Ubuntu Manpage: fs2_open - manual page for FreeSpace 2 Open

Provided by: freespace2_3.7.4+repack-1.1build2_amd64

NAME

       fs2_open - manual page for FreeSpace 2 Open

SYNOPSIS

       fs2_open

DESCRIPTION

       FreeSpace    2    Open   Website:   http://scp.indiegames.us   Mantis   (bug   reporting):
       http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/

OPTIONS

       Usage: fs2_open [options]

Graphic:

-spec Enable specular

Only polygons mapped with textures for which a shinemap exists will receive
specular mapping; no attempt is made to generate spec maps where they do not 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, use launcher option Disable
Specular or if necessary to manually disable enter the flag -nospec

-glow Enable glow maps

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

FS2 Open, 3.6.15: This feature is on by default, use launcher option Disable Glow
Maps or if necessary to manually disable enter the flag -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: This feature is on by default, use launcher option Disable
Environment Maps or if necessary to manually disable enter the flag -noenv

-mipmap
Enable mipmapping

Causes for non-mipmapped textures to have mipmaps generated within the GPU on
certain kind 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 -img2dds flag.

-nomotiondebris
Disable motion debris

-noscalevid
Disable scale-to-window for movies

Disables fullscreen scaling of video clips.

-missile_lighting
Apply lighting to missiles

-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: This feature is on by default, use launcher option Disable Normal
Maps or if necessary to manually disable enter the flag -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 the
post_process.tbl. Bloom usage has an additional cmdline option for setting it's
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

-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

       -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 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 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 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

       -nomusic
              Disable 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:

-nohtl Software mode (very slow)

Reverts to software rendering mode. Warning: Enabling this will significantly
reduce performance.

-no_set_gamma
Disable setting of gamma

Disables the gamma settings in the options screen.

-nomovies
Disable video playback

Disables all video playback.

-noparseerrors
Disable parsing errors

Disables some parsing warnings and makes other parse errors non-fatal. Do not rely
on this when creating new tables. The errors are there for a reason.

-query_speech
Check if this build has speech

Determines if 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 will help troubleshoot a model if one is working incorrectly.

-loadallweps
Load all weapons, even those not used

-disable_fbo
Disable OpenGL RenderTargets

-no_glsl
Disable GLSL (shader) support

Disables the use of GLSL rendering (OpenGL shaders). The game will revert to legacy
fixed render pipeline. Please note that 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:

       -ingame_join
              Allow in-game joining

       -voicer
              Enable voice recognition

              Windows-only.  Enables voice-recognition for wingmen commands. 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:

-fps Show frames per second on HUD

Displays current frames per second.

-pos Show position of camera

Displays current position coordinates of camera.

-window
Run in window

Runs the game in a window. No check to make sure that resolution is no 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 coordinates of the mouse cursor.

-show_mem_usage
Show memory usage

Shows detailed RAM usage based on file, handler and process usage and display 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 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 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 can report higher numbers that 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).

-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.