Charlie 14

I'm playing around in Jan's terrain mod in FE2 with "Solid Object Texture Material" settings; BLEND_DST_ALPHA, BLEND_SRC_ALPHA, using WIN7x64...Just out of curiosity, what other entries are available under the "BLENDOP=" setting? I ask because I've been trying to tweak the flashing building phenomena through in game and video card settings on a new rig and, well, I'm curious what is going on with the cities.

I've been trying to get the upper hand in FE2 and actually survive a campaign flying on, "Hard," settings with stock flight models...Managed to eek out 11 missions still alive with 3rd RFC (RAF?) Flying Sopwith Camels before being withdrawn due to overwhelming casualties, 8 out of 11 missions successful, and damn near everyone dead or wounded...This may be, for me anyway, TK's roughest sim yet, and I haven't even touched Peter's flight models yet. We didn't even make it into December...Yikes...

Good info...The more I monkey with this the more I learn, albiet in fits and starts, but it really is fun tweaking with it when things fall into place. There is a logic to it that is gratifying somehow...

You know, I find this code stuff almost as entertaining as the sim, in an obsessive-compulsive kinda way...Anyway, by way of explanation, here are my settings, I'm using Jan's terrain, Shrike's sky, some effects/smoke, Tailspin's worn airfield, etc., on an XP system with a Nvidea 7600GS, most everything set on "Good" or whatever just below "Unlimited is: [NormalTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=FALSE AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [WaterTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=WaterEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=TRUE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularColor=1.000000,1.000000,0.900000,1.000000 SpecularPower=1.000000lol ZBufferOffset=4.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=2 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE TextureStage[02].TextureName= TextureStage[02].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[02].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[02].ReflectionMapping=TRUE TextureStage[02].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_BLEND_TEXTURE_ALPHA TextureStage[02].StageAlphaOp=DIFFUSE [backgroundMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=FarTerrainEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=FALSE AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [solidObjectTextureMaterial] DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=false AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000 ZBufferOffset=2.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE Fade=NORMAL StartFadeDistance=50.0 EndFadeDistance=50.0 OK, the above gives me good terrain, dead water, and an occasional flashy building. Although interestingly I don't get any flashy buildings in the Vosegen terrain, I also have no "[backgroundMaterial]" entry in Vosegen or in Edwards Flanders terrain, I'm not sure what that means if anything...Anyway, good terrain, dead water, occasional flashy building. Now if I do a line for line swap with Wrench's .ini I get good terrain, a different dead water, and shimmering trees...Now my .ini's do not include the "ter" prefix, but the terrain, the trees and whatnot, seem to render really nicely. Maybe the new ini's didn;t work because instead of simply cutting and pasting Wrench's ini's in place of my own I did a line for line swap checking along the way and left my entry for example, "EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect2.fx," only adding the "ter-" prefix in the beginning. I thought the "2" designated something of importance, I wasn't sure, I left it... What does it all mean? Beats me. I'm not certain what importance that "ter" prefix plays in the big scheme of things as the terrain for the most part looks good without it...In summary, swapping the old for the new gives me flashy trees and a different kind of dead water, I feel like the answer is real close here, maybe more obsessing is in order, and it really is kind of fun in a weird way...

Wrench, I was missing the ".ter" prefix and a couple other particulars. I'll give that a go and report back. Thank you!

Did anybody ever come across the fix for FE2 by chance? I can live with the dead water if need be, Jan's seasonal terrains are just outstanding, unbelievable how good they are and what it adds to the sim, the water would be cool though if anyone has an answer.

Hi guys, recent convert to the prop side of things from the Wo* series and I have a question regarding what appears to be terrain tiles that are rendered as white or maybe gray on the periphery of the screen while in cockpit view. It happens in both unmodded FE2 and with modded tiles and environmental stuff. I seem to recall seeing something like this before in Nato Fighters 4 and I could swear I found a way to correct it but I can't remember what I did or whether it was environmental or terrain related or what. I searched and tried a few tweaks under the "[solidObjectTextureMaterial]" setting in the terrains like "BLEND_SRC_ALPHA" to no avail...I'm using a NVIDEA based card and XP if that matters. Anybody have any notion of what I'm running into here or what might work? It's almost like tiles are missing at the edge of the screen in wide view but they aren't if you change your view...

Just in case anybody has a similar problem in the future I tripped a scross a few pics showing what it looked like in another TK sim...Terrain tearing:

OK, I got lucky and did about the most counter-intuitive thing, and it worked...I took the graphics card and just set everything to application controlled in nTune, set the in-game options to, "High," and the terrain anomalies were gone...It must be a shader thing of some sort and a conflict with the graphic card trying to control some in-game deal...The only thing I tweaked with after that was just to turn "Shadow" down to low and everything was still good...It's kind of interesting that that turning all the options down didn't cure the problem but almost maxing them out (and I assume overriding graphic card settings maybe?) did...When I saw that I went to nTune and just let the game drive the card and it worked out.

Oh, I also did a number of searches and just tried anything that looked remotely similar like this: http://combatace.com/topic/62513-a-huge-problem/page__p__474069__hl__weird__fromsearch__1#entry474069 I may go back with the new drivers and try to change .ini parameters again, Do the dance with the, "UseAdvancedShaders=1 ForceDX9=FALSE," and see where that gets me...

Hmmmm...Well? Uploaded new drivers and deleted the old (EVGA 7800GS), tried a variety of settings in nTune from the lowest, or application driven, to a whole range of tweaks up the quality scale...No luck, the problem is still there. Tried a variety of in-game settings (including the sunlight glint on/off/exterior only separate from the other quality settings) from lowest settings on up, no luck there either. Tried removing environmental mods, no change, tweaking Particle System configurations, again no luck... It's odd in that the very few times I've seen this turn up it has only been in two Third Wire sims out of the half dozen I must have on the hard drive, one is the NF4 mod of WoE (1st gen edition) and the other is FE2. It always occurs in cockpit, usually when the field of view is drawn out wide view looking forward, two white triangles will appear from the left and right side of the display where there should be terrain tiles, zooming in view will eliminate it, turning the view towards the the missing terrain will eliminate it. It is most noticeable at very low altitude.

Well, no I don't...Never done a screen shot in any of TK's sims, 1 or 2...Driver related, hmmmm, I could see that. I wonder if the card settings are presenting a conflict of some sort...

Eric, thank you very much, that was about to drive me nuts...I'm so used to flying USN I never paid attention to the carrier before, I was always sitting on it taking off...

I have a somewhat similar question concerning missing carriers, I suspect it is an install problem as well having to do with updates and patches... If I fly from a carrier I have a carrier, if I am flying from an airfield (Marine Corps/Air Force) there are times where the flight I am tasked to escort, or an unrelated flight, is sitting in the South China Sea without a carrier, they may or may not get in the air thus effecting mission results...I have the CVA-63 file in my "Groundobject" file, am I missing a carrier file? Should I have another file to cover both classes of carriers?

OK, after perusing some of the posts I remember why I balked back then...What rules did you guys settle on? Makes no difference to me, I just remember I was going to wait until you guys ironed things out. So what are the settings?

Huh...I should do this, it's the way I fly anyway. I remember when you guys were getting this together.

Well, let's see... For Game Options the following categories are set on HARD: FM, Weapons, Radar Display, Ammo Usage, Fuel Usage. The following are set to NORMAL: Visual Targeting, HUD Display, Landing, Collision. I fly almost all campaigns, I set the Campaign Difficulty to Hard, Weapons Supply is set to Limited. I always fly Dead is Dead. As far as WoV goes, I have really kinda gone overboard recently after having learned that SOP for most carrier based Phantom ops precluded carrying an external gun as the space was occupied by the centerline tank, from what I've read anyway wing tanks weren't customary in carrier ops with F-4's, so I have been forgoing the gun and having to rely on the 'winders and Sparrows for A-A kills, which can be frustrating to say the least. All of that said, the F-8 and F-4 guys faced their own limitations in real life, and getting in a turning fight with a MIG-17 wasn't advisable, but you can beat a MIG-17, and the sim is nice in that it rewards using the same tactics the guys used back in the day over Vietnam. I like the settings I run I guess because I want to, insofar as I can, try to present myself with some of the same limitations those guys had thus making me fly smarter, it keeps me from getting lazy, and the kills you get you have to work for. The fuel constrictions keep you aware of the time over target limitations you have, the radar limitations mimic the lack of a look down capability and hamper you down low. If I really want more of the fire and forget, annihilate everything in the sky, sort of experience I just fly a later Wo* scenario with one of the fourth generation fighters.

I'd be curious given the origins of the IDF's air force what the operational language of the IDF was, say in '67, or '73, or today for that matter...Is it English? It was at the outset, at least according to this... http://www.sabranet.com/machal/english.html Most of the Western and English-speaking Volunteers - or "Anglo Saxim" as we were termed by the Israelis - had fought in World War II and were eager to put their combat expertise into action to help defend the Jewish State. These Volunteers formed the core of the new Air Force providing battle-hardened combat pilots for the first Fighter and Bomber Wings. And it was North American pilots, air and ground crews that created the Air Transport Command that ferried the Messerschmitts and weapons from an air base near Prague to Tel Nof Air Base in Israel. And although it irritated some of the IAF top brass at the time, the operational language of the Israel Air Force throughout the war was, by necessity, English!

Wow....Eric? All's I have to say is that the final result after all the updates? Unbelievable....It is truly just an incredible mod...The tree problem is gone of course, but compared to where I was with the Beta release? My frame rates are way up, the additional effects are insane, I don't know where to start...Thank you, to you and everyone that contributed to make that mod...It is stone cold incredible...It's more playable now framerate-wise, it's more immersive, it's more everything...It was great in Beta, it's out of this world now. I know I'm late to the game but I had to say thanks.

Understandable. Thanks for the guidance, Eric, you saved me a lot of teeth gnashing and hair pulling...

Ahhhh. OK...Actually, I did it ass backwards, I just threw the latest June patch on top of the Beta install of the mod I had from months ago and surprisingly enough it ran without a glitch except for the tree deal. I didn't think it would work and planned on a fresh install but I thought hey why not try it and see what happens...But I see, your latest version accounts for the tree problem. I might be best off just going with a fresh install anyway in that case. I suppose I could try to get lucky again and put your final version on top of the hodgepodge I have now and see what I get.

Hey folks, been away for awhile. I was just wondering what the preferred fix is for the cloud-tree issue with the SF2V Air and Ground War mod at this time? I'm patched up to the latest level which would be June 2010 I guess. What's the best workaround to get rid of the unsightly trees? Thanks in advance.

Thank you for this mod, great addition...