Off Topic Productions

ggrotz wrote:(as a thought, something I might try is putting Kentie's exe in place of TNM.EXE or 2027.EXE and see whether that breaks something)

Doesn't break anything, I used Kentie's launcher instead of TNM.exe for a while. Requires a bit of fiddling with the inis and moving over existing savegames, that's all

Jonas wrote: Doesn't break anything, I used Kentie's launcher instead of TNM.exe for a while. Requires a bit of fiddling with the inis and moving over existing savegames, that's all

Yep I noticed that myself when I tried it. Anyhow, I think I have a solution to path things to My Documents worked out where no DeusEx.exe mods are necessary and it saves multiple things. Just need to test some more and then I can post that here. I can't really think of anything else, so hopefully the bugs can be worked out and it'll be done.

New build posted, see the first post for the file.

The big change from build #3 is that it has "My Documents" support which should handle any mod you run in this loader. If you check the option, it will:
1) look for the INI files (DeusEx.ini, User.ini) present on the drive in the DX directory, and copy them there, preserving the structure (if they aren't already in My Documents in the right place). If your DeusEx.ini is C:\DeusEx\System\DeusEx.ini before, it will be <MyDocuments>\DeusEx\System\DeusEx.ini.
2) As part of this change, note that SavePaths for your saved games are specified in the dxloader.ini, you will need to check those to see if they are what you want. Upon running any flavor of DX, it will set the SavePath in DXINI to the directory consistent with the SavePath setting and the "My Documents" setting you have on the loader.
3) When running whatever flavor of DX you choose, it will use a proper path consistent with the "My Documents" setting. If the "My Documents" setting is on it will use the DX settings files there, if not the ones in the main DX directory.
4) The ENBSeries.Ini location seems to be hard-coded to where it is, so it can't be moved.
At the moment, if you uncheck "My Documents" support, it makes no effort to copy game settings or save game files back to the DX folder. Also, I notice that DX always reports the free space of the drive it resides on, so be careful of that if your <My Documents> folder is on a different drive than your DX install.

Otherwise, please let me know if you run into any issues if you try this or have any suggestions. Thanks for your interest!

Great Job!

nerdenstein wrote:Great Job!

Seconded.

So would I use this WITH Kentie's launcher or as a replacement for it?

paladin181 wrote:So would I use this WITH Kentie's launcher or as a replacement for it?

The intention for this launcher is to use the standard deusex.exe files. Hopefully most all of the fixes should be there.

So with that in mind, would I be better off doing a clean install then? I have several mods installed that I run with different configuration files (just copied and set up different .ini files). I'm just trying to get the gist of how this this will handle that.

paladin181 wrote:So with that in mind, would I be better off doing a clean install then? I have several mods installed that I run with different configuration files (just copied and set up different .ini files). I'm just trying to get the gist of how this this will handle that.

There's a file called dxloader.ini that comes in the zip file which has the paths to all of these different files and locations. It uses the settings you already have in your existing files, which you need to specify correctly in the dxloader.ini. The loader file will make changes to those settings based on what you select in the loader screen (and apply a few raw fixes as well as copy the render settings in the dxloader.ini). I put the default paths in there that each mod gives on installation, but you would need to double-check them to see if they are right.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions about how the dxloader.ini needs to be set.

Version 1.00 of the loader released.

Differences
1) A few file checks added
2) Author line and link to the OTP forums added.

Hopefully most all the bugs are gone, but if there are any, please feel free to report them here so I can get them fixed.

Nice Loader

I posted a new version of the loader (the file is on the first post to this thread). I added a new INI section for renderer detections (so it will know what files to look for), so be sure to check that if you are using this loader already. The section will be in the new INI so it can be copied to the old one as-is, unless you are using different renderers that aren't already specified in the settings.

Revision History
------------------
1.02 - added a renderer detection scheme, so renderers not installed won't be offered as options.
1.01 - changed the compile to use the XP style controls.

Edit: I did a couple of other things in exploring how to make the save games take less space and save faster. (NTFS drives only)
1. This is a program that will make duplicate files into hard-links and (optionally) compress the unique files.
Posted and discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=11363
2. Talked here (viewtopic.php?f=14&t=11108&start=120) about rigging up code to inject a DLL into any Deus Ex based executable that would do what was described in #1. Never heard back regarding any interest in testing and seeing if it would help on save game speed, so I kind of dropped it. Since it worked for me, I did a 1.03 version (internal) with it included. (Credit to fk. in the other thread for inspiring the thought to try these)

A new version of the loader is on the first post of the thread.

1.03 - internal version which supports methods to reduce the amount of disk space used in saved games. No interest in helping test this version was made, so the idea was dropped for now.
1.04 - added support for the New Vision maps path. Changed the paths in the included dxloader.ini to be consistent with the defaults in the New Vision installer.
1.04 - added setting for CacheSizeMegs. This setting should be set at a higher number than the Deus Ex installed default (4), but consistent with your system memory. Anything from 64-256 is acceptable given the size of the New Vision resources, but more is possible if you have a lot of memory.

A new version of the loader is on the first post of the thread.

1.05 - changed the OTP forums link to act like a normal web hyperlink.
1.05 - removed "DeusExPath" line in dxloader.ini in favor of using the method used by the mod installers (the TNM installer anyway - as described in the documentation). If that value is set in your INI, this program should work fine regardless. If it doesn't work, check the registry key in the notes and if it doesn't work right after that key is fixed, please let me know. Hopefully this should help it be much easier to get the loader going.

A new version of the loader is posted on the first post of the thread.

1.06 - cleaned up the resolution detection code when doing the Alternate 2027 Launcher and put that code in this file. It will only display resolutions that support 32-bit display quality at 60hz. This is why I asked the question here. If only using 60hz frequencies causes a resolution you expect to not show up, use the Custom option. I thought 60hz was a good compromise since there was no real direct answer, so if it becomes a problem I can always redo it using the current frequency of the monitor.
1.06 - fixed bug which overwrites [Engine.Engine] section value Root to 'DeusEx.DeusExRootWindow' no matter what the settings. This breaks mods that have their own root window code.
1.06 - added mod definitions for Delta ]2[ - been playing it and used the loader to run it so I thought I would go ahead and include the lines I was using. It'll take a little bit of work with D43K.INI to run the mod the same way as I am, so if there are questions about that I can post mine in the other thread.