VOXEL LIVES! Comanche Gold, 1024x768 and more.

(Edit: Is there a patch for Comanche Gold?)

Comanche Gold in XVGA! Also stereoscopic! What else is hidden in this?

I would love to take some pics, but they don't come out right. Suffice it to say, the PNVS at night looks VERY interesting. Spooky believable. Could you imagine if a Platinum version was put out with 1600x1200 & higher support, with multicore capability? Or Comanche 5 Voxel? There was really something to this graphics system. It never really died, but has continued on in science, engineering, and medical imaging technology where processing was not a problem historically. It's just that the home computers of the era weren't up to it at higher res. Voxel running on highly multiple cores in a modern system would cause this technology to make a comeback, especially considering how graphic cards are just getting hotter and more SLIed. Voxel is particularly suited for sterescopics, smoothing out and visually antialiasing itself, if you're interested in that sort of thing. I’m checking with Carl Kenner if he has any advise on VFX1 emulation.

I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned before:

http://www.stereo3d.com/comanche.htm

This turns out to be correct, but I think you need to do this with the Resource.pff and Cgold.pff files in Gold for it to work. You want to change the >Bar# < bracketing system to include the features/options you want in the respective drop down menu (the #). Use either a text editor in replace-text mode (that useless insert key on the keyboard, remember?) or a hex editor in normal text-view mode. Try searching/finding for “VFX1” in the editor or WordPad (slooow). That will go to the correct area. Any subtraction or adding of additional characters to the file will make it unrecognized by the sim, so save backups of the originals before you do this. Nonetheless, this is essentially what you end up with:

>BAR0
|0|w Game ~BAR1
|g Control ~BAR3
|g Options ~BAR4
|g Detail ~BAR2
|g Video ~BAR6
|X:0<|g Edit ~BAR5
<
>BAR1
|<|0|gExit Menu~_ESC
|d|Y.2g|Y.3dRestart Mission~RMIS
|d|Y.2g|Y.3dMission Playback~REVP
|d|Y.2g|Y.3d|Y:7dTakeover Playback~TAKE
|gAbout Comanche Gold~ABOU
|d|Y.2rEnd Mission~ABRT
|Y:2!|Y:3!|rDisconnect~DISC
|Y.3!|rExit Game~EXIT
|g |P.3€ Allow Screen Shots ~|P.3
<
>BAR6
|0|g|Y.0€|w Full Screen ~|Y.0
|0|g|A:2d|Y.1€|w|A:2d 640x480 Menus ~|Y.1
|b|L!9€|L>0€|g|L>1€|y|L>2€|L>3€|L>4€|L>5€ |wGamma (+/-) ~|L+6
|-|g
|0|A:0! |Z=0 320x240 ~|Z=0
|A:1! |Z=1 400x300 ~|Z=1
|A:2! |Z=2 512x384 ~|Z=2
|A:3! |Z=3 640x480 ~|Z=3
|A:4! |Z=4 800x600 ~|Z=4
|A:7! |Z=7 Stereo 320x400~|Z=7
|AA:0! |Z=8 Stereo 320x480~|Z=8
|A:5! |Z=5 1024x768 ~|Z=5
|A:6! |Z=6 1280x1024 ~|Z=6
|Z=9 VFX1 stereo ~|Z=9
|Z=4 3D-Max/LCD-Bios~|Z=4
|0|g |Z=7 320x200 VGA ~|Z=7
<
>BAR2
|0 |b|C!9€|g|C>0€|g|C>1€ |wClouds ~|C+2
|b|O!9€|g|O>0€|g|O>1€ |wObject Quality ~|O+2
|b|D!9€|D>0€|g|D>1€ |wTerrain Detail ~|D+2
|b|E!9€|g|E>0€|E>1€ |wTerrain Resolution ~|E+2
|0|g|Y.4€|w See Blades from Inside ~|Y.4
|-
|g|G>0€|G>1€|g|G>2€|G>3€|G>4€|y|G>5€|G>6€ |wSound Volume (+/-) ~|G+7
|g|GA>0€|GA>1€|g|GA>2€|GA>3€|GA>4€|y|GA>5€|GA>6€ |wMenu Music (+/-) ~|GA+7
|g|M>0€|M>1€|g|M>2€|M>3€|M>4€|y|M>5€|M>6€ |wIn-Game Music (+/-) ~|M+7
|g|N!9€|y|N>0€ |wForeground Detail ~|N
<

Allow Screenshots, the graphics modes after Stereo 320x480, and Foreground Detail now become part of the menu options. I have yet to get screenshots to work, foreground detail doesn't appear to do anything that I can tell so far (audio or visual?), and a few of the graphics modes do not appear active. 1024x768 and some of the stereoscopics are active, though. Higher res will cut the framerates by at least half what they were at 800x600, so beware. My computer is barely up to it with all the detail options on, reaching on average 15-20fps. But I'm on a 3.4ghz Northwood system. If you have a top of the line CPU, bus, and memory, it should run as smooth as silk in 1024x768 as 800x600 does on my computer. XVGA runs pretty well in PNVS or with some of the detail turned down for me. The voxelspace 3d pixels are software based accelerated, so your graphics card is moot.

And oh what a lovely technology it is. There's something organic, real, and very easy on the eyes, in spite of it not being entirely pretty when paused. It's the rendition of motion, gritty physical terrain, and NOE that voxels seem to excel at. The rendition of motion and "stuff" placement for helo flight is very special. Explosions at high fps seem like, I don't know, real explosions of pixels made of light, rather than expanding orbs or flashes. At lower fps, the terrain may adversely pulsate slightly, so that's a sign you're dropping below about 20fps.

The hud symbology is great in this sim. The only thing it’s missing is probably a flight path marker. Aside from not being able to turn the autopiloting wings leveling off, it flies very smoothly and is perfect for NOE. Reminds me of Total Air War in how well behaved and pleasant it is...another quality attempt at FBW in a sim, I might add. Altitude hold is present, and hover hold is a fair depiction of the dynamic system the Comanche had. It's too bad you don't have the full flight envelope available. They have cyclic limiting available, but it's limiting the limiting even further. That should have been what ADDED autopilot-WL. Did the tester who had a go in the real Comanche simulator not know wings-leveling was only an autopilot option for lowspeed flight and landings to prevent critical roll-over angle? Anyway, the flight model is highly functional. The terrain and FBW FM are good matches for each other. Check out the manual. Well written, informative, with an enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Anyway, it's definitely worth checking out and there's no reason not to include it in the same league as the other quality combat helo sims out there. I still stand by my claim that none of them have been “hardcore” to date. They each seem to have their strengths. O.k. I'm getting some sleep now and I'll work on a profile and the eMagin Z800 implementation tomorrow. I highly recommend coders/modders interested in helo sims check out Comanche Gold. There might be other modding potential or hidden features in it.

Nice find! You are a Comanche Gold fan now then?

It took about 5 minutes after getting XVGA running with nightvision for me to become a fan. Well, it's certainly not as deep as EECH and LB2 in the fire control system, but it's not like those are incredibly detailed, either. You just have independent control of them. The manual is thorough, but there's not a lot of depth to the Comanche systems for it to get into too much detail. Very nicely layed out, though. Who knows, maybe there's separate FLIR & radar targeting systems in those files that could be switched on. Really, that's all we're talking about here: Sensor fusion verses independent sensor displays. Functionally, you still just hit a button in all of these sims. I'd say Gunship! probably takes the most work out of the four with two separate pairs of target advancement buttons, two different designation buttons, and the need to deselect radar targets. Add to that constantly flipping over to gunner to do things yourself when needed, and I'd say Gunship! has the funnest amount FCS workload. But who doesn't like getting to turn radar on/off and changing scan direction, range, etc? That's really all it is, though. The first time I saw the windsock and the flag flapping around, I realized Comanche was focusing on very different and equally valid parts of the sim experience compared to the others. It's all good.

;-P I feel embarrased. It's more like coughing and weezing on my computer. Barely alive.

Well, that's a shame. Been flying more of the day missions. Slow, ugly, too small of a battle space. Some of the missions are quite fun, in spite, like levels in some Nintendo game you have to play over and over until you beat them. I started out actually going back to rearm on one of them, which was quite thrilling with a ticking clock trying to touch down and get back to the fight before my helos were downed. Then I realized there weren't enough enemies to need that. Oops. Limited mission length is a big issue in Comanche 3.

And the fps during the day, again, is clunky on my computer at XVGA. I really like the way it looks at night (close-up, terrain), but hardly ANY missions are at night. And your ability to detect or see the enemy is severely limited. Half the time you're fighting at these ridiculous proximities. I did enjoy the SPECOPs stuff and the NOE flying.

That changing color-coded map is a hell of an idea. Wish EECH had it. Nice for pop-ups and avoiding detection using terrain. But then there are no countermeasures, except for your ability to outmaneuver or duck behind cover. That's a first in oversights: no flares or chaff. So you HAVE to use the terrain.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone with a more modern computer gets XVGA day (in an actual mission, not just training like I had it in the first post) running smoothly. Otherwise, it's getting harder and harder to recommend getting it for any modding purposes. Even if you could get 1280x1024 running, I'm not sure it would be worth it if you're stuck with 10fps.

Off to look for more night stuff. Oh, forgot to check my email for that Kenner guy...

Still no word from Kenner, but the interlacing Stereo mode appears to work...not that I can use it. I suspect page flipping might not actually be encoded within it. The VFX-1 activation mode could have simply switched on the Forte's own stereoscopic hardware. I think it had its own frame flipping card.

Out of the blue, 1280x1024 has suddenly shown up in the menu after finishing a number of campaign missions. It attempts to switch to it and then conks out. Curious.

Another conclusion on the graphics and size of the battespace(s): Gold seems to be intended for low, slow, careful NOE. Up high it's butt-ugly and the lack of detection range becomes very aggravating. Put the alt hold system at 30ft and slowly work your way around the terrain using the color masking map, and that's the way to enjoy the sim in spite of its limitations and age.

So, that wings-leveling being present isn't entirely inaccurate if you take that into account. If you were doing that in the Comanche (low and slow) that's probably the flight mode you'd switch on.

I'm interested to see how big some of the user-created missions might be. The ones in the sim seem like they were created in a hurry.

Anyone know if there's a working patch for Gold that may have fixed anything? I tried one called wizsetup listed on some sites. All it does it launch the outdated updater.

Hey, while I was looking for the name of "wizsetup" I just found where the pics were saving: C drive. So that feature does work. I'll send them to Flyboy so he can post them on his site and we'll link them to this thread.

Do not activate 3D-Max Stereo. You can't turn it off afterwards. If anyone finds a way to do that, let me know. Even uninstalling/reinstalling does not fix it. I'm stuck with 800x600 interlaced stereo right now in 800x600, which means fps is about the same as 1024x768 now.

Did you check if it stores the setting in a registry value? Try deleting all registry values for the game before reinstalling. Just a guess, but maybe it's worth a try.

Yeah. I looked for 3dmax, 3d-max, vfx-1, novalogic, comanche gold, comanche (paying attention to possibly EECH) and a bunch of others. I deleted every one that I could. I don't know where it's at. If some one discovers where that stuff saves, let me know.

Also, I'd be interested in hearing other people's experience with 1024x768 and if it's completely smooth on any really fast computers some may have. Maybe that slight jump is more than just from low framerates. Perhaps Novalogic locked it out because they couldn't work out all the bugs from the XVGA mode.

My guess is that CG would run at higher framerates in 1024x768 if you've got a dual-core processor. I might be wrong, but it seems to be how it goes with old games on new systems.

That's probably because even a single C2D/AX2 core is more powerful than an older single core CPU - I guess it doesn't have anything to do with the CPU being a dual core, since these games don't support two cores.

Well come on, then. Someone with a faster computer test this out...

I got 1280x1024 working on the ATI 9250 AGP 256mb I put back in my computer while the 3850 is RMAed and since the 800xt AIW broke. Aside from the lower framerates than XVGA, it has a vertical placement issue where the very top (half the drop-down menu) is at the very bottom. Looks kind of like a CRT with the roll misaligned. Very detailed compared to the lower resolutions, though.

What would you consider smooth? I istalled the game now to check out these tweaks, and successfully enabled the 1024x768 resolution. Tested it with a number of missions and fps rarely went under 25, and for me it seemed fluid, and was playable all the time. My PC is P4 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, Radeon x1950pro AGP 512MB.

I have Core 2 Duo E6750 and I get a constant 60 fps at 1024x768. I wish 1280x1024 worked or someone could hack in 1920x1080.

Edit - It does drop to 45 fps if I call in 99 artillery strikes

Strange. I tested my 3.4 ghz northwood with Prime Benchmark 3. 2773 on single core and 4750 (or something) on hyperthread. So it's around where it should be. What do you guys get? Also, how are you checking framerates? I can't use Tray Tools now with this 3850 agp card, though I tested Comanche on the 9250 in both PCI and AGP 8x modes (no difference since it's software based graphics). I wonder if the 3D-max line-interlace stereoscopic is still on. That would definitely slow things down this much. Because it still show checked when I switch to 800x600, and that's also a lot slower than it was when I first installed Comanche. Anyone find anywhere to fix this setting or registry? Uninstall/reinstall did not help. Also, is there a patch that I should be using? Mine says like 1.00.00.

I checked fps with the ATI Tray Tools onscreen display. I tried this prime benchmark and I got 3254 points single threaded. This benchmark is interesting though, because if I click the 'multithread' option it gives a slightly higher score, but hyperthreading itself is not enabled in the BIOS. Whatever.
As for the game, I found a patch on MigMan's site, but it doesn't seem to do anything we'd need, and I don't have it installed - here's the link anyway:
http://www.migman.com/ref/1990_combat/ComancheGold/patches.htm

So it must be that stereo thing that's switched on somewhere. Damn. Probably some stupid thing they put in there to prevent people from reinstalling the demo or something.

I can Not get C3 working under XP HELP!!?? C3 Will NOT even install?? Can you get Stereo to work in CGold??

I don't know what the hell CGold's stereo is doing, except slowing things down. VFX-1's is nothing more than a switch for getting the VFX-1 frame flipper card working. The other one (forget the name) is line flipping and I can't get it to turn off. It stays selected even after reinstall. Can't find anything in the registry for it.

CGold installed without a hitch on my XP system.

Just a thought, it hasn't stuck a another folder with settings some where has it, like games these days stick one in My Documents maybe it has one in C drive or Windows...

Yeah, I've checked some, for like in My Documents and Settings. I'll try checking some more. You'd think it has to be somewhere. It's not magic. It has to be in a physical place on the drive.

Wanna give a little feedback, too:
I tried Comanche Gold with Windows Vista the other day and it just did not work. Compatibility mode did not work, too. It started and went CTD immediately.

But yesterday i installed again the good ol' XP on my C2Q and tried again. Now it works!!!

And thanks to Reticuli's mod, also in 1024x768!!!

Wow, when thinking that i already playing this game for almost 12 years now... first Comanche 3 back in mid 1997 on a P166, then from mid 1998 on Comanche Gold on a K6-350, then Celeron 400, P3-600E, P3-800EB, P3-933... then it collected dust for some years, but since 2005, i'm played it again on the following systems: Athlon XP 2000+, P4-2400 Mhz, Athlon 64 3200+ and 3400+, and now on the Core2 Quad Q9300 @3.0 Ghz.

On my C2Q it runs so damn smooth, i've never seen that in any Voxel game before!!! This game is so fascinating!!

Any idea how to get 1280x1024 working? When trying that, it gives me a CTD, too.

Well done Falcon, I still love this sim and have spent HOURS playing it.

I also tried comanche gold with vista and it seem to work for multiplayers only. If i put the cd on the cdrom drive, the game stop working. any help on that?

Hi Guys

Sorry for being a complete dodo - but my hex editing skills are like zero! I would love to give the new settings a try - anyone got a copy of the relevant amended .pff files they could mail me? steve_dot_logan1_at_btinternet_dot_com

Thanks

On an old dell I've got the 1280x1024 worked for a while, but the top sliver of screen was at the bottom, or the bottom was at the top. Plus eventually I think it still crashed. Not sure if I've mentioned that before. Looks like that was a mode they had not fully debugged.

Yes, the faster your raw CPU and your memory, the faster this will run from kernel. It doesn't care how much memory you have, how big your hard drive is, or the latest and greatest video card. All CPU+Memory speed related.

Here's how you get higher detail/resolution terrain....

in cgold.pff you edit the following lines

|b|D!9€|D>0€|g|D>1€ |wTerrain Detail ~|D+2
|b|E!9€|g|E>0€|E>1€ |wTerrain Resolution ~|E+2

to

|b|D!9€|D>0€|g|D>1€ |wTerrain Detail ~|D+5
|b|E!9€|g|E>0€|E>1€ |wTerrain Resolution ~|E+5

basically the numbers after the + sign at the end denote the number of levels for each option. I think you can enter anything up to 9 but 5 seems to work well for me.

Restart comanche gold and go in to the settings menus. You'll notice the number of boxes hasn't changed, however the number of time you can click before they reset to zero has Basically even when the option has been maxed out on the menu you can continue selecting it to get higher detail. For best effect start a mission and do it from there so you can see the results on screen.

Positive Feedback for Comanche Gold on 1024x768

on hardware

DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2500 MHz (12.5 x 200) 4800+

Mother board Asus M2N-VM HDMI on board Video nVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV NVIDIA nForce 630a (up to 512 MB)

RAM 2GB 800Mhz



with PFFs corrections from Reticuli and MixedupJim posts plus Object Quality correction from 2 to 5

The game goes smooth, stable and is very good looking!

Ok, finally figured out why i was having problems getting this to work.
I was using the wrong hex editor.
using HxD Hex Editor it took less than 3 minutes.

thanks guys. This is cool.

Oh yeah, and i did buy dcs:bs

Again, thanks.

Hello,

i cant get this to work. When i use the windows text editor and edit the files, i cant start the game.

By the way, there is another hidden menu , i think its BAR5, does anybody know about that?


@jaegermeister

can you tell me how it works with the HxD editor?


Im from Germany so excuse my poor English

Nice find.

So these mods have +0 in the hex as just the first notch that you see in the sim menu. I did both cgold and resource ppfs.

On Clouds, you just put it at 2, as four in sim (3 in hex) backtracks one, anyway.

Object detail is a bit odd. Up to 4 in the hex (five in the sim), you get definite improvements. Not quite sure at 5 (six sim). 6 (seven sim) almost seems to backtrack, but I'm not certain. Framerates still decrease. 7 moded hex (eight in the sim) either gives corrupted objects or goes so slow it appears to freeze. If I'm patient enough to bump it one more to 8 (nine in the sim), framerates seem to decrease even more, though if there's any actual detail increase it's subtle again. 9 in the hex (ten in the sim), causes a crash on my machine. So for me I just have these two hexes at +8 max, unless I plan on backing out to the menu to cycle it past each time. FPS suffers so much with object detail, I mostly just keep it on the minimum. A little more does seem to help at longer ranges.

Terrain detail and terrain resolution both work fine on mine modded in the hex to 9 each (10 in the sim, with the first block black). These make the biggest visual difference. If this was running at even higher resolutions and in widscreen, these levels of detail would be modern... especially for the night missions Needs a fast machine. I'm wondering what the fastest single core CPU, motherboard, bus, and memory you could get would be. Maybe all flash based HD and Xenon core? I don't know, but the idea you could be getting 60fps on some monster computer, with even just integrated graphics chips and all this stuff maxed is appealing.

Fantastic possibilities. Too bad the stereoscopic only ever worked at low resolutions, as not only would it be in 3D, but would antialias in a way.

Amazing gameplay. So much atmosphere. Anyone with an X52 who hasn't yet tried the GlovePIE stuff, man oh man. What a difference it makes in deepening the experience.

Take off with the slider down for hover and slow creeping flight.

Go to standard mode in the middle of the slider.

If you get to a flat area, like a lake or river canyon, move the slider up top for cruise mode and twist for the coordinated turns. Switch altitude hold on at min alt and it's so well behaved.

Get to the target area and go back to slider all the way down to creep in with hover hold on.

Reverse this on the way back. A nice mission to use these techniques: the special forces airport strike.

One thing that I'd like to point out so that these 'hack' mods could be made more accessible and distributable...

Instead of each person having to hexedit their own .pff files - obviously the files are really too big to upload the hacked versions of ('Cgold.pff' is 56.5 Mb and 'Resource.pff' is 144 Mb), wouldn't it be better to find the actual file(s) within the .pff files that you actually have to mod out? Note that the .pff files are merely archive files that house all the loose game files (images, sounds, videos, etc).

So if you could pinpoint and mod the file(s) that you are actually modding in a hex editor, these would be just a matter of a few kilobytes compared to the whole 100+Mb archives. Then they could easily be distributed online.

These PFF viewers/extractors might help:

FwO Raven's pff utility v0.7
http://www.dfreload.com/forum/files.php?action=file&id=135

PFF3 Manager v1.1.0
http://www.dfreload.com/forum/files.php?action=file&id=124


Note that I have now setup a Windows 98SE virtual PC and can play CG again!


Reticuli - could you please check your PMs and get back to me?

Virtual PC won't boot from the DVD/CD drive on mine. I even turned off the networking and floppy within the Vpc settings and it still keeps saying "please boot from blah blah blah". I've got a win98 op system disk in there.

Is Vpc and win98 really going to improve framerates that much, considering Comanche is already pretty low level coded? How much a fps increase are you guys getting?

I'm not running a virtual PC to get better framerates, I'm running it so I can actually PLAY Comanche Gold. On Windows 7 you can't even start the game. If anything, there is a drop in framerate as virtual machines don't always make full use of the host computer's hardware abilities.

Also I'm not using a Win98 OS CD. I'm using a pre-archived .vhd Win98SE file that loads directly into Virtual PC and there's NO NEED for an original OEM CD. I then just load my CG .iso image file into Daemon Tools and it comes up in the virtual Win98 as a CD drive.

I will write an article shortly about this whole Virtual PC/virtual hard drive process and hopefully more will be explained then.

Well it's worked on two PCs for me so far strait into Windows XP without a hitch. I guess I just need a faster PC.

The AI in Comanche is nice. I just had a dozen helos hunting for me, then chasing me down canyons egressing from the first pair of scuds I blew up in a night desert mission. Talk about cat and mouse...

JSTAR picture kept a good track on them behind me as I stayed low and they went high above the canyon walls. Led them right into my tank and SAM column halfway to the base. Still, their search patterns as I was forced to begin my attack as they converged was pretty neat, so I made a run, greased the scuds from the opposite direction I came in from, and took out 2S6s as I went.

Using the radar altitude hold, the various dynamic glovepie modes, and flying along the gradual contours of ridges and hills makes Comanche unique. You can fly all the way up a mountain that way by spiraling up.

Hug a hill and you can even avoid being painted with your bay doors closed, gear up, and wing stubs off... at fairly close ranges. So much variation and different routes of doing things here. Deep strategy potential. I think people discount it because the switchology is lacking or the graphics system is different than they're used to. It's functional. And you do, after all, have discrete control over the bay doors, which adds another thing you have to keep track of after a launch.

With object detail on 4, you can see the enemy sufficiently at long ranges. You just have to get use to the scale of sensors and weapons being reduced. Yet it's all proportional and a highly thought-out balance. Must have taken a great deal of test playing.

So Reticuli - are you ever going to actually address my direct questions? See PM and above post.

I'm pleased that YOU like CG so much. I have always said that I feel like it is a more realistic representation of what the real Comanche would have been like compared to the one in EECH. The one in EECH is basically the Longbow flight model - and indeed the flight model in most parts of the Russian helos too. The one in EECH also seems a little too 'raw' for my liking - like being able to dump a skip-load of chaff and flare at every least-little opportunity is the total opposite of what the Comanche would have been really good at - stealth. And although the Comanche would have indeed used the Longbow fire control radar - and also a version of the TADS no doubt - the sensors would have been a lot more integrated and 'user friendly' compared to the AH-64D Longbow's systems. The workload in the Comanche in EECH is so high, that it is actually HARDER to contemplate things than in the Longbow. It shouldn't be this way.

In CG, even intense battles seem somewhat sombre, compared to other heli sims. I believe this really sums up the elegance and sophisticated-ness (lol) of the Comanche. And although the sensors and weapons have somewhat shortened ranges compared to their real-life counter-parts, like you say, everything seems really well laid out.

I don't believe that the seeming 'simplicity' of the avionics should deter hardcore sim fans, as I've also said before, the Comanche would have been fully digitized and highly automated in operation, therefore the crew would have had more time to think about the mission and strategy and not have to worry about scrolling through dozens of MFD pages.

I like you, Reticuli, I really do. There's just something about you. I love the way you just drop in a little review of CG every time you talk about something about the game internals. I also love the fact that you, like me, can appreciate this sim. You really seem to get a flavor of what the whole Comanche thing would have been about, made all the more special because there's a certain air of mystery about it. Now please just answer my bloody questions!?

Living here in the good old US of A for quite a few years, I can certainly appreciate this "bloody".
Made me laugh, thanks Flyboy.

Jaeger

Oh, it's terribly simplified and the entire battlespace is in midget form. And you can't roll the damn hello. All that p---s me off. But it's a kick arse fun time and, I agree, requires you to use strategy and intense focus to beat these hectic missions. Like using rad altitude hold at 10ft off the ground and 170 knots a bat out of hell on train tracks (safe because the tracks don't vary much in alt) to chase down the chem weapons shipment. Enemy Engage's alt hold feature works now, but you really have to baby sit it on rough terrain. No amount of switch-backing will save you, possibly because it's based on your radalt directly below. CG seems to take an average or the greater of two between below and a vector in the moment of travel. EE's is also over compensating and slow to respond. Its yaw modeling is also completely terrible. Love 'em both, but for different reasons.

Honestly, I think CG having no time acceleration or autopilot improves the experience. No laziness. Both are features I'd like to turn off in all sims, because I can't resist using them and then it hurts the gameplay.

There's also something about this voxel stuff that, while crude, forces the eye to focus and engages your attention. I find myself in textured polygon landscapes, even the near-photo resolution ones, having my eyes glaze over and get sleepy, even after the first few minutes of being wowed by them. Add very long flight times to the IP/Kill box, and Enemy Engage often leaves me bored. Voxel is organic. It might be crude and unrefined looking on the surface, but with a reduced-size battlespace and the weapons/sensors scaled as well, yeah it works. It's also fantastic in forcing your eyes to strain to pick out targets amongst trees and clutter. Aside from targets just disappearing, polygon sims have a difficult time with camo. Voxel is like simming in Lego Land, but the legos are super small.

Object Detail at 4 definitely improves your ability to target ID at distance. I think the next notch or two improves fine details on tanks and such. After that it just seems to add voxels without actually making things more detailed. Remember, though, clouds beyond 3 reverts to 2, so for all I know beyond 5 or 6 on object detail that might be happening.

****

I'm not sure if I still have Apache Air Assault on my computer. It might be on the other hard drive after the motherboard fried. Many of my sims (heavily modded stuff) are for the other OS install and aren't accessible right now. Some of my other sims will run, but don't like my new graphics card. The only Janes title that works, for instance, is WWIIF. From what I remember, Apache Air Assault was very arcade, frustrating, unpredictable, and unrewarding. I agree it does run pretty fast, though. I don't think I got past the first segment of the first mission.

You're perfectly free to do an article on this subject of modding Comanche Gold on your helo sim website. Heck, most of the stuff at the top is taken from that other web page.

Don't ask me anything about extraction or beyond the most rudimentary hex editing or GlovePie scripts. No, you can ask, but if you want some details I'll have to start making stuff up :-P I really don't know anything about how the PFFs work and have no motivation at the moment to find out. Sorry.

Did you ask something else I couldn't track down the PM or email for? Chime back in if you need to.

Did you ever get Blackshark? Are you continuing your own flight sim coding?

jaegermeister - glad you liked my use of the English language!


Reticuli - No, I asked if YOU would do an article, not ME!

The PFF thing is a breeze: add, edit, delete. That's all there is to it really.

No I never got DCS:BS, never had the desire to. And in order to continue my own flight sim coding, I'd have to have started at some point. I don't know if you're confusing me with someone else, but I have never done any 'coding' for anything, let alone a flight sim. It's the websites that are keeping me busy, and I thought Combat-helo was going to but that fell through for me.

Did you ever post instructions for this whole GlovePIE/PPJoy thing for use with CG? I just did a search but nothing came up (it may have been before the forums got revamped and may now be lost or the link lost). I wouldn't mind putting instructions for that on my site.

I think you've answered for yourself now. Don't leave it so long next time you see the PM icon flashing, huh?

Oh and one more thing, do something about your AVSIM Library sig link would you? It just takes you to a login page and it's no good for anyone who's not a member!

Become a member. It's free! The instructions for CG's GlovePIE stuff should be in the zip. I can't email you the entire zip due to bandwidth issues in the boondock out here (out of Vegas), but I could do a portion of it that is CG related if you want. I might have only already posted some of the early Enemy Engaged PIE stuff in that forum. The Blackshark ones have their own thread on their dedicated site. CG doesn't have its own forum, so maybe I just didn't think anyone was that interested.

The most user-friendly GlovePIE for CG is called something like "Comanche FBW nonlinear". With the X-52, you put the slider at the bottom for wings leveling and clears the other modes. Slider in the middle for a crude attitude & rate command / attitude hold. Slider at the top gives you a crude rendition of the Comanche's cruising mode (a real life flight law mode that came out of ADOCS and some of the other army lab flight research human factors research) where L/R on the SAC did side-slipping and the twist controlled coordinated turns. Pitch attitude hold is still on. That works nicely with radalt hold. It's just missing a Speed Command Mode in the pitch SAC axis, but we'll forgive that.

Hi Reticuli, I seem to have more luck getting you here than I do via PMs don't I? Yeah if you could send me the CG-specific GlovePIE stuff that would be good. My e-mail address is on my site.

@Reticuli

thanks now it works Have you checked BAR5 already ?

BAR5?

Reticuli - I think in an earlier post you or someone said something about there being a BAR5 (in Hex Editor) in the CG menu that was still 'unexplored' or possibly expandable.

Found it - on page 3 of this topic, the last post, by Hawkins (he says BAR5 is a hidden menu)...
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3031012/3.html

I've just looked for BAR5 in the Hex Editor, it appears only twice and doesn't appear to have any entries, so can't be modded.

I hope it's OK to post to this topic, even though it's been quiet for so long. I've seen this one referenced in multiple places as a definitive thread on Comanche Gold modding, so it seems to make sense for me to post here what I have found.

BAR5 is indeed a hidden menu, although it's not empty on my installation of Comanche Gold. In fact, it contains some rather useful things, not the least of which is an ability to access some of the video recording-and-playback features of the engine. It might be possible to transfer video dumps from one copy of Comanche Gold to another, thereby either showing other gamers how one has completed a mission, or else helping someone along by letting him takeover after a hard part of a mission that someone else has completed.

This menu also contains some debug options, which make it look as if it was used in testing and design by the developers for object placement, among other things. With this menu I was able to "win" the Free Flight mission of the Training campaign -- something I couldn't do before, since there seemed normally to be no objectives to complete to allow me to win.

I'm rather optimistic that the movie features may prove to be some of the best things that could be found hidden in this game.

Greetings, DavidC99.
I got your point, but i think this is a personall choise.
I sacrifice a hidden menu with pointless (for me) functs
to reach higher resolutions and after this i re-install
and play (and online) the game again after 10 years.
The 800x600 limit resolution (in 1986 was OK and the top
for new game engines) was something that limited the
game's attraction and playability.

Hi DavidC99,

Please, explain How do you unlock the BAR5 hidden menu?

With Hex Editor bracket reverting or else?

Have you see this unlocked menu at "in game" menu?

ufolev :-)

I unlocked it by doing the same hex editing procedures found earlier in this topic. There are two places that it is mentioned. One is where the game defines its parent menu names. Another is where it defines the content of each menu. Once these both prove to be unlocked, you're good to go. So far, what I've seen here has been dealing with the latter, but we'll be dealing with the former.

First, I'll give you a screenshot, but before I do, I have to explain something. I went ahead when I was testing this and added another menu with my name on it just to see if I understood how the menu system works. Since I'm too lazy to take it out of this, you'll see it in the screenshot. Nevertheless, the Edit menu remains as is.



Now to achieve the Edit menu, look for the section in Cgold.pff that has this:



Overwrite the "|X:0<" part with spaces, which is 0x20 value in hexadecimal format for an ASCII space.

Save.

Done.

I tested some of these options. Some pointers:

• Load & Play Recording: Looks for a video file to playback.
• Play Recording vs Play Recording w/no views: I don't know the difference between these two, yet, but playback and takeover appears to work fine.
• Start Recording: Select this to begin a recording. It resets the mission.
• Save Recording: Select this to dump a .rec file in your game directory named after the current mission.
• Save .POS File: This dumps a .pos file in your game directory named after the mission.
• Clear All Objects: It really does just that. Don't use it if you don't want everything to disappear.
• Set Win Flag: This is all you ever wanted to get through that Free Flight Training Mission.

• IP Remote Control: I wish I knew what this did.
• The rest in this section: Not sure, but I certainly was able to damage myself with the "Take No Damage" option selected by crashing into a mountain. It might apply only to playback movies or to enemy fire.

• Helicopter FM: This is normal simulator movement.
• Edit n' Move FM: This is a debug/dev option to let you move the Comanche around. I think this may be useful if you're trying to figure out object placement for custom missions.

Note: The naming convention for saving and loading files is based on the current mission. So if you're doing Free Flight, the file name used for loading and saving a game recording could be "C1M6.REC".

Now -- let's think about how we can use these new features for good. I'm curious about a few things.

• Will recording and transferring game video dump files to other users allow them to use the playback and takeover routines?
• What in the world is the "IP Remote Control" feature? That sounds very... dangerous... fun.... what?

You no longer need to edit that large 'Cgold.pff' file because I found the file within that to edit. Note that PFF files are merely archives containing lots of game files.

Download this, place the file in the zip in your CG install folder, edit it and save it:
http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/cg/WC3-modded.zip

Note that it already has the other menu items unlocked.

For the original, grab the file below:
http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/cg/WC3-original.zip

I was thinking of getting a pff tool. I've now been convinced to do that, and I see all of the files within it and how to edit it.

Interestingly enough, if we don't need the Cgold.pff file, or even if we can repack our own, then in theory, this means we might be able to make our own complete campaigns -- even multiplayer compatible campaigns.

I'm starting to like this idea... I wonder how much work it would be to put a real campaign together.

I use FwO Raven's pff utility v0.7
http://www.dfreload.com/forum/files.php?action=file&id=135

I should think it would be quite a lot of work to do a complete campaign.

Could you edit my modded WC3 file with your BAR5 edit, then let me have it for my site?

I could, sure, but I have to disappear for awhile, and may not get to it today. If you want to do it yourself, it's just like I described earlier, without much difficulty. From your WC3.MNU file:



This needs to be changed so that "|X:0<" don't exist. Overwriting with spaces should work, although I suspect you might be able to simply delete that substring without any consequences.

Is there a place where you'd like me to attach the new file once I get through with it?

Hello DC99

I cant unlock edit game menu

I place the 5 spaces instead of |X:0< save it and nothing happens :-(

after correction it is look like this:

-----> Trigger Data ENDS <----------..>BAR0..|0|w Game ~BAR1..|g Control ~BAR3..|g Options ~BAR4..|g Detail ~BAR2..|g Video ~BAR6.. |g Edit ~BAR5..<..>BAR1..


game runs normal but edit menu do not appears

please post the text in Cgold pff in edit area

after correction to compare it with mine

:-(

I just tested this by taking Flyboy's WC3.MNU file and making the change in my last post by deleting the 5 characters. Hex editing the .pff file should probably be abandoned, especially if we can make our own modded pff files. The next challenge is to be able to easily swap between mods.

DavidC99 - please send me the file via my e-mail address at: hl_freak2k[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk

Remember to replace the bracketed entries with the real symbols.

Flyboy should have it now.

I've discovered the difference between Play Recording and Play Recording w/no views, by the way. The latter is the one we currently use whenever we issue a normal playback command in singleplayer. "With no views" means that it doesn't show you the camera views that were recorded with the video. For example, if you switch from cockpit view to external view during a mission, this is, in fact, recorded with the video dump. If you play the recording with views, then you will not be able to change camera angles, but you will be able to see the video through the eyes of the pilot as he switches from one camera to another. Very useful if you want to analyze a pilot's usage of cameras in respect to his awareness of the battlefield.

Incidentally, I've discovered prerecorded videos of certain missions left in the game by the developers. If you load these missions and then load the recording from the new menu, you'll be able to watch these videos. These are the following missions that come with recordings:

• C5M2
• C2M8
• C6M1
• C8M3

Remember, Training is C1. So C2 would be the first Silver campaign. The number after the "M" indicates the mission number.

Note: These videos don't necessarily show amazing gameplay.

I'm thinking about looking into making a campaign. Not sure if it can be done, but I may give it a shot.

Nicely done. That's good news!

I may have even better news if my latest tests work -- I'm trying to take on map triggers.

By the same way as Gomanche Gold with hexediting

we can manage COMANCHE3 :
increase - resolution, detail and unlock hidden developer menu









VIDEO TUTORIAL


ufo :-)

ufolev - yes, as Comanche Gold is just an updated version of Comanche 3!

Hi FLYBOY

Some fans said to me that they prefer Comanche3
because of more aggressive AI in game.
Here is no Comanche3 mod for them and for now
hexediting is only way to change C3 for good.

ufo :-)

ufolev - if you do a mod make sure to just modify that WC3.MNU file (or Comanche 3 equivalent) and not the whole PFF file! Also I will host it on my site if you want.

I can't create C3 mod.
I just offer to them the above published video hexediting tutorial.

Why can't you create the mod?

All you have to do is extract the WC3.MNU file from the 'Resource' PFF file and hexedit that.

EDIT: After looking closer at your video, I see that C3 uses a .RES file and not a .PFF one. Is that why you can't extract the relevant file?

Yes I renamed C3 Resourse.res to resourse.pff and tryed
to open it with pff utility but it gives to me
some different kind of error messages and I can't open it.

Can you make this mod instead of me please?
- because you know what to do.

ufo :-(

Well if we can't extract the file needed, then I can't do it either!