Temporary Fixes and Essential Modifications

[Gil R.]

Some issues that have come up that affect game-play for certain people or in certain situations. I'll try to keep a list here.

Since I want to keep this thread as an uncluttered list so that people can consult it quickly, please try to keep discussion on it to a minimum. If there's something you want to ask about, either find the pertinent thread, or start a new one.


EDIT: ...please either find the pertinent thread, or start a new one. Where were my manners?

[Gil R.]

DELETED: OBSOLETE.

[Gil R.]

If when loading the game you get a message about a missing codec, this thread explains all:

tm.asp?m=1312947

(It's not a FOF issue, but rather an installation issue.)

[Gil R.]

The minimum memory for "Forge of Freedom" is 512MB RAM. To play with so little memory, one will probably need to make some adjustments by putting the game into low-animation mode and turning off sound. Here is what Eric wrote elsewhere about this:

On a system with 512MB, it'll run, but there will be caching to virtual memory that can lead to some intermittent delays. It does run better in the low-animation mode.

In case anyone was wondering, the big difference between regular graphics and low-animation: low-animation turns off things like the province background pictures and unrest flames, extra frames of animation in quick combat and smoke, and uses the chit-view instead of the little guys in detailed combat.


And here's a quote from the ReadMe file that comes with the game, explaining what to do:


From the ReadMe file:

**********************
* Low Animation Mode *
**********************
Users who have difficulty running Forge of Freedom on their computer can try to run the game in "Low Animation Mode." Open the file forgeoffreedom.ini. (This file is typically found in your Windows directory or in the ForgeOfFreedom directory. You'll need to run the game at least once for this file to be created.)

Add the following entry:
LOWANIM=1

Make sure there are no entries that read:
LOWANIM=0

To turn animation back on, either set the LOWANIM value to 0 or remove all LOWANIM entries in the forgeoffreedom.ini file.

There's also a "No Sound Mode" which is similar to Low Animation and can help squeeze out performance on some machines:

*****************
* No Sound Mode *
*****************
Users may also disable all sound effects in the game to increase performance on their machines. Using the procedure outlined for Low Animation Mode, add the entry:

NOSOUND=1

to the forgeoffreedom.ini file. To turn sound back on, change the entry to NOSOUND=0 or remove all NOSOUND entries from the file.

[TimoN]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

*****************
* No Sound Mode *
*****************
Users may also disable all sound effects in the game to increase performance on their machines. Using the procedure outlined for Low Animation Mode, add the entry:

NOSOUND=1

to the forgeoffreedom.ini file. To turn sound back on, change the entry to NOSOUND=0 or remove all NOSOUND entries from the file.

Better way is to do the old "Matrix Games trick" and rename the Sound folder to something else, e.g. NoSound.

This way I was able to free 150MB of memory compared to standard or NOSOUND=1 disabling. Apparently all sound files are loaded to memory at startup?

[MorningDew]

ORIGINAL: TimoN

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

*****************
* No Sound Mode *
*****************
Users may also disable all sound effects in the game to increase performance on their machines. Using the procedure outlined for Low Animation Mode, add the entry:

NOSOUND=1

to the forgeoffreedom.ini file. To turn sound back on, change the entry to NOSOUND=0 or remove all NOSOUND entries from the file.

Better way is to do the old "Matrix Games trick" and rename the Sound folder to something else, e.g. NoSound.

This way I was able to free 150MB of memory compared to standard or NOSOUND=1 disabling. Apparently all sound files are loaded to memory at startup?

My testing doesn't confirm this. My game actually 100+MB used more memory when I renamed the directory.

[TimoN]

Forgot to mention that I renamed video and music folders too:
\Forge of Freedom\noSound\
\Forge of Freedom\noVideo\
\Forge of Freedom\noMusic\

My memory usage before starting the game is 220MB. When the game runs it goes up to 850MB. Before renaming the total memory usage was 1000MB.
My system is: Win2k, AMD 3200+, 512MB, Geforce Ti4200.

Hope this helps someone else too.

[Conhugeco]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

... The special abilities for generals were left out of the appropriate file in the July scenario and the small scenario ... If you open the first copy of this file (ideally, with Excel) you will see the "Special" columns at the very end. Simply copy those columns and then past them into the equivalent COMMANDERS.TXT files in the two scenario folders....

Can you just copy and paste the whole file to the appropriate folder?

Thanks,
DickH

[marecone]

Thank you TimoN [&o] It works now! I can see those little guys and play big battles!
I downloaded the game on my home comp which is limited with memory. Up until now I played with the trick Gil mentioned but I was unhappy because I couldn't see those little soliders. Now I can and all thanks to you[&o]

[marecone]

About quick combat ratings for weapons. I saw it somewhere and I just can find it. I belive someone provided those ratings. Please post it here because it is very important for all of us with 512 MB computers [:(]

[Ironclad]

It is posted in the Mods and Scenarios section as QC value display.

[marecone]

Thank you

[ETF]

TCP/IP Work around for me.............
 
Played my first LAN game last night. Worked fine. One bug we did notice was the Non Host machine never gets an event report as a pop up at the beginning of the turn nor in the events section during his turn. At the same time you get an error and if you want to continue to play you MUST hit "ignore" the error. The error seems to be revolving around the event pop up. 
Hard though on the non host machine as you can not see things like upgrade, replacements, tech disease etc.

[madgamer2]

You might see a email from me (madgamer2@mchsi.com) about not seeing the line of print at the bottom of the main window but I solved it with help from this forum. I still have 2 problems.

1. The mini map will zoom but the main map will not. Is ther something I have do at the keyboard or is there a key(s) to zoom in and out?

2, I managed to get 4 brig. on the the first fleet and can't figure out how to get them off. To this old guy I sometimes don't understand simple instructions [:o].
the fleet is docked at a harbor. You would think I could figure this out

thanks
Madgamer

[Gil R.]

1. The main map doesn't zoom.

2. If it's a friendly port, use ALT-LeftClick. Simply selecting and left-clicking doesn't work when units are in a fleet container (er, "roster," or whatever we're supposed to be calling containers these days).

By the way, it's best not to put questions in this thread, since it's easy to overlook new posts in these threads that are pinned to the top. Much better to begin a new thread, since those are hard to miss.

[madgamer2]

thanks but I thought this was the right place. I can see now it should go under the general
forum.

madgamer