Been anxious to see what the final opinions are on this one? I had some real issues with SAR3 which was a shame I had some wild Hard Drive issues running SAR3 under XP Pro.
Hate to blame software but the problem wasn't there prior to SAR3 install and disappeared after I removed it.

The SAR4 Demo played pretty well for me. So how is it? Worth the $40?

Thanks..


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I've got Vietnam:MedEvac which is supposed to be based on the SAR 4 engine.

MedEvac is great from a graphics and realistic control perspective. I have no prior experience with the search/rescue series of games so my opinion is fairly unspoiled.

But I can tell you that I have been looking for SAR 4 since playing MedEvac. Probably just as good!

[This message has been edited by progrmr (edited 12-26-2002).]

A friend of mine and I have been playing a full real campaign in SAR 4. If you crash and die then you have to start over again We take turns being pilot and C/P (C/P puts out the medic teams and strechers etc while the pilot stays flying.)

There are a few odd things in it that I wish they would patch up the two biggest being that with all the other real flight dynamics the sim is in serious need of translational lift. It is so bad having you best climb rate at a hover rather then 60ish knots. The other is that all of the helos should have a good 20% more power then they do (this may be right if they added ETL since that would give them 20-25% more lift. Right now climbing over mountains to make a rescue is a real pain in the butt.
Over all theough they fixed some of the really bad issues with SAR3 and I enjoy SAR4 quite a bit.

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Z

Over all I really like this sim. The problems that I found were with the key map. Some of the functions mentioned in the manual like the auto pilot and Sync/trim are not indicated in the key map and don't work. I've written GlobalStar and IAV several times for information but have yet to get a response. I'm starting the missions this week and will give a better report after a couple of weeks. With all that said, I would say buy it!

Jerome

[This message has been edited by jterryjr (edited 12-26-2002).]

Thanks for the feedback.
Any chance someone could tease me with a screenshot or two of the SH-3? I'm curious as to how much they cleaned it up over SAR3

Thanks!
Andy

This might be too obvious but are you activating both engines? When i started playin it at first i was only starting one engine and the heli was so underpowered i could barely fly it. Now I just wish i could get auto hover height working.

Is anyone else having major problems with trigger points? I seem to be having issues with any mission that requires me to drop a medic onto my victim.

I'm doing the parachutist mission at the moment and my medic won't even see the victim, let alone do anything with him. This has got me so depressed that I haven't touched the game for about a fortnight.

I am currently downloading a demo from http://pc.iavgames.com/sar4/
Its 72.67MB.

If it downloads and installs correctly I'll add a post to say so.

Cheers
Stuntie.

Does anyone know if there's a keyboard reference PDF or readme PDF anywhere? There doesn't seem to be any documentation with the demo.

There is a pdf on this page of the key chart: http://pc.iavgames.com/sar4/
There's also one on the Vietnam Medevac page but they are almost identical anyway.

By the way does anyone know if it is possible to turn off the AFCS as described in the manual? I would be very grateful if anyone can shed some light on this,

Cheers, Jack

Im looking at buying SAR4 after looking at the demo, but shipping to New Zealand is more expensive than the product, and will cost me over $80 US to get it here.

Thats a cost I might be prepared to burden, but, I can no longer play the demo of either SAR4 or VME. As soon as I click on the OK button to fly my monitor goes out of range and there is nothing I can do but reboot my computer. Its weird because it worked fine when I installed it the first time. It after I rebooted and tried to play again that it started doing it. Ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Deleting the Config file and resetting all my options, but it just keeps doing it.

My desktop res is 1600x1200 32bit
and I was trying to run it in 1280x960 32bit
I have a Geforce 4 and a CTX 19"
When I had it running it was really smooth at 4xFSAA and worst of all, I just creted a cougar profile and I cant bloody use the thing
Has anyone had this problem or can help me out in any way?

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New Zealand Simulations Forum

Grover, since it affects both demos I would think it unlikely to be the games that are the problem. Something in your sysstem may have changed - broken or corrupted video driver being the most likely. Can you roll back to a restore point? Or tey changing your video and sound drivers even if it means going back a version or two.

Cheers, Jack :-)

I'll try different drivers, but the SAR demos are the only things that do it, and it was really unusual that it worked one minute, and not the next when no other changes had been made.

I tried playing about a month back, and the VME demo worked flawlessly, but when I installed SAR4 it did the same thing. I left them alone, but tried again yesteray when SAR4 worked.

I'll try drivers (im using det 38.40 as the 40 series have issues with Janes F18)



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New Zealand Simulations Forum

Just got the game today and wanted to let you know a few things that seriously need to be fixed.

The Auto-pilot in the manual “F11” key doesn’t work.
The Collective tends to be half engaged during start up, causing early lift offs.
Hover Aug works but there’s no way to slew do to the fact that there are no keys for slewing. You have to use the joystick, which makes it almost impossible to make a clean, smooth entry to a hoisting position cause your fighting the Hov-aug all the way.
Once again you added a copilot but no crewman. A SAR crew will take off without a copilot but never without a crewman!
Helicopter physics are a little sloppy. Move slightly, and I do mean slightly, back on the collective and your nose comes up immediately.
The Hospital landing pad in the 2nd campaign mission has trees way too close to it.
That “hoist camera” view is too high, should be under the hoist itself.

These are things I found in the first half hour of play. I’m not looking forward to whatever else there might be. Other than that, it looks very GOOD!

They need to fix these or play the game to it's fullest could become a real pain!
Other than that, Looks Good!

These two comments make me wonder if you have a calibration problem with your joystick. I use a CH F-16 Combat stick and don't experience this. (I assume you actually mean 'cyclic' in your 2nd point as you refer to the nose coming up when you pull back? )

Yeah , you're right I meant Cyclic. As for the joy stick, never had problems with it before. I have noticed that the minute you start the missions the collective is set at half range. By moving the throttle back and forth it resets to full down. Although it was bothersome at first it reminds me to doing something the real USCG pilots used to do back in the day, A full cyclic and collective check before disengaging the rotor brake. And speaking of the rotorbrake, I never remember leaving a helo on the ramp with it disengaged like the game does. I guess I'm getting too nit-picky, but then what should I expect from creators that never REALLY flew on a USCG SAR case.

Is there any way to turn on the spotlight? The key card makes no mention of it, even though it does mention slewing the Spotlight around.

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New Zealand Simulations Forum

The Keys says it's the "delete" button on the number pad.

Hey Jack,
Do you know of anyway to unload the cargo in SAR4? I get to the mission area, land, open the door and nothing happens. I looked and used various commands but NADA. I end up failing the mission cause I can't get rid of anything. I also contacted the guys at Interactive vision and they say, well, read for yourself....

"The patch should be released soon, but as we are awaiting feedback from our publisher, we have not set a date yet."

But wait....there's more.....

"SAR4 is supposed to be as realistic as possible, and it will respond to the slightest movements. This could be a reason, that you experience calibration problems in this game and not in other games. If all fails, we can attempt to test it ourselves using an MS Force Feedback..."

Huh??? Does this mean they didn't bother to test the game with one of the most popular joysticks out there???

More....

"There is no auto-pilot function in SAR4. This should have been removed from the manual. I have added it to our buglist and quite possibly, it will be added to the upcoming patch."

Worked great in SAR3, Why did they leave it out in this one?

Last but not least.....

I noticed there was no slew functions in Hov=Aug mode. In SAR3 they used the Home, Delete, End and Page down keys. They gave me this answer....

"In SAR4 this function has been added to the collectives, A and Z."

Has anyone out there been able to confirm this? Cause mine sure don't work this way.

Funny thing is, they tell me my Joystick may be out of calibration, however, I have never had a problem with it in ANY other game. Any suggestions from ANYONE would be appreciated. Maybe I just got the one Game that they piled all of the bugs in!


[This message has been edited by Bonesan (edited 02-03-2003).]

Hit the Tab key to unload your cargo, it works the best.

There is little to no need for autopilot, the longerst you ever seem to fly for is 5-7 minutes. Thats probably why no autopilot. Hell AP in to the site/Auto-hover at the site and you don't have to play the game at all

No idea what they are talking about witht he collective while in hover-Aug mode but what are you trying to do in it? If you hold your stick a bit off center the helo will slowly move in that direction. It is touchy as hell when you start to move but I find it gets the job done.