Prehistoric Sim

[Redflier]

Good news: I've just become the owner of a copy of RealFlight.

Bad news: It's the ancient G2 version

But it would be a terrible shame to let it go to waste. I tried installing it on my (Windows 8) PC, and it seemed like it was going to cooperate, until it failed to open. I tried to open it in an XP environment (which it should cope with, I believe), but that was similarly unsuccessful.

Has anyone got any ideas how I can get this to work?

Answers to anticipated comments:
1. Yes, I know it's utterly ancient, but this is the one I have
2. Yes, I know there are newer versions available, but this is the one I have
3. Yes, I'm sure there are better sims around, but this is the one I have.

 

[PsyBorg]

Try uninstalling it. Then do a cold restart not just a reboot of the computer. Then go into the disk menu and right click the install EXE file. Set that to compatibility mode for win XP and let it install. After it installs do the same with the exe to start the program.

Win 7 has the same issues when installing things that need to run in compatibility mode like older games. For XP ones you have to run the installer in compatibility mode as well so it installs in 32 bit mode not 64 bit mode. Then the program will load properly and you can go on to address sound issues that may arise or dog the programs down which is another issue that would plague compatibility mode gaming.

 

[Redflier]

Aha! Light dawns!

I was just trying to open in XP mode, but had installed it straight. You may be a winner!

Sound issues? Why might that be?

 

[Liam B]

Aha! Light dawns!

I was just trying to open in XP mode, but had installed it straight. You may be a winner!

Sound issues? Why might that be?

It's probably just RealFlight. I've had sound issues on all makes of it. 6.5 and basic.

 

[PsyBorg]

Back in the day they used wave files that were compressed. When the game played usually the sound files came off the disc which was one of the reasons it had to be in the drive while playing. Some machines would stop the drive and when a sound file was called it had to spin up, load and uncompress the file then play it. The reason some games had issues and others didn't was they had started giving the option to load the sound files on the HD because drives were bigger and space management was not an issue. Then add to all that the different sound cards as they were a separate component back then if you wanted good sound unlike today with good sound built into mother boards.

 

[Redflier]

Ah. I see. Silly way of doing it.

Never mind, anyway, I tried reinstalling as per, but got an odd error message about Line 105 of DirectX. Tried a couple of times, but it came up again.

Thanks for the help anyway. It was always a long shot. I like this forum - people are so keen to help.

 

[PsyBorg]

Load an earlier version of DX... I have multiple versions loaded on this compy for various things. They work together with minimal conflicts.

Run DXDiag and see what versions are already loaded then cross reference to see if the version required by the sim is loaded or not.

 

[Redflier]

Thanks. Just as i think I reach a dead end, there is new hope...

 

[LitterBug]

I should dig out the original flight simulator on a commodore 64 for som "real" prehistoric simming....


Cheers!
LitterBug