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Looking for computer games

laotou (1714 posts) • 0

google xplane - they have multiple fsims with multiple vehicles including space shuttle and helicopter sims.

Runs on most platforms (unix, win, osx, etc). Not sure about the jstick.

Pierre (46 posts) • 0

Laotou is 100% correct. Xplane is one of the only real flight simulators out there. Why? Because the flight is simulated (computed in real time)... airflow over the wing (incl lift and different wing shapes), air resistance, wind....
While all MS products (Flight Sim X) only emulates a plane... it checks some parameters of an air craft (position, pitch, speed, altitude, etc.) and cross checks those against a programmed table. From this result it will determine your air crafts reaction.

In the end, x-Plane is FSA licensed (in several versions). You can set it so realistic that you'll be able to log real-flight hours, in case you have a pilots license.
Periphery support is outstanding, you can connect almost anything, like external panels, radios, pitch indicators, and and and, oh yes, simple rudder-horn combinations are of course also supported as well as simple joysticks.

I would suggest you to buy any game online nowadays (if you want to buy originals that is). Rudders/Horns can be bought on Taobao (I recommend Saitek products for professional flight systems, otherwise anything by Logitech, Thrustmaster or above RMB300 should work for the beginning :-)), I have not seen anything worth buying in a Kunming store.

Have fun!

Pierre (46 posts) • 0

Oh, and should you not want to get too professional, FsX by Microsoft is also ok and good enough to fool around and have some fun... just check them out online and see which one suits your needs better.

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

Thanks guys.

Down loading X-plane now.

I am really looking for games. With combat missions.

I have Blue Angels II but it does no have joystick control

Pierre (46 posts) • 0

Falcon 4 is supposed to be one of the best aerial combat simulators, IL2 is also supposed to have a good flight model. Both games are older and should run without problems on older hardware.

If you have a newer computer and want to play a more action style game, check out Tom Clancy's Hawx

laotou (1714 posts) • 0

@tigertiger
Graphics intensive games tend to require fairly pristine operating systems as they tend to hammer both the OS AND the hardware. Troubleshooting an unknown OS and HW system is tough - but here's a couple of simple things to try, regardless of windows, mac, or unix os.

If the following hints and tips don't work - I suggest you buy an auxiliary BOOTABLE hard drive and install a pristine OS on that thing along with xplane and other games - and use that when you want to patrol the skies or slaughter virtual opponents.

The amount of time invested in troubleshooting an OS for a particular application is greater than the amount of time and pain just installing a new OS on a new or separate BOOTABLE drive (keyword: bootable) - and it tends to avoid messing up the primary mission of your computer - work - and is worth far more free coffees, lunches, and cigars than I care to drink (but I can smoke a LOT - I might work for cigars - but they have to be either cuban or reasonably good fake cubanos - in which case I'll drag out the time -my rate is 1 cigar per hour)....note - local grunts are much cheaper to hire than me...

You'd have to buy an auxiliary hard drive ANYWAY as the first thing I'd do is backup EVERYTHING at least twice AND verify both backups can restore whatever might be lost.

TIPS & HINTS - SIMPLE THINGS
1. create a new user account and try to launch the game under that new account. SOMETIMES a clean account is sufficient to get a pesky application running - although I suspect the performance will degrade over time.

2. download it again - there's usually a thing called a checksum that's supposed to verify the integrity of a downloaded file - it's possible the file was corrupted during the download OR you downloaded it from a non-certified server and the code's been intentionally corrupted with very naughty things.

3. de-install and try to re-install the game/application. First - reboot or if you're particularly paranoid, shutdown, wait a minute, then power up the system - THEN install it again using the admin account. A shortage of RAM can cause unhappy things. Make sure you have enough ram. How do you know if you need more ram? If you know how - check the normal operating page faults - google it for your particular OS. Excessive page faults (aka writing to the hard drive because you ran out of ram) is a dead give-away you need more ram. What's a page fault? google it.

You should check your RAM and HD space - make sure you're in compliance with the games specs. Not sure how to do this - google it.

Note - xplane is as close to commercial flight simulators as it gets - so it tends to be boring due to the lack of missiles, bombs, guns, and other WMA and aside from self immolation through negligence or incompetence - the lack of gratuitous sex, violence, and or bloodshed.

Take off is relatively simple if you have basic understanding of the vehicle's specs (stall speed, cruising speed, operating altitude, etc etc ad infinitum). As in real life, landing is the challenge. I've only successfully landed on this thing once - and it took many many many (infinitely many) tries of circling, aborting, circling again, etc etc just to get lined up with the runway at the right altitude and speed - obviously a tribute to my utter lack of professional instruction in the field.

For blow-em up squadrons - as mentioned, F18 Falcon was highly popular - with the ability to fly in online squads and player vs player missions. Don't know if that's still around - google it.

Happy days...

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