With all the excitement over the Star Wars: Squadrons trailers, there's also been some talk about how great TIE Fighter and X-Wing were... and how hard they are to get working on modern systems.

In the case of the Collector's CD is sadly quite true... but as for the Special Editions, all you really need to get going is a joystick (or Xbox controller if you're in a pinch).

so I made a short(?) video guide of what mods you need, and what settings you can tweak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0yJQUHJVRM

Hope you enjoy.

Here are the mods I'm using, sorted in the order you should install them.
XWA_DDRAW_d3d11 - Enables Hardware acceleration, AA and shading on new computers:
https://github.com/rdoeffinger/xwa_ddraw_d3d11/releases

Justagai's X-Wing series 60 FPS - enables 60 FPS:
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/1853-justagais-x-wing-series-60-fps-fix/

TIE Fighter Reconstructed - rearranged and enhanced DOS-CD music for TIE Win95 version:
https://www.savingcontent.com/2014/08/09/guide-play-xwingseries-on-modern-pc/7/

X-wing & TIE Music Fix - enables music in missions again:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjj50h7v1cin6vz/X-Wing_TieMusicFix.zip?dl=0

Is there any fix for the missing proton torpedoes lock-on sounds ?

I'll answer here as well, for the benefit of others.

I've only found two topics on GOG and Steam talking about the lock-on sounds missing in X-Wing (1998):
https://steamcommunity.com/app/354430/discussions/0/1742265965890410774/
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_xwing_and_tie_fighter_series/xwing_1998_no_music_and_missing_sounds

but neither topic has a solution, as of yet. Technically it should be possible to fix. as the Win95 version of X-Wing actually contains all of the files from the DOS-CD version. Best case scenario, it's a matter of a miss-named file... though I doubt it.

Great guide, thank you!

PERFECT guide TUSEN TACK man!! I played this years ago but forgot how to set it up properly on a new PC and this really speeds things up saving a few hours/days of frustration lol. Only thing left to fix now is how to get that joystick twist mapped to roll!

Are you sure that one's necessary? The ddraw.dll should already include that, though I admit it's possible some part is still missing.

I just tested it, so I could be certain... and Justagai's fix is necessary to get consistent 60fps.
In the ddraw.cfg file there is a setting in the "Debug Options" called RefreshLimit, with three options:

I tested all of them, and 0 and 2 are indeed very buggy. and 1 gives me around 24-30fps (MSI Afterburner says 30?)
While I haven't had any problems with Justagai's fix.

In the video it states always start with a fresh install if you've used the dosbox conf program is this still true? Thanks

... the video is of the Special Edition version of the game, which does not have a dosbox conf program.
so in that sense: no, not true. (I did use the phrase "out of the box", though... was that it?).

Either way, if you're using the mods listed in the video, I don't think you necessarily need to use a fresh install.

In the case of the Collector's CD version, which does have a dosbox.conf, though... I've found that the times where I messed around with the config before using a guide, I'd usually run into problems with the game either not launching or not wanting to be in full-screen or correct aspect ratio etc. So when that happened, a fresh install did the trick. These days I have a folder in my archive with the dosbox.conf that I know works.

In either case, If you do find yourself needing to reinstall.. and want to save your progress in the game. find the <yourname>.PLT or <yourname>.TFR (PLT for X-Wing and XvT. TFR for TIE Fighter) and save that elsewhere for a bit before uninstalling.

Nice video overall. NOTE FOR EVERYONE READING THIS THREAD:
This patch makes the game run great but it kills the turret AI, see here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_tie_fighter_special_edition/guide_for_enhancing_the_special_editions_of_tie_fighter_and_xwing_as_well_as_xwing_vs_tie_fighter

(to the OP author: yeah I know we already talked about this, this post is for the others)

As far as dosbox and the collector cd versions go, I've just been going to the .conf file, and setting:

resolution=0x0 (this is normally blank)
output=ddraw (this is normally overlay or surface)

if you make that change, collectors cd, xwing/tiefighter will launch at fullscreen without any border issues.

Will this be the dynamic Imuse music from the '93-94' versions ?

Unfortunately no, it's just a medley of the DOS music snippets put in place of the Williams CD tracks.

Hi all,

I just ran across this subject (after years of thinking that the 3D rendering was a casualty of modern graphics processing), and followed the guide above to the letter. When I started up the game, I was met with the error "CreateDxgiSurfaceRenderTarget; No such interface supported". I am running on a Windows 7 virtual machine (VMWare), where everything else (including X-Wing Alliance with the upgrade patch installed) runs fine. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Mongo