glFFE

glFFE was originally programmed by kolijoco and makes use of the OpenGL graphics system to offer increased resolution. Instead of the original 320x200 screen, resolutions of 1024x768 and beyond are easily within the user's reach! In addition, the old low-res cockpit has been replaced with a new high-res one, making the game look even better.

glFFE has now largely been replaced by FFED3D but is still worth playing as a great game in its own right.

The basic gameplay remains the same but, as you can see from these screenshots, the game looks a lot nicer due to the increased resolution. Little details like the flashing signs on the Frontier planets and the small spinning radar dishes on some of the ships are much improved and in some cases are properly visible for the first time. Generally the ships show a huge improvement, many small markings becoming apparent.

A further development of the game known as Nic's Mod is a very useful and well thought-out version of glFFE. Among the improvements...

• Easy switching between full-screen and windowed mode
• Optional doubling of planet detail
• Use of jpg & png graphics, rather than bulky bmp
• Beta Lyrae crash fixed
• Improved compatibility with older graphics cards.

It is highly recommended that Nic's Mod is used to run glFFE, as described next.

Playing glFFE on your PC

To play this version of FFE, you need to be running Windows and you must already have the shareware version of FFE installed, otherwise the music, sound effects and newspapers will not be available.

1. Download shareware FFE and extract the files to a folder of your choice eg. C:\FFE
2. Download glFFE - Nic's Mod and extract the files into the same folder as above - if asked to overwite select Yes
3. Run the game by double-clicking on the Firstenc batch file
4. Various hints & tips are contained within read_me files in the folder

Replacing missing icons on the glFFE control panel

Desipte Kolijoko's best efforts, some icons are missing from the control panel and default to the original, ugly, low-res ones. After a bit of tinkering, and trial and error, I've managed to fix the issues with the camera and MB4 mining machine icons.

1. Backup your game\glffe.cfg file to somewhere safe
2. Download two new files from from FrontierAstro
3. Extract the two new files from the zip into your game\ directory

The next time you run glFFE, the camera and MB4 should show proper hi-res icons.

Click here to download an alternative console graphic, courtesy of Richard Valongo.