Issues with your account? Bug us in the Discord!

Into The Fire E3 tech demo Disk Image

croxiscroxis I am the walrus
edited January 2017 in Babylon 5
After some wind chimes from a Vorlon I felt it was ok to post this. This is one of the demos of Into the Fire. There is not much going on here other than some flying around. I have no idea how well it will work on modern hardware. You will have better luck with nVidia than AMD/ATI. Might have even better luck in a virtual machine.

Torrent Link
«1

Comments

  • Have I seen this before? I seem to recall a demo which had B5 plus a bunch of random stationary ships.
  • WORFWORF The Burninator
    It's a really depressing thing to play because it's a taste of what we never got to see finished :(
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    Yah this is what I showed you a few years ago. It has been sitting on my hard drive not doing much.
  • DarkbladeDarkblade Earthforce Officer
    Tried to get this to work in Windows 7 x64 but apparently it doesn't like it. Or then it just doesn't like my GTX 480.

    Shame really. :angryv:
  • A2597A2597 Fanboy
    ...
    I have always wanted to see this in action...
    :D
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    Maybe I'll dicker around with Cider and Wineskin to see if I can get it running.
  • Playing that Demo in Atlanta, that was a long time ago . . .before I moved beyond the rim. . .
  • MungrelMungrel Earthforce Officer
    Howdy guy's! Long time no see. Downloading now, big thank you for this croxis!
  • Alpha-1Alpha-1 Elite Ranger Germany
    thanks a lot!!! a dream is coming true !!!:)
  • Alpha-1Alpha-1 Elite Ranger Germany
    sadly, it's crashing back to the desktop when I start it under windows 7. anyone who had more luck, getting it working under windows 7?
  • RendererRenderer Earthforce Officer
    It runs on Win 7 in compatibility mode (XP), but sadly it still crashes if you attempt to start a new game.

    We need someone with hacking abilities. Or better yet, the sources... :)
  • I finally managed to get my hands on an old computer running Windows XP... All I can say is, now I can die in peace. Not planning to do that anytime soon though.

    I was just flying around, shooting random things for an hour or so, after which I noticed an "R" button on my keyboard.

    Even though my hands are hurting while writing this (the keyboard control is quite interesting...) I almost shouted "Pick me! Pick me!" after flying next to Sharlin docking bay. Sadly the attempt failed.

    Haven't seen or played this one before, and even just being an alpha or years old, I'm still impressed. The environment, the music on the background, everything... Its just the stuff I love, its Babylon 5.

    I've Found Her never got me for some odd reason, but this one just hit me with volts enough to piss off an Vorlon.

    Thank you.
  • RendererRenderer Earthforce Officer
    Hi everyone!

    I managed to make it work on my 64-bit Win 7 . Like I said before, It runs in XP compatibility mode, but also you should open "B5.ini" file and disable "FullScreen".

    Good thing - it won't crash.

    Bad thing - it runs in tiny window regardless of "Resolution" settings.

    I will look into this matter some more.

    2sinclair:
    > I've Found Her never got me for some odd reason

    Maybe that's because in IFH there's no Babylon 5 whatsoever... :)
    Hopefully, the next game is gonna get you :)
  • Alpha-1Alpha-1 Elite Ranger Germany
    it is also possible at fly different ships by editing the b5.ini file. t-bolt, sentri, frazi I tried
  • Tried with fullscreen off and with compatibility mode in Windows 7... I can get the simulator running and I am able to fly, but I cannot see any other ships unlike with Windows XP.

    Needs some tuning, I suppose...

    *Edit

    I am able to see the ship model from very close distance when trying 3rd person view, but once I move a bit the model fades away and becomes invisible.. Could be a graphics card issue or something, didn't happen with real WinXP machine.
  • Alpha-1Alpha-1 Elite Ranger Germany
    did someone found out how to run it on fullscreen with win7 64 bit? a pity it only run in that tiny window :-( and the engine is still looking great I think :-)
  • AkrovahAkrovah Ranger
    Croxis, you mind if I re-link on my FB? I've got several freinds who would love this (one of whom originally broke the sad news to me) but are not on Firstones
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    Fine by me!
  • TycoTyco Ranger Texas
    Oh wow... I can't wait to try this!
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    You know, I remember way back when the game was under development, they said the in-game models would be straight-up Lightwave compatible. Anybody got any ideas for getting inside the .res files so I can look at the meshes, textures and sounds?

    (I was much more excited than I probably should've been to hear crisp, clean versions of the Starfury gun sound effect in the "wav" folder)
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    They *might* be simple zip files, have you tried that?
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    First thing. No luck. I opened "models.res" in TextEdit and got some plain-text metadata/debug logs about converting the LODs for the Omega Destroyer from Lightwave objects to the game's format, but nothing that suggested how to split it up or reverse the process.

    I tried "textures.res" "audio.res" and "b5fonts.res," but none of them had any plain-text information at all.

    The only other thing I could think of would be to try [url=http://echoone.com/filejuicer/]File Juicer[/url], but the trial period has long since expired, and while it seems like the kind of program that would be useful to have on hand, I can never justify actually pulling the trigger on it because the trial has expired, so I can't be sure it'll actually work for whatever I want to try it with, and I don't want to feel like a dumbass dropping $20 on something that won't help.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Open up the file in a hex editor and look for anything resembling file names. If you find any, then you've likely found an index, and should hunt between the strings for numbers that might represent file offsets.
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    This demo's limitation was in that it was designed to support 3DFX cards (Glide API) like the TNT, TNT2, Voodoo etc... I think when nVidia bought out 3DFX that the GeForce cards supported 3DFX calls for a while.

    I don't think it ever supported ATI and other such cards.

    Modern nVidia might not support it either, it is after all 13 years ago...

    :)

    As for LW models, I don't believe the game models are directly lw compatible even for LW 5.6 at the time. Textures were done in an early UV style format in the game IIRC.

    That's about all I can remember.
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    *does the source code dance*
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    better minds than mine will be needed for help here...
  • nVidia bought out 3DFX is late 2000, Glide was proprietary with 3DFX. I distinctly remember us having an obsession with the Riva TNT 2 since that's what ITF was apparently designed for (and that was nVidia's top card in 1999).
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    Wish I had the Atlanta E3 version.... Network fun...
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    You sure no one has a back up cd somewhere :P
  • A2597A2597 Fanboy
    Well, I know that [b][i]I[/i][/b] don't.... ;)
Sign In or Register to comment.