shinRaiden

I for one am thankful for the mom who thought I worked at a certain computer store last year and asked me for a suggested game for her son. I grabbed 2 boxes off the shelf, (and one happened to be CWC, the other bf1942) and cooked up a sales pitch on the spot that sold her everything OFP on the spot. I realized then I had sold myself too, and bought it, and RES shortly afterwards. Thank you BIS first and formost, and thank you to ALL the mod-makers. But most of all, those real johnnys who go out and lay it all on the line for all of us every day. God bless you, and Anchor's Away.

It's a turret coding issue, only one gun turret allowed. I presume that the machine gun effect is only a different muzzle flash. Attempts have been made to setpos turrets to desired spots an various airframes - with the expected results. It was noted by BAS that the second minigun was removed since it is currently inoperable. I would recommend researching how AC-130's engage targets, as nearly all their firepower is mounted out the left side. Basicly, sitting still taking pot-shots is what gets folks waxed.

It's a turret coding issue, only one gun turret allowed. I presume that the machine gun effect is only a different muzzle flash. Attempts have been made to setpos turrets to desired spots an various airframes - with the expected results. It was noted by BAS that the second minigun was removed since it is currently inoperable. I would recommend researching how AC-130's engage targets, as nearly all their firepower is mounted out the left side. Basicly, sitting still taking pot-shots is what gets folks waxed.

Ok - ok, I turned AA/AS back on. My apologies to everyone. Any comments on gfx5200 vs. gf4ti4200? Re ME: One example I know for sure is that the MDAC/Jet system (Access core) is extremely unstable/unreliable on ME. I believe its related to a bunch of core system dlls being 'unique' from the Win32 API. Also the lack of 3rd party support and the extremely fast dropping by MS suggests something fishy. Besides, 2K/XP has a lot better memory management and OpenGL functionality.

XPpro sp1 Ath. 2100 (oc'd to 1995mhz) 200mhz fsb 2x512mb ddr400 Asus A7N8X-DLX 2.0 Asus 9280 GeF4 ti 4200 - 128mb Benchy - 5338 ------------------------------------------- Comments, 95/98 is way better than ME. ME was MS's "screw -the-world" response to the lawsuits. They trashed the code to 'prove' that windows would break. Avoid like the plague. XP can be tuned to run at about the same memory footprint as 2k, but it is a major hassle to do. If you want the fluff, you pay the price. My numbers really don't fluctuate. That saying, switching from 2x256 ddr333 to 2x512 ddr400 without changing anything in bios boosted my benchmark by ~50. Also, switching from 12x166fsb to 10x200fsb to get a 1:1 fsb/memory ratio bumped it up by another 30~50 points. BIS said that benchmark() only hits CPU. Hence the rest (other than the OS shackles) really doesn't matter, unless you have your ram so loaded that you play OFP out of your swap file. In dev/mod testing, it seems like that OFP hits the CPU a lot harder than the GPU. I would go so far as to say that in OFP my GPU is sleeping its butt off waiting for stuff from the CPU. But if I went back and turned on the AA effects I might notice the GPU waking up, maybe. Still feels like the CPU. I presume that the geometry slider sets the maximum threshold for dumping stuff to the video card. ------------------------------------------- I suppose I would have better FPS if I didn't have wrptool, 2~3 acrobat pdf's for reference, winamp, and a scripteditor open all at the same time as OFP. 512mb just wasn't enough to get me by.

There is a fairly extensive section in the WRPtool manual regarding this issue, including problems with different BIS forests, as well as general forestry methods. A lot is of general relevance, and not specific to just WRPtool.

On the serverside no need to open any more ports than the ones listed, you 'shouldnt' need to, as there wouldn't be anything listening on those ports.

Does this affect the actual distance, or just resolution?

Has anyone made at least a basic GAZ-51 or ZIS-151 truck? (No options) I can modify a model (selections and LODs) and do coding if you need it.

Disclaimer, I have not read 'all' of the code and scripts yet... ---------------------------------------------------------- Okay, the MLRS uses a derived rocket for ammo, but a shell proxy is displayed in-flight. Is the rocket logic essential for firing and visual effects (smoke trail), or is that ammo- independent? If this logic could be applied to shell ammo types, a makeshift Katyusha could be implemented, with maybe a delete (or setobjecttexture) function on racked rockets (or not for tubes). Thanks.

The only limit in wrptool-visitor cross-development is issues with Binarize (needed to convert from 4WVR format to OFPW) doesn't like anything other than standard 256x256 classic BIS sized maps. The manual alone is worth the whole download, though we would like the reader to make something with it. WRPtool has it's nifty stuff, and so does Visitor. Most of the differences are highlighted in the manual, specificly road placement functionality. One item of interest exclusive to Visitor at this time is a Terrain Erosion function for major terrain alteration. Visitor is more difficult to setup initially, but I have my system configured so O2, Buldozer, Binarize, Visitor, WRPedit, and WRPtool all pull from a single data tree (no huge bloated data dulplication.) Essentially do the 'subst' drive deal described elsewhere, move all your depbo'd folders there, and point visitor and WRPtool at the drive. Any operations questions, please post over at flashpoint.nekromantix.com. That helps keep this thread clean and mods happy. ------------------------------------------------------------ I made a personal map of eden and abel. Note that as all the BIS islands use seperate PBO's, one must do a major re-texturing marathon to merge them all together and avoid the 512texture limit.. It's okay since WRPtool has a 'Replace texture...' function. As this is totally BIS data, I don't think posting it would be a good idea, unless invited to by BIS.

We are currently leaving Everon air space headed for Malden at 28fps at 1024x768x32 with ~1500+ visibility...

Say ... hello ... to ... me ... B00Mstick! Sweet glory be, call in the big guns. This just makes my day.

BIS has said 3 theatres, including one 'nam. My 'guess' is that it will continue the cold war theme, maybe a desert map, and a europe map. I believe that the multiple turrets issue is being looked at, the question is whether you can 'place' a new dynamic turret (for cargo pintles) or however they plan to implement it. What I would like to see would be a modular system so that you could have a stock m113 or m60 chassis, and seperate turret/equip/loadout mods. Would make things simpler, I dunno about performance though.

While the WRPtool manual has a lot of WRPtool-specific content, there is also a lot of content that is not WRPtool-only in nature. Read through the manual as a lot of effort has been put into adding nearly all the details needed to build a wrp for OFP. Some of the process information can also be used for WRPedit and Visitor. For those apps however, you do need to do a fair amount of sifting and gather the details and faqs and vocab lists from here and the Editor's depot over at ofpec.

No, wrptool does not currently have any editing functions in the 3d preview window. There has been some discussion of advanced terrain editing functions for the 2nd generation of WRPtool, and comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

@hoz - can you test for repros and post with the background over at WRPtool bug page please? Also, please indicate whether these are original BIS textures, and how you have your data files setup. Thanks.

Just a couple reminders here to stave off the bug-zapper: 1) To open a map SAVED in WRPtool in WRPedit or Visitor, you MUST binarize it first. 2) Road 'definitions' are exclusive to WRPtool. If you binarize your map and open it in Visitor or wrpedit, your road objects will be there, but the road 'definition' will be un-recoverable garbage when you return to WRPtool. 3) Please respect the wishes of MOD makers in regards to their custom objects. Specificly, BAS has requested that mapmakers interested in using Tonal objects get BAS's permission first, and that permission is not going to be given until further notice. Please respect the wishes of modmakers and their time and effort. 4) Memory utilization is a watch item with WRPtool. WRPtool allocates itself a working space equivelent to all the data it decides to load, in my case about 750mb. Most of this is virtual, and not actually defined or called. The actual memory usage in my case is only about 150mb tops. I routinely have OFP, WRPtool (with a 25km map), Winamp 3, Mozilla, and Acrobat 6 open simultaniously without any problem on 1gb of ddr400. Just be careful how much you try to throw at your system, because while you may have physical memory left, you could possibly create a scenario where you hit the vm allocation ceiling. Sorry, a bit technical there. Just be nice to your system. If you can run OFP ok, you can run WRPtool ok. -edit- Clarification: WRPtool currently loads all the allocated memory needed for all referenced objects and textures during WRP load. In my case testing, it's between 512mb to 768mb of real load. Once your wrp is loaded, minimize and restore/maximize WRPtool to lower the actual memory usage. 5) Above all, please read the readme first! Thank you.

Most of your questions can be answered by the manual, and there will be future additions to that manual as well. As for the win95/98/me issues, users of those OS's are more than welcome to give WRPtool a try, and report any issues through the official bug tracker. As a note, Win9x/Me systems handle memory management quite a bit different from NT/2K/XP os's, having seen this type of problem before with other commercial apps. One of the biggest complaints about Visitor is it being mainly in checzh. Even with a cheat-sheet handy, it still can be hard to use figuring stuff out. The interface with WRPtool was designed to be as simple as possible, with all options easily accessible using popup windows. Right now, visitor's road tool does have a method for auto-placing roads from point A to B, but I think WRPtool's is better for manual placement. Visitor does have better terrain editing and erosion functions. WRPtool is great for touchups and cell tweaking. But the biggest plus for WRPtool is of course copy and pasting of objects and slapping terrain around. This makes roughing in your island quick and easy. @wilco - Not quite sure what you were asking about with "Bitmap Ist". Are you referring to the cached texture browser, or the old terrain-from-a-bmp dev tool, the preview icon, or something else?

I finally got tonal (56k'r). I loaded it up and crossloaded it to my private linux server. I set off in the bush with some ai bud's. I heard some dudes babbling in the trees, figured no problem, this will be a turkey shoot. Then there were shots everywhere and dudes started screaming. Eh? I hear something over there, but I can't see anything... bwatbwatbwatbwat... ARGH! that was close! "Oh no, 2 is down." "3, report status" ... bwatbwatbwatbwat ... , crap, where are these guys, I'm at 1024x1280x32 with quinAA/2xAS and I can't see anything through the bush and the fog... dang it! they got 4 too!... Now I is all alone... and there are bogeymen in the forest, and they are hunting me, and I'm low on ammo, and there is no place to hide... aw crap... -------------------------------------- Wow. Wow. And thanks.

Hmm, seems like the CIA wants something better than CS, I smell another client for VBS or OFP. Washington Times Basicly, it sounds like they want a simulator to encourage thinking outside the box. Looks like fun. I want a copy.

AthXP 2100 (oc -> 2400) Asus A7N8X-DLX 2.0 1gb ddr-400 Audigy-2 Platinum Asus 9280 GeF 4 ti4200 128mb 8x XPproSP1 -------------------------------------- Another thing to note is the Aniostropic (and anti-aliasing?) settings. I believe BAS warned that higher Aniostropic filtering levels could significantly impact lag (particles and textures?). Above all, make sure you have the latest reference drivers. Texture sharpening also adds a bit of a 'hit'. I normally set my OFP resolution identical to the desktop since I often do a lot of alt-tabbing for scripting and testing. I normally use 1280x1024x32 w/ HWTL, and AA and AS turned down to one step above off. For a good framrate proggie and video grabber, try fraps from http://www.fraps.com. I'm using the 1.9d version for framerate checking mainly. I also use Rivatuner from [utrl]http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner[/url] for Video card tweaks. EAX on the Audigy 2 does touch somewhat on the CPU. I noticed a few frames lower due to the CPU take from the Audigy 2. Now I run the audio through the Nforce2 soundstorm in EAX, pass through the SPDIF to the Audigy 2 Platinum's SPDIF in (Make sure you enable 'Digital Out' and disable the 'Dolby digital encoding' in the soundstorm control panel. After 30-60 seconds of gameplay, the digital sync gets lost between the 2 if you don't) and then headphones out from the Audigy 2 with NO EAX or effects or anything from the Audigy 2. The FPS lag from axial rotation appears to be a caching issue, have not determined whether it is OFP or the Video card yet. It is more pronounced in airborne 3rd view than tanker commander 'gun' view. I normally play low or normal terrain res. My understanding is that the terrain models are fractally generated from the reference points in the WRP. In that case, the cpu has to do some crunching to generate the terrain, then map it, then hand it off to the 3d card. One problem with view distances above 1200 is that some addons such as the SIGMA-6 tanks can engage targets that are not visable due to LOD limiting. This is fine for cutscenes or NPC action, but it can suck in terms of gameplay if you want to return fire, or manually spot somebody. I also saw a note that said to turn the framerate slider as low as possible then set the quality to what ever. If you play RL style in veteran mode, a lot of the laggy spots even out. There is a bunch of stuff you can do in the prefs app too. I set my available memory to 150mb LESS than total physical to allow for the OS, and everything seems to be happy. I have 1024x1024's for textures, 128x128 for effects, and none for auto-dropdown, sometimes 2x if I play 1280x1024.

I somehow managed to get ofp into a weird state, anyone seen this? If I run 'res -nosplash', then go into the mapeditor, (open or create - doesn't matter which) and preview a mission, Num-pad Enter does not have any effect (should be outside view) and Num-pad (.) does not switch to tactical view. When I've 'locked' OFP like this, I have to exit and restart OFP. If I go into any pbo'd mission, single or multi FIRST, n.p. Enter and n.p. (.) work just fine, and THEN work fine in Map editor sessions. Any ideas on how to extricate the bad karma from my install? Thanks. WinXP pro sp1 Athlon 2100 (->2400) 1gb DDR400 A7N8X-DLX Asus 9820 GeF4 ti4200-8x 128mb OFP 1.91 (CWC,RH) RES 1.91

A couple of clarifications to what I said. If you look at the specs from FAS and other sites (I think IMI has some vague vendor stuff) the troop-carrying / medivac mission configurations significantly limit the normal armor mission ammoload and operational rules. When I said 'apc', I only meant cargo capability, not true APC operation or design As for the trailers, the US uses a custom extra-heavyduty multi-axle mess unique to the US military and a specific Oshkosh tractor. I recall seeing several merkava's being hauled on what would be considered 'decent' commercial-scale lowboy's for an average construction company here in the western US. They could have been stripped down chassis's though. My feeling on the CQB side is that if the main gun barrel (at least on the MK4) is not significantly shorter than the M1, then it is at least set further back in the turret to allow for better turret rotation in narrow areas, as well as barrel stability. Another point is that (iirc...) it has still the lowest turret profile (minimum turret exposed when firing from behind a hill) of any current MBT aside from one Sweden built. @avon, thanks for the pics on your site from the Armored corp Musuem. Brings back good memories.

This could be a tricky one to balance, as it can be classified as a MBT and an APC in the same mission. The size is suprisingly small, and can be used for effective deployment in urban settings. Also, the smaller size enhances logistical deployments. I saw Merkava's all the time on what looked like standard commercial low-boy trailers with normal frieght tractors towing them when I was in Israel. The Armored Corp museam in Aijlon has the coolest video on a 270deg wrap around screen showing the tanks clearing some serious air out at the training grounds in the Negev. Definitely one to have for heavy CQB action. When you have a guy in a house with an RPG, you don't want to send in troops in a soft transport. Plus the heavy guns help to even the odds.