Question about the ETO install

[Dumonceau]

Hello people,

I recently downloaded Rami's ETO install guide, and it got me thinking. So I'm planning on doing a reïnstall of CFS2, but purely ETO.

So of course I have a couple of questions:

- What to do about the stock airplanes? Can they be deleted?
- Is there a good UI for ETO?
- I noticed that the YAS spits are back, so I'll be downloading every single one of them, but what are the sources for good ETO aircraft for CFS2?
- I've always had a problem with the lighting and shades in CFS2, it seems too dark to me. Is there a way to change that?

I'll leave things at this for now, but expect more questions from me, and I hope you don't mind.

Cheers,

Dumonceau

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

1) Yes. (I will provide more detail later tonight, or another member can answer this question as to how)

2) What do you mean by UI?

3) I can suggest great Spitfires and Hurricanes, but it depends on your taste. Can you please be more specific about what aircraft types you are looking for?

4) Some paints and color schemes are darker than others, it depends on taste.

And no we do not mind, the more questions the better!

[nik112]

Hi Pal
As for # 1
Yes you can delete the planes and ships, but you must delete the entries at mdlnames.cfg that you can find at the main directory. The only prob that you may have its that a lot ad-don planes comes with sound and panel aliasing at the stock ones , so you must be careful.

cheers

[Sarg Willy]

If your darkness question was in refferance to scenery texture , you may what to try Pactex land textures for a lighter pastel back ground ,

[dvslats]

Dumonceau,

Try this. It is simple with no demand on resources. Original readme is included.

Dave

Attachment 12418

[Captain Kurt]

Nik112 is correct about removing the stock planes can cause add-on aircraft problems. It is almost always the stock aircraft sound files that are referenced in other models. That's very common.

Yet removing the stock planes gives you that many more aircraft you can load into the CFS2/Aircraft folder before hitting the dreaded 100 plane limit. So it is desirable to remove them.

To solve the problem, here's what I do. I leave the stock airplanes folders in the CFS2/Aircraft folder, but I remove everything inside the stock aircraft folders except the Sound folder. CFS2 no longer sees the models and textures, so it does not count them as being in the CFS2/Aircraft folder. But the Sound folder is there for the add on aircraft to use. Because the stock aircraft folders are still in the CFS2/Aircraft folder, it does not seem to require removing the names from the CFS2.cfg doc.

[Dumonceau]

Thanks for all the replies guys!! You do your reputation as the most helpful forum on the board honour!

As for the light/shading that I was refering too, It sometimes seems to me that the CFS2 world is dark! There is a lot of difference between the sun side and the shadow side of an aircraft when you take screenshots.

What I meant by "changing the gui" is changing the splash screens and so forth, so that the game has a more ETO feel about it!

I'll start downloading now and will definitely come back to you guys when it is up and running!

Thanks again and take care,

Dumonceau

[Dumonceau]

I'm in the process of downloading, and already have another question for you guys:

General textures that better suit the European enviroment and new clouds and so forth. Does anyone have a pointer for me please??

Sorry for the bother!

Dumonceau

PS: Bummer! I've exceeded my download quota on SOH...

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

1) I will work with the other Admins to see if we can get your daily bandwith bumped up and/or set on unlimited for the time being, because you will be downloading A LOT of stuff.

2) As far as textures go, the ETO is essentially set up with European textures by Sander de Cocq. I have created an ETO installation guide (recently revised) which outlines how to set up an ETO installation and which files to use. All of Achim's airfields, as well my GSL ports and nearly all missions and campaigns based on Europe run off of this base scenery.

3) Here is a screenshot of RAF Driffield, a base not released by Achim just yet, but which will be available pretty soon. You can see the ETO scenery, at least for farming areas, in the background. I will provide links for the above in my next post.

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

Here is a link to the ETO guide, which gives you step-by-step instructions on what, and how it all fits together.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...tid=49&id=2931

As far as clouds: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...tid=17&id=8640

And use this update: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...tid=45&id=2938

[Dumonceau]

Thanks Rami! They couldn't have chosen a better person as librarian!

I have your ETO install guide and follow it to the letter because I really want to make this work!

I got as far as part 10 of the DEM 8 files. So quite a bit to go yet! In the meantime, I've reached 1.39 Gb of new scenery and textures!

And I've also found quite a few addon planes at Simviation, most of them reworked by Morton and Bearcat. And of course the epic planes of Groundcrew!

I've also found the UIRES files on SOH to make the Sim look like an ETO sim.

This is going to be fun!

Cheers,

Dumonceau

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

Thanks for the compliments!

As promised, I just sent a PM to Ickie and DangerousDave26 to see if we can get the bandwith cap restriction lifted for you for at least a few days. Rhumbaflappy's LOD files alone, when put together total about 3.5GB. (No, that is not a typo)

My responses today might be a bit spread out...I am battling my first cold of the school year, and don't feel too good. Plus, I tested a new airfield for achim27619. There was a misidentified airfield which needed correction. In his JHS_Germany pack, "Memmingen" was actually Innsbruck, Austria. He sent me the new version of Innsbruck this morning, and is making Memmingen at or near its historical location.

I've also been getting airfields from him in the North of England (Catterick, Dishforth, Driffield, and a relocated RAF Ouston) for use in the attacks by Luftflotte 5 on 15 August, 1940. There may be several more airfields for this coming, so I am waiting until I get everything before releasing...well...a LOT of new or overhauled projects I've been sitting on for some time.

Later on this morning, I'll throw up some websites and give you some tips about how to deal with the pitfalls you will encounter with our beloved sim.

[Dumonceau]

Rami,

Damn, I forgot all about the time difference! It's about 7 hours earlier over there, isn't it? (depending on your exact location in the US)

Take care of yourself first and that cold you're nurturing!

In the meantime I can dig up my old CFS2 install disks and make iso's out of them! (after doing the actual install). And then there is a lot of reading to do.

And let me help in a way that I can: as soon as I have everything, I can make an installer for the whole lot (of the non-M$ stuff). What do you think? I would need to ask a lot of people for their permission, but I would love to help! Oh, and I'm definitely looking forward to trying out the airbases by Achim!

And after that it is Star Trek TNG time for me!!

So by all means, take your time, I'll pop in to check from time to time!

Thanks again for your help Rami!

Dumonceau

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

Here are a few websites for you...

Usio's ships: http://www.geocities.jp/usio_no_ibuki/ (Warning; these can be frame rate heavy)

Sully's ships: http://simviation.com//lair/cfs2sully.htm

Mas' site: http://www.geocities.jp/mtyjr101/index.htm (Lots of cool stuff here. Not well known, but it has the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier, a great torpedo boat, and a Russian battleship, among other items) These files offer a great balance of detail and are also frame-rate friendly.

Collin's ships, a must: http://simviation.com//lair/cfs2shipyard.htm

MakRider's website...lots of good info (and files) here: http://mask-rider.net/MaskRider2008/

Morton's Skydrive: https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=7F2604CFE3F60274

Stuart Green's files: http://homepages.domicilium.com/peve...gar/hangar.htm

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

Just a couple words of advice...

1) Go slowly building up your installs. Install an aircraft, object package, or ship. Test it, make sure it works, then add another. This will save you a lot of problems later on.

2) Also, for each install you have, make sure to create a backup of your quick combat (.qcb) file found in the QUICKCOM folder. Simply copy the file to your desktop, rename the extension ".bak" and place it back in your QUICKCOM folder alongside the original file. This will save you some headaches later on if you have to try and fix the problem I described below tip #3.

3) There is for most people a limit of how many aircraft, objects, and ships that you can have in a single install.

100 is the max of aircraft for most people...and remember that any extra texture or "skin" you install on top of the original aircraft counts as an aircraft by itself.

100 is supposed to be the max number of ships / ship textures you can have, but in my experience that number is closer to between 75 and 80.

1480 - 1500 is also the upper limit of .dp files you can have in the OBJECTS_DP folder before it causes problems.

This "problem" is a message that says "failure to initialize the databases, this install might be corrupted." There are ways around this without resorting to a reinstall. If this happens, start a thread and we will walk you through it.

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

I hope you found the work of "Ajax" for your GUI replacements.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...rid=305&sort=d

Take53084 also did some great MB screens, splash screens, and start screens that you can use along with Ajax's work, if you so choose.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=173&id=6375

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=173&id=6355

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=173&id=6379

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=173&id=6358

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=173&id=6360

[Rami]

Hi again,

My last post before I go make some soup, tea, and crawl under the covers for a while.

This is a post that will probably draw some disagreement, but it's just two sides of the same coin. Because of the amount of outstanding product out there for CFS2, I would highly encourage you to do multiple European installs, as well as multiple Mediterranean installs. The Eastern Front, if you so choose, you can get by with one.

I divide mine by years...Early ETO and Early Med are 1939-1942, Late ETO and Late Med are 1943-1945.

There are "multi-install" utilities out there that allow you to run CFS2 from one installation based on "batch" files, but in my experience, I never got the thing working right. I set up mine separately, and create theatre-specific environments for each of my sims.

You will find that for each theatre, especially in Europe, that I use a "common core" of files, including aircraft, ships, objects, and Achim's airfields. Accordingly, once you install one of my "big" campaigns, the other ones you install for that theatre tend to require less downloads because you have already installed many of the items you need.

One last thing, and this is a must: Make sure to download and install this for each ETO / MTO / OstFront based sim: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...id=17&id=17924

The reason for this is critical. When CFS2 originally came out, it had only four nations available; Germany, Britain, the US Navy, and the Japanese Navy. Most, if not nearly all of the more modern campaigns for CFS2 use other nationalities as well as these, because the country.cfg file has now been extended to a total of nineteen nations.

For example: Most of my campaign reworks involving the United States are Army-related, meaning that the nationality is the US Army Air Corps, which is #7 in the expanded country.cfg file. If you were to try and fly this without the expanded country.cfg file, you would not be able to select the missions, because they would be listed under a nationality that you don't have. In addition, all AI aircraft that carry such a designation would be interpreted as an "enemy" and shoot at you. Not a good situation!

[Dumonceau]

Hi Rami,

I won't bother you again today, but it seems I have bandwidth once again! I'll start downloading the rest of the stuff and will let you know when I'm finished as not to abuse the SOH bandwidth.

Thanks again for all the pointers!

My next questions will be of a more technical nature I'm afraid!

Dumonceau

[Rami]

Dumonceau,

I cleared your downloading with Ickie, the head of our little clan. Given the amount of stuff you'll need, it's only fair.

You can thank me by helping out with the donation drive at the beginning of 2015.

And we're on standby for the technical nuts-and-bolts questions.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

...

And we're on standby for the technical nuts-and-bolts questions.

Yes, we all are.

[Dumonceau]

Rami, download and install succesful. You can return me to normal download quota!

Thanks again for all the help, it's exploring time now!!

And THANK ALL OF YOU for the help!!!!

Dumonceau

[Dumonceau]

Ok guys, here is my next question: is there a tweaking guide for CFS available somewhere?

Reason for this is that I have a fairly decent rig, and allthough FPS are pretty high (+/- 150), they are not stable at all, and I sometimes suffer from stutters. Reminds me of FSX really.

IMHO for a game as old as this, this should not be happening on a rig that runs at 5.6 Ghz with two GFX 560ti's in SLI, an SSD and 8 Gb's of RAM!

Cheers,

Dumonceau

[kdriver]

Hi Dumonceau,

There was one written by Thomas McGuire in 2001, but with modern gaming computers, it has become rather irrelevant. We should be able to maximize all the settings without any trouble. I have a fairly powerful rig as well, but only get half your frame rates and occasionally the picture stutters.

If you go to window mode by hitting the "Alt" key the frame rates can nearly double. I generally don't do this, preferring to have a full screen presentation.

How's your installation coming along - does the landscape look a bit more like Europe?

Kevin

[Dumonceau]

Hi Dumonceau,

There was one written by Thomas McGuire in 2001, but with modern gaming computers, it has become rather irrelevant. We should be able to maximize all the settings without any trouble. I have a fairly powerful rig as well, but only get half your frame rates and occasionally the picture stutters.

If you go to window mode by hitting the "Alt" key the frame rates can nearly double. I generally don't do this, preferring to have a full screen presentation.

How's your installation coming along - does the landscape look a bit more like Europe?

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Thanks to Rami's installation guide, the installation was a walk in the park. Everything went super smooth. It does look a LOT more like europe, and in the meantime, I've resolved the stuttering a bit by limiting the frames to 70.

But I did see some blurries. Again, with a rig that is several generations ahead of what was needed for CFS2, this seems a bit odd.

But I'm enjoying the tinkering and tweaking, and get to shoot down and blow up stuff in the process. And that was the goal to start with.

I'll post some screenies when I'm happy with the results!

Dumonceau

[Blood_Hawk23]

You do realise that you have been bitten.

If you fly any of Rami's Missions and Campaigns, He normally uses some of the best Aircraft avalaible.

While your looking for new aircraft, might I suggest looking for a couple things.

-Look for Multi LOD (Levels Of Detail) or Multi-res models when ever you can.

-Careful with FS2004 conversions. They tend to be frame rate killers if used as AI's. most lack the LODs.

-Don't go too crazy on repaints. every texture you add to a model count towards the 100 plane limit. if you must have different skins then make a new aircraft. trust me, you won't regret it.

There is more but for the sake of keeping this short I'll leave it at that for now.

Oh Stock ACs that you might want to keep...
A6M2_ZERO, B24D_LIBERATOR, F4F4_WILDCAT, F4U1A_CORSAIR, N1K2J_GEORGE, P38F_LIGHTNING

I would get the OH versions. If you don't want any stock planes then just remember to replace the sound file for all of your new ones.

Enjoy