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Author Topic: Jane's Fighters Anthology  (Read 5475 times)

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Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
Jane's Fighters Anthology
on: August 17, 2009, 10:06:00 pm
Recently got my hands on this classic. I decided to give it a spin for old times sake, but I ran into several major problems. The installed version is 1.00F, but thanks for EA's crappy coding on modern systems it will run way too fast, although CPU grab fixed this issue satisfactorily. However, one serious problem I noticed is that for some reason the radar window refuses to show, even when I checked it off in the window display menu, it still wont show, which for obvious reasons totally cripples the game.

So I decided to download patch 1.02F..........and during startup when it should be playing the intro movie, it instead decides to give me the White Screen of Death, as in the screen goes totally white and the system becomes completely unresponsive, the three fingered salute doesn't work, alt f4 doesn't work, nothing. It did give a sound that indicates some kind of error message popped up, but I can't see what it actually it, but hitting enter did nothing for it.


Anyone have any suggestions for it? It's a real shame to not be able to enjoy this once again, back in the day on my long since dead windows 95 system I had a lot of fun with it, I also had fun on my also long gone windows 2k system.


EDIT: I forgot to mention I already tried the XP compatibility mode, no dice.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2009, 02:59:28 am by Kosh »
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
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Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #1 on: August 18, 2009, 04:56:06 am
Well I found out the problem with the radar window......I forgot to turn on the radar system. Anyway, assuming it doesn't get patched it seems to be working fine. Anyone else play this?
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
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Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
  • 211
  • Away in Limbo
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #2 on: August 18, 2009, 12:08:13 pm
A friend of mine at school is/was a big fan of this one. He pointed out the speed/runtime problem to good effect. Since I've never had to run the application, would you mind going into greater detail on how to get it to run properly on a modern computer? Any pointers you could give the man would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Thaeris
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


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Everyone else takes normal damage."

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."

-Nuke
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #3 on: August 22, 2009, 07:50:54 am
First try upgrading it to the 1.02F patch, that patch has a framerate cap which stops the game from going unbearably fast. You can download it online somewhere, then it will ask you to locate your directories. If that works, then ignore everything below, but if you get a blank white screen then delete your fighter's anthology folder and reinstall it before reading on.

One thing I noticed was on my Athlon XP 2000+ I needed to set CPUgrab to about 60, otherwise night, cloudy, and foggy missions will run too fast. However, one bizzare thing I noticed was whenever I ran CPUgrab during the Ukraine 1997 campaign, the screen would inexplicably go totally white, even after I used the keyboard commands to exit the game the screen was still white, forcing a reboot. The Ukraine campaign is the only one with video briefings and I think for some reason it doesn't like it because the other campaigns don't seem to have this problem. To play the Ukraine campaign I loaded DOSbox and cranked the cpu cycles up to 14000 (if you have a more powerful system then you might need more cycles), with that sitting in the background, load jane's normally (don't use dosbox to load it obviously, just let dosbox sit there doing nothing but wasting cpu cycles) and play the ukraine campaign (I still got the white screen of d00m once in a while, but not too often so it was more tolerable), but with all other campaigns just use cpugrab. 
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
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Offline Davros

  • 29
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #4 on: August 23, 2009, 07:33:19 am
how about virtual pc with win98
janes fa doesnt use hardware accelleration so vpc lacking it wont be a problem
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #5 on: August 23, 2009, 11:46:27 pm
I looked into that but it seemed to be a pain to setup, especially since I don't have any win98 CD's lying about.
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
 

Offline Enzo03

  • 27
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #6 on: September 26, 2009, 12:14:10 pm
/necropost
:<
I have a solution, but it might not be one you'd use...


Use an older computer.. :P
I say this because that is what is available to me, and I played the hell outta it for a long time.
I really do hope you got this to work because it is a great game, though I had to change the FOV and other stuff a bit to make it look like the planes were actually moving faster than my Lawnmower, and make the planes look at least as big as the die-cast plane models in my room.
I used the mission editor often and would make HUGE dogfights (lol!) with both old and new planes.
21:20:19   SpardaSon21: "hey baby, want to get a good look at my AC/20?
21:20:26   Spoon: I'd hit it like the fist of steiner

Some people are like Slinkies.  They aren't really good or even useful for anything but they always manage to put a little smile on your face when you give them enough of a push down the stairs.
 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
Re: Jane's Fighters Anthology
Reply #7 on: September 27, 2009, 04:13:18 pm
I don't know if the OP is aware, but the folks responsible for the lighter Jane's sims (ATF, USNF, etc) are still making that sort of game. Some of the titles are pretty cheap, too (I picked up Strike Fighters: Project 1 for $5)
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.
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