[marquee]:typing: IL2 Sturmovik - Nausicaa's Hints and Tips Thread :typing:[/marquee]

Hello all,

due to some unfortunate server crashes we had lost some database and among it was a series of helpful stickies with "Hints and Tip"s about IL2 Sturmovik.
I thought it would be a good idea to start something like this again. It's not possible to put everything in a single post, there is no space and I wouldn't have time to write it in a single go. So I thought the best would be that I add information about various aspects of the sim everytime I can spare an hour or two. This will be a thread with tips in it as it goes along - of course you are all welcome to ask questions in between

Ok for the first two subjects I thought we'll look into two basic set-ups for IL2. 1) Many of us have Vista now as operating system, and 2) many have widescreens. Both were not around when IL2 was originally created back in 2000/2001. Luckily IL2 works just fine with both of them and here some hints how to do it:

IL2 "1946"

So you have your new IL2 Sturmovik "1946" disk. For those not in the know, you should only get the 1946 edition, not "IL2 Forgotten Battles", not "Pacific Fighters", not the "IL2 Complete Edition", just "1946". Don't buy anything else. "1946" is the only true complete edition out there. It was released after the misleading "IL2 Complete Edition" and has more content than the latter. "1946" regroups the original IL2, the Ace Expansion Pack, Pacific Fighters, the addons "Pe2", "IL2's over Mandschuria" (never released in the west before) and many more. It also contains all official game patches until version 4.07. Furthermore this is the version you need if you want to play against others. IL2 1946 comes on a DVD. The price should be fairly cheap by now in most countries.

Installing IL2 1946 under Vista

As the release of 1946 was prior to Vista, there have been problems reported to install it. Don't worry, it works just fine and this is how:

Insert the IL2 DVD. When the pop up window comes up do not choose "autorun" or "autoinstall". Several people (me included) have had the problem of a spinning disk without anything happening. Instead, choose "explore disk content" and go to the IL2 Sturmovik root folder. There, find the "a.exe" and double-clic. IL2 should now install just fine.

Running IL2 on widescreens

IL2 comes with a native 4:3 aspect ratio, as widescreens didn't exist when it was first released. There is however a workaround to fix this which enables the widescreen view without distortion. You'll get a proper image, however, infos like target markers, radiochatter, or in flight map cannot be pushed out of a invisible 4:3 aspect ratio "barrier". Cockpit and "game world" will however be proper 16:10 aspect ratio. If you enable widescreen the IL2 splashscreen and menu will have black parts left and right. This is normal, so don't worry if you see it. It actually means you have successfully enabled widescreen. Once in game the black bars will dissappear. This is how to enable widescreen - it requires a little hand editing of in-game files, but it's really easy:

 > Go to your IL2 Shturmovik 1946 root folder.
(easiest way is rightclicking on your game icon and choose Open File Location)
> Find the conf.ini file
(Vista does not always display the type of a file, so it could be called "conf".)
> Double click the "conf" or "conf.ini" file to open it
(it should open in notepad, if not assign notepad to it. Right click on the file, choose "open with" and select "notepad")
> Edit the first section of the conf.ini file, called [window]
And this should look like this, or similar:

[window]
width=1024
height=768
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=8
ChangeScreenRes=1
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=1
SaveAspect=1
Use3Renders=0

Here is short explanation about what it does, from Dieg777:

[window]
this describes how windows displays the game on screen

width=1024
resolution width in pixels set in display properties settings tab in windows

height=768
resolution height in pixels set in display properties settings tab in windows

LCD native resolution not included as an option in FB/AEP/PF Enter your screen values here and Save and start your game.... (if you later open the IL-2 Setup and close it by clicking OK it will change the resolution to 640x480 16bit, unless you change it to something else via this IL-2 Setup.) You will need the following values as well

change SaveAspect=0
ChangeScreenRes=1
EnableResize=0

ColourBits=32
resolution colour set in display properties settings tab in windows. Can be 16 or 32

DepthBits=24
Z buffer usage can be 16 or 24

StencilBits=0
Set in driver section of Il2FB hardware setup. Can be 0 or 8

All the above deal with image quality. The higher the numbers for width and height then the more pixels will be used in the same area therefore the image will be more detailed. The larger the number of bits then the more detail there is per pixel so better image quality

ChangeScreenRes=1
allows the screen resolution to be changed in game. Can be 0 or 1

FullScreen=1
forces display to be full screen and not in a window. Can be 0 or 1

DrawIfNotFocused=0
setting to 1 allows watching the IL2 window in the background, while Alt-Tabbing out of the game. Quite useful for playing co-ops - if you crash and wait for the next mission to start, you can put IL-2 in the background and keep an eye on the mission progress, but at the same time start ranting about "my fav plane is porked" on the forums.

EnableResize=0
Enables user to change window size. can be 0 or 1
must be 0 to allow lcds to fill screen

EnableClose=1

SaveAspect=1
Forces 4:3 picture aspect. Can be 0 or 1

Use3Renders=0
Allows use of up to 3 screens. Can be 0 or 1

Allright, in order to set IL2 to display widescreen, we first have to know the native screen resolution of our screen. By the way, it's generally not recommended to run your LCD widescreen on anything else than it's native resolution. That results in loss of sharpness, bad colors, and a generally "smeary" look!
:help:

Ok lets say we know our native resolution and it's 1440x900. We will just type this values in the [window] section of our conf.ini file. We'll also force the game to display other than a 4:3 aspect ratio. For this we set SaveAspect to "0" and EnableResize to "0":

[window]
width=1440
height=900
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=8
ChangeScreenRes=1
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=1
SaveAspect=0
Use3Renders=0

Done ! :kiss:

Next step is:

> Save the edited conf.ini file by selecting "save". Do not select "save as" !
(it might be that at this moment your UAC pops up in Vista (User Account Control) To prevent this from happening, turn the UAC off prior to any changements in IL2, or run your computer as true Administrator.)

> Start the game and fly around in beautiful widescreen !

So far for the first tips, hoped you enjoyed it. More to come up soon.

Happy editing !
:typing: