Falcon 4: Allied Force

[bn880 5]

In relation to the LAN/WAN issue:

Quote[/b] ]Just to add to the discussion and help some (hopefully). LAN/WAN support ala MP5-1 is definitely NOT in F4:AF. The original reason for the additional code support in MP5-1 is the reason you guys have discovered. The clients (not just the server/client connection) need to connect directly to each other. With UDP networking, that is not possible with most routers/NAT setups. VPNs are a special exception which I personally have not tried yet. In the "old" days, some people claimed they got it working, and I see no technical/code reason why it wouldn't work, but I can't say for sure without having tried it myself.

Now, the main reason that MP5-1-like code for LAN/WAN support is not in AF is because that code got broken by Win XP SP2. Microsoft, for good reasons I might add, turned off the networking tools used in MP5-1 (raw sockets in case you are interested). So even now, trying MP5-1 with a server running Win XP SP2 will not work.

So, the MP5-1-type code for LAN/WAN support was not included since it would break anyway for so many people. More of my focus in MP in AF was spent on stability, smoothness, with some definite long hours pulled on the new MP UI and new connection method (the death of the "-ip" switch is complete! yippee! in order to make joining and flying easier than it has been in the past.

Now seriously CD, it went from "AF is a complex sim" to that ^

All of these are mere excuses for not doing any real work, or not wanting (god forbid) to hire a professional network developer for a month or two on contract, which all know they can afford now, the sales are not small.

I think you CD, and everyone else who cares about this sim should get their butts on the horn to LP and demand this be brought up to spec. Don't you care at all about having to be stuck with this VPN shit for another 5-6 years? And while you're at it, maybe comment on the ground graphics, 1998 is so out these days. (not that that is at all one of my priorities, I can live with that)

This is where you can reach them: support@lead-pursuit.com

otherwise they were born and live on SimHQ...

[crashdome 1]

They claim it has a revamped graphics engine (I am not seeing it) and the MLU 3d model has been updated ... why not get it right the first time? Its not like the dutch airforce (who's bird their modelling in the balkans campaigns) is overly secretive. A simple phone call to the RNLAF would have gotten them a lot of help. A simple search of airliners.net would have helped them prevent the modelling mistakes.

It is... becuase if it wasn't you'd really not be seeing anything since the original engine was XXX (3dFX).

*EDIT* oops.. rushing to get to work ... how could I mistake Glide for 3dFX

[Supah 0]

BS, I've installed and played the original on this very PC.

[crashdome 1]

OK, it did come with DirectX 6 and I am confusing myself - the real problem was Direct3D never listed supported cards without manual registry changes. 3DFX was Glide (my mistake again).

I've tried F4 + 1.08 patch and all I got was a black screen w/ music. Only after community and iBeta patches could I get it to work again.

In any case, as much as there are flaws.. there are 100x more fixes and improvements. The community mods can not be compared or applied to this for various legal reasons. LP had to start from about 6 steps back. They've only gained 3 steps maybe, but I am hopeful. Since Falcon4OIR and FalconV had their plugs pulled, I can imagine LP is under serious strain from Atari (the real villans in this scenario) to produce something.

[crashdome 1]

Quote[/b] ]I think you CD, and everyone else who cares about this sim should get their butts on the horn to LP and demand this be brought up to spec. Don't you care at all about having to be stuck with this VPN shit for another 5-6 years? And while you're at it, maybe comment on the ground graphics, 1998 is so out these days. (not that that is at all one of my priorities, I can live with that)

Oh believe me..I have! I'm not saying I want it to remain like this, I just believe the product is where I expected it to be and it'll improve from there - unless they are planning on producing a seperate and new product (i.e. Falcon 5 or something) which I doubt. I hoped for more too, but since I've been used to the frustration of earlier mods/patches/dances etc... which are all flawed themselves.. I find this very refreshing that I got my main two concerns out of the way: playable MP and official updates - enough to keep me going until next update *crosses fingers*. Watching two potential companies having their plugs pulled and a mod community that treats each other like garbage had left very little hope in me. LP brought it back.

[hellfish6 7]

I thought someone was making Falcon 5 - it was a PRC vs US/ROC game, IIRC. I think I read about it a year ago.

[crashdome 1]

G2 interactive.

That's one of the ones that had their plug pulled

[hellfish6 7]

Ah nuts.

Meaning they went out of business or were forced to cancel the project because of F4:AF?

[bn880 5]

Quote[/b] ]I think you CD, and everyone else who cares about this sim should get their butts on the horn to LP and demand this be brought up to spec. Don't you care at all about having to be stuck with this VPN shit for another 5-6 years? And while you're at it, maybe comment on the ground graphics, 1998 is so out these days. (not that that is at all one of my priorities, I can live with that)

Oh believe me..I have! I'm not saying I want it to remain like this, I just believe the product is where I expected it to be and it'll improve from there - unless they are planning on producing a seperate and new product (i.e. Falcon 5 or something) which I doubt. I hoped for more too, but since I've been used to the frustration of earlier mods/patches/dances etc... which are all flawed themselves.. I find this very refreshing that I got my main two concerns out of the way: playable MP and official updates - enough to keep me going until next update *crosses fingers*. Watching two potential companies having their plugs pulled and a mod community that treats each other like garbage had left very little hope in me. LP brought it back.

Allright, fair enough, though I want to point out, the F4 community is a little bit too fanboi to me. Bit sad, they defend LP a little too much, instead of uniting with (thus calming down) the people who ask for improvements.

I hope eventually they will fix that stuff I mentioned for free, not for the next release. (there is apparently a next generation engine in the plans)

[bn880 5]

Oh boy, look at these guys: from LP homepage July 11;

Quote[/b] ] Regarding reviews, SimHQ has released "Part 4 - Multiplayer" by Chris "BeachAV8R" Frishmuth and Tom "WKLINK" Cofield.

Part of their conclusion reads: "We were able to fly multiple, long multiplayer co-op missions in the "Powderkeg" campaign without CTDs or hangs. That is a Falcon 4 miracle in itself. The amazing part is that with the exception of getting your router set up, this all occurred in the straight out of the box version of F4:AF. Lead Pursuit did an admirable job updating what was written in a time when dial-up was the predominant method of connecting online and broadband was mostly a dream. Considering this, it's amazing it works at all, let alone works with this degree of stability. We believe Lead Pursuit really did an exceptional job on the multiplayer side of the simulation and we look forward to seeing more improvements and additional features in the future."

Like I said, nice little circle LP has with SimHQ, all the while everyone who wants to get a review of the game before purchasing, is fully unaware of the LAN/WAN limitation... grreat. Great job SimHQ

[hellfish6 7]

Well there hasn't been much for SimHQ to do lately - maybe they're fishing for support? F4 is one of the first flight sims to come out in some time, IIRC. Nevermind their poor land combat section.

[bn880 5]

Maybe so, but this is a dis-service.

[EiZei 0]

Who would have known that even submarine simulators would be more numerous than flight sims in 2005..

[hellfish6 7]

I'm still shocked that there are more Train simulators on the market and in development than there are tank simulators on the market or in development.

Seriously. Trains? How can that be fun??

[EiZei 0]

Seriously. Trains? How can that be fun??

Blame the japanese, theyre the ones buing those and >200USD/EUR controllers.

[crashdome 1]

Allright, fair enough, though I want to point out, the F4 community is a little bit too fanboi to me.  Bit sad, they defend LP a little too much, instead of uniting with (thus calming down) the people who ask for improvements.

I hope eventually they will fix that stuff I mentioned for free, not for the next release.  (there is apparently a next generation engine in the plans)

*EDIT* Bah... not gonna worry about it. I'm pretty sure you are correct for most cases anyway. Either way, I've got my own feelings and opinions and I stated them pretty well.

In any case, anyone who ever wishes to now or later hop on my server is more than welcome and I hope to fly with some of you guys when/if you are up to it.

[Aeronautico 0]

Yeah,

Allied Force is cool,

Lock On is very cool, but

Forgotten Battles/ Pacific Fighters is mandatory!

A!

[Supah 0]

Well I got the game working with Anisotropic Filtering and Anti Aliasing on my GF6800 GT 256 MB videocard but there are some mixed results:

1. Switch Anisotropic Filtering off in game, it does nothing and if you leave it on the screen will just remain black when starting the game up if you enable any outside AA or AF.

2. Outside Anisotropic Filtering works just great, running it at 16x atm

3. Anti Aliasing:

- 2x, Screen stays black, can hear music and press escape enter to quit game

- 2xQ , works like charm

- 4x, Screen stays black, can hear music and press escape enter to quit game

- 8xS Playable but mouse goes under interactable parts of the cockpit as if these are on a seperate layer above the mouse layer. Makes it hard to interact with cockpit.

Anyone have an idea about how to stop it acting stupid on 8xS as the frame rates are ok, still get around 70 FPS

[crashdome 1]

Quote[/b] ]The latest Nvidia driver, 77.72, will make the screen black with the Falcon cursor if it is set higher than 2x Antialiasing.

Source: http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb....liasing

I use "Application Controlled". Never have any problems.

[Supah 0]

Well that isnt true then because I can use 4xQ and 8xS but that wouldnt be the first game nvidia's latest and greatest causes problems with. Only game they seem to work well for is Battlefield and I am so not playing that piece of poop anymore

[BOP_101TFS 0]

Seriously. Trains? How can that be fun??  

Fun as flight sims (MSFS and X-plane)?

[hellfish6 7]

I don't think so. In a train sim you go down a track - your only freedom is to go forward or backward. That's it.

I bought Trainz a few years ago cos I'd heard great things about it. I played it for a month before I asked myself "What the hell am I doing? This is boring."

With a non-combat flightsim you at least have freedom to do what you want. For a train sim, I don't think it's much fun unless you really like trains (or model trains) or unless you're a modeller (I've seen TONS of community developed content for Trainz - probably moreso than OFP) but otherwise you'll get bored driving around what usually amounts to a big loop.

[crashdome 1]

Just want to interject real quick:

My server is now LAN/WAN capable (kinda). I purchased an additional external IP address. My main machine still has to go out to my ISP and back (lack of specific hardware requires me too), but it's totally worth it. No more VPN.

Reminder:

Find new IP here  http://www.crashdome.net/IP

I try and leave it running 24/7 but sometimes I may need to bring it down... (for OFP of course!

Teamspeak is available on same IP : port 8769

Max players is set to 5. Campaign is Balkans, but it can change if desired.

I'll join you/your group if you PM or Email me with a time.

I also give 'instruction'

whether or not it'll help is another story!  

Notices and News posted at http://www.sinewsofwar.com/ (very last forum on list)

[hellfish6 7]

I'll try to pick it up tonite... if so, I'll run some test flights to see if I can remember the basics and then I might logon.

[bn880 5]

I just wanted to drop in and give some more feedback:

I've had some very positive experiences in AF in terms of the SP campaigns. I'm really enjoying the missions, the complex combat environment, and all the realism of taxi, takeoff, realistic landings etc.

It's really a blast and actually fairly stable, I am less and less anticipating a game crash at the end of a campaign mission, as it doesn't really crash at all. Once I got booted to the desktop by clicking on "recon" but that was very very inconsequential. Sometimes minor hickups at some points in the missions with short freezes, but they are cured by using the "pause" option to prevent yourself from flying off during them.

On a typical mission in the Balkans, I'll have sight of A10's F15's F18's F16s and various other friendlies working together in the field, it's really something (of course a whole lot of stuff on the ground too). And you wouldn't believe the kind of avionics advantage you have in the F16 over many other Soviet origin opponents.

Anyway, short story long, you can get some serious fun out of AF, provided you don't expect the AI general to be like a smart human one.

And provided you don't expect to have a normal dedicated server and a client on one regular connection... (that really needs fixing) So don't get me wrong, I still have the same view of SimHQ reviewers and this game being pimped to hell, but there are some positive things to enjoy.

Cheers