Issues with Hi-Rez Metaltech Freeware releases

[Expack3]

I'm currently trying to install the Starsiege part of Starsiege Universe from the ISO provided by Hi-Rez (incorrectly-labeled on the download site as "Starsiege: Tribes") as part of their 20th anniversary freeware Tribes compilation, but without success. I've tried using the SHP Starsiege installer, but it always asks for Disc 2 (and the Hi-Rez release only provides one disc); installing it normally using either the original InstallShield installer or the modern replacements doesn't work either as the installer stalls during initialization. The only thing I haven't done is attempt installation via a VM'd copy of Ubuntu I have (using the WINE wrapper) since I don't own, say, Windows XP or earlier.

[Collector]

I have not yet looked at these to check compatibility with the installers. Perhaps this weekend I might find some time.

[Expack3]

I have not yet looked at these to check compatibility with the installers. Perhaps this weekend I might find some time.

As I've already tested the first three games in the Hi-Rez freeware collection with the installers, I'll send you a PM with my results.

Also, I forgot to mention I'm running Windows 10 Pro x64.

[zeether]

So just recently, Hi-Rez (the company that released Tribes Ascend) put up a page where all the Earthsiege/Starsiege games can be downloaded free (Starsiege: Tribes is missing though). I downloaded the ISO off of there and used the 32-bit installer on the site to install it, but there is a problem: there's no music at all, and the installer skips over ripping the music. I can play the game fine with the voices and FMVs, but it continually does an _inmm check and gives me errors. Is there any way to at least disable this check? I can live without the music, but having the errors pop up is a little annoying.

EDIT: I managed to fix this by just making the _inmm.ini file. No music, but it's better than errors.

[Expack3]

In response to Collector's PM response, now posted here by his request:

The ES1 ISO was mounted using DOSBox; the ES2 ISO I did not attempt a manual installation, though I did mount it too see if it had CD audio (it has none); the Starsiege disc I mounted using Windows 10's disc image mounter and Daemon Tools when I attempted manual installation, which, as I explained, I tried using the original InstallShield installer and the modern replacement, both of which failed; it also lacks CD Audio.

From what I've been reading, if the game came with CD Audio (specifically, CDDA tracks), the Hi-Rez freeware releases lack them.

[Collector]

I have adjusted the ES1 installer so that it should play movies and speech now. Give it a try.

Also, I am going to move this thread to the Metaltech forum. Someone else just joined the forum looking for help and I want to merge any new threads into this one.

[zeether]

From what I've been reading, if the game came with CD Audio (specifically, CDDA tracks), the Hi-Rez freeware releases lack them.

This seems to be the case on my end too with ES2. The installer simply skips ripping the music and will throw up _inmm errors unless I create the .ini in the folder. Not sure why these releases lack the music but I can say that at least ES2 will run great if the .ini is in there.

[Collector]

Hello, welcome to the forums. The reason that there is no music and the _inmm errors is that Hi-Rez offers an ISO of the disc. The game has Redbook CDA tracks for the music. The installer was written for the original CD and will rip these tracks to the hard drive for CD-less play. The game's EXEs are patched with _inmm to get the game to use the ripped tracks.

These tracks cannot be added to an ISO image. They should have released it in a format that can include the CDA tracks like a BIN/CUE pair. I am looking into adjusting the Metaltech installers to accommodate the freeware releases. In fact, I have just added support for the first Earthsiege freeware release. I'll be taking on ES2 next.

BTW, I will be merging this into another thread to keep the freeware support questions together.

[Expack3]

With Collector's permission, below is the complete conversation he and I had via PM:

As mentioned previously, I've downloaded and attempted to install Metaltech: Earthsiege, Earthsiege 2, and Starsiege using the provided ISOs from the Hi-Rez freeware collection. I used Windows 10 Pro x64 to test the following installers:

• Metaltech: Earthsiege: Installed fine, but needed to imgmount either the ISO or mount the ISO contents in a folder as an ISO to get the videos and voice working.
• Earthsiege 2: Installs, works, and plays fine, but as the provided disc image is a mere ISO, it doesn't have CD audio; as such, _inmm.dll gives error messages when it can't find the tracks.
• Starsiege: Tribes (actually just Starsiege, not "Starsiege Universe"):See my thread for more details.

As an aside, I get the impression this collection has less effort thrown into it than the 2006 Quest releases from VU, what with only ISOs being provided when at least one game in the collection utilizes CD Audio, not to mention Earthsiege requires DOSBox to run on most modern computers, online server-based multiplayer no longer works (without fan fixes) for all games which use it, and Tribes: Vengeance, despite still requiring a serial key to install, has no official serial key listed anywhere, including in the download itself!

This does not need to be done in PMs . There is nothing that needs to be kept out of public view and others might have something to contribute if they see this. I'll just quickly respond for now, but let's use your thread after this.

Were you mounting the ISOs with Daemon Tools or such for installing? I would have to check to be sure, but I believe all of the games from ES2 up to the later ones had CDA tracks.

ES1 should have had no problems as long as the ISO was made from a compatible release.

I'll have to consider how I want to handle the _inmm/audio tracks issue to make the ES2 installer compatible.

Not much that I can do about a missing serial, but I would not be opposed to someone publicly posting one since the game has been freewared.

[Expack3]

I have adjusted the ES1 installer so that it should play movies and speech now. Give it a try.

Whatever changes you made, it worked - movies and speech now work correctly.

Out of curiosity, what was it about the Hi-Rez release of ES1 which caused the issue?

[Collector]

Thanks for adding the PM info. For some reason the official patch was overwriting the speech file of the freeware version with a three byte file. I also made a couple of configuration changes.

I looked at ES2. The ISO is identical to the data track of my original CD, so I could not see a way to determine if the user's disc is the original or the freeware version. I ended up just checking if a CDA track was successfully ripped. If not it will offer to download the tracks. You can grab the new one from the installer page.

[Expack3]

I looked at ES2. The ISO is identical to the data track of my original CD, so I could not see a way to determine if the user's disc is the original or the freeware version. I ended up just checking if a CDA track was successfully ripped. If not it will offer to download the tracks. You can grab the new one from the installer page.

The new SHP installer for ES2 stalls when attempting to extract audio track 2 when using the freeware release, like it's not exiting from the "audio track extraction successful?" check routine.

[Collector]

Somehow you must have gotten an older version. Clear your cache and redownload.

[Expack3]

Somehow you must have gotten an older version. Clear your cache and redownload.

Indeed I was; clearing the cache and redownloading resolved the problem.

Of course, now there's another problem: I keep getting the following error in the file assert.log:

Code: Select all

Assert::err: Line 842 in "src\winstuff.cpp": coulnd't create dd surface.

As such, because I have a DirectX 10.1-compliant GPU, I was able to use the Direct3D/DirectDraw 1-7 portion of the dgVoodoo2 graphics API wrapper. Not only does the game run without the error when using the wrapper, it no longer needs explorer.exe shut down while the application is running. Despite dgVoodoo2 handling 256-color palette operations just fine, I get the "you are not in 256 color mode" message.

That said, I do realize dgVoodoo2 is likely beyond the system requirements you're aiming for; I only brought it up because it's an actively-developed solution I use which has worked in the past extremely well, and happens to work here.

[Collector]

I am not getting that with my Win7, so it may be a Win10 thing. More things depreciated than even 7. It is good that dgVoodoo2 worked for you. You are right that I am reluctant to include it with the installer. Some ATI cards don't like the wrapper and will crash a game that is using it. Still, nice to know and it can be offered as a solution if anyone else encounters that problem.

I guess that I next need to look at Starsiege. Not sure when I'll be able to get to it.