Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War (demo)

Volition / Interplay, 1998. Four-mission demo (training + campaign start). Registered as freespace_demo.

Fixture and install (headless)

• Source: test/binaries/win98-games-a-d/Descent-Freespace-sdemo10-SW-Glide.exe, a WinZip SFX around an InstallShield 5 Disk1 (16-bit SETUP.EXE).
• 7z x it; run SETUP.EXE with --vfs-include='*' --tick-ms-per-batch=5 --capture-launch=cap (at 200 ms/batch the 16-bit launcher's splash timer quits before _INST32I.EX_ is expanded) -> _ins0576._mp.
• Run that from the capture (--exe-guest-path, --vfs-tree=cap, frozen --control), Next x4, step to "Setup Complete", with --save-vfs-prefix='c:\games': 6 files + data\, 39 MB, in C:\Games\FreeSpaceDemo. Kept at Descent-Freespace demo-SW/installed; node tools/gen-win98-games-a-d-manifests.js writes its manifest.
• fs.exe is the game (DDRAW, DINPUT, MSACM32...); freespace.exe is the launcher/configurator.

What it needed (2026-10-06)

1. acmGetVersion (bc86ea02): not an API before; the import trapped.
2. Monotonic QueryPerformanceCounter (64355808): its timer (exe+0x438cf0) resets its base whenever QPC goes backwards; ours could, across guest threads (per-instance sub-ms counter), so the frame limiter at exe+0x411980 computed a negative elapsed time and slept 31.9M ms in flight. Now one process-wide count.

It warns "Could not properly initialize the Microsoft ADPCM codec" (no ACM codecs are installed here) and offers to continue: dlg-cmd:6 (Yes).

Route (CLI, default clock)

--input=60000:dlg-cmd:6, then at ~200K batches type a callsign (VIPER) and Enter -> main hall; click the ready-room door (380,310) -> Training Mission 01 briefing; COMMIT (595,440) -> in flight. The directive "Target Instructor - Press T": T targets the GTF Apollo instructor (target box, target panel, directive cleared).

Evidence: scratch/runs/20261006-freespace-demo-target.

Open

Audio (missing MS-ADPCM ACM codec), FPS, browser route.