Hi.

It can sound odd but, even when I'm an expert gamer, I have not dedicated enough time to flight sims since the old Amiga's F29 Retaliator. And I would like to get updated with modern sims. Even if they are 15 years old.

I'm searching for an specific simulator for a 2 month vacation with an old laptop. Requirements:
1. Dynamic Campaign. A must. Canned missions sucks.
2. Not too steep learning curve. It has to be like a training for my main future objective: Falcon 4 BMS, so it has to be like half difficult to learn.
3. Run in an old PC (1.9 GHZ Celeron, 1GB Ram, WinXP, integrated crappy GPU).

Which game would you recommend under these conditions?

On terms of performance on my laptop, I have tried these sims, with this results:
- TAW 2.0 (2.30b4): A bit slow, but fine. (Great work, Home Fries, btw).
- F-15: Runs great.
- Falcon 4 (the original patched, maybe upgradable with a superpak, because AF is unplayable). Slow on campaign, but playable (disabling D3D).
- Unplayable games: EECH (a bit buggy on my computer, even with patchs, I don't know why), Red Baron 3D (Too slow), Longbow 2 (too hard to make it run).
- I haven't tried SEF2000 yet, but I suppose it will run quite well.

The main thing I miss is the learning curve about these games. From 0 to 100 (being 100 Falcon 4 BMS), how do you rate these games in tems of the learning curve?

Thanks in advance.

I personally love TAW 2.0 since it has an easy learning curve and Home fries' mods and addons make the game even better. The dynamic campaign is not as good as Falcon 4's is since the enemy has an unlimited supply of planes. I do not know what F-15 game you are talking about, but I will leave that to another person. Falcon 4 has a steep learning curve and longer missions. However with BMS (which will not run on your PC) it greatly improves the game. Both Falcon 4 and TAW have amazing MFD control.

You seem to know a bit about all 3, so you decide.

Learning curve:
TAW: 20-30 (easy to learn)
Falcon 4: 80-90 (Easier then BMS but basically the same with patches and stuff)

Also, Home Fries also worked on/made Ef2000 Reloaded, which allows you to run Ef2000 v2.0 DOS/3dfx and edit campaigns. It runs OK with the DOS version on a laptop similar to yours (Dell D600). It is an amazing game!

Thanks, ajthenoob.

With F-15 I mean this game.

And yes, I will play BMS with my desktop PC, which can run it without any problems, after these 2 months of laptop training.

How would you rate EF2000 v2.0 in the learning curve chart?

Ef2000 would be between TAW and Falcon 4, about a 40-50. Easy to learn, hard to master. I would at least give it a try (you can probably download the DOS version somewhere) just because of the complexity of its dynamic campaign. And I am not familiar with that F-15 sim, sorry.

This youtube channel has many EF2000 videos.

Ok, thanks again.

But the dynamic campaign is not a feature of the v2.0 of EF2000? Is there a dynamic campaign in the original, but more simple? Or is it the same?

I ask this mainly my impossibility of finding EF2000 v2.0 anywhere, just EF2000 and SuperEF2000 (which doesn't work with Reloaded).

F4AF is a very good sim and is way more playable than F4 with superpak. All you need to do is make sure you have all the patches installed. If how ever F4BMS is your goal then the F-16 is that simple to learn that you could just start there anyway although F4AF is a bit simpler and easier to learn. The DC in F4AF is very stable and good in mp you can have friends join you and help you beat the DC in mp.

Of the sims you listed I'd definitely go with...well, actually you said Allied Force is unplayable, but that would be my choice if BMS is out. I can't imagine going back to stock Falcon after all these years.

If you're stuck between JF-15 and EF2000, heck it's a toss up. Why don't you just install both? Neither is that super hard to learn compared to Falcon.

I'd also throw out Strike Fighters (I'm guessing version 1 on your laptop). The Wings Over Vietnam 1 is a very fun sim and not very complicated, with a considerable variety of jets to goof off in. I'm a pretty hardcore simmer and I still go back to WOV2 from time to time to get my Vietnam-era fix.

If you're only capable of running retro-sims then I won't suggest something like Over Flanders Fields, etc.

For me personally, TAW has been a great sim, since its relatively shallow learning curve allows you to start learning and practicing maneuvers and tactics much faster than a sim in which you have to memorise a thousand keymappings. And despite its elegance and apparent simplicity, there's a lot of complexity once you dig deeper into the sim and the elegance is a feature of the F-22 itself.
Additionally, I would recommend JF-18 (I haven't played JF-15). Its switchology is simpler and more intuitive (IMHO) than Falcon. I've learned most of F-18's cockpit functions just by sitting in the pit, while Falcon has always intimidated me. I think it can be a good starting point for jumping onto BMS.

I have tried all.
I love TAW, its the typical easy to learn hard to master and immersive sim, with simple controls.
If you really plan to end up with BMS, I think you cannot skip Jf18 (JF15 is a bit old for my taste). its among the finest, well simulated systems, and as it was stated, much less switchology.

I have followed your advice, but F/A-18 freezes my computer, despite all the fixes I have found.

So I will focus on TAW and F-15, so I can have one from DID and one from Jane's. I'm also trying Strike Fighters/Wings Over X, which is simple enough to jump in.

Thanks all for your answers.

Don't forget EF2000 Reloaded! As long as you have a DOS version of EF2000 (preferably 2.0 or GFX+) you'll have a great experience.

Also, to the poster who mentioned the unlimited waves of aircraft in TAW campaigns, as long as you take out the airbases you will stem the flow of reinforcements. Check out my campaigns (Avenging Scimitar, Earnest Reprisal, and Stranglehold) for a different experience as well. You have lower levels of damage to achieve, so you can fly stealth missions without needing to hijack CAP flights or load 12 external mavericks to take out targets of opportunity.

For your purposes I might go Janes F-15, WWII Fighters, and Comanche 3 or Gold. Those will all run acceptably on that hardware at any setting.

I doubt BMS is going to run on that rig even tuned within the config file to below minimum. I had trouble with getting enough FPS tuned below minimum (I mean, everything turned either off or to way down) on a 2.something ghz Celeron (later switched to Dual Core) Laptop with newer integrated graphics. It's hardcore study simming, but you probably need more 'puter for it. DCS stuff would be even more demanding. Since you already have the F4 disc, you should try installing it and hacking it down to see if it's a no go, anyway.

Count yourself fortunate to have F-15 working well. It has some really strong areas in its flight model, other than some slightly excessive (a little is supposedly realistic on the early Mud Hens) weeble wobbling in the pitch axis that can be reduced using range or nonlinearity tweaks to the Y-axis.

Flanker has worked well on every OS I've used it with and can be scaled to any hardware. It's super cheap. 4:3 screen only. I have never gotten that far into the campaigns, though, and its interface is cryptic. I doubt that's the learning curve you're after.

Janes FA-18 will give you a learning curve, but there's no rudder in the game. On default or high settings, I would be surprised if you managed 10fps on average. It could be tuned down (textures, volumetric clouds, etc) and there is a 3D, clickable cockpit.

If TAW is fast enough framerates for you, then I see no reason not to try that, too. I like them all, but TAW puts you at a distinct disadvantage to SAMs. Between that and the wall of Migs problem, sometimes it can get tiring. It's not a particularly engaging ground offensive in my opinion. Low learning curve

I think Comanche 3 doesn't require a GPU and instead does kernel-based CPU rendering or something for the graphics. Gold might not be smooth on your computer. Low learning curve.

With an easily moveable joystick like a lubed-up X52, all three would work very nicely. A stick meant for digital AFCS FBW like the X65 would work better with Falcon or using PPJoy and GlovePIE in Comanche Gold. I'm not sure if Comanche 3 can handle PPJoy. WWII Fighters does have an auto trim mode, so it can work with either type of stick.

If you would prefer to be doing helos, then I would recommend retrying EECH with all the improvements MINUS the terrain, smoke, and cloud modifications. It's worth the effort and can be tuned way down. I only recommend EECH with either a pole cyclic or with PPJoy and GlovePIE, because it's frankly a pain in the booty to manually trim helos with a joystick.

If you prefer jets to helos, I suspect you'll play pretty much nothing except F-15. If mine was stable, I'd be doing dogfights over the net with it even with everything else I have.

I wonder if Joint Strike Fighter would work for you. Very impressive old sim but only works for me for like 5 minutes before a CTD, and it CTDs immediately with the X65. It does not recognize PPJoy or GlovePIE, so no combining pedals and stick.

EECH2 Desert Ops has a much faster, more crisp graphics system than EECH1. It seems very scalable and lacks any mods, so it might run on your system. It's got a number of bugs, though. Objects not showing up in the FLIR at all. Lower range FLIR than even EECH1 when it does work. A bunch of other weird issues. If you don't use the FLIR, though, and stick to radar, then it might be worth checking out if EECH1 is still buggy.

EDIT:

After throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you and after re-reading your post, I'm thinking Janes FA-18 would be the best training for BMS. You might keep returning to it even in spit of its lack of rudder. It has seamless (unlike JF-15) TWS missile firing and with mapping can sort of mimic some of the HOTAS aspects like the TMS. Its arguably superior ground weapons modeling (GPS, cluster bombs actually work right, etc) will probably spoil you compared to the limitations of BMS, though.

If Total Air War 2 is a high enough framerate, that will also be training wheels for BMS. It will better represent F-16 landings than Janes. It has a helmet sight system for the 9X that works reasonably well and doesn't require padlocking like JFA-18.

Edit: Saw that FA-18 is a no-go for you. Sorry to hear that.