European Air War in 2019

[Sky High 166]

In response to RIBoB's clarion call for some commentary here, in order to broaden the appeal of this olden, but golden,  game, I include some screenshots of how Version 1.60 looks for me now in D3D 1920x1080 widescreen, with an nVidia 660ti on Windows 7 and run through DGVoodoo 2, with ReShade 4 added (not sure if the latter has any actual effect rather than in my imagination):

[Stratos 3,192]

The old lady still looks good, isn't it?

[Sky High 166]

Mouse-emulation TrackIR with a track-clip (I use the sturdy DelanClip) works well. I'm no expert, but the FM's feel fairly right. It's easy to know you're in a Typhoon, for example, rather than a Spit and there seems a nice balance between opposing plane capabilities. The AI, in my opinion, is still better than most. And the sheer number of planes in the air is only matched by BoBII. Easy to spot them too. It's also a bonus that an impatient player can put himself in the thick of frenetic action within seconds.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Sky High

[Stratos 3,192]

I would like to have such a beautiful install, those clean graphics, one click install, pure EAW madness.

[Sky High 166]

39 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I would like to have such a beautiful install, those clean graphics, one click install, pure EAW madness.

 

The 1.60 version is available over at SimHQ and is a very straightforward install. It contains multiple theatres and terrains. If you have an nvidia card and you're on Win 7, it helps. With Win 7, you can get widescreen on D3D, with horizon fog, using DGVoodoo 2. Also, by using 4x Multisampling and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling via nVidia Inspector, one eliminates terrain shimmering.

 

The terrain in my screenshots is not included in 1.60. It is Saggin B's 512x512 HR ETO terrain, available at Sandbagger's 'Tally Ho' site, which I added. Likewise, the sky is one by Keibin, available at Tally Ho, also. Additionally, I added in what I think are more historical gunsights (have a little JSGME-ready mod for that, if you're interested).

 

Postscript: Stratos, do I correctly remember you from being one of the old EAW people from some years ago?

Edited January 4, 2019 by Sky High

[Stratos 3,192]

Yes I am, I joined just in time for the great move from Frugals to SimHq.

[RIBob 39]

That certainly does look nice!  I'll need to look into the ground/terrain mods, at least, and thanks for the suggestions about the settings for the graphics card.  I am using nGlide to get the horizon mist, and it looks very much like that I see in your screen shots.

[Sky High 166]

18 minutes ago, RIBob said:

That certainly does look nice!  I'll need to look into the ground/terrain mods, at least, and thanks for the suggestions about the settings for the graphics card.  I am using nGlide to get the horizon mist, and it looks very much like that I see in your screen shots.

However, one cannot get true widescreen with Glide, only a 'stretched' version. It goes without saying that proper widescreen greatly improves the playability and appearance of a flight sim. Unfortunately, if you're on Win 8 or 10, I don't think DGVoodoo can be used to get the horizon fog on D3D. If you have a Radion graphics card, the fog is obtainable in d3d, as far as I know.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Sky High

[Jel 37]

I have just been re-visiting the railway code in 1.29 and 160.
These pics are from a 160 test, all with the same planeset and "ETO with barges...." theatre, running a mixed interdiction in a 190A just for screenies.
Mixed interdictions replaced railway interdictions, with convoys running on tracks, some which are visible and some which are not.

Target "Chelveston" to check the trains on the four parallel tracks, some which run in opposite directions:

Target "Foreness" where there are multiple, and different ship convoys:

Target "London" with barges on the Thames:

All of the tracks are in the stock "EAW_RRD.DAT" file, but I made use of some previously unused values in it, and I think that was originally done in 1.28F.

I am not sure how many people have tried this experimental theatre which was really just created to test that the code worked.
A number of the MGOs came from Col Gibbon.

Jel

[RIBob 39]

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 5:49 PM, Sky High said:

 However, one cannot get true widescreen with Glide, only a 'stretched' version. It goes without saying that proper widescreen greatly improves the playability and appearance of a flight sim. Unfortunately, if you're on Win 8 or 10, I don't think DGVoodoo can be used to get the horizon fog on D3D. If you have a Radion graphics card, the fog is obtainable in d3d, as far as I know.

The question is, I suppose, what benefits does DVVoodoo and the shader program mentioned above confer?  Like you, I am using V1.28e, but probably without many/most of the mods you have installed into your version.  If you would go into much greater detail about the mods you have selected for your V1.28e, being very specific about the individual mods, and where they can be obtained, I'd be much obliged.

That said, I am always willing --no, eager-- to investigate methods that will enhance my EAW sim, and possibly other sims as well.

I did install a "Widescreen Fix" into a version of Crimson Skies, and the "Fix" certainly enhanced the visual aspect of the sim.  Perhaps this is possible with judicial application of similar "fixes" to other games.

Currently running an old  Dell OptiPlex 760 with Core Two Duo processor, Win 7x64, RAM maxed put at 8GB, and Nvidea 710 graphics card.  Surprisingly, this rig will play IL-2 Stormovik with all video/graphics options maxxed out, so it is not as bad as it first appears.  

Edited January 7, 2019 by RIBob

[Sky High 166]

RIBob, I have had EAW running in widescreen in D3D for quite a while. As I have an nVidia 660ti graphics card, this meant I had no Horizon Fog. I partly alleviated this by judicious use of hill files which obscured the horizon and made flying tolerable to me. However, sea and ocean views could not be helped by this partial workaround. 

DGVoodoo 2 only gives me the following two advantages:

1). By setting it to run d3d (not glide), after having put the contents of the DGVoodoo MS folder into the main EAW Directory, along with the DGVoodoo exe and conf files,  and then selecting the GeForce 5700 Ultra as the emulated video-card, I get the Horizon Fog in d3d.

2). The second dubious advantage is that, on Win 7 or older OS's, DGVoodoo 2 enables the use of ReShade 4 in DirectX-6 games. I say dubious, because although it seems to work in EAW (one gets the distinctive ReShade text in the screens), I'm not sure if there are any real graphic improvements.

Another small benefit from DGVoodoo is that it eliminates the psychedelic screens. Instead, one gets a pronounced mouse-cursor lag, but this is a mild problem.

Incidentally, widescreen is easily available in EAW, simply by changing the resolution in the eawini-I have mine set to 1920x1080. 

The mods I am using in my custom install, off the top of my head, include Great Shot II; Saggin B's 512x512 HR terrains; Keibin's skies;  the Mod Squad HR planes and various speech packs. All these are available at Sandbagger's 'Tally Ho' site over at SimHQ. I use the JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler (available via Google-click) to install and uninstall the various mods. Von Oben's site contains many quality mods for EAW, also, particularly terrains and ground objects. There are many links to various mods and installations at Mark's site, also. Not to mention an enormous amount of invaluable information.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Sky High

[RIBob 39]

2 hours ago, Sky High said:

RIBob, I have had EAW running in widescreen in D3D for quite a while. As I have an nVidia 660ti graphics card, this meant I had no Horizon Fog. I partly alleviated this by judicious use of hill files which obscured the horizon and made flying tolerable to me. However, sea and ocean views could not be helped by this partial workaround. 

DGVoodoo 2 only gives me the following two advantages:

1). By setting it to run d3d (not glide), after having put the contents of the DGVoodoo MS folder into the main EAW Directory, along with the DGVoodoo exe and conf files,  and then selecting the GeForce 5700 Ultra as the emulated video-card, I get the Horizon Fog in d3d.

2). The second dubious advantage is that, on Win 7 or older OS's, DGVoodoo 2 enables the use of ReShade 4 in DirectX-6 games. I say dubious, because although it seems to work in EAW (one gets the distinctive ReShade text in the screens), I'm not sure if there are any real graphic improvements.

Another small benefit from DGVoodoo is that it eliminates the psychedelic screens. Instead, one gets a pronounced mouse-cursor lag, but this is a mild problem.

Incidentally, widescreen is easily available in EAW, simply by changing the resolution in the eawini-I have mine set to 1920x1080. 

The mods I am using in my custom install, off the top of my head, include Great Shot II; Saggin B's 512x512 HR terrains; Keibin's skies;  the Mod Squad HR planes and various speech packs. All these are available at Sandbagger's 'Tally Ho' site over at SimHQ. I use the JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler (available via Google-click) to install and uninstall the various mods. Von Oben's site contains many quality mods for EAW, also, particularly terrains and ground objects. There are many links to various mods and installations at Mark's site, also. Not to mention an enormous amount of invaluable information.

I typically run EAW using D3d Wrapper, and set resolution within the wrapper to figures for H x W slightly less than 1080 X 1920; native resolution of my monitor is 1080 x 1920.  Doing so allows as much of the sim as possible within the window within which it plays.  The outside edges of the window are the inside edges of my monitor.  I use the windowed setting (in wrapper) because I can toggle a frame rate meter, showing effects of various add-ons which I install/delete via JSGME, which is embedded within that particular version of EAW (my "test" version), and which has an effect only on that particular game.  I mention all this for the benefit of others who may be unfamiliar with the particular wrapper, the JSGME, or both.  In addition, I use the nGlide program to obtain the horizon haze.

You, obviously a more experienced EAW player, probably have a different set-up, not to mention a better computer.  I plan to obtain a vastly better computer at some point in the future, wherein a Virtual Machine will reside, and on which I can experiment with various forms of TrackIR.  the latter is currently impossible with my current graphics card, and there are none that I know of that are better and that will fit within the small form computer that I'm currently using.

In the meantime, I would be obliged if you would offer constructive criticism of what I have so far.  As you can tell from my comments in this and other threads, I am quite new at all this flight sim stuff, not to mention EAW.

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by RIBob

[MarkEAW 63]

SkyHigh,
The ReShade, I'm un certain if its making a difference.
You should be-able to launch EAW with and with out the Reshade thing being active to obtain screen comparison shots?

I know the up converted DX code dgvoodoo2 uses shades (dll) allows for the fog to be viewable in WinVista/7 with a DX10  (or11 I forget which) video card.

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by MarkEAW

[Sky High 166]

3 hours ago, MarkEAW said:

SkyHigh,
The ReShade, I'm un certain if its making a difference.
You should be-able to launch EAW with and with out the Reshade thing being active to obtain screen comparison shots?

I know the up converted DX code dgvoodoo2 uses shades (dll) allows for the fog to be viewable in WinVista/7 with a DX10  (or11 I forget which) video card.

 

 

I was having difficulty myself figuring out whether it was making a difference. Your solution is so obvious, I feel thick for not having thought of it. I'll post some comparisons later in order for others to decide.

[MarkEAW 63]

come on. Your joking. :)

I said that , but I don't know how easy it is to enable and disable that Reshade. 

I'll have to read up on about it.

 

Looking forward to your comparison shots. :)

 

BTW There is another post processing effects program:

I tried SweetFX, it ran EAW with it, but I was unable to produce any improvements in it, I primarily tried to display split screens to see if it would work but couldn't.
It might be because of two things wrong; EAW runs a 16 bit graphic engine and a less than DX9 game (eaw uses 6 or 7).
According to the SweetFX instructions, you need a 32 bit game with DX9 (which emulation uses) for the effects to work, I guess.
I'm no expert nor did I try to set my nvidia control panel to the maximum settings.

You guys might have some luck with it.

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by MarkEAW

[Sky High 166]

It is claimed that DGVoodoo 2 can enable ReShade 4 in DX 6 games, provided one has a DX10 or higher Graphics Card. All I can say for certain is that the ReShade text appears on the 2d screens.

 

I attach some files for comparison. The first two without ReShade. The third and fourth, with it:

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by Sky High

[MarkEAW 63]

I can't tell with those screenshots, no planes close up.

However I tried ReShade on Windows 10 with EAW with and without the DXWND Wrapper. I really didn't notice anything either in that configuration.

Maybe someone with a better eye can tell?

[Sky High 166]

I would expect the effects, such as Bloom, fake-HDR and ambient lighting, to have an effect on the environment more than on the planes themselves. Frankly, I'm becoming increasingly sceptical whether there are any effects. There's nothing revolutionary going on, that's for sure.

Still, anyone unfamiliar with European Air War, or who has lost contact with it since its heyday, should be pleasantly surprised at the graphical quality achievable in its present iteration, as demonstrated by various screenshots in this thread. Maybe, we might catch a new player or two. To be borne in mind is that, in this game, gameplay has always taken precedence over outward appearance and this remains so, but it is a major bonus to have it looking well.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Sky High

[MarkEAW 63]

I have my doubts that its working with the DX6 code in EAW. If nothing more than some already working AA video settings.

EAW seems to have some effects that are native to EAW's code that it will take advantage of if its avalable like Table Fog or even Vertex Fog (I think one is hardware supported the other is software driven).
I tried to find out a few times the type of other effects EAW has built in thats a video card panel settings could activate, but I either got no answer or info I already knew. So basically no help or understanding.

 

 

[VonBeerhofen 63]

I don't see any differences here Skyhigh, not even with my own computers. It looks standard to me, nothing extra besides the mods ofcourse. Ambient lighting is preset in the game, just did some fun experiments with it, anything else you mention I haven't seen in the game code and when it's not in the code it'll do zilch.

Ofcourse one can program new graphics features but to incorporate them into the 3D world is very unlikely, I don't think anyone has much knowledge on DirectX and it's functions, or Glide and D3D graphics routines. The manuals for these libraries are well over a few 1000 pages and as hard to learn as a new programming language. Just my thoughts

VonBeerhofen

Edited January 12, 2019 by VonBeerhofen

[Sky High 166]

VBH, I'd say you're right. So, I'm only wasting resources. It's interesting to hear about 'ambient lighting'-what potential might it have?

[MarkEAW 63]

Well SweetFX and Reshade are post processing, meaning they build on whats there and add additional graphical features. But I'm seeing that the DX6-7 code is not supported or the weird 32 bit eaw.exe is not either.

Again like VBH says, we need a programmer that can code in graphical API's. I personally wouldn't want much (not much in the sense of modern games) just the benefits of DX9 or 10 code would make me happy. So we can loose this compatibility crap (not all crap, some of Windows OSs fixes work well). But the wrappers could be dropped to0. Thus no extra overhead.

Then new menu screens and configuration screens can be properly added, perhaps liven up the object view to proper standards, or just removed from the code all together.

But EAW is great now if you want to deal with all the workarounds and extra overhead.

This post may sound like I'm putting EAW down, but I'm not, as my help site has had a lot of hard work put into it to keep players around to actually use the game.

 

[VonBeerhofen 63]

I'm just trying to stay away from cumbersome workarounds by using ancient computers. Picked em up from the street, :)

There's a boatload of unused possibillities in DirectX 6 but the problem is to figure out how to activate them in the 3D world. Possibly some of these could be simply incorporated into some of EAW's routines, but which ones is hard to figure out and very time consuming, the more so because we can only go by trial and error when the full workings of the program isn't fully understood.

I'm experimenting with limited success but it's fun and educational and sometimes there is a small success which opens a world of possibillities. Skyhigh, as for the ambience effect I can only think of weather effects like thunder and lightning and I've already started on that. Ofcourse rain is an entirely different thing which could be a screen overlay or a sprites or particles effect. That can only be done using hardware accelleration as I doubt a software solution for millions of droplets will bring the game to a halt.

Furthermore there is a possibility to give a user control over the light color and intensity but I simply don't like that idea, more variation is feasable but I don't really see it'll add to what's already there. The latest EAWPRO already contains one ambience effect in the cockpit but I don't want to spoil the surprise when people encounter it. Call it an easter egg but for me as most things it's just playing with possibillities and try to understand how it works.

Mark, which ever programmer would be allowed to mess with the source, he'd still have to figure out how the Source Code works and how and where to embed extra possibillities. I consider myself a decent programmer with 35 years of experience but after 10+ years of messing with stuff I'm only marginally wiser as to how things work and I'm still just trying to have some fun. Figuring out the entire game is a massive undertaking and only for lunatics who have nothing else on their hands anyway.

I won't rule out some extra cool upgrades but it is very slow going and we're not getting any younger.

VBH 

[RIBob 39]

On ‎1‎/‎13‎/‎2019 at 9:14 AM, VonBeerhofen said:

I'm just trying to stay away from cumbersome workarounds by using ancient computers. Picked em up from the street, :)

There's a boatload of unused possibillities in DirectX 6 but the problem is to figure out how to activate them in the 3D world. Possibly some of these could be simply incorporated into some of EAW's routines, but which ones is hard to figure out and very time consuming, the more so because we can only go by trial and error when the full workings of the program isn't fully understood.

I'm experimenting with limited success but it's fun and educational and sometimes there is a small success which opens a world of possibillities. Skyhigh, as for the ambience effect I can only think of weather effects like thunder and lightning and I've already started on that. Ofcourse rain is an entirely different thing which could be a screen overlay or a sprites or particles effect. That can only be done using hardware accelleration as I doubt a software solution for millions of droplets will bring the game to a halt.

Furthermore there is a possibility to give a user control over the light color and intensity but I simply don't like that idea, more variation is feasable but I don't really see it'll add to what's already there. The latest EAWPRO already contains one ambience effect in the cockpit but I don't want to spoil the surprise when people encounter it. Call it an easter egg but for me as most things it's just playing with possibillities and try to understand how it works.

Mark, which ever programmer would be allowed to mess with the source, he'd still have to figure out how the Source Code works and how and where to embed extra possibillities. I consider myself a decent programmer with 35 years of experience but after 10+ years of messing with stuff I'm only marginally wiser as to how things work and I'm still just trying to have some fun. Figuring out the entire game is a massive undertaking and only for lunatics who have nothing else on their hands anyway.

I won't rule out some extra cool upgrades but it is very slow going and we're not getting any younger.

VBH 

VB, you have always treated me right, both in private and in public.  May I suggest, in like manner, that you are selling yourself--and your creations-- short.  Many players of the various EAW sims, of which yours is a part, have more modern computers.  In some cases, the players of EAW need to use alternative computers using obsolescent Operating Systems to get to play EAW.

Most people are using Win 10 right now, and maybe an ancient computer running Win 7.  That's not going to cut it for people trying to get into the game.  That's part of the problem why there are fewer and fewer players of EAW, and its' variants.  Inaccessibility is the initial problem--where to get a running copy of EAW, for instance, onto which to download your creation?

And then jump through hoops to get it to run?  For those who haven't seen your creation, that's asking a lot.  Sure, I know it's worth it, but problem is that the newbies don't know it.

VB, my friend--if I may presume to call you my friend-- I believe it is in your best interest, as well as the best interest of the EAW community to think about how users of more modern Operating Systems can easily access your work product.  Certainly MarkEAW's Help site can play a part.

Perhaps it might be possible to incorporate a Win 10-useable portion of your creation with a useable base EAW program already incorporated?  I will bet that if you offered a stand-alone, one-download, version of your creation, as opposed to asking the potential user to find a suitable "donor" version of EAW, you might do better.

It bears mentioning that a more modern computer would certainly save you a considerable amount of time-- perhaps a great deal of time.  You could probably "see" your creations in a fraction of the time it now takes your older computer to render them.  You say--correctly-- that time is short for many of us.  So why waste your valuable time using an old, slow computer?

I submit this with all the best wishes, and as a friend.  I--and many-- look forward to your continued contributions to EAW.

Edited March 17, 2019 by RIBob

[VonBeerhofen 63]

RiBob,

Anyone who means good to others can call me a friend. I have my reasons for sticking with my ancient computer, one is to stay aware of possible framerate and memory limitations, another is to stay in the same ball park as my online group of pilots who're also using old XP machines. EAW proofed to be a PITA to install on my much better Vista computer and although it was working there were a few things I didn't like, even though I particularly bought it to be used exclusively for EAW.

The creative tools I'm using don't work very well in Vista either and besides that I'm tired of learning new operating systems and spending my much needed savings on something which I know will not give me a better experience, especially not in our online games.

My needs for enjoying EAW aren't excessive and have never been very important to me, however I do have all the stuff which are being displayed in the many screenshots you see in seperate installs of the old addons, from which most of it came, but it's not even close to my own creations for The Final Cut addon which is tested by the online group of pilots I fly with dayly.

Sadly my standard is much higher then most people when it comes to 3D models and there aren't many who can produce what I want, in fact there isn't anyone anymore really. So I satisfy myself with what I do have without dimished enthousiasm due to having to use a low end system, it works great and does what I need it to do. Besides I'm more of an EAW programmer then an EAW gamer but the two are complimenting each other nicely and provide me with sufficient amounts of fun and that's what it's all about right?

VonBeerhofen

Edited March 18, 2019 by VonBeerhofen