IL2FB pilots wanted on Virtualpilots_1 - Sat Oct 2nd 2004

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Hello Gents and Ladies!

The Finnish Virtual Pilots will be flying organized missions on the 64-player "Virtualpilots_1" dogfight server next saturday, October 2nd 2004. We will start the missions at 20.30 central european time, that is 14.30 US east coast time.

The Finns are naturally flying on the Blue side. We challenge all Red / Allied / VVS pilots to show up and give us a good run for the money. Squadrons are more than welcome to join the fun!

Welcome!  

Camo
Virtualpilots' Game Server Staff
http://www.virtualpilots.fi

[Wotan]

I will try to be there with some squaddies...

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

I'd like to try it out. Hope I remember to wake up for it, and hope the hangover isn't too bad.
-SW

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Great!  Looking forward to seeing you guys there.

Any other brave ones here?

Camo

[Octavius]

Count me in

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Dont miss the fun!

Camo

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Thanks to all participants, for a very succesful evening!

I flew 6 sorties, the tracks are available here: http://vlen.telija.net/LLv34/FB/mission_02oct04/

If I recall correctly, they went like this:

1: Stuka mission, succesful
2: Stuka mission, aborted due to heavy opposition
3: Jabo mission, big fight
4: Field defense, one victory
5: Fighter sweep, multiple victories
6: Fighter sweep, multiple victories

Enjoy!  

Camo

[Wotan]

Camo,

We had 4 guys ready. 3 of of us came in early (1:45 eastern US) to get some practice in red planes (we dont fly them much at all). Well the mission parameters were met (XX red pilots died) shortly after we took off. We had a chance to get mixed up in a large df.

 After next mission loaded we took off again in La5f's and we got discoed on egress (red bars top left, then dumped to desk top).

Another one of our guys showed up and  he joined and got in np. The rest of us just couldnt get back in at all.

The game would hang while the mission wasl loading (some times at 90%; some times at 23%). We turned off sound and reduced graphics settings as suggested but it was we never got back in. We rebooted and tried several times.

My Sys specs

AMD XP 3200
Nvidia FX 5950 ultra
1 gig of ram
adsl (3megs down 768 up)

Average FPS on the large Finland map is 50fps runnign perfect settings.

When were first came in we got into 1 large DF (about 20 dots). Besides some minor individual warping every thing seemed like it would be ok. At the time there were over 40 people on the server.

After trying a few times we went over to warclouds for an hour or so. None us had any issue joining there.

Maybe was it was an issue after the dump with everyone rejoining at the same time.

Any way sorry we missed, looked like fun...

S!

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Hi Wotan!

Thanks for showing up. The night was a big success, even though some players have been experiencing some weird problems, like you.  

The 64 players is quite enough for setting up "snapshot" type events. The strength of FB is the mission editor, which enables the host to make almost any kind of mission.  Another good thing with the FB gameplay is the apparent fog of war.  The full realism settings make flying a lot harder than in AH, which appeals to the hardcore crowd.

As I told last night, some of the Finns have had this loading problem as well. They only have the problem with the large finnish map. If the server has some other map, there are no problems. However, most have been able to solve it with the following:

-Turning off sounds in IL2FB setup, then turning them back on once on the server
-Turning down graphics settings, then turning them back on once on the server
-Updating graphics or sound drivers
-Upgrading their computer

I havent found any common denominator for the problems. It seems that most players with problems have AMD processors, though.  I actually havent heard of any P4 players having problems. Weird?

The dump after the first mission was due to the server crashing. The IL2FB dedicated software gave an "out of memory" error and we had to restart it.  It happens sometimes, and so far only with the big Finland map.  The rest of the night went well, no problems with the server.

It seems that the 1800+ AMD server is barely able to host 64 players. We are in the process of getting a new server box, looking forward to the 128 player server. I hope that the new server box will also cure all the mission loading problems.

Thanks again to all participants, see you on VP1!

Camo
Virtualpilots' Game Server Staff
http://www.virtualpilots.fi