Some feedback/ questions for XWAUP

[Thunderbird]

Hello guys,

sorry for my English, I'm from Germany. I recently found this great game (in my childhood I only played X-Wing and Tie-Fighter but X-W Alliance wasn't my time) and then I also found this great project in the internet.

I'm really impressed that there's still a community for such an old game with all kind of mods and tricks to make this old game running on new machines in widescreen resolution and so on.

And of course this graphical mod project here. Amazing job that you're all doing. I installed the Super Backdrops as well as the Craft Pack and the graphics are really amazing (especially the crafts). Nevertheless I have to say that I finally uninstalled both mods after one evening of testing because there are a few issues with these modification:

- Performance is very poor. I think I don't have a slow machine (i5 Quadcore @4GHz, GTX670, 8 GB DDR3, SSD drive, Win7). I still can play most modern games fluently in 1080p on high graphics settings but XWA with Super Backdrops and the Craft Pack is slowing down my machine massively. In many situations I only have 10-15 fps (playing in 1920x1080 with widescreen mod). Is that normal? What does it need to play that fluently? I mean, good graphics are nice but don't make sense when the game is just not playable with a modern upper-class computer.
- The game crashes sometimes (in the 2nd rebel mission I had 2 or 3 crashes to the desktop). Without the XWAUP mods I don't have any crashes.
- Some graphical problems as stuttering objects in the background (planets/ galaxies in the background are often twitching a bit) or background objects which just don't look very good (the border doesn't fit the background).
- The Craft Pack is changing the language from German to English. Voices are still in German. This is not a big problem for me but in the mission briefings the timing of the voices doesn't fit to the timing of the text. The text is switching too fast to the next section so that the voice is cut.

I really hope that you can fix these issues in the future as the game really looks amazing with these mods. But like this it is not really playable unfortunately.

I also would like to know if it is possible to install the Super Backdrops without installing the Craft Pack. I tried to do so but the cockpit view of the Y-Wing doesn't work properly (didn't test other crafts). The camera position is way too much in the back (too big distance to the cockpit so that you can see the ends of the cockpit). Only together with the Craft Pack the cockpit looks normal. So then I don't understand why offer both mods separately if the Super Backdrops doesn't work without the Craft Pack.

Best regards

[BattleDog]

In answer to your FPS question - I'm not sure what XWA's FPS cap is but I doubt it's very high, other than that your resolution is surely too high, try removing the widescreen mod.

IRRC the engine will only use the first 8mb of VRAM you have - most of your power is being wasted by the clunky engine.

[Thunderbird]

Hi!

Thanks for your answer. Ok, so that means the game won't run better on any high end computer.

Sorry to say that, but if the game doesn't (and will never) run properly in 16:9 resolution with the XWAUP mods, then I don't really see the sense of these mods. Anyone who wants to play this game on a modern machine will most propably prefer the widescreen resolution instead of the graphical mods if he has to decide because widescreen brings so much more advantage and playability to the game than any other graphical improvement (in my opinion).

Ok, maybe a smaller 16:9 resolution would run better, I didn't try that. But as long as the game crashes so often with these mods, it's not playable anyway.

[DTM]

I play XWA since 1998. In all these years I've installed and played XWA in more than 10 computers, using the best mods aviable and testing a lot of WIP mods. In this moment XWA is installed both on my Desktop Pc (i7) and laptop (dual core from 2007) with widescreen mods. I never experimented in-game crashes or frame rate problem...

[Thunderbird]

Hmm, ok. Without the XWAUP Packages only with widescreen mod I don't have any problems, too. Can play that for hours and absolutely no issues. But with the XWAUP packages installed I have these problems. Do you have the Super Backdrops and Crafts Pack from this website installed?

[DTM]

Yes, I always use Xwaup mods. Try installing only 2 xwaup crafts, maybe the x-wing and the tie fighter, and play the skirmish mod using them. If you dont have problem, try to install the SSD (it's the most detailed xwaup craft) to understand if your problem is the complexity of the new models or something else...Use the super backdrop patch only after you install the xwaup super patch. What graphic card do you have?

[Thunderbird]

I have a GTX670.

The Super Backdrops can only be installed after installing the Craft Pack? That means it can not be installed if you only install some of the ship models?

What is Skirmish mod? I don't use that. I only know the two packages from this website (Super Backdrops and Craft Pack). All the described problems appeared within the first 2 Rebel Missions.

If I install only a couple of ship models manually, can these be uninstalled?

[DTM]

Skirmish is not a mod. I mean the single mission set up in the simulator room of Xwa. They are called Skirmish missions To use the Super Backdrop correctly you must install all xwaup fighters that have a cockpit. The XWAUP crafts can be unisntalled. I don't know about problems in the first rebel missions...sorry

[Thunderbird]

How can the crafts be uninstalled? I only installed the A-Wing for testing and the game language is english now (seems every single ship replaces the games files so that you have english instead of the formerly installed language). And I don't find any option to uninstall this.

The Craft Pack can be uninstalled by clicking the installation file again. But how to uninstall a single ship?

[DTM]

It's impossible to patch this game without loosing translation. The translation works thanks to a file called xwa.tab in the main directory. This file overvrites all text and specifications of the game. The patches change the text and specification of the system files of the game. The patch installers rename the file xwa.tab to avoid conflicts. The Super Backdrop Patch cannot work with the xwa.tab file, because it overvrites all mission parameters. No problem with the audio files, because they are on the cd. If you use an english cd, than audio is in english, german cd audio is in german.
I own the italian version of the game. I must use the Italian 2.02 patch. If I use the lucasarts original 2.02 patch, I havesome problems with the new xwaup crafts and patches. Dont't know about the German version...

As I rememeber, the installer for the single crafts ceates a Folder with all back ups needed to restore the original crafts. I never have used it, because normally noone wants to come back from XWAUP experience...