Chris, thanks for the great article. Was wondering if you could post the procedures to get Jane's F-15 running on a current computer system?

Actually JF-15 works out of the box on Windows XP. I didn't use a Glide wrapper or anything..just ran it in straight D3D mode and used the NVidia control panel to upscale it to fit my 22" monitor. I set 16x aniso and 16x anti-aliasing.

I tried desperately to get it to work on my Vista machine to no avail. It installs fine..but the menu system is screwed up..you can't see the menu selections at all. If you can blindly click in the right spots you can actually get the sim running (ie: hit Instant Action) but without the menu functionality it is sort of pointless.

There is some discussion going on in the JF-15/18 forum right now about using a glide wrapper or something to up the resolution. I didn't try that..but was happy with the results of just upscaling 640 x 480.. If someone comes up with an easy way to change the resolutions I might be prone to trying it.

Also..in the video and screens you'll notice the skins change on the aircraft. I was using the GTT Camo Commander to do that. I don't know if it qualifies as "freeware" or not at this point. If the author of it could be contacted to give free distribution rights I'd be happy to upload it here at SimHQ. I also have 57MB of missions, templates, campaigns, docs..etc..that I can upload as well.

Like I said in the article and in the forum - it is a cryin' shame that there isn't a coop campaign mode in JF-15.. It is so awesome but that really detracted from its longevity..

BeachAV8R

Not to interested in the sim, but I just went and bought Smallwoods two books on the F-15 and the Warthog:

http://www.potomacbooksinc.com/Books/AuthorDetail.aspx?id=389

Thx!

Once you read the book..you'll want to fly SOMETHING and drop some bombs!

BeachAV8R

Ahh.. memories.. JF15 was fab and still a literally big part of my flight sims collection:



I miss those large, heavy boxes...

(Of course nothing beats the original F4 release and the hard cover, heavy-duty fantastic manual):

My collection looks very similar to Dante's, ah.... flying the eagle sure was fun. I can say I literally spent hundreds of hours on Microprose's SE3 and for a time was at the top of the Compuserve ladder and then the utter disappointment of the Janes title not having any multiplayer at all. of course F4 showed up about this time and that's where my focus went but to have another F-15 or Longbow now would make my day. Sadly I don't think it will ever happen again if I had to guess, sims with that level of detail are just too few and far between now.

Simply outstanding, Chris. The video reminded me of how cool it was to have the back-seater talk to you during a mission, I always loved that feature.

Miao, Cat

I know it's not F-15 for real, but for those of you who are unaware you can fly in the Persian Gulf in Jane's F-18 with TSH add-ons. There is a single download that will patch you up with everything, which is very easy to install. You get most of the avionics present in F-15 (minus the SAR maps, unfortunately) as well as many more high-technology weapons and co-op multiplayer. Plus it runs at more than 640x480.

LOL. So did I. The books sounded pretty interesting. From the looks of it, they should be arriving on Monday. I wish I could get this sim. Would like to take a deeper look into it.

Great read, hope to see these on a regular basis!