What's the advantage of the collectors cd from 95 vs the 98 version? Aside from iMuse? Are there more missions? Is it easier to complete missions? Is it more stable? What's all the fuss about?

iMuse mostly. However, iMuse is one of the key selling points about the game and really does give a great deal of information on how the mission is going. I have played all the versions when they came out and thought for years the 98 versions was better. It had better graphics and framerates but after going back and playing all the versions again, I feel that the 94 CD version is the best mostly due to iMuse.

In case of TIE Fighter, the following link can help.

http://tempestkappa.isdchallenge.org/tf_versions.htm

Has someone gotten a stable 3d patch working for the 98 version? The one I have locks up (but a similar one for x wing is fine).

I don't exactly understand that article, it's talking about the differences between TIE CD and TIE 95? I thought TIE CD was 95.

The main reason a lot of us feel the Collector's CD version is better than the Special Edition is mainly 2 things:

1) iMUSE - The dynamic music system powers the greatest dynamic sound track of any game ever made. EVER. I know of no game made since that has done this better to date. I was crushed when I found out XvT only had this horrible looping redbook audio track, but was soooooo glad they brought it back in X-Wing Alliance. \o/

2) The missions actually work as intended - In the Special Edition version, they shoe-horned the game onto the XvT engine; This has good and bad points. On the plus side, you get decent DirectInput controls and 3D Acceleration. The minus side the carefully balanced timing of a lot of the missions is totally screwed up because the XvT engine has totally different physics for acceleration/deceleration and laser/projectile speed.

Except they don't.
Dosbox has real problems with Big Ships and Platforms opening fire; set the core to auto and cycles to max (default setting) and the platforms won't open fire in a timely fashion, test it on Combat Chamber tie bomber mission 2, the platform won't open fire on any approaching ships unless you fire first, or sit next to it for a period of time (varies)

Go for normal core or a set number of cycles and you get crappy performance, increase the number of cycles to increase performance and the more cycles you assign you head back into the platform holds its fire scenario.

By TIE 95 he means the 98 version.

True, but this is only because we're trying to run these old games on modern hardware through emulation. The original CD edition running on native DOS on an older machine did not have these issues.

I'm still hoping an ideal setting can be found that will allow the game to be playable while still working as intended.

Ok thanks.