BoB II is not the buggy game it was - huge improvements!

[Seavee]

Comments posted today at Shockwave by forum member ICDP:

"Buddye the work you are doing on improving the AI is nothing short of astounding. IMHO the new improved AI is the best I have ever seen in any sim. I just had the most intense 20 minute 1v1 dogfight against a Spitfire and I had to fight hard every single second. He got a few hits and was easily outturning my 109 but I was able to outdive him easily to gain some seperation. In the end I got a lucky hit on his elevator and he crashed into the ground. I actually felt sorry for the poor virtual sod, he put up an outstanding fight."

[hein-kill]

Another patch comes along that tempts me to reinstall BOBII - can I take the heartbreak?

I am one of the fallen, who after installing patch after patch and spending hours following the advice of forums and tweaking settings could not get BOBII to run without frequent CTDs. My plain vanilla Dell system runs all other sims beautifully, from CFS3 to LOMAC to IL2 and add-ons in all incarnations - but it chokes on BOBII. I got English text errors, I got Me109s warping magically out of my sights, I spent hours playing through a day of the campaign and then got dumped to desktop and lost the little progess I'd made...

Finally after patch 2.03 didn't help I gave up and uninstalled. When you spend more time on a sim fiddling with settings than you do flying and fighting it is time to admit defeat.

Who am I kidding - I know I'll try again with the new patch. What else is there to do until Oleg's BOB hits the streets

[Seavee]

hein-Kill,

Since you already own BoBII you have nothing to lose by trying it again except a small bit of time. The new patch will be out very soon.

If you don't want to wait, may I suggest the following (in order). Other than # 6 below, the items listed below can be completely done in about 2 hours MAX.

1. Make sure all your device drivers are updated - video, sound, joystick, and Direct X.

2. Install BoB II

3. Install Version 2.03 patch

4. Do the TIR-DEP-English Text Error fix for WinXP. See this thread: http://shockwaveproductions.com/forum/v ... php?t=3917

5. Install Buddye's latest Beta Test Release called CLOUDS1 (its a pre-release version of the 2.04 patch but with many of the updates mentioned in the post above already in it). You can download the test release here: http://www.shockwaveproductions.com/bob_dev/Clouds1.rar

Clouds1 now also gives the user the ability to adjust many cloud parameters (cover, density, rain, fog, etc)in the weather conditions. Those are adjusted outside the game menu in the BDG.TXT file located in the boBII root folder. After installing Clouds1, lauch the game after and then exit and the new BDG.TXT variables will now be visible in that file. The BDG.TXT file is in the main BoBII folder where you install the game. Make a copy of it before making changes. You can read about the new clouds tweaking capabilities here: http://shockwaveproductions.com/forum/v ... php?t=5099

NOTE on installing the test releases: The Clouds1 test release download is in a compressed file format called .RAR You will need a free small program called WINRAR to uncompress and extract the two files within the download. You can get the latest 3.51 version of WINRAR here: http://www.rarlab.com/ or http://www.win-rar.com/downloadnow.html
Once you extract Clouds1 to your hard drive, there are two files in it: Bob.PDB and the BoB executable. Those two files go in your BoB II main game folder and replace the ones from the version 2.03 patch. BACKUP the old ones first in case you want to go back (you won't want to ). Launch the game once after replacing these files and then exit immediately. Explore the BoBII root folder and open the file called BDG.TXT to see many items that are now user-adjustable via that file (outside the in-game option menus).

6. Not absolutely necessary in the short term as it will definitely be in 2.04 but a great set of mods are Stickman's and Smokin256's Spitfire and ME109 gauge mods/fixes. They can be found here: http://shockwaveproductions.com/forum/v ... php?t=4380 Its a long thread so just start at the end and go back a few pages.

7. In the game options, set your graphics settings to match your PC's specs. If its a "weaker" system, generally choose the lower options.

With the exception of #6 (which is a little tedious because its a bit cumbersome process with all the various files), you should be able to do all the rest in about 2 hours at a maximum.

After that you should have excellent, stable gameplay with little or no CTDs at all, no AI warping, or few if any of the issues you had before. I have not had a CTD for over 6 weeks now and the other improvements are significant since doing these updates. It is a totally improved game experience than how it was out of the box.

The 2.04 patch will be a self installing utility that makes this much smoother and easier and will be a question of minutes to update. of course it will not update your PC's specific device drivers - thats up to you.