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About Judy

As WP's managing editor, I edit review and preview articles, attempt to keep up with the frantic pace of Rainier's news posts, and keep our reviewers on deadline, which is akin to herding cats. When I have a moment to myself and don't have my nose in a book, I like to play action/RPG, adventure and platforming games.

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'Hidden & Dangerous 2: Sabre Squadron' - Demo Available NOW

by Judy on Nov. 9, 2004 @ 8:14 p.m. PST

Take2 has released a playable demo for Illusion Softworks' Hidden & Dangerous 2: Sabre Squadron featuring the Ponte Grande map on Sicily, playable as singleplayer but also multiplayer through LAN and Internet, with either bots or other players (thanks 3DGamers). Read more for download links ...

Get the Hidden & Dangerous 2: Sabre Squadron Demo off WP (178mb)

If you are experiencing any lack of performance when running the game, it is recommended that the level of detail be lowered in the in-game options as described in the manual.

To also help improve performance these options can be enabled in the H&D2 Setup options:

Enable Hardware Transform and Lighting.
Enable Compressed Texture Quality.
Disable the Truecolour Texture Quality/Size.
Disable Fullscene Antialiasing (FSAA)
Disable Software Mixing Only (recommended for Creative brand sound cards).

To run the Setup program select the option from the Windows Start Menu located in 'ProgramsIllusion SoftworksHidden & Dangerous 2 DemoSetup'. As default, when an option is pressed and highlighted it is Enabled.


3. SOUND PERFORMANCE

If you are experiencing problems with the sound in the game, please
ensure that you have the latest drivers for the make and model of your
sound card and that the drivers are DirectX 8.1 (or higher) certified.
H&D2 may not support some makes and models of sound card.

If you experience any stuttering or distortion when sounds or music is
playing ensure that these have been selected in the H&D2 Setup
options:

Disable EAX
Enable Software mixing.

To run the Setup program select the option from the Windows Start Menu
located in 'ProgramsIllusion SoftworksHidden & Dangerous 2
DemoSetup'. As default, when an option is pressed and highlighted it
is Enabled.


4. GRAPHICS AND DISPLAY PERFORMANCE

If you are experiencing problems with the graphics in the game, please
ensure that you have the latest drivers for the make and model of your
graphics card and that the drivers are DirectX 8.1 (or higher)
certified. H&D2 Sabre Squadron Demo may not support some makes and
models of video card.

Below are options that can be selected from the H&D2 Demo Setup option
to help address any problems that you may be experiencing. These are
recommended if your video card has a small amount of video RAM.

To run the Setup program select the option from the Windows Start Menu
located in 'ProgramsIllusion SoftworksHidden & Dangerous 2
DemoSetup'. As default, when an option is pressed and highlighted it
is Enabled.

The Texture Quality/Size option selected in the setup is related to
the amount of video memory and resources your PC may have. If for any
reason you experience problems with the graphics in the game ensure
that you:

Disable Fullscene Antialiasing (FSAA).
Disable the Truecolour Texture Quality.
Enable Compressed Texture Quality.

Other options:

Reduce the resolution that the game is running in.
Run the game in Full Screen mode, not in a Window.
Disable Triple Buffering when running in Full Screen Mode.

Notes:

On older graphics card the 16 bit colours can force the card to use
16-bit depth buffer instead of 24 bit. This can result in seeing
graphical artefacts.

When 16 bit colours are selected and the compression is turned off,
the game will create files within the MAPS directory that will amount
to around 400MB using the full 2.4GB of required hard drive space.

ATI video card users:

You may experience slow down when rendering on ATI Radeon 7200, 7500,
8500 video cards.

This is probably caused by using the Catalyst drivers version 3.5, 3.6
and 3.7. Whilst ATI resolve this, it is recommended that the version
3.4 drivers be used.


5. MULTIPLAYER (Advanced Users)

Hidden & Dangerous 2 Sabre Squadron Demo dedicated server can be run
directly from the root.

hd2ds_SS_Demo.exe

Activates the H&D 2 Sabre Squadron Demo command console window.

hd2ds_SS_Demo.exe -cmd exec runserver.txt

Activates the H&D 2 Sabre Squadron Demo command console and executes
commands from the file runserver.txt (or any text file containing H&D
2 commands).

hd2ds_SS_Demo.exe cmd -sessionname testgame -style deathmatch -mapname
normandy3 -dedicated 1 server

Activates the application and executes the typed commands from the DOS
command line, like the example below.

NOTE: The syntax the game uses is "hd2ds_SS_Demo.exe -cmd [-command
parameter] [-command parameter].

NOTE: After running hd2ds_SS_Demo.exe to open the dedicated
multiplayer console, use the listmaps command to display the name of
the multiplayer maps in the form that must be typed when entering
commands or creating a file containing a list of commands (see section
7 below).


6. VOTING

Voting can be initiated by the server or by clients; the following
commands can be voted on.

restart
nextmap
kickplayer

Voting consists of vote + command for example: vote nextmap

After this has been typed kickplayer badguy voting initialised will be
displayed on all machines and players have 15 seconds to type voteyes
if they agree. If more than half of the players vote YES the changes
will be made on the server.

Only one voting session can take place at any one time, so until the
15 seconds have elapsed for voting on nextmap and new vote cannot be
started.


7. DEDICATED SERVERS exec COMMAND

The exec command can be used for executing batches of commands to make
starting dedicated servers quicker from the DOS command line.

Assume that you have created two text files:

Name: server-occupation.txt

With the content:

sessionname testserver
style occupation
mapname normandy3
mapname africa2
domain internet
dedicated 1
server

and

Name: server-objectives.txt

With the content:

sessionname testserver
style objectives
mapname africa3
mapname normandy1
domain internet
dedicated 1
server

NOTE: When entering the list of commands there has to be an empty line
below last command. In this case that means pressing enter after
typing server.

There are then two ways to create the server using either file.

1. Open the multiplayer dedicated multiplayer console window by
running hd2ds_sabresquadron.exe
2. Then type exec server-objectives.txt" or "exec
server-occupation.txt to start the preferred game server.

Alternatively execute the batch file without opening the dedicated
multiplayer console window by typing "hd2_sabresquadron.exe cmd -exec
server-objectives.txt" on command.


8. THE CMD COMMAND

When used, for example hd2_SS_Demo.exe -cmd -sessionname testgame
-style occupation mapname normandy3 -dedicated 1 server

-cmd will not create the dedicated multiplayer console leaving the
option to enter further commands via the syntax "hd2_SS_Demo.exe -cmd
[-command parameter] [-command parameter].

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