Page 5

The Unanswered Wish List

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Frame Rate Issue

This is by far the hottest topic on the forums concerning this flight simulation. The truth is, this is a relative issue not a concrete one. For some the game plays just fine, for others it is a slide show. The best I can do here is to give my opinion on the matter. I can give an educated opinion however, because I am a software engineer. I write code for a living. I've also been flying sims for over 15 years. Knowing what I know about both writing code and the complexities of today's simulations, I can say that taking any program, no matter how simple or complex, and making it run faster is not a trivial operation. Optimizing code means taking what's there and finding a way to rewrite it so it will perform better. Sometimes it is something simple. Maybe a corner was cut to make a delivery date. In this case the developer knew a better method, but had to settle for the easier (and slower) method to make sure it was done on time. I doubt you will find this to be the case in game programming. I have read countless books on game development and I can tell you that everything is optimized in the best possible way. Operations that take a lot of CPU cycles like floating point math, division and multiplication are done using math tricks, bit manipulation and look up tables.

The point is, games are complex programs. In fact, aside from compilers and operating systems they are among the most difficult types of programs to write. F18 is a very complex program. As simmers, we tend to critique those things we see like the graphics and the frame rates. F18 has a lot going on that cannot be seen. Just modeling the radar to behave correctly is an enormous task that takes up CPU cycles.

Personally, I don't see the frame rate as an issue. I am very happy with this sim the way it is. I don't want anything compromised to make the game to run faster. I am patient enough to wait for the technology to catch up to this sim. There will come a day when no one will complain about frame rates. Look at Falcon 4.0. When it first came out, everyone complained about the frame rates. The programmers then cut corners in the sim in order for it to run faster. Today, those programmers are not around to put back those changes. Soon the day will come when I can run F18 at max settings and get 30 FPS in campaign missions. I will be thrilled to know that everything in the game is still modeled correctly when this day comes.

2D-Cockpit

Here is a change that a lot of us would have liked. Unfortunately the effort involved in adding this to a patch is simply too much. Think about it. First, the artists would have to create all the artwork. Not only the realistic panels, but all the switches and dials involved. Then the programmers would have to write the code for displaying and clicking each of these buttons and dials on the new cockpit. If Janes had decided to implement this, we would still be waiting for the patch. Would it be nice? Of course it would. Would it help the frame rates, I doubt it. Even with a 2D cockpit you still have the radars and other systems taking up the same CPU cycles.

Fig. 8. I hope no one is in that building

Key Mappings

Here is an option that could have substituted the 2D cockpit solution, and would have been easier to implement. I thing if Janes would have made every dial, button and switch that is clickable on the 3D-cockpit mappable to the keyboard, this would have helped a great deal. This way at least the use of the mouse would be eliminated. They went a long way in making the MDIs key mappable, but as it stands we still need to use the mouse.

 

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