Independence War resurrection

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:02 pm

Found Glidewrapper that allows me to play Independence War.

I never finished long ago before I upgraded my vidcard to one that didn't support the game. Now I have another chance.

If anyone remembers Independence War, you might remember it as one of the greatest space combat sims ever made, with Newtonian physics, an in-depth story, and the most fleshed-out capital ship combat system devised. It was released back around the turn of the century.

Unfortunately, it was made during a time when Voodoo 3 cards were the rage. After Nvidia bought 3dfx, they discontinued voodoo, which meant that if you wanted to play any of your games made at or before that time, you had to nurse an ancient computer along that could play it.

Then came the glide wrapper.

http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/

If you find a glide wrapper that works better, let me know. This one works well for me: the game still crashes between missions, but it saves your progress and doesn't crash within a mission. I think the crashing is a memory issue, anyway.

Enjoy!

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:30 pm

Hi Nigel.
I've been playing I-War on a Win98 for years and it works fine! I am using a Radeon 9800Pro vid card w/256MB
It is a great game as you said.

Ravenfeeder · Post by **Ravenfeeder** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:33 pm

I liked "Privateer 2 - The Darkening" - it had some fab torpedos.

Koranis · Post by **Koranis** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:42 pm

If I'm correct I-War was the only game, aside Elite series, to implement the newtonian physics. Sadly I've never played it, when it was out, my pc could not handle it.

I've never had 3dfx, I jumped directly from the 1st gen PCi to Nvidia Geforce 256. Now I'm running games on a dual GTX 295 monster, but I'm going to try it, hopefully without downgrading the drivers....

[Edited on 7-3-2009 by Koranis]

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:48 pm

Hi Nigel. I need to clear up a possible mis-understanding.
I am running I-War 2 on Win 98. I-War, the original runs on my Win95 and I do have a VooDoo 3DFX card on that machine.
Hope that clears up any confusion.

Koranis, are you using XP? If so, since I have the game, I will try to coax it to run on my XP using a Radeon 9800 and let you know how I made out. That way you'll know if it can be made to run. If it will run you might think about picking up a copy off ebay!
Let me know and I'll give it a shot!
Have fun!

[Edited on 7-3-2009 by MMaggio]

[Edited on 7-3-2009 by MMaggio]

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:03 am

Thanks for the clarification, MMaggio.

I have Iwar 2 also, and it has been running fine on XP with Nvidia card. The only problem with it is that there is a shimmer effect with objects that are far away. Aside from that, though, it runs fine.

Iwar, the original, though, is harder to get to run on modern machines, and I'm very fortunate to have found a way to run it. It's still not perfect, but it's pretty good, and if it allows me to complete the missions, even better.

I'm rediscovering the missions. They are quite challenging, often pitting you alone against an armada of enemy vessels. Even using the weapons station, keeping the enemies from blowing you away is maddening.

I especially like the damage system. When you take damage, various components stop working, but then you can visit the engineering station and see how they're progressing on the fix. When your ship is disabled, you are unable to stop rotating sometimes, which really adds a lot to the feeling of hopelessness. Luckily, in many situations, you can still engage LDS and buy some time.

One thing I don't like about the game, though, is the finickiness of the missions. They really want you to do the mission their way, and if you deviate from the script, the mission cannot be completed. If I have one gripe about that game, that's it.

[Edited on 7-4-2009 by Nigel_Strange]

warsign · Post by **warsign** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:19 am

I like this game so much.
Thanks for the info.

Koranis · Post by **Koranis** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:18 pm

Originally posted by MMaggio
Koranis, are you using XP? If so, since I have the game, I will try to coax it to run on my XP using a Radeon 9800 and let you know how I made out. That way you'll know if it can be made to run. If it will run you might think about picking up a copy off ebay!
Let me know and I'll give it a shot!
Have fun!

Nope. I'm using Vista.

Or like we call it here in Italy, "Svista", which means "Slip / oversight"

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:52 pm

Well, Nigel cleared it up anyway as he is running it on XP.
If I remember correctly there is an XP mode on Vista and it might be forced to run. I don't have a Vista and never will so I couldn't say.