xenobiotic on 5/11/2007 at 13:54
Hello all,
After enjoying bioshock I thought I should go back and enjoy this precursor to that game as I've heard many great things.
Even though I have XP the game installed fine, plays videos fine, and starts fine. But then it seems to crash at random places. From reading the FAQ I guess I need to change my compatability in the exe. Should this make it run perfectly?
Also I am aware of the better graphics mods, SHTUP and rebirth. Is it best to play with them my first time? And if SHTUP is an ongoing project does that mean that only certain parts of the graphics are high rez? Won't that look bad? And is rebirth or rebirth complemented version the better one to use?
Finally I have the patched version which lets me change the variable for weapon degradation I think. This part of the game seems dumb and frustrating to me, so I want to change it to zero. Do you guys think this is a bad move for my first time?
Also I have a 1440x900 widescreeen display. After searching I found that SS2 doesn't support widescreen. But right now the game stretches across the screen. Does anyone know how to make it so the image isn't stretched? I have ATI Catalyst Control but I can't find an option anywhere.
Thanks in advance. I'm really looking forward to the game.
Mercurius on 5/11/2007 at 14:31
I'm guessing you mean System Shock 2. Best specify this in future posts to avoid a lot of confusion.
There's a lot of ways that SS2 can screw up, the sticky at the top of the board has just about every solution. Most crashes are pretty specific and have a corresponding fix so if you can narrow down the type of crashes you are having, we can help you further.
Definitely play with SHTUP as it just upscales the object graphics (not level textures or weapons though). The discrepancy isn't really all that jarring and it shouldn't really be a problem for you.
I and many others here prefer the original SS2 enemies as Rebirth took some pretty radical liberties with them, and made them 'less scary'. If you can't stand horribly low rez player models from the 90s, I'd recommend using Rebirth Complemented. It all really comes down to what kind of person you are, but first impressions are important :)
I certainly wouldn't remove weapon degradation completely. Sure, its completely unrealistic for weapons to break down so fast...but it adds a real desperate element to the game. If you get frustrated easily in survival horror type games, I'd lower the degradation. If you're good at that though, you really won't have much problem with this at all as repair tools abound.
Keep in mind that there are also mods that aim to fix the game a bit (including the degradation), such as Straylight's Anomalies, Discrepancies And Outright Bugs Mod. I'm sure some people here would suggest playing the game vanilla for the first time, but personally I don't think there's anything wrong with using that mod as it fixes quite a few really glaring issues as well as balancing things a bit.
No idea about the stretching.
Good luck with the game. You better enjoy it or I'll use you as pyrokinesis target practice. :mad:
Also, play Navy for your first time through. You'll thank me later.
Kolya on 5/11/2007 at 14:51
Compatibility settings are not a good idea. What you described sounds more like the hyper threading bug.
Chinese Jetpilot on 5/11/2007 at 15:43
Quote:
Also I have a 1440x900 widescreeen display. After searching I found that SS2 doesn't support widescreen. But right now the game stretches across the screen. Does anyone know how to make it so the image isn't stretched? I have ATI Catalyst Control but I can't find an option anywhere.
I've attached an image to show where you can change scaling options in Catalyst CC. First make sure you're in advanced mode (should look similar to the image I attached). Look through the graphics settings tree to the left and find your monitor properties (since I use a laptop, its listed as Notebook Panel Properties; if you're using a digital flat panel, it could say Digital flat Panel properties, etc). Under scaling options, select
Preserve Aspect Ratio. This will eliminate the stretching in all non-widescreen games you play. Keep in mind that you'll have black bars on the left and right of your screen on those non-widescreen games you play. If at any point you want to revert back to stretching the screen, just select
Full Screen.
Inline Image:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2180/screenjh5.jpgMatthew on 5/11/2007 at 16:01
Welcome to TTLG to both the first and last posters, by the way! And Chinese Jetpilot, I think you win the username prize for November. :D
ZylonBane on 5/11/2007 at 16:20
Quote Posted by xenobiotic
Finally I have the patched version which lets me change the variable for weapon degradation I think. This part of the game seems dumb and frustrating to me, so I want to change it to zero. Do you guys think this is a bad move for my first time?
Of course it's a bad move. Man up, Nancy. Learn to use that wrench. It's not as if there's enough ammo in the game to play it like Doom anyway.
Mercurius on 5/11/2007 at 16:28
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Of course it's a bad move. Man up, Nancy. Learn to use that wrench. It's not as if there's enough ammo in the game to play it like Doom anyway.
Actually, there is.
I stopped using the wrench on med/sci, gunned down every single enemy I came across and I still had a boatload of ammo by the end of the game. Only specialized in Standard and Energy as well as one level of heavy for grenade launcher. Also had at least 10 maintenance tools left over.
This was on normal of course, but on hard I tended to be the one getting wrenched :erg:
ZylonBane on 5/11/2007 at 17:09
Quote Posted by Mercurius
Actually, there is.
I think we have differing meanings of "like Doom". I'm using it to mean "spray and pray".
Bjossi on 5/11/2007 at 17:41
Quote Posted by Mercurius
I stopped using the wrench on med/sci, gunned down every single enemy I came across and I still had a boatload of ammo
Let me guess, you spent all your nanites on ammo? Because there is no chance in hell you can get through Engineering that way unless you buy ammo frequently.
Mercurius on 5/11/2007 at 18:25
Bought some slugs I recall, but I also remember blowing a lot of nanites trying to get an already-modded shotgun back in the green so I didn't have that much free for ammo. Also come to think of it, I wrenched quite a few of the hybrids, especially at the beginning.
[SPOILER]Engineering is definitely a hard deck to get through, thanks to all the robots and turrets and general lack of options. And I did end up at Hydro in pretty poor shape, but you can definitely shoot your way through it...mostly. If I had played through purely on ammo-dependent weapons, things might've gotten difficult but energy weapons easily take care of anything mechanical.[/SPOILER]
