SYSTEMSHOCK-Portable - TTLG Forums

TheNightTerror on 19/9/2007 at 01:47

Is there somewhere other than Megaupload or torrents to get this? I can't figure out how the hell to download anything with Megaupload, there doesn't seem to be anything anywhere on the page that will start it, and the torrent isn't even downloading.

Kolya on 19/9/2007 at 02:50

I'm seeding the torrent but it may take a while until it starts. This can be because it just hasn't found me as a seed yet or because I'm sleeping and my computer is turned off. For some reason I'm usually the only person who seeds.

As for Megaupload it should look something like this:

Inline Image:

http://img459.imageshack.us/img459/2563/untitled1cr1.jpg
If it doesn't for you then either you have JavaScript disabled, lack the Flash plugin for your browser, or the site gets blocked, eg if you're in a public network like in some uni dorms, etc.

Muzman on 19/9/2007 at 06:24

I seed it, but I'm in some outer Woop-Woop cul-de-sac of torrent transfers. I only get about a dozen seeds for something I'm downloading when the tracker lists seeds in the tens of thousands and I'm clearly getting the thing via the extreme end of some leapfroging/daisychaining.
Dunno why this is.

TheNightTerror on 19/9/2007 at 08:09

That's strange . . . that's exactly what Megaupload looks like for me, but the bastard won't start a download. (Entering the SS1 portable file name into the download thingy just takes you right back to the same page?)

At any rate, the Torrent went and started downloading on me and I didn't even see it. Once I looked again it was done! The sound on the intro movie is horrible, though, it's stuttering far more than I remember it ever doing on any of my machines. I'll see if I can figure out how to adjust the sound settings, if it's even any different. At any rate, she does run, and in widescreen to boot. :cool: This is such a relief, it's nice to be able to just get SS1 and have it run right out of the box. Setting up the whole thing 4+ times gets a little old . . .

My kitten doesn't seem to appreciate SS1's sound at all. She got very edgy when the infamous Shodan line plays when it boots, (she was asleep when I first played it, then she was pacing around the room with her hair raised afterwards) and she fled when the MIDI music began playing on the main menu. :D

Edit: I don't see anything to configure SS1 with. Anyone mind giving me a kick in the right direction?

Edit 2: Arg. I think I do have a complaint about portable, at least for right now. So far, it's been *very* unstable compared to just running SS1 in Windows XP, and the lack of configuration options kills its usefulness for me. The first option when you start Portable crashes NTVDM.exe right off the bat, which seems to take down the entire game. Running it with Mouse2kv doesn't do much good either, because although it did run, but it crashes if anything at all brings it back to the desktop. (I was playing with the sound off so I could get to the Reactor level and see if my kitten liked that music more, and unmuted it.) I gave the higher resolutions a shot, and it turns out it doesn't mess with my widescreen goodness. It also doesn't crash if it gets booted back to the desktop, although another program that seems to run with Portable does.

This would work, but there's another problem. I could live with low quality digital sound, and iffy videos, but not mono sound. I've gotten stereo sound before from events in the environment, such as enemies, doors opening and closing, etc., and I won't settle for any less now. If I could just have the options to tinker with the sound settings, that would be enough. As for right now, I'm going to drop in my SS1CD and SSHOCK folders from my desktop and see what I can do. Hopefully it'll save me some work, I think it's all set up to run in the high res version.

Edit 3: Might as well just quickly add a last note. It turns out all I had to do was copy the folders over from the desktop, point a .cfg and a .bat to the right directories, drop in the highest res .exe my laptop can handle, and she's running fine, with far superior sound and much better performance in the into, which was stuttering a lot more than normal. I don't know if it was Portable's sound settings or using whatever sound program it used that butchered the quality, but I still have Portable ready to run to test anything if someone wants to look into this at all.

Kolya on 19/9/2007 at 11:14

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

You're supposed to enter the letters where it says: "Please enter ..." It's a captcha, a bot security measure, I'm sure you've seen one before.

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

The first option when you start Portable crashes NTVDM.exe right off the bat, which seems to take down the entire game.

There is a patch available on the SBF page that sets back DGVoodoo to the older version. I'll probably make that the default again.
Anyway, please read the troubleshooting tips (at least) if you're having problems. They're in the post as well as in the readme.

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

It also doesn't crash if it gets booted back to the desktop, although another program that seems to run with Portable does.

Not sure what you mean: Another program that runs with Portable?

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

I could live with low quality digital sound, and iffy videos, but not mono sound.

It is set to stereo by default.

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

If I could just have the options to tinker with the sound settings, that would be enough.

I guess you mean the installer options where you can setup the digital soundcard and music card. That installer isn't available in SS-P.
It's set to use soundblaster which any modern card has a legacy service for, and general midi which is also universally available. This works on *most* systems.
The settings from the installer are stored in cyb.cfg. If you had less problems with your old settings you can copy them over.
EDIT: Which you did, as I see in your edit. Well done.

Finally: Nameless just contacted me saying he worked something out about the sound. There might be a new version tonight with the older, more stable DGvoodoo version and whatever NV came up with. Stay tuned.

Nameless Voice on 19/9/2007 at 13:46

Basically, I got TNT to send me her working cyb.cfg.

Inline Image:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/images/icons/icon6.gif

With her settings, the game sounds a lot better, with proper stereo and better quality music but it won't work without VDMSound, and since SS-P no longer comes with VDMSound or has the option to launch it, I had to rewrite my own custom batch file.

As for the videos, I found that I get much, much worse performance in the game, both in the cutscenes and ingame, if I use DgVesa. In fact, the game is smoother at 1024x768 using Mouse2KV than with DgVesa at 320x200.
Of course, that might be because my DgVesa is set to run in windowed mode (DgVesa in fullscreen mode instantly crashes my laptop into a BSOD).

If anyone else wants proper high-quality stereo sound, here's the cyb.cfg:

Code:

midi_list 7
lowres_cutscenes 0
midi_io -1
midi_irq -1
inp6d -1
digi_list 3
joystick 128
midi_card 12
midi_dma -1
midi_drq -1
cd_data_dir_path .\Data
digi_io -1
digi_irq -1
digi_card 3
digi_dma -1
language 0
digi_drq -1

(Cyb.cfg goes into the \Res\ folder of SS-P.)

However, you need VDMSound or you will get no digital effects at all (just music).
If you have VDMSound, you can create your own batch file in SS-P's \Res\ folder, as follows:

Code:

@dosdrv
@mouse2kv 640 480 8 8 cdshock.exe

Assuming that your game is set to run at 640x480. If you are using a higher resolution, then you need to modify the part in blue.

Or go the DgVesa option:

Code:

@dgvesa
@dosdrv
@cdshock

Kolya on 19/9/2007 at 15:31

I'll have a look at this when I get back home. Just a note about VDMSound: It was never really included in SS-P. One would always have to have it installed and then SS-P supported it (at some point) but that didn't work for people without VDMSound of course.

Even if you get somewhat better sound with VDMSound, I definitely won't make SS-P dependent on it as that would defeat the purpose of SS1 working out of the box and being portable. Unless of course I can find a way to sneak VDMSound into SS-P. That is unlikely though, from what I remember it really needs an installation.
If I'm right, I will think of a way to support VDMSound but not make it the default option.

I have to admit I'm a bit hesitant, because even with the very few options there are right now and with documentation and all, people manage to set it up wrong. I strongly believe that SS-P should work with as few user interaction as possible. KISS, you know. Adding VDMSound into the mix will make it more complicated.
If it's there, people will use it, and once people use it, they do it wrong. That's a given. I can see myself having to explain VDMSound problems next. And I'm not terribly interested in that.

Okay I stop rambling already. I will look into it.

TheNightTerror on 19/9/2007 at 23:24

Just thought I'd drop by with a quick note -- I can understand why you don't want VDMS sound being part of Portable, but it would be nice if you had an option of upgrading the installation to use it. If nothing else, including the install.exe file in the directory would be about all I'd need to get Portable running just about as well as my standard installation.

Oddly enough, I didn't see any letters anywhere that I was supposed to enter into the box when downloading from Megauploads. Where were they supposed to be?

I'll take a look at the documentation tonight after my game and play with Portable a bit, see if I can come up with any changes that make it more useful to an audio quality whore such as myself.

JayDee on 20/9/2007 at 09:19

Quote Posted by TheNightTerror

I couldn't get it from Megaupload either. Every time I've tried it begins to download, but stops at 5% or so. Grr. I did manage to download v0.6 from rapidshare ((http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1569570#post1569570) as mentioned here.)
Of course, I had to check it out, and managed to reset the PC, being at uni that deleted the file. I needs me my own internet.

Edit 1: Um, just retried MegaUpload now, and it did work.

Edit 2: SS-P is living on my usb-drive now to waste time at uni, but not working on the laptop at home. :( I'm getting the same error as reported by Demagogue earlier:

Quote:

16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem
!START.EXE
X#=OD, CD=01A7 IP=000014D1. The NTVDM CPU has encountered an unhandled exception. Chose 'Close' to terminate the application. [Close] [Ignore]

Trying to start SS-P from any of the included executable has the same effect (with a different .EXE listed in the error.) That includes trying the different resolution packs. Being that it looks like it could be a problem with NTVDM, and therefore WinXPs fault, I might trying updating that.

Tried VDMSound as well, also just crashed straight away. And doing it all normal-like from the CD in DosBox doesn't work either (crashes a lot and is slow.) It's like have a PC with the specs to run SS2 but not high enough to run SS1.

Kolya on 21/9/2007 at 02:53

It took me a bit longer than expected to get this working but now SS-P automatically checks for VDMSound being installed and adjusts it's settings accordingly. Also I reinstated the last DGVoodoo version, because some people had NTVDM.exe crashes with the current beta.

(http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php?topic=211.0) Get SYSTEMSHOCK-Portable v.0.8 here.