My tips for the best classic experience in Aleph One.

[TheMoonChef]

Hey guys,

Some of you who might have played Marathon back in the day and have come back to it with AlephOne might find there are quite a few changes made to the game's engine and overall look, especially in the first installment. So for any of you looking for an experience closer to the original thing, here are the best add-ons and settings to use!

First of all for M1A1 (Marathon 1) is the 'Classic HUD' plug-in, which restores the games' original HUD from the Macintosh version as opposed to the HUD that looks more like that of the one from the two sequels. You can download it here (installation instructions are included in the 'ReadMe' contained in the main folder):
http://www.simplici7y.com/items/marathon-classic-hud

There are also these two plug-ins for M1 that are not particularly necessary, but make it closer to the Macintosh original (installation instructions are included in the 'ReadMe' contained in the main folder):
M1A1 Fixes - http://www.simplici7y.com/items/m1a1-fixes
Marathon QT2 Tracks for M1A1 - http://www.simplici7y.com/items/marathon-qt2-tracks-for-m1a1

As for the best settings to use (and this is for all three Marathon games), here they are.

At the main menu, go the Preferences and then to Graphics. Here, change the renderer to OpenGl (Classic). The other settings on the screen do not matter, though you can change the resolution to 640x480 if you want to be really retro. Now click the Rendering Options icon. Here, untick all the boxes toward the top except for Colour Effects and Static Effect. Also turn off Full-screen Anti-Aliasing and turn down the Anisotropic Filtering all the way (I recommend you turn on VSync to avoid image tearing). Now you go to Advanced, and put all Texture Filtering options to None, and Apply!

You are now ready to enjoy a classic Marathon experience!

- TheMoonChef

[treellama]

The M1A1 plugins are totally obsoleted by the version of Marathon that comes with Aleph One 1.0+. Get with the times

[herecomethej2000]

does that include the qt2.0 tracks, out of curiosity?

[treellama]

does that include the qt2.0 tracks, out of curiosity?

Yep

[TheMoonChef]

The M1A1 plugins are totally obsoleted by the version of Marathon that comes with Aleph One 1.0+. Get with the times

The newest AlephOne has the 'NoPiD' plug-in included, but I'm pretty sure the other two included in the M1A1 fixes pack are not included, or at least one. That being the restoration of the ability to only use one fist. Not too sure about the 'Soft Deaths' restoration plug-in.

[irons]

Also, if you're going to use a mouse, the best classic experience will be had if you get one with a trackball and get the trackball really dirty. UI will be just like the classic M1.

[TheMoonChef]

Also, if you're going to use a mouse, the best classic experience will be had if you get one with a trackball and get the trackball really dirty. UI will be just like the classic M1.

Damn right!
I tried playing the original Macintosh version of Marathon 1 on my iMac G3, not quite sure how I managed to make it half-way through the game using the mouse, haha.

[Crater Creator]

If you want closer to the original, wouldn't you use the software renderer instead of the OpenGL renderer?

[TheMoonChef]

If you want closer to the original, wouldn't you use the software renderer instead of the OpenGL renderer?

Try the configurations before asking questions, bud. The way it is set up in this tutorial makes it so it is exactly like the software renderer, only without the graphical glitches you would get if you were really using the software renderer (e.g. chapter screens fading in twice).

[Hopper]

The OpenGL renderer doesn't faithfully replicate all of the visual effects, like getting hit by a hunter bolt, but for most computers, I think you'll get a better experience from the GL renderer set up as described. For instance, Mac OS X Lion got rid of the screen-drawing APIs we were using, and now fullscreen software rendering is often even slower on today's hardware than it was back in the 90's.

I'm pretty sure the soft-death bug got fixed in 1.0, so the only part of M1A1 Fixes relevant is the single fist (and that isn't even the correct hand). Now that plugins support shapes patches, I should go back and make a better fix.

ObPlug: Don't forget to give your dialogs a nostalgic makeover too, with System Se7en or, if you got into Marathon a little later, Pl8inum.