Slave Zero, Steam controller and my adventure getting these to work!

[cammelspit]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/328470/

Ok, so any of you all ever played the old PC and dreamcast game Slave Zero? I LOVED this game years and years ago and since I have it on my steam account I decided to play it. My god was this thing ad aventure. I will say though, this game feels like an entirely new experience with the SC. I just can't get over how smooth and responsive it is. New games should ALL take a page out of this games book. If it doesn't play as smooth as Slave Zero, keep working you are NOT done yet. I am going to be linking this to the Slave Zero Forums too for anyone who has problems because this was a dosey.

First off, This game is OLD, originally released in OCT of 1999. So this game is 16+ years old. As such this game was around when a company called 3DFX was top dog, for all you young players. This company was like Nvidia is today. They had their own proprietary graphics solution called Glide. I mention this because even though Slave Zero does use OLD DirectX the game will NOT run on modern hardware so the use of a Glide wrapper is needed. This translates the Glide calls to DirectX so a modern card can render them. The Steam and GOG versions of this game both use a wrapper and it is both included and required for this game to work.

I am using Windows10 Pro X64. Any OS after 7 has some real issues with this game. The real problem is getting this game AND the steam overlay to work at the same time. This game needs a few things to work. You will need to make sure that the game is using Windows98/ME compatibility mode, disable DPI scaling and is running as admin. as such this game will need steam to be run as admin too or it will simply not show the overlay. and we want this so our precious steam controllers will work properly. With Me windows actually apply the settings to SlaveZero.exe automatically so yay on that.

This isn't it though. The biggest hurdle to running this game in W10 is the fact that the Glide wrapper included is completely FUBAR for W10 and only works on 7. So we now have to grab the installer for the latest version, I used 1.04 of nGlide, the same wrapper provided. You open up the EXE as if it were a ZIP and then replace all those files in the Slave Zero directory. Now, you still cant play the game...

The next big step here is configuring nGlide. When launching Slave Zero the second option is to configure nGLide, click that and make SURE to turn OFF Vsync. This was my biggest hangup! I couldn't get it to work at all till I did this! You should also just go ahead and install 1.04 of the wrapper, I did. I dont know it its required but since I did in my troubleshooting, you should too.

Oh, but you are not done YET! GO into the Slave Zero Directory and you will find 3 files. szOptions.ini, szHardware.ini and Strings.ini. I heard you only need to delete szHardware but I deletel all 3 just to be on the safe side. after this, try and start the game and if all goes well you should have the slave zero game running in 640X480 in a tiny little corner of the screen, good luck!

HAH! Fooled you! The wrapper setting for resolution will not work properly so every time you start the game you will have to go into the settings of the game itself and set the resolution to something, anything and apply. If you do than the game will finally be running fullscreen, with the overlay and you can play with our beloved Steam Controller.

Please, we need to play this game again people! All of this was, for me, 100% worth every second of the last 2 hours I have spent making it work. With the steam controller I use no sensitivity in the game and max the sensitivity in the SC config and enable gyros and it is truly something to behold.

I wanted to play, I saw I couldn't and I Conquered! ♥♥♥♥♥♥ compatibility that is. :)

[madjr]

nice going.

As for oldies am going through System shock 2 and original Half life :D

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by madjr:

nice going.

As for oldies am going through System shock 2 and original Half life :D

Rock ON! System shock 2 was amazing back in the day. I only sourced a copy for my steam account a few months ago but I never got a chance to finish it. Gosh, There were some amazing games back in the day that still hold up as being fun as hell today. I just spent so much time on this, I had to share. This was more of a labor of love for this game. I can't describe how much I played this and enjoyed it back in the day. One of the first game I bought with my own money for my dreamcast.

Let's all pour one out for the games we will never get to work ever again. *slowly pours a shot on the ground* We will miss all of you!

[jerry247]

OMG, 3dfx? Glide? We're old.

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by jerry247:

OMG, 3dfx? Glide? We're old.

I had a conversation with someone only a few days ago who never even heard of 3DFX... ♥♥♥♥, I was born in 1984 so I am not THAT old, am I?

[jerry247]

o man, I'm old. 1973. I remember my 1st graphics card to play quake. openGL.

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by jerry247:

o man, I'm old. 1973. I remember my 1st graphics card to play quake. openGL.

Thanks, that makes me feel better. :P I have met ADULTS who were too young to have even played a PSone or N64, that ♥♥♥♥ blows my mind too. What, you dont even know what descent was? Who are you?

[✖️⁧⁧ Nervenkitzler]

Originally posted by cammelspit:

Thanks, that makes me feel better. :P

hahaha you're as old as me! ... wait a sec.. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!!!! xD

[StoneGolem]

Thank you.
My Slave Zero is functional again :)

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by stonegolem:

Thank you.
My Slave Zero is functional again :)

Holy hell has this been a bit! Super glad you got it going, though. The game itself is so good I think it was SO worth the effort to get it going. Have fun buddy, really. I smile just thinking about one more person relieved of even a small amount of the frustrating trial and error!

[Shenji]

I bought Slave Zero just because I lost all my CD-Roms years ago. And never thought I can have a chance to play it again. Especially when I'm in this forum for entirely unrelated business.
Since this gave me a helluva nostalgia-tears, what about ONI? And I thought that game is perfectly for Steam Controller too. (I once thought to get Remember Me as a replacement, just stopped in time lol)
Any news about Oni then?

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Shenji:

I bought Slave Zero just because I lost all my CD-Roms years ago. And never thought I can have a chance to play it again. Especially when I'm in this forum for entirely unrelated business.
Since this gave me a helluva nostalgia-tears, what about ONI? And I thought that game is perfectly for Steam Controller too. (I once thought to get Remember Me as a replacement, just stopped in time lol)
Any news about Oni then?

I KNOW I have my disc for that out in the shed somewhere. If the game itself can be made to work then the SC also can be made to work. Especially since it now uses a focus based game detection scheme. A boat load of games that weren't working before now do work, especially the old ones.

[JanQuadrantVincent]

thank you so much for this guide, OP!

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by JanQuadrantVincent:

thank you so much for this guide, OP!

No need to thank me, I am just happy someone, ANYONE else can enjoy this blissful experience one more time as much as I have. Truly, it is for the love of the game!

[Rainbow Dash]

nice tutorial. i had this game in my wl for so long because i directly recognized exteel in it so i think exteel, which was one of the best games ever made, was heavily designed from it. wanted to pick it up with the sale after missing it several times, but seriously if we are to figure out all this, and yet it's a luck your tutorial even exists, it's a shame. it should be either working right off or it shouldn't be in store for money at all, so i'm likely to pass

[cammelspit]

Originally posted by Rainbow Dash:

nice tutorial. i had this game in my wl for so long because i directly recognized exteel in it so i think exteel, which was one of the best games ever made, was heavily designed from it. wanted to pick it up with the sale after missing it several times, but seriously if we are to figure out all this, and yet it's a luck your tutorial even exists, it's a shame. it should be either working right off or it shouldn't be in store for money at all, so I'm likely to pass

I will agree that any game sold today on steam or otherwise should at least run on modern PCs. The publisher, whoever owns the rights to this game, simply dropped the ball and doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥. That having been said, this is still easier than off a disc seeing as all of this you would need to do PLUS somehow getting it to install. At least here the install portion is done for you and it is a bear from a disc. It has a 16bit installer and the 32bit one I used to use for XP simply doesn't work at all on modern Windows machines. Still, I maintain that this game is 100% worth every second of fiddling required to play it, it is just that good. :)