SS1 SYSTEMSHOCK-Portable questions

[682ff02dc49c8Names are for friends]

I will, thanks.

[682ff02dc4c47Kolya]

MIDI is for friends.

[682ff02dc4e43Tom]

Hi ! sorry for my english.

I have a problem: When i launch SSP.exe, I see one second of black screen then I come back to the desk of my computer.

So I tried to launch by the Dos-Box and it's run: I got the intro scene, and'm ready to start, choose the difficulties levels and type my Name. Then I click on Debut ("start"), and fall in the dark. On the screen its written: your system has been shocked ! But think to salt the fries (!!!)
followed by some numbers et letters which say totally nothing to me !
that's all...
(Im under Win XP 32bits)

Is sombedy had this problem ? By the humor of the error message, I think this problem is known by the developer.
So any solution ? Or I'm condamned to play on my without voices version... ?

Thank you for any idea (and thank to Kolya for what you do for this obsessional game !!!) !

[682ff02dc4f91Kolya]

Hi Tom, that Salt the fries message was written 15 years ago by the original developers (Looking Glass). Windows XP wasn't around back then.
Anyway, try this update for dosbox.

[682ff02dc510eTom]

Thanks a lot ! for the message of salt, yes, I saw it latter in the credits today ^^
The game run like a charm, and the french audio and written version too (no french forum for this reborn of SS1 !!! A shame, i'll try to make some advertising !)
The only surprising point to me, is the midi music, which seems to lag a little bit... very strange, the voices doesn't...

[682ff02dc5252Kolya]

Yes, sometimes the MIDI music lags a bit then speeds up again, I haven't yet figured out that problem. It's the same in DGVESA and DOSbox mode. Of course you can just turn it down in the game's options.
Glad it works now for you.

[682ff02dc54b6Malichite]

In my odd quest to get SS1 up an running in a higher res mode I stumbled across SystemShock Portable and I am very impressed by the work you guys have done.  I was curious though if you might be able to understand the behavior I am seeing in DOSBox when I try to enable the scaling modes in the dosbox.cfg.  If I leave SS1 at the default resolution I definitely see the scaling filter (hq3x in this case) increase the window size as well as apply the relevant filtering.  If however I change the resolution to anything higher than the default resolution (i.e. the default options: 320x240,640x400,640x480 or the higher enabled modes: 800x600,1024x768) I do see the respective window size increase in response to the new resolution, but all scaling / filtering is removed.  I have played around with the various version of DOSBox (including the CVS build by gulikoza), but I always get the same effect.  Is there something unique about the higher resolution modes (i.e. lower bit depth, etc.) that would explain why these higher modes seem to drop the scaling / filtering?

While I agree that the various filtering techniques change the overall look of the game, I prefer the softer almost cell shaded effect to the original dithering techniques plus a crisper look without scaling on my LCD screen.  Currently I have the choice of playing the lower res version that has filtering and is expanded to full screen or the new higher res modes you provided running at full screen, but lacking any smoothing or filtering.  I am curious if either you or miracle.freak have experimented with this at all?  Thanks,

[682ff02dc55deKolya]

No, I haven't. The higher resolutions were always part of the game, and were just enabled by a small hex hack. I have no idea why that filter would behave differently. Might be down to the filter or something else.

[682ff02dc57ccmiracle.flame]

I have. Not only in System Shock. You see DosBox is overall Dos-games emulator and I've been with it since the beginning. And your question is more like DosBox oriented so it would be better fitting on respective forums.

I can tell you only that you're right - you'll see very little filtering on higher resolution games. That's because the filters scale low res screens to higher res applying the filterring algorithm in the process. When the screen is already high res there is nowhere much to scale up and apply filter on the way.

[682ff02dc5937Malichite]

Agreed, but this seems to be something more systematic since there is very little difference between 320x200 versus 320x240 in terms of resolution.  For example hq3x scales the image to 3x its original size and applies the filtering in the process, but as I am running natively at 1920x1200 so I don't think it is related to the scaled image being too high (i.e. 960x600 versus 960x720).  Was only 320x200 originally supported or was 320x240 also and option? 

I have already asked around in the VOGON forums for DOSBox and PMed Guilikoza, but don't think many are trying to get 800x600 working with scaling / filtering (i.e. hq2x would only bump this to 1600x1200).  Thanks though, I will be sure to post here if I figure anything out if you guys care.

[682ff02dc5a35DOSFreak]

IIRC, you need to add "forced" after the scaler

Ex: scaler=super2xsai forced

[682ff02dc5c3dMalichite]

Yup that was the trick.  After you mentioned it, I also got a reply from Gulikoza:

The scalers by default work only on low-res sources (320x200). You can force the scalers by adding forced keyword after the name of the scaler. Similarly if you use D3D pixelshaders in my build, they only activate in low-res mode, you need to set windowresolution or fullresolution to make them activate.
_________________
DOSBoxcvs-090407 + patches (4.7.2009):

http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza

Thanks for the info guys, I will play around with it a bit more now that I know the reason behind my previous observation.  I have used DOSBox on and off over the years, but I tend to forget the nuisances I learned the previous time around.  Once you guys mentioned it, I remembered something about a force option myself,  either way hopefully anyone reading this forum and wondering the same thing won't have to try as hard themselves.

[682ff02dc5d4aImpr3ssion]

Thanks so much for this program--it's the best way I've found for me to play this game. Loving it. Wasn't playable without the patch (worked fine except the intro took about 15 minutes) but it's now smooth sailing.

[682ff02dc5e9fCJ Miller]

I am trying to run System Shock Portable under Windows Server 2003 SP1 and I encounter an error.  More specifically, in DGVESA mode, NTVDM encounters a hard error on start; and under Mouse2kv mode, the intro and menu work fine, but when I take control of Hacker, the game immediately crashes to desktop with no errors.

Specs follow.

Processor: Intel Pentium III (Coppermine)@~500MHz
RAM: 384 MiB (256+128) PC100-133-166 SDRAM
Hard Drive: 160 GiB (80+80) IDE WD Caviar
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1
Video: ATI RADEON 7000 64 MiB (Omega Drivers 3.8.252)@1024x768 normally but @640x480 when running System Shock
Audio: USB Headset

[682ff02dc6336Enchantermon]

SSP...on a server?
Anyway, have you tried running it with the Dosbox executable?

[682ff02dc64a9Kolya]

Just a guess but here goes:

Go to Start->Run->Type: "edit"
This starts an old text editor that funny enough still is distributed with most windows versions. The point is, that it's a 16bit executable, so it runs as a child of NTVDM.
Now hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc and in the task manager set the NTVDM process to 1 core affinity. Close the task manager but keep the editor window and start SSP in DGVESA mode.

[682ff02dc659cgunsmoke]

Um...dude, it is just an operating system, it isn't necessarily on a server per se.

[682ff02dc7299gunsmoke]

Um...dude, it is just an operating system, it isn't necessarily on a server per se.

That was aimed at Enchantermon's post.

[682ff02dc746fEnchantermon]

True, but I don't see why you would run Server if you're not using the computer as a server.
But, eh. It doesn't really matter.

[682ff02dc75bdRusski]

Hi! Sorry for my BAD language.
I have many troubles with SSP v0.9
It's not work at all. It all was described on previos page.
But i bit SHODAN twice on v0.8b.
This version work like swiss clock, but not 0.9.

Kolya, please load v0.8b again, it work perfect.
Sorry for my BAD language one more time.

[682ff02dc7746Kolya]

I doubt this is because of SSP's changes from 0.8b->0.9, more likely it's a change on your system, different drivers or whatever.
...
I just checked, I don't have version 0.8b anymore. I suggest you try DOSbox mode with this update.

[682ff02dc789aRusski]

"more likely it's a change on your system, different drivers or whatever."

No, it's not.
My system is absolutely the same. Only one change - XP SP2 ---> XP SP3.
But my friend has XP SP2, and absolutely same problems.

Sorry for my BAD language again.

[682ff02dc79e5Tye The Czar]

Hey, guys. Just wondering... how would you all feel if the original System Shock finally got on GoG.com's website for the whole world to purchase legitimately?

[682ff02dc7b87Nameless Voice]

If they did, they'd probably want to use SS-P.  Are they going to pay me and Kolya a percentage of each sale for making the thing?