F-15 and Windows 7 anyone?

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 !!!

Hello! I tried following the directions in this thread and I ended up using the Glide wrapper linked in a previous post. Combined with the CTRL+ALT+DEL trick, this thing is almost perfect.
The only issues I have are:

1) The menu bug exists (having to use the CTRL+ALT+DEL workaround isn't very fun but oh well)
2) I have a widescreen laptop monitor. Normally when I set games to a 4:3 resolution (including when I was able to use other Glide wrappers on other games such as Powerslide, but this is the only one that has worked for me), the screen will show up in a 4:3 aspect ratio and there will be black bars on the side, so I don't have problems with the graphics distorting or looking "fat". But when I use this Glide wrapper on F-15, the screen is stretched out, so everything distorts when I rotate and the graphics are, as I put it, "fat".

I tried using a different Glide Wrapper, nGlide, but the only way I've been able to get it both playable (i.e. not really choppy in cockpit view) and in 4:3 results in glitchy graphics (the cockpit graphics seem to "melt", it's hard to describe) and a lot of the text in the cockpit is illegible.

So far I guess I might just have to play with everything distorted, as much as I can't stand to. Better than nothing!
But if anyone knows how to fix this, it'd be appreciated.

Edit: I mindlessly fiddled with the wrapper settings and now it appears to be the correct ratio, just small, and in the center. I guess I have to mess with the settings some more.

Hello! I'm also a long time fan of Jane's F-15,as i have a dual boot computer(WinXp sp3-Win7 32bit)i can run F-15 in XP without any problem,but as an experiment i did try to install and run it in Win7 through "Virtualbox" (a free virtual machine)with WinXP sp3 as a guest OS and it works! except that the simulation can only be run in software mode:-(

VirtualBox is available at: https://www.virtualbox.org/
Don't forget the extension pack:to get your usb joystick to work.....
You need a WindowsXp install disc.

Hornet1a

Hi All,

Look in the Screenshot & Video Gallery Forum for topic, "I got Janes F-15 running perfect!" Force10 has pictures and gives a step by step explanation of how he got Janes F-15 running.
Some time ago, I had Janes F-15 working on my computer, but I could not get the menus to appear using the Alt+Cont+Del keys. I will have to try Force10's setup and see if the menus will appear for me. Janes F-15 was my favorite Study Sim, I liked it even better than Janes F/A-18. Janes F/A-18 however, taught me how to land my jet on a Carrier and that has been extremely useful when landing on other Carriers in other Combat Flight Simulators.

Wired,

I will have to try that one out because I cannot stand the screen stretching out

Let me know if my instructions worked for anyone else...or did I just get lucky.

Force10
I tried to locate your instruction but couldn't find them. Could you repost?
Thanks

Here ya go: My last post with the screenies..

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3604991/I_got_Janes_F_15_running_perfe.html#Post3604991

I posted this in the other thread...

This doesn't work for me - menu screen is still static and after C-A-D & Cancel I get a black screen

I didn't use the DirectDraw tool and aside from menu hiccups the game works great.

There are only two major problems:
1) The 2D cockpit is extremely laggy (albeit "flyable")
2) Not a graphics or stability problem, but I've been trying to disable my joystick's built-in throttle without having to cut the wires to the throttle or otherwise disassemble my joystick, but seeing as I never use the throttle if I can avoid it, I may just go ahead and cut these wires.

Oh, and I've found out that full pitch back + full roll to side + full rudder to same side + full AB does funny things.

Hi all.

Few days back gone crazy and installing all possible old dos/win sims, like EF2000, Strike Eagle 3, etc.
In other words, I'm back !

So, guesses, huh, yesterday tried Jane's F15 and %@%!#&, first, of course no go.
But, eventually came to the point running it perfect with 3dFX Glide wrapper on Xp and Win7.
Now, it wouldn't be interesting if I did it like was described here... nooo, just couldn't get that lucky.
Was trying to run it on dual system machine, XPsp3 and Win7sp1.

I have to remind you, that below fixes worked for me, my machine, my configuration, so, no guaranties that it will must work for everybody else, different setup, but still you'll get one more thing to try before letting it all go

You'll need:
nGlide 0.99
Video driver (can be current, better older?, but win-xp version, not win7/vista ver! important)

Let's roll:

but first, JOY1_HATUP sticky problem:

My..., I've found this solution in SimHq Archives !!!
And is applicable for JFA18 too.
(fix works on xp and win7)

NO NEED to delete setting in keys file!!!

You just MUST have ONE POV HAT AVAILABLE TO WINDOWS DIRECTX HAT, it means no programmed stuff on that hat.
Or, it can be SHIFTED, but IT MUST be SEEN BY WINDOWS DIRECTX in clean, default state, as a 4-way HAT1.

Sorry for screaming, but this knowledge was right here under our noses all the time.
and is far more better solution then deleting the setting from keys file .


GRAPHICS:
On win7 ...menu glitch, of course, on Xp "dgvoodoo 1.44" wrapper was nogo, too. (haven't tried 1.50 ver, tho.)

XP:
For XP, the fix was easy, installed "nGlide 0.99", and bam!, out of the box, with 1.17 patch, working flawless in glide.
Set your screen resolution in nGlide configurator, first option. Got hires.
Result: gfx is a go on xp. tried refueling, ... piece of cake

WIN7:
But, solution for Win7sp1 was not so easy.
No go for CTL ALT DEL trick, menu still frozen. Killing explorer task didn't work too, same problem, now in black, screen.

Download the XP version of video driver for your video card, you can try current one, your choice, for my ati 12.1 did the trick,
but it must be for Win XP, ... why?
Well, we'll put it on win7 :), that's why.
Some will say "that was stupid" , but I assure you it's not.

Save your THEME before, maybe you'll loose aero/ theme, taskbar will change color, so you'll have backup to revert to later.
I assure you, nothing bad will happen, windows will work more/less normal, and you can get back to normal win7 video driver anytime.

Now, installing different version os driver is a bit tricky but, far more simple then evading sa-10, for instance

Run setup, driver will unpack, remember where, NOW CANCEL AFTER setup has unpacked and ran real driver setup,
the rest is done manually.
Note the location of the ".inf" file, you have to see file extension for this, make sure you can.
(folder options > view > uncheck, hide known file ext.)

Go to DEVICE MANAGER > DISPLAY ADAPTER > (right click video card) > UPDATE DRIVER ...
Choose ADVANCED > DON'T SEARCH FOR DRIVER (manually) > ... > HAVE DISK > browse to the unpacked .inf file,
select it and install.
Windows will complain, bla, bla, YES, REBOOT.
Ok, that's it. If resolution changed, fix that so you can work normally.

Now, install nGlide 0.99 if not yet present on system.
> then GoTo try F15.
That should do it.

Important!, Do NOT select compatibility mode, eventually only if you must.
You'll degrade nGlide performance.
For me it works clean, w/out compatibility mode, and is working fine.

I don't take any of credits for this, other then explaining what to do, because it was already done, I was just lucky enough to successfully repeat procedure.

Cheers all, and good luck.

Hi All,

I got JF15 running on Win 7 using the CAD trick. Normally in JF15, Shift+F8 gives you chase plane view, where the camera will rotate same as the plane (as opposed to only F8, where the camera orientation stays fixed). But when I hit Shift+F8, the view only works as long as I hold the Shift key down. As soon as I let go of Shift, the view automatically toggles back to in-cockpit. But F8 without shift works fine. Any ideas why this is happening (I'm using a Vaio laptop, and how to fix this?

Thanks.

Can anyone point me to the keyboard layout/guide for the expert mode? Or tell me how to kill engines?

Could someone point me to a valid site for Direct Draw Compatibility Tool 1.1 everyone I've found is a register first site or it's unavailable.Thanks

Try Shift L and Shift R toggles left and right engines repectively..

Crazy Enzo,

I've found that I get in-cockpit best graphics at 800x600. For best overall graphics with 4:3, I have to set both my screen resolution as well as nglide resolution to 1200x800, select 4:3 ratio in the nglide configurator. This leaves the flaps/gear/spoiler indicators in the in-cockpit view a little blurry, but the rest of cockpit is fine, and external graphics are great. Also, this is with anti-aliasing enabled (hardware override).

Any one have any idea why pressing then releasing the shift key immediately toggles me back to in-cockpit view regardless of which view I was initially in?

Hey all,

Can someone please tell me how to enable TEWS with objects appearing as icons? I can only see aircraft, and they are marked with a number with a triangle on top. Thanks!

No idea, sorry.


Are you saying you don't see ground & missile emitters or are you saying that you don't want the simple symbology (caret, square, and diamond)? If the former, are you sure there are any and if the latter that's the Casual mode TEWS. I can't remember if there's an option the settings while in Expert mode or not.

Hi kadiir,

Yes, I meant the latter. I changed my controls to Casual in the settings, but I'm still seeing the expert TEWS?? Is there a different setting to set TEWS?

I tried every method with ddwrapper and glide but UI never were functional but with blind pushing I was able to get into seat. When I added to Steam the game the UI was almost perfect but the 3D world never were loaded.

I never had chance to try this sim...

Hi, molnibalage,

A lot of people managed to get Jane's F-15 up and running so chances are you could achieve the same results. Don't give up just yet. I'll try to help the best I can.

Other than running under win 7, what exactly are you specs ? It's important, cause no one has the same setup and it could help figuring out incompatibilities. Can you precisely run me through the method you followed?
Judging by the way you are describing your issue with the in-game 3D, I'll say your trouble could come from older drivers. It would really be helpful to know about the graphic card in your rig.

Regards,

Andromedius.

Try doing these steps -> LINK TO POST

This collection of fixes finally got the game running on my Win7 machine.

Other than running under win 7, what exactly are you specs ?

i5-2400S 2.5GHz, HD7850 2GB, 8 GB RAM

Hi, molnibalage,


Your system should handle jane's F-15 without a itch.

Sorry, if I'm being redundant, here, but did you update your graphic's card drivers ? During the trial and error process for fixing the game, most of the game crashes (especially while loading the 3D world) were drivers related.

Here are some other questions/suggestions :

- Do you use nglide? Make sure you don't have two glide-wrapper on your system. Nothing good ever comes from that.

- If you can access it, did you check in the game's options menu that the card driver is set to 3dfx mode ?
I suggest you add again the game via Steam, since you got some success navigating through the UI by doing so, and then check this specific menu (sorry, my menu is in french, but you shouldn't have any problem finding the right options).




- As a last resort, you can also try these ddraw tools from my dropbox public folder(they're safe, no worries) :

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14017931/w7ddpatcher.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14017931/ddwrapper.zip

There's no guarantee it will fix your issues, but it's definitely worth a try. I got good results with w7ddpatcher on fixing some menu's trouble for another game (M1Tank Platoon 2). You got nothing to loose here.

Hope this helps, keep me posted.

Regards,

Andromedius.