RE: Struggling to open Pattonville winzip scenery

[brad kaste]

I'm not too sure why my win zip. app isn't doing what I want it to do. From reading Bill's thumbs up review on the Pattonville scenery I decided to download it. That's as far as it got! I've never had this problem before using win zip. That is,.... not having the winzip app unload the various files into my designated winzip folder. It just stays as it's winzip icon folder after I click the wizard button. Either I create a new Pattonville scenery winzip icon or sometimes it 'converts' to a winzip icon called 'edtq_fs9_v.1.3 rar' file. Both the same size. Simply put, I can't unzip the Pattonville file.
I know the winzip works fine on other stuff,...To test,I converted various files to winzip,...and then had them unzipped into my document/unzipped folder.
From using the 'extraction button' to using the wizard button (which I normally do) it's the same old thing. It just puts the file into a new folder (which I created or not). So I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm sure I'm not doing something correctly,....just not sure what it is!:d Much thanks in advance.

[Tom Clayton]

You need WinRar. It's a paid program, but if you download the "trial" version, it will just nag you to buy every single time you use it.

[Baron von Blutwurst]

just goto www.7-zip.org (http://www.7-zip.org) and get the 7-zip extraction utility. It's free and it opens anything.

[dogknot]

Agree. 7-Zip opens them all.

7 -Zip is a freeware, open source software.
7zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
==========
WinRAR
http://www.win-rar.com/download.html

[Lionheart]

I use the IZarc.exe program. Works everytime. None of this 'limited' zip format stuff...



Bill

[Cazzie]

I have been using the paid version of Win-RAR for 4 years and love it. I got the paid version so I could compress files in .rar or .zip and upload, you can't do that with the freeware. I despised WinZip and was glad to get a replacement for that.

But for simply opening .zip or .rar files, I recommend 7-Zip also and have it on both of my kid's computers.

Caz

[brad kaste]

Much thanks gents for all your feedback. I decided to go with the 7-zip app. I have it right now on my desktop but haven't hit the exe. button yet. So here is my question: Does '7-zip' create any conflicts with my Winzip? Do I have to remove my Winzip program (prefer not to) or do they work in harmony with one another? Finally, will the '7-zip' somehow pick up the Pattonville scenery file so it can be unpiled? Or do I locate it ( the scenery) going through some window screens within the 7-zip program?

[falcon409]

I use the IZarc.exe program. Works everytime. None of this 'limited' zip format stuff...
Bill
Yep, the first time I saw you mention that in another thread I went and downloaded it and have used it ever since Bill. Works seamlessly with everything and I've never missed winzip at all.:ernae:

[Baron von Blutwurst]

I didnt have any issue with WinZip and 7-Zip conflicts and I've been using it for a few years now. It will add a shortcut to your drop down menu.

Cheers
Randy

ps. on RAR files...just click the extract files option.

[brad kaste]

Hi Gents,
Much thanks for all the various inputs. The IZArac works like a charm. Very intuitive and easy to use.
However,...I do have a question about the Pattonville scenery piece. I get real lousy frame rates from it. Below 10 fps. But the bigger issue is the quality....or lack of quality in the graphics. Most of time the landscape is a gray or brownish flat mass. With no discernible features. Plus, when I'm high over a building I'll pick up a crash. Finally,...when I using the 'tower view' there's nothing but sky. No view of the aircraft. Only a blue sky and sound of an aircraft (maybe mine?) droning in the background.
I installed the scenery piece,.....'EDTQ Pattonville' the regular, conventional way. I see in the package there's NT Command Script called SG1_fix. I haven't done anything with that. Plus I don't read German so I don't know if there's an issue I should be aware of or not.
I noticed too at the web sight there is a 'fix' download listed. Which I didn't download. Would this be necessary to install into the scenery for it to display/function properly? Any assistance will be appreciated. :banghead:

[Lionheart]

Hey Brad,

On my rig, the graphics are incredibly rich with detail. When I am looking away, and pan around the view to the airfield from far away, it will be a plane brown or green color at first, then the graphics appear. Sounds like on your computer that its running graphics just beyond your computers RAM capabilities, which is a shame because its one heck of a cool airfield.

May I ask how much RAM you have presently in your computer? I suggest 2 gigs of Ram at least with FS9. I am presently running with 4 gigs. Having alot of RAM helps with high resolution graphics, such as Pattonville.

I went to buy a gig of RAM the other week at Frys (fried) Electronics here in Phoenix, and they had two (2) sticks of 1gig RAM for only $75.00! I couldnt believe it. Last year, a gig was about $85.00 or more for one stick of DDR2 RAM.... (I might have a rare chinese childrens work camp build series though that I bought.. arrghhhh).

Bill

[Motormouse]

I can sort of read German, anyhow,according to the manual,the SG1_fix is only to be used if you have the Aerosoft (payware) scenery Germany 1 installed to fix a conflict therein.

As for the texture loading problem, have you tried converting them to a lower resolution format (DXT1 or DXT3 without mip-maps), I did that for use on my travelling laptop,seems to work OK.

Oh,and looking inside the folder, it seems there aren't any 'Summer' textures, (XXX_SU.bmp)
there's winter, (XXX_WI.bmp) spring,(XXX_SP.bmp) and Autumn (XXX_AU.bmp) only
(where XXX is first part of filename), which would explain it.

hope this helps

ttfn

Pete

[brad kaste]

Hi Bill,
Currently I have two (2) GB's of Ram @ 221 GHZ. My processor is a AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4000+.
I'd think this would be enough. Maybe not. Maybe too I should move up to 4 gigs of ram. What do you think? Again,...I've never had such a poor display of graphics and performance when trying to run the Pattonville area. Very disappointed. Before I forget, how much ram did you have installed at the time when you first downloaded the Pattonville scenery piece into FS9?

Motormouse/Pete,
I don't have any Aerosoft scenery of Germany. Only their payware aircraft Dh Beaver. I think upping the memory sticks might be the way to go. I'll wait for either one of your responses.

[Lionheart]

Hey Brad,

I cant remember how many gigs of RAM I was using when it first came out. My apologies.

I seem to recall though that when I recently redid both my FSX and FS9 config files, I was resetting my graphics card settings for the screen size/resolution, and at first, before I had things setup right, my screen showed nice detail trees horribly, like zillions of shimmering dots, almost like super tiny lights. Some buildings even had this and grass fields that were really high resolution. I think it ended up being my Anisotropic setting. (Tripple Filtering with Trilinear optimization is another setting worth experimenting with).

So..... It could be that your graphics card isnt set up for good resolution. Thats a very wild guess but worth experimenting with.

Sorry its not working for you.


Bill

[pfflyers]

I only have 1 gig of ram (that's all my puter can handle) and Pattonville works OK for me, so I wouldn't say that a lot of ram should be required to run it.

As for the building crashes, I get them too. I tried hovering a helicopter around the field and crashed into buildings I thought I was well clear of all over the place.

[Lionheart]

You guys, I run with 'detect crashes' turned off. Try that. I use so much addon scenery and it always catches 'phenomenon'. Plus, I hate it when the computer resets the flight from a bumpy landing, lol... arrghh..



Bill