All Ready For Release And Bug Appears - December 31, 2015
I was just doing the final steps of making the installer for the new release and I discovered a strange bug. So close to finishing up the packaging and an odd glitch is causing me to pause. On Mission A (the Brenner house) there is a modified texture that won't show up for some unknown reason. If I run the file as a mod the texture (specifically the file "a_door.bmp") shows up in game perfectly fine but if I enclose it in the Last Resort .RES files the original low resolution texture by Sierra shows up instead. This is extremely unusual since all of the other high-res replacement textures work fine!
I am starting to think this is just one of those crazy priority issues when it comes to mod making. Sometimes Swat 3 ignores logic and decides on it's own which files get priority.
Maybe after a night's rest I will have a fresh outlook on the problem. For now though, I am banging my head on the keyboard.
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Wasted hours - December 29, 2015
Yesterday and today I worked on enlarging the command menu font but now it looks like the time was all wasted for nothing. If you run your game at resolutions like 1920 x 1080 the command menu starts to get hard to read. If you also force on anti-aliasing the text further gets worse. I experimented with changing to double width fonts and this really helped a lot in terms of readability but what I didn't notice was that some of the words were get clipped on long sentences.
At first I thought that is no big deal I will just find the .CON file or .DAT file that controls the size of the command menu's container. Nope! It looks like it is hard coded. [deleted expletive!]
On a more positive note I think I have completed all the code changes to the Last Resort Launcher. I will try to post the new file later today.
UPDATE: I changed my mind. Rather that just release the updated Launcher I will finally start working on packaging up the whole mod for release.
Write comment (0 Comments)Last Resort Launcher v0.7 beta 2 - December 27, 2015
I finished the changes to the Last Resort Launcher to include a backup and restore button for the Swat.cfg file. Why is this useful? If you have a game crash or if you use the GOG.com Galaxy app to verify your Swat 3 files the Swat.cfg can get damaged. All your key assignments are lost and you have to manually re-assign everything including your sound and video settings.
With a backup/restore button this is no longer a big issue.
This new feature is also useful if you use dgVoodoo since you can backup your Swat.cfg once you have it configured properly (makes it easy to restore to a working copy of Swat.cfg if you once again get that "Can't set 2D mode" error).
I haven't released this version of the beta test yet since I wanted to go over all of the Last Resort Launcher code for any other ways I can improve the code and make it more "idiot proof".
Write comment (0 Comments)Last Resort Launcher v0.7 beta 1 - December 21, 2015
For those who want to see a preview of the latest version of the Last Resort Launcher, or if you are having some problems with it under Windows 8 or 10, you can now download the v.0.7 beta.
This is just an improved launcher for the Last Resort mod. It doesn't include all the graphic improvement that I have been working on yet.
I am calling it the "beta 1" because I still want to add a button to backup your Swat key configuration so that you don't have to re-assign all of the keys after a Swat 3 crash.
Please view the README in the .zip file for install instructions.
version 0.7 beta 1 - December 21, 2015
- Fixed crash of LR Launcher if no 16-bit colour modes available (Thanks Windows 8 & 10)
- Moved LastResort.ini to AppData folder
- Added custom chat support in Last Resort
- Modified LR Launcher mod list background
- Added blinking arrows on LR Launcher mod screen
- Fixed text error on LR Launcher 2D menu screen
- LR Launcher now replaces corrupt Swat.cfg and CustomChat.dat after a Swat 3 crash
- LR Launcher tabs now "roll over" with mouse to give feedback to user
- Fixed LR Launcher updating proper screen resolution info
- Added feature to only show resolutions with same aspect ratio as desktop
- LR Launcher itself now changes website URL in Swat.ini instead of LR installer
- Update link to LR website that explains the command line arguments
Website updates & Star Wars - December 20th, 2015
After finally figuring out how to get dgVoodoo to work with Swat 3 I decided to update a few pages on this website to reflect this new information. Some of the pages were long overdue for an update.
I should also add the information about running Swat 3 in a window to help with frame rate issues but I will do that sometime in the future.
I should get some sleep right now though (almost 3am). I need to wake up moderately early for the first showing of Star Wars (10am) today. I prefer to wait until a movie is almost out of the theaters so I don't have to fight the crowds but with each passing day there is a risk of spoilers. The local theater near me only had Sunday morning's showing with good seats so I went ahead and bought them Friday. I caved in and bought 4 tickets for $68 CAD. It better be good Disney.
Write comment (0 Comments)Hardware update - November 27, 2015
I decided to upgrade my main PC by ordering enough parts to build a new machine. Gotta love Black Friday sales. I ordered an unlocked 4th generation I-7 CPU and 16GB of RAM (and other parts) so I can play Fallout 4 and Arma III. I haven't had an Intel CPU since my very first PC so it will be a nice change from AMD products. It won't be a top of the line PC but it will probably be the closest to the top that I have ever built (usually I stick to mid-grade components).
Work is expected to slow down around Christmas so I will hopefully have free time to package up the newest version of the mod for a beta test release in about 2-3 weeks.
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