The Ur-Quan Masters Technical FAQ

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This is the list of frequently asked questions (with answers) about technical issues regarding The Ur-Quan Masters. For gameplay questions or questions about the The Ur-Quan Masters project, check our other FAQs.

If you have any further questions, you can ask them on the technical issues board.

If you think you have found a bug, please report it in the Bugzilla database.

Installing the game[edit]

Where do I get the game?[edit]

You can find the latest official release on http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php.

You can find source snapshots, content updates, and precompiled Windows binaries for the most recent developers version on http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots.

For MacOS X, Nic has developer builds with some of his own patches here.

If you frequently build the game yourself from the recent source, you may want to get your files from SVN. If you're using a command-line SVN client, this is what you type:

svn co https://sc2.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/sc2/trunk sc2

Once the SVN checkout is complete (about 200 MB), read the INSTALL file, and make sure you have the necessary libraries it refers to.

For compiling the source under Windows there's a Microsoft Developer Studio project file in src/msvc++/. For Unix (including Darwin), follow the instructions in doc/users/unixinstall. For MinGW, there's a file INSTALL.mingw in the top dir with some additional information.

How do I install the game on Windows without an internet connection?[edit]

Download uqm-0.6.2-win32-installer.exe, uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm, and optionally uqm-0.6.0-voice.uqm and uqm-0.6.0-3domusic.uqm from http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php on a machine where you do have an internet connection, and put them on a removable medium (CD-ROM, USB drive, etc). Then, on the machine where you want to install the game, start uqm-0.6.2-win32-installer.exe. Do not select any content packages that you haven't downloaded, and when the installer asks where to get the packages from, select the directory on your removable medium. The installer won't try to download any files from the internet then.

Note: Some defective browsers attach the extension ".zip" to your downloaded files (so you'll end up with files like "uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm.zip"). In this case you'll have to rename the files back, so that the installer will recognise them, lest it will try to download them itself.

How do I use the 3DO intro and victory movies in the game?[edit]

Toys For Bob doesn't have the copyright to these files and so we can't distribute them. But if you own the 3DO Star Control II CD, you can extract them yourself and use them in the game. To do this, you first need to make a .iso file of the CD-ROM (however you will not be able to mount it normally, as in on a Mac or elsewhere), and then run a program called unCD-ROM to unpack the files from it, which can be found here (local mirror here). It includes a .exe file for Windows and the source code, which will also works on Linux. Just run it on the new .iso file. More detailed instructions can be found here. An (untried) alternative for Windows user, CompilFS, which looks a bit more user friendly, can be found here. Linux users can also add direct support for the 3DO file system with a kernel module, which can be found here.

In the extracted duckart/ directory you will find the videos. You now need to create a uqm-0.7.0-3dovideo.uqm package:

Create a directory named 3dovideo/ with subdirectories of intro/, ending/, and spins/.
Retrieve 3dovideo.rmp into the 3dovideo/ directory.
Copy intro* into the intro/ subfolder, victory* into the ending/ subfolder, and ship* into the spins/ subfolder. (It may be the case only .duk and .aif files are required, but it is okay to copy it all, also the ship or spin files may not be used but are referenced by the rmp and so should be copied.)
Zip the 3dovideo directory recursively, retaining the 3dovideo parent path, into a file uqm-0.7.0-3dovideo.uqm. This must be done with compression 0 (store). The resulting .uqm (renamed .zip) file will look like this inside:

 Length     Date   Time    Name
--------    ----   ----    ----
       0  01-04-14 13:56   3dovideo/
    3237  01-04-14 13:45   3dovideo/3dovideo.rmp
       0  01-04-14 13:23   3dovideo/ending/
57853696  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/ending/victory.duk
   13604  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/ending/victory.frm
      48  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/ending/victory.hdr
    4096  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/ending/victory.tbl
       0  01-04-14 13:39   3dovideo/intro/
38723612  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/intro/intro.duk
    9144  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/intro/intro.frm
      48  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/intro/intro.hdr
    4096  01-04-14 13:20   3dovideo/intro/intro.tbl
       0  01-04-14 13:50   3dovideo/spins/
  100448  01-04-14 13:49   3dovideo/spins/SHIP00.AIF
 2091956  01-04-14 13:49   3dovideo/spins/SHIP00.DUK
     564  01-04-14 13:49   3dovideo/spins/SHIP00.FRM
      48  01-04-14 13:49   3dovideo/spins/SHIP00.HDR
 (and so on)

Place the new uqm-0.7.0-3dovideo.uqm file into the content/addons/ directory.
Start The Ur-Quan Masters, go into Setup, Cutscenes, and change the setting to Movie. Exit completely, start The Ur-Quan Masters again, and start a new game. The introduction should play a voice-acted video instead of showing pictures, and the ending video should play if you successfully complete the game.

Running the game[edit]

When trying to start the game, I get a DOS box flashing on my screen, and nothing else (on Windows)[edit]

The DOS box shows some debug information while the game is running. Right click on the icon you used to start the game, choose 'properties', and add '--logfile logfile.txt' as the first argument in the "Target" field. For example: "H:\Program Files\The Ur-Quan Masters\uqm.exe" --logfile logfile.txt --res 640x480 --bpp 32 --opengl --scale=bilinear --scroll 3do --audioquality high --addon remix

In this example, the window will open and close quickly but will put the output into "H:\Program Files\The Ur-Quan Masters\logfile.txt" for later examination via Notepad. Often the window closes quickly due to an improper argument, i.e. "--bpp32" versus "--bpp 32". Look elsewhere in this FAQ for specific information on your problem.

The game runs too slowly. What can I do?[edit]

If you're running on a system barely faster than the minimum system requirements, you may need to disable some eye candy.

try playing in 320x240 mode, full screen, with no scaling.
depending on your graphics card and driver, using OpenGL may slow down or speed up the game.
do not run in 24 bits per pixel mode. 16 is fine, 32 is fine, but 24 is an inefficient mode.

If you are running The Ur-Quan Masters on a modern system, and are still having a slow game experience, try the following:

(on Windows) make sure your video and sound drivers and DirectX are up-to-date.
(on Windows) make sure your PC isn't infected with spyware or similar programs. Good free programs to remove these are Ad-Aware Personal and Spybot-Search&Destroy.
close other programs when you are running the game. This includes programs that are running in the system tray. Some of these programs eat up a lot of resources.
(on Windows) when running the game press <CTRL>-<ALT>-<DEL>, and select "task manager". There increase the priority of The Ur-Quan Masters.

How do I change my settings?[edit]

The settings can nowadays be changed from within the in-game setup menu.

How do I use add-on packages?[edit]

There is a main content package located in content/packages/uqm-0.7.0-content.uqm. However add-on content packages such as uqm-0.7.0-voice.uqm and uqm-0.7.0-3domusic.uqm (and a user-compiled uqm-0.7.0-3dovideo.uqm) should be placed in the content/addons/ directory instead. In all cases the .uqm files are actually .zip files, renamed so they won't be accidentally unpacked.

When you specify the command-line option '--addon <addon>', the .uqm files inside the directory content/addons/<addon> will be included in the game. '--addon' may be specified more than once to enable multiple add-ons.

Instead of specifying command-line options yourself, you can use a launcher program.

For Mac OSX, assuming you installed the game in Applications: Open The Terminal (It's in the "Utilities" folder under "Applications")

   * cd /Applications/The\ Ur-Quan\ Masters.app/Contents/MacOS
   * ./The\ Ur-Quan\ Masters -n ../Resources/content --addon ADDONNAME

See How do I change my settings and Content Management for more information.

How do I use a joystick or game pad?[edit]

There are joystick profiles for both the primary and the secondary joystick that can selected in the keys config menu within The Ur-Quan Masters. If you want to modify these profiles, you'll need to manually edit the file "keys.cfg" in the settings directory (see Where are my settings stored?). More information is contained in that file itself. Lines starting with "#" are ignored.

An added note -- there's a known issue in that starting UQM *without* the controller plugged in will scramble or obliterate the joystick configurations. You can get the default config back by going up one directory from the savegames (which should be linked in with your Start Menu when using Windows) and deleting keys.cfg. A fresh copy will be created the next time you start.

When I press multiple keys at the same time, some keys won't be recognised[edit]

This is a hardware problem with many keyboards.

To get around the problem, you could try using another keyboard. Unfortunately, most modern keyboards have problems like this. The exact key combinations that aren't accepted vary per keyboard though.

Sometimes toggling the num lock or caps lock will resolve the conflict. You can also change the keys that give problems. Keys that are usually ok to use are keys that are meant to be used in combination with other keys, such as SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT. For the rest, you'll just have to experiment. See here for information on changing your keys.

Another possibility is to use a joystick or game pad. (see How do I use a joystick or game pad?).

I keep getting a popup regarding sticky keys. How do I get rid of it?[edit]

This is a message from Windows, which wonders why you keep pressing that shift key all the time. The next time it comes up, click "settings", and then uncheck "use shortcut".

How do I exit the game?[edit]

Press F10, and then confirm. On MacOS X 10.3 and above, the new Exposé features intercept F10, so use Option-F10 to quit on such systems (you may also disable the F10 intercept in System Preferences → Dashboard & Exposé.) See also How do I change my keys?

How do I pause the game?[edit]

Press F1 or the Pause key. It works for unpausing too. See also How do I change my keys?

Where do I find out more information about Network Play?[edit]

Our Netplay How-To guide describes how to play SuperMelee in The Ur-Quan Masters over a network.

Building the game from source[edit]

Why does the game complain that it can't find my content?[edit]

Possibly you have compiled without zlib support. UQM will not be able to work directly with .uqm files then, but only with unzipped content files.

Various[edit]

Where are my settings stored?[edit]

On Microsoft Windows systems the settings are stored in a folder named 'uqm' in the application data folder for the current user. This is usually in one of the following locations:

Windows 95/98/98SE without separate users: "C:\Windows\Application Data\"

Windows 95/98/98SE with separate users: "C:\Windows\Profiles\YourName\Application Data\"

Windows NT/2000/XP: "C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\"

Windows Vista/7: "C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\"

Unix systems (including Darwin/Mac OS X): "~/.uqm/"

The "Application Data" folder may be hidden. You can tell Windows to display hidden files and folders in the Folder Options dialog, which you can find in the Tools menu of any folder window. If you can't find the settings directory, use the Windows search functionality to look for a file "keys.cfg".

Where are my saved games stored?[edit]

Saved games are stored in a directory "save" inside the settings directory. See Where are my settings stored?.

How do I report a bug?[edit]

First, make sure you are either running the most recent official release (currently 0.7.0), or a recent version from SVN. If your copy is up to date, then look at Specific bugs and not-quite bugs. If your bug is not there, then look for it in the bug database. If the bug is already there, then see if you have any additional information that may help the developers fix this bug, and if so, add it to the existing bug report. If the bug hasn't been reported, then make a new report. Include as much information as as you can that may be helpful in solving the bug. In particular, it would be of much help if you can tell how to reproduce the bug. If this is your first bug report, please first read the guidelines are given here.

I don't want to make a Bugzilla account. Is it ok to let you know about my bug in another way?[edit]

Not really. Look at it from the side of the developers. First of all, when they receive a bug report through any other means, they have the choice of either fixing the bug immediately, putting it in the Bugzilla database themselves, or trying to remember it for later. As you're likely to catch them while they're in the middle of something, or just don't have the time that instant, it's not unlikely that your report will be lost.

Second, bug reports sent through other means rarely contain complete information. The Bugzilla forms have fields for things like UQM version and operating system, that may be necessary for solving the problem. A bug reported through other means would often require additional communication just to get all the facts.

Third, the person you would be contacting may not be the one who would normally fix such a bug. The developers each have their specialties. Bugs reported in the Bugzilla database will have a default assignee, and will be seen by all.

Now you may be thinking "I'm doing you a favour, take it or leave it.", but if you like the game and appreciate the work done by the developers, isn't it worth spending a few minutes to help them make the game better? Don't forget they are all volunteers, doing this in their spare time.

But if you enjoy their work just enough to report a bug through mail, the UQM forum, or IRC, but not enough to create a Bugzilla account, they'd rather hear about a bug through those means, than not at all.

Where can I go for more technical help?[edit]

The most appropriate place to ask for help on technical problems is the technical issues board on the UQM forum.

There's also the #sc2 IRC channel on OPN. You may have to be patient though, as most people that are present in the channel don't actually pay attention to it all the time. It is however the place where the developers hang out, and if you're interested in game internals, this is a good place to ask.

There's also the sc2-devel mailing list for development questions. It's hardly used anymore these days, but when it is, people still read it.

Do not mail the developers directly with technical questions.

a question you ask publicly, along with any answers may help other people too
you'll reach more people by using the forums or mailing list, so your question will usually be answered sooner
the developers frequently read the board, and respond to questions there

Specific bugs and not-quite bugs[edit]

The game does not behave as I expected[edit]

Gameplay bugs are listed in the Star Control II Gameplay FAQ.