Microsoft Flight Simulator 98
The First Game In The Series To Embrace 3D Acceleration!
Flight Simulator 98
Released in mid-1997, Flight Simulator 98
came out at a very interesting time. 3D acceleration had taken PC gaming
by storm around this time. The 3DFX Voodoo Accelerator was in very high
demand, and this adapter was redefining gaming in various ways. Many
games were being updated to support the new GPU (Graphical Processor
Unit) with the most notable being Quake. I always find it funny how often I return to the glorious games of id Software when discussing PC gaming. Anyway, Quake
was updated to support the the new graphics card. GL Quake
took PC gaming by storm to those who owned the Voodoo.
Why should the awesomeness of 3D acceleration be restricted to the FPS's though. As mentioned in the previous articles, Microsoft has always been known to push the limits of computer hardware with the Flight Simulator Series of game. However, even with the current game engine, Microsoft was reaching the limits of what they could do with the series.
Flight Simulator 98 is considered a "service release". It was mainly released to fix bugs and issues with the previous game. This was the first game in the series to introduce 3D acceleration. However, their would be limits because the current game engine was becoming dated by this point. FS98 was based on FS95 for Windows, which itself was based on FS5.0, which was released in 1993 for MS-DOS. Bug-fixes can only go so far and extra features can only go so far on a, what was becoming, a dated game engine.
However, their were still game enhancements, mainly with the visuals. Their is 3D acceleration now. Also, new aircraft is included in the game, like the Bell 206 Bill JetRanger Helicopter. The planes incorporated photo-realistic textures. The cockpit's visuals were improved as well. Their were sounds enhancements and improvements to the overall user interface of the game.
Because the game used DirectX now, which is Microsoft's software component which provides 3D acceleration support, the games weather visuals were improved. The clouds and haze effect were enhanced. The game introduced the concept of a 3D "virtual" cockpit for the virtual pilot to look around in while flying the plane. Enhanced texture effects were applied with the use of texture filtering. The sunrise/sunset affects in the game were enhanced as well. Support for joysticks were improved, most notably with the Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. I purchased one as a thrift store purchase about a year ago. A joystick which will see flight time as this bloke will attempt a night-time O'Hare landing. One tip of advice: never use Airplane! as a flight instruction video.
3D accelerated games usually ran faster than their software-only counterparts because with the resources being loaded onto a separate GPU, those resources were being off-loaded from the CPU itself, which allowed the CPU to be used for other tasks. This game featured more airports than its predecessor. FS95 had approximately 300 airports, where in FS98, that number was increased to 3000 airports worldwide. This only means more places to explore.
Developer tools were released for modders as well. The Flight Sim Converter allowed user-made planes to be converted from the previous versions of the Flight Simulator to the new game. Modders embraced the new game and released new planes and scenery as well. Modders were moving onto the internet, and websites sprung up with these user-created aircraft for web-surfers to download and add to their own game. The mod scene really enhanced the longevity of this game, and it greatly enhanced the Flight Simulator experience.
Why should the awesomeness of 3D acceleration be restricted to the FPS's though. As mentioned in the previous articles, Microsoft has always been known to push the limits of computer hardware with the Flight Simulator Series of game. However, even with the current game engine, Microsoft was reaching the limits of what they could do with the series.
Flight Simulator 98 is considered a "service release". It was mainly released to fix bugs and issues with the previous game. This was the first game in the series to introduce 3D acceleration. However, their would be limits because the current game engine was becoming dated by this point. FS98 was based on FS95 for Windows, which itself was based on FS5.0, which was released in 1993 for MS-DOS. Bug-fixes can only go so far and extra features can only go so far on a, what was becoming, a dated game engine.
However, their were still game enhancements, mainly with the visuals. Their is 3D acceleration now. Also, new aircraft is included in the game, like the Bell 206 Bill JetRanger Helicopter. The planes incorporated photo-realistic textures. The cockpit's visuals were improved as well. Their were sounds enhancements and improvements to the overall user interface of the game.
Because the game used DirectX now, which is Microsoft's software component which provides 3D acceleration support, the games weather visuals were improved. The clouds and haze effect were enhanced. The game introduced the concept of a 3D "virtual" cockpit for the virtual pilot to look around in while flying the plane. Enhanced texture effects were applied with the use of texture filtering. The sunrise/sunset affects in the game were enhanced as well. Support for joysticks were improved, most notably with the Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. I purchased one as a thrift store purchase about a year ago. A joystick which will see flight time as this bloke will attempt a night-time O'Hare landing. One tip of advice: never use Airplane! as a flight instruction video.
3D accelerated games usually ran faster than their software-only counterparts because with the resources being loaded onto a separate GPU, those resources were being off-loaded from the CPU itself, which allowed the CPU to be used for other tasks. This game featured more airports than its predecessor. FS95 had approximately 300 airports, where in FS98, that number was increased to 3000 airports worldwide. This only means more places to explore.
Developer tools were released for modders as well. The Flight Sim Converter allowed user-made planes to be converted from the previous versions of the Flight Simulator to the new game. Modders embraced the new game and released new planes and scenery as well. Modders were moving onto the internet, and websites sprung up with these user-created aircraft for web-surfers to download and add to their own game. The mod scene really enhanced the longevity of this game, and it greatly enhanced the Flight Simulator experience.
Flight Simulator 98 and Virtual Machines
Like the previous
game, I've attempted to run this game under PCEM with Windows 98 SE as
the guest OS. I had horrible frame-rate issues.
Because PCEM is emulating a complete system with the video, sound, and CPU; emulating a Pentium 1 PC running at 200MHz was going to place a heavy load on the emulator. This would result in horrible frame-rates with running the game using software rendering. Now PCEM does emulate the Voodoo 2, which is what the emulator is configured with. Because the Voodoo accelerator is on a separate thread, it should be able to accommodate this game with 3D support. However, PCEM's 3D support is geared towards games using OpenGL and Glide, and not DirectX. As a result, I still encountered performance issues when attempting to run FS98 under PCEM.
PCEM is a awesome emulator. However, I think I'm starting to hit the limits of this emulator with my actual hardware. As a result, for this classic, I'm going with hardware virtualization. Since my main preference is VMware Player12 , this is the program that I'm going to go with. Now, VMware Player can run Windows 95 and 98 with the UniVBE VESA video drivers and SoundBlaster support via editing my vmx configuration file with Notepad and manually adding the Soundblaster line in the file. This will enable emulation of the Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 audio adapter for Windows to use. VMware does offer 3D acceleration, but its only available for Windows XP and higher. The UniVBE VESA drivers to provide high resolutions and color depth for Windows 95, and 98. However, they do NOT provide 3D acceleration. As a result, VMware running Windows 95/98 with these drivers is essentially virtualizing a late 90's PC without a 3D accelerator. This is perfect for game that use software rendering. I've ran Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and Quake 1 and 2 within VMware in software rendering, and they ran really fast. However, what's the fun of running those games when they supported mind-blowing 3D acceleration. The same experience that would be provided by Flight Simulator 98.
As a result, I've built a custom virtual machine running Windows 7 32-bit. I've went with this version because 32-bit Windows 7 has very good compatibility with running older 3D accelerator games. It's actually the only solution I know that can run Midtown Madness the way that it was intended (I'm going to do a separate article about that game in the future!). If the VM can run Midtown Madness, then it should run Flight Simulator 98 as well. I've configured my VM with allocating one core to it. Many of these older games have compatibility issues when using multiple cores because these games were released at a time when multi-core CPU's didn't exist. I've did the complete install so I could play the game without the CD. Besides, the complete install took up around 400MB's, which is nothing when my VM partition is 20GB's. That's more than enough for FS98 plus the mods that I wanted to install as well. One thing that one needs to remember is that VMware is still running that core at near full speed. On my system equipped with a AMD FX Quad-Core CPU running at 3.8GHz per core, that is still going to result in very awesome performance for this older game. When FS98 was released back in 1997, the Pentium 2's and the AMD K6 processors were all the rage.
The game ran well. The performance is more than acceptable. However, their were a few graphical glitches. Their was a graphical glitch with the mouse cursor. Also, the windows of the buildings were transparent in 3D accelerated mode. This is a bug. Besides that, FS98 is still a very fun game and a worthy follow up to its predecessor. One could spend hours just flying around without a care in the world. The way flying was meant to be. I just need to remember to plug in my Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick, which is recommended for this game. It's right now sitting on top of my bookshelf collecting dust. It's time for this pilot to earn his wings!
Because PCEM is emulating a complete system with the video, sound, and CPU; emulating a Pentium 1 PC running at 200MHz was going to place a heavy load on the emulator. This would result in horrible frame-rates with running the game using software rendering. Now PCEM does emulate the Voodoo 2, which is what the emulator is configured with. Because the Voodoo accelerator is on a separate thread, it should be able to accommodate this game with 3D support. However, PCEM's 3D support is geared towards games using OpenGL and Glide, and not DirectX. As a result, I still encountered performance issues when attempting to run FS98 under PCEM.
PCEM is a awesome emulator. However, I think I'm starting to hit the limits of this emulator with my actual hardware. As a result, for this classic, I'm going with hardware virtualization. Since my main preference is VMware Player12 , this is the program that I'm going to go with. Now, VMware Player can run Windows 95 and 98 with the UniVBE VESA video drivers and SoundBlaster support via editing my vmx configuration file with Notepad and manually adding the Soundblaster line in the file. This will enable emulation of the Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 audio adapter for Windows to use. VMware does offer 3D acceleration, but its only available for Windows XP and higher. The UniVBE VESA drivers to provide high resolutions and color depth for Windows 95, and 98. However, they do NOT provide 3D acceleration. As a result, VMware running Windows 95/98 with these drivers is essentially virtualizing a late 90's PC without a 3D accelerator. This is perfect for game that use software rendering. I've ran Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and Quake 1 and 2 within VMware in software rendering, and they ran really fast. However, what's the fun of running those games when they supported mind-blowing 3D acceleration. The same experience that would be provided by Flight Simulator 98.
As a result, I've built a custom virtual machine running Windows 7 32-bit. I've went with this version because 32-bit Windows 7 has very good compatibility with running older 3D accelerator games. It's actually the only solution I know that can run Midtown Madness the way that it was intended (I'm going to do a separate article about that game in the future!). If the VM can run Midtown Madness, then it should run Flight Simulator 98 as well. I've configured my VM with allocating one core to it. Many of these older games have compatibility issues when using multiple cores because these games were released at a time when multi-core CPU's didn't exist. I've did the complete install so I could play the game without the CD. Besides, the complete install took up around 400MB's, which is nothing when my VM partition is 20GB's. That's more than enough for FS98 plus the mods that I wanted to install as well. One thing that one needs to remember is that VMware is still running that core at near full speed. On my system equipped with a AMD FX Quad-Core CPU running at 3.8GHz per core, that is still going to result in very awesome performance for this older game. When FS98 was released back in 1997, the Pentium 2's and the AMD K6 processors were all the rage.
The game ran well. The performance is more than acceptable. However, their were a few graphical glitches. Their was a graphical glitch with the mouse cursor. Also, the windows of the buildings were transparent in 3D accelerated mode. This is a bug. Besides that, FS98 is still a very fun game and a worthy follow up to its predecessor. One could spend hours just flying around without a care in the world. The way flying was meant to be. I just need to remember to plug in my Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick, which is recommended for this game. It's right now sitting on top of my bookshelf collecting dust. It's time for this pilot to earn his wings!
Articles Of Interest:
History of the Microsoft Flight Simulator - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator#Flight_Simulator_98
History of the Microsoft Flight Simulator - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Flight_Simulator#Flight_Simulator_98
Comments
Post a Comment