Re-discovering WoE.........again!

[Sakai 2]

I have been away from WoE for a while now. The reasoning is that I just got a new lap top in March that I asked a few combatace folks for help in deciding on which to purchase. Well, the one I ended up getting has Win7 and I wasn't sure if WoE would even run with the 64 bit programming and all, plus the fact that it only has integrated graphics. In the meantime, I have been flying a fully modded IL2 install equipped with UP 2.01 and flying online all the time. Between IL2 binges it was X-Plane and FSX with a ton of add on aircraft. All of these sims have very acceptable FPS and look pretty good in the process. Granted I can't turn the graphics all the way up but the compromise isn't bad at all and I enjoy them all very much. Well, today I finally got the courage and installed WoV and WoE in a merged install. I placed them in the C: folder to avoid any program files issues that arose with Vista and went to town. I had an nVidia 8600GT with 512MB of RAM in my old desktop, with XP SP3, a 1.8 Ghz Athlon, and (eek!) 748MB of RAM. Graphics were good but performance was lack luster in FSX to say the least and I didn't have X-Plane yet. The laptop has a dual core setup with twin Intel 2.2 Ghz processors, 3 GB of RAM, and the aforementioned integrated graphics that can pull up to 1 GB for it's graphics needs. Not only do SF1 series sims run GREAT, but the look pretty good too.

 

Strangely enough, during all the modding a tinkering I have done with the series in the past, I had never installed the excellent NATO Fighters mod over at the Column5's site. All I can say is, WOW, AMAZING, WOW again!!!!! I haven't had so much fun with this sim, it's just great. The reason is I had gotten the sim installed, merged, and patched up to current specs. I then went to the downloads section here and was just crushed by the task ahead of me. To get this install up to the quality of my previous installs just seemed like a hugely time consuming task where I would spend more time surfing the net for downloads then actually flying.

 

I remembered the extensive list of effects, aircraft, terrain, environment, and campaign mods that are listed with all four versions of NATO fighters and realized, "hey, this has everything I need, and if not I can work from here!". So off I went, down loaded the files, installed them and WOW. Just amazing, I am really having a good time. My biggest problem before was that I had all of these cool aircraft but still had the same old campaigns where I didn't get to fly anything different, but the bad guys sure did. All of the different Air Forces with all the different squadrons and aircraft to fly through four dynamic campaigns, heaven! I have just started to break the ice with this fantastic mod, but I am sure there are many more great hours of flying to come. So, to celebrate my new found happiness, here are some screen shots of all the fun I've been having today!

 

 

This is in the Canadair Sabre making short work of a Mig-17 in a dogfight where the two winders came home with me!

 

Here I am in a Tornado IDS egressing from a strike right through the middle of town.

 

Here are the second element of my first flight, an F-4E and F-4C doing the SEAD thing.

 

Here I am with the Tornado again, this time from inside the pit.

 

Here is the lead, me, of the flight in the earlier pic, checking out the magic floating camera and displaying my kills!

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Wellcome back. How do you like Win~7 so far?

 

I went the other way, put stuff in an old 45lb steel server case, looks half empty.

 

 

I then went to the downloads section here and was just crushed by the task ahead of me. To get this install up to the quality of my previous installs just seemed like a hugely time consuming task where I would spend more time surfing the net for downloads...

You didn't have a backup.

[Sakai 2]

no, no I didn't. Learned a valuable lesson in that as well, always back up your HD. A virus got into my old puter and somehow managed to mess up my BIOS. As I understand it, isn't the BIOS written on it's own little chip on the mother board so if something like this happens, you can back up from it? Well, mine was smoked, and after a lot of tinkering and re-booting, I got it to run, but with none of my files saved. And then, the morning I got my taxes back, it went total blue screen on me and died. Fortunately I was going to get a new puter anyway, so it worked out. But, lesson learned, back up, back up, back up!!!

 

As for Windows 7, I must say that before I got it I was skeptical, after the whole Vista release fiasco. So originally I was looking for an XP machine. But, after considering the fact that I also wanted to get a multi-core processor, I figured it was best to get a machine equipped with Win7 to best take advantage of this. When I first started using the OS, I was impressed. It worked seamlessly, and without any hiccups, which surprised me. Now that I've been using it for a few months, I am happier with it then I ever was. It works amazingly! I must say, I haven't been this totally content with an OS since Win95! LOL, XP was great too, so no smack talking there, but I am very happy with SeVeN!

Edited June 3, 2010 by Sakai

[column5 63]

Glad you have discovered and are enjoying NATO Fighters. It is a monument to the huge number of talented people who contributed so much of their time over the years to make the individual mods.

 

If you can buy a copy of SF2E, you'll enjoy NF4+ as well!

 

c5

[Sakai 2]

Wow, speak of the devil! And an outstanding achievement it is. I would like to say thanks to you for putting this all together, and thanks to you column5, for putting all of this together!

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

My guess: You've probably heard of BIOS flashing software, which can be done directly with bootable drive (floppy, thumb, etc...) without Windows, or flashing the BIOS through Windows although the hardware forums say that's unreliable. Never tried either myself. So your virus maybe got teh Windows to flash the chip in a bad way (think of re-programmable chips in cars, but not in beat up old trucks).

 

On the other hand, I have a fairly recent Gigabyte motherboard which sports two (2) BIOSes, the second being a backup that cannot be flashed -- I assume. You hit that button on the board and it flashes the primary BIOS to the basic factory default I guess how it works. Interesting discussion with some on this 2nd BIOS here...

 

 

tnc777::

You can mark my words on that. Gigabytes dual bios has proven to me very quickly what a valuable feature having a corruption proof second bios is. All high end boards should have this feature.

To sum up:

 

 

~ http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268273-30-gigabyte-790fxta-790fx-gd70-noob-build

 

I've never had to use that feature.