Any hacks for FU 1?

[Reticuli 1]

Like increasing LOD, increased ground detail at close distance (like runways), or anything else?  I notice there's a lot of terrain warping on the DOS version.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Reticuli

[patrikmore 10]

Play FU1 with a dos wrapper like dosbox at 1024x768 resolution. It's great visually. But no trim, no flaps, etc... Play FU3 instead. (Threads in AVSIM).

[Reticuli 1]

I'm digging this computational fluid dynamics flight model.  I'm using ppjoy and glovepie to do trims on rotaries and include my pedals.  Working fine.  Took a day and a half it get it up and running.  I am using dosbox.  Is that what you mean by a 'wrapper'?  You don't mean a glide wrapper, right?  Nothing else quite feels like this sim.  FU3 doesn't do the CFD stuff, right?  Why would I use FU3 instead of XP or FSX?  The config files seems very sparse and from the 'nothrottle' line in the help file it makes me think there might be a lot of other possibilities.  From interviews it sounds like they were tweaking it a lot, so I'm wondering if there are ways to change its performance/appearance more.  I notice as you approach the runway strange things happen with detail.  Terrain also warps a little like Magic Carpet and Longbow, if i'm remembering those correctly.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Reticuli

[patrikmore 10]

Absolutely right. Dosbox is a wrapper (allows a dos or Windows 3.1 program to run under Windows 64 bits).

FU1 is charming. Sound and terrain quality at the top. FU3 inherited the plane physics. But in FU3 you have in addition a bunch of plane commands and radio traffic control. You can tweak joystick or keyboard inputs with joykeys.cfg file. There is plenty of information about FU3 on this forum.

 

[Reticuli 1]

Thanks, but I already have FSX and X-plane 8/9/10/11 for civilian stuff.  Not interested in playing FU3.  Wikipedia also says the FU3 flight model physics were coded by a Kevin Wasserman.  Where did you hear that FU3 inherited the FU1's computational fluid dynamics flight model that Seamus Blackley programmed?  There are multiple sources saying exactly the opposite and that Looking Glass fired Blackley before they even coded FU2.  Looking Glass called FU1's flight model a spaghetti 'black box' that only Blackley understood and they got rid of him when he refused to be part of another civilian sim.  He wanted to do a combat sim based on FU1.  He went on to helm XBox and gain future fame and fortune, while Looking Glass went under in 2000ish.  FU1 is the only CFD flight model that I'm aware of for consumers, and a rarity of real-time CFD flight models in any circle that Blackley managed to pull off by simplifying the Navier–Stokes equations.

I'm interested in configuration alterations and tweaks for FU1.  For instance, the detail exists to see the terrain more clearly as I can see the runways improve as I get close to them, but then they muddy up as I move away.   Some sort of detail or LOD thing going on.  The help and readme files are sort of all over the place for both the game files and the patch, poorly-organized, and I can't find the manual online.  There are a few mentions of things you can put in the FLITE.CFG file to change stuff, but not much.  I am suspecting there's a lot more possible, and some interviews and different release packaging indicate they changed the way the graphics were optimized later on.  IMO, the planes are also still too durable on landings even with invulnerability off.  I would assume there are a ton of these sorts of things like "nothrottle" or "language 0" you could add to FLITE.CFG for tweaking things.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Reticuli