Falcon4.0 and HyperLobby

Post Newbie Joined: Dec 13, 2003 Posts: 5 Location: USA

Most of this stuff is available around the net, but thought I would list it here to centralize several items. Thanks to Jiri and pilot's at Frugalsworld, FreeFalcon and HyperLobby.

HyperLobby has a room for Falcon4 Superpak3, but you can fly FreeFalcon2 or Benchmarksims add-ons as well. Here are some things you should know about HyperLobby and Falcon:

1) Sometimes the 'path' to your .exe that HL scans for can get trashed. You can find the path in your registry, under: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App Paths

It may show more than one path, particularly if you have changed a path. I had two paths, one I recognized as a HL scan and indeed it was trashed. How it gets trashed is anybody's idea.

2) But the important thing is often you will hear players say they can't see other players IP loaded into comms when they join in HL and game has started. Easy way is to manually enter the IP by getting it from host prior to departing HL. But the real reason is this path is trashed.

To fix that, you can either delete the path or start a new one.

3) To make a new path, you exit out of the FalconSP3 lobby back to the Connect screen in HyperLobby. Then hold down Ctrl+Shft and click on the Connect button again. This will open the HL scan for .exe page again. It is best to just not scan, but type in the path yourself. Then connect and when you join you will see other player's IP.

4) If you have lost or forgotten your password, it is also stored in Registry under: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\HyperLOBBY\login
If you use various 'alias' names they also will be stored there. This can be helpful when you reinstall Hyper and forgot your password for example.

4a) Evidently if you Uninstall HyperLobby the above information is not deleted from your Registry. So no wonder a reinstall is wierd. Particularly if you have done a Falcon Dance to different HD, etc.

5) I did help a fellow flying through a router to use the HL.ini to add extensions for his IP. You should learn how to use netchk.exe in your Falcon4 folder to find ip and hostidx correct usage.

6) If you want to setup to run BMS, you must change your falconsp.exe in the folder you are using to something like falconsp.exe.org and then rename F4-BMS.exe to FalconSP.exe. Otherwise HL will not see it to run BMS.

7) Be sure to password your games. Prevents guys from jumping in who got no idea what your setup is going to be. I find that annoying when someone shows up connected to his t1 and selected t1... Also it will help you from Gamespy guys showing up in your game that are not even on HyperLobby.

Cool

You can permanently eliminate Gamespy seeing your games by doing the following: For W2K, XP
1. Open file from windows /system32 /drivers /etc /hosts and open it with Notepad.
2. Write this line to list:
127.0.0.1 master.gamespy.com
Make sure there is at least 1 space between ip and 'master.gamespy.com'
3. Save it and enjoy games without gamespy intruders ... it disables gamespy hearbeats and vice versa.
You should test it from your XP's Command Prompt while you are online with the command:
ping master.gamespy.com
If you get a reply from 127.0.0.1 address, then you blocked gamespy. the 127.0.0.1 is a dead ip in your system.

9) You also might want to disable Uplink in your Falconsp.cfg so your game is not advertised on JetNet.

DewDog

Post Newbie Joined: Dec 13, 2003 Posts: 5 Location: USA

Warning on item 6 of previous post on Falcon4 and HyperLobby.

This suggests you can play BMS patch to your Falcon on HyperLobby by renaming your falconsp.exe to something else and then renaming f4-bms.exe to falconsp.exe and resetting the HL path as I outlined.

While this does work, several of us have discovered that changing the f4-bms.exe eventually causes difficulties. We see more Crash to Destops for one thing. And another when running f4-bms at other times, the setup gets screwed up in the game. Also, you might notice when you change the .exe's the bms version number in lower right hand corner is garbled. No big deal really.

But I had couple guys that reversed the .exe's back to their original settings and the version number was still garbled.

This leads me to believe that it may not be worth attempting this method.

Perhaps Jiri will change HL to accept F4-BMS.exe at a later date. Or what would make more sense is for BMS to delete the old falconsp.exe and replace it with theirs on the installation.

Anyway, for the time being if you want to play a BMS version on HL, I suggest you just meet your players there and exchange your IP numbers then go off HL to play IP to IP.