Air combat games - flight simulators

[Morgan]

Reading the P47 thread has me wanting to play.

What is a good WWII flight combat game?  Realism is nice, buy playability is paramount.  I suppose other eras would be fun, but WWII was pretty much the zenith of prop driven air power, and it interests me most.

Also, what's a good joystick for such simulators.  I'd like to avoid going so far as rudder pedals unless they're really necessary...

[Werewolf]

IL-2 Sturmovick is very good. You can get a Forgotten Battles and a Pacific Fighters expansion pack. Each has campaigns. they  are scripted though and not dynamic.

A more modern flight sim would be Lock on Modern Air Combat

There has also been rereleased an updated, stable and very excellent version of Falcon 4.0. This may be the best of the lot depending on your interest. Very good flight models. good graphics as well as a  number of true dyanamic campaigns in various theatres.

[InfidelSerf]

not exactly a true simulator.. but Secret Weapons Over Normandy was an excellent game.. once you figure out the in flight controls it is a hoot for some wwII dogfighting

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

It's old, but ATF Gold is one of my favorites.

IL2 has been on the short list, too. As far as non-prop sims, Jetfighter3 wasn't too bad.  I've got a friend who likes the Falcon series.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[Stickjockey]

For WW2 stuff I hear Il-2 Sturmovik is good. I'd also have to throw in Microsoft's Combat Flight Sim/ Flight Sim 2. 2 is a bit better graphics-wise, although some of the peripheral stuff is a bit on the comic-bookish side. I haven't tried CFS-3 yet.

[Werewolf]

If WWII is your thing and you can find it European Air War is also very good (some consider it the best). Google EAW or European Air War - last time I looked there was still a pretty active community.

ATF and secret weapons are not flight sims. They are flying games - very fun but still games. The flight models are simple arcade quality stuff so if you're looking for a sim stick with IL-2 or EAW. For Modern combat flight sims Falcon 4 is the best with LOMAC running a close second.

[stevelyn]

Another old game I always liked was the Longbow series.

[crt360]

I just finished IL2 recently.  I really liked it.  It's the only WWII flight sim I've played recently.

stevelyn - Longbow was great.  I haven't played it in years, but I still have it (in case I need a copter sim fix).

[MillCreek]

For WWII sims, I recommend MS Combat Flight Simulator 3.0 or Pacific Fighters.  For modern sims, my favorite is LOMAC, followed by Falcon 4.0 and Jane's F/A-18.  The best looking simulator by far is LOMAC.  I was disappointed when I recently bought Falcon 4.0 and saw how cartoonish the graphics remain.  I had expected better.

[Werewolf]

I was disappointed when I recently bought Falcon 4.0 and saw how cartoonish the graphics remain.

You're kidding right? LOMAC's graphics are better than those of F4 (at an extreme cost in frame rate - even on high end machines LOMAC can drop frame rates right into the mud) but F4's graphics can hardly be called cartoonish.

[MillCreek]

Having owned Falcon since version 2.0, I had expected the graphics in 4.0 to be much better, along the lines of LOMAC.  I was surprised to see that many of the visuals still have that blocky hexagonal look to them.  But you are absolutely correct about the frame rate, Falcon 4.0 runs much faster than LOMAC does, at least on my machine.

[K Frame]

I have one from Janes Combat Simulations. It's an older game, but it is still INCREDIBLY enjoyable.

[MillCreek]

I think it is unfortunate that Jane's has gotten out of the flight sim/combat flight line of business.  I really enjoyed their products, and still play many of them.

[Werewolf]

I was surprised to see that many of the visuals still have that blocky hexagonal look to them.

Turn on anti-aliasing to at least 2X. Set it to 4X and the jaggies go away completely.

[MillCreek]

I may be missing something here, but I just went to the 'graphics' setup screen of Falcon 4.0, and there are no anti-aliasing settings.  Is it called something else, or am I missing something?

[Werewolf]

No - you're not. Falcon 4 graphics options in the aa and af area is limited.

You must force antialising and anisotropic filtering on. Then set them to the levels you want in your graphic's card control panel. The default setting for most cards is only to turn on those features if an application requests them on.

Most graphics card cpl's can be accessed by right clicking the desktop, selecting properties, click on the settings tab and then the advanced button. Usually there's a tab in there that accesses your card's features.

What is your graphics card?

[MillCreek]

Geez, that is WAY better!  I am running a Radeon 9600, and I just forced on anti-aliasing times four and anisotropic filtering times two in the video card driver.  Falcon 4.0 allows you to turn on anisotropic filtering, but has no anti-aliasing settings.  

This really does make a difference.  Thank you, sir for the most useful information I will probably learn all day!

[Werewolf]

I am running a Radeon 9600, and I just forced on anti-aliasing times four and anisotropic filtering times two in the video card driver.

Turn up Anisotropic to 4X or even 8X - it really doesn't put that much of a load on the graphics card like AA does. AF will eliminate shimmer and some other things and helps in seeing things that are a long ways off in the distance.

In my experience AAX4 and AFX4 is a good compromise between quality and performance. If you get too much of a slow down set AA to 2X. You will notice a difference but not much.

With the Radeon 9600 if you have the Catalyst Control center then try turning on Temporal AA. It helps a lot as only every other frame is anti-alias'd thus you can set AA to X4 and get X2 performance.