Ripmax RC Simulator

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RC Simulator 1.0.0 Demo

Included with this file is the demo version of Ripmax RC Simulator. With the demo, you can fly our Trainer in the Podunk field and either Free Fly or participate in the Limbo event.

This demo is intended to allow you to evaluate RC Simulator prior to purchasing the full version. As a demo, this version does not include all the features of the full version of the software. For example, most of the planes, events and fields are not included and the Workshop will not save changes you make to the Trainer.

RC Sim Key mapping

The keymap may be found by clicking here.

Useful Web Links

Ripmax RC Simulator Home Page: www.rcsimulator.com

Inertia LLC: www.inertiagames.com

Ripmax Plc: www.ripmax.com

Starting RC Simulator

To start RC Simulator:

1. Click on the "Start" button at the bottom of the screen.

2. Move the mouse to the "Programs" menu item.

3. Move the mouse to the "RC Simulator Demo" menu item.

4. Click on the "RC Simulator Demo" icon.

Technical Support

Technical support is not available for this demo.

Trouble Shooting

Direct 3D Issues

RC Simulator supports 3D rendering via Microsoft's Direct X and requires that version 7a (included) or greater be installed and that DirectX 7 certified video drivers be installed.

In addition, some video cards ship with Direct 3D drivers which do not support RC Simulator properly. If you experience any of the following problems, your Direct3D driver may need updating.

· Crashes/Freezes when starting up.

· Crashes/Freezes when changing video resolutions.

· Corrupted textures: garbage pixels appearing on surfaces; unexpected bright flashy colors on the screen; incorrect textures on surfaces.

· Flickering objects

· Unusually slower performance.

Check your card manufacturer's website for the latest driver updates.

Video Card Hardware Related Issues

If RC Simulator runs slowly or experiences drastic slow downs:

· Some 3D cards may not have enough memory to show high texture detail (if it has 4 megabytes or less). Try to lower the texture detail using the "Texture Detail" slider on the settings screen or tapping Ctrl+D while in the sim. Also check out the "Performance" section below for other suggestions.

If RC Simulator Crashes:

· Some 3D cards (with 16 meg or less) may have a problem running RC Simulator if your desktop resolution is set to 1024x768 or higher. Try lowering it to 640x480 with 256 colors to see if it alleviates the problem.

· Search for and save the error.log file. This file may be used by tech support to diagnose and fix the problem.

If RC Simulator suffers from poor image quality:

· Older 3D cards with 4 megabytes or less may lack quality rendering features which may result in inferior image quality in RC Simulator. The only way to fix this is to get a better card.

· You may be running in software mode that can't offer the speed and visual quality of hardware-accelerated modes. Try switching to the Direct 3D renderer if your video card supports 3D acceleration.

Specific Video Card Issues

· 3dfx Voodoo 5 - Visual corruption occurs with the Glide Driver with No Anti-Aliasing at 640x480 and above. D3D checks out OK in all AA/Resolution Combinations.

Check your card manufacturer's website for the latest driver updates.

Control Issues

RC Simulator uses the Ripmax Joystick Interface to allow the transmitter to "talk" to the computer. This interface must be properly installed for RC Simulator to function correctly with a transmitter.

Improper transmitter/controller setup can manifest itself in many ways, such as:

· Unresponsive control surfaces

· Aircraft drifting to one side or another, nosing up or down, or incorrect throttle response

· Attempting to control one control surface, but another one actually reacting

· Inability to pass a throttle check in training or an activity

· Constant failure of a Pre-Flight check item (aileron, elevator, rudder or throttle)

· Sporadic loss of control during flight

In order to avoid problems, be sure to follow the installation instructions carefully and make sure you:

· Check the all the connections between the transmitter and the computer to see if they are fitted firmly

· Check to see if each control is matched with its intended input channel

· Make sure that your TX trim controls are centered when calibrating the controller

· Trim your aircraft using the trim controls on your transmitter

· Make sure the transmitter is ON before you start RC Simulator and avoid turning it OFF while RC Simulator is running, otherwise it may not be recognized. NOTE: disabling the DirectX driver in the Settings/Controller screen may also minimize problems with turning the transmitter ON and OFF while in RC Simulator.

· Make sure there are no channels mapped to non-existant Transmitter Controls. If your controller only has 4 channels, don't map any controls to channels 5 or above.

Texture Cache Issues

On occasion, the texture cache RC Simulator uses may become corrupt, resulting in garbled text or missing textures. In order to fix it, delete the "Cache.tex" and "Cache.dir" files in the RCSimulator/media directory. The next time you run RC Simulator, it will rebuild these files.

Sound Issues

There are no known sound issues with RC Simulator

Performance

If you frequently experience a "Slow Motion" effect while flying or a choppy frame-rate, then your computer may not be able too maintain the minimum frame-rate required for real-time performance. The following information explains how to get the best performance from RC Simulator.

RC Simulator's overall performance depends on a combination of these factors:

1. CPU Speed

RC Simulator is also very sensitive to CPU speed, memory bandwidth, and cache performance. Thus, it runs far better on leading-edge processors such as Pentium III's and than it does on older ones such as Pentium II's and AMD K6's.

How RC Simulator will perform on different classes of machines (estimated):

· Pentium II and AMD K6 300: Slower rendering with modest frame rate variations. We recommend playing in 512x348 resolution if available.

· Pentium III 533: Good rendering speed; some frame rate variations.

· Pentium III and Athlon 700: Very nice rendering speed; consistent frame rate.

2. Memory

RC Simulator's performance is highly dependent on the amount of RAM you have in your machine, and the amount of memory that is available to it. Machines with less memory will access their hard disk more frequently to load data, which causes sporadic pauses in the simulation. Thus, if you have a 32 megabyte machine, you should make sure that you don't have other unnecessary programs loaded in memory when using RC Simulator.

How the simulation will perform under different RAM conditions (estimated):

· 32 megabytes or less: Frequent data swapping and some pausing.

· 48 megabytes: Some swapping; lower the Settings/Video "Texture Detail" slider to improve this.

· 64 megabytes: Great, with a bit of swapping.

· 128 megabytes: Fantastic!

3. 3D Accelerated Video Cards

Video Memory is the most important thing when it comes to 3D accelerated video cards and RC Simulator. A card with only 4 megabytes of memory won't be able to run RC Simulator with high texture detail with a smooth frame rate. If your card has 4 or even 6 megabytes of memory, you'll need to lower the texture detail using the "Texture Detail" slider on the "Settings" screen until you achieve acceptable frame-rates. Cards with 8 megabytes and beyond won't have any trouble at all and CPU speed and memory become the main issues.

Accelerators with more memory also offer higher screen resolutions that allow for better visual quality.

Example:

A screen resolution of 1024x768 offers greater detail and a better view of your plane when it’s far away than 640x480.

Requirements

Minimum

· 300 MHz Intel Pentium® compatible processor

· A 100% Window® 95/98 compatible computer system (including DirectX 7 drivers for CD-ROM drive, video card and sound card)

· PCI/AGP 3D video card with 4MB RAM

· 32 MB system RAM

· 50 MB of free disk space for a minimum installation, 150 MB for a full installation

· 100% Sound Blaster™ compatible sound card with game port

· Mouse

Recommended

· 333 MHz Intel Pentium® II compatible processor

· 100% DirectX 7 compatible AGP 3D video card with 12 MB RAM

· 64 MB system RAM

Awesome system

· 500 MHz Intel Pentium® III compatible processor (the faster the better)

· 128MB system RAM

· 100% DirectX 7 compatible AGP 3D video card with 16 or 32 MB RAM

Note:

This product uses Microsoft's DirectX technology, which requires your system to have the latest DirectX drivers that fully support DirectX 7

Considering Upgrading?

For people considering upgrading their machines, here are some tips based on our experience running RC Simulator on a variety of machines:

· The biggest performance gain in RC Simulator comes from having a Pentium III or Athlon class processor. Both have dramatically improved cache performance, memory performance, and floating-point performance compared to earlier Pentiums and K6's, and that all translates to a smoother, more realistic flight experience.

· The next upgrade that tends to improve RC Simulator performance dramatically is a 3D accelerator with at least 8 megabytes of memory (most modern cards offer 16 and 32 megabytes). In conjunction with a Pentium III or Athlon processor, these accelerators rock!

· Finally, lots of RAM helps. With memory prices continually falling, it's now reasonably affordable to upgrade to 64 or 128 megabytes of memory.

OpenPlane(tm)

RC Simulator is built on an enhanced version of our OpenPlane technology, which is a file specification that can be used to create terrain, buildings and vehicles that can be used in OpenPlane(tm) compatible simulations such as Fighter Squadron and RC Simulator.

You'll find a complete description as well as full documentation at: www.openplane.com

You can also join the crew over at www.fightersquadron.com where talented individuals have already mastered the art of creating with OpenPlane(tm).

Skin Templates and Preview Images:

RC Simulator has built-in support for customized plane paint schemes, called skins. Custom skins can be selected in the workshop when you customize a plane.

Skins -We have provided the original "skin" artwork and blank templates for all the planes in the OpenPlane directory on the RC Simulator CD for you to utilize in making your own skins. Both layered PSD (PhotoShop) and TIF files are included, but RC Simulator only supports uncompressed TIF textures.

These templates are provided in their original size of 512x512 or 1024x1024 for ease of editing but the simulator can only use textures up to a size of 256x256 pixels in size. So make sure to resize the skin texture to 256x256 and save it as an uncompressed TIF before using it. If necessary, you can also include 1 alpha channel for transparency. Please note that our D3D renderer doesn't currently support shaded alpha polygons, so any planes that use alpha skins will not have any lighting effects applied to them.

Preview Images - Once you've created your skin, you'll need to create a preview image of it so that it can be viewed from within the RC Simulator interface. We've included a template for these as well which can be found the in OpenPlane directory on the RC Simulator CD. Both layered PSD (Photoshop) and TIF files are included as 256x256 images. The final preview image should be a 125x125 32-bit PNG file with the included alpha channel.

There are some preview image backgrounds for you to use in the PreviewBackgrounds directory. These are the same ones used in the sim.

NOTE: The alpha channel needs to be totally black and white, no greys. Any greys present will be changed to either black or white using a 50% threshold when you save it as a PNG, which may not look very good.

You can use the threshold filter in Photoshop after you reduce the image. Just set it to ~65% and you're good to go.

Where to put them - Save your newly created TIF texture and PNG preview in the skins directory of the appropriate plane.

For example:

.\media\aircraft\Xtreme\skins\newskin.tif

(256x256 8/24/32-bit uncompressed TIF with maximum of 1 alpha channel)

.\media\aircraft\Xtreme\skins\newskin.png

(125x125 32-bit PNG with included alpha channel - no interlace/no filter)

The preview filename MUST match the skin name in order to work.

NOTE 1: The default installation path for RC Simulator is "C:\Program Files\RC Simulator". The media directory can be found within the RC Simulator directory.

NOTE 2: The preview PNG files are not necessary for the custom skin to work, you just won't be able to see a preview of it within RC Simulator.

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