This guide covers running the Eidos/Innerloop 1997 sim, Joint Strike Fighter JSF, in the PC emulator PCem.
For further background take a look at the previous guide: Running Joint Strike Fighter in Windows 10.
Despite JSF being able to run natively in Windows 10, there are reasons using the PCem emulator may be preferable:
Your modern multi-axes/multi-button HOTAS controller is incompatible with JSF, resulting in a crash to desktop when you try to use it.
Your particular Windows 10 setup has issues with the Glide wrappers used to run JSF with 3dfx enabled.
PCem can help by:
Supporting 2 joysticks (4 axes), which allows us to specify the 4 axes of any physical hardware in a consistent way such that Windows 98 / JSF only deals with the PCem virtual joysticks rather than a myriad of physical devices.
Emulates Voodoo hardware at a lower level providing emulated period correct hardware closer to the physical hardware the game originally worked with.
PCem setup
If you're completely new to setting up PCem or need a refresher, I highly recommend the excellent YouTube tutorial video by PhilsComputerLab, PCem Windows 98 Setup.
Once you have a basic, clean Windows 98 virtual machine and hard disk image, I recommend:
Taking a copy of the basic virtual machine to create a game specific virtual machine.
Taking a copy of the basic hard disk image to create a game specific image.
Use PCem and reconfigure the game specific virtual machine to use the game specific hard disk image.
If things go badly wrong, you'll always have the basic image to try again with and it'll save a lot of time and effort if you ever want to try a different Glide compatible game.
Installation
Once the emulated machine is running, change the cd device settings in PCem, to use either your physical drive (if you have a physical cd), or a cd image.
Then it's just a case of selecting the JSF install option from the JSF launcher app, (you may have to manually run the launcher app from cd if it doesn't start automatically). Installation should complete without any issues.
Patching
If you've followed Phils tutorial video, you know how easy it is to mount the PCem hard disk image (.vhd) file in modern Windows, and copy any games patches into it. Windows 98 doesn't have built in zip file support so unzip in modern Windows before copying into the mounted hard disk image.
There is a single v1.12 patch available from The Patches Scrolls. It's a file replacement patch, so copy the patch jsf.exe into the game folder, replacing the existing one.
Setup options
Enabling 3dfx is done through the game options. Disabling the 3dfx option will switch to software rendering. Everything else is pretty self explanatory.
Hotas setup
Take a look at my Controllers and retro sims part 5: PCem guide for installing HOTAS controllers in PCem. Once you have a custom calibrated Windows 98 controller the hard work is done.
Control options are limited to keyboard, mouse or joystick. JSF will automatically assign axes, so the joystick option covers joystick/throttle/rudder. That's it, the HOTAS configuration is done!
Good hunting!
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