A Blast from the Past: Jane's F/A-18

[undaunted_aviator]

Some may still remember it, others like me found out about it more recently. Made by the people who where behind the classic MicroProse Fleet Defender. 
Those who went on with Electronic Arts Jane's franchise to create the groundbreaking Jane's F-15. Only to surpass themselves with the king of naval aviation flight sims: Jane's F/A-18. 

 

How to run Jane's F/A-18 today
Well that is the biggest problem of all. If you want to feel like Don Quixote you could try to run it with wrappers on an modern system with Windows 11. Since I think this is an exercise in futility as Microsoft breaks something every update a different approach is needed.

If you have a 13th generation Intel or above you may consider 86Box. I did not try it as my system is not that new and Jane's F/A-18 is quite CPU hungry. However in the future with more and more powerful CPUs emulation is certainly the way to go.

So how do I run it? Well since a true windows 98 retro machine is quite expensive nowadays with questionable reliability and the downside of not being able to use a modern HOTAS I settled with a more modern machine and windows as my "retro" machine.

Through testing I found out that an Intel Ivy Bridge machine running Windows 7SP1 32bit is ideal with the advantage that the hardware is quite cheap and available.

An dedicated GPU is not needed nor desirable as the Intel HD Graphics integrated with the CPU is perfect for our purpose.

 

A few tweaks for your "retro" machine
For installing Jane's F/A-18 the same rules apply like for all legacy software in a modernish Windows. Do not install it in the program files directory. 
Run the setup and update as an administrator.

As Jane's F/A-18 was released when processors with multiple cores weren't a thing it need a little workaround that will also prevent problems with sound and music in game.

At the Jane's F/A-18 shortcut properties edit the target path:

%ComSpec% /c start /affinity 0x4 C:\path\to\program.exe

This will start Jane's F/A-18 using only a single core.

You can assign it to different cores. Here is the hex bit mask:

0x1 = Core0
0x2 = Core1
0x4 = Core2
0x8 = Core3

 
As even an Ivy Bridge is too fast there is another workaround needed too. Go to he BIOS and disable C-States control, leaving Intel SpeedStep and Intel TurboBoost enabled.
In Windows go to Control Panel -> Power Options -> Create new Power Plan -> Change Advanced Power Settings -> Processor power management.
Set minimum and maximum processor state to 60%. Confirm with CPU-Z that your CPU is running slower. Mine is running at 2Ghz.
Now start Jane's F/A-18 and start the automatic carrier landing training mission. If your plane bolters or behaves erratic with the the autopilot on your CPU is still too fast and the processor state needs to be set to a lower setting.

 

HOTAS
Jane's F/A-18 only supports one joystick with 16 buttons. You spend a lot of $$$ on your HOTAS? Don't worry. All you need are 2 programs. vJoy and Joystick Gremlin.
After installing vJoy set it up with 4 axis (X,Y,Z,Rz) and 16 buttons.

With Joystick Gremlin you map the 4 axis and 16 Buttons from your HOTAS to vJoy device.
Extra buttons are mapped to keyboard to functions you want to have.

vJoy2.1.8 and Joystick Gremlin 13.3 are available on their respective GitHub pages:

https://github.com/shauleiz/vJoy/releases

https://github.com/WhiteMagic/JoystickGremlin/releases

 

The secret keys.

There are key commands which are not documented in the manual.

Alt+S = Screenshot. Will save it as DUMPXXX.BMP file in the game root directory.

To enter the campaign editor go from the main menu to "Tools" and hit F1.

 

 

[+streakeagle]

Along with Falcon 4.0, this was a precursor to what DCS World is now. I periodically fired it up to enjoy the complexity/realism. But I never took to the Super Hornet. The Blue Angels were flying the F/A-18A and later F/A-18C "legacy" Hornets. Interestingly enough, just as the legacy Hornets were being retired, DCS World added the F/A-18C rather than the far more contemporary F/A-18E Super Hornet. The irony of the old sim modeling the future while the new sim models the past.

I was running Windows 98SE on an intel Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.2 GHz with PC133 RAM (512/1024 MB?) and a Voodoo 5500 gpu, later an ATi Radeon 8500 128MB. Of course I downloaded and installed all of the mods that kept it going for years even though I rarely played it. "Team Super Hornet" kept Jane's F/A-18 going for many years with resolution/graphics fixes and extra features -- I seem to remember them adding a flyable F-14 at one point. The only thing holding Jane's F/A-18 back was the fact that the source code was never released, which was the key to Falcon 4.0's longevity. So, Jane's F/A-18 is relegated to being almost unplayable on modern hardware and even if working 100% correctly, it looks dated while Falcon 4.0 is still getting major updates from the BMS freeware team while the new Microprose prepares to release Falcon 5.0.

DCS World provides the absolute best F/A-18C experience possible, especially if you have the Super Carrier module with realistic flight deck crew. But it isn't a Super Hornet. For now, the best option is the VRS Superbug for Prepar3d, which cannot match the combat experience of the old Jane's F/A-18 much less the DCS World experience. I still have my Jane's F/A-18 install CD and keyboard map, but it has been quite a few years since I last installed and played it.