8 ms·

Vertigo – a public domain 3D flight simulator (2003)

125 points by app4soft 6y ago

DrNuke 6y ago
There is a Bohemia Interactive humblebundle on sale right now, offering a few really interesting 2010s simulators for $1, Take On: Helicopters among them.
- app4soft 6y ago
  Commercial flightsim out-off scope for this thread.
boudin 6y ago
There is also FlightGear that is still being developed and is published under GPL. https://www.flightgear.org/ https://www.flightgear.org/
- Tarq0n 6y ago
  There's some classic internet drama going on in their "info" section.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    Believing FlightGear team’s account, looks like they think copyright is a thing, while evil FGMEMBERS team thinks copyright don’t apply to free stuff? Interesting
  - wolfgke 6y ago
    Link is under Posts -> Info and links to https://www.flightgear.org/category/info/ https://www.flightgear.org/category/info/
    - app4soft 6y ago
      > https://www.flightgear.org/info/fgmembers-statement/ https://www.flightgear.org/info/fgmembers-statement/ Good drama which show deep misinterpretation of GNU GPL terms by official FlightGear team.
      - slavak 6y ago
        I see no misinterpretation of the GPL here. The document explains why the FG team thinks FGMEMBERS is harmful and a bad idea; at no point that I can see did they imply what FGMEMBERS are doing was illegal. Care to elaborate?
- qwe098cube 6y ago
  TempleOS also has a flight simulator, with a banger soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg
  - jeffrallen 6y ago
    Needs more cowbell.
  - ralfd 6y ago
    A few glitches but not unimpressive.
  - wiz21c 6y ago
    Memories... I miss Terry a lot.
  - ksaj 6y ago
    At first I was thinking that there was a lot of unlikely stunt piloting going on. Then the bird legs came out for the landing. I don't know if he was the smartest programmer who ever lived, but he certainly was one of the more dedicated and interesting ones.
- hnarn 6y ago
  Downloading it now, pretty underwhelming being redirected to SourceForge and now downloading 1.6 GB at 350 KB/s. They really should have official torrents.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    They have a list of FTP mirrors[1], and I saw exe's listed there under 2020.1, so maybe one of those will work better? 1: https://www.flightgear.org/download/mirror/ https://www.flightgear.org/download/mirror/
    - hnarn 6y ago
      That worked a lot better, thanks.
  - anthk 6y ago
    Just download the base, the models can be autodownloader from the launcher and the terrain is automatically fetch too.
- app4soft 6y ago
  > There is also FlightGear that is still being developed and is published under GPL. FlightGear is nice & powerful, but actually is too heavy and require modern PC. BTW, There is Vertigo page on FlightGear Wiki.[0] JFTR, There is also open-source ACM 6.0[1] (enchanched fork of ACM 5.0[2]) — classic old-school 3D flight simulator. [0] http://wiki.flightgear.org/images/cache/2/2b/Vertigo_%2528flight_sim%2529.html http://wiki.flightgear.org/images/cache/2/2b/Vertigo_%2528fl... [1] http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html [2] https://wiki.flightgear.org/ACM_%28flight_sim%29 https://wiki.flightgear.org/ACM_%28flight_sim%29
  - themodelplumber 6y ago
    I play Flightgear on a ThinkPad T420 a couple times a week and get 30-60fps. It's just a matter of adjusting rendering settings. The feeling of flight doesn't change much. Keyboard flight controls work fine too... Not sure if that's a modern PC in your mind, but it's not exactly a speed demon. :-)
    - app4soft 6y ago
      > I play FlightGear Version/Platform? > on a ThinkPad T420 This is not cheap PC. Try run FlightGear on cheap laptops produced before 2010.
      - themodelplumber 6y ago
        Wow, 11 years? That's getting pretty far back. Still, I wonder...my FG settings are low but not terribly low. I would guess it could be done. For example, I'm not using the 2D cockpit. Edit: 2019.1.1/Linux
        app4soft 6y ago
        > Wow, 11 years? As for me, if desktop software can't properly work under Linux on cheap 10-year-old laptop then this is not good enough or not optimized app at all. > I'm not using the 2D cockpit. Because it will drop FPS under 30 FPS, right?
choicenotchance 6y ago
how do i run it in ubuntu? The install.txt isn't very helpful at all.
rl3 6y ago
The first screenshot reminds me of Fleet Defender (1994): https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simulation https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simul... Now of course supplanted by DCS: F-14.
- nix23 6y ago
  Now DCS F-5 Tiger and Mig-29 but long long time ago was: https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter Pixel-hunting par excellence ;)
blauditore 6y ago
I was wondering why it looks so old - it's because it is old, latest release is from 2002. Perhaps add "(2002)" to the title?
- anthk 6y ago
  That in 2002 already was looking outdated.
mothsonasloth 6y ago
Another game is Falcon BMS which was released in the late 90s and has a community that is constantly maintaining it and upgrading it, it looks fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI
- eckesicle 6y ago
  Falcon BMS is great! Imo it's the best FS out there for a few reasons. I think what really sets it apart is it's dynamic campaign and large scale multiplayer wars that run over the course of weeks or even months. It's incredibly fun participating in an air battle with 60 other online pilots (with human AWACS) working together or scrambling defensive flights as an enemy strike package comes in. The high barrier of entry, both in terms of difficulty (you probably need at least 10h of tutored instruction to be remotely good at the game) and hardware investment (you need a joystick and trackir) is a feature not a bug. It keeps the toxic players out and indeed the community has barely any problems with toxic players. Here's my view of a mission from a large scale PvP campaign. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqYky97auQ&t=9m51s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqYky97auQ&t=9m51s
- ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
  That was a great video, and incredible that games still going. What other games have been going for that long? I know the community has kept Doom going to some extent, new maps and textures and stuff. Can’t thank of any more still being developed since the 90s.
  - anthk 6y ago
    On just libre games: - Nethack - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - The campaigns for Freedink On the rest, the list is huge, really, really huge.
huhtenberg 6y ago
An odd question - does anyone remember a flight sim from the early to mid 90s that had a dog-fight multiplayer mode over a null-modem serial cable? Back in DOS days. F16 or some such. I still have the cable, but for the life of me I can't remember what the game was.
- boudin 6y ago
  F22 Lightning II maybe
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    No, that's not it. It was earlier than that...
- rzzzt 6y ago
  F29 Retaliator?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    Looks familiar, but I think that's not the one either.
- dividuum 6y ago
  Falcon 3 probably? I remember playing 1vs1 back then. Not sure if it was null modem or Ethernet/IPX, but I would be very surprised if it didn't support null modem for two players.
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    Thanks, but nope, not this one either.
- scandox 6y ago
  Thought it might have been Jet but apparently not https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(video_game) Had forgotten how good 80s game box design was
nix23 6y ago
I mostly play https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ But look witch Models you buy, you have the more simple models from the Flaming Cliffs 3 module, or the really realistic one's like the tiger/tomcat stuff
- app4soft 6y ago
  DCS is off-top in this thread as it is not open-source, even not fully freeware flightsim.
  - nix23 6y ago
    >even not fully freeware flightsim. What does that even mean? You can play it for free (Frogfoot) and with that, it is at least freeware.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
Another flight sim shoutout: it's just over a week until the release of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(2020_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20...
iso8859-1 6y ago
There was an svgalib flightsim shipped with some old Linux distributions, I ported it to SDL and 64-bit, it is here, it is called Sabre, Dan Hammer made it: https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre
- app4soft 6y ago
  > There was Sabre Fighter Plane Simulator — an svgalib flightsim shipped Nice! If possible, add screenshots of your fork into README file. FYI, Take a look on ACM 6.0 too.[0] [0] http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html
jsmolka 6y ago
Does anybody know other old 3D flight simulators for the PC? I really enjoy the low poly style but don't know where to start looking.
- tscherno 6y ago
  "Su-27 Flanker" by SSI which is the predecessor to DCS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-27_Flanker_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-27_Flanker_(video_game)
- bluedino 6y ago
  Corncob 3D....real old :)
- app4soft 6y ago
  YSFlight[0] is mostly what you are looking for. It distributed fully freeware for Linux, macOS & Windows as OpenGL1 (default graphics), OpenGL2 (enhanced graphics) and Direct3D (Win-only) versions.[1] While its default ("stock") addons are not so eye candy, community created addons are really nice.[2] List of known community addons available as a spreadsheet[3] (regular updated) hosted on Google Docs. Actually there are 14500 aircrafts, 1049 scenery (maps), 10404 ground objects (ships, cars, characters, buildings, etc.). There are many videos on YouTube, just search using "YSFlight Movie" and "YSFlight Promo" queries for clips which are show-reels. Here is good "The Beginner's Guide to YSFlight" for latest versions.[4] JFTR, I started to use YSFlight just after watching "Strangers - A YSFlight Promo Film".[5] Actually I'm fan of YSFlight & addons contributor[6], so you may AMA about it! ;) P.S: There are also servers for online gaming (and you also could create & add own just using YSFlight installed!), mostly active on each Friday.[7] [0] https://ysflight.org https://ysflight.org [1] https://ysflight.org/download/ https://ysflight.org/download/ [2] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewforum.php?f=234 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewforum.php?f=234 [3] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-j2JPuGtYxcZBVca0ul5vjTU/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Iy3W7s4O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Iy3W7s4O8 [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMkaTtrQlHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMkaTtrQlHM [6] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1274084993179009024 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1274084993179009024 [7] https://ysflight.org/serverlist/ https://ysflight.org/serverlist/
deorder 6y ago
Reminds me a bit of Interceptor from the Amiga: https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE
w0utert 6y ago
Makes me wonder, ho does one start to build a serious flight simulator? Is there any publicly available resources about implementation techniques and pitfalls specific to flight simulators, like there are for so many other topics, so you don't have to learn everything the hard way, make all the obvious mistakes, etc? Or is this a topic where you can really work from first principles, using just basic physics and incrementally adding simulation of more advanced effects?
- amelius 6y ago
  I have no experience here, but starting from physics sounds like a very difficult approach since the equations that govern aerodynamics aren't that simple. So I would look for some results that simplify these equations. Like how Maxwell's equations aren't used for designing most electronic circuits, but instead people use simplifications like circuit theory. I suspect a similar simplifying approach would exist in aerospace design (but again I have no experience here). Perhaps the best idea is to take some introductory courses here: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/
- pastrami_panda 6y ago
  Floating origin is a nice algorithm for dealing with floating point imprecision. Essentially just translating the camera to origin regularly. Regarding terrain there are many techniques of varying difficulties to implement. Streaming terrain data and stitching LOD seams (both normal and vertex blending) are basically the gist of it, but the implementation details regarding uniform vs non-uniform grids, tesselation vs chunking etc. needs to be considered.
- 13415 6y ago
  Look up blade element theory, that's how Laminar started with X-Plane, and they incrementally refined their model over the past 20 years. I bet the physics will take the least and the graphics will take most of development time, though.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
globile 6y ago
Off topic, but a great window to HN demographics via referred traffic in these legacy stats trackers. Sigh... The days when showing off your traffic stats was more important than privacy or confidentiality. http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3 http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3 EDIT: spelling.
marcodiego 6y ago
I had just recently download old xsabre source code and made it compile on a modern system. Interesting that it is possible to compile something pre-c++ standardization with just a few changes. Another interesting project: This guy resurrected gl-117 and is maintaining and improving it: https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb... makes me remember "Certain Impact" a little. If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim, Palomino (https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-sim/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-sim/) seemed very promising while it was under development.
- app4soft 6y ago
  > If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim Also Search and Rescue II flightsim reborn this year.[0] [0] https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/ https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/
  - marcodiego 6y ago
    A quick search on sourceforge revealed these: - https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/ - https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/ - https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/ Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for someone to rescue whatever is still valuable. Makes me a bit sad and hopeful in a certain way.
    - app4soft 6y ago
      > Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for someone to rescue whatever is still valuable. Yep. This year I discovered that there is active development on ACM 6.0 (enhanced fork of ACM 5.0).[0] I just hope that someone would also take a look on Vertigo for continuous development and porting it to Linux and other modern platforms. [0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076
praveen9920 6y ago
Hoping to see a open-source version of flight sim. Are there any ?
- Naac 6y ago
  https://www.flightgear.org/ https://www.flightgear.org/
major505 6y ago
Love this image when the guy is heading nose first in the tarmac http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif
trynewideas 6y ago
Not open source, but Tiny Combat aims to reproduce the general 90s flight sim aesthetic: https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena It's under a lot of active development, with clips posted to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y The author puts quite a bit of free Unity-related code from related experiments on GitHub: https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories
- anthk 6y ago
  Unity, that sucks. Unusable on lowest computers. At least, ACM and most libre games with these graphics will actually run at least in 2002 era computers.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
Would love a polygon aesthetic flight sim that sort of expanded on the feeling A-10 Cuba was going for but more planes and more weirdness. Really cool bits in that game where you can break the tips of your wings off your grind your gears in and still keep flying, also had some really surreal multiplayer arenas like space and futuristic cities.

125 points by app4soft 6y ago

There is a Bohemia Interactive humblebundle on sale right now, offering a few really interesting 2010s simulators for $1, Take On: Helicopters among them.

app4soft 6y ago
Commercial flightsim out-off scope for this thread.

boudin 6y ago

There is also FlightGear that is still being developed and is published under GPL. https://www.flightgear.org/ https://www.flightgear.org/

Tarq0n 6y ago
There's some classic internet drama going on in their "info" section.
- numpad0 6y ago
  Believing FlightGear team’s account, looks like they think copyright is a thing, while evil FGMEMBERS team thinks copyright don’t apply to free stuff? Interesting
- wolfgke 6y ago
  Link is under Posts -> Info and links to https://www.flightgear.org/category/info/ https://www.flightgear.org/category/info/
  - app4soft 6y ago
    > https://www.flightgear.org/info/fgmembers-statement/ https://www.flightgear.org/info/fgmembers-statement/ Good drama which show deep misinterpretation of GNU GPL terms by official FlightGear team.
    - slavak 6y ago
      I see no misinterpretation of the GPL here. The document explains why the FG team thinks FGMEMBERS is harmful and a bad idea; at no point that I can see did they imply what FGMEMBERS are doing was illegal. Care to elaborate?
qwe098cube 6y ago
TempleOS also has a flight simulator, with a banger soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg
- jeffrallen 6y ago
  Needs more cowbell.
- ralfd 6y ago
  A few glitches but not unimpressive.
- wiz21c 6y ago
  Memories... I miss Terry a lot.
- ksaj 6y ago
  At first I was thinking that there was a lot of unlikely stunt piloting going on. Then the bird legs came out for the landing. I don't know if he was the smartest programmer who ever lived, but he certainly was one of the more dedicated and interesting ones.
hnarn 6y ago
Downloading it now, pretty underwhelming being redirected to SourceForge and now downloading 1.6 GB at 350 KB/s. They really should have official torrents.
- kbenson 6y ago
  They have a list of FTP mirrors[1], and I saw exe's listed there under 2020.1, so maybe one of those will work better? 1: https://www.flightgear.org/download/mirror/ https://www.flightgear.org/download/mirror/
  - hnarn 6y ago
    That worked a lot better, thanks.
- anthk 6y ago
  Just download the base, the models can be autodownloader from the launcher and the terrain is automatically fetch too.
app4soft 6y ago
> There is also FlightGear that is still being developed and is published under GPL. FlightGear is nice & powerful, but actually is too heavy and require modern PC. BTW, There is Vertigo page on FlightGear Wiki.[0] JFTR, There is also open-source ACM 6.0[1] (enchanched fork of ACM 5.0[2]) — classic old-school 3D flight simulator. [0] http://wiki.flightgear.org/images/cache/2/2b/Vertigo_%2528flight_sim%2529.html http://wiki.flightgear.org/images/cache/2/2b/Vertigo_%2528fl... [1] http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html [2] https://wiki.flightgear.org/ACM_%28flight_sim%29 https://wiki.flightgear.org/ACM_%28flight_sim%29
- themodelplumber 6y ago
  I play Flightgear on a ThinkPad T420 a couple times a week and get 30-60fps. It's just a matter of adjusting rendering settings. The feeling of flight doesn't change much. Keyboard flight controls work fine too... Not sure if that's a modern PC in your mind, but it's not exactly a speed demon. :-)
  - app4soft 6y ago
    > I play FlightGear Version/Platform? > on a ThinkPad T420 This is not cheap PC. Try run FlightGear on cheap laptops produced before 2010.
    - themodelplumber 6y ago
      Wow, 11 years? That's getting pretty far back. Still, I wonder...my FG settings are low but not terribly low. I would guess it could be done. For example, I'm not using the 2D cockpit. Edit: 2019.1.1/Linux
      - app4soft 6y ago
        > Wow, 11 years? As for me, if desktop software can't properly work under Linux on cheap 10-year-old laptop then this is not good enough or not optimized app at all. > I'm not using the 2D cockpit. Because it will drop FPS under 30 FPS, right?

choicenotchance 6y ago

how do i run it in ubuntu? The install.txt isn't very helpful at all.

rl3 6y ago

The first screenshot reminds me of Fleet Defender (1994): https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simulation https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simul... Now of course supplanted by DCS: F-14.

nix23 6y ago
Now DCS F-5 Tiger and Mig-29 but long long time ago was: https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter Pixel-hunting par excellence ;)

blauditore 6y ago

I was wondering why it looks so old - it's because it is old, latest release is from 2002. Perhaps add "(2002)" to the title?

anthk 6y ago
That in 2002 already was looking outdated.

mothsonasloth 6y ago

Another game is Falcon BMS which was released in the late 90s and has a community that is constantly maintaining it and upgrading it, it looks fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI

eckesicle 6y ago
Falcon BMS is great! Imo it's the best FS out there for a few reasons. I think what really sets it apart is it's dynamic campaign and large scale multiplayer wars that run over the course of weeks or even months. It's incredibly fun participating in an air battle with 60 other online pilots (with human AWACS) working together or scrambling defensive flights as an enemy strike package comes in. The high barrier of entry, both in terms of difficulty (you probably need at least 10h of tutored instruction to be remotely good at the game) and hardware investment (you need a joystick and trackir) is a feature not a bug. It keeps the toxic players out and indeed the community has barely any problems with toxic players. Here's my view of a mission from a large scale PvP campaign. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqYky97auQ&t=9m51s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqYky97auQ&t=9m51s
ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
That was a great video, and incredible that games still going. What other games have been going for that long? I know the community has kept Doom going to some extent, new maps and textures and stuff. Can’t thank of any more still being developed since the 90s.
- anthk 6y ago
  On just libre games: - Nethack - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - The campaigns for Freedink On the rest, the list is huge, really, really huge.

huhtenberg 6y ago

An odd question - does anyone remember a flight sim from the early to mid 90s that had a dog-fight multiplayer mode over a null-modem serial cable? Back in DOS days. F16 or some such. I still have the cable, but for the life of me I can't remember what the game was.

boudin 6y ago
F22 Lightning II maybe
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  No, that's not it. It was earlier than that...
rzzzt 6y ago
F29 Retaliator?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  Looks familiar, but I think that's not the one either.
dividuum 6y ago
Falcon 3 probably? I remember playing 1vs1 back then. Not sure if it was null modem or Ethernet/IPX, but I would be very surprised if it didn't support null modem for two players.
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  Thanks, but nope, not this one either.
scandox 6y ago
Thought it might have been Jet but apparently not https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(video_game) Had forgotten how good 80s game box design was

nix23 6y ago

I mostly play https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ But look witch Models you buy, you have the more simple models from the Flaming Cliffs 3 module, or the really realistic one's like the tiger/tomcat stuff

app4soft 6y ago
DCS is off-top in this thread as it is not open-source, even not fully freeware flightsim.
- nix23 6y ago
  >even not fully freeware flightsim. What does that even mean? You can play it for free (Frogfoot) and with that, it is at least freeware.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

Another flight sim shoutout: it's just over a week until the release of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(2020_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20...

iso8859-1 6y ago

There was an svgalib flightsim shipped with some old Linux distributions, I ported it to SDL and 64-bit, it is here, it is called Sabre, Dan Hammer made it: https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre

app4soft 6y ago
> There was Sabre Fighter Plane Simulator — an svgalib flightsim shipped Nice! If possible, add screenshots of your fork into README file. FYI, Take a look on ACM 6.0 too.[0] [0] http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html

jsmolka 6y ago

Does anybody know other old 3D flight simulators for the PC? I really enjoy the low poly style but don't know where to start looking.

tscherno 6y ago
"Su-27 Flanker" by SSI which is the predecessor to DCS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-27_Flanker_(video_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-27_Flanker_(video_game)
bluedino 6y ago
Corncob 3D....real old :)
app4soft 6y ago
YSFlight[0] is mostly what you are looking for. It distributed fully freeware for Linux, macOS & Windows as OpenGL1 (default graphics), OpenGL2 (enhanced graphics) and Direct3D (Win-only) versions.[1] While its default ("stock") addons are not so eye candy, community created addons are really nice.[2] List of known community addons available as a spreadsheet[3] (regular updated) hosted on Google Docs. Actually there are 14500 aircrafts, 1049 scenery (maps), 10404 ground objects (ships, cars, characters, buildings, etc.). There are many videos on YouTube, just search using "YSFlight Movie" and "YSFlight Promo" queries for clips which are show-reels. Here is good "The Beginner's Guide to YSFlight" for latest versions.[4] JFTR, I started to use YSFlight just after watching "Strangers - A YSFlight Promo Film".[5] Actually I'm fan of YSFlight & addons contributor[6], so you may AMA about it! ;) P.S: There are also servers for online gaming (and you also could create & add own just using YSFlight installed!), mostly active on each Friday.[7] [0] https://ysflight.org https://ysflight.org [1] https://ysflight.org/download/ https://ysflight.org/download/ [2] https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewforum.php?f=234 https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewforum.php?f=234 [3] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-j2JPuGtYxcZBVca0ul5vjTU/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1caVHoWU6g1YSB-G-W5Q-... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Iy3W7s4O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Iy3W7s4O8 [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMkaTtrQlHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMkaTtrQlHM [6] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1274084993179009024 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1274084993179009024 [7] https://ysflight.org/serverlist/ https://ysflight.org/serverlist/

deorder 6y ago

Reminds me a bit of Interceptor from the Amiga: https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE

w0utert 6y ago

Makes me wonder, ho does one start to build a serious flight simulator? Is there any publicly available resources about implementation techniques and pitfalls specific to flight simulators, like there are for so many other topics, so you don't have to learn everything the hard way, make all the obvious mistakes, etc? Or is this a topic where you can really work from first principles, using just basic physics and incrementally adding simulation of more advanced effects?

amelius 6y ago
I have no experience here, but starting from physics sounds like a very difficult approach since the equations that govern aerodynamics aren't that simple. So I would look for some results that simplify these equations. Like how Maxwell's equations aren't used for designing most electronic circuits, but instead people use simplifications like circuit theory. I suspect a similar simplifying approach would exist in aerospace design (but again I have no experience here). Perhaps the best idea is to take some introductory courses here: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/
pastrami_panda 6y ago
Floating origin is a nice algorithm for dealing with floating point imprecision. Essentially just translating the camera to origin regularly. Regarding terrain there are many techniques of varying difficulties to implement. Streaming terrain data and stitching LOD seams (both normal and vertex blending) are basically the gist of it, but the implementation details regarding uniform vs non-uniform grids, tesselation vs chunking etc. needs to be considered.
13415 6y ago
Look up blade element theory, that's how Laminar started with X-Plane, and they incrementally refined their model over the past 20 years. I bet the physics will take the least and the graphics will take most of development time, though.
- mhh__ 6y ago

globile 6y ago

Off topic, but a great window to HN demographics via referred traffic in these legacy stats trackers. Sigh... The days when showing off your traffic stats was more important than privacy or confidentiality. http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3 http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3 EDIT: spelling.

marcodiego 6y ago

I had just recently download old xsabre source code and made it compile on a modern system. Interesting that it is possible to compile something pre-c++ standardization with just a few changes. Another interesting project: This guy resurrected gl-117 and is maintaining and improving it: https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb... makes me remember "Certain Impact" a little. If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim, Palomino (https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-sim/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-sim/) seemed very promising while it was under development.

app4soft 6y ago
> If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim Also Search and Rescue II flightsim reborn this year.[0] [0] https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/ https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/
- marcodiego 6y ago
  A quick search on sourceforge revealed these: - https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/ - https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/ - https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/ Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for someone to rescue whatever is still valuable. Makes me a bit sad and hopeful in a certain way.
  - app4soft 6y ago
    > Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for someone to rescue whatever is still valuable. Yep. This year I discovered that there is active development on ACM 6.0 (enhanced fork of ACM 5.0).[0] I just hope that someone would also take a look on Vertigo for continuous development and porting it to Linux and other modern platforms. [0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076 https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076

praveen9920 6y ago

Hoping to see a open-source version of flight sim. Are there any ?

Naac 6y ago
https://www.flightgear.org/ https://www.flightgear.org/

major505 6y ago

Love this image when the guy is heading nose first in the tarmac http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif

trynewideas 6y ago

Not open source, but Tiny Combat aims to reproduce the general 90s flight sim aesthetic: https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena It's under a lot of active development, with clips posted to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y The author puts quite a bit of free Unity-related code from related experiments on GitHub: https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories

anthk 6y ago
Unity, that sucks. Unusable on lowest computers. At least, ACM and most libre games with these graphics will actually run at least in 2002 era computers.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

Would love a polygon aesthetic flight sim that sort of expanded on the feeling A-10 Cuba was going for but more planes and more weirdness. Really cool bits in that game where you can break the tips of your wings off your grind your gears in and still keep flying, also had some really surreal multiplayer arenas like space and futuristic cities.