SS1 SHLink - System Shock Windows wrapper (no music)

[67510fdcee683some anon SS series fan]

Thank you, Malba Tahan. For your effort that you have put into this. Really. THANK. YOU.

[67510fdcee798Malba Tahan]

You're welcome! I think System Shock deserves a chance to run on newer machines in a "native" way!

[67510fdcee88dOld Liquid]

Thanks for the loader. Really. Tested under Windows Server 2003 x86 SP2 - works fine.
Sadly not work under Windows 8 DP x86. I think need more testing under upcoming Windows 8 CP.

[67510fdcee965Medevila]

This is really great! Any news on the music?

[67510fdceec31Malba Tahan]

This is really great! Any news on the music?

Not yet! College is demanding too much time from me... Perhaps if I don't go crazy after studying all those binary search trees day after day... I'll finally find some time to understand System Shock's music system.

[67510fdceed5bBisho]

Thank you so much for for making this Malba, this has allowed me to finally, after years of not even being able to play SS, to making it the most enjoyable game in my collection, I applaud you for the work you've put in here and the work you have yet to do and I eagerly await future releases.
Once again, thank you!

[67510fdceee71Urioxis]

I don't have a huge amount of time yet but that will hopefully change soon as I've just finished my computer science degree at uni. I'm more than willing to try and help you out where I can though Malba . System shock is my favourite game of all time and getting it to run natively is a very worthy goal

[67510fdceef75Malba Tahan]

Answering Urioxis:
That would be great! I visit this website everyday, and I'd really like to keep developing those mods, but I'd need a day with 70hours in order to do it without giving up my Computer Science bachelor's degree. Hopefully I'll have more time soon!

[67510fdcef101Urioxis]

Hmm.. To get it to compile I have to comment out the "wrc shlink.rc -f $@" line in the makefile as there's no shlink.rc file in your source archive. Otherwise, nice and easy to get started with, thanks

One question though: do you use any version control software? If we both work on this it'd make life a lot easier. Obviously for now I can work with patches though

I've also added you on Skype and MSN as I feel it'd be easier to discuss this on an IM . I'm urioxis on both (and pretty much everywhere)

[67510fdcef58fMalba Tahan]

One question though: do you use any version control software? If we both work on this it'd make life a lot easier. Obviously for now I can work with patches though

I've tried to use CVS a long time ago, but never fully understood how to deal with it. Sometimes I use git to download stuff, but that's all... I would say that I have no experience with version control software.

I've also added you on Skype and MSN as I feel it'd be easier to discuss this on an IM . I'm urioxis on both (and pretty much everywhere)

Nice! I've accepted your request on MSN.

[67510fdcef6d3Bryan N]

Not so subtle hint re music.... although you probably already know about this

http://tsshp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/tsshp/tsshp/sound/

-BryanN

[67510fdcef7d3Urioxis]

Thanks Bryan. I had seen that before but not recently enough that I remembered it . I'll take a look and see if anything there is usable

[67510fdcefb16Buligo]

Hi everybody!
As a long-time lurker and old SS1-fan, I finally decided to register. Back in the days I used to play SS1 but never finished it (apparently i get lost easily lol).
As of lately, somehow I embarked on the SS2 bandwagon. No idea how, but I managed to miss SS2, that jewel of a game bacl in the nineties. I blame the Mad Cow, or my ex- World of Warcraft addiction, whatever. Installed SS2, and..OMG, everything is green! Horrible green-ish textures everywhere. Tried this, tried that, no mod would work (black screen of death got me everytime). And, finally, after a couple days of tweaking (im NO expert), I finally managed to make the game run..with frequent freezes. The safe_textures line did the trick. Finally the game was working! Hmm, kinda: no cutscenes and the game looked er.. bleak. Then, suddenly, the SS2Tool thingy sorted it ALL!! Installed the ModManager, the SHUTUP (couldnt resist lol) mod, the REBIRTH mod, the weapon sound/models (from Mercury?). All in all, the game looks G.R.E.A.T. Happy camper here.
Re SS1 (this thread topic): all my feeble attempts to make run SS1 on my dual-core/w Nvidia gfx-xxx failed miserably. I really gave up any hope. My goal was to be able to at least make SS1 run just in the starting area (medic) because of the fantastic music there. That guy Curajo made a great work, but nobody can set up the chorus like the game can (depends on actions on screen i've been told). So, yesterday I STUMBLED on this thread and D/L-ed and installed SS1 with dosbox etc support.
EUREKA! everything works just perfectly. Finally I can play that ambient music to my heart content, just start the game and ALT/TAB to my office aplication etc. Darn game, started to explore it a bit and I think I am hooked. Again!
One minor problem: the game runs perfectly up to resolution 800x600 (just fine, Muuch better than what was it? 320x200?) On 1024 my mouse pointer is soo slow and sluggish , its unplayable (game runs ok tho). If I pick the 1280 resolution, it works but I loose mouse/keyboard control. e.g. mouse works but can't click on anything on the game screen, thus game is stuck (music playing ok and all but can't move or perform any action). Now, 800x600 is fine but I  wonder if there is any trick to speed up the mouse? I CAN tweak my mouse in its own mouse-center, but that affects ALL the applications on my PC, not only SS1.
Well, sorry for the long blog, wanted to say THANK YOU to Malba 'the Saint' Tahan and all the gang for such a marvellous job!
Keep the good work, back to SS2.
Feel free to envy me, It's my first SS2 playthrough!  Every sort of cr@p is happening to me and my lil Arse already hurts from all those lead pipes the mutants stuff me with
Greetings from Croatia!!

[67510fdcefda2Kolya]

Hello Buligo, welcome aboard.

In xcyb.cfg find this part:

Code: [Select]

#==============================================================
#
#  Custom profile
#
#==============================================================
startprofile custom

  set hmousemul 3
  set vmousemul 3
 
  set mlook_hsens 300
  set mlook_vsens 30

Try playing with the horizontal and vertical mouse multipliers (hmousemul & vmousemul) to adjust mouse sensitivity for higher resolutions. If I remember correctly changing the sensitivity settings (mlook_hsens & mlook_vsens) should be avoided.

[67510fdceffccBuligo]

@Kolya: it worked!! Thanks a ton!

Now, some feedback:
1. for the resolution of 1024, the most comfy setting for hmosemul was 0.3.
2. for the 800 x 600 res the most comfy setting for hmosemul was 2.5.
3. The 1280 resolution is still a no go: mouse is as 'detached' from the game, same for keyboard.

Well, there is actually something that prevents me from playing SS1 at any res higher than 800x600: game lag.
I checked with FRAPS, on 1024 with max detail I have 20-30 FPS, less if there are more flicketing lights, more if there are less lights, just wall/floor panels. Then I have to reduce detail to 'MIN'. Whats the purpose then? I actually get beter gameplay on 800x600 res with max detail. Nice n fluid. My rig is an oldie: core2 duo 2450GHz, Nvidia GTX graphic card.
Looks like I'll settle for 800x600 max detail. Still fun and loads better than the year 199x resolution
Darn, this sucks: now I will have to replay SS1 too!! 
Thanks again!

[67510fdcf0360RocketMan]

I've never understood how playing an old game at modern resolution actually yields anything.  Could be because I'm not a graphics tech buff but anyway, ss1 is an old game.  It will always look that way.  If you want to enjoy it for what it is, as I did, the resolution won't bother you at 800 or at 640 for that matter.  I've grown quite fond of the pixelated, aliased textures.  It has become a part of the ambiance for me.  Let yourself become one with the pixels!

[67510fdcf04bdBuligo]

Bah. Enuff 25+ years of ZX Spectrum blocky graphics, or Commodore-64 pixels. I want shiny fine-polished golden oldies
Good for you! But to ME, SS1 at 1024x768 with mouse look and redefined keys  and sexy muzak looks MUCH better than that archaic dino back in the early 90's.
What the heck..the gaming industry managed to spoil me!

[67510fdcf060cKolya]

You could try increasing DOSbox' cycles on 1024x768. Might help a bit, though I seem to remember it never did much for me. Possibly because it starts out with max cycles. Try it though.

Also I just noticed on that page that DOSbox apparently offers a keymapper now.

[67510fdcf072fvyor]

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!!! I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TOO PLAY IT!!!


I bought a used copy a WHILE ago, never was able too play it... UNTIL NOW!!!

(yes I do know about SSP, it is incredibly slow though )

[67510fdcf09f8JDoran]

It's great that we can play System Shock natively in Windows now, and will hopefully lead to more SS based mods and additions coming out, but at the moment is the only advantage that this has over SSP is that this will run on lower spec. PCs as regards SSP's relatively large CPU usage (due to DOSBox)? Please don't think I'm knocking this (I'm not, it's a fantastic achievement), I'm just curious to know if there's any benefit to playing this on a PC that can run (the also brilliant) SSP at full speed?

How I wish that this code had been available in the 90s/2000s, so that many more people could have tried the game without having to resort to the subtle mysteries of DOS memory configurations and boot discs. Maybe then the game would have attracted a lot more attention and garnered much more success sales-wise, and maybe the System Shock brand name would carry a lot of weight nowadays. Though even if it had, and by now we were on System Shock 6 or 7, no doubt modern games with the SS name would just be dumbed down shooters with non-skippable cutscenes every thirty yards, quick time events around every corner, a difficulty level that a five year old would find non-challenging, a watered down plot, clichéd characters, a plot 'twist' that you see coming a mile off (involving being betrayed, no doubt, probably by someone who in real life you wouldn't trust anyway) , lots of boss battles, ammunition scattered all over the floor wherever you turn, etc etc bloody etc. Sorry for sounding bitter, but the dumbing down and 'me too' copycat style of modern games is something I find really annoying. I'm not one of those "things were all better in the old days" type people, and there are modern games I think are great (Batman: Arkham Asylum/Arkham City, Mass Effect 1 and 2 (not got around to playing ME 3 yet, despite buying it on day one), Singularity, etc), but I do hate many of the trends of modern gaming.

Anyway, thanks to everyone involved in making SS playable for us on modern machines (be it through shlink, SSP, etc), especially those, like me, who are fairly new to the game.

[67510fdcf0b3fMalba Tahan]

There are no advantages to it over SSP or normal SS under dosbox, because it's not ready yet. When it's done, perhaps the main advantage, at least initially, will be the ability to run it under normal speed on slower hardware. However, that's not Shlink's focus. It's focus is control, the ability to create mods, fix some bugs, add functionality... Something like that.

[67510fdcf0d38JDoran]

OK, mate, thanks. I would love to see a graphically updated version of System Shock, but even speaking as someone who never played it back in the day, I think the current graphics don't hinder the game at all. Yes, they could be a lot better, especially given today's amazing GFX hardware, but SS certainly does not need to rely on graphics to make it hold your interest. And as Shigeru Miyamoto says: "Good graphics make a good game better, but they can't make a bad game good", so it'd be great to see SS with better graphics, but I'm much more interested in the idea of mods for SS (I love good mods, games like Doom, Half-Life, System Shock 2, GTA: San Andreas, etc, have some amazing mods available for them), and added functionality, and I'd be interested to see what people think should be added or changed in the name of added functionality, and also (along-shot, no doubt) if SS could be made to work with the 3D glasses that id Software are rumoured to be on the verge of pushing. It would be a great advert for System Shock if it could be made to work with these glasses, and though many early adopters of the hardware would probably sneer at such an old (and ugly, relatively speaking) game, since most early adopters tend to be spoilt rich kids, it might still convert a few newcomers into die-hard fans, and give SS lots of the 'net coverage it deserves.

[67510fdcf0e6bValiant]

I have similar feelings to JDoran although I'd merely like to see the game systems and assets from SS1 and SS2 implemented in a newer engine more accessible to modders so that System Shock themed mods are more easily produced in say the UT or Source engines, hell even say the Fallout/Skyrim Engine.

[67510fdcf0fb1vyor]

any news on the music?