Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Inertia LLC, All Rights Reserved
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
its 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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