(outdated) Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas 1.5.3 file

A while ago we had published a release candidate build for the upcoming release for you folks to test. This phase went fine, so we feel that we are now ready to present you with the new stable version of the mod - Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas 1.5.3!

Just like before, this is an update for our current stable version series - MTA:SA 1.5. Contrary to this definition, it is rather a huge update which contains mostly smaller changes, but makes up for it with the amount of them. A lot of effort was put by @Jusonex and @sbx 20 into cleaning the code and reorganizing the build system, both of which should make it easier for us to maintain MTA:SA's code base and simplify the compilation procedure. However, during the above mentioned RC testing phase we decided to revert some of the code clean-up changes and leave them for a future release due to problems they were causing. We feel it will be better that way as some of these changes simply need more work as they affect a lot of the code base, making it harder to pinpoint other issues that might be discovered. In the meantime, @ccw and @darkdreamingdan had worked on fixing bugs reported by the community. We also had updated several dependencies (third-party components which are used in our mod), including a bunch of utility libraries (such as sqlite, zlib, libpng or libjpeg) and the CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) components. The latter especially is an important change which we had explained further in a separate post and also summarized briefly below.

This update will be slightly troublesome for some of our players who are still using Windows XP and Windows Vista (which is, to be honest, a rather small amount). Regular 1.5.3 build will not work for such users, so we had prepared a legacy build just for them. Furthermore, such users need to be prepared that at some point we might drop support for Windows XP and Windows Vista for our future releases.

Please read this post to learn more about this change and its consequences.

Since the build system was reorganized, a lot of smaller changes which were originally made for 1.6 were also introduced in this version (as long as they were not breaking the compatibility), making it actually one of the biggest releases we have ever made (and also sort of a bridge between 1.5 series and the then-upcoming 1.6 release). You can check the list below for some of the most interesting changes, but we really recommend checking full lists of changes to check whether the feature or function you have always wanted is already available in this release:

• Added support for German Steam version of GTA:SA (thanks to Lakota, Mario and @Sh4dowReturns for feedback)
• Improved streaming of low LOD objects and increased limits
• Multiple popular crashes were fixed
• Code cleanups and improved internal error logging
• MTA:SA will now try to use the native screen resolution when first launched
• Fixed desktop resolution when minimizing with fullscreen borderless window mode
• Added client resource files path info to Advanced tab in Options window
• Added icon for Windows server executable and digitally signed the CEFLauncher executable
• New scripting functions: canBrowserNavigateBack(), canBrowserNavigateForward(), navigateBrowserBack(), navigateBrowserForward() and reloadBrowserPage() (developed by mabako); createTrayNotification() and isTrayNotificationEnabled() (developed by Necktrox); also resizeBrowser(), fileGetPath(), setVehicleWindowOpen() and more...
• Tweaks to dbQuery()/dbExec(), fileRead(), addDebugHook() and more...
• Fixed setBrowserAudio() not muting the sound correctly on some websites e.g. YouTube
• Fixed setCameraTarget() calculation (thanks to lex128)
• setVehiclePlateText() now works with any kind of vehicle, including motorbikes (thanks to lopezloo)
• Added blend parameter for setPedAnimation() (thanks to lex128)
• Added support for objects and weapons in ped damage events (thanks to lopezloo)
• Water elements are now limited to a specific dimension
• Fixed sniper scope disappearing after killing a ped (thanks to lopezloo)
• Fixed MTA sometimes not loading custom textures
• Fixed MTA slowly updating position of attached elements
• Security and performance tweaks for CEF
• Fixed CEF popups (e.g. boxes) not being rendered correctly
• Added option to block server admins who login with an unrecognized serial
• Added duplicate log line filter for script debugging
• Fixed a connecting player being able to block resources from starting
• Tweaked logic of client resource file validation
• Added server logging for redirectPlayer
• Tweaks for admin, missiontimer, race, runcode and webbrowser resources (thanks to Dutchman101, Einheit-101 and PhrozenByte)
• Added map backups for Map Editor and changed its default fps limiter setting value from 36 to 50 (thanks to AleksCore for the latter)
• Removed the no longer needed VS2008 redist package from the installer
• ...and much more!

A complete list of changes can be found here (recommended read) and here (incomplete, from r7816 upwards). List of changes to the resource pack can be found here (starting from and including Feb 18, 2016 upwards).

Please be advised that UltraThing and older versions of ENB series mods are blocked in MTA:SA 1.5.3 due to their incompatibility with the MTA:SA web browser components.

• If you want to use ENB mod in 1.5.3, please update it to a newer version if your current one does not work.
• If, on the other hand, you want to use UltraThing mod in 1.5.3, then just like above - please update it to a newer version (v0.29 or above).

Linux server packages are also available.

This version is backwards compatible with our older 1.5 releases, but we still encourage everyone to update their clients and servers ASAP to ensure, that they benefit from bugfixes, security updates for CEF, performance tweaks or other improvements.

We would like to thank the following community members for their contributions to the MTA:SA source code, resources or feedback for this release:

Aboshanab, AleksCore, braydondavis, Dutchman101, Einheit-101, Lakota, lex128, lopezloo, mabako, Mario, Necktrox, PhrozenByte, qaisjp, rafalh, @Sh4dowReturns, zneext

We hope that you will enjoy this release. Also, please keep in mind that if you encounter a bug or a problem which was not present in previous versions, you can report it to our bugtracker.

--MTA Team