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X-Wing, TIE Fighter 95 Fixed, Lego Yoda Revealed
Swifti writes "Ever since Windows XP was released, the classic games, TIE Fighter 95 and X-Wing 95 [the X-Wing Collector Series and X-Wing Trilogy versions of X-Wing & TIE Fighter], were left incompatible with the new operating system. The issue refused to be addressed by LucasArts whose basic solution was 'Deal with it.' Luckily, a fix was recently released for these two PC games over at LucasFiles, obviously made by a fan. These great games are now compatible with NT/2000/XP systems." Elsewhere, an anonymous reader points to a movie-annotated fan report on the previously mentioned "LEGO Star Wars game being demo'ed" at last week's Comic-Con, including footage of a whirlin' Lego Yoda.
These games came out damn near 10 years ago, and still have better game play then some of the more recent Lucasarts games.
I still remember screaming along on my 386-33Mhz machine.
I hope the fixes work with the versions I have...there are a few versions of each and I can never keep them straight.
Best three space sims ever, IMO? Freespace 2, TIE Fighter, X-Wing. In best-to-least-best order. And now I can (maybe) play every one of them. I thank whoever did this. I really do.
Yes.
There's a reson that there are huge many-pages guides on how to get these games to run, at all, if not perfectly.
I met one of my best friends because of X-Wing. He was playing a mission over and over and over again... His dormroom door was open when I walked by, and I just had to know WTF he was doing. Being an Amiga man myself, I was overcome, and just had to get a PC. Thanks Lucas Games!
The only fix that does work for the original DOS based Tie Fighter and Xwing, at least for my system, was to turn all sound off.
I also have the Windows versions of Xwing and Tie Fighter called the "Collector's CD-ROM" and while I love the graphics and sound updates of these versions, I detest the fact that mouse support was removed so I have never attempted to install either on my Win XP system.
If I recall correctly, there are three versions of Xwing and Tie Fighter released in this order: the original DOS based games and their separate add ons released on floppy disks, the DOS floppy games re-released on CD-ROM with CD-ROM music and the "Collector's CD-ROM" with revamped graphics and music (including all the later add ons) intended to run under Windows. I think I have that right. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.
Anyway, the patch only works on the last version, the "Collector's CD-ROM". Try turning the sound off if you can't get the original DOS version that came on floppy disks to work (due to extended/expanded memory problems).
FYI
Do the dos versions work under dosbox?
s =1
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_new
One of the best things about the original X-Wing (DOS) game, was the mission editor I downloaded.
I spent months creating and playing my own custom missions, and I think this was probably the start of my desire to customise everything which evolved into a love for hacking.
I don't know why Lucasfilm doesn't take advantage of today's PC specs and put out a new X-Wing vs. Te-Fighter game. Especially since they can add craft from the new trilogy.
XvT is one of my favorite LAN games ever. I'd love to see a new edition.
Oh well just call me an old dinosaur who can't keep up with modern times. Except one tiny little problem Lucasarts. I BOUGHT all the old games. Now I don't anymore because while I now have far more money coming in I think your games are not worthy of me spending money anymore. Should lucasarts care? Only in so far as any company should care about losing a once loyal customer.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Now we need a patch like this for Wing Commander Privateer. Every year or so I get to itch to want to play it again, but it hates XP too.
Why sell XWvsTF 2 once for $50 when you can sell Galaxies + Expansion for $60-$80 and tack on a monthly fee to boot.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
No, there is another. I think...
The Windows 95 versions of X-Wing and Tie Fighter was when they converted the games to the X-Wing vs Tie Fighter game engine (with some extra tweaks) and called it the X-Wing Collector Series (which came with a semi-demo for XvT). By converted, I mean they converted the missions as everything else was the same from the original games. Imagine flying about in the nice 3D engine only to come back to the low resolution interface and cutscenes of old. Of course, the conversion means you can't sit in a Star Destroyer's blind spot behind its engines and just blast away anymore since engine wash was introduced. They later resold it again in the X-Wing Trilogy (obviously with X-Wing Alliance).
FYI, Totally Games made the games for Lucasarts. They also made Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Star Trek Bridge Commander, and the recent Secret Weapons over Normandy just to name a few. Incidently, somewhere on Totally Games' message board, they were discussing that while they would like to have done an expansion for XWA, Lucasarts would not have funded it because they rarely made money and XWA sold 1/3 of the original X-Wing (ARGH! Anyone else besides me who buys games no one buys?).
see google
Since some of my favorite LucasArt games not compatible with XP I have been using Virtual PC to play the games.
So far all my games have worked without any problems.
The game is officially marked as a zero (not working at all) though the forum comments say that's not true.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
On my system, at least, I can get them to run in DOSBox, technically, but....eh, it's not even worth playing. So slow...This is on a XP2100+.
I have TIE95, but X-Wing CD! Argh.
...XWA sold 1/3 of the original X-Wing...
Well, yeah. Crappy games tend to do that. "Ooh, let's let them fly the freighters, instead of the starfighters! Brilliant!" And the game was dead already.
Granted, that's not the only problem. But IMO it's the biggest one.
I suspect that the reason Lucasarts didn't fix this themselves was because it's quite possible that they could no longer build the game. Certainly I've worked at games companies where we've wanted to do a build of an old game and suddenly foung it much harder than we'd expected. Sure, you manage to find an old version of the code somwhere, but it's not been packaged alongside the art assets. Suddenly you need to work out which version of the art assets go with which version of the code. You then find out that although somebody took care to save the source code, nobody thought to make a copy of all the libraries that you were using at that time. Or perhaps the incompatibility was due to a third-party library, and they don't do a 2000/XP version of it any more, and maybe have gone out of business.
The thing is that unless you take a lot of care when backing up your old code, it can be very easy to find yourself in a tricky situation, especially if the person who did it originally has left the company.
From what I could tell, the mission files seemed to be identical between the Windows version and the Dos version (aside from the "rebalanced" mission set). While I do know that there are changes in the engine of the game, it seems that the missions were the only thing that remained the same - movies and ship models were different because of differences between the Dos and Windows version.
BTW, X-Wing (Windows version) was the first game that I had that didn't give any indication on why it wouldn't start. It would flash the screen black, make a beep, and return to the desktop. Trying to relaunch the game a couple of times allowed it to run, but it is the first of many games that would crash mysteriously.
Actually, engine wash was only included in XvT (along with the jamming beam that appeared when you were too close to the ship.) The X-Wing games and Tie Fighter games still allowed you to use the blind-spot tactic, either by the engines or by another point on the hull (where the enemys had trouble maneuvering to attack because of a lack of pathfinding AI in this kind of game). Not only that, but Tie Fighter allows you to blast the front missile launcher off the Star Destroyer and fly *INTO* the vessel, and attack from there.
A better sysmtem would be to extend the shield a bit from the hull - it can cause complains in some cases, but players shouldn't be that close to a capital ship anyway.
One thing I noticed: engine wash didn't seem to affect AI players. There were also other oddities where certain effects affected the player but didn't harm AIs in any way, such as the damage to components within the cockpit.
Do you mean introduced? I'm pretty sure I've been struck with engine wash in X-Wing Alliance (which came after XvT).
Try VDM Sound. It provides sound and joystick support to the DOS VDM in Windows NT (and XP and 2k).
I use it to play DOS CD version of TIE fighter (the best version IMO) and it works great.
I hate the graphics updates for the Windows versions; they use very low color depth and resolution textures that make the ships look... dirty. The vector based gouraud shading looked much better to me. Also, there is this really annoying engine sound that plays way too loud and has this short repeating sample (no, it can't be tured off).
They ruined the music entirely. There used to be this great, original, MIDI soundtrack, but the Windows version replaces it with some low-quality generic Star Wars movie music ripoff. Think about turning the Star Wars soundtrack into elevator music.
I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that they altered the laser firing rate to be faster in the Windows version. It seems different.
Plus, you can still have the high-res (640x480) flight mode in the DOS Tie CD.
Of course, forgetting to mention the scope would mean the later games don't have it. And as you know, that's obviously incorrect.
They ruined the music entirely. There used to be this great, original, MIDI soundtrack, but the Windows version replaces it with some low-quality generic Star Wars movie music ripoff. Think about turning the Star Wars soundtrack into elevator music.
Hurray! I've found a kindred spirit! I never got my hands on X-Wing on DOS, but I loved TIE Fighter, and I really loved its soundtrack. When I got the Collector's Edition, I ended up not even playing it after I realized the original soundtrack was gone, and I can't even play the old DOS version because I've lost the manual with its copy protection scheme.
It really sucks when they don't use original music in Star Wars games. It really pulls me out of the experience when I hear Jabba's theme while flying an X-Wing.
Absolutley insightful. I got sick of Alliance within about 3 missions. Flying the millenium falcon just doesn't do it for me when I was used to flying the xwing and tie fighters, not to mention the badass craft of Wing Commander 2.
Im sure a little part of it could have also been from the fact that unlike X-wing and Tie Fighter, X-Wing alliance was never ported to the mac.... as well as it had stiff system requirments
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It may interest ./ DOS gamers to know that there is also (finally) a fix to get UFO: Enemy Unknown, aka XCom, aka possibly the greatest game of all time, to work under Windows XP.
Just go here for more info, you can get the full game (including the XP fix) at The Home of the Underdogs.
Read Pynchon.