Hi folks,

just switched to Win7 a few days ago. One of the first sims to be installed was Jane's F-15 of course. When I start F-15 the menus are all offset and look strange. When you click at a certain spot you don't hit what you see. If you click another spot on the screen (which shouldn't be clickable) you jump onto another screen. It kinda remindes me of the menu problems I had on WinXP with Microprose' M1TP2.
I tried various compatibility settings but with no joy so far.

Jens

Did you try Janes F/A-18 on Win 7? I am curious how that will work.

Ripcord

D3D or Glide wrapper?

It sounds like an issue with your desktop and the game having different resolutions. I think this sometimes happens with JF/A-18.

Elf

Tried it with various desktop resolutions (16:10 and 4:3) but no success so far. I can't navigate the menu. F-18 TSH 4.02 runs fine by the way.

Anyone else even tried running F-15 on Windows 7?


Jens

This seems to be the same driver problem Claude350 and i ran into back in 2007 under Vista.
We had to keep switching from downloaded drivers back to the drivers that came with our video cards.

Sorry to bump this one up again, but I tried everything I can think of to get F-15 running on Windows 7. Anyone else got it running on an nVidia system (beside the solution with the driver switching)? I assume that there is still some interesst in F-15 in the Windows 7 community. ;-)

Jens

What about trying to use DX Tweaker?

I fiddled around with some settings with no success (e.g., I tried using similar settings that I use for JF-18). I don't know much about how the program works though or the fixes. Someone more competent with it might have better luck

This is why I keep an old AMD XP1700 or something like that around, running Win98 and some old 3Dfx cards. Roots, baby. Roots. Still, it is noice to be able to run on our new rigs when possible.

Back when we were trying to get this to run on vista, +G -GOD rest His Soul- made a few comments, and i noted that he had created the "wac lb2' prog...
I had hoped that he could come up with a batch file to load the 'missing' nv4.sys and whatever other files were needed, then the prog would launch f-15.
It might have worked. Using a debugger to figure out what was supposed to run, against what wasn't being loaded under the new vista drivers. It never happened. Maybe one of our local "boffin" will take another look at this. I hope.

Sure enough -- Janes F/A-18 works pretty good. I'm upgrading right now to Windows 7 HOME 64 bit, and all I had to do was go with the XP sp2 compatibility settings. Worked fine.

Tried using Win 98/ME compatibility, that didn't work.

All I have to do now is replace/swap files in and out so I have it the way I like it -- missions, campaigns, movies, etc. But in a week or so I ought to be back into it.

Ripcord

I was curious, after hearing that somebody ran USAF in win 7, so I installed Fighters Anthology in win95 compatibility mode, and then ran the exe in that same win95 mode. Work fine, actually. Looked like hell, colors out of whack, but it flew just like it did back in the day. That was something I couldn't do in XP, so I thought it was worthy of mentioning.

Ripcord

Hey - thought I would weigh in on this as I'm an old school janes.ea.com F-15 onliner...

Hopefully, with what I have "achieved," we can get to a closer working version of this. I managed to figure out the trick to get ALL the menus working, enough so where you can get into flight. The only thing that doesn't work 100% of the time is normal graphics. They are all out of whack, but randomly, sometimes they are spot-on....Here are the steps I followed:

-Copied files from the F-15 cd into a folder on my desktop
-Ran setup.exe in windows xp service pack 2 compatibility mode
-Installed the V1.17 patch using windows xp SP2 compatibility mode
-Found the .exe, which was in my C:/Janes/F15 folder, right clicked it, and marked it to run in windows xp SP2 compatability mode
-Started the game
-At this point, the menu was static and did not move, yet you could still guess and click places
-To fix the menu, press alt-control-delete, choose task manager, which brings you out of the game to your desktop, and then INSTANTLY click on the game icon in your taskbar, which brings the game back up with all of the menus instantly fixed. Crazy, huh?
-The only way the game would work for me is if I had the graphics running via the software option - using my real primary hardware crashed the game
-You should be able to choose a mission and fly it, but the graphics are usually crap 90% of the time
-If the menus ever "freeze" again, just do alt-ctrl-delete, choose task manager, and then go right back into the game to fix them again (such as when you exit a flight, the menus will crap out again, but you can just re-apply the trick)
-When I tried to alt-ctrl-delete trick IN FLIGHT to see if it would fix my graphics, it locked my entire game/system, and I had to end task every time I did this.


I saw the real (albeit low-end) graphics for ONE out of 5 flights I did (and boy was it a sight for sore eyes!). There is probably a similar trick like the alt-ctrl-delete menu fix, which will kickstart the graphics. Somebody should try out my steps to see if you can recreate the menu fix and post if it works for you, which we can then assume is most likely a universal menu-fix for windows 7. Next stop: finding a graphics fix!

Let me know!

Using Windows 7 Professional x64

-Matt2001_131st from the days of old

Update:

I have it fully working now. After about 15-30 seconds of the "bad" graphics, it just naturally fixes itself and magically looks decent. Whenever I fly instant action/single player/even multi-player, the graphics just go back to normal after a few seconds. The only place they wouldn't fix themself would be when I flew a few training missions. For some reason, they never kick-started. Anyways, although it is a bit rough and inconvenient, Janes F-15 does INDEED work with Windows 7!!!!! Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode seemed to work the best for me and my tests. I even went online and flew from the black base to the green base when I hosted my own session.

Cool, cool stuff! Somebody try this out and let me know if it works for you. Also, remember, after I patched to V1.17, I still had to use "software" in the graphics option for this to work. The moment I chose primary display driver, my game crashed. It might be different per graphics card, however, so good luck!

If somebody wants to test out online with me, I'd be game. Shoot me a note at burns_matt at hot mail dot com if I don't reply in a timely manner to this post.

Hi - me again. I apparently live under a rock or something, but I had never heard of zeckensack's glide wrapper found at zeckensack.de/glide/

I was just poking around some of the other forums and luckily found a reference to it.

Anyways, I installed this wrapper and saw a new display selection within the graphics option menu for the 3DFX. I selected it, ran a test flight, and my graphics were instantly working and maxed out as far as Janes F-15 can get. It looked absolutely stunning for a 10+ year old game.

From what I read, how well the wrapper works highly depends on what graphics card you have, but it is at least another option to get F-15 up and running.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

No matter what, I can't seem to get the menus up and working correctly, even trying the Task Manager trick. However, once into flight mode, the sim seems to work great. BTW, I'm running on Home Premium 32-bit.

Dang, I was realy hoping that task manager trick would work for everybody since it seems to work so well for me. I just find it odd that when I do the trick, the menus work EXACTLY like they should to begin with, which leads me to believe there is still hope for a better fix for the issue. Thanks for posting your results.

Same here. Out of 35 trials I had three succesful attempts, which brought the menu fully functional to the screen.

What videocards are you guys using? I have a nVidia 8800GT/Win7 Home Premium 32bit.

Jens

I'm temporarily using an onboard video card (Radeon 4200) until I order a new one since my 7900gs currently blew out. I will not be happy if the new video card I get makes me lose this capability..lol. I guess if all else fails, whenever I want to play this game, I'd use the onboard since I know it works.

It's weird how you had 3 successful attempts. It ALMOST wants to comply, yet it doesn't! Once I get my new video card, I'll post my results, as I will most likely get an nvidia as well.

Just got a PNY nVidia 9800GT 1GB DDR3 video card and everything still works exactly the way it did with my old radeon onboard card. I start the game, hit alt-control-delete, click show task manager (which brings me to my desktop), then click on the minimized Janes F-15 game icon in the task bar, and all of the menus come back up fully functional.

Windows 7 64 Bit
PNY nVidia 9800GT 1GB DDR3
AMD 4600+ (my current bottleneck!)
4 GB PC6400 Corsair Memory

I've made several attempts and never got the menus working. I can get the initial menu up just fine, but sub menus are just partially drawn. I can fish around for buttons and sometimes get something to go. I did get in the air once, but the colors were all wrong and the game crashed after about a minute or two.

Win7 ultimate 64
GTX285
i7-920
4 GB ram

I have a very similar set up to yours (win7 pro 64bit and 285 card), and I was just about to write saying "thanks" to the poster who mentioned the 'task manager' trick because I was able to get up and running last night.

I installed from the cd, installed the patch, then ran the sim. the menus quickly became unresponsive, so I tried switching to the task manager, then immediately hitting cancel, then I'd get back to the menus and they'd be working. It's not ideal, of course, because the menus quit working after a little bit and you end up 'task managering' way too many times (setting the options were a lot of fun as you can imagine).

But once in the sim it ran really well, at the least the few single missions I tried. I installed the .84c glide wrapper, that worked well too.

too bad you can't get it going, figured I'd post because your system is so close to mine.

Hi All,

I have Jane's F-15 running on Windows 7 64bit Professional. Running in compatibility mode, using WinXP service pack 2. Also using the Glide Wrapper. The Glide Wrapper was helpful in smoothing out the graphics. I am now trying to get anti-aliasing to smooth all the edges.

As others have noted, the menu lacks the buttons. If you click near the right bottom of the screen you can usually change screens and start a mission.

Another problem I am experiencing is a flickering panel. Hopefully I can find a solution for that.

By the way, I am running Jane's FA-18 on Windows 7 64bit Professional. I am running it in compatibility mode, using Win98. Also I am using the download, FA-18 One Click Installer Setup. Once I ran the installer, I was able to get Jane's FA-18 running stable and looking beautiful.

Out of here,
Wired

Did you try to run the exe file in compatability mode? (XP sp3)
IIRC F15 runs well in xp.

Hey all!
Im glad I found this topic as I got re-interested in poping in my Jane's F15.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, in a MSI GX620 laptop (nvidia 9600GTM). The installation of the cd and patch work flawless, but when I launch the game, I get the NON-WORKING menus.

The CRTL-ALT-DEL trick didn't work for me in the beginning. After a few attemps I tried to navigate ingame with bad menus. Eventually I reached the options, and miscelaneous, and managed to disable TOOL-TIPS, intro/exit VIDEOS and other things in the miscellaneous menu. After this, I can do CTRl-ALT-DEL and then just go back to the game(no need to open taskbar manager) and the menu will work !

It was so nice to see this game again, and the music in menus, oh man, brings back big memories. In game works good without glide, although you don't get the 3Dfx graphics With the GlideWrap, I'm able to select 3Dfx and get smooth frames and effects, HOWEVER, I have no I idea how to make things look sharp, everything is so blurry, the HUD, the horizon, the plane. I don't know how to change resolution (my max could be 1280x800, but it's not in the options of either the game or glidewrap).

If I try to use DirectX I get the errors when loading a mission saying "unable to load DirectDraw" or something like that. Does anybody know how to make this work?

I was also trying the trick I used to launch Fighters Anthology (YES! I'm able to play it PERFECTLY in windows 7!). Install the game, install the patch, and then create a BATCH file (new text file, and change extension to .bat) with the following lines.




The idea is to stop "explorer.exe" while the game is running, this avoids color corruptions and the game runs amazing, so amazing that i've been playing online with some friends! hehe. I tried this with F15 but doesn't do much.

Any updates please let me know, I will keep you posted also :):) cheers and hail to the best physics model in the sims industry, Jane's F15 !!!