From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [caliban@darklock.com]
Sent: June 13, 2001 8:26 AM
Subject: SF2 and talking to aliens


How I got SF2 to work right on my system...

Turn off disk caching:

"Start" button
  "Settings" menu
    "Control Panel" icon
      "System" icon
        "Performance" tab
          "File System" button
            "Troubleshooting" tab
              "Disable write-behind caching for all drives" checkbox

This has a minimal effect on overall system performance.

The game still runs too fast; ships and creatures fly around at high
speed, which makes it impossible to play effectively. Purple screechers
come flying out of nowhere on the Tandelou homeworld, and attack seven
or eight times before I can even set the TV to "move" mode. This is not
fun, so a slowdown program is necessary. I use:

  ftp://members.aol.com/bretjohn/programs/slodn200.zip

My command line for SF2.BAT is "SLOWDOWN.COM /M:12 SF2.BAT". On my
P3-600, this works perfectly. 

However, even with all this, I need to go talk to an alien before I save
the game. If I save before talking to an alien, I will never be able to
talk to aliens. I think this is probably a game bug, and not related to
the processor's speed. 

Some odd situations I've noticed:

- If I edit SF2.BAT and put SLOWDOWN on thee command line for STARFLT,
the DOS window executes an illegal instruction and tells me to reboot.
It doesn't MAKE me reboot, but the system tends to act weird afterward.

- ICD and ICE do the same thing. See below  for my experience running in
DOS mode.

- If I reboot in MS-DOS mode, STARFLT thinkks I don't have a hard drive
and keeps insisting that I play from floppies. This is probably an IDE
driver issue.

Just helping out other folks who might want to keep playing this great
game. :)

Subject: sf2 communications fix for pentiums

From: "Dr. Douglas McKitrick"
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 14:31:24 EDT

I too was unable to communicate with aliens when playing starflight II on my Dell Dimension XPSP100. I found that I needed both the disk caching and clock speed changes to make it work. To change the clock speed hit 'delete' at startup to run SETUP and change CPU speed from 100 (or whatever) to COMPATIBLE. To beat the disk problem you don't want to run the smartdrv program in the autoexec file. As I occasionally do some work I didn't want to hobble my computer permanently so I modified the autoexec and config files for multiple configurations.In config.sys create a menu:

- and in autoexec.bat isolate the smartdrv program so it is not run during a "starflight" boot:

You'll get a choice between a normal startup or a non-disk cached starflight startup. I hope this is of some use to someone. Enjoy the game.

D.J. McKitrick
dmck@physiology.uwo.ca

Subject: Fix for Starflight 2 problems
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 22:11:18 -0400
From: Richard Clayton (forty2@earthlink.net)

Many people with high-speed computers have experienced serious problems with Starflight 2. One example: As you probably know, if your system runs too quickly, aliens will not hail you or respond to your hails. Needless to say, this makes the game a little frustrating. . . I spent my first few nights with this game asking myself, "How come nobody will TALK to me? Do I have bad breath or something?" ;:)

Other problems include dangerous alien life-forms that move at the speed of sound, wiping out most of your crew before you can even get the cursor over to the "weapon" function, as well as alien ships that reduce your poor craft to glowing slag before you can say "Navigator, shields up! Take us out of here, maximum acceleration!"

Well, these handy-dandy little programs fix all that. No, I didn't write them, but they work beautifully. ICD (Internal Cache Disable) will switch off your computer's internal cache, slowing your system to a manageable speed. ICE will re-enable the cache afterward. The simplest way to use these programs is to edit your SF2.BAT file and add ICD to the beginning of the file and ICE to the end. So easy a Spemin with brain damage could do it.

It seems like a lot of other people have had this problem, so it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put this up on your page, if I may be so presumptuous. I can't remember who wrote this program, but it wasn't me. As far as I can remember, this program is freeware. If you find out who the author is, send him large amounts of money and praise, since he definitely deserves it.

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