posted 09-24- 12:40 PM               

If I recall, Dogma can make a setup program that will only update your system as needed.

I don't mind about the pack, I mean with regards to holding it back, I don't think the A10 will make it because me and Razer are doing so much with it now it could quiet possibly be another month before it's finished to an acceptable standard to us.
But I have to agree, there are alot of new things that if ready make it worth doing a plane pack now. That being said.....!

Please Take note of this for Plane Packs::

We MUST stop using parfiles for planes packs, I mean that, it has to stop now. We have to use an installer that will unpack the aircraft into their own folders.

The Reason: Simple, each plane pack is going to get bigger and bigger with the new addons and changes to older aircraft, but look, lets say in the next plane pack there are 20 planes that don't require or haven't been updated, meaning, they are the same as in the previous pack, using plane packs we still have to download them since they are in Parfiles.. take this to an extreme... we download a 50mb (very possible) Parfile plane pack, of which only 20mb are new.. this is plain stupid.

with an installer we will have folders for each aircraft, any new packs will then only requier the new additions plus alterations rather than every single thing we ever built and the installer will update the requierd aircraft. Parfiles must be stopped for Plane Packs!

Seriosly, this needs to happen

~Nat~

posted 09-24- 04:51 PM            

The size of planepack downloads has to become smaller. I am considering ways to do this. I am not convinced that parfiles are not the way to go though. I hope to structure this pack to offer the flexibility of reducing the size of future downloads.

The advantage of parfiles is that it offers a quick solution to online incompatibility problems. If we end up with 45 planes in their own separate folders, we will never be able to solve problems for pilots online.

There are two or three approaches for this.

1. Parfiles structured to allow regular updates to established planes, I know what I want to do - look back about 6 months ago and 6 months before that to see suggestions from me.

2. Parfiles for files specifically required for online compatibility and as you suggest files in separate folders that aren't required for compatibility not in par files.

posted 09-24- 05:06 PM               

I don't use any of the beta EXEs offline at all.

posted 09-24- 05:14 PM               

TS

------------------
Patch It!

posted 09-24- 05:53 PM               

I also disagree with online problems... if someone has a problem it's easier to say you need this little 50kb file and I'll send it to you now because it will only take 5 seconds to upload, than saying go get this 50mb pack that will take you till the middle of next week to download.

Aircraft in their own folders is the only realistic way of doing these packs, there's no way I want to spend all night downloading 50mb files when I actually only need 10mb of whats in there cause nothing else has change... what am I, stupid? duh!

I agree we need a new pack soon, and I'm glad you've taken it on, not a forgiving task at all, but to be honest, if they carry on the way they are going I wont be getting them cause I can't afford all night downloading, hell, use a modem, see how much fun it is knowing you have most of what your getting already and until it's done your whole bandwidth is hogged so you can't use the net.

posted 09-25- 11:08 PM               

Par files are the only way to go. The only problem par files had was the scrabled mission breifing bug and we know what causes that for the most part and were able to work it out by including in their proper dirs the missions that seemed to be always causing the mess.

If you can't take the time to download a new 20 meg plane pack then you probably are better off finding something else to do with your computing power. I download 100 mb addons for Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Descent III, ect all the time. Its not like we are cranking out a new plane pack every 3 weeks. For christ sakes Plane Pack 5.3 was released in February.

I had already told Razer that I would do the installer for the next plane pack but I wouldn't have time to do all the testing myself. Basically if someone will get it in par files (I will help with the par bugs part) I will create the installer that will update from any combo of the previous packs.

I am glad to see so many people are still keeping the flame alive. I hope to get some free time from my programming and sites to get to up in the air with the BAB and the rest of you.

posted 09-25- 11:31 PM               

Nat has made his case for using folders instead of par files and I tend to agree with him but I am open minded (no smart comments from those of you who know me ).

posted 09-26- 01:03 AM               

To: fsarea51@egroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list fsarea51@egroups.com
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 15:08:12 -0500
From: "Michael S. Harrison"
Subject: RE: [fsarea51] 5.3b Patch RC2

You guys aren't going to like this (probably), but based on the problems I found when helping Whirl put together the contest package, I recommend that you make the plane pack a .par file-less package.

Two reasons:

1) There is a problem with the parfile code not finding some files. I've fixed this in our code but can't estimate when the fix will be generally available.

posted 09-26- 01:44 AM               

A large file is a pain to DL for us of little bandwidth (especially those that pay per time amount line costs), but I think a night of downloading is great alternative to months of mismatches. Without one or two files that encompassing everything needed to be compliant, that's where I think it's headed.

I'm not sure how reliable a program will be that checks folder contents and installs only what you need without checking the contents of the files within. In order for something like that to work properly, we'd probably have to start from a clean install anyway; however, this would save time with future additions. From a fresh install, it would take the program just about as long to dl everything needed as it would to take the time to dl on large file.

An update program would eliminate the ability to dl a large file, place it on transportable media and bring it home from work for instance. It would ensure that you were connected to the internet for the all of the additions. You wouldn't be able to pull the one large file via shell and dl locally.

I really like the idea of DLing only what you need, but I'd first need to be convinced this is possible. Any ideas here appreciated...

I could see one large, self-extracting, compressed file doing the job without the need for .par files, but that one file would need to write/overwrite a directory for every plane involved in online play to ensure mismatches are laid to rest.

If such a pogram would be reliable, I'd still recommend creating one large all-encompassing file (of aircraft directories) to use as a foundation for future additions via this update program.

posted 09-26- 04:00 AM               

What Nat is saying about Parfiles is true. I don't like them much myself. I have a dumped out directory with everything in it clogging up my hard-drive to work on my current projects. It's a pain. The compatability issue is key here, but if people are sensible, they shouldn't run into problems providing the source for the standard is controlled.

That was Nats other point.

If there is a central point where all online standard stuff is obtained, there should be no problems. However this were set up, it's webmaster would post only the stuff that the community agreed would form part of that standard. If, asnations did, creators of add-ons wish to keep the stuff to download from their site only, just post a link on the standard webpage. Then it would be part of the standard. The only problems occur if updates happen. This would have to be announced on the online standard website.

all we need is a volunteer with the time to build and maintain the website, and one hell of a voting session to decide what it should have on it......

posted 09-26- 04:21 AM               

The case for an installation program/zip file is also a good one, and much easier to do in the short term, this type of thing would also mean that you are only downloading what you need to download, and not 30 aircraft that haven't even been updated.

Thanks TG for making my point clearer.

The main thing to me is that I see it pointless to have to download a parfile plane pack that contains say 50 aircraft of which only 5/10 are new or updated. And as I said, right now the pain of 20mb pack isn't such a great one, but look at the production rate recently, we will very soon be into much much higher numbers, we're certainly not atracting new users by telling them "Hey cool you joined the SDOE community, now go and download this 50mb file and you'll be fine"

On these IMHO valid grounds, I want to get rid of Parfile packs at the soonest possible convenience.

posted 09-26- 08:33 AM               

Though there are certainly benefits from both ways there are ceraintly drawbacks also. With the par files I was able to control my enviroment with my installers and make them be able to update any state the game was in your harddrive simply by testing for a few files. Without par files you would have to check for literally hundreds of files and the installer would probably never be half as failsafe as the ones we have now.

posted 09-26- 09:32 AM               

People who want to experiment beyond the current pack should create another install of SDOE, that makes things so easy.

Why par files? Like DOgmA said, better for installers and much easier to trouble shoot. There is no way to manage a system of a million small files strewn about - some from the pack and some beyond. The par file bug did bite the WWI pack, but there are work arounds.

Seems to me that we just need to ability to have more par files, that would solve most of the issues mentioned. I do not buy the aurgument that par files are prone to be over-riden by real folders/files. If you use only folder/files then they could still be over-writen, and in this case there is no going back. Renaming your aircraft folder is such a good way to trouble shoot.

Also keep in mind that the new beta of SDOE fixes the startup.ppf file issue, just name your airfoil the same name as the aircraft and there need be no entry in the startup.ppf file. Still, who knows when there will be a patch, and also this does not fix new weapons and vehicle sound entries needed in the startup.ppf file.

Best situation: Install SODE, patch it, add the current pack - done. Now install SDOE a second time, install the pack, and download all the crap you want! Now on-line just fly the first SDOE install - no problems.

If you do not have enough hard drive space then you will have issues downloading much new stuff anyway, hard drives are pretty cheap today... I have at least 3 installs of SDOE at any one time...

------------------
-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 09-26- 03:19 PM            

The quickest Rollout of an Online standard, with full features, in SDOE (including tails new prop)

WINZIP Folders, from a PC that has the latest files installed,

I tried it with my PC, Online standard, which as you now is 1.5 patch, PP5.3 ,pp5.3b, contest1.1 (No NATIONS installed)

Workin with a copy and using the new Winzip v8.00,

I zipped the whole of my MEDIA directory,(50mb) minus, par file 1,2,3 and texture caches and the resulting zip was 26Mb
filename MEDIA1.ZIP

I unzipped it and the directory structure was back in place, then overwrote my media directory file and carried on as normal
then I supose.......
Next Online Standard release,
2 months later:-) and all the new planes folders or whatever is new,,or updated, collected on a Reference PC,in the Media folder, zipped again and called media2.zip

User unzips and copies over Media directory on his PC and new/changed files are installed.

Any problems online,, We say,, download media1.zip and media2.zip
and install media1 before media2.zip

I tryed it with winzip7 and got 1mb less!

Also For you info
Par files Planepack compresses with winzip!
data13.par= 62% compression ratio
data14.par= 66%
data15.par= 56%
so compression definatly is not an issue,,
hthats only one way of

i was testing with the planepacks , but they in essence should be unpacked as normal folders for the first release zip files,

and this operation is cable of being done by more people!,
.....
and my signature 'CFAPP' should be renamed somehow!!!!!!

------------------
9./JG3_Pye

posted 09-26- 06:23 PM               

Well if we get rid of the Par files get ready for mismatches to go through the roof. Online play will go down the crapper.

How many times do you hear someone ask how to install a plane>? Well imagine the trouble those people will have with installing 50 planes.

And toubleshooting>? It will be insane.

posted 09-26- 06:35 PM               

It's not my call, do what you will

posted 09-26- 07:57 PM            

I am glad to hear of continued support for parfiles. I have to agree with Dogma on what he says. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for him to create an installer to check the file information for 80 planes.

Oh most plane files I've seen lately are anywhere from 800 to 1.5 mb. These are a bit more inconvenient to simply ICQ over to someone - but not impossible.

My suggestions on this issue for reducing download sizes have been made before but I'll reiterate them:

1. Create a lower number parfile "data12.par" and store 60-90% of all standard online standard planes' files, ie hangar and training missions, texture files, sounds any files created by the planemaker to specific enhance his creations.
2. Create the next higher number parfile "data13.par" into which well-established and relatively static planes' remaining files are stored (ie. sm,loadouts,airfoils, whatever else may get changed).
3. Create a third highest number parfile "data14.par" into which new (complete)planes, updated sm, loadout files and other files are included. If a developer releases a new texture map it may be included here too. This file overwrites any existing files in the lower parfiles.

Planepack updates are released as versions, a major revision would include all 3 files, a significant update would include 2 files, and regular updates would only include 1 small file. Major updates would move as much as possible into the larger low number parfile to reduce the size of the more frequently downloaded parfiles.

The number system for this would be like this: 5(data12).3(data13).a(data14)

A few issues may arise (like the spitix not wanting to be in the same file as the spit) but these can be managed.

posted 09-28- 11:49 AM            

For the next online standard release, or offline for that matter, place only the updated and newplanes in a prepared folder ready for the big zip again,,

all new files/planes get copied, no problem ... and all updated files/planes get overwritten, directory structure integrity kept,,, NO MISMATCHES anywhere!!!

Developers can start downloading betas etc as normal, and the process starts over again!

Nats correct because any Planes unchanged don't get overwitten, because they didn't need to be included! and therefore sizes in the future are kept to a minimum,,,

Any new user simply has the install the zips in the correct Order!!!! for FULL online compatibilty with all planes!,,,,,if he didn't ,, he'll fly the planes in the zip he downloaded, full versions anyways and could fly some selective missions containing the planes from the zip,, and WE tell him get the others and install in order!!!

I would prefer an installer for the zip which offers a prompt for the 'Fighter Squadron' would obviously be better, but not necessary because zip files are so well known now!

Comments on this idea please, and from you Nat! if you ideas,,

****ps *****
My boss at work was downloading a 50mb game demo,, on a 56k modem,, he doesn't understand computers but he understand local calls are cheap and the game has got to be worth it! *** SDOE is cheap at half the price ***
LOL, I cut the call, and he started to get angry, then I gave him a cd with the same demo on!!!

This is re-phrased different from above and would welcome comments,,

------------------
9./JG3_Pye

posted 09-28- 02:28 PM               

Large downloads over a modem are a pain, but they don't happen often enough to offset the pain of trying to troubleshoot a conflict with seperate files.

posted 09-28- 03:45 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nat:
We MUST stop using parfiles for planes packs, I mean that, it has to stop now.

---

This might be a dumb question, but why isn't it this way now?

Perhaps a better way to ask is "why are their parfiles anyway?" Aren't they basically just a big zipped folder hierarchy?

I can see the utility of having those hierarchy's "merged" if that's what the parfile does, but it seems to me you could do that in a few hundred lines of C anyway (more like 5 lines under Unix or MacOS).

posted 09-28- 05:11 PM            

SDOE overwrites files in the following order:

1. Parfiles from 1 - 15 (16?) (higher number overwrites lower)
2. Parfiles in OpenPlane folder (beta patch) based on the order selected in the options screen (higher overwrites lower).
3. Files in Media folder.

So files in the media folder are the last to be written and overwrite all files stored in parfiles.

posted 09-29- 03:03 PM               

Similarly, under Windows, even just opening all those separate files on the hard disk is significantly slower than reading them from the parfile. Probably a 2-1 difference, or more, as I remember it.