Hi, i bought three weeks LB1 & FPK and play it with dosbox portable fully from a 4GB USB - works great - thanks to Flyboy for the great instructions on his site :-)
But i think it would be nice if i can play with Glide - is it possible to convert LB1 .. with files from LBG?
Has anybody tried to do this?

Thanks.

warthog77

I don't believe it is possible. LBG and the GLIDE implementation were only for the Windows executables and were not back-compatible with the DOS versions.

Ok, i thought something like that, but i wanted to get 100% - thanks for your reply Recluse :-)

Believe me... as a proud owner of DOS AH-64 Longbow and Flashpoint:Korea, I have pondered this question many times. I wondered if it was worth looking for a cheap copy of LB:Gold or LB Anthology, but the amount of time I spend playing it (since the latest DOSBOX works so well) is too small to matter. I can always get my 3dFX Longbow fix with Longbow 2.

I'll never forget the first time I saw a 3dfX Hellfire missile trail or salvo of FFAR's... Good times! Good times!!

.. :-( there was a cheap LG Gold Version on amazon but i bought FPK before in very good conditions :-) and then i bought LB1 on ebay for 1 € ! great deal - and it was in best condition!it is the german version - it is ok i am a german but i am accustomed to play games in english (the ooold great Sierra Adventures were all in english :-D )
Yes, the god old times.. nightfilling flying with F-15 III - and YES this experinece with LB2 in 3DFX was great and have i too -
i remember my first contact with 3DFX it was Quake2 i upgraded my computer with a 4MB Voodoo 1 to play this game :-)what lightning effects!

..sorry i am talking to much and it has nothing to do with the original post..

as you said, i play LB1 on dosbox, too and it works - on this weekend i try to play LB2 with XP.
The instructions are printed out :-)

Hope it will work otherwise i have to fulfill my project to built an extra Win98 PIII game-machine with voodoo3 ;-)

BTW i am very proud to have the LB series and my beloved 688i - unfortunalety as a jewelcase version without printed manual, great box and so on :-(
i am looking for the other Jane's CombatSims for collecting and playing - i love to read this great manuals - for years i bought some games only for owning the manuals..i am so crazy for SIM-manuals

I know what you mean Warthog. Few years back I bought Jane's Longbow (I didn't got it when it first came out, my PC was to weak) played it like crazy (had the time back then, not now anymore - 2 year old son and another baby on the way - priorities have changed). Then I bought Flashpoint Korea CD (without any manual, but what the hell I was able to play in the CP/G seat and in the new theatre). I recently found complete FPK with manual and box so bought it to, and a while after that I came upon compilation of USNF97/Flight Unlimited II(although without the second CD)/Jane's Longbow GOLD complete with binder manual so I couldn't pass this one up.

warthog77 - If you ever want any PDF versions of game manuals, try this website... www.replacementdocs.com

damson - Congratulations on your new baby on the way!

Thanks flyboy, one month to go (more or less...), I figure back to dipers for me but can't complain - after all, own kids are fun (well most of the time, when they are not life incarnation af the devil itself). I still hope I will find some time for little simming though.

As far as I can tell, Longbow Gold does not support 3Dfx/Glide. There is no mention of it on the box art nor in any of the files.

as well from me the very best for you and your family

Thanks Warthog!

When it came out, it didn't, as such - but I'm thinking there were probably SOME files in the initial installation that would be used later by Glide. Patched to v1.04 and with the GoldFX patch applied, the Windows EXE version of LBGold is indeed 3DFX/Glide compatible - although none of us who have tried it in recent times have had any success with it. And on modern PCs the Windows EXE version of the game is very unstable and with no fixes available.

I can't imagine it provides any improvements, in particular, the graphics as the patch is so small. It is much less hassle to install Longbow Gold on Windows 7 and run through DOSBox. At least then, it is bug free.

Currently running LongBox gold Fx ( that is the patched version that uses 3dFx graphics). System used is a Win 98se with a Voodoo 5500 graphics card. Looks nice ( but not as nice as Longbow 2)
From the Fx patch readme notes:
Longbow GoldFX Patch Text File

Jane's Combat Simulations: Longbow GoldFX v1.09F
------------------------------------------------

(C) 1998, Origin Systems, Inc. This document may not, in whole or part,
be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any
electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in
writing, from Origin Systems, Inc.

Origin Systems, Inc. believes the information contained in this
document is accurate and reliable. Origin Systems, Inc. reserves the
right to update this manual at any time and without notice.

To find out the latest information about Longbow, check out our
Internet Web site http://www.janes.ea.com.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To print a hardcopy of this file, click on File and select Print
from the Notepad menu above.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Important Notes
II. Customer Service/Tech Support

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I. IMPORTANT NOTES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Installation is irreversable. If there are problems with GoldFX,
or you would like to return to original Longbow Gold, you must
uninstall and reinstall Longbow Gold from the original CDs.

2. The A-model Apache is not available in Longbow GoldFX. All missions
are flown with the AH-64D Longbow.

3. Longbow Gold FX is designed to run in 640x480 resolution on the 3Dfx
card. The 320x240 option is no longer available.

4. Longbow Gold FX patches the Windows 95 version of Longbow Gold. The
DOS version will no longer work due to the graphics changes needed
for the 3Dfx version to run correctly.

5. Due to the capability of the 3Dfx hardware, some graphics options,
such as Sky Texture, Perspective Correction, and Dithering will
always default to ON, and cannot be changed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
II. Customer Service/Tech Support
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have any trouble or questions please feel free to contact us
in any of the following ways:

ORIGIN Phone Tech Support: 650-425-1650
8:30am-11:45am and 1PM to 4:30pm Pacific Time
Hours subject to change.
ORIGIN FAX Tech Support: 650-286-5080
Fax's will be responded to by fax - please include a fax
number.
ORIGIN Internet Tech Support: support@origin.ea.com
ORIGIN Internet FTP Site: origin.ea.com
ORIGIN Tech Support Mailing Address:
Origin Systems
Tech Support
P.O. Box 7578
San Mateo, CA 94403-7578

* Longbow GoldFX Web Site:

To find out the latest information about Longbow GoldFX, please check
out our Internet Web site:
http://WWW.janes.ea.com

* Janes Combat Simulations:
http://WWW.janes.ea.com

I sure miss the skunk works!
I can just imagine what they could come out with now.

I had thought about copying a portion of the LBG GoldFX patch readme, but couldn't be tail rotored!

It does seem like the GoldFX patch was kind of rushed and is rather a bit of a hack. Irreversible installation, disabled helicopters, some options on all the time, etc.

If you can manage to take any screenshots, I'm sure I speak for all here when I say we'd be glad to see them!

I know what you mean. Too bad, I would have liked to have the option of playing the Apache A historical missions. I still have my copies of LB1 and FPK but unfortunately I got rid of my pentium 1 166mHx system (overclocked to 200mHz!!!! Wow! 200mHz!) with a 1st gen Voodooo 3dFx add on card that I had set up for DOS gaming ( wish I had kept it, I thought I could play ef2000 on this dell computer but it turns out ef2000 doesn't like a my Voodoo 5 5500 video card). As it is, I'm using this antique 11 year old Dell Pentium 3 1Ghx system to play these 13-14 year old LB2 and LBGoldFx. When I get the time, I may try to get them running on this computer as well (if I can remember all of the tricks I needed to get the original sim's running on a brand new ( in 1996 ) Win 95 Micron computer that I decide to buy just to play Jane's ATF. Wow, what a job that was. I was on a first name basis with the tech's at origin helping me set up the DOS commands and drivers to run them from a boot disk.
I'll be happy to post some screen shots if I can figure out how. Print screen doesn't work and I don't have FRAPS or any of the other programs mentioned in the thread on obtaining screen shots.
May be I'll forced to use a digital camera shot of the monitor!

Check your private messages (PMs) - flashing envelope icon at top of screen next to 'My Stuff' menu item.

Here is a post with some photos of the screen running LongBow GoldFx with 3dFx enhancement. Those with the jaggies have 3dFx toggled off (odd number ending jpg's, even ending numbers have 3dFx enabled). Sorry for the poor quality. I will try to submit some real screen shots soon.

Thanks for taking and uploading those pics. Notice how the non-3DFX terrain feels richer, in both color and detail.

My error. Both sets of pictures were with 3dFx enabled. What I thought was toggleing on and off the 3dFx effect was actually enabling and disabling the 4x antialiasing function of the card. I forgot that in this game there is no way to show with and without 3dFx.
That explains why the pictures with the effect on were a bit washed out but had sharper lines than those without the effect.

My bad too! How could I forget that you couldn't simply show with and without 3DFX in one instance? Oh yeah, it was about 2.30am here when I last posted!

I broke down today and unpacked a vintage Win 98 PIII box, and through the generous gift of a Voodoo 5500 card from kramer, managed to get LB Gold 3Dfx version running well. It doesn't appear to run out of the box, as the 3Dfx patch won't run except on Voodoo 1, 2, and Banshee detections. At least that is what the patch said. But I had already patched this install up years ago while running the old pass through Voodoo2. With the addition of a glide2x.dll file copied from a 3dfx driver folder into the LBGold folder, LB ran perfectly. I tried a glide2x.dll file from dgVoodoo first, but that version didn't work.

Just to celebrate a bit, I ran M1TP2 also, which ran in Glide graphics first time, out of the box.

A good Simday!

PS Thanks, kramer.

Eugene - Screenshots or you're bluffin'!

I found LB Gold to be fairly unstable using Win98, that was back in 1998 mind you. I never managed to complete a mission as the game would crash. I just might have to dig my copy out and try it using dosbox. If I recall properly the mission recorder only worked in dos.

It's funny you should say that. I can't remember if I ever mentioned it before on here, but a few years back I did in fact buy an old PC with Windows 98 on it what I had intended to be my 'retro' system. At the time, LB2 ran almost perfectly on my normal PC so I didn't even bother to try that on it.

What I wanted to do was run LBG via the Windows EXE, natively, with no bugs or game crashes. I can't remember the specifics but I think I did log my findings in some personal files (would have to dig them out). But off the top of my head, I think I remember experiencing a high level of game instability - if I could even get it to run!

Well whatever happened, it wasn't good. As I only wanted the retro PC for LBG, and that didn't run properly, I sold it on only a week or so after buying it.

EDIT: After delving into my archives, I found my personal report on LBG on Win98. Here are some highlights...

DOS EXE:
* Sometimes you get a load of error text in the DOS window when you try to enter a mission, and you have to close the game.
* When you enter a mission, the whole screen is black except for the top where it is all green and fuzzy, rendering it unplayable.

Win EXE:
* Game doesn't even initialize - I think I had to use the CA.INI edit for LBG in Win98!
* Game freezes on Jane's intro movie, making it unplayable.
* Crash to desktop even in Win 98!
* Flight model is too fast and responsive.
* Missile/rocket smoke causes vast lag.

So as you can see, I didn't have a lot of luck!

I am glad to say that I have not seen any of that behavior on my Retroid machine. It is running Win 98 SE, and apparently has the too much memory hack already built in to an ini from when I originally installed it. Will run some more missions; hoope behavior doesn't deteriorate after I have installed the unofficial Win98SE Service Pack (which did update various dll's so that MiG Alley now runs beautifully).

Specs are roughly:

PIII 600
768 mb RAM
Voodoo 5500
Win98 SE SP1 (unofficial)
SB Live iirc

Only chronic drawback is slight screen issues as I am using a VGA connection to my widescreen Samsung 24" lcd. Nothing much though for either LB edition.

The specs for my 'retro' PC were:

Processor: AMD-K6 300MHz
Memory: 128Mb RAM
Graphics card: ATI 3D Rage Pro AGP 2X
Sound card: ?
OS: Windows 98 (First Edition, I think)
Monitor: Compaq V500 14" CRT

I also appear to have noted that after a bit of testing, I removed the ATI (??Mb) card and replaced it with my Voodoo 3 (16Mb) card, with 'much better' results. I also toyed around with the default DirectX5, later updating it to DirectX7. It seems that I didn't have much success with any of the Jane's Longbow games though, and for that reason, I sold it on.

The old "how to make complex sims run successfully on thousands of different hardware/software platforms" issue. No idea on what specifically would have created lots of issues for you, but I notice you were running an outdated Win98 - not SE. Even that had (and has!) stability issues. Havng issues for both Longbow and Longbow 2 on a more or less contemporary machine setup suggests something specific to your setup. Which is a shame. I know a number of us here had many fine months and years of single player and, on LB2, multiplayer pleasure with Longbow. Given your continuing and valuable dedication to the series, I am really sorry it turned out this way for you of all people.

My old Win98 box is first edition as well, I think.

I had none of the issues either. P3-500 OC to 550 MHZ V5 5500. Previous box was a P5 166 V3 3000 Win95. Similarly smooth and at that speed level of CPU, rockets were accurate out to their max range.

I suspect maybe it didn't play well with the AMD CPU...and....IMHO, ATI cards (esp. older ones) always gave problems with sims.

Ha, it's OK, Eugene. I also had many years worth of quality LB2 singleplayer play - most notably on my main Windows 98SE and Windows XP PCs of their era (i.e., not 'retro'). I have well over 150 flight hours and have just about 'memorized' every possible gameplay element in LB2. Therefore, I don't necessarily feel the need to have to continue to play the sim in order to have the good memories but also the information and game 'theory' at hand in an instant for answering questions or adding to a discussion.

As I've stated before, I never really got into LB1/Gold, but I guess if you played LB2 first it is hard to go back - just as it would be hard for DCS: BS players to 'go back' and try LB2 for the first time.

To be honest, I don't really have the attention span nowadays to get back into LB2 even if I really, really tried to sort out my stability issues. And as we get older, priorities change, free time gets less and other games take our grasp. I've also come to appreciate that there are so many other helicopters to discover and not to dwell on the AH-64. For me, I am more of a Comanche fan now.

And simming as a whole has taken a turn, community-wise, perhaps for the worse. I know on many occasions I have been instrumental in starting or continuing arguments and debates over such trivia as the authenticity of sims, Longbow complexity, flight models, helicopter dynamics and weapon effectiveness - but there is so much info readily available nowadays and there are so many know-it-alls that, at times, I no longer feel that I can contribute worthy, once perhaps rare and cutting-edge info and theories. People have spoilt the whole community experience for me recently (note, nobody in this forum).

LB2 will always have a place in my heart, from the awesome manual right down to the first time I saw the sim in 3DFX after years of playing in Software mode. The AH-64 will always have a place in my heart, but as advanced as it is and may become, it is no longer enough to entice me.

Well, this latest post of mine has come to sort of sound like a farewell, and in many ways it is. I will always be here for as long as the website is going and/or I am alive and kicking, but I feel that my LB2 playing days are well and truly over and I will only be a kind of third-party to the whole process here - not playing the game but having the knowledge from when I did play it. I also have the website with all my 'hard' knowledge on and a lot of personal files with notes, experimental stuff, etc.

I'm also sorry that I never got to play with you guys in the LB2 multiplayer heyday, and the two flights I did with you were more of a hard task on my part rather than an enjoyable experience. I've only ever really been any good at multiplayer in FPS games anyhow, and multiplayer as a whole is not something I strive for - I much more enjoy well-polished singleplayer.

And can I just take this time, again, to say what a pleasure it has been meeting all of you guys here. You are some of the best guys on the 'net, a virtual friend could have. When I first joined about 5 years ago I came here simply to advertise my ONE page LB2 'site' that was then hosted at Geocities. Look how my site has grown. Tens of pages, thousands of words and several webhost moves later - I think that in itself is testament to how much we've all interacted and my site is as much yours as it is mine, as I couldn't have made it what it is today without the input and dedication from you guys. I have made a few personal friends out of you, a few enemies, and a few who I have a strictly 'professional' relationship with. Jeez I'm actually starting to well-up here! May we raise a toast to those who have come and gone, to those that are still here posting, to those who have moved on, and to those such as Kevin 'PositiveG' Speichts who was sadly taken away from us way before his time.

I think these icons sum-up the mood right now, for me anyhow...

Great post, FB. And thanks for always remembering +G/Kevin. Know that your website service and answers and re-hosting +G's content is always appreciated. Doubtlessly more than you are ever told!

I know what you mean re attention span and flight sims (versus fps of all types) these days. But the advent of the new BMS release has revived me, and I would imagine a number of others at least from the Falcon community. It is simply terrific.