BMS 4 The Falcon 4 Update is finally released!!!

[Radioshow]

http://www.veterans-gaming.com/download.php?view.134

Follow download link for BMS 4. Original falcon 4 is needed i think, easy to get. Old game which no ones who owns it anymore hehe.

Most of you know what Falcon 4.0 is. A flight sim with realism on par with or better than DCS A10. But it's old, 1998 old.

Well not anymore. BMS adds new graphics and terrain engine(tiles to be updated still) plus a whole slew of realism upgrades to fry any sim lovers brain.

I was in the beta test group and i can tell ya this is better than A10 for sure now. Graphics still goes to A10, but multiplayer with win7 compatible BUILT IN REAL JET comms , channels and all is much more immersive. Comms chatter with real radio operation!

Full start up procedures, INS, radar bit test, proper LGB/Laser operation, more HARM modes. Target and waypoint/GPS coords handoff.
I could go on forever.

[CCIP]

I haven't been this happy to find my F4 CD since it accidentally fell through my desk drawer 11 years ago and left me falcon-less for 2 months. And here I thought I'd never be needing to look for it again

Wow, this is incredible. I was skeptical about it till the last moment (can't be real! can't be as good as they say! something seems fishy!), that is till the moment I had it flying on my desktop. The new cockpit system is a work of art, and the feel and smoothness of the flight model is absolutely incredible. It also helps that the engine now runs at relatively high FPS without any real stuttering, and that really lets the flight model shine. No more plane on rails! I have a feeling once the terrain tiles are totally re-skinned and up-ressed and some new objects are added to the map, this will give DCS a run for its money in the looks department.

Otherwise the feel of this is un-beatable. If the campaign still works like it used to (and hopefully better), I think I may be in heaven with this. I think nearly 13 years after its release, Falcon is about to definitively reclaim its crown as the best flight sim ever

[Fincuan]

First impression after a few minutes of Tactical Engagements: FANTASTIC

What they've achieved with the old warhorse is truly amazing, especially the flightmodel and the graphics. Campaign tryout still to come...

[Egan]

It's good then? All the reports I've heard about it seem to be saying the same thing.....Hmmm..I was going to get DCS this week but I might have to actually try and find my F4 disk. I haven't seen the darn thing for years

[Skybird]

Holy cow - last Falcon standard I used was Allied Force. Then saw that video. I had no clue that they have advanced that old girl that much! It looks like a completely new simulator!?

Just searched the box with the old things - and happily found the old F4 default cd. I hope BMS works with the German CD, too. Will test it while waiting for the DVD release of A-10 German, which just has been delayed once again until 21. Sept.

[Skybird]

I have tested it this afternoon. And was left wondering what weed they were smoking when putting THESE flight models into the sim. Bombers behaving like dogfighters, and interceptors flying like passenger planes. The mass of a plane they seem to have gotten hopelessly wrong. While I like the changed FM for own F16, the FMs for the rest is what makes this a showstopper for me.

If I will ever play F4 again, I'll stick with AF. Maybe graphically not as polished - but beyond that: much smoother around the edges. A package that gives the impression to be "rounder", smoother, and more complete. And stable.

[CCIP]

Sky, just curious, are you judging the AI plane FMs by the dogfight mode? I hadn't tried it until today, but when I did I noticed some fairly weird things indeed in dogfights that I was not observing in the campaign or TEs. Planes were behaving in weird ways and weren't responding to threats like you might expect them, whereas in campaign the same AI planes were very aggressive indeed (despite being set at much lower skill levels). Something tells me it might be just the dogfight/instant action game mode itself not working properly.

Also I'd hesitate to call AF smoother around the edges or more complete. It had its share of problems and I saw my share of strange AI behaviour in it as well (though far less than earlier versions), and honestly was every bit as much a work in progress as many F4 versions before it or since.

[Egan]

Hmm, well, ok, I got it installed fine but is there a trick to get anti aliasing working on it? I'll admit I haven't been any farther than the load out screen just now because I haven't had the time to set my my X-52 or TrackIR but with AA on it just messes up the whole screen (flashing objects, and everything gets progressively blurrier.)

I'm running a ATI 4870x2 with the latest drivers.

[CCIP]

Are you trying to force AA from your video card, or are you just using multi-sampling from the in-game settings? Forcing it from the video card doesn't work, you should have it set to application, and use the multi-sampling setting from the game graphics options. I'm not really having any problems on my ATI card with multi-sampling set to 1 in-game.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Sky, just curious, are you judging the AI plane FMs by the dogfight mode?

I already had read that there might be differences between dogfight and other modes, and tried dogfight first nevertheless. But when trying campaign on the quick fly, I did not see it to be different.

Shadows in ockpit and on airframes also were quite blocky, like stairways. Maybe that could be adressed by a specialised gfx card setup, but I honestly do not care enough for it as if I want to do any "dance" again. AF delivers on all my Falcon 4 needs.

[CCIP]

That's fine, not trying to sell you on it

Personally I'm having a much better experience with it than AF. Although AF certainly has its pluses too, so at the moment both are staying on my HD.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Are you trying to force AA from your video card, or are you just using multi-sampling from the in-game settings? Forcing it from the video card doesn't work, you should have it set to application, and use the multi-sampling setting from the game graphics options. I'm not really having any problems on my ATI card with multi-sampling set to 1 in-game.

It won't start with any sort of in-game multi sampling; it just flickers endlessly between the 3d world and the loading screen. It works with every thing switched off but, man, it is ugly without AA. I thought it might do the old AF thing and function with forced AA once you are actually in the 3d world but that just gives a black screen.

Ah well, never mind. I'll maybe look into it in more detail when I have the time. Back to ROF for me.

[CCIP]

I saw a thread about it on SimHQ

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post3386847

Doesn't look like any answers there, but at least seems like other people have this flickering problem too.

[Egan]

With multi-sampling/AA on it won't get far enough for me to even see buildings, let alone the rest of the terrain. I'll keep my fingers crossed and an eye on various forums.

I could play it without AA but, to be honest, it's horrible without it. I've been thoroughly spoiled by ROF.

Originally Posted by Egan

It won't start with any sort of in-game multi sampling; it just flickers endlessly between the 3d world and the loading screen. It works with every thing switched off but, man, it is ugly without AA. I thought it might do the old AF thing and function with forced AA once you are actually in the 3d world but that just gives a black screen.

Ah well, never mind. I'll maybe look into it in more detail when I have the time. Back to ROF for me.

I've got the same problem as you. I also have a 4870x2

As far as I can see, the one thing that is the same for both of us is our dual GPU card. I'm going to try to disable crossfire and see what happens.

EDIT: Aaaand that was it!

Disabling crossfire fixed it completely.