Considering Playing Deus Ex 1 - Any Essential Mods?

[Komag]

Title and sub-title say it all

[Vadrosaul]

The only one I know of is this Texture mod being done: http://offtopicproductions.com/hdtp/

 

They only have an alpha release of objects for download, but you can also watch their progress and notice the difference

[Komag]

Ouch, I've encountered a much larger problem than just old textures and low poly models - the game runs with a weird slow down, then speed up to normal, then slow down problem.

 

It varies a little, but usually the slowdown is for a few seconds, then a second of normal speed, then a couple or few more seconds of slow, etc. It's all very smooth, so I'm not talking about choppyness (there is none). It's just like slow motion, around half speed I guess.

 

I've messed with video settings from top to bottom and they have no effect at all. I've tried turning off everything in the background I can imagine to no avail. I tried turning off just about all the processes Windows would let me and that didn't help either.

 

I have:

XP SP2

Pentium M 1.4ghz, 1gig ram

GeForce FX Go5650 w/128meg ram

 

I can turn everything up to max and also do video card AA and AF and the framerate is butter smooth, but the weird slowdown issue makes the game fully unplayable.

 

It even does the slowdown/speedup during the very start, with the Eidos logo flying by slowly, then quick for a second, then slow, etc, then the Ion Storm logo, then the Deus Ex big symbol thing, all doing fast/slow crap. So it seems to have nothing to do with graphics demand. I even tried turning the sound quality down to crap, no help.

 

Is this a known problem? Something to do with my processor or what? If I can't find a solution I'll have to give up on the game

[Vadrosaul]

Hmm someone else I know had a similar problem. Here is what they said:

 

The characters move at about double speed and speeches clip through at about five or so seconds from the end. I found out this problem is fixed if I switch to the software renderer, then reopen the game, then switch it back to the hardware renderer, reopen the game once more, and play.

[Komag]

That idea didn't work for me, but thanks.

 

After scouring all the internets I could scour, I found the solution! All I had to do was change my laptop power settings from "Portable/Laptop" to "Home/Office Desk", and voila, all my slow/normal/slow/normal problems have gone away!

 

Something to do with Deus Ex checking the CPU speed to set it's game speed, and the CPU usage changing the speed when set on "Portable/Laptop" varying the speed to maximize battery life. I guess when set on "Home/Office Desk" it will run at max speed the whole time, eating battery life faster, but since I always use my laptop plugged in it doesn't matter to me!

[MadhatteR]

You ought to play Deus ex Zodiac, I really enjoyed playing this mod and see it as a real extension of the original game. It is also one of the few mods for deus ex that ever did see it through to the end.

 

http://www.planetdeusex.com/zodiac/

 

Besides its fun!!!!!

 

greetz

 

Madhatter

[Crispy]

Interesting! Thanks for the link. I'll put it on my list of things to play... (which is growing distressingly long ).

[SneaksieDave]

Quite. Might be time to reinstall Deus Ex.

 

I imagine there must be some kind of resource where all these very late coming mods for old games must be listed, but hell if I've ever come across it. Makes you wonder what else you're missing.

[Komag]

I just finished the game (Deus Ex) today. I tried all three endings to see what they were like. I was disappointed that there is no big last boss battle, I wanted to really fight someone tough! Oh well, the game was quite enjoyable to play through anyway.

 

But the big conspiracy-upon-conspiracy storyline was just too dumb to me to care about, so I would find myself skipping all the readings, not caring about the plot, etc. I really just loved the sneaking around, taking headshots, outsmarting bots and turrets, and my favourite of all, flying my little orb thing and zapping stuff with it! It was also nice to play on high-res with AA and AF cranked up for nice crisp smoothness.

 

I'll have to try that mod Zodiac out now. Any other good ones?

[Vadrosaul]

I think I just threw up in my mouth...

[Crispy]

But the big conspiracy-upon-conspiracy storyline was just too dumb to me to care about, so I would find myself skipping all the readings, not caring about the plot, etc.

...

 

I think I just died a little inside.

 

You are the first person I've ever met who doesn't like the plot. How could you not like it?

[ascottk]

DX 1 was my second favorite (after the thief series). I have it for my mac but it's worthless under OSX even under the classic environment I started DXIW but lost interest right away then went on to mod for TDS which I got frustrated with Then I joined the Dark Mod & I'm addicted to modding for it

 

I too liked the conspiracy plot but the gameplay is excellent. It took me a while to slow down (just like thief) after playing fps or racing games.

 

Here's a mod to check out:

http://www.deusex-machina.com/cassandra-project/

 

It looks like episode 1 is out but it hasn't been updated since january 2003.

[Komag]

Some of the storyline was intriguing at times (I liked the conversation with the AI towards the end, which basically named the game), but I felt like all the super-uber-secret stuff was sort of like believing the moon landings were faked and that a second shooter in the grassy knoll shot JFK.

 

And for a game that's supposed be all open ended with letting you choose your moral position, I felt pretty ramrodded overall onto the path of the storyline. The game was not neutral, and I personally don't agree with its values position (example - the "best" ending is to destroy Area 51 and live free in villages in a new dark age - freaking rediculous to me).

 

So, for me, the story is just a big fat "whatever". But the game is still one of the better games I've ever played, with great features, interface, gameplay, and just plain fun factor.

 

It was also pretty highly polished, stuff in the world reacted well to what I did, AI seemed good to interact with, the weapons were interesting, the bio-mod system worked well, world was built to allow variety of playstyle approaches, etc. I can appreciate the finely crafted game they made, and I can better understand the terrible disappointment everyone felt at DXIW.

[Crispy]

Some of the storyline was intriguing at times (I liked the conversation with the AI towards the end, which basically named the game), but I felt like all the super-uber-secret stuff was sort of like believing the moon landings were faked and that a second shooter in the grassy knoll shot JFK.

You obviously don't appreciate conspiracy fiction. I love a good conspiracy theory, despite knowing that most of them are utter nonsense. It's just so fun to think about.

 

Besides, it's good mental training for when the government really is hiding something. Question everything! (Just don't be an idiot about it.)

 

And for a game that's supposed be all open ended with letting you choose your moral position, I felt pretty ramrodded overall onto the path of the storyline.

Well, yeah, it's actually a more-or-less linear game just pretending to be open ended. It does react to your actions, but you can't make it deviate too much. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; you can still choose to approach situations in different ways. Rather like Thief, in fact.

 

The game was not neutral, and I personally don't agree with its values position (example - the "best" ending is to destroy Area 51 and live free in villages in a new dark age - freaking rediculous to me).

Nonsense. The game itself doesn't show any preference for a particular ending. Various characters do, but it's your choice who you listen to, and you get to hear all of their arguments.

 

Personally I like the Helios ending best. New Dark Age comes second, and Illuminati third because it left a bad taste in my mouth (friggin' self-righteous bastards).

[Schatten]

I liked the conversation with the AI towards the end, which basically named the game

 

My two favorite DeusEx moments are the conversation with Morpheus and the phone call from Icarus.

The plot is somewhat cheesy, but it's still engaging and more then once pretty tongue-in-cheek - with a story setup like "let's assume all conspiracy theories are true - and then some", what do you expect?

[Vadrosaul]

Some of the storyline was intriguing at times (I liked the conversation with the AI towards the end, which basically named the game), but I felt like all the super-uber-secret stuff was sort of like believing the moon landings were faked and that a second shooter in the grassy knoll shot JFK.

 

That's a poor comparison. In Deus Ex you play a character on the inside, who has direct access to information that allows virtually concrete determination as to whether the conspiracies are true or false. The moon landing being fake/second shooter of JFK, we are outsiders to those conspiracies, and therefore received doctored and bias information.

[Crispy]

My two favorite DeusEx moments are [...] the phone call from Icarus.

You mean the bit where Icarus

thanks you, saying "your systems were very helpful"? I love that bit. The first time I played through it I was like "hey, stop hacking me, you bastard!" Good times.

 

[Schatten]

Nope - not that. I really meant phone call.

 

 

There's a house in Paris you can break into, and within is a small office. The phone starts ringing if you enter, and if you pick it up you'll have a little chat with Ike.

 

[Crispy]

Aw, man, I missed that. There's so much to discover in this game!