plain text" option. It had inserted all sorts of invisible tags into the file. I used Emacs under X11 to remove them, and now at least the cmdline_fso.cfg file is being read. Other problems may persist, though.
 
TextEdit DOES have a plain text option.

When you create a new document, go to the menu bar, under "Format" and choose "Make Plain Text" option. This will convert your document to plain text format. You can save it now as plain text.

Damn! It didn't cross my mind that I should clearly state that THE "cmdline_fso.cfg" FILE MUST BE IN PLAIN TEXT!!

Seems a lot of people forget that little detail... :)
 
Well, I thought it *was* plain text before, but it wasn't. To be on the safe side, I recommend creating the file in Emacs or Simpletext or whatever. TextEdit doesn't have "Plain Text" as one of the options in the "Save As" dialog, which may confuse some people.

mtr said:
Triple post. That's bad luck people. :eek:

... Anyway: http://icculus.org/~taylor/nightly/20060308-OSX.dmg

It's now a universal binary too. :)
Click to expand...

When I switched from the Versiontracker build to this one, the Freespace 2 cutscenes stopped playing. They were in MVE format, so I figured mabey this build no longer supported that. But I've since downloaded the avi versions, and they still don't play.
 
Lindley said:
Well, I thought it *was* plain text before, but it wasn't. To be on the safe side, I recommend creating the file in Emacs or Simpletext or whatever. TextEdit doesn't have "Plain Text" as one of the options in the "Save As" dialog, which may confuse some people.



When I switched from the Versiontracker build to this one, the Freespace 2 cutscenes stopped playing. They were in MVE format, so I figured mabey this build no longer supported that. But I've since downloaded the avi versions, and they still don't play.
Click to expand...
first of all, try to change the case of the avi's names.

Secondly, maybe the fault lies in the version of the media.vp's. I know that the media vp's do not replace the original movies, but i had some problems before, and downloading the media vp's corrected those problems.

I wish I could help you more, but I do not have Freespace 2 installed in my system anymore.
 
CVS builds don't include the MVE player code, since it's not in CVS yet. Also, non-Windows builds do not yet support any other movie format so the AVI versions of the movies won't work either. New movie playback code is in the works which will be used for all platforms (since the playback method on Windows sucks) but it's not quite ready for public use yet.
 
Despite now having the command line options working, I'm still not seeing a graphical improvement. I've reverted to the Versiontracker build so I can see the MVE cutscenes.

Could someone post a list of the files that should be in the FS_Open directory, and the command-line options they're using, to successfully get the graphics upgrade to work in OSX?
 
Do you have the MediaVPs? Without those most of the cmdline options won't do anything (graphically) useful.
 
Lindley said:
Despite now having the command line options working, I'm still not seeing a graphical improvement. I've reverted to the Versiontracker build so I can see the MVE cutscenes.

Could someone post a list of the files that should be in the FS_Open directory, and the command-line options they're using, to successfully get the graphics upgrade to work in OSX?
Click to expand...

In order to see graphical improvements, download the mv_packs. Look at my first post to see where you can download them.

If you use a CVS build that went out after the build in versiontracker, then you must download the appropriate mv_packs. The older ones will not work and will probably crash the game. You will find them in the Hard Light Productions Forums (don't have a link right now, do a google search)

As for the command line options... Last time I was involved with the cmdline_fso.cfg was with the build supplied in versiontracker.

Try downloading the mv_packs from the links in my first post (I don't know if they are supplied with the versiotracker's download) and alter your command-line file by consulting the links also provided in my first post.

DO NOT USE CVS BUILDS WITH OLDER MV_PACKS!! IT WILL CRASH THE GAME! I had a kernel panic that way.
 
Yes, I already did download those, long ago. I'm still not seeing a significant improvement, so I'm looking for a sanity check----making sure I'm not missing something obvious.

Hence why I'm asking for a specific list of files (and their placements), and the command line options enabled, which allow someone else to get the graphical enhancements working.

Directing me to re-read all the stuff I've already seen and followed carefully to little effect is not helpful in this case.

One thing which I do find odd is the difficulty in determining version numbers of the VPs. That information does not seem to be readily available. But they aren't crashing the game, so they couldn't be too far off.
 
If you are using the cmdline options and have the MediaVPs in place then you should get a noticable change in the visuals. Post the contents of ~/Library/FS2_Open/data/cmdline_fso.cfg and a list of the files in the directory you have FS2_Open installed in.

The MediaVPs don't have any type of versioning on them. Previously this was done with filenames, but that just seemed to cause problems for many people for some reason. I used to include a particular file in my own VPs that would allow it to be easily identified (for me), but that's not something that the general public would have any use for since it was difficult to see this file. The only real versioning on the MediaVPs right now is: you. You downloaded and installed it so you should know what it was and be able to remember that info when you need it next. :)
 
Hey guys,

I'm also having problems with graphical updates, namely, the ingame models do not look like this:

SpecExample

Rather, they look like the attatched image (apologies about the size, seems that I can't get a proper screen shot.) I get strange bright white spots rather than that nice smooth "reflective" specular effect.

I have a cmdline_fso.cfg file in FS2_Open/data, and the entries look like this:

-spec
-spec_exp 9
-glow
-jpgtga
-orbradar
-cache_bitmaps
-fps
-nomotiondebris
-decals
-no_vsync

I've fiddled around with the spec exp variable, from 5-11, but I get the same results, bright white spots when my lighting settings are turned up past the half way point (turning it down to 1 just does makes everything normal). When I set the lighting at the halfway point, I get dull lighting. I'm using the 3.6.7 mv_zpack and FS2_Open-20060220 (any newer CVS's are too buggy, but FS2-Open-20060220 works far better than FS2_Open 3.6.7, where I could only use the Herc MK2 in the last 2 levels, and any other ship crashed).

I guess these graphical updates aren't really neccessary, I enjoy the game already. It'd just be a treat to see the updated graphics.

[edit] I upoaded better comparison images. One shows the Leviathan before and after it fires it's beam weapon. Both don't look like the spec example image from wikipedia, and the image of the Leviathan after it's fired it's beam weapon show triangular polygons being lit up with white light, rather than smooth lighting across a surface. It gets worse with other models.
 

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The lighting thing is a known bug, but exactly why it happens is still a mystery. I can't replicate it which makes it extremely difficult to find and fix. It also has been seen only on the Mac builds, and has a work-around, so it's not very high on the priority list of things to fix.

The basic fix it to make sure and have -ambient_factor set to something in your cmdline_fso.cfg file. Add "-ambient_factor 78" and see if the lighting improves any.
 
Hrm, things just become dull like in the before spec images. I'll keep fiddling with it. I guess I can live without specularity though... it's still FS2 :D
 
New build: http://icculus.org/~taylor/fso/nightly/20060326-OSX.dmg

Universal binary of course.

TON of bug fixes in there. I held up two other nightly builds just because I kept finding and fixing bugs. :D The most reported crashes with the last build should be fixed now, as well as a couple more of the multiplayer issues. The two cmdline options -img2dds and -mipmap should now be functional under OS X again. -img2dds will compress all uncompressed images that it can, and -mipmap will make a full set of mipmaps for the compressed images.


@captain07: Try adding -noibx to your cmdline_fso.cfg file. This will make level loading take a lot longer (about 3-4 minutes, it will appear to freeze but just let it do it's thing) but is reported to help fix the lighting issue. I still haven't figured why it happens, and can't reproduce it, so about all I can do at this point is offer the cmdline options as a solution. I'll keep working on it though.
 
Mods For Freespace

I am looking for some additional campaign for Freespace 2, but there are only .exe files for Windows :( Do you know about something for OS X ?

Thanks, MichalM

btw: sorry about my English, I am from Czeech Republic
 
MichalM.Mac said:
I am looking for some additional campaign for Freespace 2, but there are only .exe files for Windows :( Do you know about something for OS X ?
Click to expand...
What sort of thing are you interested in? You can get Derelict, Transcend and SoL which are all really good. SoL uses the FSPort mod so you may just want to start with Derelict and Transcend at first. All of these are either rar or zip files and Stuffit Expander will handle those easily.

A lot of the exe files you find are actually self-extracting rar files and if you rename them to have a .rar extension then Stuffit may handle them. Some of the total conversions do use Windows only installers, but I'm slowing getting everyone to move to a more cross-platform install system.

You can grab Derelict from:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,38019.0.html
and Transcend from:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,34098.0.html
 
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