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Back To Report 2
Article Type: Event Report
Article Date: July 16, 2001
As with Rowan's Battle of Britain, this is the first time that I've seen CFS2 in action. Its air-to-ground missions are definitely superior to those in EAW, and dogfighting is a blast. I still maintain that there is something lacking in comparison to EAW…perhaps it's the small number of planes in the sky in a given engagement, perhaps it's the 'mushiness' of the flight models, perhaps it's the lack of co-op multiplayer action, or perhaps it's the lack of radio chatter…but something prevents me from declaring EAW unseated by this otherwise fine sim.
In fact, I think I'll keep CFS2 on my hard drive for the air-to-ground missions and carrier ops. Otherwise, in my books EAW is still in the top spot for WWII sims. I think it's safe to say that everybody here at ELF would agree with me…especially after the wicked co-op bomber interceptions we've been running in EAW. That sort of immersive co-op multiplayer action is sorely missing in CFS2. Deathmatches are fun, but in the end that's all they are...and they get a bit pointless.
I have a couple of birth and death announcements to make (this is starting to sound like Woodstock, I know). First of all, I regret to inform you all of the passing of Mane Raptor's Thrustmaster HOTAS system. Something about it and WindowsME did NOT get along, so it's been relegated to a dark corner of the house until Mane gets a chance to attempt a resurrection (and perhaps an exorcism or two). He has setup a Saitek X36 system in its place, and has been fiddling with config files for EAW and CFS2 ever since!
On a happier note, Mane's rig gave birth to a happy bouncing baby GEForce 3 video card. It perfectly complements his 1.2 Gig Athlon rig, and we've done some framerate comparisons with his old TNT2 card. The GEForce 3 card is now pumping out 100 frames per second in CFS2 with medium detail settings, and most impressively is maintaining a steady 40-50 fps with all the details and resolution maxed out. This is now one hell of a hot rig, and now Mane will have no excuses left when next I smoke his butt on Kali.
I mentioned in the last instalment that we were going to try getting some Panzer Elite (PE) action going on the LAN. Unfortunately, this never happened. Our bad luck at doing multiplayer PE on Kali has caught up with us, and whenever we try to launch a game on our LAN the rigs freeze up. We had high hopes on this one, and needless to say we are sorely disappointed. Also, Hidden and Dangerous has been running with mixed results: it's working on two of networked rigs, but for some reason locks-up on Mane's WinME rig. I'm starting to think that Win98 and WinME don't necessarily mix well in a LAN setting like this. Next time around, I'm going to setup the ELF LAN with the IPX protocol instead of TCP-IP. I have a feeling that we may have less connection problems with IPX and this will also allow us to connect to other players on Kali through a LAN gateway. Nonetheless, since this is our first time setting up a LAN party I'm generally pleased with the results, and the important games like EAW and CFS2 have been running flawlessly once we got the
gremlins on the run.
Well, this about wraps up our coverage of ELF2001. Me and Storm will be heading back for Montreal tomorrow morning, but tonight we'll be feasting on Maine lobster and Rolling Rock beer. For perhaps the second time this week the sun is shining, but for us the sun will never set on ELF 2001. It's been a total blast, and meeting all of our online friends in person has been a gratifying and thoroughly enjoyable experience that we hope to be able to repeat for ELF 2002!
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ELF 2001: Day 5 & 6 Update and Wrap-Up
by Peter "Zhukov" PawelekBack To Report 2Article Type: Event Report
Article Date: July 16, 2001
Days 5 & 6: July 12th / 13th, 2001
As ELF 2001 has hit the Day Six mark it's been hard to say what's been more popular lately: MicroProse's European Air War (EAW) or Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 2 (CFS2). For LAN multiplayer, CFS2 has proved to be a hit because of the ability for anyone to hop into an ongoing game at any time. Although there have been some gripes about the quality of flight modeling (and it does seem that stalls and spins are overmodeled at the 'realistic' setting), the smoothness of multiplayer free-for-alls as well as the great big heaps of eye candy has kept people coming back for more.As with Rowan's Battle of Britain, this is the first time that I've seen CFS2 in action. Its air-to-ground missions are definitely superior to those in EAW, and dogfighting is a blast. I still maintain that there is something lacking in comparison to EAW…perhaps it's the small number of planes in the sky in a given engagement, perhaps it's the 'mushiness' of the flight models, perhaps it's the lack of co-op multiplayer action, or perhaps it's the lack of radio chatter…but something prevents me from declaring EAW unseated by this otherwise fine sim.
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| Your faithful correspondent undertaking evasive maneuvers to evade Cobra and Bilko on his six. |
In fact, I think I'll keep CFS2 on my hard drive for the air-to-ground missions and carrier ops. Otherwise, in my books EAW is still in the top spot for WWII sims. I think it's safe to say that everybody here at ELF would agree with me…especially after the wicked co-op bomber interceptions we've been running in EAW. That sort of immersive co-op multiplayer action is sorely missing in CFS2. Deathmatches are fun, but in the end that's all they are...and they get a bit pointless.
I have a couple of birth and death announcements to make (this is starting to sound like Woodstock, I know). First of all, I regret to inform you all of the passing of Mane Raptor's Thrustmaster HOTAS system. Something about it and WindowsME did NOT get along, so it's been relegated to a dark corner of the house until Mane gets a chance to attempt a resurrection (and perhaps an exorcism or two). He has setup a Saitek X36 system in its place, and has been fiddling with config files for EAW and CFS2 ever since!
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| The ever-popular morning reveille. |
On a happier note, Mane's rig gave birth to a happy bouncing baby GEForce 3 video card. It perfectly complements his 1.2 Gig Athlon rig, and we've done some framerate comparisons with his old TNT2 card. The GEForce 3 card is now pumping out 100 frames per second in CFS2 with medium detail settings, and most impressively is maintaining a steady 40-50 fps with all the details and resolution maxed out. This is now one hell of a hot rig, and now Mane will have no excuses left when next I smoke his butt on Kali.
I mentioned in the last instalment that we were going to try getting some Panzer Elite (PE) action going on the LAN. Unfortunately, this never happened. Our bad luck at doing multiplayer PE on Kali has caught up with us, and whenever we try to launch a game on our LAN the rigs freeze up. We had high hopes on this one, and needless to say we are sorely disappointed. Also, Hidden and Dangerous has been running with mixed results: it's working on two of networked rigs, but for some reason locks-up on Mane's WinME rig. I'm starting to think that Win98 and WinME don't necessarily mix well in a LAN setting like this. Next time around, I'm going to setup the ELF LAN with the IPX protocol instead of TCP-IP. I have a feeling that we may have less connection problems with IPX and this will also allow us to connect to other players on Kali through a LAN gateway. Nonetheless, since this is our first time setting up a LAN party I'm generally pleased with the results, and the important games like EAW and CFS2 have been running flawlessly once we got the
gremlins on the run.
Well, this about wraps up our coverage of ELF2001. Me and Storm will be heading back for Montreal tomorrow morning, but tonight we'll be feasting on Maine lobster and Rolling Rock beer. For perhaps the second time this week the sun is shining, but for us the sun will never set on ELF 2001. It's been a total blast, and meeting all of our online friends in person has been a gratifying and thoroughly enjoyable experience that we hope to be able to repeat for ELF 2002!
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| The Marines have 'Semper Fi'; the ELF'ers slogan? 'BITE ME!' ELF 2001. Click the image for blow-up complete with names of all the above. |
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