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The Ur-Quan Masters

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Ur-Quan Masters
The Ur-Quan Masters cover
Developers
The Ur-Quan Masters Team
Toys for Bob
Steam Pistol Shrimp
Release dates
Windows November 26, 2002
macOS (OS X) March 3, 2003
Linux November 26, 2002
Taxonomy
Monetization Freeware
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Top-down view, Scrolling, Flip screen
Controls Direct control
Genres Arcade, Mini-games
Vehicles Space flight
Themes Sci-fi
Series Star Control
The Ur-Quan Masters on MobyGames
The Ur-Quan Masters on Wikipedia
Star Control
Star Control 1990
Star Control II 1992
Star Control 3 1996
The Ur-Quan Masters 2002
Star Control: Origins 2018

The Ur-Quan Masters is the official freeware, open-source rewrite of the 1992 game Star Control II which combines the unique features of the MS-DOS PC and 3DO console releases into one game. As such, it does not require the original game to play. The game's source code was released by the game's original developers, Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, while they were still at Toys for Bob.[1]

On February 19, 2024, the game was released for Windows on Steam as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters by Pistol Shrimp, a company founded by the aforementioned developer team, three years after their departure from Toys for Bob.

General information

Official forums
Official source code repository

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Official website
DRM-free
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Steam
DRM details are not known
Released as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters
Windows

Essential improvements

Ur-Quan Masters MegaMod

Open source mod pack that is based upon the latest Ur-Quan Masters source code.
Integrates various mods, including the HD & HD-Remix mods along with the Nic's Extended mod
Source code can be found here.
Has an active development.
Includes bug fixes, QOL improvements and additional gameplay modes.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\uqm
macOS (OS X) $HOME/.uqm/
Linux $HOME/.uqm/
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2645580/pfx/[Note 1]
This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\uqm\save
macOS (OS X) $HOME/.uqm/save
Linux $HOME/.uqm/save
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2645580/pfx/[Note 1]

Video

Graphics settings
Graphics settings
Advanced graphics and sound options
Advanced graphics and sound options
3DO/PC compatibility settings, including subtitles
3DO/PC compatibility settings, including subtitles

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Maximum menu resolution of 1024x768. See Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
See Widescreen resolution
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Borderless Gaming. Game doesn't stretch to window size, but takes up a corner of the fullscreen window if using a resolution smaller than screen resolution. See Widescreen resolution to fix this.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Capped at 30 FPS in star-systems and conversations, 24 in hyperspace and battles, 20 when orbiting planets and 15 in some menus.

Widescreen resolution

Edit config file[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open uqm.cfg.
  3. Change reswidth and resheight to the chosen values.
  4. Save the file.

Notes

The game will still render at 320x200, but will be stretched to the chosen resolution. To reduce the resulting pixelation, use one of the scaler options.

Input

Input settings
Input settings

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
Can rebind all space-flight and battle controls for Player 1 and 2, but not menu navigation keys.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Basic audio settings. More advanced settings contained in Advanced Options (see above).
Basic audio settings. More advanced settings contained in Advanced Options (see above).

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Sliders for music, sound effects and speech.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Under PC/3DO Compatibility Options; on by default.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
2
LAN play
Online play

Other information

API

ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bitARM Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
[2]
Linux
[3]

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB
Video card (GPU) TNT2, Voodoo3
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.0
Processor (CPU) 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB
Video card (GPU)
Linux
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 200 MHz
System memory (RAM) 64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB
Video card (GPU)

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/2645580/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (2645580) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. Our Story - Pistol Shrimp - last accessed on 2024-03-02
  2. (Sc2-cvs) sc2/doc/users manual.txt,1.45,1.46 - last accessed on 10 January 2023
  3. Debian -- Package Search Results -- uqm - last accessed on 2021-05-08