Installing old Jane's combat sims (F/A-18 and USAF)

[Chugster 8]

So i am on a bit of a retro kick (as mention in an earlier post) and want to buy some of those old PC sims I either had or wanted, the big box, chunky manual versions, so I am willing to buy the games but only if i know they work so I am getting ISOs from abandonware sites to try before i buy.

Now, Janes Fighters Anthology, Longbow 2 and F-15 installed fine but the later games, F/A-18 and USAF wont even launch the setup.exe, a bit of research seems to indicate I am out of luck if I cant use an earlier version of windows. Setting compatability didnt help. seems late 90's and early 00's windows games are the worst to get running.

If anyone knows how to get this working on recent versions of Win10 or has an installed game folder I can borrow please let me know.

[+streakeagle 871]

USAF can be made to run. There is some workaround patch you have to download. It won't ever work perfectly and you have to get in the ini files to make it work with modern display resolutions/aspect ratios. But you can play missions.

I haven't messed with Jane's F/A-18 in a long time. But I am almost certain someone at SimHQ will know how to run it.

[+GKABS 8,813]

For Jane's USAF try this link you will have everything you need to make it work wirh window 10

https://gkabs.net/index.php/windows-10-fix-for-janes-usaf-pc-game/

[Chugster 8]

7 hours ago, GKABS said:

For Jane's USAF try this link you will have everything you need to make it work wirh window 10

https://gkabs.net/index.php/windows-10-fix-for-janes-usaf-pc-game/

Thanks for that, trouble is that is for running the game, I cant even do the first line where it says install

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chugster

[+GKABS 8,813]

Do you get an error or what? can you post a screenshot? 

I just checked and you need to set the setup.exe as following:

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by GKABS
new information

[SandMartin 21]

An interesting story is that I installed Jane's IAF, and under Windows 7 it works fine (with the Tuckleberry patch) but under Win 10 it slows down!

When viewed from the cockpit, it produces 10 frames per second on my RTX3070, although when viewed from the third person everything is ok.

I've tried a lot of things but nothing helps. Apparently there is some kind of conflict during rendering.

Edited February 7, 2021 by SandMartin

[Chugster 8]

59 minutes ago, GKABS said:

Do you get an error or what? can you post a screenshot? 

I just checked and you need to set the setup.exe as following:

 

Yup tried that...I dont get an error message, I just get nothing, just an egg timer for a few seconds then nothing, the setup application is visible in the task manager but just sits there using 3mb of ram and nothing else

Tried it on both my new and older (win10) pcs as well, dont have any older PCs to try.

Ideally I could find someone who has installed it and can upload their install folder somewhere...maybe I can use that.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chugster

[+GKABS 8,813]

I didn't have any problem installing the game about 6 months ago,  I just followed the instruction in the link and everything worked perfectly. 

[SandMartin 21]

2 hours ago, Chugster said:

Yup tried that...I dont get an error message, I just get nothing, just an egg timer for a few seconds then nothing, the setup application is visible in the task manager but just sits there using 3mb of ram and nothing else

Tried it on both my new and older (win10) pcs as well, dont have any older PCs to try.

Ideally I could find someone who has installed it and can upload their install folder somewhere...maybe I can use that.

Try to kill all nvcontainer.exe processes in the Task Manager

Edited February 7, 2021 by SandMartin

[+GKABS 8,813]

This is a test video of the game running under windows 10 just now.

 

[SandMartin 21]

Sometimes nvcontainer.exe blocks the installation of 32 bit setup.exe

[Chugster 8]

1 hour ago, SandMartin said:

Try to kill all nvcontainer.exe processes in the Task Manager

Yeah that worked, I managed to install it and run it but i have no sound and it crashed when i tried to fly

[+GKABS 8,813]

Did you apply Tackleberry’s Patch after installing the game? 

Edited February 7, 2021 by GKABS

[Chugster 8]

20 minutes ago, GKABS said:

Did you apply Tackleberry’s Patch after installing the game? 

can you link it? Only found the USAF one, which doesnt work for USAF...get splash screen and crash

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chugster

[+GKABS 8,813]

2 minutes ago, Chugster said:

can you link it? Only found the USAF one

This is the patch 

https://www.moddb.com/games/janes-united-states-air-force/downloads/janes-united-states-air-force-v102-patch

This is the Tackleberry’s Patch

https://www.moddb.com/downloads/tackleberrys-patches-for-usaf-iaf-and-fa

Edited February 7, 2021 by GKABS

[Chugster 8]

hmm is it the same patch for both games?

[+GKABS 8,813]

Yes it's 

[Chugster 8]

aah fuck it, that broke USAF, wont even start now

Edit, hmm, ok, installed patch, added fix, but still USAF crashes at splash screen

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chugster

[Chugster 8]

and how to you patch it on FA18, you cant change the path?

 

I am now very confused, I have a 1.02 patch, tackleberrys patch, neither of which worked for USAF, and no idea how to add them to FA18 as they both have USAF in them

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chugster

[Chugster 8]

Ok I am just going to forget this for now, I found a very cheap copy of DI's F/a-18E Super Hornet on ebay so I will wait to see if that works before I try again with these 2 Jane's sims...I do have FA, F-15 and Longbow 2 to keep me occupied. Just a shame as I never had an F18 sim of any sort

[Chugster 8]

One more thing, would i have an easier time with these games from around the millenium if I ran a virtual OS of 98 or XP?

If so is there a good free VM program?

[SandMartin 21]

14 hours ago, GKABS said:

This is a test video of the game running under windows 10 just now.

 

Can you try janes IAF with taklberry patch? On my PC it runs very slow (10 fps) from cockpit vew.

Edited February 8, 2021 by SandMartin

[+GKABS 8,813]

27 minutes ago, SandMartin said:

Can you try janes IAF with taklberry patch? On my PC it runs very slow (10 fps) from cockpit vew.

Sorry I don't have the game 

[+gerwin 451]

On 7-2-2021 at 8:56 PM, Chugster said:

One more thing, would i have an easier time with these games from around the millenium if I ran a virtual OS of 98 or XP?

If so is there a good free VM program?

There is VirtualBox, Qemu, maybe VMware. But they do not emulate a 3D accelerator. Unless something changed recently.

PCem emulates a 3DFX Voodoo accelerator. But it may not be that easy to use, it emulates very specific machines and requires matching BIOS ROM files to work.

Another possible approach, (Dual)boot Linux OS with Wine and try it with that.

PS: Jane's USAF kinda sucks. Fighters Anthology has way more retro appeal, and Strike Fighters 2 beats it in the other departments. - As for Jane's F/A-18: its 3D renderer is troublesome and gives issues even on semi-old hardware. PCem may be able to run it, I have not checked.

Edit: there is also partial emulation: NGlide, DGVoodoo, DXwnd etc.

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by gerwin

[Chugster 8]

21 hours ago, gerwin said:

There is VirtualBox, Qemu, maybe VMware. But they do not emulate a 3D accelerator. Unless something changed recently.

PCem emulates a 3DFX Voodoo accelerator. But it may not be that easy to use, it emulates very specific machines and requires matching BIOS ROM files to work.

Another possible approach, (Dual)boot Linux OS with Wine and try it with that.

PS: Jane's USAF kinda sucks. Fighters Anthology has way more retro appeal, and Strike Fighters 2 beats it in the other departments. - As for Jane's F/A-18: its 3D renderer is troublesome and gives issues even on semi-old hardware. PCem may be able to run it, I have not checked.

Edit: there is also partial emulation: NGlide, DGVoodoo, DXwnd etc.

 

So its a faff what ever way i look at it?

Ok thanks for the info, as I said I found a copy of DI's FA-18E, we will see how that goes...I wanted to get a taste of he FA-18 without having to shell out £50+ for the DCS version and prepping myself for the task of learning that module.

I only mentioned USAF as it and Navy Fighters 97 were the only Jane's sims I had back in the day

Edited February 10, 2021 by Chugster