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25-05-2000
Intel announced today the release of the Pentium III-933 cpu and the new chip should be available in reasonable quantities. The new cpu will cost $794 in volume quantities. Ouch !!

23-05-2000
Only in Australia !!
There was a robbery in Melbourne today. A guy walked into a petrol staion and held it up with.........................  wait for it ........... a snake!  Yep hauled out a 6 foot long python and held the place up.
Just as well he didn't have a deadly platypus  lmao.
On a different note, I hosted a game earlier and WA_SeaDog joined, 3 times he blew me up with one shot. I exited the game and it was really a WA_TopGun, not SeaDog. There is no WA_TopGun so the guy is just a lousy imposter trying to give WA a bad name. My advice is boot him out of your games.
Microsoft has released a patch for the DOS (Denial of Service) attacks that affected Yahoo, EBay etc earlier in the year, it is available from here.

22-05-2000
Added a new forum to our messageboard titled "Unforgettable Quotes". The name is self explanatory. It will be interesting as to what is posted, should give a few good laughs. On the subject of the messageboard, you do not need to be an SW member to register to use the board. Just put in the username of your choice, your own password and email address. Simple as that. If you do not want anyone to have access your email address, there is the option to hide it.

21-05-2000
A very interesting and informative message left by Lee Swordy on the Combatfs.com messageboard :

After hearing a lot of theories about how player's computers communicate in multiplayer games, I put a packet sniffer on my computer to find out how it really works.

Misconception: All game data (aircraft position updates etc.) goes through the Zone server to get from player to player.

Reality: Once you join a game (enter the Ready Room) you have very little communication with the Zone server. Just some infrequent status updates.

Misconception: All game data goes through the host to get from player to player.

Reality: Game data is sent directly from player-to-player and not through the host. That means if there are 8 players in a game, all position updates, damage, chat messages, etc. gets sent seven times from your computer. I checked this in a dozen games, on the Zone and IP games, with good host connections (125mS) and bad, and with me as host (cable modem) and it was always the same.

Misconception: The host latency (or ping) effects the amount of lag in the game, i.e. hosts who advertise high speed connections assume that will make for a better game.

Reality: Since the host is just another player as far as time-critical data goes, his latency is irrelevant for general game play. It is the latency between you and all the other players that counts. There is a small, infrequent, amount of game status and control information that goes between a player and the host (scoring, joining a game, or getting the boot for example) so if you have a truly lousy connection to the host you could have difficulties joining, get disconnected, or other multiplayer weirdness.

Misconception: Aircraft position updates are sent 4 times per second (250mS period).

Reality: Partially true. The period for position updates ranges from 250mS to 5 seconds. The farther away from a player, the less frequent the updates. At 15000 yards separation you only update to that player every 5 seconds, it gradually decreases as you get closer. At a few thousand yards you update at 1 second intervals, closer and it drops to 250mS. If you are stopped (i.e. on the ground waiting for takeoff) you send updates to other players only every few seconds, no matter how close they are.

An update consists of two UDP packets, 106 and 222 bytes long (including PPP/IP/UDP headers, etc.). The 106 byte packet seems to contain the position and velocity vectors (lat/long/altitude/pitch/bank/heading, etc). The 222 packet, I suspect, contains aircraft status and damage info (gear down, smoking/burning engine etc.) The 106 packet is always sent on an update, but the 222 packet is occasionally omitted, possibly during high load periods.

The 222 byte packet is mostly empty space. It is an enormous waste of bandwidth sending this mostly empty packet so often. In fact the whole communication scheme is very inefficient. A typical 8 player FFA game uses about 25Kbps bandwidth. This is about the limit for 33Kbps modems, and will still contribute to lag and erratic play due to load peaks. From what I have seen, Microsoft could have easily reduced the data volume by 2 to 4 times, which would have improved game play for all conventional modem users and allowed for larger games.

Most data is sent by connectionless UDP, this includes chat message. But some things like uploading DP files and host/player game control is done by more reliable TCP.

Thanks Lee, good information to know.

A big  thanks to the many supporters and contributors. This website has had approximately 23000-24000 visitors.
(The counter was dead for over a month)

On a less happy note, there is a new variant of the lovebug virus doing the rounds, if you get an email with a .vbs file in it, bin it don't open it, it'll trash your system.

18-05-2000
Joe Amodea aka CH_Jam has been hard at work to bring us the Spitfire V Collection. 7 Spitfire aircraft in an auto install package. Beautifully done. These aircraft are available from the Jamcraft page. Thanks Joe, another great job!

17-05-2000
You know what I really hate? Little snots like M1_Sniper who pop into Ridge and say "Are you here to chat or to fly" and then host a 50% unrestricted game. 50% Unrestricted?? Goddamned newbies!!  I reckon after 15 months flying CFS I'm entitled to sit back and chat without any cheek from wannabe be aces who fly on the easiest settings.

16-05-2000
Southern Warbirds welcomes new member SW_Pitchey.

13-05-2000
 Intel said today it has discovered a problem with components inside some Pentium III computers that could cost the company several hundred million dollars to fix.The company said it found problems with Pentium III computers containing a chip called the "memory translator hub" (MTH). The MTH is malfunctioning because of system noise, or internal computer signals. The flaw with the MTH can cause computers to freeze up or reboot. Customers can download a utility from an Intel Web site to test if their computer contains an MTH.

10-05-2000
Microsoft and the Zone are celebrating 18 years of MS Flightsim. On May 28th between 12.00pm and 8.00pm, they're gonna be going flightsim crazy. The time for CFS'ers to be around is between 1.00pm - 2.00pm when the z team take on allcomers in 3 on 3 dogfights in the Sturmgruppe Room. Tucker Hatfeild, Program Manager for CFS will also be available between 7.00pm - 8.00pm to answer questions on CFS2 in the Zone Theatre Chat. Go here for the full details.

Nuno Mendes aka EURO_GCSMgaz has released a program which stops people using auto follow in games. This program allows the creation of auto follow restricted rooms and can be downloaded from here

09-05-2000
Bill Potvin over at cfsops.com has released a beta version of  Cfo Weather, an add-on DLL for Combat Flight Simulator whose primary purpose is to provide more flexible weather. However, the package goes beyond this basic focus by providing not only weather, but "Flights", "Flight Videos", "Instant Replay" and "Time/Season" functionality as well. It also allows teams to start at different airfields/locations. Go to  cfsops.com to download it.

You have to take a look at Kazes computer case, a work of a art?  lol
Well by the sounds of it police have arrested the "Love Bug" hacker, a young phillipino. Brings a new meaning to Euthanasia  hehe.

06-05-2000
update
A recent "Love" bug copycat masquerading as a Symantec cure for the virus appears to be the most destructive variant yet.
The mutation comes in an email with the subject header "VIRUS ALERT!!!" The email begins, "Dear Symantec customer," and proceeds to describe the virus in detail. Its attachment is called "protect.vbs."
 This variant overwrites, in addition to the image and audio files already overwritten or hidden by the original "Love" bug, system files that lie at the heart of some crucial computing functions.

The files targeted by the new variant are batch files (.bat) and command files (.com)
Batch files are used for utilities or upon start-up, a common example being the "autoexec.bat" file for the computer's start-up configuration file. Command files are DOS-executable files, used for simple commands such as "edit," "format" or "disk copy."
More information is available here and you can even go here and track its worldwide progress if you're so inclined.

05-05-2000
Many of you will be aware of the love letter virus , it is now being sent as "Joke" and "Very Funny"  Also known as Lovebug, I-Worm.LoveLetter, VBS/LoveLetter.A, VBS/LoveLet-A, this worm sends itself to email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book. It spreads itself via mIRC and infects files on local and remote drives including files with the following extensions: .vbs, .vbe, .js, .jse, .css, .wsh, .sct, .hta, .jpg, .jpeg, .mp3, and .mp2. It also tries to download a password-stealing Trojan horse program from a Web site.
So  if you any of those in your mail delete them immediately without opening them. Don't forget, once you've deleted it you need to go to your Deleted Items folder and delete it from there also. McAfee and Norton have virus definitions for it available from their websites.

04-05-2000
Snake Eyes has written a program which allows easy checking of the mp cache. While I have been scathing in my attacks on him for creating mods that get past restricted, he has made an attempt to rectify it. With this prog you Alt+Tab and run the program instead of having to delve into the directories to manually open the mp cache folder. It is available from here.

01-05-2000
SW_Anzac has come across a treasure trove of old photographs of nose art from B-24 bombers in New Guinea just before they were chopped up after the war. These will be posted soon.
Ex members of RCAF Squadron have now started the Rogue Pacific Squadron with Renzero and Viper (Airwolf) as joint CO's.
 
 

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