VonBeerhofen

Hey Stratos, long time no see eh? Good to see you're still up and about. Always nice to see some acquintances from the past, makes one feel less alone. VonBeerhofen

Some people may be aware of what happened in SimHQ due to me posting a link to a discussion about me in a public forum, which was about blaming me for ongoing disruptions in that forum, and another call from a single person to the EAW community and the SimHQ moderators to take action against me. This person, who had just received a year ban himself, had shown time and time again that unsustained allegations, brutality and repetitive abuse to various members of that forum is proof of my misconduct. It's forum moderator accused me of violating a public forum's security in order to retrieve this information, which was said to be confidential. This has been disproven by this forum's moderator and various members of SimHQ. Since I was the subject of discussion I felt I had the right to post the link which showed how my adversaries operate behind my back, but nonetheless in an open forum. As a result of that I can no longer post there and to be honoust I no longer want to. All I want is to be able to post my findings and show the result of 18 years of research and modifications I've made to EAW with the help of the source code, gernerously made available by Atari. I feel I have the right to do this in peace and without the constant intervention from those who do not like what I've achieved and/or lack the same knowledge. It's doubtfull wether these people will let me work in peace, as they're also members in this forum and my creation is competitive with theirs, but it's my hope that the moderator of this forum is unbiassed in fact I know he is, because we've been in contact for a long time now and he's been very much aware of what's been happening in that other forum. Let's just say that not a single post I made in there was met with any friendlyness, inspite of me trying to share information and help others. I'd like to stress that I'm not looking for an audience but I believe that there may still be a few people left who can have some fun with my creation, how many that will be is of no concern to me, especially since I've done all this work for those people I call my online flying friends, who'll obviously benefit the most from it. I'm too old to fight over a hobby which has given me and my friends immense pleasure, so I hope that this community will accept me with an open mind and allow me to continue what's probably going to be the one and only hobby I will be capable of persueing, which is to have some fun with EAW the way I want. There's nothing prestigeous in what I've accomplished and it's probably never going to get fully finished but I have given it full time in the last 18 years and I think there is an interest amongst the EAW community in what I have tried to do with this game. I'm open to reasonable requests and or suggestions but I can't promise anyone that any proposals can or will be carried out, as it depends completely wether things are within my capabillities, after all this is just a hobby. VonBeerhofen

Mark, EAW will use Bilinear and Anisotropic filering, mipmapping and a few other things I've never heard of for both Glide and D3D, depending on finding the capabillities for it in the hardware. These features are again linked with poly types and texture types, which the hardware must also be capable of doing if the above features are to be used. Effectively both the polygons and textures are under control of modders, so these features can be turned off by using polygontypes or textures which will not trigger these features. Obviously in software mode none of it will work and it's also not in anyone's interest to force the game to do a lower level graphics mode then what the hardware is capable of. I've played with some of these features to try and force it to turn on, if my card couldn't do it. Bilinear filtering only switched off thin lines in the 3D models as well as all single line polys in the structures when you'd get close to the object, the information simply vanished. So I guess my card can't do it. I think my gForce FX5500 could do it but I can't say if it would do the same thing by forcing the polygon type which was said not to use these features. I removed the forced entry a few days ago as it seemed useless in that the game will use different types of polygons if the hardware can do it. The switch to these polygon types is automatic so if my card can do it forcing it for polygons which aren't meant to do it is useless. I couldn't find any evidence of post processing features, but I recall my FX5500 could be switched to force mipmapping, and I guess that goes for all other features that card could do. I've played around with most settings but in the end just opted for good quality and speed. Whatever features the game has build in is not going to evolve with my knowledge, I rely on the features modern videocards are capable of, if it can do post trilinear filtering, great, when it can't, too bad. I recall I could set tripple buffering which doubled my poor FPS, having an 8 times AGP card in a 4 times AGP slot. Without it I wouldn't have been able to play the game, so that was great but the effect of the switch was unknown on forehand. People just will have to experiment with ingame settings and videocard settings to find the best results. For me that's where my interest faded, experiments didn't have any advantageous effect and it was already dangerous to do those experiments in the first place, I may even have destroyed my videocard with it. So I definately am not going to tamper any further with stuff I have no idea on how it's programmed, I stick to what I know/understand and have done for 35 years. Searching for this stuff is a waste of time, I just wait untill I find something I understand and then start work on it, it's much more productive and perhaps at a later stage things will become clearer so I can try with less of a gamble. A little bit of risk is always involved but I intend to keep it to a minimum. If this or my other computer fails I'm out of business for good. VonBeerhofen

What's important to understand Mark, is that the Source Code will remain in the hands of those who have no clue on how to tackle these issues other then the way it's currently being done. As for the .DLL, updating it is useless when no additional routines are programmed to call on the extra entries. Simmilarly previous efforts had no effect whatsoever but the file got bigger and being bigger means that it takes more time to link the entries with the hardware in use. I've tried all available versions for longer periods of time and didn't notice any difference. You can implement vertex graphics to the .DLL but you'll have to write a routine to make use of it. The smallest .DLL was incorporated in the code, it's smaller then the released version if I remember correctly, but it worked just as good on my machines and I haven't received any negative feedback from players about the other versions I may have incorporated at times to see if others would have a problem with them. A change to the .DLL is ineffective untill certain things in the game routines are changed, this means that even when the problem is one or more entries in the .DLL, changing the .DLL alone will not solve the problem. The fact that some people tried nonetheless is only indicative of the amount of knowledge people had on the subject in those days. VonBeerhofen

I've done some more tests with PicPac, the converter for PCX files (amongst others) but nothing came out usefull. Tried 8 and 16 bit screens, think I've done that before on another videocard, and tried the various available switches to see what would happen. Anything other then the default -8 or -p switch resulted in a black screen but the game ran and when I blindly hit a menu item the game progressed. Exiting out again the main screen became visible but with weird desertlike palette colors, shown in a screenshot I took (you can view the palette in that shot as it's in 8 bit). There's a -raw option and two bitmapped switches in the GUI that someone wrote, the -raw produced an empty .PIC and the bitmpped switches produced the still operational black screen. I didn't have my notes as they were still on my broken WinME machine but according to the GUI PicPac can handle various picture formats, including .GIF and it makes me wonder if those can be packed and work the same as a .PCX. An 8 bit .GIF is app. 30 - 40% smaller then an 8 bit PCX and would safe a lot of space on my computer. Sadly I can't start converting 1000ds of files but if that works I might start using it instead. Furthermore output can be clipped to a fixed size but I have no idea how to set it in a .BAT, I tried a few things but got no result. The good news however is that I got my WinME drive out and hooked up to my docking station and successfully transferred the code, my assembly translations, my notes and lots of other goodies, so I'm back in business, horray! The search continues, VonBeerhofen

I do support it and I wish I could figure out how to make it work. I've been led to believe that the solution was in the larger sized .BMP screens, it just needs to be something that all modern videocards and monitors can work with. If .BMP isn't doing it then I don't know what will. All I can do is keep experimenting and hope for the best. It may not be feasable to change it for EAWPRO at the moment but if it can be fixed for 1.60 then I'm happy for Jelly & Co and the EAW community. Sadly I still can't do much here, perhaps when winter comes. I've not had any such issues, it needs a computer with the screen problem and I don't have that problem, neither do the Launchpad pilots. It's just why I'm spending very little time on it. VonBeerhofen

Mark, I'm afraid the code isn't open source which is why it can not be shared. That only leaves programmers to share their knowledge with the people who have copies and have been working on improvements. Since EAWPRO and v1.60 are already actively competing there's no real chance that any hardware programmer would share his time to teach others how to change/upgrade it the way you would want. You can't work on the code if you don't have a full copy of it, especially not when it comes to understanding which hardware features have been used. I would really like to see these improvements in EAW but my personal view is that I do not want it to be turned into something entirely different. EAW has stolen my heart right from the start and I would even still have played it without v1.60 or EAWPRO. If the result would be that only small theatres can be played, like I've seen in many other much more graphically enhanced games, then for me it's no longer EAW. Don't forget that this game can have up to 256 planes fighting eachother with you or me in one of em and that in a massive theatre of entire Europe ,or whatever other continent has been created for it. I'd rather see even more planes in an even larger theatre then seeing a graphical enhancement take place which will probably only limit such furballs. I agree that it's cumbersome sometimes to get the game to work and with decent FPS too, but it can be done. To turn this game into an equal of a modern flightsim will take years, even with a group of dedicated people. It's too massive and there's so incredibly much to be done to create even the smallest improvements. FAW for v1.2 took Per roughly 5 years to build and he nearly gave up before he finished it. Imagine having to create all new file formats to take advantage of modern hardware and then adapt everything that has been created up till now. What has been accomplished has taken the codegroup and me 13 years. I think only a commercially interested owner may have the resources to do it, with professionals who know what they're doing, not a bunch of hobbyists like us. No matter how much we would like to help, it would mean the end of a hobby as I don't think anything we create would be able to compete. It's not that it would stop me from doing what I do, I'm too old to do anything else and I will still play EAW when they put me into a home for the elderly and work further on it, after all every person should have a hobby and this is mine. VonBeerhofen

I think that the downloads aren't meant for jelly's latest versions but rather for a 1.29 version instead. These models can be incorporated into EAWPRO as well but they lack the appropiate theatre. VonBeerhofen

EAW is still going strong online at the EAW Launchpad inspite of being a bit low on active pilots. The FXEXE (minimal requirements 800MHz PIV + 32 MB Video) and it's addons have been further devellopped and can be viewed here (picture index list): http://rabartel.home.xs4all.nl/test/Gallery/image/ This is the latest screenshot which will weekly be updated for those who may still have an interest in the game. Our group is still flying online dayly and our chatroom (membership not required) is monitored most of the time incase people need some advice or just like to chat about flight sims and everything related. You can find us here when we're not asleep, flying, or otherwise engaged: http://www.chatzy.com/251310437564 A bit of patience may be required in order to meet one of our regulars, there's just not many around nowadays. Hope to see you over the Channel some day, =S!= VonBeerhofen http://www.europeanairwar.net/

I totally agree, there's just no way of telling what these files are or will do to your O.S. Lord knows where they came from or what background the guy has in terms of modding EAW. Install instructions are none present and I for one am not going to try any of this. VBH

Participating with humans is more fun then competing with artificial intelligence! Still flying several online sessions each day and a good place to find expert help in between sessions or to just exchange ideas about a common topic: Combat flightsims http://www.europeanairwar.net/ or go directly to our chatroom (no membership required): http://www.chatzy.com/251310437564

As for this terrain, a new EAW set has just been develloped by Saggin B. in 512*512 pixels (24bit) and can possibly be converted easily? http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3371991/2.html VonBeerhofen