EAW available at GOG.com!

[phispooky 15]

https://www.gog.com/game/european_air_war
And currently at a nice 65% discount

[+gerwin 451]

Good to know. Commander Keen is finally on GOG too. ;)

[Sky High 166]

I can confirm that it works on Windows 7. It is based on the original 1.28 exe. 

Hopefully, it will bring some new people to the game and bring back some who might have given up on it due to XP and nVidia incompatibilities.

[MarkEAW 63]

If they get there controls worked out, since EAWv1.28 had a brief period of having poor control support. They should have fun with the game once the controls are worked out.

v1.28 should be using the same control setup as v1.2, now that I've read my site.
If you post in the GOG EAW forum, could you link my main page?
as they are only reading the joystick help doc and not the troubleshoot doc, where the controls help is very much extended.

($9.99 was the price, last I checked its 50% off.)

Edited February 14, 2021 by MarkEAW

[Wrench 9,845]

Never had it before, now I"m going to give it a try!!

[MarkEAW 63]

Tell us of your experience with it.

If you make it out of configuring the game and controllers, and perhaps a bit of eaw.ini manipulation.....

The Campaign is probably the funnest part, but its time consuming. Instant missions are a blast / Manually Configured missions are good too. :)

[Sky High 166]

6 hours ago, Wrench said:

Never had it before, now I"m going to give it a try!!

Loads of mods available, which should work and it should be easy to convert to more developed versions of 1.28.

[MarkEAW 63]

There are old addons and mods from 15 to 20 years ago that should work with the community made v1.28. (Anything that works for the official v1.2)

Without looking. I think your talking about the higher revisions of 1.28, like 1.28a, b , c, d. Those, yes will need some type of conversion, but who really knows the specifics anymore. :(

It would take research and trial and error. I do know though that some addons are already converted for the later revisions.

[MarkEAW 63]

I posted this on SimHQ, but I was wondering if the DX Wrapper is just off the shelf wrapper downloaded off the internet?

I was hoping someone can identify the author / programmer of the wrapper used by GOG?

So I could perform more test using that wrapper if I could get it from the authors web site or code site.
Since it seems to work better than the ones that I have already used, based on what three others mentioned about it.

IDK, if someone can look into this for me since I don't use gog or anything like it, if they can determine where the directx wrapper came from that gog is using with EAW?

[MarkEAW 63]

So the DirectX (DirectDraw) Wrapper is a gog made wrapper , apparently.
The other three wrappers they include are all available on the web.
Included are the IPX Direct Input and NGlide 3dfx wrappers.

I updated my web site in two locations to include support for the GoG eaw game, at least what I know about it. Which is not too much, but there is not much need to know thats different from the prevous info I have on my site.
This page has specific info on the GOG EAW:
https://eaw.neocities.org/first-use.html

There are many other files included but they are part of the GoG GUI and server cloud, and uninstallers. The game can be made portable and I included a file listing of the important ones on my help site.
This page has GOG File List:
https://eaw.neocities.org/install.html

Everything is temporary at the moment , until I find out more.

[Stratos 3,188]

The HOTAS controls does not work properly. But any mod pack works perfectly, so is more a base to install any of the available packs.

[MarkEAW 63]

Yeah the HOTAS won't, some very old ones might that have gameport on them may.
But the modern ones wont. It still uses EAWv1.2 control support.

The game add-on packs may work well, but with the directdraw wrapper , the larger ones may run slow. It all depends too which OS your using, like win7 or win10.

 

[MarkEAW 63]

Apparently there is no slow down from the add-on packs, or other add-ons like skins, terrains etc. that work for v1.2 thus for 1.28-GOG.

Some of the Joystick issues where resolved with removing dinput.dll from the gog eaw game folder.

It defiantly runs better than the code groups 128 or any version after that. It seems to support DX7 rather than 5/6, thus allowing some benefits of performance, such as High frames per second.
I don't know for sure about the DX code being updated or hacked in, but the performance is defiantly there. I get 34 fps in codegroups 128(and later versions) and 64fps in 128-GOG. Not too mention newly restored fog support.
I just wish Retroism would share the changes they made in-order to help the other community versions out there to run better.

Anyone else get the GoG re-release?

[MarkEAW 63]

Better get it quick, before they roll back to the official v1.2 (from the un-official v1.28). It may happen very soon now.

Make a copy of the game too in case its a delete and re download.

[DrAquidel 2]

On 3/13/2021 at 7:34 AM, MarkEAW said:

Better get it quick, before they roll back to the official v1.2 (from the un-official v1.28). It may happen very soon now.

Make a copy of the game too in case its a delete and re download.

They have rolled back to the official 1.2 version.

[MarkEAW 63]

Did GoG give the eaw.exe the super touch that they gave 128?

Such as, updated DX code and enhanced frames per second, with Horizon Fog in D3D mode, etc.....?

[MarkEAW 63]

So since no one with the GoG version replied and I have since found out. The answer is yes, they gave the MPS v1.2 the super update to the eaw.exe itself. (the same as they did too the unofficial 128).

Two issues though: Since this is based on Microprose EAWv1.2,  the Field of View for 1024x768 is narrow, and the selection screen mouse clicking is extremely fast and annoying to get the parameter selection you want.

The FOV is best at I think for v1.2 was/is 800x600.

Now if Gog / Retroism can correct these two functions of the eaw.exe then the game would be more than super. I would love to have wide view at 1024x768 like 128 does (and EAWPRO does this too).

[DrAquidel 2]

There is a patch posted at SimHQ:

https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4561875/all/patch-for-owners-of-the-gog-release-of-eaw

From what I read includes the GoG 1.28 version that was original release.

[MarkEAW 63]

.....and what is the point of that post follow up?

Edited April 18, 2021 by MarkEAW

[DrAquidel 2]

4 hours ago, MarkEAW said:

 I would love to have wide view at 1024x768 like 128 does (and EAWPRO does this too).

My last post is simply a response to what you wrote. I guess that the GoG 128 has the wide FOV too.

[MarkEAW 63]

All EAW versions have a wide FOV. It just depends on the resolution your using.
The widen resolution, shows more this side of the cockpit frame, seeing more sky than you would at non-wide resolutions.

128 has it wide at 1024x768, however 12 has it at 800x600, which is unfortunate. Other higher res at wide too.

EAWPRO (based on 12) has it at 1024x768 with zoom in and out....or pilot seat forward and back I guess.

1024x768 is an advised/playable resolution typically. I use that res most of all.
But one can read the help information on my site regarding FOV and POV and RES, and experiment with their own EAW game.