VonBeerhofen

I'm afraid that v1.60 doesn't work on legacy computers with limited resources. It doesn't work on my WinME or XP system. The patched addons do however work flawlessly, inluding OAW, :) The patch is not only very small but easy to install too and provides an alternative to cumbersome upgrades, without altering the game's behaviour in ANY way. VonBeerhofen

It's not about the other thread Mark. I can't fix the issues you've described in it, but I can fix issues with the addons for v1.2 and setting things up. Many addons were missing files on which there wasn't sufficient knowledge in the days they were created, tools weren't very develloped, not even mentioning the issues related to differences in D3D and Glide behaviour. For this reason these addons may have worked or not, depending on the system it was running on. Some addons appearently seemed to work untill people dug in deeper and found that there were things that weren't working, because for instance no savedata files were created, mission files were missing or other files which weren't properly understood at the time were edited wrongly. The sharing of information wasn't working very well either and often lacked detail or were written in to cryptic forms for average users to make sense of. I'm sorry to say that my personal experience was that I found there to be very few addons which didn't have mayor issues. It's hardly surprising really when you know that to create good working and complete addons would take several people 3 years or more, and many therefore kind of stranded, as people lost interest in fully completing them. So you see it's not only about fixing hardware issues in the EAW.EXE, it's also about preserving EAW's history and keep it's old addons working, preferrably as intended by their creators. Minor fixes can bring em back to life again. In this respect EAWPRO won't do the job unless these addons are converted, since it's an addon in it's own right, and there's just not enough time for that. They wouldn't work as intended anyway. I've been working on a clean v1.2 which can be installed the same way as EAWPRO, add the ZIP to any 1.x version of EAW and use whatever historic addon created at their own risk, including old versions of OAW. In OAW it will require that it's EXE is also replaced, but it should then work as anything else from there on, with or without the wrapper, whatever is required. I feel for many the need is there to stay with the original game, and your website is probably the best location for such a version. VonBeerhofen

from pilots who can give an honoust opinion about things which aren't working properly or problems which occur during their games. I don't mean personal issues about not liking skies or shadows, or even plane or ground models, terrainsets or effects. These are no real issues and can be changed anytime by anyone who feels he can do better, with programs as mspaint, photoshop, gimp, etc. After all these are just drawings created by people like me who initially didn't have many skills in creating such drawings. The real problems are when the game stops working or when selections with particular programs don't give the required results or are to cumbersome to use. What I'm saying is that without your help we can not improve things and we're unable to test on our own machines because there are too many factors and problems which relate to hardware, OS and the way EAW was initially programmed in 1998 when XP, VISTA, Win7 and current hardware devellopments were not known. It's your feedback that helps progress EAW's devellopment and not knowing about the issues you encounter nothing will happen in solving them. Due to such feedback many problems were identified but many still remain unsolved, which is to be expected with a game from 1998. There isn't always an immediate solution, but a lot of problems which may only need a minor adjustment are understood today, but if you don't ask for help you won't get any. Sure enough there will always be issues to which I and others may not have answer (yet), but when these problems aren't discussed or mentioned things will not change. I hope you also understand that when there is currently no cure for your problem, the issues are being noted and may already have been identified as a recent problem for which there's no cure at present. That doesn't mean that people aren't trying to solve the issue, but solving problems can be pretty timeconsuming. EAW is still progressing, so don't give up hope for a cure, some people are still trying to work it out and come up with a fix! With zero feedback I can only program new things which will work on my own (obsolete) machine and although that's good enough for me and the people I fly with, I'd like to fix real issues for anyone with an interest in EAWPRO or 1.x derivatives. VonBeerhofen

Many more dangerous situations were incorporated into EAWPRO. One is the possibillity of AAA and flack capabillity on ANY groundobject, target or none target, static or moving. When a target location has a single AAA or Flack position, the maximum number of flack and AAA will be divided between all the objects which were given attack/defense capabillity. When one of the positions gets destroyed another one will take it's place untill there are no more objects available which were asigned this capabillity. In other words, the destroyed position simply moves to a new location and becomes active again. A new routine also gives the watersplash destructive capabillity when planes are directly over it and within 100 feet. Because of this effect belly landing on water has become much more dangerous as the splash is generated multiple times each time the plane hits the water. Exploding ground objects were given a simmilar but slightly different capabillity and even exploding planes can destroy your plane when you're within it's explosion radius, so it's prudent to stay at a respectfull distance when shooting up stuff. The explosion radius is linked to the exploding object's size, the larger the object the larger the blast radius. Planes in tight formation may actually cause a chain reaction with other planes and cause damage to an entire group. They will not immediately explode but damage points are given as with bullet impacts. Here's two pictures which show what happened to a low flying bomber which just came too close to an explosion, notice that there are no fighters around or any tracers visible, the explosion happened as the lead plane crashed into the ground. VonBeerhofen

Here's an impression of what EAWPRO's new effects look like. Many new animations were added and most animations are now twice as long (16 frames) in 4 times higher resolution ( 4096 pixels) and played at twice the speed as in stock v1.2. Besides that effects are randomly combined to allow hundreds of different mixes instead of just the same repetitive animations from v1.2. Obviously rendering this stuff comes at the cost of framerates, which is why most routines dealing with animations were highly optimised to run much faster. What you see here is the result of a bombing attack by B17's and watching the event devellop on my ancient 1.6Ghz PIV with a 64MB gForce2 showed only a neglectable drop in FPS when the event was visible on screen.

Further tests shows that the download url is fine, but browser may use the cached browser information on their own computers when the url was already visited. When the cache is erased the new download becomes available. VonBeerhofen

Combat Ace downloads files to it's own servers to which I have no access. The file on my FTP site has been fixed and people are advised to copy/paste the shown url into their browser instead of using the direct link to the combat ace server. It's doing the same with any pictures I post. Sorry about that but it's beyond my control. VonBeerhofen

Problem solved, :) VonBeerhofen

Converted and adapted from v1.60 and can be used in Pacific Tide III The screen is available here: https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/DownLoad/MAIN_Corsair.zip VonBeerhofen

With the reorganisation of the sprite table I was able to introduce 4 new animations when bullet hits objects. The animation takes calibre and object armour into acount for the animation selection. These animations may also be randomly used elswhere, for instance in explosions or as debris flying off planes or objects. Other animations have also been activated to mix randomly with the selections. VonBeerhofen

Just a test how to embed screenshots from my FTP. VonBeerhofen

Stratos, my FTP usually allows embedding of the pictures. My last pictures with the shadows didn't need BBS code, they showed immediately when I entered their url's, the same way I did above and the board simply showed them. Should I use [ I M G ] [ / I M G ] to display them properly? I can't edit the previous post either. Is there a way to edit after logging out? VonBeerhofen

With the help of Russ Watson I was able to fix a none transparent Glide trails issue which slipped through the net when effects detail is set to high. Here's a few screenies which depict the current status of effects in EAWPRO on both Russ's machine using a wrapper and my own machine without the wrapper using D3D mode. VonBeerhofen https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/FX06.jpg https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/FX07.jpg https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/FX08.jpg https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/FX09.jpg https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/FX00.jpg

Welcome to the ''buggy'' world of EAWPRO, in which you're very likely to hear certain people describe the addon as such, inspite of it's intentional differences with v1.2. All I can say that in this respect EAWPRO has boatloads more of such ''bugs''. Illuminated airfields, streetlights and searchlights, which come on at night. Glass and transparent shadows on groundobjects, new cockpits, bullet flyby sounds, relocating enemy positions, double length animations in 8 times higher resolution, just to name a few. It stands to reason that due to the difficulty of reprogramming EAW, certain issues are unavoidable and often take time to solve, but the 3D shadows don't belong in that category. Still, this shouldn't hold back any releases, because if it did there wouldn't be any. I'm willing to make it easier to control any annoyances but EAWPRO will not be turned into a custom version for each person who has a problem with what I've created. As has been customary throughout the years of EAW, the motto is still the same, if you don't like it, don't play it. My goal is to introduce even more of such ''bugs'', which reflect my view on the game and how it can be improved. I'm sorry if it's not what you expect or think what should change, but perhaps the next release has more for you to like then to dislike. You can please some people sometime, but you can't please all people all of the time. Warning! When you're afraid of getting hammered or being bothered with 3D plane shadows, it is adviced to NOT ENGAGE in flying EAWPRO or maybe better download it's transparent 2D set instead. https://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/test/Gallery/image/ShadTran1.jpg There's plenty of much less dangerous, less ''buggy'' and much more cumbersome versions of EAW available. VonBeerhofen

Here's an idea, I'll take the shadows, waves and seaweed out of the CDF and put them into the gamefolder again. I'll add a list of the 3D slots and write an instruction on how to erase them and how to add new models. I think everyone already knows but it's easy enough for me to do. That way people can experiment as much as they like (or not) and have fun again building their own EAWPRO world and be happy. It's a bit of a shame really because after your initial complaint of a messed up folder and finally cleaning it all up, it's going to be a bit of a mess again but maybe some people will find it easier this way after all. VonBeerhofen

Yes it's true, I have better stuff then what you portray, better waves, better trees and forrest, runways, ground objects etc. etc. but I've not heard anyone complain about models which are in nearly every addon I've seen and which anyone can replace with what ever is available. The procedure is quite simple, if you want to replace the pillboxes you download a .ZIP with for instance Per Von Oben's version and you extract it into the folder and voila. Per has the Supertrees mod on his website, which works exactly the same. There's a huge range of objects available, to add them to EAWPRO would only unnecessarily increase the package and eat my time which I need for other things. I only added a few things because there were no objects in EAW for the new slots, and it was done in the same way as described above and anyone can do it. These objects came from various sources, when not there EAWPRO may not work properly. It's been done like that for ages. Whatever I have is not important, as I explained several times before, the good stuff is for the Final Cut addon and other addons I'm working on since I do not want to use the same things that everyone else uses. The Basic version can be dressed up just like we did with EAW in the past and as you're doing with v1.60 VonBeerhofen

It's perhaps not an important detail but in EAWPRO you can jump from plane to plane and you will notice the shadows when you're 3rd or 4th on the runway or all the way at the back of the group. They're also noticable when you're diving towards ground targets or low flying enemy planes. From higher up they're practically indistinguishable from the stock shadows. Not that I care how they look or which ones are used, but they're just not ''Buggy''. VonBeerhofen

EAWPRO has no problems with transparent shadows, in fact the 3D shadows can have both transparent and none transparent parts. That way the cockpit glass can be portrayed tranparent while the fuselage is none transparent. However those who prefer transparent or none transparent 2D shadows have a choice. Even groundobjects can have transparent shadows in EAWPRO. VonBeerhofen

The only place where the stock shadows are realistic are on the equator at exactly 12 noon, all other times and locations they're wrong in my opinion. Still, there's no reason to call either ''buggy'' if you'd leave the opinion to the reader. VonBeerhofen

Let me assure you that there's nothing ''buggy'' about them, but I guess that some people just lack the skill to create them as they're not easy to create and require quite a bit of time. Sure enough they're different then the flat shadows which simply don't have a perspective view. Ofcourse they're not true shadows, just as the default shadows also aren't true shadows and are lacking certain aspects we all associate with shadows. For instance 2D shadows are incapable of showing the tailfin because it has none, nor is it capable of showing a sideway view of the fuselage and a topdown view depemding on the viewangle, as opposed to the 3D shadow. They're just flat and boring, at least that's my view, and I wouldn't call them buggy for that reason, they're just one solution to add shadow to a game which is incapable of doing the real calculations we see in more modern games. The 3D shadows are another solution which I and many others feel is much more interesting and possibly can be properly animated one day with the roll or dive of airplanes showing the model at appropiate angles, something which is impossible with the 2D shadows. So that leaves the question which is more buggy? Ofcourse the shadows can easily be replaced by their 2D counterparts, which are still in the game's 3D CDF, I mean you don't have to like them just because I like them but calling them ''buggy'' seems a bit over the top. VonBeerhofen

I've talked it over with the Launchpad members and the only person who I think has an interest would be Russ Watson, since his machine is way more advanced then ours. He would gladly like to see a hires planepack to test out and there may be others who have an interest too. His current framerate with EAWPRO and the Windower program is between 55 and 60 in all situations, with heavy activity and low to the ground with all settings high. VonBeerhofen

You or anyone else are welcome to undertake any tests you can think of in order to verify the accuracy of my claims. I've been doing them for around 18 years in on- and offline games and these tests are not likely to stop, since only the best experience is good enough for the Launchpad pilots. Good framerate is very important in our games. VonBeerhofen

I didn't say you're in doubt either but ''when you're in doubt''. Science is not computing or vice versa. Computing is nothing more then playing with a complicated calculator in which 2 + 2 is still 4 but the resulting value can be interpreted in any way by other calculations when they encounter that specific value, but no matter what you do to the value of the result is always predictable. I've done a lot of testing with the AI routines when I improved them, when I understand what I'm doing the resulting change will be known even before testing it in the game and I will know what to look for. In C++ things are just as predictable, when the AI routine states that it will check the loop timer untill it reaches a certain value and then carries out the routine, then there's no question that that's what it will do. No science is needed to know, just knowledge about programming. When players are not aware of what to look for when it comes to AI skill then all I can do is point out what the indicators are and how to test it. No science is needed for that either, observation is enough. When you can fly around with 16 enemies around you and you need not even look over your shoulder to kill each one, one at the time, or when you're in that same situation and you're getting hammered from all sides then it's pretty clear which AI are the smarter ones. Let's face it, AI just aren't getting any smarter or more accurate when framerates go down nor will it lead to improvements in the accuracy of human pilots. VonBeerhofen

Current Launchpad members have any aspiration to join any forum, the only member available would be Russ Watson but I doubt wether he has any interest in the subject. His main interest is more directed to playing a stable game of which he can understand the workings, hence he choose EAWPRO. When you're in doubt of the above facts why don't you ask Sydbod or Brit 44'Aldo, they seemed pretty knowledgable on the subject of computing, any programmer can verify the above and most players will understand how it works. Wether they can measure the difference or not depends on their awareness of their kill ratio going down. In our online games the kill ratio of all players is permanently visible for all and there's definately been a drop. VonBeerhofen