EAW Tool Pack

So here is a link to a pack I'm trying to put together of misc tools and other types of eaw files to help someone out.

I plan to have a small readme with every file, and perhaps one day a better readme for most of the files, all depends on the help I recieve and the information out there.
Any feedback on the pack is appreciated.

When I round out most of the problems with the tools and readmes, I intend to upload it to Combat Ace file archives.
If you can take a look at the file , inside and provide any info I should add that would be greate.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/u9m7ihifxqm8hh7/EAWHS-Tools_Extras-Pack.7z/file

Flight School, in tools, needs some work; needs a single click to reveal the whole thing. I already have it, and very worthwhile in its intended format. Your rendition needs some work to do it justice. Submitted with respect.

The other tools are far above my pay grade, and so I leave comments on such to others.

Thank you for assembling this Kit!

Flight school by MPS. Yeah you have to unzipp the folder and view it that way. You cant view it within the zip.
I single clcik on the index.html should work properly. Its the way they designed it.

If you can't comment on the tools, maybe the extras section of the archive you can. Anything else need to be in there that you used in the past year or so?

I have the following "tutorials";

1) Flight School.eng (What you currently offer, I think)
2) SC_2.eng
3) Fighter combat Tactics and Maneuvering (PDF) (General, and perhaps better suited to Jets, but lots there for piston-other aircraft.
4 STKEAW v1.05 095NH (PDF) Directly pertains to EAW, but focuses on multiplayer, on-line flying. Still, lots there for anyone.

I don't know what SC_2.eng is, can you tell me?

I can place some more flight training tutorials in there as well, I'll try to rememeber next time I work on it.

Thanks RIBob.

RIBob, can you point me to the SC_2 eng document?

Due to life and the lack of enough feedback regarding the tool pack. Updates have slowed tremendously.

I will someday get back to it.

Now that I have retired from everyday work, and have a little more time after addressing the ever-lengthening "Honey-Do" list, I will look into the SC-_2 issue. Frankly, I don't think it's a 'stunning' addition to what you already have supplied.

I understand a little bit, I think, about your personal frustration level. I have always said that your efforts have NEVER been given sufficient credit. Without your Help Site, there would be far fewer Entry-level folks playing EAW, and so far fewer players overall.

Your Help Site plays no favorites vis-à-vis different versions of the EAW game, and I commend you for being impartial, and offering help for all versions of the EAW game.

I probably speak for many, but if not for your Help Site, I would NEVER have gotten the game to work on my computer.

Thank you very much! I am indebted to you! As are many who will not take the time to acknowledge their indebtedness, but such is life. The failure of some folks to thank you does not mean that you haven't made a HUGE difference; Just means that you don't know how much effect you've made.

I think your Help Site ought to be PROMINENTLY displayed at any and all sites that have an EAW forum, bar none. Where else how to learn/install the game except for your excellent Help Site?

In the overall best interest of the EAW Sim, I request at least a Prominent Mention of his Help Site within the EAW forum.

MarkEAW, can you make a post with link to your site and compose any appropriate comments you wish ? The purpose is to put a prominent sticky here to highlight your work.

Yes. You can link to any page on the my help site, if not just the main page.

EDIT:

Thanks.

Ok, sticky done.

Look at it and suggest anything you would l8ke.

perhaps name it 'EAW Help Site', so they know thats what it is. To help them out.
For the title of the post.

Okay Thank you. Should be helpfull.

I don't know if anyone else has any other ideas what should be there?

I'm delighted that the Sticky was added. Maybe add to the title: "Look here FIRST for essential INFO" on EAW, or something similar.

That's icing on the cake, and up to OG. I just want to make sure that both Newbies and even old-timers will take note of it. It's got good info for all sorts of people.

Its good but support for the Codegroup builds is lacking. I stopped updating support on that version about 8 months ago I think. To hard to follow post about it and its changes. I tried hard though. Unviersal help is what I was aiming at.

With that said you'll have to go through the scatterd and sometimes lacking post to combine them into something coherent to take notes if you want to fill out the existing docs I have. In otherwords I'm willing to take in other peoples writngs aswell if there put together firmly.

I don't know how essential Code-Group support might be. If I might suggest, in lieu of Code-Group support, perhaps focusing on using EAW in Win 10 might be a far more profitable use of your time.

As you can see from my thread here (and elsewhere) there is considerable room for people owning/using older computers to upgrade them to take full advantage of EAW, as well as more modern games. I hope you will have a glance at it, and perhaps comment on it.

I posted over at CombatACE EAW forum as I seen your concern there first..

Basicly for vistors here....Win10 and EAW get along nicly...except for breaking the 30fps marker. But using win7 (which runs EAw faster) today is not worth it, but I support it in my writings.

Yeah, I saw that, and responded. Thanks!

Let's see what we can do with EAW on a really modern computer system. Since it's running Win 10 Pro, and all the other hardware/software/firmware is GTG, let's see what happens.

Well EAW is on a "in the last decade" computer here. I consider it pretty modern. But yeah your alittle more modern than I.

Once you get a hardware accelerated vid card and then a decent cpu your pretty much all set. But I'll let you get into it and let me know where I'm wrong.

Your 30fps comment rings a small bell. I'm on Win 7, rather than 10, but recently discovered that the inability of all my EAW installations to rise above 30fps in the cockpit is due to my using force feedback. When I turn off ffb, it increases to the low fifties. Funnily enough, even when ffb is on, my fps in outside-the-cockpit views is also in the low fifties. It suggests that effects on framerates in EAW are multifactorial.

Hmmm 30 frames on win10 I mean. But I don't have FF on so thats not it, it happened after a win10 update, I forgot which one. Before that the frames hit 38+.

But the FF is tied into the sound events, like a hit sound will also trigger FF. Its the way its programmed. IDK if thats the way FF is normally done but it apears that way.

It is not FF. Micro$oft broke the way DX6 era code works. The problem is not unique to EAW or Panzer Elite. It is either the instruction set for multi core processors or the legacy DLLs for DX9 instructions. I added multi thread aware and large memory blocks to the PE code and it is reported the same types of slow downs.

I bow to your vastly more comprehensive knowledge! FF slowdown is a symptom rather than a cause, therefore. We just have to live with these things until finally the newer OS leave these games altogether unworkable.

Yeah, its definatly a DX6 or DX9 thing. Win7 had it right, but to get more old games supported I think Microsoft added more layers and it slowed down the game in win10.

I tried to and experimented with the compat database built into windows, but never finished sorting threw all the options available. I wrote a doc on it at my help site. Its advanced but once you get into it its fairly easy.

I have a quad core with a single thread support , as EAW uses single thread. So that can't be the problem. If you have 6 cores I think the single thread is not supported as much.

All this testing I did got me little ahead, but not much, and it was too long ago (a few years) to remember everything I tried.

I mostly use an iPad for internet nowadays and have little use for my home pc, so I intend to keep Win 7 on it for as long as it can survive. Support is going, but that won't affect me much, hopefully, as I generally disable the internet on the pc except for when I wish to download something for EAW or First Eagles and the like. Anyway, there are some who have survived for years up to now on XP.

In fact, I haven't installed an update for Win 7 for years and the sky hasn't fallen in yet.

Perhaps you might want to install the updates while they are still available.

No, everything is working fine now for my requirements. I'd worry that something in the updates might break something.

I have always allowed MS Win 7 updates, without any negative problems. I understand your hesitance to do so, but may I suggest cloning your existing HD to a separate drive, and then downloading the updates to your existing HD? See if the upgrades affect your gaming. I suspect not at all. But if there is a problem, then re-install the original drive, and you arte back to where you where. You now have a second drive, once wiped of its' contents, suitable for backup purposes.

Thanks, RIBob. That sounds like an excellent idea. However, I'm lazy and the problem is to motivate myself to do it. I tend to react to things that go wrong rather than pre-empt them. No doubt the day will come when I kick myself for not taking your advice!

I completely understand, and share some of those traits. Allow me to provide some motivational assistance. Suppose your current drive (how old/how much use has it seen anyway?) on your Win 7 catastrophically failed. Consider how much time and effort it would take to re-create what you have stored there, as opposed to having a ready-to-install backup drive, Some info formerly available to you, used to create what you currently have on your drive might no longer easily accessible, if at all

Submitted by a fellow procrastinator, who HAS had a drive failure, and who HAD a backup drive.

One expects the worst, while hoping for the best!

I still prefer win98, but then again I do not need the OS to "educate" me.

The comment is true, but do not take it as a personal insult.

Just a notice, slight update to the tool pack. No need to re download it though unless your after some CDF extractors and other minor changes.
I will be adding more to the pack, but if your gonna re-download it now, could you please offer feedback and provide readmes for some or any tool you know how to use. You can post here or PM me. Thanks.

I also sorted out the CDF extraction tools on the files section of the help site. Reduced the archive count and repacked what I had left.
Note: The Win98 (CDFRW.exe) extractor will not run on 64 bit systems as its a 16bit program.
Other file descriptions added as well.

Okay, more of an update. More 3dz tools sorted out and readmes added. Note, most new readmes are in early development and still need expanding.
(Moving readmes to the tool pack , from the model help doc. They may come back to the model making help doc when there expanded upon, hopefully.)

Found a WindowsXP CDF Manger(works in Win10), Extractor and such in my pile. I've added that to the tool pack.
Added a bunch of readme's and some more tools to cover other areas of modifying EAW.
I've uploaded and will be uploading updates to the tool pack archive, so give a week to download it again as i may update it several times during a weeks period of time.....and sometimes I upload it several times aswell.

Since i don't know how to use all tools, and neither to newbies, there are tutorials and reference material downloadable from my files section to help you out.
Don't be afraid to look around into the file archives as some documentation is still hidden within some tools I have not posted in the tool pack yet.

Still need help to fill out the readmes if anyoe can help give 1 a description of the tool, and 2 usage, 3 tips and the like to help out and shorten a newbies time using a specific tool.

I would be happy to instruct any newbies in the dark arts of 3dz modeling.

But it has to be instigated by the person interested since I have way too much to do to produce instructions on the hope that someone will take the bait.

So, if you are interested, do not hesitate to ask.

As the post above says, I need short readmes for any of the packed in tools. In particular the 3dz tools at the moment. (then other tools later).
1-Short description
2-Usage
3-tips


You are referring to another post i made on another thread as for 3dz model help. I have a help doc displayed, just need text inserted and edited. The further down the help doc the more elusive the information.

Everyone that helped has downloaded the tool pack and read the current model making help doc and provide small details to help me.
In the mean time im trying to get it all organized, tools and doc info.

You referenced 3dz tools here and in the other thread. No point duplicating my response.

My offer is real with the caveat that the student will have to stand up and ask for the help.

3dz modeling is a very complex issue hence the accompanying docs will be complex. I'm sure you can understand that me writing these complex documents on the hope that someone will get interested is not the best use of my time.

Well, those 3 needed bits of info is what I can wrap my head around at the moment.
I'll be adding more tools as time allows and what I half heartedly determine seems of help.
So i have been asking for those 3 details per tool, in particular the 3dz folder in the tool pack I have provided. (it changes often at the moment, but I upload the changes asap, until there's more)

Just DL the pack and away you go, read the readmes that are there now, and provide where lacking, I assume its simple to provide 3 details per tool , as one (or many) knows this stuff better than I.
You may send them PM, or if its better to talk it out then post in open forum....doesn't matter to me, I just want to read and edit and filling if I can.
Maybe if the details are open others can join to say there part determineing if theres more info to be added to help newbies...like myself.

IDK thats the best I can do as I'm providing the tool pack and the model making doc as is right now.

EDIT:
Just uploaded 5-16-2020 version of the tool pack. If I remember i move alot around a few days ago and just got to uploading it now.