286 replies to this topic

[lumin]

Does anyone know of a fix for the black bar across the bottom and the right of the screen when playing in 1024x768? I know that running in 640x480 solves this, but then I can't get the excellent edge filter.

[Crusader of Melnibone]

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for all their help, I've been reading, what now, has it been over 4 hrs? Ok so I woke up one day and said to myself, damn I have to play x-com, it's 2007 already! So yeah, after so many years. almost decades you'd think, I got myself a copy (original i might add) of the collection. Yeah yeah my pc's so old that can barely handle morrowind's graphics in low qual. Anyway I really don't care cause Tex Murphy has been keeping me company lately and now it's strategy time!

Enough with the intro, I greet thee cyberpunks and tech-heads.

I got here by pure coincidence as I didn't find almost anything in the gamespy x-com planet and fileplanet but the game wouldnt run. So ok long story short, I got here, picked up the essential fodders patch and thought I'd try this one for starters.

So promising, fixed the time sync (dunno anything about the gamepay, I'm just startin' you know?) but the game was (1) awfully slow when changing resolution (that's a pity cause I loved the filters...), and when I didn't, I really hated that (2) big black space in the bottom that so many ppl are shouting about.

And I'm checkin all the threads and all the posts and I notice that we're not gonna see any more updates, so it's time for me to check for other patches that would do the job, so sadly I uninstall this one. I dunno where to look exactly (for higher resolution, combined with fodders and bug fixes AND mp3 compatibility) but I'm covering the basics.

C U in another thread or here if anything comes to mind, cause now I'm really really tired...

[T3QU1LA^SUNR1S3]

hi all, i'm new here... i've been playing xcom ufo defense since there were no pentium 4, it's a great game. last year i bought a pentium 4 processor with a standard vga monitor,when i played xcom it's doing fine ... no crash .. just a garbled screen ... so i download xcom1fix.exe *puff* it worked until i bought a LCD monitor a few months ago ... then i try to play xcom using xcom1fix.exe ... i can see the opening intro and get in the game,it's just the picture shrinks to the center of the monitor (screen wide) so the soldiers are like midget .... how can i fix this? i tried changing the resolution to 640x480, 800x600, etc. but nothing change, i even tried using the compatibility mode by right clicking on the xcom1fix.exe (properties) ..... didn't help at all .... any idea?

sorry for the bad spelling or grammar ... it's been a while since i write in english again.

[Mandavar]

How can i Download this ? :-(

[farve]

Hello, I just started firing up the xcom..

So when you manufacture you must have all ingredients at the end now? Damn I didnt realize this I lost a whole month of manufacture on a Firestorm.

Otherwise this patch fixed alot of bugs, though the video seems a little skewed.

[SaBBaTH777]

Is there a bugfix(patch) of Blaster Launcher(Hovertank/Launcher) problem in X-COM:UFO Defense Collector's Edition?

For more information follow this link: Collectors Edition Blaster Bomb Bug

[Aeneas]

Huhu!

I'd love to use the patch but the link seems to be broken. Could anyone just upload it again? :-)

A plus, A.

[Zombie]

Link to what? The fix? You can find that at StrategyCore's Files Section. I also provided a link in the first post in this thread a while back.

The Blaster Bomb Bug info can be found here.

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie, 06 December 2007 - 09:48 AM.

[djelmo]

hey ppl,

I have a problem with ufo.

Ive downloaded the bug fixer and patch.dll, put it in the ufo folder and when I click it to start, it comes up with an error messege, run time or summink

The game loads up fine without it but the screen is garishly bright, has anyone else had this problem, Im using a tft monitor and have a 64mb graphics card so cant work out how to fix it. its also doesnt all fit on the screen, it seems stretched.

I'm desperate to play it again so any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[jkchwgefkq3]

base_layout(0) "0 or empty - original base, 1 - alternative"

(From the .reg file that comes with this.)

I strongly recommend deleting this line, so that you don't accidentally set it to 1 and have to bear witness to the worst base design ever invented by man. It's actually WORSE than the original starting base.

This is the layout:

XXXXXA
R-----
HHHHHH
HHHHHH
------
------

Where A is the access lift, X are normal rooms, H is of course hangars, and R is A GODDAMN RADAR. So what are the problems with this base? Holy crap, does it have problems!

1. All expansion must connect to the hangars, preventing you from mounting a coherent defense.

2. Even if you don't expand, the aliens attack from two directions, as the lift and the hangars are at opposite ends of the base.

3. Destruction of the radar during a firefight means you lose the hangars and anything connected to them from the south.

4. I honestly can not think of a worse base design off the top of my head.

5. ARE YOU MENTALLY RETARDED, MAX?

[max]

Hello,

1. I-did-not-know-they-came-in-from-the-hangars! - haha.

- Yes it is a terrible alternative layout. Comes from spending more time working on the patch than playing. Last year I played a bit, and alterted the layout so its first a row of hangars, then the airlock with a gap row, then barracks, ...then the rest.

---

If there is anyone interested in continuing with this patch then the source could be posted. - But I do not know what are the legal implications of releasing the patch source which contains modifications of the original executable code.

[NinthRank]

Well, I'm not the most knowledgeable about such things, but I wouldn't think that posting a patch could have any legal implications.

[Human Ktulu]

hello

Just say a very THANKS for all this patch and mod-improves !!!

It's just great !

[Caboose]

Mouse Bug Fix
Something for everyone else, I wrote a patch which fixes that annoying mouse problem (where the mouse can go far off screen in the lower right). It is available to download here, source code included.

mousefix.zip

This post should have been stickied, or at least moved to the first post! I was looking for ages for this. And thanks, man!

Edited by Caboose, 16 June 2008 - 04:29 AM.

[Morken]

So whats the current verdict for people who have Win XP and are playing the CE version?

Should they use et version 28/03/2005 or something else?

As I see it the 2 crucial elements are:
1) Slowdown in Geoscape
2) The ability to autosell those laser canon

Both which are done well by ET, however the bugs remain,
a) Proximity grenades are now useless
The invis aliens, mostly during base defence <- i did not put that smilee there!

What do the "pros" of this forum use?

Did anyone actually get the game to display a greater resolution successfully via regedit?

Edited by Morken, 17 October 2008 - 04:29 AM.

[Zombie]

I tried downloading this patch and the website would not allow me, I have recently become a member, does that have to do with it?

You are still in Validating. I think you need to be a normal member to download if I'm not mistaken.

- Zombie

[Outlawstar15a2]

Is there a newer version of ET newer then 3/28/2005 I can install it and I can intercept UFOs but ET makes the game clock and only the game clock waaay to slow. Other then that I have no problems with it. Either that or is there anyway to speed up the game clock? I can't run the game unpatched as it won't intercept UFOs and I can't use XcomUtil as it crashes on startup.

EDIT: I couldn't help it I had to add my two cents on base design.

Heres how my expansion bases look. Note the only type of expansion base I usually have interest in are airbases for interception my main base can usually handle the rest....

=================
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
NNNNNNNNNNRAHHH
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
NNNNNNNNNN HHH
MMMMMMMMM HHH
BMMMMMMMM HHH
=================

N=Normal base components like General Stores, Living Quarters, Porn Shops, etc etc...

M=Defenses all your varieties like Missile, Plasma, Fusion, and so on and so forth. Obviously as the game progresses I make concerted efforts to upgrade all defenses at all expansion bases. However by the time I get to starting expansion bases I usually have access to alien based defenses (plasma, maybe fusion) so sometimes I just need to build them and add a Bombardment Shield/Grav Shield later on.

B=Bombardment Shield/Grav Shield.

R=Radar, usually transmission resolver/Hyperwave decoder

A=Access Lift

HHH
HHH=Hangar
HHH

I'm curious as to what ya'll think of that expansion design.....

Edited by Outlawstar15a2, 08 March 2009 - 09:08 PM.

[SharkD]

also the game skips slightly after an intercept and such, kind of splitting earth in two briefly. any help?

This problem went away for me when I installed SpyMaster's MP3 Music Patch.

But, I have another problem: I keep getting an "Patch not installed: (0xffffffff, 0x00000005)" error when I try to run the patch as a normal user. When I'm logged in as administrator it runs fine.

Edited by SharkD, 26 April 2009 - 03:48 AM.

[EtherImp]

I haven't kept up completely with the last 4+ pages of content on this thread, but I would like to contribute a little bit more and give some feedback based on recent observations.

The Pros:

-The GEOSCAPE slowing feature is probably the best I've seen thus far.
-The Auto-Sell feature works beautifully.
-The Engineer/Scientists "maxing" by pressing downwards, works beautifully.
-Increased Engineer/Scientist capacity is great.

The Cons/Bugs/Unknown Variables:

-Proximity grenades of ALL kinds (including Alien/Reg grenades which are set to 23) ARE NOT RELIABLE.

My observation of this bug is as follows: If you throw a proximity grenade before any other grenade, (Smoke included), it seems to work okay.. sometimes. However, if you use smoke grenade (and possibly other kinds of grenades) BEFORE you use a proximity grenade, the proximity grenade will explode at the end of the round AS A smoke grenade. The radius of smoke may be different.. but I am almost positive it deals 0 damage and I am absolutely positive it does not explode as intended: IE- Within the proximity of a unit. This goes for Alien grenades which are primed to 23, as well.. But, again, the results are inconsistant and some testing should be done to confirm my results which are based completely off of semi-casual observation coupled with a sense of frustration that my Proxies are useless.


-"Empty Black Area" on the bottom of the screen. Approximately 15-20% of total screen height.

I didn't USE to get this.. I just started getting it after re-installing a fresh copy of UFO and then reinstalling this Patch, but it definitely takes place at 640x480 resolution.


-Game crashes when using Fraps.

I think this has something to do with the graphic/resolution changes to the game. I get a directdraw error and the game is unable to continue functioning, and therefor crashes. I've tested this with D3DWindower AND WITHOUT. While running a copy of the default UFO Defense.Exe file without any modifications what-so-ever, I can use Fraps and get perfect video output without a game crash. If I install Mok's Mod, or this Mod, the moment that I press my "record" hotkey with the game up, the game will crash.



The Fraps problem I can overlook (Although it would be nice to be able to record videos of the game being played)

The Black bar at the bottom of the screen, I can overlook. (Though it's unsightly and annoying, it can be ignored after a while.)

The Proximity grenade bug/problem, is too annoying to make this patch worth using for me. I'd almost rather have a fast GeoScape timer, and have to deal with the inconvenience of selling off my own Laser Cannons than having Proximity grenades which are unreliable. The idea of having alien grenades with a proximity option is a great idea but if that's what is causing the problem then I vote to remove it from the patch because it's simply not worth it.

Hopefully this thread is still read and the patch can be updated to become more playable because I actually like the features presented here.

[Zombie]

i want to download this patch but for some reason i cant the board says i dont have premision

You are still validating. Finish registering and you should be a member (who have permission to download).

- Zombie

[p_riley]

Hi all,new to the forum,but a vet of XCOM from the playstation days.I got the Steam version the other day and played around a little,but wasnt impressed by the resolution and the flashing geoscape that randomly appears sometimes.I have just got Max's patch mainly for the higher res and have unzipped and installed it into my XCOM folder (after getting a message that files would be overwritten of course),and launched the game,and nothing has changed.I think it went into the wrong folder or was installed incorrectly,can someone verify this for me,how to install it properly I mean.

Thanks all.

-Paul

Edited by p_riley, 16 July 2009 - 04:33 AM.

[trodas]

Yes! This, together with some gold version of UFO: Enemy unknown works under Windows 2000 pretty well! Thanks!

Only the music is a bit different of what I remembered, but that could be because I played UFO: Enemy unknown last time on Amiga

[p_riley]

For those interested and still have the PS1 version of XCOM and TFTD there is an emulator out there (I was totally unaware until I did a google search on this) that allows you to play this version on the PC,and does a pretty good job of it,it even allows you to tweak the graphics and sound to fairly high levels,depending on your hardware of course.For me,this is a godsend,as my Steam version appears to be having nothing but trouble,with flashing geosphere and mouse problems to name a few

The link to this emulator is - http://www.epsxe.com/download.php

Dont forget to also get the needed plugins for this emulator,that allows you to tweak the game/s to your liking

Paul

[trodas]

Found interesting bug - if you play too well (no dead X-COM operatives, 4 bases, all UFOs shoot down and so...) then sometimes you get such nonsense message:

At least my funds did not decrease by -268 432 477

Maybe it can be fixed, sometime?

As for the music, I found a solution Just replace the GMTACTIC.MID with mid file of your choice I like this one way more that the original tactic music:
http://rapidshare.co...01/GMTACTIC.ZIP

Another slight bug is, that the tactic game freeze each time the music loop. It happen with the original music too, but it should be fixed. Probably the mid sound has to be pre-loaded in memory or something like that? Dunno. But it is annoying a bit.

Yet another bug is the mouse not being restricted on the screen resolution, . It move a lot to sides, hehe. I tried the above Mouse Bug Fix from SpyMaster, but no luck. It did not run the UFO Defense.exe at all... Not to mention that the proper way is to modify the patch itself

With a Logitech mouse MX510 (MouseWare 9.80) the game cause after each run a bit slower movement of my mouse. Simply the acceleration is gone... I tried to compensate for it by higher settings and I'm currently at the highest scroll speed setting,
Something is wrong there and the game play with some settings that it should not touch.

Is the development of this patch still active?

BTW, I seen the UFO Enemy unknown as gold edition to be downloadable as abandonware:
*link removed*

Edited by Zombie, 01 August 2009 - 08:44 PM.

[EtherImp]

I've had this happen before, as well, but it is not a bug related to this patch/mod. It's an inherent UFO bug.

[trodas]

Looks like it. Nevertleless it maybe shaould be fixed

And I spoted another quirk today - okay, two quirks. One minor - sometimes the base show position of unknown base, full of acess lifts



Interesting, huh?


However the another problem is dead serious. I somewhat ended up with a situation, where my soldiers are returning from sucesfull mission and 99% of times there appear, close to my main base Alps, huge battle cruiser with Mutons on retaliation mission. And way before my poor slow Skyranger return home, they bust my base.
What is odd is, that I have four missile defences (two plasma, yet sadly only in building) and even once they all HIT, still aliend raid my base and erased it from the face of Earth. "Undefended base", hmmm.

But once I managed convince UFO to show the battleship far away of Alps (over Australia) and that time I managed to get home with my Skyranger sooner. However there is NO WEAPONS for my guys. I did not understand it, second time I even tried unequiup all weapons from Skyranger and I hoped I will have a fighting chance, but... NO! NO WEAPONS to pick at all. Only grenades and 60 electroflares. Weird. VERY weird.



Any help, ideas... chance to continue past this?
No, I cannot lose my main base, all soldiers and research - heck, I was finally building a laser tank, so... pls help.

[Zombie]

Looks like it. Nevertleless it maybe shaould be fixed

And I spoted another quirk today - okay, two quirks. One minor - sometimes the base show position of unknown base, full of acess lifts



Interesting, huh?

This happens when you are loading games with a different amount of base slots used. Not sure if there is really a fix for this, but it has nothing to do with the ET Version.

But once I managed convince UFO to show the battleship far away of Alps (over Australia) and that time I managed to get home with my Skyranger sooner. However there is NO WEAPONS for my guys. I did not understand it, second time I even tried unequiup all weapons from Skyranger and I hoped I will have a fighting chance, but... NO! NO WEAPONS to pick at all. Only grenades and 60 electroflares. Weird. VERY weird.



Any help, ideas... chance to continue past this?
No, I cannot lose my main base, all soldiers and research - heck, I was finally building a laser tank, so... pls help.

You are suffering from the famous 80-item limit. The game only allows you to carry 80 items of inventory into any mission, so if you clog up your inventory with tons of weapons/clips/items high on the sell screen list you'll end up with a lot of junk and nothing really usable. Stuff the extra flares on a Skyranger and send it out patrolling when the Battleship attacks. Or just sell them off, you don't need 60 Electro-flares since you can pick up the ones you used on a mission and reuse them again. The point is to keep your inventory as lean as possible so that you can use the items later in the list (such as the alien weapons). Again, this has nothing to do with the ET patch.

- Zombie

[misiek]

Hello,

Just in case someone don't know - this is similar project:

http://www.ufopaedia...itle=User:Seb76

Here's topic about it on xcomufo forums:

http://www.xcomufo.c...topic=242028830

[trodas]

Stuff the extra flares on a Skyranger and send it out patrolling when the Battleship attacks. Or just sell them off, you don't need 60 Electro-flares since you can pick up the ones you used on a mission and reuse them again. The point is to keep your inventory as lean as possible so that you can use the items later in the list (such as the alien weapons). Again, this has nothing to do with the ET patch.

I have my doubts about that, because I already suffered one base attack and then I had far far far more items in my BASE inventory (do NOT confuse base inventory with 80 items limit per missions I'm familiar with) that I can choose to equiup soldiers with.
Keeping the inventory very clean is very hard thing to do, you need one or two flares per person on nigth missions (tought it is always better to wait till sunrise) and basically you need some more spare weapons and ammo and grenades and medikits and motion scanners... so.

I think this IS a bug. So it has to do with the ET patch, because that bug should be patched - because I need a fighting chance. Mutons are notoriously difficult to kill with grenades

[Zombie]

I have my doubts about that, because I already suffered one base attack and then I had far far far more items in my BASE inventory (do NOT confuse base inventory with 80 items limit per missions I'm familiar with) that I can choose to equiup soldiers with.
Keeping the inventory very clean is very hard thing to do, you need one or two flares per person on nigth missions (tought it is always better to wait till sunrise) and basically you need some more spare weapons and ammo and grenades and medikits and motion scanners... so.

I think this IS a bug. So it has to do with the ET patch, because that bug should be patched - because I need a fighting chance. Mutons are notoriously difficult to kill with grenades

I'm not confusing Base inventory with mission inventory. When your base is attacked and breached by the aliens, the game picks the first 80 items in your base inventory to use on the mission (from top-to-bottom of your sell screen list). This includes stuff loaded on a transport at the base too. So unless you cut some stuff from higher on the list, you'll end up with the situation where you have nothing to really fight with. It's a well-known game limitation, see here.

This isn't a bug though, it's a limitation because the programmers only had so much available memory to play around with back in the days when the game was made. The ET patch doesn't introduce this limitation so it's not the cause of the issue. And max isn't around anymore either. So your best bet is to ask Seb76 in this thread to see if he can create a workaround for his extender.

- Zombie

[trodas]

I try asking, thanks for the idea. But it is not this a different patch...?

Anyway, I found a bug in this one:
http://trodas.wz.cz/...ach_GAME_10.zip

Load this gamesave into the patched UFO and click 1 day speed. For the detected UFO near USA base use the interceptor in air to "go for it" and click 5 min speed. Enjoy the silent crash to Windows.

Happen 3 times in a row now for me.

[Dreamer]

Can one mod the old version of this mod and make it compatible with Seb76 UFO Extender. I really like to have 1750 engineers working for me in one base and all bases.

[chronomaster]

HI
IM HAVING PROBLEM WITH THE GAME. IT WENT FINE BUT I GOT TO A POINT THAT WHENEVER I GO TO A CRASHED UFO, THE FIRST MOVEMENT I DO WITH A SOLDIER EXIT TO WINDOWS(CRASHES).
ON THE OTHER HAND IF I LAND ON AN ENEMYBASE MISSION, IT GOES FINE...
BUT OTHERWISE CRASHES.

IS THIS A KNOWN BUG?

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS?
A PATCH MAYBE? AND WHICH ONE.

[trodas]

Bump for the sole fact, that this is the only one working version for me!

photo upload

[anime1942]

Well I figured out how to get the Registry eddit to work on windows 7
64 bit so I thought I would share.  At least now when I start up a new
game and change the base layout option in the registry it acutaly does
it.

 

I edited the etconfig.reg file from

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microprose\X-COM Enemy Unkown\E.T.

 

too this

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microprose\X-COM Enemy Unkown\E.T.

 

 

just adding that \Wow6432Node\ fixed it.

 

hope you dont mind me replying to an old topoic.

 

 

 

P.S.  hope you dont mind my bad grammer and spelling.