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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

UFOLOADER & Steam


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I've got Steam XCOM.

I've got UFOLOADER.EXE

 

What must be done with them to play nicely together.

Seems like its real simple. Drop UFOLOADER.EXE in the folder and run that instead of the Steam Launcher or whatever.

 

Ok...but...

Something doesn't jive in my mind regarding the two.

 

If Steam is running XCOM UFO Defense.exe in DOSBOX, then what the heck is UFO Defense_Patched.exe for?

 

And therefore...if Steam is working fine (and it is for me) then why does it need UFO Defense_Patched.exe and UFO Defense.exe in the same folder??? Especially when I examine the bat files. Its like total Schizo...between UFO.BAT and UFOCD.Bat...WHOSE is incharge and IDUNNO is on 2nd Base or something.

 

In any case...

Then how in the world could UFOLOADER.EXE work well when it has a ini setting for:

 

[Loader]

Executable=UFO Defense.exe

 

Again...how do I get these two together without driving each other crazy. :)

 

Please advise on the EXACT right steps to make these things work together smartly.

Edited by BlackLibrary
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The thing is, Steam isn't running UFO Defense.exe (Collector's Edition or CE) - the default is to run the 1.4 DOS copy via DOSBox. If you want to play the game via that exe you'll need to run it manually. The UFOLOADER is only necessary if the CE game runs with garbled graphics. Hope that helps. :)

 

- Zombie

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The thing is, Steam isn't running UFO Defense.exe (Collector's Edition or CE) - the default is to run the 1.4 DOS copy via DOSBox. If you want to play the game via that exe you'll need to run it manually. The UFOLOADER is only necessary if the CE game runs with garbled graphics. Hope that helps. :)

 

- Zombie

 

 

Hmm...but if I want the improvements/fixes/hacks from UFOextender, don't I need to run via UFOLoader??? You've got me a tadbit more confused now. :)

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I've confused myself, sorry. :blush1:

 

What I meant to say is that UFO Defense_Patched.exe is only necessary if you have garbled graphics. ;)

 

Just to recap, Steam never uses the CE executable (UFO Defense.exe) as it is a windows-based version - it only uses the DOS version of the game. The CE executable was included in the install because the folks who tested the game for 2K Games asked that it be present in case the DOS version didn't work for a player. The patched exe is for garbled graphics due to DirectDraw issues. Windows players usually need this patch to run the game as the only other way around this problem is to manually turn off DirectDraw (which I do because I don't want to run a patch for testing).

 

As I don't have a full steam install (only a testing version from long ago), I'll try to get you started. The UFO Defense exe should be found in the following folder on your computer: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense\XCOM. You should extract UFO Extender to this location as well. I don't know if Seb76's Extender fixes the garbled graphics issue. If not, you'll need to edit the UFO Extender.ini file to point to UFO Defense_Patched.exe to run the game properly. Then I assume that all you'll need to do is run UFOExtender.exe.

 

You may want to take a look at the Enemy Unknown Extended page at the X-COM Wiki too. :)

 

- Zombie

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I've confused myself, sorry. :blush1:

 

What I meant to say is that UFO Defense_Patched.exe is only necessary if you have garbled graphics. ;)

 

Just to recap, Steam never uses the CE executable (UFO Defense.exe) as it is a windows-based version - it only uses the DOS version of the game. The CE executable was included in the install because the folks who tested the game for 2K Games asked that it be present in case the DOS version didn't work for a player. The patched exe is for garbled graphics due to DirectDraw issues. Windows players usually need this patch to run the game as the only other way around this problem is to manually turn off DirectDraw (which I do because I don't want to run a patch for testing).

 

As I don't have a full steam install (only a testing version from long ago), I'll try to get you started. The UFO Defense exe should be found in the following folder on your computer: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense\XCOM. You should extract UFO Extender to this location as well. I don't know if Seb76's Extender fixes the garbled graphics issue. If not, you'll need to edit the UFO Extender.ini file to point to UFO Defense_Patched.exe to run the game properly. Then I assume that all you'll need to do is run UFOExtender.exe.

 

You may want to take a look at the Enemy Unknown Extended page at the X-COM Wiki too. :)

 

- Zombie

The loader does not do anything by default since the default ini file has everything to 0. To fix the garbling you can either set the "Video Pitch" setting, or activate D3D. I'd recommend D3D since that's what I use for testing.

HTH,

Seb

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I've confused myself, sorry. :blush1:

 

What I meant to say is that UFO Defense_Patched.exe is only necessary if you have garbled graphics. ;)

 

Just to recap, Steam never uses the CE executable (UFO Defense.exe) as it is a windows-based version - it only uses the DOS version of the game. The CE executable was included in the install because the folks who tested the game for 2K Games asked that it be present in case the DOS version didn't work for a player. The patched exe is for garbled graphics due to DirectDraw issues. Windows players usually need this patch to run the game as the only other way around this problem is to manually turn off DirectDraw (which I do because I don't want to run a patch for testing).

 

As I don't have a full steam install (only a testing version from long ago), I'll try to get you started. The UFO Defense exe should be found in the following folder on your computer: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense\XCOM. You should extract UFO Extender to this location as well. I don't know if Seb76's Extender fixes the garbled graphics issue. If not, you'll need to edit the UFO Extender.ini file to point to UFO Defense_Patched.exe to run the game properly. Then I assume that all you'll need to do is run UFOExtender.exe.

 

You may want to take a look at the Enemy Unknown Extended page at the X-COM Wiki too. :)

 

- Zombie

 

I'm having no graphics issues at all with XCOM. The "standard" install by Steam worked like a real champ.

 

So, with that being the case, whats next for installing the UFOLOADER? What should it point to for "Executable =XXX"???

 

By the way...the "test" setup you mentioned is exactly like it is on my own.

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I would think that the default (UFO Defense.exe) is correct then. :)

 

- Zombie

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  • 5 months later...

Hello,

 

i've got the download verision via gamesgate, that seems to be exactly the same like the steam version.

 

i also got the extended patch installed.

 

if i start the game via the desktop link, that was created during the installation, dosbox is started and the game is started in dosbox via UFOCD.BAT.

through starting the game this way, i got the enchanced options from dosbox, like anti aialising, i can setup my german keyboard layout, the mouse does not leave the screen (i got two monitors attached) and i can setup mouse sensivity. but nothing has changed during gameplay by the extended patch and i have the old soundeffects and music.

 

when i start the game via UFOLoader.exe, the game starts with all the enhancements by the extended patch and the new music, but with pixelated graphics, the wrong keyboard layout and a mousepointer that's so fast it's nearly impossible to handle it.

 

is there any way to start the patched game via dosbox? regarding to the problems above, the game via UFOLoader.exe is nearly unplayable to me.

 

thanks in advance for your help.

 

 

 

p.s. if i start the game via UFO Defence.exe or UFO Defence_Patched.exe it crashes. I guess that depends on my OS: Vista 64 Bit

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  • 4 weeks later...

UFOLoader modified the Windows EXE in memory as it's loaded. It would be impossible for it to modify a program inside of an emulator.

 

XcomUtil does a few of the fixes that UFOLoader does (plus ix the difficulty bug) and will work with the DOS EXE. If the GamesGate version includes the UFO windows EXE XcomUtil can also be used in conjunction with UFOLoader.

 

check where the shortcut points to (shift + right click > open file location) this will open the location of DosBox. Most likely the game folder is in there. Named UFO or TFD. Inside look for "UFO Defense.exe" this is the windows EXE. to just use UFOLoader by itself just extract it into that folder and right click on UFOLoader.exe > send to desktop as shortcut. to use XcomUtil Extract it into the game folder and run XCUSetup. then right click on RunXcom.bat > send to desktop as shortcut.

You can use UFOLoader in conjunction with XcomUtil if you install UFOLoader first. Also XcomUtil can be used for the DOS version of UFO/TFTD if you modify DOSBox to start RunXcom.bat (this is done automatically for STEAM copies and may work for GamersGate copies if they are setup similarly.

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