Going to reinstall FU3

[Guest]

I'm going to reload FUIII now that I have a shiny new computer. I will load II and III. I haved strolled through the library for interesting files, but I have been out of the loop recently.Can y'all suggest a couple of "Must Have" files? I do have the patch (assuming its the only patch).Also, can someone point me to the tips and tricks. I remember there were some changes that could be made in the configuration files, but I don't have that info anymore. Any help getting me restarted with this sim would be appreciated!Thanks in advance.

[Guest glidernut]

Hi linetest, welcom abord.If your video card is an NVIDIA, then you will need a Patch.Even if you dont have an NVIDIA, its stil a good idear to use the Patch.There are three Patches, so be cairful to get the right one. [link:ftp.avsim.com/library/esearch.php?DLID=&Name=&FileName=fu3patch.exe&Author=&CatID=03aLGFU3 | This takes you to the US patch,][link:ftp.avsim.com/library/esearch.php?DLID=&Name=&FileName=fu3depat.exe&Author=&CatID=03aLGFU3 ] This takes you to the Germany patch,Install FU3 ferst, and then click on the patch.I licke to put the patch in the maine Flight3 Folder, and then click on it.Cum back and let us know what you think of it.or if you hit any snags.You say youv got FU2 & FU3, thats good. Start with the FU3 insterlation disk and folow instructions.At sum point it will ask if you want to install FU2, choos yes, and folow instructions.Also at sum point it will also ask if you want to install the "outer terane".Sum of us like the "outer terane" Sum of us think its beter without.Its your choice.If you like flying high in bad wether, useing instraments in the cokpit to navigaet,Then choos YES to the "outer terane". its got mor distant airports to fly to.If you prefer to fly low and slow and see where your going,Then choos NO to the "outer terane", the seenary looks beter.I recomend this as being the best must have for FU2+3. Its the bigest colectione of other peopls packages, all in one.Hennie,s, pack of packages and airports.With well over 200 packages, all working together, Its the bigestserlectshon of all the best scenery ever prodused for FU3+2.Look for thees in the avsim file library. Airport Directory - ZipDive!My Current Package Folder - ZipDive!Filename: packages.zip License: Check within download Added: 6th January 2002 Downloads: 250 Author: Hennie van Rooyen Size: 5378kb glidernut. :-wave

[Guest]

Sounds like a winner. I never dealet with "packages" before. Hopefully the instructions will help.It is a NVidia GF4 in a Dell. I wasn't aware of this patch requirement. Thanks!

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Just make sure that you create a PACKAGES folder in your FLIGHT3 folder.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest]

Hennie's package compilation is indeed a great way of seeing and enjoying a major part of all the work fellow simmers have been putting in FU-III. I just upgraded as well, and the FU-III world is now really busy and alive. Just a note that Hennie's packages may not all work well together on each PC. I had to remove some packages, even on a clean install. Finding out which packages are the problem takes some trial and error, but can be done by split in half, -check each half, -keep the good half and splitting the bad half checking again, etc. RgdsRoland

[Guest]

How about changes to configuration files? Are there any FAQs on that, or how to guides?Thanks again.

[Guest glidernut]

OK, you askt fot it.You can ether use sumone elses cfg File.Anyone can e,mail me, and Iill send them my cfg File.john.lewis@freeuk.comOr you can read throo this lot, and set your own setings.James Hints & Tips. Hints and Tips for Flight Unlimited III by Peter James Your enjoyment of Flight Unlimited III can come from many different experiences. To make each experience the most enjoyable, easy or even realistic you will learn over time what things you can do to accomplish this. As the designer of FU3 I would like to share with you my list of hints and tips that I use and think other pilots of FU3 would want to know. I will break them down into subject areas. Most of these items are things that may not show up in the users manual. Quick Flight Graphic Options The graphic options are used to optimize your frame rates. A flight simulation is no good whatsoever if your frame rates are jerky. The high levels of detail in FU3 require you to tone your settings to allow for the highest frame rates possible. If your machine is less than a PII400, I would recommend turning off the "distantmountains" window. The frame rate is higher without the distant terrain visible. When you fly to the mountains, or off towards the horizon, you will have the terrain show up sure enough, but frame rates won't be as low. If you are running on less than a PII300, I would turn off the "lens flare"option. Every time you look at the sun, you will normally get a cool solar reflection in your face. Turning this off will gain you a frame or two when turning toward the sun. Next you want to make sure your"terrain detail"slider is set to low. Frame rates will remain better in areas of mountains where not quite as much detail and modeling will take place. You should be able to leave this on if you're running a PII350 or higher. Keeping the "distance clipping" slider to low will also keep frame rates up a bit. This controls how far out all details are drawn. Lastly, keep the "building density" to the low end of the scale if you're planning on flying near the city of Seattle or other densely packed areas. If you're planning on flying outside of the metro area, then a full detail level will not impact frame rates much at all. While flying, you have direct control over the level of density on a scale of 1 - 5. Using the F12 key while flying, you can alternate each level of building density by hitting ctrl-shift-m. Each time you hit this key combination, you will see the new level of detail displayed and you can watch your frame rate change on the fly (ctrl-f). Quick Flight Audio Options This screen is pretty much set the best way as default. The only thing I do is turn off the "closed captioning" box as I don't want to see a scrolling line of ATC transmission... I want to just hear it as I would while flying a real plane! You can always ask ATC to repeat a transmission as you would in real life (grin). Also, keeping your sound effects slider on high means you'll hear more of the small rumbles and other flight sounds that round out the audio experience. By default this is high anyway. Quick Flight Aircraft Options The only thing here is a frame rate issue once again. If you have a high-end machine, by all means, keep the AI (air traffic) density up to maximum. This will give you a much more realistic "rush hour" effect at the SEATAC airport and more general aviation traffic flying around at the smaller airports. All this fun will lower your frame rate (especially at SEA, BFI and PAE). So, if you're on a PII400 or less, keep the slider half way down or at minimum. Even at minimum, you'll still notice at least one airplane at most airfields beside yourself, but frame rate impact will not be noticeable! Quick Flight Weather Options This "granddaddy" configuration screen is the one I mess with the most. It has the most options and one you'll visit frequently. First, if the "fair weather cumulous" button is on, this means you'll get nice puffy clouds during sunny days when fairly close to a weather front. This produces clouds between 3 and 6 thousand feet and will decorate the sky with those "oh so nice to fly through" puffies! The frame rate from this cloud doesn't go down much, so unless you're really on a slow machine (PII266 or less) I'd leave them on. The "enhanced cumulous" button refers to big thunderstorm clouds that have smaller normal cumulous clouds near them, around them or stuck to them. This option should be left on unless you're on a slow machine or you want to view pure, "naked" thunderstorms with no "clutter" clouds around them! Sometimes, storms in the open are more menacing looking, so this option is one I turn on and off. The haze slider, will not impact frame rate at all but controls your average visibility and haze level. For crystal clear days and no atmospheric haze or smog, keep it far to the left. This will give unlimited 100 mile days! However, if you are flying in the LA area, and want to have smoggy skies, slide it about 1/2 way or all the way right. All the way right will drop visibility to around 2 miles or so (IFR is less than 3 miles). To create amazing sunsets and sunrises, have the slider about 60% right! Also, our haze rendering is so realistic, that when you go up over mountains, or higher ground elevations, the haze will thin out. If you should fly around the mountains, you'll notice the haze will dam up at the lower elevations. It's quite remarkable! This is a really fun slider to use often! The "cumuloform visibility" slider is a real frame rate controller. Even on a fast machine, you'll want to use this often. What this does is set the cloud models to appear at a certain distance from your plane. For example, when on the nearest setting, clouds will only be drawn about 5 miles and closer. The sky may appear clear, even when set to stormy, but when you're within 5 miles or so of a thunderstorm or large cumulous, it will only then come into view. This way, people flying on a very low-end machine can enjoy the effects of our storms and cloud models. If flying this way, put the haze slider to maximum. This will fog up your forward visibility and make it not so obvious that your clouds only render close. Now, for most computers of a PII400 or greater, keep the slider half way. This leaves clouds visible that are roughly 10 to 30 miles away. This is my favorite position, as any clouds drawn farther out than that will start to look miniature and floating out on the horizon. So, I usually only use it at 1/2 way, "Sky detail level"even on the fastest of machine. "Sky detail level" is a slider that goes up to a level of "2". I keep mine on maximum all the time no matter how slow a machine I'm on. This toggle will let you see more than one cloud family at any one time, like stratus and cumulous or nimbostratus. You can see some lower clouds and higher clouds too. This is the only setting that will enable you to see the beautiful cirrus clouds as well. This toggle does not effect frame rates much. The "wind accuracy" slider determines whether or not you'll get wind flow over mountains and terrain. By having this on maximum, you will always get the most realistic mountain thermals, updrafts and downdrafts. Frame rates may go down slightly with this set at maximum but the effect is well worth it if you want to see what it's like to fly on a windy day near any terrain. If you're flying the Stemme glider, you must have this on maximum in order to experience the proper conditions for soaring. By having this feature minimized, you're frame rates may be slightly better, but you're missing out on so much that to me it is not worth it. Keep it set on max! "turbulence"The last setting worth mentioning on this page is the "turbulence" slider. This really doesn't effect frame rate too much but indeed effects how much rough air you'll get. In good weather this slider really won't make much of a difference. However, in bad weather this slider may determine how long you keep your wings! For me, I keep it about half way. If you really want to fly in thunderstorms and live, better keep the slider on minimum, even though you may be sacrificing realism to some extent here! Quick Flight Options Controls. The only thing here that I think needs mentioning is the "joystick sensitivity" slider. By default, I designed this slider to be at minimum to the left. This will enable the most realistic feel for each aircraft in "normal flying" conditions. Most airplanes are not overly sensitive, but most joysticks are. This is the best compromise we could make when trying to simulate the exact feel of flying an airplane. To achieve this however, means that some elevator sensitivity has been reduced. If you need maximum deflection of the elevator when performing full stalls, spins or other aerobatic maneuvers, you must put the slider to maximum sensitivity. This will give you the movement necessary to create a full break stall, but will make landings and takeoffs more sensitive than by default. The "dead zone" slider will set how much lag there will be between your first joystick or yoke movement and the reaction of the airplane to that movement. By default I found the minimum setting the best when used with the lowest sensitivity. In Flight Hints and Tips Now, let me share with you some of the "goodies" I have discovered over countless hours flying Flight Unlimited III. When attempting to create your own weather scenarios you must know something about meteorology. Our weather engine operates on the real principals of the atmosphere. Our weather severity slider puts everything in motion. When set to the best side (left) you will always get slight deviations of good weather. Subtle wind changes and temperature changes are the most that will ever happen when the slider is on the best weather. Taking the slider up a notch to the right will enable the chance of clouds to be present as well as the chance of more wind to be evident. A notch farther up the slider will produce warm frontal weather. Warm fronts generally mark the advancement of warmer air into a region of cooler air. Warm fronts can have widespread IFR weather associated with them. If you are looking for some good IFR weather to fly in, just keep the slider about half way down. Generating random scenarios will eventually give you a weather scenario that you like. If after time you still don't have exactly what you want, you can "pull" the front to where you want with the mouse. Left clicking will let you move the front by dragging and right clicking will let you rotate the front in a specific direction! You can move the areas of rain too by sliding the front up or down and the associated rain areas will follow! Warm fronts create the lowest visibility near the front. For instance, if you want to fly from good weather to bad weather, position the front about 150 miles away from you or your starting airport. As you fly towards the front (note, the weather works in any outer terrain region connected to either the SFO or SEA weather map region) the notable signs are the gradual lowering and thickening of clouds. By the time you get to within 50 miles or so of the warm front it will be raining or snowing and your visibility will drop. You may encounter clouds near the ground at this point, and a world where visual flying will be impossible. You can manipulate the winds near the surface by right clicking and dragging the wind arrows to control direction and speed! In summer the warm fronts may bring thunderstorms but more likely clouds, fog and showers. In winter the warm fronts can bring snow and in-cloud icing ahead of the warm air. If you want to have the worst possible weather (more winds, turbulence and unpredictability) then you must choose a cold front scenario. Cold fronts will produce more uplift, squally weather and the chance of thunderstorms in summer. You can dictate the number of thunderstorm areas by regenerating the button and checking the map. Just like in warm fronts, you can control the stormy areas as well as frontal position and wind barbs. The cold fronts will have less high clouds associated with them and more of a packed in area of cumulous clouds near the front. Any thunderstorms that form will live along the leading edges of the front (most of the time). If you are caught flying towards nasty weather near a cold front you can fly out of it much faster than in a sprawlingglidernut. :-wave

[Guest]

WOW. Thanks!