DF-21 Forums

[The MAZZTer]

I don't think I've ever really put this up anywhere after I added Dark Forces support into my DF/JK/MotS/JO/JA mod manager. But I actually like my older one more since it's more convenient.

Basically this is a Dark Forces mod manager that allows you to store mods in individual directories and takes care of moving files around and running Dark Forces.

http://downloads.mzzt.net/Dark%20Frontend.7z.exe

DFRNTEND.TXT contains most of the info you need I think, but here's some notes not in there and some quick start tips:

- Extract to a Levels subdirectory of your Dark Forces directory. Mods go into individual directories inside Levels, each mod directory has the same name as its GOB file (without the .GOB).
- Best used with DOSBox, even though I had never heard of it when I made Dark Frontend. Don't listen to any of the stuff about VDMS, I even left out the INI file for it that I originally included because DOSBox is so much better. Mount your DARK directory as C: and set the directories in Dark Frontend options as: C:\, C:\LFD, C:\LEVELS
- I forget how the WIZARD I made works so you might not want to use it, or back up stuff before you do just in case. I think it just finds all the custom GOB files and moves all files with the same name (and different extensions) to their own directory. For a ZIP file it would just extract it to it's own directory. IIRC.
- It comes preloaded with settings for all good, many bad, and some ugly mods. Most mods you can drop in a subdirectory that's the same name as the .GOB (without the .GOB) and it will "just work". Assassinate Darth Vader is an exception but there is a little on it in the readme TXT file, basically you have to rename a few files.
- If Dark Frontend doesn't know what to do with a mod it'll just load the GOB file into Dark Forces. To get it to use LFDs you need to add an entry to MASTER.INI. The format is simple enough (sections MUST remain in alphabetical order).
- lowmem.bat allows Dark Frontend to unload itself from memory while DF runs, necessary to run DF on it's minimum 8mb ram requirements. I had a really old laptop once.
- Dark Frontend was coded in Euphoria, an interesting little interpreted, weakly typed language.

Screenshot:


Source code if you want it. It might not even run on a more recent Euphoria now. It won't run natively in Windows at least, it would need the native DOS port if they even do one of those anymore...

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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[Burning Gundam]

Are you ever going to fix your other Mod Manager? I liked the interface very much until it stopped working on both my XP and Vista machines.

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I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

[The MAZZTer]

Are you using the latest version?

http://www.jkhub.net/project/show.php_projid=7&section=downloads

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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[Burning Gundam]

Yes.

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I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

[tnoyce]

A couple of comments about running the new mod manager in Vista

You will need to set the compatibility options to run the application as Administrator. Otherwise, it is unable to read the correct keys in the registry, and will display a run time error. It also has issues saving settings within the mod manager (may be due to folder permissions in Vista, though I'm not certain)

If you choose to ignore the error and continue, anything done from that point forward within the application will fail to work correctly.

Note that you will need to run the main game executable through dos box, so you will need to check this option, and store the path for the Dos Box executable.

Once I did these two things, it appears that Dark Forces does launch, with the correct gob file.

At least it works with the version of Dark Forces included in the Steam Jedi Knight Collection


[/img]

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Tim Noyce

[Burning Gundam]

That's not what I meant. I meant the application itself doesn't launch, even though it shows up on the processes in the Task Manager.

I've told you of this before MAZZTer

_________________
I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

[The MAZZTer]

Ugh I may have even fixed it and never uploaded a fix, I dunno. I don't see anything in my current source, SOMETHING should happen even if it's just the tray icon.

One of these days I'm gonna rewrite it from scratch.

_________________
http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[Burning Gundam]

So then what's this new one called Knight I saw on JKHub earlier? Apparently you just uploaded it yesterday...

_________________
I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

[The MAZZTer]

WRONG. I uploaded nothing but screenshots.

I'm working on a total replacement for UJMM, when I should be doing other things. :O Be happy.

_________________
http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[Burning Gundam]

:: Happiness ::

_________________
I don't think outside the box... I customize it.