FREESPACE(6)

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version 24.0.2 · 2 versions
, in debian trixie

💖 FREESPACE(6) — fs2_open 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for FreeSpace 2 Open. This is part 1, and it's giving long. We're doing NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and the first big chunk of OPTIONS. Every flag, every note, every little 3.6.15 moment is here. No cap. ✨

🦋 NAME 🦋

fs2_open — manual page for FreeSpace 2 Open. That's the whole name section, periodt. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

fs2_open

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

FreeSpace 2 Open website, bestie: http://scp.indiegames.us

Github, aka the place for bug reporting: https://github.com/scp-fs2open/fs2open.github.com/issues

👑 OPTIONS 👑

Usage is literally:

fs2_open [options]

🎀 Graphic: 🎀

  • -spec — Enable specular

So here's the tea: only polygons mapped with textures that actually have a shinemap will receive specular mapping. It does not try to generate spec maps where they don't exist. Specular maps are specified with the base map name plus -shine (i.e. TCov3A-shine.pcx). 🦋

FS2 Open, 3.6.15: This feature is on by default, bestie. Use the launcher option Disable Specular, or if you really need to manually disable it, enter the flag -nospec.
  • -glow — Enable glow maps

Only polygons mapped with textures that have a glowmap will be glowmapped. Glow maps are specified with the base map name plus -glow (i.e. TCov4A-glow.pcx). ✨

FS2 Open, 3.6.15: On by default. Use the launcher option Disable Glow Maps, or manually enter -noglow.
  • -env — Enable environment maps

It only works if -spec is also set. Environment mapping intensity will be determined from the shine map too (see Texturing for more info). See Video setup. 💜

FS2 Open, 3.6.15: On by default. Launcher option Disable Environment Maps, or manually enter -noenv.
  • -mipmap — Enable mipmapping

Causes non-mipmapped textures to have mipmaps generated within the GPU on certain kinds of texture formats (IIRC, DDS-formatted textures with a power of 2 size in both width and height). Since the use of already mipmapped DDS textures has become common, it has become deprecated. The quality of the generated mipmaps depends on each GPU and used driver. It is normally used with the -img2dds flag.

  • -nomotiondebris — Disable motion debris

Just turns off motion debris, periodt. 🍓

  • -noscalevid — Disable scale-to-window for movies

Disables fullscreen scaling of video clips.

  • -missile_lighting — Apply lighting to missiles

Applies lighting to missiles. Cute. 🔥

  • -normal — Enable normal maps

Normal maps require GLSL rendering (see OpenGL Shaders (GLSL) for further info). It needs auxiliary normal maps (the same name of the base map plus -normal). DXT5_NM DDS format is needed. (Technical note: DXT5 will work, since only the GREEN and ALPHA channels are read by the current shader system. One direction of lines goes into the GREEN channel, the other direction goes into the ALPHA channel. RED and BLUE can be either base gray (#808080) or black. Usual practice is after creating the DXT5_NM, copy the RED channel to the ALPHA channel, black out the RED and BLUE an then save as either a DXT5 or u8888 (uncompressed) DDS file.)

FS2 Open, 3.6.15: On by default. Launcher option Disable Normal Maps, or manually enter -nonormal.
  • -3dshockwave — Enable 3D shockwaves

This only has any effect when both a 2D and 3D shockwave effect are present, otherwise the only available effect is used. 🌈

  • -post_process — Enable post processing

Enables the use (if present) of post-processing effects as defined by post_process.tbl. Bloom usage has an additional cmdline option for setting its value. Most post-processing effects are achieved in mission per the mission designer or can be enabled globally in the table.

  • -soft_particles — Enable soft particles

Enables soft particles. That's it, that's the vibe. 🧚

  • -fxaa — Enable FXAA anti-aliasing

Enables the FXAA postprocessing stage. Needs optional FXAA shaders, which can be found here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76145.0

🎀 Game Speed: 🎀

  • -img2dds — Compress non-compressed images

Converts all images to DDS (compressed) format. Decreases memory usage but potentially reduces image quality. 💀

  • -no_vsync — Disable vertical sync

Disables vertical sync.

  • -cache_bitmaps — Cache bitmaps between missions

Will ideally reduce the load-time from one mission to another. ⭐

🎀 HUD: 🎀

  • -dualscanlines — Add another pair of scanning lines

Adds a second pair of scanning lines to the target window when scanning an object.

  • -targetinfo — Enable info next to target

Displays target info, such as name and class, beside the targeted object. 👑

  • -orbradar — Enable 3D radar

An Orb style 3D radar will replace the standard 2D version.

  • -rearm_timer — Enable rearm/repair completion timer

Displays time remaining until rearm and repair from a support ship is complete.

  • -ballistic_gauge — Enable analog ballistic ammo gauge

Adds an ammo gauge to the HUD when armed with a ballistic weapon. 🎀

🎀 Gameplay: 🎀

  • -mod — Specifies in which folders inside FreeSpace 2 directory the game looks for all the game data (models, missions, textures, tables, ...). Retail version only looks inside Freespace2/data/ structure and Freespace2/vp archives.

This flag allows installing several different mods that modify retail behavior, and switching between them without needing to erase files or having undesired cross effects. Each mod should be installed in its own folder.

It takes one argument string: the chain of names of the used directories. Comma (,) must be used as separator. In this way, -mod dir1,dir2,dir3,...,dirx causes the game to use the following directory precedence:

Freespace2/dir1/
Freespace2/dir2/
Freespace2/dir3/
... (the rest of the typed directories) ...
Freespace2/dirx/
Freespace2/

This flag can be indirectly set (and it is normally set) through the Launcher MOD tab and mod.ini file.

Within the Launcher's MOD tab you can select one directory (let's call it moddir), so the flag is at least set to -mod moddir. If Freespace2/moddir/mod.ini exists, it will be used to modify the -mod flag, too. 💖

  • -ship_choice_3d — Use 3D models for ship selection

Uses ship models in the ship selection window. It completely disables the standard ANI interface in this screen. Some mods need a compulsory use of this flag because they don't have available animations for their ships. In this situation, and if it is not used, the game will probably crash to desktop in the ship selection window. 😭

  • -weapon_choice_3d — Use 3D models for weapon selection

Uses weapon models in the weapon loadout window for secondary weapons (missiles and bombs). It completely disables the standard ANI interface in this screen. Some mods need a compulsory use of this flag because they don't have available animations for their secondary weapons. In this situation, and if it is not used, the game will probably crash to desktop in the weapon loadout window. 😭

  • -3dwarp — Enable 3D warp

Use full geometry for the subspace warp effect. 🦋

  • -warp_flash — Enable flash upon warp

Enable a flash at warp in and warp out.

  • -no_ap_interrupt — Disable interrupting autopilot

Tells the game to not allow players to interrupt an autopilot already-in-progress. 🙈

🎀 Audio: 🎀

  • -snd_preload — Preload mission game sounds

Useful in preventing game stuttering when sounds are played for the first time. 🎧

  • -nosound — Disable all sound

Disables all sound.

  • -nomusic — Disable music

Disables music. 🎶

🎀 Multiplayer: 🎀

  • -standalone — Run as standalone server

Creates a standalone multi-player server. 👑

  • -startgame — Skip mainhall and start hosting

Once you launch and choose a pilot within the game, you will immediately have begun to host a game. This can be used in conjunction with several options to customize the game you create: -closed, -restricted, -password, -gamename, -allowabove, and -allowbelow. -startgame has no effect when -standalone is used.

See related: -closed -restricted -password -gamename -allowabove -allowbelow

  • -closed — Start hosted server as closed

Hosts a new game in a closed state, where no one can join until the in-game "Close" button is cleared. This only works when used in conjunction with -startgame. Cannot be used in conjunction with -restricted or -password.

See related: -startgame -restricted -password

  • -restricted — Host confirms join requests

Hosts a new game in a restricted state. The host is presented with option to accept or deny each client's request to join the game. This only works when used in conjunction with -startgame. Cannot be used in conjunction with -closed or -password.

See related: -startgame -closed -password

  • -multilog — Creates a log file with a summary of packets sent and received in multiplayer games. The file is saved as atalti.log within the active mod folder—or with main data folder if no mod is active. 📝
  • -clientdamage — This feature is not available in current builds. 💀
  • -mpnoreturn — Disable flight deck option

Disables return to the flight deck screen after a mission completes. 🛸

🛠️ Troubleshooting 🛠️

Okay bestie, this is the "something's broken and we need to poke it" pile. Some of these are ✨ actual fixes ✨, some are just "tell me more, doctor". Read the warnings though, fr fr, because a couple of these will absolutely tank your framerate 💀

  • -nohtl — Software mode (very slow). Reverts to software rendering mode. > Warning: turning this on will significantly reduce performance. Like, significantly significantly. We are not kidding.
  • -no_set_gamma — Disable setting of gamma. This just disables the gamma settings over in the options screen. That's it, that's the whole vibe. 🎀
  • -nomovies — Disable video playback. Disables all video playback. Every last one. 🎬🚫
  • -noparseerrors — Disable parsing errors. Disables some parsing warnings, and makes other parse errors non-fatal. > Do not lean on this when you're creating new tables. The errors are there for a reason, bestie, they're literally trying to help you. 😭
  • -query_speech — Check if this build has speech. Determines whether the current build includes text-to-speech. 🗣️
  • -novbo — Disable OpenGL VBO.
  • -noibx — Don't use cached index buffers (IBX). Disables IBX caching of model geometry data. This will dramatically increase load times, but it helps you troubleshoot a model if one is being a little gremlin and working incorrectly. 🔍
  • -loadallweps — Load all weapons, even those not used. All of them. Every single one. 👑
  • -disable_fbo — Disable OpenGL RenderTargets.
  • -no_glsl — Disable GLSL (shader) support. Disables the use of GLSL rendering (OpenGL shaders). The game will revert to the legacy fixed render pipeline. Heads up though: Normal and Height map effects will be unavailable. 🫶
  • -ati_swap — Fix colour issues on some ATI cards.
  • -no_3d_sound — Use only 2D/stereo for sound effects.
  • -disable_glsl_model — Don't use shaders for model rendering.
  • -use_gldrawelements — Don't use glDrawRangeElements.

🧪 Experimental 🧪

This section is literally labelled "we're still figuring it out". Very main character energy, very "trust me bro" — but honestly some of these ate. ✨

  • -ingame_join — Allow in-game joining.
  • -voicer — Enable voice recognition. Windows-only. Enables voice-recognition for wingmen commands. It must be specifically compiled into a build in order for it to be available; 3.6.10 final includes the feature. See Voice Recognition for more details. 🎙️
  • -fb_explosions — Enable Framebuffer Shockwaves.

🧰 Development Tools 🧰

The nerd corner. 💅 If you're not building, debugging, or poking at tables, you can lowkey skip this — but the -show_mem_usage lore is genuinely iconic so stay for that one.

  • -fps — Show frames per second on HUD. Displays the current frames per second.
  • -pos — Show position of camera. Displays the current position coordinates of the camera.
  • -window — Run in window. Runs the game in a window. There's no check to make sure the resolution isn't higher than your desktop resolution, so be careful. 🪟
  • -stats — Show statistics. Shows total and free physical memory, virtual memory and system pagefile.
  • -coords — Show coordinates. Shows the coordinates of the mouse cursor. 🖱️
  • -show_mem_usage — Show memory usage. Shows detailed RAM usage based on file, handler and process usage, and displays it on the left-center side of the screen during mission load and while in mission.

The meaning of the info displayed in the upper right corner of the HUD is:

  • DYN = dynamic memory, basically anything that's been allocated by the vm_* memory functions. This does NOT indicate total memory usage, but it does account for most of it.
  • POF = model memory, how much memory is being used by models (does not include textures).
  • C-BMP, BMP = bmpman memory, how much is used by the textures/images that are loaded. C-BMP means that you are using -cache_bitmaps and it will try to keep textures in memory between level loads, and as the new level is loading it will keep what it needs and unload what it doesn't. Can greatly increase level loading speed, but it does so at the cost of memory between level loads. This does not increase overall memory usage though, only during the loading screen. BMP means that it is not cached and all textures are unloaded from memory at the start of level load, and all needed textures are then loaded from the disk again.
  • S-RAM = sound memory, how much is used by the sounds loaded in memory at the time. This counts static sounds only (from sounds.tbl, etc.) and not streaming sounds (music, voices, briefing stuff, etc).
  • V-RAM = approximate memory usage of video textures. This does not mean that your card has this much memory, and it can report higher numbers than your card actually has memory. For OpenGL it also includes some of the geometry data, but this number does not reflect the total memory that your video card is using. It only reports how much data the game has purposefully loaded into API memory (meaning it could be in system memory, video card memory, or AGP memory).
(It only works with debug builds, not with release builds). 😭 So if you're on a release build, this whole thing is giving nothing.
  • -pofspew — Reads all objects in the pof file of the selected mod, and creates an ibx cache file for each object in the data/cache folder for that mod. Details for each object are output to a pofspew.txt file created in the data folder. Otherwise, ibx files are created in game before each mission.
  • -tablecrcs — Is actually now (or should be) a typed reference rather than as a selection item. Takes 1 argument, usually a descriptive name. Example usage: -table_crcs MediaVPs will create a table_crcs.csv file in the running mod (name can be separate of the mod selected) that allows for the validation of the tables used by that mod while on-line. The descriptive parameter given helps "allocate" that .csv file to the mod in question, and as such should closely or exactly match that mods name if possible.
  • -missioncrcs — Is actually now (or should be) a typed reference rather than as a selection item. Takes 1 argument, usually a descriptive name. Example usage: -mission_crcs MediaVPs will create a mission_crcs.csv file in the running mod (name can be separate of the mod selected) that allows for the validation of the missions used by that mod while on-line. The descriptive parameter given helps "allocate" that .csv file to the mod in question, and as such should closely or exactly match that mods name if possible.
  • -dis_collisions — Disable collisions.
  • -dis_weapons — Disable weapon rendering.
  • -output_sexps — Output SEXPs to sexps.html. This will make the FSO build spit out an html file that documents the supported SEXP's. Just double click on sexps.html and it should open in your default web browser. 🌐
  • -output_scripting — Output scripting to scripting.html. This will make the FSO build spit out an html file that documents the supported scripting hooks and LUA libraries. Just double click on scripting.html and it should open in your default web browser. 🌈
  • -save_render_target — Save render targets to file.
  • -debug_window — Display debug window. Lists the fs2_open.log in (nearly) real-time generation. 👀
  • -verify_vps — Spew VP CRCs to vp_crcs.txt. Exports the CRC values of the VP files being loaded into a vp_crcs.txt file.
  • -nograb — Don't grab mouse/keyboard in a window. Unix only. Disables focus grabbing in a window.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

  • Command-Line Reference
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Command-Line_Reference

And that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀✨ You made it to the end and honestly? Iconic behaviour. This one's from FreeSpace 2 Open, dated December 2012, filed under FREESPACE(6) — so go forth and -query_speech responsibly. Love you, bye! 💖🦋🌸

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