Freespace 2 disk images

The Freespace 2 cd image files are again available for download. YaY.


They are compressed in .rar format. Extract them with a program, such as winrar.

Once extracted, you can either burn the .bin and .cue files with your favorite CD burner program, or mount them with such software as daemon tools.

• CD1 (691 mb)
• CD2 (588 mb)
• CD3 (588 mb)

After you complete the download and burn/mount process, you should be able to install and play retail Freespace 2.

Have fun!

Hooray for great peoples deeds!

How to install FS2_Open on top of the 3 CD download

First thing you should do is install FS2. Do a full install (or else you may have problems with the 1024x768 resolution modes).

Then you'll need to download these two files

Launcher 5.4
and
3.6.9 Release Candidate 7

Extract both files to your Freespace 2 folder. The second link contains 3 links to patch VPs. Download these, create a new folder within your main freespace folder called media VPs and extract them to there.

Now go to this thread. You already have the patch VPs so what you need is mv_zpack (which is a big file containing the most important media VP files).

This too needs to be extracted to the mediavps folder you made earlier.
I suggest you leave mv_adveffects alone for now. If you have a really powerful computer you can go back and try it out once you're certain everything works.

Now go here, download and run the OpenAL installer.

That's everything downloaded that you need. Time to set up. Go into your FS2 folder and run the launcher. Click the browse button at the top and choose fs2_open_3_6_9.exe.

Go to the features tab and turn on the first 5 graphics options. You can experiment quite safely with the Audio, HUD, Game Speed and Gameplay options but you probably should leave anything else alone.

Now go to the video tab and select OpenGL if it isn't already selected. D3D support is virtually non-existant and you will almost certainly have problems running in D3D so you should only use it as a last resort.

Set up the audio/joystick and network tabs while you're here.

Lastly go to the mod tab and select mediavps as your mod. This step enables the mediavps. If your PC runs the game too slowly come back here and click no mods. You'll lose the new graphics etc but you'll be able to play the game with the original files this way and that should be faster..

Press run. Enjoy the game.

MatthewPapa said:

After you complete the download and burn/mount process, you should be able to install and play retail Freespace 2.

Click to expand...

Which just happens to be exactly what I've been waiting for! I've always ended up downloading modified versions because I thought they WERE the retail version. :/

YAY!

Missing cue files?

First, thanks for posting the disk images! However, there appears to be a problem...the cue files are missing from the rar files and the resulting bin files do not appear to be valid images. Is any one else experiencing similar issues?

I'm not THAT familiar with burning bin files...perhaps I"m missing a critical step here?

Thanks!

I have found a solution! I have tracked down a program that converts .bin files to ISO files! BIN2ISO

EDIT:So I converted them to ISO format, but when I mounted them with Daemon Tools, nothing happened. So I went into the disk and tried to trigger the autorun by clicking on the icon. Still nothing. The same thing happened with another copy of the game that I downloaded a few days ago...anyone have any idea what is going on?

Take the filename of your .bin file. Make a new text file with the same filename but the .cue extention. Copy and paste this into it.


Replace the word Filename with the name on the .bin

Lemon,

Your not imagining it...I've download 4 gigs worth of disk images in the last two days and still don't have a proper install set. Very disheartening, to say the least.

Bill

karajorma said:

Take the filename of your .bin file. Make a new text file with the same filename but the .cue extention. Copy and paste this into it.

Code:

FILE "Filename.bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

Replace the word Filename with the name on the .bin

Click to expand...

Creating the cue file by hand appeared to work but the resulting cd is a coaster....Thanks for trying, though.

Glad to hear Im not crazy. Also, the .bin files that MatthewPapa provided seem to be corrupted. After making .cue files for each CD, I get an error message saying that the files are corrupted whenever I try and run them. Wierd stuff.

Perhaps, instead of burning them and wasting disks, you should try mounting the .bin files. When mounting, you dont need .cue files. (For the record, I hate the bin/cue file types. Simple .iso images have never failed me in the past... but I dont know what the differences are.)

...Ok Taristin is right...Just mount the .bin file with Daemon and it will work. Thanks man!

Sounds like a "Windows Only" solution...I guess myself and other Linux users are just out of luck.

I found a solution for Linux! It's also called bin2iso but it's a command line utility. It's faster than bchunk and doesn't need a cue file. The resulting ISO image burned flawlessly in K3B. There's more info at http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/CD_Image_Conversion#bin2iso

That's a really nice guide the karajorma. I've been using the old 3.6.7 build. Going to check this out when I get home from work.

Thanks.

im downloading those files no, ive never actually played freespace (shame on me ) but considering i can get it for free it seems like a good idea to try it

I played FS2 back in 2000 and loved the game but as technology advanced so did my gaming tastes. A few days ago I was surfing the web and found the yet to be released BSG mod for FS2 then found the upgrade for FS2 and one thing led to another and here I am sucked back in. So I got all the updates and this and that. I Read the forums until my eyes bled to make sure I had everything up to date and correct and registered with the fsnet multi player thing. However when i was all set up and tried to do some multi player playing no one was on. My settings are correct nervous: )and even tells me my pilot is good to go when i log in blah blah more technical blah blah. I guess what I would like to know is when are people usually on? Do I need to be in a squadron? I have always enjoyed space sims and am currently playing eve online, though not much dog fighting my pvp tactics aren't to bad. So if a squadron is looking for a pilot let me know. Any additional info on how everyone works the multi player stuff would be great. Thanks

most people who play on a regulary basis do it in the evenings. Best days to spot a good number of people would be weekend evenings.
Meeting each other is still a fair prob as ppl havn t found one platform to meet when looking out to arrange or plan some games. So till now ppl either keep checking if someone's on / hosting or contact their buddies via msn for example

One thing I've noticed is that the link to RC 7 isn't good enough for multiplayer people. You need RC 7dot8 in order to play online with most of us.

I'm updating the link but you can find it here.

Okay. This is interesting. I can't edit my post. Can someone stick the following post in its place?

How to install FS2_Open on top of the 3 CD download

First thing you should do is install FS2. Do a full install (or else you may have problems with the 1024x768 resolution modes).

Then you'll need to download these two files

Launcher 5.4
and
3.6.9 Release Candidate 7.8

Extract both files to your Freespace 2 folder.

Now you'll need the media VPs. To be honest they're actually optional but without them you won't get any of the new ship models or graphics so there is little point in updating to FSO. Go to this thread. What you need is mv_zpack (which is a big file containing the most important media VP files) and the 710 patch files. Download these, create a new folder within your main freespace folder called media VPs and extract them to there.

I suggest you leave mv_adveffects alone for now. If you have a really powerful computer you can go back and try it out once you're certain everything works.

Now go here, download and run the OpenAL installer.

That's everything downloaded that you need. Time to set up. Go into your FS2 folder and run the launcher. Click the browse button at the top and choose fs2_open_3_6_9.exe.

Go to the features tab and turn on the first 5 graphics options. You can experiment quite safely with the Audio, HUD, Game Speed and Gameplay options but you probably should leave anything else alone.

Now go to the video tab and select OpenGL if it isn't already selected. D3D support is virtually non-existant and you will almost certainly have problems running in D3D so you should only use it as a last resort.

Set up the audio/joystick and network tabs while you're here.

Lastly go to the mod tab and select mediavps as your mod. This step enables the mediavps. If your PC runs the game too slowly come back here and click no mods. You'll lose the new graphics etc but you'll be able to play the game with the original files this way and that should be faster..

Press run. Enjoy the game.