M@'s guide to Freespace 2 SCP installation & tweaks

Freespace 2 (a previously pay-game which has been made open-source in recent years and updated significantly with amazing graphics by the fan community) is shaping up to be one of my favourite games at the moment so thought I'd share my enthusiasm but publishing this short guide to tweaking it for optimal performance and graphical-delight.
I'd like to preface this by saying that this guide is designed for (A) people with shitty graphics cards like mine (Geforce 2), (B) for those who want to crank that last bit of performance out of it and (C) people who get the best graphics possible in this superb game:

Freespace screenshot

To install Freespace 2 SCP:

  1. Find and download the three Freespace 2 ISO files, mount as virtual cd drives using Daemon Tools, and install as per usual
    or
    Follow instructions on the Freespace 2 SCP website as to how to download and install the game.
  2. Download the 1.2 update patch and install.
  3. Download the following .vp files from the files/stable releases section of the Freespace 2 SCP page: fs2_open_367_p4.zip
    mv_adveffects.zip
    mv_core.zip
    mv_effects.zip
    mv_models.zip
    mv_music.zip
    mv_textures.zip
    mv_amodelspatch.rar
    mv_amodelspatch2.rar

    Do NOT download mv_100patch.zip unless you are planning to download all of the most recent CVS versions of the above files (not recommended, whatever you get will be beta/alpha releases and quite unstable) from the Freespace 2 SCP forums.
    Do NOT download or use mv_cell.zip unless you want cellshaded ships (awful looking) for some bizarre reason.

    Unzip/unrar the above files into the freespace 2 directory. Ignore the overwrite commands.

Tweaking your system to play Freespace 2 SCP

  1. Optimise the bejesus out of your system. Tons of guides on this around so just Google it-
  2. Overclock the hell out of your video card (use rivatuner and hotkey it) - only do this if you know what you're doing
  3. *For old Nvidias*: Nvidia no longer supports geforce 2's and many other old cards in their drivers. I expect this to continue and for the unsupported graphics card range to increase with time. However, omega drivers don't have this constraint - download and install the most recent 'performance' nvidia omega driver.
    Set performance settings to 'high performance' in the nvidia tweak menu. Then go into the nvidia control panel under control panel/display/settings tab/advanced button/Geforce tab. Go to Performance and Quality settings and change vertical sync to 'off'. Then go to the 'refresh rate overrides' and change the refresh rate for 800x600 to your monitor's optimal (maximum) refresh rate (85hz & upwards is best).
  4. Set antialiasing to '2x', or higher if you've got a reasonably grunty graphics card - no antialiasing looks bad...
  5. Set anisotropy to 'off' - doesn't make a huge visual difference IMHO anyway, and reduces performance quite significantly.

Tweaking Freespace 2 SCP

  1. Run the launcher, select your executable (should be fs2_open_367_p4.exe).
  2. Under the video tab, change your resolution to either 640x480x32 (for graphics cards like mine - i.e sucky) or 1048x768x32 for a grunty card. Don't bother with 16-bit. Set graphics mode to Direct3d8 and antialiasing to either D3DMULTISAMPLE_2 or D3DMULTISAMPLE_4.
    Tick the 'use large textures' checkbox and depending on how grunty your graphics card is, either set the 'general settings' to "medium" (I do this for my geforce 2) or "high".
  3. Under the 'features' tab, use the "Easy Setup" pull-down menu to select "Default FS2 (all features turned off). Then insert the following into the 'custom commands' textbox (saves time rather than using the checkboxes):
    -spec -glow -pcx32 -jpgtga -rlm -d3d_no_vsync -targetinfo -orbradar -snd_preload -env -decals -fov 0.39 -ambient_factor 75
  4. Run the game, enter your callsign and when you get to the main menu page (the hangar) hit F2. Go to 'details'. Now, if your graphics card is grunty, you might want to set all of these to their highest settings - otherwise, set them all to one down from highest - nebula detail can be set to the lowest one possible without affecting visual quality significantly - which creates quite a significant performance boost, in nebula sections of the game. Again, if you have a grunty card, just set it to it's topmost value.
  5. Play! Enjoy. I get decent framerates and neat graphics with these settings...

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disclaimer: If anything explodes, it's not my fault-