Fly! /2K/2 on Linux??

[Guest angels355]

Roger,Of course, I love it. Still have to get Fly!2. What do you think Fly! Legacy will be like?

[Guest angels355]

Roger,I don't know if this will help you, but one of my buddies on the other forum had an awesome setup, but for his sytem master hd he had an ordinary ATA ide hd, then a slave SATA the monster performer Raptor, his Raptor kicked ####. His older ATA hd for some reason died on him, he replaced it with I think another ATA hd and he was back in business. His setup runs fine.Two or three people over on the other forum have stated that the Raptor ultra fast hd made a very noticeable difference in graphics performance. A high performing hd is very beneficial.Just for illustrative purposes, I have two identical 'puters I've been putting together recently. One I used my old slow as a snail 486 hd on it as a master, and a 7200 rpm hd as a slave, I haven't put a sim on either of these computers but I'm guessing a sim will run well on this slave, however the master hd runs noticeably slower than the nice 7200 rpm 20 gb master on the other computer. The other computer's 7200 rpm drive, just snaps everything onto the screen. Don't have sims on either of these yet. Just to say, if you can afford a fast SATA drive like a Raptor, you'll be stunned by the graphics performance, the hard drive makes a big difference. It's a bit expensive to have two SATA's but the faster the hd's, the more stunning the graphics performace will be.Some people might argue this, but, I think 512 mb's of ram is too light for a premium flight sim. On the other forum we frequently say, FS9 runs better with at least 1 gb of ram. It is not necessarily wrong to compare Fly'2 w/ FS9, because Fly!2 has gigantic high resolution scenery files that can challenge any system, Randy's system is state of the art and he says finally he is realizing the full potential of Fly!2. So I recommend 1 gb of ram. My FS9 'puter is just a pentium III, w/ nvidia geforce 256 video card, and 768 mb's of ram, I think the hd is nice 7200 rpm or so. Any way, it is put together perfectly so that the whole combo runs FS9 great, I have no complaints about it at all, I haven't touched a thing on it, don't want to mess with success. I think my system is one of the slowest processors around running FS9, but the way it's all put together it runs awesomely.Presently the intel core 2 duo is the fastest, and most say highest performing chip on the market now. There's going to be a new AMD setup coming out soon. I don't recall, I think there was an nvidia card mentioned in your previous post. While I've seen some stunning screen shots from ATI cards, I tend to prefer nvidia, this nvidia geforce 256 sold me on the quality and performance of the nvidia family of video cards. Some people who have commented on my system have told me, they think that the video card I have is what makes such a big difference (speaking relatively). It has to also be the ram too. It's maxed at 768 mb's can't stuff any more into it.As you are a developer, I'd say that you would benefit from Win XP and Direct X 9 (DX9). But some of the simmers who strive for high performance, don't get SP2 installed, preferring a lighter XP for hopefully faster frame rates. But if you choose that, then I'd make sure to keep it off the internet. I keep most of my sim computers off of the internet, it takes such hard work to put together a good flight sim station, that I don't want to risk getting any malware on my sim computers. I believe in "Murphy's Law".I hope my comments have been helpful.

[Guest angels355]

Roger,W/ regards to Win 98SE vs XP, and obsolesence, this really bothers me also. I spoke to a person in the MS Activation Center and he assured me that they would continue to activate XP and FSX after support is dropped for them, however this still concerns me very much. I have Win 98SE, I use it all the time. At first I only had 98 first edition and ME, and had no idea what 98SE was like, but one of my guru friends who earns his living w/ 98SE demands 98SE and nothing else. I think his present system is only 1.7 ghz, however he only does graphic art and web design so his processing demands are not very high.Win 98SE is limited to only 1 gb of RAM, if for example your mobo is capable of 3 or 4 gb's of ram, then regarless of how much ram you have installed, it will only address 1 gb of ram. Win ME will address 1.5 gb's of ram.Do you know what I recommend? I highly recomment Win 2000! I've been told by an expert, that Win 2000 is actually NT 5, XP is NT 5.1. Win 2000 will address 4 gb's of ram, is highly stable, and is a proven entity in every type of application. This same expert explained to me that Win 2000 didn't have as many drivers for old equipment, whereas XP combined NT 5 with the driver support that 98 and ME had. I've been told that Win 2000 does not have any sort of activation. I think it has service packs up to SP 3(?), I haven't installed it myself so I'm not sure, but I don't think it has any activation programming. If for example Win 2000 SP3 has an activation program in it, I'd use that until support has been dropped and if they don't continue to activate it you can uninstall, then reinstall to the previous version that had no activations. XP will be supported I've heard until at least 2013 possibly. It is beautiful to use, and I think it has built in graphics capabilities that make everything look great. Everything is plug and play, most of the time. I had some very old joysticks, and it was amazing, I didn't have to hunt down any drivers for them, XP has so many built in drivers that might be one of its' strongest points.Win ME is technically superior to 98SE, but just about zero percent of responders would agree, because there have been so many horror stories with ME. I would never want to wish ME on any one, especially to those who get frustrated or impatient. I've used it for a number of years, I've learned to wrestle with it and make it work well. Personally I like it a lot. It is visually much more stunning than 98SE, has many other features that are better also, and no activation. When you want to go into pure dos, you don't restart, press F8 and select dos prompt only, when you do these steps you just get Safe Mode and a couple other modes basically I haven't tried. To get into pure dos, what you do is create a startup disk, insert it, restart booting with the floppy first, that gives you the choice of cd-rom support or not or minimal boot. I learned to love this system, it has saved me repeatedly, I think ME is a very important OS, I'm likely to always have it running. But you'd want to know ahead of time it might need some patience, savvy, and nerves of steel! ME addresses a max of 1.5 gb's. Another problem with these older OS's is that they only recognize smaller size partitions in the hd, I can't remember what they are, for example if you install a 150 gb hd, they might only recognize 40 gb's, so you'd have to partition such a hd into 40 or less gb partitions. That would completely not work for FS9, many FS9 installations are 80 to 125 gb's and growing. There might be fixes for this, but I haven't had to worry about it yet.I think that Win 2000 will recognize just about anything. And I'm certain that there aren't any activations. The only drawback that I can see is that you might have to hunt down drivers for some things for Win 2000. In this respect however, XP is unbelievably great. If you have some really odd unrecognizable 56k modem for example, all you have to do is just simply plug it in, and XP will install a driver for it just like that! Whereas I was setting up one of my ME computers with odd 56k modems, I had to spend an entire week of searching the internet, and also learn the method of searching for such drivers while avoiding semi-scam websites, and just go directly to the original mfr. Once installed however, it'll run great indefinitely, I keep a collection of drivers on storage disks.With regards to the future of XP and obsolesence, I was really worried because MS would not support some old products of theirs in the slightest, however the Activation Center assures me that they will continue to activate XP after support for it is dropped. Also as the years progress, it is highly likely that dependence on MS will decrease more and more. I love MS, however more alternatives will eventually develop further and further, Linux will increasingly be able to run any and all Windows applications. And I don't know quite how to say this but to just say it, a EU judge is forcing MS to hand over this month software code to other developers to reduce their monopoly in the market place.XP itself actually illustrates the future I think. I used to hear all kinds of rumors that old equipment would become obsolete with XP, well, that actually happend with Apple products and there was a lawsuit over it, however with XP, this will be a strange thing to get a grasp on: XP...gives new life to old equipment! There are things it might not have a driver for, however it is truly incredible how you can plug in an old piece of equipment that with 98 or ME you would have to hunt down drivers for, but XP will will have the driver for that equipment right now. With XP it is so much easier to be brainless/clueless.The one thing you don't want to get is an OEM XP, if I have this correct, with OEM cheaper XP you only get a handful of activations, but with retail XP you get unlimited activations, which is truly required for a flight simmer and hardware enthusiast. It saves a lot of money if you buy an upgrade version of XP, the only drawback is that you have to store the original OS system disk (98SE for example) along with the XP disk, because to be eligible for the XP upgrade you must always have these, and you can no longer use the older OS disk, but I think you save maybe $100? Check into this further, perhaps it is XP Pro that has unlimited activations, not sure about XP Home, but it was mentioned to me that XP OEM (completely sucks) only has a handful of activations.When you use your computer as much as you do, then the choice of OS is very important. Ask questions if you have them, and Randall Rocke is an excellent resource, but I'm not sure if he is back up and running yet. If you're running more than 1 gb of ram, then you'll need a more advanced OS. 98SE is not a bad OS at all, as I said my buddy who earns his living w/ a computer demands nothing else but 98SE, and I literally can not convince him otherwise. Don't be in a rush, ask questions. 2013 is probably the date that XP might be dropped, but the MS Activation Center said that they would continue to activate it after that. I've given you a lot to think about, hope I've been helpful. Fly2K looks stunning on my XP computer. If you don't have it make sure you have fully updated DX9, Direct X 9. If you go to Windows update, I think it will scan to see if you have the latest DX9 and offer the download. Any way you can check that out too.Good luck.

[Guest HeliFLYer]

Hi Roger,I am a little late due to "real-life" work, but>This is the worrying bit!!!!>What's "special" about your new hardware?? It's pretty much just a >standard setup?It is!>Apart from changing over to the PCI-E bus for the video card and using >a combination SATA and IDE hard drive controller setup.>Can you do that by the way? Mix SATA and IDE drives? Well obviously you >CAN but I mean is there a performance penalty?With WinXP this combination might be the problem for my data-losses (I have no facts, just supposing). But once a program was running, there was no performance loss obvious. As you might know, my primary sim is FlightGear since 1 year and there was no visible difference in scenery-loading-time either I run it from the SATA or the IDE hd.Therefore, the hd-problem should not be the reason for the bad FLY!II performance. (BTW, with Linux O/S there is absolutely no trouble with the same hd configuration, works perfect and very fast). >Apart from changing over to the PCI-E bus for the video cardMight be, might be not. For me it seemed as if FLY!II run under a very low video RAM (as I had it in former days with a 64MB card) and also could not see the amount of mainboard RAM.But to be honest, I never had the time nor the energy to change some hardware, ie reduce to 512 MB RAM (see former posts).As we all know, often such bad behaviour of software depends on the combination of many different factors and it is very difficult to find out.>You didn't mention your motherboard? What motherboard are you using?MSI K8N Neo3 (NVIDIA nForce 4 4X Chipset Based)>Thanks for all the info on Linux/emulation but I'm really not savy >enough to branch out into the unknown. :-)Understandable related to FLY!II as my Wine experiments are promising but FLY!II is a Windows program and will work best under this O/S. Not understandable related to normal work - especially OpenSUSE with KDE is very comfortable, even my son (only WinXP trained, has his own PC) and my tech-frightend wife can work under this GUI after I had given some short hints.If you have some time in the future and are curious, go get a life-cd/dvd from OpenSUSE -does no harm to your PC/Windows install.I could not help much with your problems, Roger, hope your new PC upset will end lucky!RegardsGeorg EDDW

[Guest angels355]

Thanks Georg,You have Flightgear? I've been wanting to get that for some time, but haven't had the hard drive space, and also it'll take a very long time to download. How do you like it? Are you using the high resolution scenery and how do you like that? Are there a lot of airports?Roger:I hope your system is working well. I was going to suggest to both of you, if you haven't tried out Flight Simulator 2004, FS9, I highly recommend it. It is extremely thrilling, I wouldn't pass it up. I'm hoping to get X-Plane also. So many flight sims, so little hardware!!Good luck!

[Guest HeliFLYer]

Hi angels,as this is a FLY! forum we better should talk about this by private mail. Please contact me via Avsim user eMail.ThanksGeorg

[KenWood 5]

Well, for those of you that are TRUE die-hard fans - I have one machine still running DOS 6.22 for a lot of my favorite "abandonware"-esque games that cannot run under XP, ME *or* Win98 /98SE. Fav of those - U.S. Navy Fighters on my (very old) Thrustmaster gameport joystick. :-hah Oh! And of course X-WING VS TIE FIGHTER. :-lukeAm willing to wager if you wait a little longer with some patience, WINE will begin to support 32-bit to enjoy Fly! II on... ;-)Ken Wood :-sun1http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/bannernewkw.jpgGateway 700X; Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; NVIDIA Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Guest angels355]

Ken,Thanks for responding, I was just wracking my gnoggin about DOS 6.22!!My Win 98SE (98 also?), and ME computers only have I think DOS 4.2 AND 4.5 I think. I've seen the upgrade download from MS from 6 to 6.22, however it says that it won't work if you have DOS 5 or earlier, that you need the whole shebang of some sort to reach an upgrade to DOS 6.22.Could you tell me how you get DOS 6.22? And how do I upgrade my 98/SE/ME 'puters to 6.22?Thanks very much. Guess what, I actually like Win ME now! No, the monitor vapors are not getting to me!

[KenWood 5]

Well, not sure as to which version of DOS Win98 or 98SE used - my guess is something close to 6.0 or up. Reason I say this is that most commands were nearly identical to either 5.0 or 6, but as I no longer have access to my old 5.25 inch discs for DOS 5 or earlier, I cannot verify. Other reason would be - the games I used that required DOS 5 or higher worked fine in DOS mode for Win98SE. Only hard part was getting the sound card to work right. :-hahFar as getting one's hands on the main DOS 6.0 discs and upgrades to 6.22, I guess EBay would be about the only way, unless you can find someone with the set, or have a friend in high places at M$ (hehe). Might see if your area has a user group dealing with DOS / Windows and see if any of those members are willing to part with a set... I may have to re set-up one of my boxes for Linux and give WINE another try. I still prefer Mandriva (Mandrake) Linux over most all others I've tried (S.U.S.E.; Redhat, etc). Just now without DSL capability, it would take forever to DL, and finances are tight - too costly for the setup I'd prefer to get in a box version. Oh, well. "All good things come to those who wait"! Cheers and Best!Ken Wood :-sun1http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/dfdg/bannernewkw.jpgGateway 700X w/Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; NVIDIA Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Guest angels355]

Hi Ken,Actually 98SE and ME use only DOS 4.2 and 4.5 approximately. I've read about Mandriva, they made a deal with Transgames so that their transgames program comes bundled with the latest Mandrake, which allows Mandriva users to run Windows games. Transgames' program can be gotten independently, however there's a $5/month subscription. Mandriva boxes I think are $50 and up? Do you know if they have a free downloadable Mandriva? I wonder if the free Mandriva would include that transgaming program.One DOS game I've liked is "Rebel Decade" dos chess, it's free, the Windows version costs bucks. Any way, that program pummels me every time, duh!