Aod vs CAod

[Sailor Steve]

From Neal's review way back when:

With the Command version of Aces, you have: control of your deck gun; access to the Med (slipping past the British at Gibraltar is tough!); you can obtain a Type XXI elecro-boat, available upon promotion; and voice recognition. Supposedly you can set the program and issue most orders verbally. It's a nice thought but I couldn't get it to work reliably. As things began to get critical, my "Crash Dive!!" and "Set Course 3...4...6!" orders were met with a quizzical "What's that, Herr Kapitan?" Usually the game would end right there by ramming or my wife demanding I stop waking the baby with all my shouting. Thankfully you don't need to know German to swim.

http://www.subsim.com/ssr/commandaces.html

I remember reading that the sound in CAOD is actually worse, with the engine sounds not always working properly, but I could easily be misremembering that. I do own both, but my play (as with most other u-boat sims) always runs out about mid-1940, so I really can't say with any kind of accuracy what all the differences are.

[Buddahaid]

I'm running it on an old P2-400 with a 4mB "Screamin 3D" card and 16bit soundblaster. The engine sounds do cut out all the time and just pop back later, or return when you reset the speed.

[Howard313]

Never got the pleasure of playing CAOD, but along with all Sailor Steve quoted I also read that the graphics for CAOD are a little sharper, and the resolution is higher.

Although I'm not 100% sure if that's true and I could be lying to you.

[AngusJS]

CAOD can run natively in Windows (at least it could in XP). AOD would require DosBox I think.

[rooivalk]

Other than what's been mentioned already CAOD has a slightly better resolution with the rolling ocean graphics seeming more real and ships visible at a greater distance, or I should say more visible, with manual gun operation, menu graphics are different other than that no difference assuming you have downloaded and installed the expansion disk for AOD.

Rooivalk

[gungunx]

Can i man the deck gun in AoD with expansion pack and 1.2 or only in command ?

[rooivalk]

Only in CAOD

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

CAOD can run natively in Windows (at least it could in XP). AOD would require DosBox I think.

Ya, CAOD was Win 95 compatible whereas the original was DOS only.

[kgsuarez]

CAOD does indeed run natively in Windows XP. You must find all the .EXE's in the game's directory hierarchy and set them to run in compatibility mode. Some of the .EXE's are hidden in directories other than the main one. Check in SIM, SOUND, SHELL and some of the others.

While I have not tried any recent (Vista and/or 7) versions of Windows, I have heard that compatibility mode doesn't work properly for Windows 95 programs anymore.

The most recent release of DOSBox, version 0.74, runs AOD perfectly. The previous versions required some tinkering with to get the sound working smoothly, but the recent version runs perfectly out-of-the-box. And like I said, I much prefer regular AOD over CAOD for various reasons.

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by kgsuarez

The most recent release of DOSBox, version 0.74, runs AOD perfectly. The previous versions required some tinkering with to get the sound working smoothly, but the recent version runs perfectly out-of-the-box.

This amounts to a big step forward. I still remember spending hours tinkering with the sound setup to get it to run. Great game (once you had it running) but the setup was a real pain.

[CTarana]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

CAOD can run natively in Windows (at least it could in XP). AOD would require DosBox I think.

That's funny! When I switched from Win98 to WinXP I had all sorts of problems getting CAOD to run under WinXP. I ended up installing AOD under Defend Reloaded and that worked fine! I would put CAOD in the Win95 or Win98 camp for sure, AOD too. But under WinXP with the goofy sound system those old simulations need help!

Thanks!

ChristopherT