Bug fixes
[*]Fixed opaque winter Hind windshield (by dfang)
[*]Changed suspension data for Apache Longbow, Havoc, Hokum-B and Comanche (by dfang)
[*]Fixed CTD on exit with custom EXPLOS.CSV
[*]Fixed compass and ADI in Apache Longbow cockpit
[*]Fixed ADI in Apache and default cockpits
[*]Fixed GWUT: None if the specified gwut file is absent

Download installer and install it over 1.14.0.

More bug fixes and new features will follow.
Thank you for reporting errors, searching for fixes and providing new features.


Guys, please update eechcentral.

Thanks Firebird!

Ditto!

+1. Enjoying the low tech Mi-24, though you could pick up my SA off the floor with tweezers.

Homefries, try using your motherboard as a toaster (again). That should take care of the SA.

Many thanks for this, and to everyone who has kept this going over the years - I only recently installed the game, and (knowing how old it was) expected my search for a 'final' patch to be not much more than a couple of tweaks and maybe an extra map. Sometimes it's good to be wrong!


I'm glad you said this - I was feeling guilty that my first appearance in 'EECH territory' was on the Mantis bug tracker complaining about stuff...

I note your remark on the other thread about a crash dump not being much help on its own so if you want me to do some tests with a debug exe, let me know.

I don't use that bug tracker, SimHQ forum and e-mail are enough for bugs I'm able to fix. As long as plenty programmers will choose which bugs to fix, it can be useful.
Now about your bug ("Create Font returned NULL (120)" in Win98 - right?).

The code showing that message calls CreateFontW and GetLastError returns 120. 120 is "This function is not supported on this system.". According to documentation the minimum supported OS for the function is Windows 2000.
I don't have Win98 and I don't know how to fix this behavior.
The only thing I changed in UI/fonts is clearing of cache files.

Looks like they only removed the 'antiques capability' a few months ago, too. I guess it was bound to happen at some point but at least you can know that it was Microsoft that broke it and not you!

Fortunately I can still boot into XP so in the end this is really only inconvenience, not fatal, so I can live with that.

Toaster? I thought you said Coaster!

Either way, that would smart-bomb every virtual bad guy in the game, though I'm not sure the virtual Hind has the EMP protection to survive that.

Hind electronics is lamps! It will survive any EMP!

Just as long as that electric fan still works.

eechcentral.com has been updated ^^

Thank you!

OK, here goes:

- Blowing up an F-16 that is on the ground causes an access violation : always if using a missile, occasionally if using HE cannon. No difference if F-16 is moving or not.

- Random muting/reduction of one or more sounds when switching views, e.g. switching from map to cockpit you hear everything except the engine, have to switch back and forth a couple of times before sound re-appears. Voices (including co-pilot) frequently very quiet (or occasionally loud and in just one ear if things are getting noisy outside), happens in both DS and OA versions.

- Sound direction (in cockpit view) of e.g. tanks seems fixed to their bearing from me, regardless of which way I am pointing (no head-turn), e.g. if they are at 090 from me and I point straight at them or steer so they are on my left, the sound is still on the right. Does not seem to be new (also present in 1.13), but presumably went unnoticed as I guess people don't normally drive around in circles at the local tank park and probably have these 'outside' sounds turned down a lot more in any case.

Possible relevance : on-board realtek sound (manual says AC97 2-channel), headphones, no speakers. If a 5.1 sound card/chipset is now a requirement (not a major problem, I can get one), it might be a good idea to update the system requirements list to reflect this.

As I said, if you want me to do specific tests and/or run a debug version let me know.
Or if I did something wrong and there is a 'magic_fix=1' that I have to put in the ini file I can do that too

I will check F-16 issue.

Regarding sound, I doubt I can do much. DS version is "original" one, and if there are problems, they were not introduced by me, thus I cannot fix them quick.
And we have no 5.1 requirement. At least as far as I know.

You have the latest sound drivers installed, right?

I exploded several Falcons with Hellfires - no crashes.

Interesting that you got no crashes with Hellfire - it always crashes with Vikhrs and the missiles from the Hind. I will check Hellfires here though - to see whether or not it is some machine-specific weirdness...


OK, understood - I checked against my 'reference' version (1.4.6x) and the sound positioning is correct, hence my query on 5.1 - I realise I am probably being over-simplistic here but what it *looks* like is my heading is not being subtracted somewhere. Or I may have just demonstrated my ignorance of how sound works.


Yes, according to Windows Update. I can check the board manufacturer for anything more recent but since other games are working OK I'm not convinced this will fix it (but will try anyway). Edit: confirmed, WU and Abit have the same version for 'latest'.

Yep, still doing it. Does not seem to happen with any other aircraft, and (as far as I can tell) only on the ground.

Hi -- nice to be back with EECH which I haven't been running since 1.9.0. 1.14.1 is awesome! I'm running it on Windows XP Pro in Boot Camp on a Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz (3.33 with Xeon Turboboost), and Radeon 5870 1GB. Looks fantastic on the Apple LED Cinema Display 24 and plays smooth -- I've set max framerate to 60. I see two issues with the new smoke system: the flames are a little bit excessive even after viewing the example video of a tank cooking off its ammo after a missile hit. A technical issue: things that are colored black in the vehicle textures are not getting alpha-channel blending, so they stand out sharply as if drawn on top of the smoke / dust clouds. Run the "Demo" mode, and watch as the camera follows a column of vehicles trailing dust clouds. The outline of the rear-hatch on APCs for example. Maybe change the RGB value of the dust clouds a little? Not sure without looking at the code.

I've found the campaign editing utils at http://eech.robfox.net/ and have a question before I dig in. Is there a SCUD launcher vehicle in EECH? Maybe it exists in the commercial "Enemy Engaged 2" and could be transfered over? I'd love to create a "topical" campaign involving SCUD-busting in Syria.

Many thanks to the people involved in putting the EECH community mods together!

Hi Doctor_Wibble,

I did a lot of testing of Firebird's changes to the sound and one of the systems I used had an MSI motherboard with Realtek onboard sound (AC97) and it worked perfectly.

I tested it both as the main sound source and as the headset sound.

What OS are you running ? I'm on XP Professional Service Pack 3.

Could it be a chipset related problem ?

Andy

I've make some test with the Alligator and the Hind, and I've found that in the Alligator when you flight over the max. speed the "we fly to fast" voice is heared in the same moment that the main rotor is damaged instead before (i've no tested with other helicopters).

With the Hind I've hit the ground with the nose at hight speed and high angle, instead of explode i've get engines/rotor damaged (only rarely happpens, but happens).

[ sorry, some of this ended up as thinking-out-loud, have tried to coherentify it ]


I saw a previous comment of yours about that, hence my remark about possibly missing some obvious option somewhere.
The Sacred Text for the Abit TH7II board is a bit thin on detail, and says not much more than "AC97 Digital Audio controller integrated" and "AC97 2-channel Audio CODEC on board". The bit on driver installation mentions 'ALC 100/200' and the Realtek site lists ALC 101 and 201 in the 2-channel section, as distinct from 6-channel and 8-channel chips.

The Realtek control panel sound-position test does put the sounds in the right place, but ultimately that's doing stereo things to stereo sounds for a stereo output.

This is with XP Home SP3, all patched/drivered up, and directional sound on everything else seems to work OK.


I am wondering if the chipset is seen as, or declaring itself as, capable of lots of things when it isn't, and I can't shake the feeling that the root cause is that the chipset does not have a 'native' 5.1 capability - so even if the driver doesn't go 'eek', it might be that it isn't coping as well as it might. The reason I lean towards something like this (e.g. behind the sound API, is something perhaps being automatically 'corrected' by the system or driver, beyond anyone's control?) is that eech-1.13 on the win98 box (Creative AudioPCI, again 2-channel only, no 'native' 5.1) has the same direction trouble.

"5.1" is not mentioned in the game nowhere.
_DS version uses stereo with panning, OpenAL version just gives the voices to the library/driver, and they render the sound according to the system settings.
The game itself does not know if you use stereo speakers, headphones, 5.1, 7.1 or anything else.

Perhaps not, but it does get a mention or two in the changelog, hence my speculation on old hardware/drivers not being quite sure what to do with it.
I shall not speak such heresy again!


OK. That explains why there is no "obsolete_hardware=1" option that I could see
It also tells me where to look for things to try.
The system settings are for headphones at the moment. Perhaps I should try one or two 'wrong' settings to see what happens.

Another fun example, if I am parked facing south with a truck/tank column heading south that is approaching from the back left, they pass on the left hand side, but as they pass, the sound goes from the left side over to the right. Unfortunately I couldn't say for certain which of these these were the 'back' or 'front' sounds as they aren't in isolation (canopy is open, engine is running, several vehicle engines as well...).

Just to be sure I'm not going mad, I did a load of tests, including telling the windows control panel I had loads of speakers (and none) but it didn't make any difference. As with all such things, it started out nice and methodical but soon turned into a 'try-this-try-that' session...

The on-board 2-channel sound has been disabled and the new 5.1 sound card is set for headphones, and 3d-audio 'enhancements' are off, after a fight (I won) with the (now deceased) card/driver app that was insisting that what I really wanted was a concrete-room reverb even if 'aargh no stoppit' was selected.

Using OpenAL, set to 'generic software' (ISTR someone made a comment about the 'generic hardware' setting being glitchy?).
As a result, voice volumes seem to be consistent, and the card seems much better than the on-board at coping when things get hectic.
There do not seem to be any more random 'mutings' of sounds, though as I set 'ui_sounds_muted=0' this might simply be masking the issue, should probably re-check (but switching between chase/cockpit is OK). Or just leave it alone, since it works.

As regards the _DS version, this seems to be significantly louder, especially with the co-pilot voice, though ATC and ground control voices are quite variable, and I'm only hearing landing gear up/down on the left.

As for sound direction, I still have the same problem.
May or may not be helpful, but potentially reproducible, and easier than trying to find a handy moving convoy : hovering, raising/lowering landing gear, sound direction changes depending which way the helicopter is facing. (in a hokum - didn't try this in others)

Still just me getting this?

Is it just me or is there no more overtorque warning sound?

I faintly remember it going off above 100% torque, but now I only get the visual warning in the HUD.

Two minor details that one of you devs may want to add to eechcentral:

1) The installation notes don't specify when one should install the 1.14.1 patch. I just tried installing them right after installing 1.14.0 and it worked fine.
2) The instructions for combining EEAH and EECH say that they should both be in the same "Razorworks" folder, but if you get them from GOG.com that's not the default folder.

The installer from GOG allows you to change the installation path.

I know that, and I actually do change default paths most of the time. But it makes little sense to mention a "Razorworks" folder when new users will, in all likelihood, purchase EECH from GOG.com. Even if they change the default path, why on earth would they call it "Razorworks"?

Because the original installer from backintheday did.

Users should not turn off the grey matter between their ears just because there's a "How To..." out there.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what the installation folder is called ("Yourmom" or similar would also work), as long as EEAH and EECH get installed into *one and the same folder*.

Firs I would like to say excellent updates to EECH the realism is arguably the best short of stepping into the million dollar trainers in the US flight academy. My question to anyone is why does the Kiowa Warrior the cobras and a number of the Russian helicopter produce a totally green screen when flying in the glass cockpit mode and is there a weapons officer/copilot control with HUD. in the Russian mi24 hind

Thank you for the mod, great work and great fun, I did notice that my Cobra fell through the floor one time Not sure if that is a mod issue or general game issue though.
I sometimes cannot toggle waypoints, no idea if that is a feature or bug either.
Really liking this game. Just need to stop being terrible at it!
Strange playing this game after so much time, I think my last PC refused to run it.

After installing the 1.14.1, I get the mouse cursor locked into the corner and cant get past the first screen, any ideas how to sort that guys??


OK - Got that one sorted, updated the shortcut!

Cetus.