Sky High

In reply to my own post, the problem turned out to be a soundcard problem, solved by installing a usb card.

Recently discovered that on my fully merged install I could hear no in-cockpit speech. Uninstalled everything and completely cleared the registry. Reinstalled Strike Fighters 2 on its own. Same problem remains-perfect sound, but no speech, with no mods, whatsoever. Checked my sound settings and all seems ok. i can play the speech files perfectly on Winamp. Speech works perfectly in European Air War, IL2 and BoBII. Any suggestions?

It would be a pity to find ourselves caught between two stools, an outcome that I think would not be desired by any concerned party.

Mighty work. The detail in the grenade-rack is exquisite.

Thanks for some very helpful info. However, like VBH above, I'd be afraid of making things worse. Fortunately, obsolescence isn't a problem for the kind of prehistoric games I play.

That's a highly debateable statement. It must not be forgotten that Spain under Franco did not lift a finger to help Hitler in the Second World War, and that Spain saved more Jewish lives than any other nation, apart from the Vatican. Many Spanish passports were issued to Jews throughout Europe. Not a single Jew that escaped across the Pyrenees was impeded. The Spanish Civil War is unique in that its history has mostly been written by the defeated faction. On the topic, I would welcome the completion of the great work that Stephen is doing, and consider that there is great potential for FE2 to host the best representation yet of this conflict.

I downloaded it, although I'm on Windows 7, just to see if it would be an alternative to DgVoodoo, but it's incomprehensible to me.

33Lima has some kind of dual-boot system on his Windows 10 pc, enabling him to run BoBII on Windows 7. He says the whole thing cost him about £50.

In his addon, Ray is compiling the work of many different modders over a long stretch of time. Some of the skins have little anomalies and glitches which have been inherited. It is the nature of the modelling and skinning systems in EAW, which remain a mystery to me, but repairing all these historical problems is a task so large it would be unfair to expect any one man to undertake. Therefore, Ray has to discriminate between the more obvious errors and those that one just has to accept. He, rightly in my opinion, considers the perfect as the enemy of the good in this matter and concentrates on errors which might be so glaring as to be obvious in the heat of 'combat'. We must remember EAW is not a screenshot sim. It's a game that demands to be played.

I read on the A2A forum for BoB II of a similar concern and one poster suggested that computers ought soon be, or perhaps are now, powerful enough to run virtual versions of older operating systems, for example a virtual Windows 7 on a putative Windows 12 machine. This kind of software might already exist, or be close to existing. Alternatively, it is easy and cheap to install dual-boot systems. Where there is a will there will be a way.

Aye, Mark's efforts are priceless and selfless.

Those magnificent men in their flying machines. A head for heights was obviously de rigeur. (Note my smart-arse showing off with an apt Frenchism-quite the intellectual, moi).

I am a native born English speaker and could very easily make such an error, too. I wasn't laughing at your English, which is quite good, but at the fact that your little mistake, very small in itself, just happened to provide a very funny alternative meaning.

This post is not what I expected from reading the thread title.

Ray's is a very comprehensive and ambitious project, which he has had to undertake single-handedly and it is inevitable that there are some errors. 'Embarrassing' is not an appropriate word for such a large, freely-offered addon with which the best opportunity for perfecting is via the feedback of our little community. It will be welcomed by Ray if you review it yourself and report back any glitch you find. This is how we can all bring this old system to the best achievable outcome.

Ray has assembled a massive new plane-set, highlighted by an improved series of cockpit gauges, many of them in working order, and many other additions and improvements. Modred and VBH have new mods up tonight, also.

No, at least as far as I am aware. One needs to add this to the 1.60 install, according to the instructions, in order to get the gunsights. Ray's new planeset independently incorporates his own historical gunsight set.

If you're moving to Windows 10 with an nVidia graphics card, you won't be able to get Horizon Fog in D3D. In order to get it, you will need to run the game in Glide, which rules out proper widescreen.

I find it hard enough to hit anything with all guns blazing, I'd be even worse firing one at a time. Still, thanks for the option.

With all these smoking pilots we're getting these days, maybe some of the players or modders are smoking something stronger!

Guns don't do damage, only the people who use them. Sometimes, damage is a moral imperative. We had a bastard yesterday, found guilty for the brutal murder of a disabled 90-year-old farmer in the latter's own house, who had the temerity to claim self-defense as his defense. How I wish that poor farmer, God rest him, could have had a handgun under his pillow to do some damage with. Your man's barrister nearly deserves it, too. There's no guns allowed in London, but they're sticking knives in one another at a record rate. Give 'em all guns and they might wipe everyone of themselves out a bit quicker and let the law-abiding people get on with their lives. Rant over.

Make sure you hang on to your guns. In Europe, the only ones with guns are the cops-and-robbers.

It's all about one-world government now, with open borders and free emigration to better nations, but where are people going to emigrate to if the world becomes run by one government and that government turns sour?

Correct, Russ, and although I'm a tender spring-chicken of a little under 60 myself, I still grew up in an era when the Second World War wasn't that long over and its repercussions still echoed loudly. I read comic-books in which the story-lines were primarily of battles within WW2, many featuring colourful and attractive representations of combatting fighter-planes, very reminiscent of what we have in EAW. What I experienced must be relatively more intense for those of an age-group closer to the war. We're now in an era where many seem to resent the very freedoms many sacrificed their lives for, and when patriotism is considered a negative value. Our type of game would not have the same attraction for people who think like that. There are many also who do not think like that, of course, but they're attracted to more visually appealing games such as IL-2 and its more modern offspring and good luck to them. This game will inevitably die with its present enthusiasts, but that's the way of things, isn't it? Anyhow, that's already too much philosophy!

It's a big ask to expect people, who have already given us much more of their blood and treasure than anyone could ever have reasonably expected, to devote yet more of their current lives to write up documentation for a body of people that doesn't appear to exist, and is increasingly unlikely to. On the other hand, EAW has already been built up to be perhaps very near full potential and is unquestionably now, with all the planesets and terrains, a package sufficient to entertain this punter, at least, for a lifetime if the hardware allows. Perhaps the game has very nearly reached maturity? There may be little tweaks that are possible, but currently the AI, the FMs, the weaponry and the details such as the groundobjects (which our two experts are still improving) and terrains seem close to optimum and altering them is no guarantee of improvement. Maturity doesn't imply death-people will continue to play games such as EAW and BoBII long after they cease to be modified. It's just that, with the exception of the on-line flyers, there won't be much public interaction, which in itself is a pity, of course. I'm very happy with what we've got. In a world that little respects true quality, as opposed to fickle flash, it is almost incredible that we are still having this conversation after so many years and that we now have such a wonderful game. Maybe, in the future, a prince will come, who knows programming and coding and other voodoo and who is willing to assume the mantle for further development of EAW, such as it might be. In that case, your information base will prove invaluable.