I am new, pretty dumb and…….

[melchhart]

……..had some fun, finding my way into this very sophisticated forum.

Apart from that, I had no fun with anything of the goodies I touched. I read about all the ad-ons available, i.e. clouds from FSW-Group and greater water texture by Ed Truthan.

After going thru all the tedious down loading, in particular the 20 Meg file, OceansFX which took about tree days and fife minutes and several bottles of wine, I finally had the lot. Off I went and unzipped those files one by one, only to find that most of the BMP-Files are corrupt and absolutely useless. Any idea how that can happen?

I can give you guys a rundown on the hard- and software I am using, but that would be a waste of time, for I never had this kind of problem before. I understand that at times nodes are busy and bottlenecks are a way of the internet, but why are only BMP’s corrupted and no other files?

Do I get a better service if I sign up?

Wolf

[baddadnv]

Wolf,

I have downloaded hundreds of files, here at fs.com......Never have "signed up".......never have had a (corrupted?)BMP.....

Your "Barking" up the wrong tree!!!!!

Randy Burton

[AlaskaAV]

Wolf
Hopefully I will not be accused of bashing but you might try using the Tips and Tricks link at the top of this forum page. There is lots of information there and you just might find what you are looking for and while looking, you might also learn a lot of other new ideas. Try reading that over and than come back with specific questions. Lots of people will be glad to give you a hand. Also, this link might help you:

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?RYm...in/m-howto.htm

Have fun.

Ernie

[AlaskaAV]

Wolf

By the way, welcome to flight sim....

Overlooked the last question. The sign up feature allows you to get instant access to the web site instead of waiting for a node to open up and at times that can take a while. Once signed on, everything is the same.
Also Wolf, it never hurts to give the specs of your machine and is never a waste of time. It really helps those that might be able to assist you. You will find that most people who ask a question about a problem will do that automatically.

As with Randy, I have never had a problem with downloading unless there might have been a problem with the file itself but when that happens, a fix or patch will follow very shortly.

Enjoy your time with flight sim.

Ernie

[NedUT]

Wolf,

Also, one thing to remember about "BMP" files used in scenery, etc. in FS world: these are special bitmaps with Alpha-channels (fancy term for lighting/reflectivity effects on scenery & textures) that are not viewable in most standard tools that will view plain ol' generic bitmaps.

Sometimes you'll find BMP files in the FS world that open just like other BMPs, other times they won't be recognized as valid image files.

This might (likely) be what you're seeing.

As for the signing up, I've been a First-Class Member for about a year, only because I a) wanted to give back a little for all the use I get out of this site, and b) because I wasn't patient enough to hit F5 enough times to get through on one of the limited anonymous nodes. People will debate increased download speeds with a First-Class Membership vs. anonymous users, but IMHO I really don't think you'll get much of a difference. Keep in mind that download times have a lot to do with a) time of day, b) how fast your modem has actually connected (not just how fast it *can* connect, c) how busy your ISP is, and d) a whole host of problems on any number of possible routes traffic could be taking getting from the Flightsim.com servers to your computer.

See ya in the pattern!
-Josh

------------
"It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain

[wileyecoyote]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Oct-24-02 AT 04:39AM (EDT)[/font][p]Welcome to the forum, Wolf.

As Josh said, it may look like the bitmap is corrupted while it really isn't. If you have the PRO version of FS2002, you should be able to find the ImageTool.exe somewhere in the fs2002\gmax\... folder. With this program you can view the 16 bit files.

If you do not have the PRO version, you can download it from one of the SDKs at http://zone.msn.com/flightsim/FS02DevDeskSDK00.asp. Not quite sure which one, though.

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...a04f0d21be.jpg

[nalpt]

Wolf,

if it turns out that one of your bmps is reaaly corrupted, I'm certain that someone who has downloaded those great ocean textures wont mind emailing you a working copy of the damaged bmp.

Do you say its corrupted, because of an error message while unzipping, or because, as has been pointed out, some of the textures files cannot be opened by regular image software?

I used to get this kind of situations everyonce in a while with a 56k modem, even using download managers. Also happened a couple of times with ISDN line, but ist much less frequent.

Don't really know why, but the solution was downloading again, which is a grim prespective, for large files.

Nuno

[Qballbandit]

Yes this is very true of 56k modems. After waiting forever to get your file downloaded, when you go for the magic unzip - WHAM!
If this is the case, I'm sorry to say just try again to download the file, or save your money, don't buy wine for awhile, and get an direct hookup instead of dial! I actually had to use my friend to get Ocean fx & tx files for me!