History and Release Timeline
In 2002, Dave Baranec (one of the individuals who worked on FreeSpace 2), released the FreeSpace 2 source on the now-defunct Volition Watch (http://www.volitionwatch.com).
Although the code was missing major components (such as the PXO multiplayer code and the ability to play movies), new features, such as glowpoints, were quickly added. Ship class limits were bumped.
The individual programmers who were making enhancements to the original code soon organized themselves into the FreeSpace Source Code Project and kept on working. Glow mapping, shine mapping, DirectX 8.0 and later OpenGL support, a new multiplayer network system and dozens of new SEXPs have followed over the years.
This is an incomplete timeline of FSO releases, listing the "stable" version next to their notable features.
Version numbers have this general format:
<year>.<minor>.0
The minor starts with 0 for the first release of the year. After that, odd minor numbers indicate nightly builds, and even numbers are release builds.
Trivia: We previously used 3 as the leading number to denote that this is the 3rd incarnation of FreeSpace's engine. FS1 uses 1.0, FS2 uses 2.0, and FSO uses the 3.0 versions. This was changed in 2019 since version numbers didn't mean anything specific and year based versions make more sense for us in general.
| Version | Date | Major Changes |
|---|---|---|
| LZ4 Compression added for game files | ||
| Turrets on moving subobjects enabled | ||
| Changed nebula fog distance from a linear to exponential model | ||
| Fixed bomb intercept in multiplayer | ||
| Removed fireball limit | ||
| Added a dynamic action system for more modder control of effects | ||
| 21.0.0 | 2021/01/27 | Dropped support for Windows XP |
| IPv6 support for multiplayer | ||
| Multiplayer command briefing and cutscenes | ||
| Fixed Primary fire and dumb fire missile firing in multiplayer | ||
| Missile multi-lock | ||
| Added new features to ship lab | ||
| Improve ship handling in SEXP code for better performance | ||
| Improve Lua API with full type information | ||
| Used persistent buffer mapping for uniform buffers | ||
| 19.0.0 | 2020/01/25 | Converted pilot files from custom binary format the JSON |
| Added new, markup based user interface system using libRocket. | ||
| Integrated support for the Discord Rich Presence API | ||
| Various translations improvements | ||
| Exposed the movie player to the scripting API for advanced display features | ||
| Refactored bitmap slot handling and removed the fixed upper limit on the number of bitmaps | ||
| Added support for displaying decals on the surface of an object | ||
| Replaced Blinn-Phong BRDF with GGX BRDF | ||
| Add system for dynamically adding new SEXP operators. This can currently be used to call a Lua function like it would be a normal SEXP with full FRED support | ||
| OpenAL Soft is now included by default in binary distributions of FSO | ||
| Added various translation features to allow better integration of translations into mods without distributing multiple versions for each language. | ||
| Added full Unicode text support | ||
| Multiple smaller OpenGL changes to improve rendering performance | ||
| Model rendering uses uniform buffer for less CPU overhead while rendering | ||
| Animations now use OpenGL texture arrays for improved performance | ||
| 3.8 | 2017/08/22 | FFmpeg for video & audio decoding, including support for H.264 encoded cutscenes |
| Use OpenGL Core Profile for rendering | ||
| TrueType Fonts support for text rendering | ||
| Native particle generation system | ||
| Improved shield effects | ||
| FastDebug build option added (specifically for modders) | ||
| CMake build system | ||
| Configuration (including pilot files) stored in OS native locations | ||
| Portable (or classic) configuration mode | ||
| Registry keys replaced with an ini file (Windows only) | ||
| SDL2.0 support on all platforms | ||
| Physically-Based Rendering | ||
| APNG support | ||
| 3.7.4 | 2016/07/04 | Major graphics update including deferred lighting and shadows |
| Enhanced sound (up to 128 channels) | ||
| "Tons" of bugfixes | ||
| 3.7.2 | 2015/04/24 | MediaVPs 2014 support |
| Unstretched interface screens | ||
| Automatically non stretched HUD gauges and simpler modder options for placing HUD gauges | ||
| Autospread and model point shields | ||
| WebUI based multiplayer standalone server (for non-Windows platforms) | ||
| 3.7.0 | 2013/09/01 | New Flexible Pilot Save File Code (combines single/multi pilots & allows safe switching between unfinished campaigns) |
| 3.6.18 | 2013/03/01 | Fix for critical damage bug in 3.6.16 |
| 3.6.16 | 2013/01/06 | Diaspora TC support |
| Performance Improvements (go_even_faster) | ||
| 3.6.14 | 2012/10/23 | Major HUD gauges overhaul |
| 3.6.12 | 2010/08/03 | |
| 3.6.10 | 2009/07/20 | |
| 3.6.0 | 2004/05/12 | |
| 3.5.0 | 2003/02/25 | |
| 3.3.0 | 2002/11/10 | |
| 3.2.0 | 2002/08/12 | |
| 3.1.0 | 2002/08/04 | |
| 3.0.0 | 2002/06/03 |