40th Anniversary Edition

[Menrva]

Hello Menvra,

were you the creator of the ef2000fix.exe as well? I think it was only posted at the former combatsim forums. I think it's useful to share this tool for those who like to run the 95 version.

No, I'm not the author of that fix. I can't recall where I got it from. On my end it doesn't seem to work well, the game goes way too fast. Same issue with F-22 ADF, the two games have some timing issues on modern systems. F-22 TAW was fixed by the devs, it does not require an external frame limiter.

[Menrva]

Well, that seemed to work although I'm not sure how to best package the solution.
I've edited the model files and removed the original model efa.3 from did.dat.
I've then created a new did.dat (from the files I happen I to have handy, which may not be complete) and moved the EF2000 models to a '3' folder. When the game can't find efa.3 in did.dat, it will look there.
The included version is called 'efdid.dat'. It will need to be renamed to 'did.dat', so backup your original version.
In the '3' folder are three variants, one of them will need to be renamed to 'efa.3' depending on which markings are desired.

Awesome stuff, mikew! I wonder if we can edit the insignia textures next. Are they in the .TM format we know from F-22 ADF/TAW? I'd like to give the Eurofighters that mixed insignia of the European Consortium as shown in artworks and pre release screenshots by DID, as well as updating Russian insignias. I plan on doing similar stuff for my own F-22 TAW mod.

[mikew]

Yes, it's the same system. The insignia are in 'markings.tm'. I'll put it here but it needs to be combined with a palette.
On page 1 of this thread, there's a .jpg of the finished texture.

[Menrva]

Well, that seemed to work although I'm not sure how to best package the solution.

For a customized 40th Anniversary release, I think it'd be best to have all game files (or most of them) in unpacked form, just like what was done with TAW 2.0. That way, we can use tools like Generic Mod Enabler to swap files and allow further customization to end-users. I'm currently doing my own version of unpacked TAW, not sure if it'll become TAW 2.5, but I plan on making it as refined as possible and with extra files and content we uncovered in the past two years. If we can have a similarly unpacked EF2000, I'd be glad to help in making a nice package of it, complete with installer like we already saw with Reloaded.

[Menrva]

Just to clarify that this did.dat is only compatible with the existing Reloaded or V2.0 and not the European versions

I tried it in EF2000 v2.0, apparently turned all game strings from English to German. Have you repacked the English DID.DAT?
I'd like to unpack the game files myself, are you using some EF2000 specific Python scripts? I only have the ones for ADF/TAW.

[mikew]

Yes, that is weird. They were definitely V2.0 data files as it says Graphics+ in the credits. Those files are from 2011 though, and I might have been playing around with them.

I am using Python scripts adapted for EF2000 and you're welcome to them when I've made them a bit more general.
In the meantime, here's the recently extracted data for V2.0 GFX+ and the UK version of SEF2000.
It should be enough to run both games using the extracted data.
https://app.box.com/s/g8sjq1dc91zs31055d7hruk6wk4tpmje

This is an ongoing activity when I get the time, with the goal being to only use the files actually needed by the game.

[Menrva]

It should be enough to run both games using the extracted data.

Thanks! I tried with those unpacked, game locks during loading of World at 42%. It's not enough yet it seems, but you're getting close! Keep up the great work!

[mikew]

Which exe are you using? I only use the Graphics+ version off the V2.0 CD. That works fine for the scenarios that I usually run.

[Scorpion82]

Well, that seemed to work although I'm not sure how to best package the solution.
I've edited the model files and removed the original model efa.3 from did.dat.
I've then created a new did.dat (from the files I happen I to have handy, which may not be complete) and moved the EF2000 models to a '3' folder. When the game can't find efa.3 in did.dat, it will look there.
The included version is called 'efdid.dat'. It will need to be renamed to 'did.dat', so backup your original version.
In the '3' folder are three variants, one of them will need to be renamed to 'efa.3' depending on which markings are desired.

EDIT:
Just to clarify that this did.dat is only compatible with the existing Reloaded or V2.0 and not the European versions

Missed that post.

Can confirm a fix. Music doesn't work and must be disabled. Funny enough the simulator missions are in German now (mission names and briefings). Rest remains in English.

There is almost a 9 MB difference in the original DID.dat of v2.0 and yours.

Interesting enough, if we can run the game in the extracted way, we may get rid of "CD Warnings" (removing the CD check file). When we combine the "3" models of all installs we may even get US markings on US aircraft and European markings on European aircraft!?

That said I really need to get the right tools to open the files and see what could possibly be done. Fear though that the HEX codes and stuff are somewhat beyond my grasp.

[Scorpion82]

Just some thoughts about a 30th anniversary release or EF2000 Reloaded v2.0:

1.) Extracted version of EF2000 v2.0 DOS 3DFX ready to run and maybe preconfigured.

2.) Reloaded front end incl. DOS Box as is.

3.) Revisiting and updating docs and instructions.

4.) Embed the DOS tools and make them run from the Frontend (ef_s and ef_m executables and ef_status).

5.) Swapable EF markings, selectabe from Frontend.

6.) Super EF2000 help file.

7.) Maybe include a tool to run the help file on a modern system.

8.) One click installer for all of this.

Possible directory structure:
EF2000 R2.0
- Reloaded
- EF2000

Put help file(s) under "docs" subfolder of reloaded.

[mikew]

Sounds good, although I'd like to use Dosbox-X instead of the 2013 era SVN version to which I manually added the Voodoo patch and EF2000 specific stuff.
It would also give a chance to handle TrackIR integration in a less kludgy way...

[Scorpion82]

Sure, makes sense to use the new X version.

[Menrva]

Which exe are you using? I only use the Graphics+ version off the V2.0 CD. That works fine for the scenarios that I usually run.

I'm using the same one, but mission loading hangs at 42% on my end for some reason. I added your edited EFA with RAF markings alongside the other extracted files you provided.

[Scorpion82]

I have only replaced the DID.dat and added the 3 folder with the German efa.3 model. Which DID.dat are you using, or have you removed it? Could imagine that maybe the files are possibly incomplete, i.e. missing from the DID.dat and in extracted form? Where are the "unknown files placed in their extracted form, main directory?

[Menrva]

I have only replaced the DID.dat and added the 3 folder with the German efa.3 model. Which DID.dat are you using, or have you removed it? Could imagine that maybe the files are possibly incomplete, i.e. missing from the DID.dat and in extracted form? Where are the "unknown files placed in their extracted form, main directory?

If you want to test the game with unpacked data, you have to remove the DID.dat or else the game will always use all the stock files in it. The unknown files cannot be placed anywhere, they are junk until we get proper folder paths and filenames for them, mikew is still working on extracting as much data as possible.

If you just want to play with different EF2000 markings, what mikew did works okay (as a side effect, for some reason it changes game language to German, so I'd rather wait until we can have as much game data unpacked as possible, like what was done for TAW 2.0 already); you'll have to replace the DID.dat file with what he provided, alongside the 3 folder and the EFA.3 model you choose.

[mikew]

I can't explain why it's hanging at 42%...but maybe it's related to the Dosbox exe.
I'm using dosbox-X these days, but I just tried running the version of dosbox provided with the original Reloaded and that crashed during loading if I selected 'Quick Combat' but it was OK in the training/free flight scenarios.

[Scorpion82]

Which may hint that maybe specific game mode related files are missing from the extraction and the game can't load them as they are missing in the extracted files or located in a wrong sub-directory. Maybe there are also some files that need to be in the DID.dat?

I don't know how the extraction process of the DID dat works in detail. From the statement above I have the impression that it's not the kind of "extracting the archive", as you would do with an archive file like ZIP. If that perception is wrong, maybe the DID.dat should be extracted in its entirety and the game run thereafter, with the DID.dat being removed. If not it might be an option to maintain the DID.dat, essentially extracting it, deleting the files that are known, rebuild the dat with what is left and keep the known files in their extracted form. A step by step extraction of individual subfolders might be another option, but it's more work intensive and time consuming, which is certainly a factor.

[Krishty]

If the game fails to start due to a certain file not being found, the file name/path should be visible in Process Monitor if it were a normal process. Not sure if the accesses from Dosbox.exe show up there or if they’re too deep in emulation land …

[mikew]

Dosbox has its own debugging mode and lists the files it's trying to load. I've recreated menrva's 42% problem but while it must be related to that set of files, I don't think it's missing any files otherwise we usually get an error specifically saying so.
The CPU core emulation goes haywire just after dealing with tm\past.tm. I've checked past.tm and it isn't corrupt.

error_42.PNG (25.27 KiB) Viewed 175 times

Bizarre... I've been running EF2000 with extracted files for years, and it's the first time I've seen this.

EDIT: This dataset works for me in V2.0 GFX+
https://app.box.com/s/3xzx5wtgnmrj3htepksfd2xaowbxy1e6
That'll buy me some time to work out what's going on

[mikew]

...and now I know what's happening.
The texture 'marsh.tm' was the texture loaded before 'past.tm' and for some reason is still in its compressed form. This must be a bug in my extraction script.
Being compressed wouldn't be a problem if it was still inside did.dat, but it doesn't look if that check is done when loading from outside it.