Trespasser Newb Technical Guide

[LIX666]

so far it seems that the O.G. crew here has been having the trespasser installed and enabled for a long time now and just getting it off the floor is a process lost in recent memory

i was exploring the idea of running it in a virtual pc that has certain hardware settings but beside giving it specific cpu strenght, ram quantity etc, you cant "emulate" vintage hardware and say " i want to have a virtual machine that has voodoo 3, pentium 2 and 256mb of ram".

trespasser would still look for hardware information and drivers in the virtual machine trying to find graphic adapter or cpu (the latter can be circumvented as i recall from one of the other topics) but to have it run as near perfect as it was intended to there are too many parameters that you just cant set in the virtual machine. besides choosing OS that is 100% compatible with the game and maybe attempting to install driver for nonexistant hardware.

the current info that is in 1st post is still a huge kick start for me, not having the physical cd/dvd rom in my pc anymore, but i can copy the cd content from the disc on my laptop and paste it on my modern pc and then it is where the fun begins.

the fun ofcourse being able to run the game at all

[Draconisaurus]

Glad it helped! I feel some of the OG crew may recall installation details better than myself. Please do tell of any question areas you have that I can add info about, as the guide is written.

I have spent some more time on this, brushing up on the download sections I was never quite familiar with. Some nice things to be found. Also I am still documenting the ATX thread. Yes Documenting. No one realized threads needed documentation, too. So far it is mostly the astoundment at high framerates, improved stability, and investigations of missing or altered features.

I was amused to find we have a LOD patch? And a resolution patch. I wonder how often these are successfully used at this time. I am glad to see we've provided people with the full-patch level files by themselves, I imagine that saved some headaches. Does anyone remember the old "Trespasser Custom Edition"? With the nature background and new sounds for the menu. It was created by TheGuy, the first time anyone attempted to release a standard mode for presenting custom levels. I sort of miss it.

(Click on thumbnail for full size)

[LIX666]

most of the topics that do mention things that are of interest to someone trying to run the game and then apply all the goodies are almost like the posters went out to have a beer, discussed all the important stuff, procedures, tips n tricks and then resumed the conversation in the posts, without making the outsider looking in understanding what the beginning of the conversation was

it is relatively slow at work due to season ending and i have a little extra spare time that i am shortening by reading various things trying to familiarize myself with the subject, but all the time i feel like i missed the beer meetup on the previous night

[Draconisaurus]

I appreciate the analogy... haha. We did step out for beer a couple decades ago. I think we left our laptops and PCs outside on the deck and what you see here is only the posts for discussion while getting more beer, KrustyO's, and diet soda. Perhaps we can eventually tack this guide onto a clipboard in the kitchen for those passing through.

Aaaaand everyone, I have upgraded the guide, edited it in the first post here, and extended it through descriptions of the various patches. Please do relate what does and doesn't sound good. At this time I am assuming the LOD and Screen patches to be fully unworth the time to describe. Earlier in the week I began going through the Tools section and wow, there are some interesting things in there. TresGuy and I were eyeballing the t-script writing app "ScriptMaker" that Andres seems to have made in 2003. In my brief inspection I noticed that it successfully writes ModelXX entries for physics, but hasn't an option for listing the model as "Compound". I theorize it is fairly useful but missing some things... Can anyone say what an "AIFF" audio file is for? I tried GeomExt, the neglected sibling app of GeomAdd, and it did print out a nice list of all parent instances in the GRF I tested but I had no luck in attempting to use it for 3DS file extraction. The days when such an app was basic use sounds a bit romantic.. And, ShellGen in its original state by Rebel, looks better than I remembered. It contains a help file which refers to all the tools considered essential at the time it was posted. Very nice!

And, the Tres CE thread review continues. We are still trying to convince him to fix things other than he was yet doing like AI activities, and sending crash reports. It was very unclear how long he was going to stay, and at that point nothing was certain. Was the source code going to be released? Could we play it backward-compatilbe with the older mods?

[Isolt]

I think an idiots guide to installing CE would be a useful edition. With special emphasis on how to use the "trespasser.ini" (renaming, moving etc), I find people struggle with that. Are there any other things that catch people out? Do you need to run stock trespasser after a fresh install before installing CE?
Maybe some recommended CE settings, or is that beyond the scope of the guide?

DDrawCompat might be a worth mentioning as an alternative to CE (or for running JPDS). v0.2.1 works but the experimental one doesn't
https://www.trescomforum.org/viewtopic. ... aw#p128357
https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

I'm happy to write a texture replacement install guide if you'd like it in the upgrades section.

[Hilwo]

I'm too lazy to read the rest, but who made the Trespasser primer some years ago? Probably outdated as well, but it was a cool looking format that resembled the Trespasser manual. Of course, not very dynamic.

[Draconisaurus]

A section on trespasser.ini inside the text on how to use Tres CE is a very important idea. Hmm, I'm not aware of a case where running the game is needed before installing CE. Has anyone heard of this?

That option... DDrawCompat allows graphics upgrade on ATX? That is rather special... Thanks!

A texture replacement install guide sounds helpful to the cause. I can place it in where it fits if you write it, Isolt.

Hmmm Hilwo I've run out of time today but I ought to give the Primer another look, thanks. With this and machf's suggestions, I am getting the vibe people want a nice format for this. Ongoing ideas are great.

[tatu]

A section on trespasser.ini inside the text on how to use Tres CE is a very important idea. Hmm, I'm not aware of a case where running the game is needed before installing CE. Has anyone heard of this?

AFAIK it is not needed. The only thing would be for the demo if you want the tpass.ini file and use that as well.

That option... DDrawCompat allows graphics upgrade on ATX? That is rather special... Thanks!

Not graphics update, but I believe it fixes the colour issues ATX and retail has on modern PCs?

I'm too lazy to read the rest, but who made the Trespasser primer some years ago? Probably outdated as well, but it was a cool looking format that resembled the Trespasser manual. Of course, not very dynamic.

Slugger

[machf]

A section on trespasser.ini inside the text on how to use Tres CE is a very important idea. Hmm, I'm not aware of a case where running the game is needed before installing CE. Has anyone heard of this?

AFAIK it is not needed. The only thing would be for the demo if you want the tpass.ini file and use that as well.

Oh, no, it IS needed because people think they can just drop CE in there and have everything working right then - and that won't happen. Why? Because Trespasser hasn't yet been configured with the proper audio and video hardware options. You need to run it once.

[Draconisaurus]

Hmm Tatu, from what Isolt says, it also improves framerate/stability. Definitely worth including.

Ah machf, that does sound as important information, thank you.

[Isolt]

-That option... DDrawCompat allows graphics upgrade on ATX? That is rather special... Thanks!
-Not graphics update, but I believe it fixes the colour issues ATX and retail has on modern PCs?
-Hmm Tatu, from what Isolt says, it also improves framerate/stability. Definitely worth including.

Just to clarify this doesn't work with CE. It is only useful if you want to run ATX (for actions unsupported in CE?), vanilla trespasser or a level with it's own stand alone engine (JPDS). It only improves compatibility with DX7, it doesn't improve graphics. If it fixes colour issues it would only be due to improved compatibility.
It certainly improved my frame rate in JPDS making it actually playable on Win10, that's all I've used it for personally.

[Draconisaurus]

Alright then! An updated version of the technical guide draft has been edited in the first post. I've started a section on common bugs but it is difficult to think of the various ones - 935 brains are better than one! The various upgrades are listed, though I've yet to write the CE part.
Meanwhile MikeTheRaptor is working on his own stand-alone game version for public release at a later date. It promises to make CE more available to the common Player instance, and maybe the CAnimals too. The ambient birds might have to wait..

[LIX666]

Alright then! An updated version of the technical guide draft has been edited in the first post. I've started a section on common bugs but it is difficult to think of the various ones - 935 brains are better than one! The various upgrades are listed, though I've yet to write the CE part.
Meanwhile MikeTheRaptor is working on his own stand-alone game version for public release at a later date. It promises to make CE more available to the common Player instance, and maybe the CAnimals too. The ambient birds might have to wait..

[Draconisaurus]

Huh, this is rather amusing I'm sure, but has anyone encountered the issue of fly mode not working? I have recently had it a couple of times, where the cheat is entered successfully but then the Player simply can't move anywhere, flying or not. Re-entering the cheat returns one to normal walking. FLYTELE (in ATX, where I was today) does not land you at an elsewhere location, either...

OH, and I just tested the DDrawCompat.DLL, in software mode. Even then the framerate is now whoooaaa.