Code changes in WarBirds III version 08.08.01
• Macintosh NVidia preliminary support - WARNING: more memory is required for NVidia hardware at the moment. Remember to update the minimum memory allocated to WarBirds III. Suggested: 300,000K to start... the default setting is only 175,000K.
• Ground vehicles cannot continue turning without engine power.
• Gun sound continuing after gunner out of ammo fixed.
• Default gunsight dissapearing after out of ammo fixed
• New arena flags.
  0x40 disables Arty for all.
  0x80 sets virtual cockpitmode to panned-glimited, player cannot change.
• Arty is now enabled in CMEYE mode, and will not be disabled by above arena flag.
• New dot commands:
  • flushplanes - unloads and forces planes and skins to reload (only works offline and when not in flight).
  • radiowidth 350 is default, 200 to (screen res-32) is the range. Determines radio buffer width.
• Attached gunner crash fixed.
• Possible fix for ground vehicle crash on exit flight.
• Scraping on runway sound fixed.
• Mouse six calls fixed.
• HOST now responds properly to a .sset enableflight 0.
• Added arena flag for CM's to disable otto calls.
• W-Buffer issues fixed...plane dialog box and tower view now show correctly.
• Grid checkbox toggles gridlines on Field tab.
• M3 GMC otto now turned off.
• Hat-switch lock to one view bug fixed.
• Panzer crash fixed.
• Macintosh crash fixed.
• UI crash fixed.
• Fw190 skins issue fixed
• Death-Cam duration cut to 1.5 secs to help reduce warping.
• New offline ground-vehicle attack mission (will add to the UI shortly)
  1. Select bomber-ambush
  2. Enter dot command .offbombermodel ground
  3. Click Fly to run bomber ambush using ground vehicles instead of aircraft.
  4. Enter dot command .offbombermodel ground to toggle back to aircraft.

The 080101 game seemed to run fine on my Cube w/Radeon card installed at the default settings. If you installed the 080101 version, there's small updater (1.2MB or so) available. If anyone tests 080801 with a GeForce3 or GeForce2MX, let me know how it runs. (Please include card/driver/system info in reports.)
[Two GeForce2MX owners noted they are now able to run Warbirds III.]

Texture White-Out Tip: See the 8/3/2001 news page for a white-out texture tip which can be fixed by increasing Virtual Memory. (If you don't have sufficient free RAM - remember the game, OpenGL and the OS use RAM.)

Warbirds III 080101 Update: (from the 8/1/2001 www.xlr8yourmac.com main news page)

" Warbirds III is being released TODAY (around 5:30 EDT) concurrently for the Mac and PC platforms.
I've been playing it in beta form for months, and have become an addict!

Plus, it's FREE for the month of August!
[Free online play for August]

Check out http://www.iencentral.com/warbirds/index.shtml
- Ken
(I asked Ken for more info-Mike)

The newest version is 0801.

ALSO, even BIGGER news is the unofficial, updated ATi drivers that solve the "unflushed polygons" issue that Warbirds III found. They also give me a modest framerate increase of 10 fps or so on average... from 40fps to 50fps.

If you wanna have guys benchmark their systems, have them get on the runway [the runway of Field #1 (F1 it's called)] in a 109f with the engine off. Type ".framemode 2" and then, after a few seconds of letting the system run, take a screenshot. That will give us a good base to see how things are going.
- Ken

Warbirds III:
ftp://lists.ient.com/pub/WarBirds/WBIII/wbmfull08.01.01.sit

ATi Drivers: (link changed 8/2/2001)
ftp://lists.ient.com/pub/WarBirds/WBIII/ATI_July_beta.sit

The ATi drivers will ONLY work with OpenGL 1.2.2. However, ATi is supposed to be releasing updated drivers that will work with OpenGL 1.2.1 tomorrow.
[Not sure if these are later than the ones floating around from OS 9.2 GM-Mike]

Also, for benchmarking, I forgot to tell the pilots that they should be on the runway of Field #1 (F1 it's called).
-Ken"

GamePlay Comments: A reader commented on on-line gameplay:

" Mike,
I have played Warbirds for over three years now and there isn't a flying sim that can match it on the Mac. As previous comments have alluded to, the warbird team have been very good as helping address problems as the programme has developed.

The latest version issued yesterday (01.August.01) is getting better all the time and it is still only a beta. I'm running a 9600/200 with xlr8 G3/400 ZIF card (faultless, really excellent products) with 288Mb and ATI Radeon. Frame rate is 15-20 which is not fantastic but hey, once you're on-line in a squadron chatting away on a mission..well.. real escapism. In addition, the support from the network of trainers and organised scenarios is what makes it unique.

No the product won't come in some fancy plastic packaging, you won't see unattainable screen shots advertised in the comics, but you will get a great set of people and atmosphere on-line.
And thanks for a great site, Paul "

Warbirds Beta Update: A reader sent a note on 7/5/2001 that there's an update to Warbirds III:

" Mike:
Warbirds III beta has been updated yet again. Each update has tremendous graphic and functional improvements. This is by far the best Graphic Simulator out there, and their support for Mac is unprecedented. These guys rock!
www.warbirdsIII.com.
Cristian "

Their main page shows there's a Mac Joystick Calibrator now available also. I welcome comments on the latest version (please include your mac model, graphics card/driver version, etc.). Thanks!

Friday's news had a note that www.iencentral.com had released the first beta of the online flight sim Warbirds III. Of the half dozen or so reports, most noted problems of some sort with the first beta.

Beta Updated: Yesterday there was an updated beta version released I'm told. Check the warbirds III page for details and download links.

Screenshots of Mac Warbirds III: Ken sent a link to a web page with a 2MB Flash animation/slideshow of Mac warbirds III screenshots.

" Mike,
An update on running WB III. Many of my original problems relating to graphics artifacts were solved by turing ON VM (256 MB physical RAM, 384 with VM). The game is quite playable (offline) on my G4 dual 450 Radeon system with nice graphics, excellent flight model, and decent AI for offline dogfighting. I'm not sure how to display framerates to compare my setup with other systems but they are certainly more than adequate. I still had an out of memory error and quit when I tried to switch to a new aircraft after exiting the cockpit after landing but this was solved by increasing the memory allocation from 160 to 180 MB. I can't wait to subscribe to ien and try this out online.
---Chris Gamper "

Reader Tips on Warbirds:

" hi mike,
I guess the first thing to know is that this IS a BETA,
I am using a B/W G3 with 512 MB RAM, ATI 128.

1) You must turn the Virtual memory on! unless you have 1gig of ram installed..thats the first way to get above 10 FPS

2) A clean install of OS9 then update to 9.4 install Input sprocket 1.7.5, then go to ATI and download latest Mac drivers. will add about 30 FPS

3) Set the VAR LEVEL to 2000 (default is 5000) this makes the ground look fuzzy at long distance (but in a dogfight your really not looking!

4) when on the runway, cycle through all views in cockpit to load them into cache, then you won't have the slow view change when in flight.

5) make sure you have Open GL 1.2.1

6) a new release 3-19-00 is available that fixes many little things help Input sprockets as well

7) make sure you turn off all those CPU intensive extensions that your not using.

these all help however in its early BETA stage the code has not been cleaned. give it about 4 weeks and you will start to see many improvements the Sim is more CPU intensive than Video. The lack of FSAA does make it look a little rougher than PC but give it some time
M Smith "

" Mike
I have seen a reference to a fix for incorrect rendering when using cockpit views and also landscape views. It involved turning on VM because of some inconsistency with OpenGL rendering and actual ram usage. It cured the above mentioned anomalies on my machine .

G4 450
256 Mb ram
VM set to 300 Mb.
OS 9.1
16 Mb ATI Rage Pro

Also there are constant updates on IEN's web page. Another good source of info can be found at alt.games.warbirds.com

Hope this info will help some of your readers.
Regards
Don "

" On your warbirds3 beta coverage, most of these issues are covered (with fixes) at the ien ubb

Users can also try agw.dogfighter.com, an officially but almost more informative board.

The game is definitely playable and this is only the first step (it's not the finished product at all). IEN released an update [on 3/19] as well.
Morgan "

" I noticed a lot of guys had problems with the beta and - well, that's just it. It is a beta, fresh outta the egg.

I wanted to point out that a lot of the non-rendering problems people are having are due to a lack of memory. The app itself needs 160 MB minimum and OpenGL needs its own RAM to store textures. If someone has 256 MB of RAM total, and an OS that eats 50 MB or more of RAM, OPenGL is quickly going to run out of memory and textures won't be rendered.

Al doesn't have to fly solo offline - there are offline games which let you slash into a bomber box or dogfight with wingmen against the enemy (and the AI at veteran and ace levels will eat your lunch, unless you're as SH as I am). :)

The freeze at the start screen may not actually be a freeze, but just that the Input Sprockets box doesn't draw. I don't know offhand the fix for this, but IEN does have a beta forum at:
http://lists.ient.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=35

I advise everyone to keep in mind that this is beta. The more Mac users who stick with it, the better off we will be.
Laurie Nyveen "

" Mike,
I just read the post on your website regarding the 'video' oddities from Chris Gamper. The trick is to have enough ram for OpenGL. When there is not enough ram for OpenGL to saturate the 3D card, you'll get those white screens.

What you need to have is enough ram to run the System, WB3, and at least 16 megs extra for the 3D card. When I had only 256 megs installed (allocated 200 megs to WB3), I got lots of white boxes. When I lowered the ram allocation to WB3 (down to 180 megs), the sim had less white boxes (presumably the system had enough RAM to support OpenGL).

After adding another 128 megs (for a total of 384), the sim ran fine.
BTW- there apparently is a problem w/ Voodoo3 cards and WB3 beta. IEN is working on a solution right now...and promises a fix soon.
Bensen Yeh "

" Hi. I am running the beta on my wifes iBook(366). It has 128 meg of Ram and Mac OS 9.0.4 and of course the 8 meg ATI mobile card. Well it boots well, and is playable untill I change views out the window. Then I get a 3-5 sec frame freeze while I guess it loads the frames into memory. I bet another 128 megs of RAM(like they want) would really make it scream. Not bad for an Indigo Toilet seat.
Pickle
P.S. Check out Target Korea at http://www.targetware.net/ An open beta is in 2-4 weeks "

" Hi Mike,
I first tried Warbirds III on my PowerMac 8600/360 (G3) under OS 8.1 with 128 Mb ram (VM on) and a Rage Orion video card and was able to get it to run, even if rather sluggishly. Addition of an extra 128 Mb ram helped, but, framerates are still poor, with delays when switching views. I also was able to run it in a limited extent using a VooDoo 3/2000 card (beta 11 driver) with similar framerate results (start-up menu unreadable).

There is no denying that the graphics are a great leap forward for the Mac version. I'm not sure if I can expect significant improvements under OS 9.1, or even a better video card for that matter. I did not , however, see any of the major video artifacts mentioned by those in the other posts who are using superior setups.
Peter Z. "

(3/19/2001 comments follow)

" Hi Mike:
It seems I've had more luck than others have.

Yes, there are some graphics artifacts, specifically:

1)when a plane is shot down, the ensuing smoke trail is just a series of large white blocks

2) I occasionally see unrendered distant landscape as well, but these seem to get resolved as distance decreases.

3) out-of-cockpit views are worst. It seems the frontal hemisphere does not render. If I look left, the right half of the screen is blank, if I look right, the left half is blank, etc. Looking straight forward works fine.

On the plus side, I've had no crashes, flight dynamics are smooth and fast, setup and configuration went without a hitch.
Wonderful graphics.

G4/450/256/Rage128Pro & Xclaim VR 128/Cyborg 3D Gold USB stick.
Sean C. "

" Hi Mike.
I tried WarBirds III on a PPC 500 AGP single with 512mgs of Ram and ATI Radeon card.

The set-up program needs a lot of work. The cursor is invisible most of the time while you are moving it around to select various options. The window that pops up when you configure InSprockets doesn't appear at all -- you get just a bunch of lines. Almost the same problem Shogo had with certain images due to the Radeon card.

After futching around, I did manage to get the game started. Selecting the planes, etc. is the same as the old version but with detailed images; however, the text used in the panels are very crude looking. I did not try to fly online.

Once in the game, the images are truly 3-D like. The plane flew much better than the current version while firing the weapons looked more realistic. When using the hat switch to look around, the images need not appear pop up as smooth as the current version. Also, the message box at the lower left hand corner kept saying the gunner position selected was not available every time the hat switch key was used. You are flying solo off in the beta so you will not get the full effect of 3-D until you see other planes in the skys.
Al "

" I tried running it with a 7500 upgraded to 300MHz G3, 352MB built in RAM, and a Voodoo3 with 1.0(b13) drivers and OS 9.04. The startup menu was unreadable but I was able to get into the sim anyway and had what appeared to be properly rendered 3D graphics. I couldn't do much to test the sim because without access to the startup menu I wasn't able to configure anything. I have not heard of anyone having success with WBIII using a Voodoo3 card but I would be interested to know if anyone has discovered a way to make it work.

I hope "Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons over Europe" due to be released this spring and the final version of Warbirds III will be more tolerant of a wider variety of Macintosh system configurations.
-Paul W. "

" Mike - just a quick impression, I was not impressed. It froze my machine all three times I tried to play it. No real helpful troubleshooting tips on their page, either. I'm kind of wondering if it has something to do with my having two monitors, but I'm not sure I want to pull my second video card just to find out. Quick and dirty specs on my machine:
G4/667
OS 9.1
nVidia GeForce 2 MX to a 17" Apple Studio Display
256MB RAM
3dfx Voodoo3/2000 (b13 drivers) to a 17" AppleVision 1710
Cheers!
Brian
PS - ignoring Warbirds, this machine is a SCREAMER. Q3A is GORGEOUS and VERY playable at 1024x768, 32 bit, all options on... haven't tried UT yet, but will sometime soon...

(I asked if VM was on and how much RAM he had and Brian replied:)

I do have VM enabled, for 257MB (1 MB over my physical RAM). As to the monitors question - it did not give me a chance to choose which monitor it was loading to; instead, it tried to automatically load to the GeForce driving the ASD. When it loaded, it brought up the beginnings of the splash screen, but no text anywhere (including what I *think* were buttons), and no shading in any of the rendering there. Cmd-Q didn't let me out, and I ended up hard-rebooting the machine (I miss having a power key on the keyboard for a three-finger salute!)...
I'm all about trying to get software to work for me, but some things just aren't worth my time... Brian "

" Hi Mike,
I can't get it to run,it freezes on the warbirds start screen. I have a beige G3 with Voodoo 3 , 1.12 drivers. Thanks for your great site,it's been very helpful to me over the years. Cheers, Mike "

I asked Mike how much ram he had. From the comments it may need a 256MB machine (even then VM on may be required).

" It looks very nice - if you have a machine with enough guts to make it run properly - my B/W G3 400 (O/C 350) w stock rage 128 and 448 mb ram can only produce acceptable frame rates at the very lowest graphics settings - very much a beta from a framerate point of view. Having said that, even the lowest settings are a huge step up from the 2d hell of mac warbirds 2.x. Warbirds is still the best wwII flight sim I've seen for the mac, it has obsessive attention to detail in the flight and physics models.
Alex
PS - The development team at IEN have been complaining about the Macintosh version of open GL holding back developement and forcing them to up the system requirements to silly levels - 256mb of ram for a game! Do you know who they should be talking to at apple? "

" Hi Mike,
I've downloaded the game but couldn't play it because I couldn't configure the input sprockets - the IP window stays invisibile (tried all hints, from multiple clicks, more memory and vm mem off). There is also an issue with DrawSprocket that only allowed me to choose 640x480 and 1024 x 768 in 16 Bit.

WB III beta is a real RAM eater! 160MB seems to be the minimum.
If they fix this little issues then WBIII will be a great addition for Mac Flight-Combat fans :)
Greetings from Cologne, Rene Trost "

" WB3 takes more graphics cards than just the Radeon/GeForce.

Here is a list of all compatible graphics cards:
ATI Rage 128 VR
ATI Nexus
ATI Radeon
Voodoo 5
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX
Nvidia GeForce 3 [not available yet-Mike]

WB3 is an amazing game. It uses OpenGL for the 3D rendering, and the results are pretty good for a beta. There are still the occassional graphics hiccup though.

The sim requires a G3 w/ minimum of 256 megs of RAM.

On my G4 @ 450 (AGP), w/ 384 megs of RAM, the sim ran fine. However, w/ only 256 megs installed, the OpenGl resourses could not get enough RAM for adequate game play-- essentiialy OpenGL would render a white screen if there is not enough RAM. After adding the additional 128 meg dimm, the sim ran fine.

I thought Falcon 4.0 was a memory hog, but this sim takes the cake!
Benson Yeh

(he later wrote)

There was definitely video artifacts. The oddities are mainly at the top of the screen...they occassionally pop up. I wonder if they reflect a lack of power in the Rage 128 Pro.
I have plenty of ram, but the problem still remains. My feeling is that the 3D card is not rendering fast enough...the artifacts appear most while pulling heavy G loads. "

" Hi Mike,
I can't get it to run,it freezes on the warbirds start screen. I have a beige G3 with Voodoo 3 , 1.12 drivers. Thanks for your great site,it's been very helpful to me over the years.
Cheers, Mike O. "

" Hi Mike,
I downloaded WB III and tried it offline on my G4 Dual 450 Radeon (256 MB RAM) system. The beta has some serious problems that make it unplayable relating to graphics artifacts. The readme file describes one of the problems, big white patches on the terrain which occur when the video card runs out of texture memory. My Radeon BTO has 32 MB of VRAM and still can't seem to display all of the textures so I hope that they can address this soon since I don't know of any Mac video cards with more VRAM.

The other issue relates to more white display artifacts when views other than forward or external are selected (e.g. rear and side views or gunners position views). Without the ability to "check your six o'clock" or defend yourself with gunners, any Mac users are going to be sitting ducks. If any other readers have had more luck finding settings that allow the game to work, please post their comments. The game has quite a bit of potential but only if they can work these serious bugs out.
Best wishes,
Chris Gamper "

If any other readers try WarBirds III - let me know what you think.