UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Info

2007-03-07T06:10:40Z

OVNI: /* DOS X-COM in WinXP */

'''X-COM''' is a series of computer games, started by MicroProse in 1994. The first installment, released as ''UFO: Enemy Unknown'' in Europe (and as ''X-COM: UFO Defense'' in North America) was written by a team led by Julian Gollop. After the success of ''X-COM: UFO Defense'', The Gollop brothers went straight to work on [[Info (Apocalypse)|X-COM: Apocalypse]], which would end up being the third in the series when released in 1997.

MicroProse quickly had an internal team create the sequel ''[[Info (TFTD)|X-COM: Terror From the Deep]]'' in under a year as a quick cash in (hence the amount of uncanny similarities between the first two games). These first two games also show strong similarities to games such as ''Rebelstar'' and ''Laser Squad'' for the ZX Spectrum, including names of organisations such as 'Marsec'. The fourth title, ''[[Info (Interceptor)|X-COM: Interceptor]]'' was an action-based space combat/strategy game.

All titles were developed for the PC, with ports to the Sony PlayStation and Amiga. The first three titles were originally developed to run under DOS, and have subsequently been ported to run under Microsoft Windows using DirectX. ''X-COM: UFO Defense'' was the best selling computer game of 1995 and is considered a true classic, and despite its age, still has a large following.

==Series standards==

The premise for the series is fairly simple and straightforward, with variations among them: armies of hostile aliens have begun invading the Earth, killing and enslaving the human race. The style and theme of the game closely mirror those of the classic BBC television series ''UFO''.

In each game of the series, the player is put in command of "X-COM": the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. By defending countries from enemy invasion, the force gains monetary support. Any nation may quit, if X-COM's service is deemed unsatisfactory or the nation's government has been infiltrated by the invaders. Through research of recovered alien artefacts, X-COM is able to develop better and more powerful weapons, armor and vehicles to combat the alien menace and eventually uncover their true nature.

The game takes place within two main views: the Geoscape and the Battlescape, a dichotomy that's the hallmark of the entire series. The Geoscape is where the player waits for enemy alien activity and makes strategic decisions.

While in the Geoscape, the player can view the X-COM bases (located in various locations on Earth), make changes to them, equip X-COM craft, order supplies and personnel, direct research efforts, schedule manufacturing of advanced equipment and sell alien artifacts to raise capital. The Geoscape is continuous and not turn-based.

Gameplay switches to the isometric combat view of the Battlescape whenever X-COM personnel come in contact with alien units. This can result from investigating downed enemy crafts, combatting alien terrorist activities or attacking alien bases discovered during play. Aliens may also be encountered if they manage to attack and infiltrate one of the X-COM bases.

In the Battlescape view, X-COM combatants are pitted against the alien enemies. In addition to personnel, the player may have vehicles such as heavy weapons platforms outfitted with powerful weapons ranging from rockets to plasma beams. The Battlescape mode is turn-based and each combatant has a number of "time units" which can be expended each turn. When all alien forces have been neutralized, the mission is scored based on number of X-COM units killed, civilians saved, aliens killed or captured and the number of alien artefacts obtained.

The X-COM series is known for its difficulty. Third party programs have been developed to modify the game files to make playing the game less frustrating, and to increase replay value. Those third-party programs can also make the game more difficult for highly skilled players. The most complete of these tools is [[XcomUtil]].

==Ports==
*Amiga
*Amiga CD32
*DOS 1.2, 1.4
*Windows CE
*Playstation (both PAL and NTSC formats)

== System Requirements ==
'''Minimum'''
*386 processor
*4MB RAM
*Hard drive (10MB free, game alone)
*MS-DOS 5.0 or higher
*VGA Graphics

'''Recommended'''
*486 or better
*8MB RAM
*Hard drive (15MB free, game + manual)
*SVGA Graphics

'''Sound Cards Supported'''
*PC Internal speaker
*AdLib compatible cards
*Sound Blaster compatible cards
*Roland LAPC-1

==Working In Windows==

*The Collectors Edition of XCOM works in all versions of Windows natively.

*The DOS version can be finicky in WinXP. While it's probably possible to subdue it manually, many people use [http://dosbox.sourceforge.net DOSBox] as a WinXP DOS emulator, with a high degree of success. It does have some minor inconveniences, but they're a lot less than figuring everything out manually! A tutorial for DOSBox can also be found [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=2502 here].

=== DOS X-COM in WinXP ===

Here are the only things that I ([[User:MikeTheRed|MTR]]) changed for DOSBox (v. 0.65) DOSBOX.CONF. It works fine for X-COM DOS 1.4:

fullscreen=true # Switched for XCOM
frameskip=2 # Changed from 0 to 2 for XCOM
cycles=8000 # Changed from 3000 to 8000 for XCOM
cycledown=500 # Changed from 20 to 500 for XCOM
mpu401=none # changed from intelligent to none for XCOM
core=dynamic # I (OVNI) noticed dosbox runs much faster with dynamic cpu alocation on WindowsXP with Amd Athlon cpu
# (not tested with others cpu and/or operating systems)

And the command line of my desktop launch icon reads:

D:\Games\DosBox\DOSBox.exe d:\Games\X-COM\GO.BAT -exit

Adjust per your locations, and you're good to go. (I haven't touched X-COM's GO.BAT except to skip the intro vid, and everything works fine.)

I'm not sure the extent to which some of them matter, but Cycles is the most important... push Cycles as high as it will go without causing odd freezes in your game (usually on a new screen), in which case you hit Control-F11. (If it happens a lot, decrease DOSBOX.CONF Cycles to make it permanent.)

Recently my background music has gone out, no idea why... it worked fine forever. But since I'm into deep testing these days, I don't care... I put on my own tunes, anyway.

==Screenshots==

==The Makers==

Published in 1994 by [http://www.microprose.com Microprose] (bought by Atari), developed by Mythos Games, chief designers brothers Nick and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Gollop Julian Gollop].

Mythos preceded X-COM with Laser Squad and have recently produced [http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/ Laser Squad Nemesis].

Created by:
*Microprose (1994)

Owned by:
*Atari (2004)

== Credits ==

===Primary Credits (DOS, Windows)===

'''Game Design and Programming'''
 Mythos Games Limited
 Julian Gollop
 Nick Gollop

'''Graphics and Animation'''
 Julian Gollop
 John Reitze
 Martin Smillie

'''Music'''
 John Broomhall

'''Sound Effects'''
 Andrew Parton

'''Quality Assurance'''
 Peter Woods
 Andrew Luckett
 Richard Bakewell
 Darren Kirby
 Philip McDonnell
 Jason Sampson

'''Manual Author'''
 Kristian Ramsay-Jones

'''Managing Editor'''
 Alkis Alkiviades

'''Packaging and Manual Design'''
 John Emory
 Joe Morel
 Cesar Novoa
 Sarah Warburton

'''Producer'''
 Tim Roberts

'''Publishers'''
 Paul Hibbard-Teall
 Peter Moreland

===Additional Credits (Amiga)===
'''Programming'''
 Scott Johnston
 Steve Legg
 Bob Koon

'''Graphics'''
 Michael Baxter

'''Music'''
 Matthew Simmonds

===Additional Credits (Playstation)===

'''Producer'''
 Stuart Whyte

'''Quality Assurance'''
 Darren Kirby
 Craig Lear
 Daniel Luton
 Justin Manning
 Philip McDonnell
 Jason Sampson
 Klaus Starke
 Donald Witcombe

'''Programming Conversion'''
 Graeme Ashton
 Bob Koon

'''Additional Programming'''
 Tim Cannell
 Paul Dunning
 Nick Thompson

'''Playstation Design Implementation'''
 Andrew Williams

'''Additional Artwork'''
 Drew Northcott
 Martin Severn

'''Original Game Music Composition'''
 John Broomhall

'''Original SFX Design'''
 Andrew Parton

'''Playstation Music Conversion & Additional Music Composition'''
 Allister Brimble

'''Audio Post Production'''
 Matt Vowles

'''Audio Producer'''
 John Broomhall

'''Publisher'''
 Rob Davies

'''Packaging Design'''
 Sarah Warburton

'''Manual Design & Layout'''
 Sarah Kerr

'''Managing Editor'''
 Alkis Alkiviades

'''Manual Writer & Editor'''
 Rick Haslam

'''Brand Manager'''
 Adrian Turner

'''Thanks To'''
 Sheila Boutin
 Valentina Britten
 Marc Curtis
 Gareth Davies
 Steve Hickman
 Laurie Sinnett
 Scott K. Tsumura

----

Some of the material in this article was adapted from Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM X-COM] page.

== See also ==

* [[Background]] -- a timeline of events in the X-COM story line and other connections to the "real world"

Info

2007-03-07T06:09:41Z

OVNI: /* DOS X-COM in WinXP */

'''X-COM''' is a series of computer games, started by MicroProse in 1994. The first installment, released as ''UFO: Enemy Unknown'' in Europe (and as ''X-COM: UFO Defense'' in North America) was written by a team led by Julian Gollop. After the success of ''X-COM: UFO Defense'', The Gollop brothers went straight to work on [[Info (Apocalypse)|X-COM: Apocalypse]], which would end up being the third in the series when released in 1997.

MicroProse quickly had an internal team create the sequel ''[[Info (TFTD)|X-COM: Terror From the Deep]]'' in under a year as a quick cash in (hence the amount of uncanny similarities between the first two games). These first two games also show strong similarities to games such as ''Rebelstar'' and ''Laser Squad'' for the ZX Spectrum, including names of organisations such as 'Marsec'. The fourth title, ''[[Info (Interceptor)|X-COM: Interceptor]]'' was an action-based space combat/strategy game.

All titles were developed for the PC, with ports to the Sony PlayStation and Amiga. The first three titles were originally developed to run under DOS, and have subsequently been ported to run under Microsoft Windows using DirectX. ''X-COM: UFO Defense'' was the best selling computer game of 1995 and is considered a true classic, and despite its age, still has a large following.

==Series standards==

The premise for the series is fairly simple and straightforward, with variations among them: armies of hostile aliens have begun invading the Earth, killing and enslaving the human race. The style and theme of the game closely mirror those of the classic BBC television series ''UFO''.

In each game of the series, the player is put in command of "X-COM": the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. By defending countries from enemy invasion, the force gains monetary support. Any nation may quit, if X-COM's service is deemed unsatisfactory or the nation's government has been infiltrated by the invaders. Through research of recovered alien artefacts, X-COM is able to develop better and more powerful weapons, armor and vehicles to combat the alien menace and eventually uncover their true nature.

The game takes place within two main views: the Geoscape and the Battlescape, a dichotomy that's the hallmark of the entire series. The Geoscape is where the player waits for enemy alien activity and makes strategic decisions.

While in the Geoscape, the player can view the X-COM bases (located in various locations on Earth), make changes to them, equip X-COM craft, order supplies and personnel, direct research efforts, schedule manufacturing of advanced equipment and sell alien artifacts to raise capital. The Geoscape is continuous and not turn-based.

Gameplay switches to the isometric combat view of the Battlescape whenever X-COM personnel come in contact with alien units. This can result from investigating downed enemy crafts, combatting alien terrorist activities or attacking alien bases discovered during play. Aliens may also be encountered if they manage to attack and infiltrate one of the X-COM bases.

In the Battlescape view, X-COM combatants are pitted against the alien enemies. In addition to personnel, the player may have vehicles such as heavy weapons platforms outfitted with powerful weapons ranging from rockets to plasma beams. The Battlescape mode is turn-based and each combatant has a number of "time units" which can be expended each turn. When all alien forces have been neutralized, the mission is scored based on number of X-COM units killed, civilians saved, aliens killed or captured and the number of alien artefacts obtained.

The X-COM series is known for its difficulty. Third party programs have been developed to modify the game files to make playing the game less frustrating, and to increase replay value. Those third-party programs can also make the game more difficult for highly skilled players. The most complete of these tools is [[XcomUtil]].

==Ports==
*Amiga
*Amiga CD32
*DOS 1.2, 1.4
*Windows CE
*Playstation (both PAL and NTSC formats)

== System Requirements ==
'''Minimum'''
*386 processor
*4MB RAM
*Hard drive (10MB free, game alone)
*MS-DOS 5.0 or higher
*VGA Graphics

'''Recommended'''
*486 or better
*8MB RAM
*Hard drive (15MB free, game + manual)
*SVGA Graphics

'''Sound Cards Supported'''
*PC Internal speaker
*AdLib compatible cards
*Sound Blaster compatible cards
*Roland LAPC-1

==Working In Windows==

*The Collectors Edition of XCOM works in all versions of Windows natively.

*The DOS version can be finicky in WinXP. While it's probably possible to subdue it manually, many people use [http://dosbox.sourceforge.net DOSBox] as a WinXP DOS emulator, with a high degree of success. It does have some minor inconveniences, but they're a lot less than figuring everything out manually! A tutorial for DOSBox can also be found [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=2502 here].

=== DOS X-COM in WinXP ===

Here are the only things that I ([[User:MikeTheRed|MTR]]) changed for DOSBox (v. 0.65) DOSBOX.CONF. It works fine for X-COM DOS 1.4:

fullscreen=true # Switched for XCOM
frameskip=2 # Changed from 0 to 2 for XCOM
cycles=8000 # Changed from 3000 to 8000 for XCOM
cycledown=500 # Changed from 20 to 500 for XCOM
mpu401=none # changed from intelligent to none for XCOM
core=dynamic # I (OVNI) noticed dosbox runs much faster with dynamic cpu alocation on WindowsXP with Amd Athlon cpu
# (not tested with others cpu and/or others operating systems)

And the command line of my desktop launch icon reads:

D:\Games\DosBox\DOSBox.exe d:\Games\X-COM\GO.BAT -exit

Adjust per your locations, and you're good to go. (I haven't touched X-COM's GO.BAT except to skip the intro vid, and everything works fine.)

I'm not sure the extent to which some of them matter, but Cycles is the most important... push Cycles as high as it will go without causing odd freezes in your game (usually on a new screen), in which case you hit Control-F11. (If it happens a lot, decrease DOSBOX.CONF Cycles to make it permanent.)

Recently my background music has gone out, no idea why... it worked fine forever. But since I'm into deep testing these days, I don't care... I put on my own tunes, anyway.

==Screenshots==

==The Makers==

Published in 1994 by [http://www.microprose.com Microprose] (bought by Atari), developed by Mythos Games, chief designers brothers Nick and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Gollop Julian Gollop].

Mythos preceded X-COM with Laser Squad and have recently produced [http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/ Laser Squad Nemesis].

Created by:
*Microprose (1994)

Owned by:
*Atari (2004)

== Credits ==

===Primary Credits (DOS, Windows)===

'''Game Design and Programming'''
 Mythos Games Limited
 Julian Gollop
 Nick Gollop

'''Graphics and Animation'''
 Julian Gollop
 John Reitze
 Martin Smillie

'''Music'''
 John Broomhall

'''Sound Effects'''
 Andrew Parton

'''Quality Assurance'''
 Peter Woods
 Andrew Luckett
 Richard Bakewell
 Darren Kirby
 Philip McDonnell
 Jason Sampson

'''Manual Author'''
 Kristian Ramsay-Jones

'''Managing Editor'''
 Alkis Alkiviades

'''Packaging and Manual Design'''
 John Emory
 Joe Morel
 Cesar Novoa
 Sarah Warburton

'''Producer'''
 Tim Roberts

'''Publishers'''
 Paul Hibbard-Teall
 Peter Moreland

===Additional Credits (Amiga)===
'''Programming'''
 Scott Johnston
 Steve Legg
 Bob Koon

'''Graphics'''
 Michael Baxter

'''Music'''
 Matthew Simmonds

===Additional Credits (Playstation)===

'''Producer'''
 Stuart Whyte

'''Quality Assurance'''
 Darren Kirby
 Craig Lear
 Daniel Luton
 Justin Manning
 Philip McDonnell
 Jason Sampson
 Klaus Starke
 Donald Witcombe

'''Programming Conversion'''
 Graeme Ashton
 Bob Koon

'''Additional Programming'''
 Tim Cannell
 Paul Dunning
 Nick Thompson

'''Playstation Design Implementation'''
 Andrew Williams

'''Additional Artwork'''
 Drew Northcott
 Martin Severn

'''Original Game Music Composition'''
 John Broomhall

'''Original SFX Design'''
 Andrew Parton

'''Playstation Music Conversion & Additional Music Composition'''
 Allister Brimble

'''Audio Post Production'''
 Matt Vowles

'''Audio Producer'''
 John Broomhall

'''Publisher'''
 Rob Davies

'''Packaging Design'''
 Sarah Warburton

'''Manual Design & Layout'''
 Sarah Kerr

'''Managing Editor'''
 Alkis Alkiviades

'''Manual Writer & Editor'''
 Rick Haslam

'''Brand Manager'''
 Adrian Turner

'''Thanks To'''
 Sheila Boutin
 Valentina Britten
 Marc Curtis
 Gareth Davies
 Steve Hickman
 Laurie Sinnett
 Scott K. Tsumura

----

Some of the material in this article was adapted from Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM X-COM] page.

== See also ==

* [[Background]] -- a timeline of events in the X-COM story line and other connections to the "real world"