Very nice article. LB2 was the first sim I really 'got into'.

All the talk of using standardized file types and such is a very good idea. But it kinda depends on how the coders are used to doing their 'thing'. I think that's why we end up with some sims running well, like F4, and some that don't run at all, like LB2. It would be nice, but not something any of us can accomplish. We are the will of the devs.

However, Microsucks could make this all moot if they would just incorporate a competent multi boot process and/or a competent virtual machine so we could run our old software. Well, we all know that isn't going to happen, because M$ won't make money on making your Office software (etc.) obsolete (unless you go Open Office, which I do... screw M$). M$ is all about making our OS 'pretty' and giving us 'widgets'. Functional? Nah, you want pretty. Lovely.

I might have access to a legacy machine in the near future, like LawnDartLeo, and that seems like the only true solution to this mess.

Flexman,

We had a running joke in a RPG I used to be in. I'm not evil, I'm just misunderstood. ;-)

HomeFries,

Making the data accessible just means that the game can be modded in the future and people might be interested in it longer. It may allow you to make games look better once the systems become more powerful. This isn’t what is causing games to stop working. These are two different issues. If the code that is using that data is doing stuff in a way that the operating system or drivers or whatever stop supporting certain functionality or even change the way things are done then it can cause a game to stop working or suddenly start having problem. From what I’ve seen, offloading stuff off to the graphics cards is part of the reason these problems are occurring. Every time an advancement happens with graphics cards or operating systems then they have to make a special effort to make things backwards compatible. At some point they stop worrying so much or drop it completely and that’s going to cause problems. Why was there the big cry about various printers no longer working when Vista came out? Microsoft made changes to the operating system that weren’t expected back when those printers were created and the people that owned them were just out of luck.

Back when Longbow 2 came out it was still the early days of DirectX and Microsoft was still trying to get a handle on things. The reason why 3DFX was supported initially and not DirectX for graphics is that D3D support was very inconsistent in the beginning and the 3DFX cards just did a better job. Many D3D cards only supported certain features and new drivers would come out and break things. The D3D standard was still a moving target when we switched to it yet if you wanted to be competitive you just had to take your best guess and hope things would keep working the same way. Back then there was a lot of back and forth between the game and video card developers since, effectively, the game developers wound up doing QA on the cards.

I know both JF-15 and JF/A-18 use DirectPlay for the network code. Unfortunately (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectPlay ):

“In Windows Vista, DirectPlay has been deprecated and DirectPlay Voice and DirectPlay's NAT Helper have been removed.”

This means that at some point they’re going to drop DirectPlay support completely. It’s already on the way out the door and when that happens no more multiplayer in those games. I guess if we were forward thinkers we shouldn’t have gone with the networking solution that was supplied by Microsoft and part of the DirectX standard.

You mentioned the 3D cockpit as a good thing in JF/A-18. We got a ton of grief about that when it came out. We were told it’s not as pretty as a 2D cockpit, it lowers the framerate and obviously we must have been out of our minds to put it in. I can’t really argue with the first two and as for our sanity well…. You mention “Don't get too fancy, and you don't have to worry as much about incompatibilities” but this was about as fancy as you could get back then. Also, especially back then, if you didn’t get fancy then you’d lose points to the guys who did. Oops, JF/A-18 didn’t have guys running around on the deck and didn’t have a dynamic campaign, points off for you. Or more directly related, do you have dynamic lighting, particle effects, a world with x amount of terrain loaded with y amount of objects with a texture resolution of at least z and a laundry list of other things.

Hopefully now that standards are more established games will last without problems longer but I heard of enough newer products having problems with Vista that I still think part of it will be a roll of the dice. I think more than 10 years is a pretty incredible run though.

Flyboy,

The first thing to consider when considering why certain games still run without problems and why others don’t is what are they doing differently. Flight sims where always pushing boundaries of what was possible and having to create or utilize new technologies. Maybe one was using new lighting techniques, shadows or the like. Even if they’re doing the same stuff the methodologies they used may be the factor. For example differences in memory allocation can be a factor. You talk about reusing code like it’s a bad thing but consider this, that means the code has been proven so they know it works. At some point enough stuff will change that you’ll need to start over but if you start from scratch every time you’ll be out of business very soon. Fleet Defender was based off of F-15 III which was based off of F-19 and I know the Super Strike Eagle arcade game at least used the AI from F-19. JF/A-18 was based off of JF-15 and Longbow 2 was base off of Longbow. I’m pretty sure it’s the same with a lot of other games that are out there. Sure, whole segments of the code probably get changed, I totally redid the AI for Fleet Defender, but there’s lots of core stuff that might stay pretty much the same. Also if you’re restarting from scratch then it’s going to be a long time before you can start seeing how the pieces are going to interact. For Fleet Defender I could start working on the AI from day one. For JF-15 I had to wait for a basic game and graphics engine, basic terrain/world, a basic plane object, control interface (first code I worked on was getting access to DirectInput) and the first pass at the flight model. This took months.

What was switching to a different file type going to get you? It’s not like you could go out and get a 3rd party graphics engine for you game, they weren’t around and even if you did then your product wouldn’t stand out or you’d need to add functionality which might require more data which might require a new file format. As long as the code understands the data it’s reading in you’re fine.

I think you all keep putting things in today’s terms when you need to remember what it was like 14 years ago, not even the 12 for when the game came out since you have to factor in development time. There are lots of standards and tools that are around today that either didn’t exist or were just starting out.

Elf

And thanks Scott for commenting. It helps put things into perspective with simming a decade ago... and why I'm hoping you'll still consider that project we talked about.

As I've said before, a lot of our hobby is based on code that is older than readers kids.

Flyboy,

Very good article. I had Longbow 2 running beautifully in Win XP Pro. It took a number of months to get it working properly and I received a lot of help from the Longbow 2 community. I have now upgraded to Win 7, 64bit Pro. I love the operating system and its ability to run older games. I have Jane’s F-15 and F/A-18 installed and they are very stable and beautiful. I have not attempted to install Longbow 2.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed playing Longbow 2 simulation over the years, is because it could operate on my budget computer and, more importantly, because of its balanced play. If I got shot down during game play I knew it was because I made a critical error and not because the game was coded more toward the AI having the advantage. I still recall, however, one bug where an enemy helicopter sitting in an indentation on the ground could not be killed. And if you flew by thinking it was not operational you would be sorely mistaken, because it would soon be attacking your six. I also found the soldiers with stinger missiles quite a challenge. But if one used a little strategy they could be defeated. Air support was a great feature and sometimes one’s wingman would actually help win a mission.

Perhaps someday soon, someone will produce a modern version of Longbow 2, that will be just as innovative and balanced as the first Longbow 2. Imagine the game play and the quality of the graphics with all of the hardware available today.

Wired

Hi Flyboy:

Thanks for the great article.


Just a quick update:


1. After installing the WAC (thanks to you), I no longer need to use any processor affinity program (WinLauncerXP or PFinity).

2. For graphics, I'm using dgVoodoo


Also, would it be possible to add the Anti-virus exclusion work-around to your installation instructions? It would be great to have everything centralized.

Hi guod,

I haven't forgotten but every time I plan to work on it something seems to come up, or more recently down with all the snow we had for a while. After coming back in from yet another 2 hour shoveling adventure my brain was thinking more of napping than writing. Hopefully "real soon now" (trade mark pending (or not ;-) ).

Elf

Hey..you're a developer..you're supposed to say: "Two weeks!"

LOL. I think I'm currently in "when it's ready" mode. ;-)

Flyboy, thanks for taking the time, and for helping to keep longbow going.
Nice article.

I don't know what you gents are talking about, but if it's a combat flight sim i'ld would
buy it no question.

Jaeger

For some reason, I had a hankerin' for some rotary wing combat simming, and started a little
research this evening. I was amazed to see this fine article of recent vintage.

Well done!

I just wish it had a better prognosis for Win7, as my mini-laptop is already there, and my
next gaming rig will be running it.

I had actually found Kevin "PositiveG" Speichts site and was heartened by his prognosis, then
read this and learned of his untimely demise.

Very sad.

He will surely be missed...