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  • Subwar 2050: Mediterranean - The Lost World Campaign Walkthrough

    This is taken from some of my earlier posts on the GOG Subwar 2050 forum. Mission 1 - Recon This one can be done without firing a shot, stealth is the way to go. Keep your speed at 15 knots, as you approach each waypoint be on the lookout for any enemy subs, some will be sitting and waiting without any running lights so they may be harder to spot, you can manoeuvre around behind them to slip past. You can reach waypoint 3 without alerting any subs and drop the listening device. The mission ends once you reach the final waypoint at the carrier. Mission 2 - Diversion Another stealthy start to this mission, keep your speed at 20 knots. As you approach waypoint 2, hide above the thermal. At waypoint 3 get close to and behind the enemy sub and destroy it. Both docks need to be destroyed, so hopefully you have enough rockets left, get close as possible and destroy each one in turn, to use the rockets as efficiently as possible. Once both docks are destroyed the mission ends. Mission 3 - Confusion As you approach the research station you'll see a number of enemy subs, approach stealthily, get behind each one and kill at close range, even after destroying a sub the others won't be able to track you allowing you to do the same thing to them. Each structure at the research station takes 6 rockets, once you're almost dry you can call on your wingman to destroy those that still remain. Once destroyed head to waypoint 3 for the mission to end. Mission 4 - Convoy At waypoint 1 you'll encounter an enemy sub which can be destroyed. At waypoint 2 you'll see the convoy. You can hide beneath the thermal and destroy the 2 escorting Hurricanes from underneath. Once destroyed get above the thermal target the lead convoy sub and issue special orders. Once boarded the mission will end. Mission 5 - Escort I didn't make notes for this one so this is from memory. I think you have to wait for the hijacked sub to dock at the base. If there were any enemy subs that needed killing I would have crept up behind and destroyed with rockets. Once the area is clear you can send in your wingman with special orders to secure the intelligence team and escape. At which point the mission should end. Mission 6 - Underwater Ear Bad notes on this one, so anyone feel free to correct. In this mission you'll pilot the experimental and very fast Barracuda. So I think you can get away with hiding above the thermal and destroying the listening post. Then running at high speed for waypoints 4 and 5. Mission will end at waypoint 5. Mission 7 - Dire Strait You have to escort an experimental deep diving sub called the Titan back to the carrier. There's a hard way to do this and an easy way to do this. The hard way probably involves trying to keep up with the Titan and firing torps at any enemy sub that fires at it to try and get back to the carrier. The easy way involves leaving the Titan, where it is (but remember it's bearing to waypoint 1) and progressing to each waypoint, sneaking up and destroying enemy subs, there are 3 or 4 so the stealthy approach to the rear followed by a quick kill helps. Once you get to last waypoint, turn around head back to waypoint 1, pick up the Titan close by and try and keep up as it flies past each waypoint. Once it reaches the carrier, mission ends. Mission 8 - Discovery Due to the high tectonic activity in the area you really really want to make sure you hit subs and not the surroundings. Another mission where it helps to get to a waypoint but then continue on before heading back. The trick is to sneak up on the sub at waypoint 1, make a stealthy approach above waypoint 2 then head straight down (without ballast, far too noisy) tag the waypoint then climb up to get some clearance and head to waypoint 3 and finally make a stealthy kill on the sub at waypoint 4. Then back to waypoint 2, position yourself to the rear of one sub but with the second one in view. Make a stealthy kill sometimes the second enemy still won't be able to track if you were at a dead stop when you attacked. Sneak up on the second and do the same, or hit it with rockets if it's found you and heading your way. These last 2 subs can take a lot to destroy so be careful you don't run out. Once they are dead the area is clear, Head to waypoint 2 and use active sonar, you may have to target some of the ruins but the mission should end shortly. Mission 9 - Atlantis! This one is tricky, mostly because you have to work out what you need to do, it took multiple attempts. Your escorting a Trieste to send a team in to recover data. Heading towards waypoint 1, there's an enemy sub, stealthy approach and kill it. Leave the Trieste a little way away because here's where it gets interesting. You can't kill both subs at waypoint 2, you can kill one but killing the other results in the wingman dying and mission failure. So sneak up on one but keep the other in view, hit it from behind and kill it. If you were at a dead stop the second sub should still not see you. Now hit the throttle and run, heading away from the Trieste, the aim here is to get the last enemy sub to chase you, torpedoes will be fired, decoys will be released. Damage may be taken but when you are a couple of klicks away, hide above the thermal and wait, the enemy sub having lost you should also wait. Send the Trieste in with special orders, after a while the team should recover information and start to head off, Sneak away above the thermal and the mission should end soon. Not sure if the mission ends when Trieste makes it back or you have to escort it back but that should be easy enough. Campaign done!

  • Subwar 2050: North Cape - The New Eco-Warriors Campaign Walkthrough

    This is taken from some of my earlier posts on the GOG Subwar 2050 forum. Mission 1 - Baltic Prelude Loadout: 3 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy (maybe more), rockets The 'you should not fire on anyone unless you have been attacked yourself' requirement is actually true for this one. You must be fired on before you can fire back, doing so beforehand fails the mission. The only problem is waypoint 1, there are 2 enemy subs in front and a Hurricane, without running lights, behind directly in front of waypoint 1. All it takes is an active ping at distance to get an enemy sub to fire then you can destroy them all, or damage them until they can't fire back. You have a wingman so give him target(s). Waypoint 2 is clear, waypoint 3 has an enemy sub but you can hide using a thermal as you approach. Then back home to waypoint 4 where the mission ends. You may be able to do this mission stealthily without firing a shot but it'll be tricky with so many subs around waypoint 1. Mission 2 - Fishy Business The default loadout is fine. The Kriller is slow and unresponsive but has a lot of torpedoes. You have 2 wingman and they'll do the killing so make sure they have plenty of rockets. Head towards waypoint 1 where 2 enemy subs appear, first one on the right then one on the left. Send your right wingman to the right and the left wingman to the one on the left, otherwise they cross paths and it can get messy. Fire off a couple of torpedoes to keep the enemy on the defensive. Another enemy sub appears so fire a couple of torpedoes and send your wingman after him. At waypoint 2 you begin the collection, you need to get close to multiple schools of fish and when you collect them the amount to collect drops each time. As the Kriller is so slow and unresponsive take your time, it's fine to use active sonar to try and find more groups of fish. Once you collect them all mission ends. Mission 3 - Bottom Feeder Blues This one can be a bit tricky, so load out with a few torps and lots of rockets again. The trick to this one is to position the powers wingman to your rear. You also have to kill the 2 enemy subs in the area. So head to waypoint 1. Once there start heading to waypoint 2 but you see a sub off to the right. Get closer to him and give him an active ping, and wait until he fires. Yes, you have to be fired upon before you can respond. As soon as he does, hammer him with rockets. There'll be a second sub approaching and you don't have to wait for a torp this time, simply hammer them with rockets. Once they're both dead the tricky bit is done. Head to back to waypoint 2, where you should receive a message about readings or measurements being taken and to head for home. Head to waypoint 3 and the mission should end shortly! Mission 4 - Demolition Man Lots of rockets again, unless stated otherwise, always load up on rockets in preference to torpedoes. The trick here is to get to waypoint 1, then get above the thermal and make your way to the station. When you get there there'll be 3 enemy subs, 2 Hurricanes in front and one without running lights behind. I ended up killing the enemy sub in the rear, but this mission suffers from flakey scripting and your wingman always dies. Then you can kill the station and finally I killed 1 sub and damaged the other before running out of ammo. At this point I made a run for waypoint 2 and then waypoint 3, at waypoint 3 the mission ends. Mission 5 - Crimes of the Heart You can take rockets but you'll also want quite a few decoys as the aim of this mission isn't to kill anything. As soon as the mission starts run as fast as possible, drop decoys if needed. You aim is to get away and hide so put some distance between your attackers. Then power down and wait, at some point you'll receive a message and a waypoint, head to the waypoint as quickly as possible. The mission ends once you reach your sister carrier. Mission 6 - The Wrong Stuff Once you get to the carrier you should see an enemy whirlwind, set your wingman after it, whilst he's engaged get to the carrier and spam it with rockets. A second whirlwind should appear above the carrier but if you kill it quickly the mission will end before you have to deal with it. As ever the closer you can get to your target the fewer rockets/more effective each rocket will be. Mission 7 - Goodbye, Murmansk! Stealth is the way to go on this mission. As you approach the line of 7 mines you want to clear a path by destroying the 3 to the left, if you're stealthy enough the other mines won't activate. Continue on and sneak behind the enemy sub then continue on to the waypoint to deploy the mine. Once deployed get above the thermal and either make a stealthy escape or make a run for the open water. If you make a run you may trigger the mines but your speed should allow you to evade. Once at the last waypoint the mission ends. Mission 8 - The Kissoff You have to run and run fast in this mission, so hit the throttle and put some distance between you and your former employer. Once you have some distance and torps aren't tracking you hide above a thermal and wait. There are a group of enemy subs tracking you. One is a Type 25 and there are a (I think) a couple of Hurricanes as well. To end this mission I ended up having to kill 4 including the Type 25 so a bit of stealth to position yourself behind them and attack. I was fortunate to kill most of the first run but you may have to run and hide above thermals and attack again. Once enough are destroyed the mission ends. Not sure but it might be mandatory to kill the Type 25 to finish. That should be campaign 5 done!

  • Subwar 2050: Sea of Japan Campaign Walkthrough

    This is taken from some of my earlier posts on the GOG Subwar 2050 forum. Mission 1 - No Artificial Colourings or Flavourings Loadout: 2 x Mines and load up with whatever you want, you won't be shooting anything. This is described as one of the more difficult stealth missions but not so much. Stealth is key though, passive sonar and keep your speed to 15 or below, if the current is strong and you're not moving then up the power to 20 but bring it down to 15 when you start moving. You'll see 2 robot subs ahead kill speed and wait until they are moving away, head to waypoint 1, slowly until you get there. Kill speed to 0 and drop both mines. Turn to waypoint 2 and again slowly at 15 knots or less head to waypoint 2. Mission will end once you get to waypoint 2. Mission 2 - Satellite Down Loadout: Lots of rockets and a few decoys. Head to waypoint 1, as you head to waypoint 2 you'll encounter an enemy recon sub, this should be a simple kill with rockets. Once you arrive at waypoint 2 go with active sonar and you should encounter 2 enemy subs (I can't remember if you have a wingman, if you have send them after one of the enemy subs). They should be fairly easy to kill with rockets. Now if the friendly recovery sub has been destroyed you can head close to the satellite to bring it under tow and then head to the final waypoint. If it survives it begins towing the satellite so just follow. Once the sub towing the satellite (it may be you) gets to the final waypoint, mission ends. Mission 3 - To Catch A Thief Loadout: Lots of rockets and a few decoys. Although this may be possible with just torpedoes. I have to describe what I think you have to do as I completed this mission in a fairly bizarre manner. Stick close to the sub, it's not easy as it is very very fast so try and stay with it. Part way round you encounter an enemy sub, and the experimental sub gets hijacked. Send your wingman after the enemy sub and go after the experimental sub, once it gets to the carrier it'll slow/stop so kill it and the mission should end. What actually happened is that I engaged the enemy sub, that fired off a torpedo or two, which because the experimental sub was so close the torpedoes hit and killed it almost immediately, then the mission ended successfully! Mission 4 - The Dumping Ground Loadout: Lots of rockets and a few decoys for you and the wingman. There are 4 x Type 25 subs you need to kill and they take a lot of rockets to kill. You should find the first two easily enough on the way to the first or second waypoint. Get fairly close and engage with rockets (I think you have a wingman so give him a target) The second 2 have an escort so kill this first them go for the last 2 Type 25's. When they are destroyed the mission ends. Mission 5 - Submarine Graveyard Loadout: Lots of rockets and a few decoys Head to waypoint 1 on the way you'll encounter an enemy sub, should be a fairly easy kill with rockets. Once you get to waypoint 1 head east and destroy the 2 robot platforms. Head west past waypoint 1 and you should see a final platform and an enemy sub, get behind it and kill it with rockets. Destroy the last robot platform. Due to the extreme depth it takes fewer rockets than normal to destroy the enemy sub and platforms. Head back to waypoint 1 drop the debris and the mission should end (I don't think you have to return). Mission 6 - Tourist Attraction Head off with your active sonar running. There'll be 2 enemy subs, give your wingman 1 and destroy the other. Then just wait for the friendly Jumbo sub to start towing the stranded sub. DO NOT accelerate time as this prevents the mission from being completed. Follow the Jumbo until the mission ends. Fairly easy mission this one. Mission 7 - Blind Run Leave the default loadout. And yes it isn't a bug, this sub has 2 banks of torpedoes and rockets. Go with the active sonar at waypoints 1 and 2. There are 6 structures that can be destroyed but you only need to destroy 5. The first 3 are easy to find, no 4 is just past waypoint 2 but the other 2 are on the far wall opposite no 4 and a bit further along. Once you've destroyed 5 head close to and past waypoint 3 (but don't cross it), put a little distance behind waypoint 3 and turn towards it. Now you don't have decoys but you do have speed, a lot of speed. Now you have to race towards waypoint 3 at full speed, you want to cross it heading down the trench to waypoint 4 as soon as you hit waypoint 3 an enemy Hurricane appears above you spamming torpedoes. However at full speed you can outrun the torps and the Hurricane has no chance of catching up As you get to waypoint 4 there'll be torp mines and another enemy sub, blow past them all at full speed, any torpedoes should not be able to catch you. At waypoint 5 there'll be another torp mine this one tends to hit you so you may want to try and avoid or take the hit and hope the speed stays up. Waypoint 6 is in the opposite direction so disengage the autopilot as you get to waypoint 5 or you'll slow in the turn and the torp will definitely hit. Alternatively I was able to stop just before waypoint 4 turn around and destroy the pursuing Hurricane, then the sub approaching from waypoint 4, then crept up on the mines and destroyed them (however I had only destroyed 4 structures so the mission didn't end). So it might be possible to destroy the subs. If you can still maintain about 130 knots select waypoint 6 engage the autopilot and you should have enough speed to get home safely for the mission to end. Mission 8 - Harbour Bombardment Loadout: 3 x torpedoes, lots of rockets and a few decoys. I think this might be one or the harder missions but I did this in one attempt, more by luck than judgement but here's what I did. There's 2 min countdown so don't hang about, off to the first waypoint. This should take you to the harbour entrance. There's an enemy sub I engaged with torpedoes and 2 x torp mines I engaged and destroyed/spammed with rockets. Head into the harbour, there are 3 mines ahead I engaged/spammed with rockets. I think the harbour is waypoint 4 so head to it and drop the transponder. Then I headed out, encountered the enemy sub that the torps hadn't killed, so finished it off with rockets and then ran for open water where the mission ended. Note: I didn't engage the ASW vessel just dropped the transponder and ran! Mission 9 - Earthquake! Loadout: Lots of rockets and a few decoys. Pretty easy if you take it slowly and stealthily. Approach at a speed of no more than 25 knots. As you approach there are structures on the sea bed, I didn't head directly over these which may have helped. Approach to within 0.75 - 0.85 of each torp mine and destroy with 1 or 2 rockets. At this point all should still be quiet. Head to the waypoint over the base. Do not release the bomb yet! You're probably off centre from the base and the bomb drop might miss. So nose down and head closer to the centre of the base. Once you think you're over the centre level off and point to 090 degrees, drop the bomb and gun it with max power. There'll be a message if you're on target. You should be heading to waypoint 3 (I think) and once the countdown ends there'll be a few flypast camera views and the mission ends! And that is the last campaign in the base game. Scenario campaigns next!

  • Subwar 2050: South China Seas Campaign Walkthrough

    This is taken from some of my earlier posts on the GOG Subwar 2050 forum. Mission 1 - The Eco-warriors Loadout: 3 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. Wingman: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets No need to wait to be attacked, you can shoot first! Go to waypoint 1, get your wingman to attack and join in with rockets to destroy the enemy sub. Same with waypoint 2, both of you should attack the enemy sub with rockets. Make a high speed run to waypoint 3 and destroy the saboteur with torpedoes. At this point I had to ping with active sonar to find the ASW ship, both of you should hit it with whatever you have left, then the mission should end once it's destroyed. Mission 2 - Hoist the Jolly Roger Loadout: 3 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. Wingman: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets No need for stealth on this mission. Set your active sonar pinging and make a high speed run for the waypoint. There'll be 2 enemy subs, give your wingman one while you take the other. Make sure both are destroyed, you may need to help your wingman. Then there'll be 2 enemy ships, again give your wingman one while you destroy the other. The mission should end once all 4 enemy targets are destroyed. Mission 3 - Defending the Geishas Loadout: 3-4 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. Wingman: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets No need for stealth, set your sonar active. 2 subs converge from 2 different directions so I send my wingman after each one. Maybe help out with an initial torpedo. But be careful as another sub appears to attack the third leg. It can be a bit of a confusing maelstrom so take the 3rd enemy sub with a couple of torpedoes and finish off with rockets. The mission ends once all enemies are destroyed, only one leg of the station remained but it was enough for a successful mission. Mission 4 - Lights! Camera! Action! Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets, maybe 1/2 torpedoes. You don't have to destroy anything but the station, so you can make a stealthy approach to get nice and close, and then hit it with rockets as quickly as possible until its destroyed then run out of there as fast as possible. You may want to fire off a torpedo at enemy subs to keep then occupied while you destroy the station, but I didn't have to. Mission 5 - Fishing Rights Loadout: Whatever you want as you shouldn't be shooting at anything, 2 x transponders. Stealth is the key to this one, stay very very slow, 15 knots is sufficient. Once at the first waypoint, kill speed and drop the first transponder before heading to waypoint 2 again stealthily at 15 knots. You may have to drop the 2nd transponder but my mission ended successfully once I was close enough to waypoint 2. Mission 6 - The Repair Convoy Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. This is a hard, hard mission. Power up to full speed immediately, seconds count, set the sonar to active. You have very very little time to save the base before it's destroyed. Torpedoes can't help you as they track the noise of the power station and end up hitting it. Don't head straight to the waypoint but to the right of it. As you approach you should see 2 subs, one to the right / behind of the base and one coming in from the front / left. You need to destroy the one on the right first, however, it approaches to the right and behind the base. So by heading to the right of the base you can swing round and hit it with rockets. However as you get close you need to slow otherwise you run into your own rockets. You need to be quick and accurate getting close helps. Destroy it, power up and continue round the base to the second enemy sub, destroy it with rockets before the base is destroyed. This is a very difficult mission so you'll need to practice, getting off to a fast start, rockets selected and active sonar can give you a few more seconds that can make all the difference. Mission 7 - Second Strike Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. This one is a lot easier, almost a walk in the park by comparison. Get above the thermal layer and set your speed to 25 knots. A nice slow approach to the base waypoint until your sitting above it. Then hit it over again with rockets as quickly as possible until destroyed, it takes 20+ rockets to destroy but once done so run away at full speed until the mission ends. Mission 8 - Closing the Pipeline Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. I did this one kind of strangely, I skipped all of the of structures until I found the major station and destroyed it with 7 or 8 rockets and then I looped back through all of the waypoints and destroyed all the structures, after destroying 4 or 5 the mission ended. They were all listed as sensors on the contact info, so I was either very lucky or you just need to destroy a certain number of these other structures. Mission 9 - Tanker Raid Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. Wingman, the same. Active sonar on and head straight to the waypoint, I gave the right most sub to my wingman to destroy. Shortly after an enemy sub shows up you need to deal with swiftly. By sheer dumb luck the enemy Hurricane (I think) got himself between the wingman and his target so he ended up destroying this enemy sub as well as his own target. After that it was just a case of destroying the second towing sub (took about 15 rockets) and the mission ended. Mission 10 - Beijing Gambit Loadout: 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. Wingman, the same. Easy one, just keep giving your wingman a target while you destroy some ships yourself. Once they are all destroyed mission ends. Just make sure you aren't directly under any vessel as they break up. Mission 11 - Beijing Checkmate Loadout: 3 x torpedo, 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. Wingman, lots of rockets. This one is really hard. And I'm not sure I did this properly. Passive sonar to begin with. High speed run to waypoint 1, pop above the thermal layer. I have no idea how you destroy the helijet. Wait where you are, as soon as the helijet pops on your contact list, you may have to send an active sonar ping first, I sent both wingmen after it, a lot of times they won't be able to destroy it but I have no idea how to. It's a struggle to find, maybe you have to surface to destroy it but I'm really not sure?!? Hopefully one of wingmen deals with the helijet. Now 3 enemy subs will head straight for you so dip beneath the thermal and run to put some distance between you and them. Now it's time to turn and fight, try and get some assistance from your wingman but I had to spam rockets at each of them until all 3 were destroyed. You will probably be damaged, so wait until the self-repair has done it's thing. Head back to the ships and using your last 3 torpedoes destroy one of the ASW ships, they are the wider shorter ships in the fleet, 2 identical vessels beside each other. Once one has been destroyed the mission should end shortly but you need to stay in the vicinity of waypoint 2 and the surface ships. That should be another campaign done!

  • Subwar 2050: Antarctica Campaign Walkthrough

    This is taken from some of my earlier posts on the GOG Subwar 2050 forum. Mission 1 - Save the Whale I went with 6 torpedoes, 4 decoys, 2 transponders and the rest rockets. Now apparently destroying the enemy structure on the sea bed delays an enemy response but I skipped this bit. Moved to the right to position myself in line with the mines and destroyed the one that moves up and down the mine line, I think with a torpedo. Dropped a transponder at waypoint 1 and again at waypoint 2. Moved away from the transponder back to my starting position. At some point an enemy sub shows up, I waited until it moved closer but with empty water behind it, you may be able to manoeuvre about him, the important thing is not to fire a torpedo that may find a whale instead. Destroyed him with 3 torpedoes at close range which was risky and then finished him off with rockets (which may be the safer option). Mission 2 - Iceberg Ahoy! My loadout was 4 x torpedo, 3 x decoy and the rest rockets. Gave the wingman 3 x decoys and only rockets. Head to waypoint 1, then position yourself just above the subs towing the iceberg. 2 enemy subs arrive to your right and left, send the wingman after one whilst you deal with the other. A 3rd enemy sub appears above and behind the towing subs, so engage and get your wingman to help if he's dealt with his assigned target. Mission should end once the 3rd enemy sub is destroyed. Mission 3 - Rescue at Rig 5 Go with 3/4 torpedoes, a few decoys and rockets. Head to waypoint and continue to waypoint 2 until you see the base. This is another mission with some flakey scripting. There are 2 enemy subs, one at waypoint 2 and the other at the opposite side of the base. Do not kill the enemy sub at waypoint 2 otherwise your wingman does the 'dying as soon as the enemy sub dies' thing and the mission fails. Head to the other sub (not at waypoint 2) stay above the thermal layer and then manoeuvre behind him, kill him with rockets and get back above the thermal layer. Head to waypoint 2 drop behind the enemy sub at waypoint 2 and destroy him with rockets. Issue special orders to your wingman to begin the rescue. You may have to accelerate time as he can get 'stuck' and accelerating time tends to unstick your wingman. Another enemy sub shows up, get above the thermal layer get above them or as close as you can get and destroy them with rockets or any remaining torpedoes. The key on this mission seems to be to always reposition yourself towards enemy subs when above the thermal layer. Mission 4 - The Krilling Fields Loadout: 3 x torpedoes (or more if you prefer), 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. Wingman: 3 x decoy, lots of rockets. The straggler harvester is the one at the back, make your approach as deep as you can. There are 2 Hurricanes by the harvester and I ended up getting behind them destroying both with torpedoes and rockets (also got my wingman to help). Then we both destroyed the harvester and mission ended, think I probably missed out on the stealth bonus. Mission 5 - Deadline Loadout: 4 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy, 1 x listening device, rockets Get to waypoint 1, continue to waypoint 2, however an enemy sub turns up, both you and your wingman should attack with rockets. Make a run to waypoint 2, destroy the second enemy sub with torpedoes, destroy the enemy listening device with a rocket and then fire your own listening device. The mission should then end. Mission 6 - The Spy in the Fridge Loadout: 6 x torpedoes, 3 x decoy, lots x rockets. Get to waypoint 1 and continue to waypoint 2. Issue the special orders to your wingman to begin the rescue. 2 Enemy subs show up, 1 above the other. Again there's a weird scripting issue, do not attack the top sub first! Destroying this sub destroys your wingman as well. Instead starting with the lower sub, I fired 3 x torpedoes at the lower one, then the upper one. This didn't actually destroy either of them but they retreated below the thermal layer and stayed there. My wingman completed the rescue, issued orders to get back into formation and then ran for waypoint 3, where the mission finished. Mission 7 - Tiptoe through the Minefields Shouldn't matter on the load out, you shouldn't need to shoot at anything! Take your time, kept my power / speed at 15 throughout. Get to waypoint 1, continue to waypoint 2, you may need to head deep and close to the structure to thread the needle between the mines. Once at waypoint 2 just stay slow and deep and head to waypoint 3. Mission 8 - Is there Anybody out there? Loadout: 4-6 x torpedoes, 3 x decoys, lots x rockets. Wingmen: 3 x decoys, lots x rockets. Active sonar throughout. At waypoint 1 there's an enemy Type 25, get your wingmen to attack, but attack it yourself with rockets, it's very easy to lose wingmen on this attack so you may want to destroy it yourself, or at least help a bit. You want both wingmen alive once it's destroyed. Then full speed back to the carrier, get your wingman attack their own targets and go after your own, it can get a bit hectic so if an enemy slips past use your torpedoes. Stay fairly close to the carrier and it should be ok. Mission 9 - Icebreaker Loadout: 27-30 x rockets at least (40+ better), 2-3 x torpedoes, 2-3 x decoys. Wingman: lots x rockets, 3-4 x decoys Keep your speed low and head to waypoint 1, A Type 25 appears kill your speed and go silent, get your wingman to attack, it's heading straight for you so use your ballast to get above the thermal layer and the Type 25. If it gets close and your wingman hasn't killed it, give it a few rockets to finish it off. Go with a slow, deep approach to the base, there's an enemy Hurricane so get close, give it a rocket to get it to appear on your contact list, send your wingman after it and give it a couple of torpedoes. Whilst those 2 are busy get in the middle of the bases, as shallow as you can get, as soon as you start firing mines will activate but if there are bases between you an the mine, the mine hits the base an not you. You need to destroy each base, using 9-10 rockets, get close and fire. Once the 3rd base is destroyed get out at full speed and the mission should end. That should be the 2nd campaign done!

  • Subwar 2050 Versions

    This is my very subjective look at the versions of Subwar 2050. It's taken from multiple posts I made a while ago on the gog.com Subwar 2050 forum. After a bit of digging around there seem to be 4 versions of Subwar 2050 and the version you are running may affect how successful you are throughout the campaign and the difficulties you may encounter during missions. I'm a big fan of particle systems, the people who made this. Their later I-War/Independence War is still a personal favourite, but when it comes to their scripting system, not so much. It can be a bit flakey at times and sometimes downright weird. However this seems to have been something they both understood and worked on because in later versions of Subwar the scripting feels like it improved and missions which felt arbitrarily unfair seem to have been tweaked. So in what I think might be a very rough chronological order, the Subwar versions: Original 5 Disk version / CD re-release This version doesn't have the autopilot or the swload.sav file which seems to store the custom weapon load-out. The sw.exe file seems to be from 1993. Although the CD re-release has the 'plot deepens' scenario included it isn't installed by default so you'll have to find it on the CD and install manually. The original version, without scenario, benefits from having the v2.02 patch installed, which should still be available, to update sw.exe. this seems to improve the scripting but later versions seem to be, in my subjective opinion, even better. CD re-release with plot deepens scenario installed Running the scenario install, updates the sw.exe to the 1994 version. Autopilot is available and the custom weapon load-out swload.sav file is added, a definite qualify of life improvement. I started playing the original version, not realising the 'plot deepens' scenario was included on the CD. I couldn't get past mission 4, after issuing special orders then setting my wingman to attack targets, trying to issue the special orders again would no longer work and sometimes the wingman would disappear off never to be seen again. Running the CD re-release with the scenario installed updated the sw.exe file to the 1994 version and fixed this issue. Subwar 2050 complete This is a multi language CD with french and german versions, it has the autopilot and custom weapon load-out, however the install only creates config and saves files on the hard disk whilst most of the game files remain on the cd, it uses a later version of sw.exe. Subwar 2050 complete (gog version) This is my subjective opinion but it feels like the GOG version is the definitive version and as such is the preferred version to use. The mission scripting feels less flakey than earlier versions and the weapon effectiveness may have tweaked to be slightly better.

  • MacFlight: Multi-monitor support!

    The latest version of MacFlight (version 1.3) now has limited multi-monitor support! You can get MacFlight from my earlier blog post . Pre-requisites Quadra 800 running Mac OS 7.6.1. Configured with 128M of ram. Due to the additional overhead of running multiple monitors you'll want as much memory configured as possible. Configuring multiple monitors To configure multiple monitors we'll need the Apple Macintosh Display Card 8•24 Revision B (MDC 1.2) rom. You'll need those googling skills to find the file nb_mdc824.zip which contains the rom. Once you have it, copy the zipfile to your MAME roms folder. Now we need to change the command used to run MAME, from: mame macqd800 -hard1 mac761.chd -ramsize 32M -cheat -plugin macflight To: mame macqd800 -nbc mdc824 -nbd mdc824 -hard1 mac761.chd -ramsize 128M -cheat Note: Your hard disk image may be called something else. macflight is removed as there's some additional configuration to do before we can run it again. nbc is the first of two NuBus slots available on the emulated Quadra 800 mdc824 is the option for the Mac Display Card 8•24 Revision B. nbd is the second NuBus slot, using the same Mac Display Card. ramsize is increased to 128M , the maximum. Run up the emulated Mac, you should see three emulated displays. The standard display (on the left) probably looks ok but the other two NuBus displays (centre and right) default to black and white displays. Open up the MAME menu and select machine configuration. You'll want to set the same resolution across all three displays. MacFlight currently supports 640x480, 832x624 and 1152x870 resolutions. Set all three displays to the same supported resolution and reset the machine to apply the new resolution. Next we have to set colours and arrange our monitors in Mac OS. If you've never done it before it's a bit tricky. Use the Monitors & Sound control panel app, this should open a window on each display. Use the Arrange button to see where the displays are in relation to each other. Change each display to 256 colours and set the gamma to Mac Std Gamma for identical colour across all three. This also makes it easier to see where the mouse is and makes the next bit a little easier. You want to use the Arrange button in combination with the 'Identify the monitor' button to line up the displays as shown below. If you struggle to get them all to line up horizontally you can use the Up/Down arrow to move the displays fractionally to get them all to line up. You can open a window and drag it across displays to make sure they are all lined up properly (a bit like the image at the top of this page). Once they are lined up, it's time to move the menu bar. In the Arrange monitors window with the three display icons, you'll notice the menu bar is on the left most display icon. Click on the menu bar (in the display icon) and drag it to the centre display icon. Displays will refresh and the menu bar should disappear from the left display and reappear on the centre display. Shutdown the Mac and restart MAME to make sure all display settings and the display arrangement has been saved. Now all that remains is to run MAME with the MacFlight plugin enabled with: mame macqd800 -nbc mdc824 -nbd mdc824 -hard1 mac761.chd -ramsize 128M -cheat -plugin macflight Changing resolution Before you change resolution, you should first remove MacFlight from the MAME command. You'll probably find the NuBus displays revert to black and white and need to be reconfigured and re-arranged again. It's a hassle but it gets easier with practice! Once the displays are properly arranged, add MacFlight back into the MAME command. Good hunting!

  • A retro gamers friend: Microsoft Compatibility administrator

    A quick guide to the Microsoft Compatibility administrator and how it helps to run those older legacy games. This is based on my limited experience with Compatibility administrator, so if there's something unclear, confusing or just plain wrong, please let me know. What is it? It is a serious professional tool meant to help business run their existing software on a Windows 10 platform, so it can seem a bit daunting if you've never used it before. There are two, Compatibility administrators named (32 bit) and (64 bit). The 32/64 bit part of the name refers to the software/game to create the fix for. For example, the Windows versions of Jane's AH-64D Longbow are 32 bit games, so we would use the Compatibility administrator (32 bit) . It does NOT  refer to the 32/64-bit platform of Windows, Windows 10 being a 64 bit OS. When you've downloaded apps in the past, if there was a 32/64 bit choice, you've probably picked the 64 bit version. It's a confusing way to name the Compatibility administrators, if you've never used them before. Terminology The individual fixes are sometimes called shims, from Wikipedia: The Microsoft Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) uses the term to mean backward compatible libraries. Shims simulate the behavior of older versions of Windows for legacy applications that rely on incorrect or deprecated functionality, or correct the way in which poorly written applications call unchanged APIs The ACT was replaced by the Microsoft Assessment and deployment kit (ADK). Installing Download and install the Microsoft Assessment and deployment kit   (ADK). This installs the Compatibility administrator apps. If you want to read up on the ADK and Compatibility administrator, take a look at the documentation . A brief tour There are 4 main sections shown in the left hand panel: System Database A catalogue of compatibility modes and fixes. The most interesting part of the catalogue are the Applications. There are thousands of pre-configured application fixes and there are quite a few games listed, so it looks like someone at Microsoft understood the importance of making sure our older games still ran on Windows 10! Installed Databases This is a list of the manually applied compatibility fixes. If you manually create a compatibility fix and install it, it will appear in this list. Per User Compatibility Settings This is a list of automatically applied compatibility fixes, ordered by username. The first time you run an older app/game and quit, you may have seen Windows display a dialog box saying something like 'Compatibility fixes have been applied'. This only happens the first time you run the software and you won't see the dialog box again, and it's pretty easy to forget about. After running the software, Windows has trawled the System Database, found your software, applied the fixes and stored them. The next time you run the game/app it'll quietly apply these fixes. If you list the fixes, in this section, you'll probably be surprised by just how many are being applied! All of this has been happening behind the scenes and now it's visible with the Compatibility administrator! Custom Databases Each time you start the Compatibility administrator you'll see a new untitled database. This can be thought of as your workspace for creating new fixes. None of the other sections are editable, just this one. Once you create a fix in the Custom Databases section and install it, it will appear in the Installed Databases section. Previous fixes As a retro sim fan, (or retro gamer in general) you may have already used Compatibility fixes, if you've downloaded fixes created by others, e.g. some nGlide patches use a sdb file. Compatibility fixes are saved as a AppCompat Database (.sdb) file. They are normally supplied with a couple of batch files, to install/uninstall the fix without the need for the Compatibility administrator: PatchInstall.bat (or similar), which runs a utility to install the sdb file. PatchUninstall.bat (or similar), which runs the same utility with an uninstall option on the sdb file. You can see what you may have already installed in the past, in the Installed Databases section. Creating a fix: an example In this example the following fixes/shims will be applied to the Longbow Gold executable, libwin.exe : EmulateCreateFileMapping GlobalMemoryStatusLie IgnoreException Go to the Custom Databases, highlight the New Database and click on the Fix icon, to bring up the first fix dialog box. Complete the text fields (the vendor is optional) and click next. In this example we don't want to specify any compatibility modes, so click next to skip. In the next dialog, check the boxes of the 3 fixes we want to use (it's a big list of 437 entries but they are listed alphabetically) and click next. The matching dialog, is used to match the executable to the fix. It'll use the executable filename by default, but if there were multiple versions with the same name, you can add further criteria (like a checksum) to pick that exact version. You can also add files so it will check for the existence of additional files in the same location (with their own optional criteria). You can also Auto-Generate a set of criteria. Adding additional criteria allows you to create a specific portable fix that 'should' work on any Windows 10 machine with Longbow Gold, as the criteria should be the same on every machine. Depending on the criteria chosen, it 'should' allow it to match on Longbow Gold only, while leaving other versions, e.g. Longbow Anthology unaffected. Click finish and the fix is complete. Now you need to highlight and save the New Database, give it a better name e.g. Longbow Gold and you'll get the save dialog box. Pick a filename to save it as, and a location to save it to, it normally defaults to the game install folder and save. The fix is saved as a AppCompat Database (.sdb) file. Now all you need to do is right click on the custom database and install it. The fix will appear in the Installed Databases section. Job done! Why do we save/install/uninstall a database? Remember the Compatibility administrator is a professional tool for use in business. In the example we have created a single fix for a single game, added it to a database and installed it. However a business using lots of apps may want to create multiple fixes across multiple apps, add them all to the same sdb database and install that database once, fixing all their apps at the same time. How do you know how to fix a game? The short answer is, through the kindness of strangers. I'm not a Windows developer or expert in the Windows OS internals. However, there are some amazing experts out there helping to get some great games running as well as possible on modern hardware. The VOGONS forum is one such place, game specific Discord servers, the famous PC Gaming Wiki another. The forums of specific games or game genre websites ( combatsim.com ) yet another. Populated by amazing people willing to use their skills to get games running and share their knowledge with the rest of us, I for one, am very appreciative of the help they provide.

  • Glide Wrappers: Last Man Standing or Peace and Harmony?

    This is a guide about the most common Glide wrappers, asks and answers questions, 'Can they coexist together?', 'How do you use one instead of the other?' and then covers use cases with games and DOSBox-X. What is Glide? Glide was the API used by old games to send requests to 3dfx graphics cards to make the graphics look pretty and run smoothly as opposed to pixelated and slower, if the game was doing the graphics itself. What is a Glide wrapper? Your modern Nvidia/AMD/Intel graphics card is a barely believable pinnacle of engineering magic, able to take DirectX, OpenGL and Vulkan API requests and render graphics at a speed and fidelity that would make Leonardo Da Vinci weep. However when it comes to Glide API requests, it's as dumb as a pile as bricks. What's needed to make Glide games run on modern hardware is some kind of tool to take Glide requests and convert them into modern DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan requests, and that's exactly what a Glide wrapper does. It can be thought of as a wrapping around a Glide game, intercepting Glide API calls and converting them into the modern day equivalent, hence the term wrapper. The two most popular Glide wrappers are dgVoodoo2 by Dege and nGlide by Zeus. It's worth noting that dgVoodoo2 is not just a Glide wrapper but also converts DirectDraw, D3D3/5/6/7, D3D8 and D3D9 into their modern equivalents, but this article will only be discussing the Glide side of things. How does nGlide work with old games? If you download and install nGlide it adds files to Windows folder, effective becoming the 'system' Glide wrapper. It will intercept Glide calls from games no matter where they are installed on your system. nGlide uses a utility, nGlide configurator to put nGlide config settings in the Windows registry. This means the configuration is global for all games according to this forum message from Zeus. This has important implications going forward. How does dgVoodoo2 work with old games? dgVoodoo2 takes a different approach, you download a release as a zip file, unzip it into a folder and then copy the Glide files, config file and config utility into a specific game installation folder. dgVoodoo2 can be thought of as a game specific or 'local' Glide wrapper that will only be used when the specific game with dgVoodoo2 files, makes a Glide call. Other Glide games will be ignored. Will nGlide and dgVoodoo2 coexist together? Yes and quite happily without issue. Assuming nGlide has been installed and dgVoodoo2 was downloaded, a game will use the system Glide wrapper, nGlide by default. To switch to dgVoodoo2 simply copy the required dgVoodoo2 files to the game folder, configure it and dgVoodoo2 will handle the Glide requests instead. To switch back to nGlide, simply remove the dgVoodoo2 files from the game folder and nGlide will be used by default again. Can different versions of dgVoodoo2 coexist together? Yes, and you might want to do this if you had Glide games, FlightSim1 and FlightSim2 which run well under the latest version X. However, the Glide game, SpaceSim doesn't run smoothly or crashes with version X, but ran perfectly well under an earlier version Y. It should be clear this is possible by: Downloading version X and Y of dgVoodoo2. Copy version X files into the FlightSim1 and FlightSim2 folders. Configure dgVoodoo2 separately for FlightSim1 and FlightSim2. Copy version Y files into the SpaceSim folder and configure dgVoodoo2 for SpaceSim. Each game uses its own local Glide wrapper with it's own config. FlightSim1 uses a local version X wrapper, FlightSim2 uses its own local version X wrapper while SpaceSim uses its local version Y wrapper. Can different versions of nGlide coexist together? Yes, but it's going to take a bit of management. Most Glide games work perfectly well under the latest version of the Glide wrapper. However there may be a specific game, let's call it FlightSim3 that used to crash less often or perform better with an earlier version of nGlide. We can download the earlier version of nGlide and instead of running the installer, we can extract the files from the installer, with a utility like 7zip and extract those files into the game folder, creating a local, game specific FlightSim3 nGlide wrapper. So far, so good, however the nGlide config is global! There aren't a lot of config options so if the local nGlide wrapper works, without changing the config, all good. However, the configurator options changed in later nGlide versions, so if you need to apply some different config options then you'll need to: Keep a note of the system nGlide config options. Keep a note of the local, game specific config options. Apply the local nGlide settings with the local configurator, as and when needed. Apply the system nGlide settings with the system configurator, as and when needed. If we want to replace a local nGlide wrapper with a local dgVoodoo2 wrapper, then we have to: Remove the local nGlide wrapper files from the game folder. (I recommend moving to a different folder, rather than deleting in case you want to go back to the local nGlide wrapper). Copy the required dgVoodoo2 files into the game folder. Configure dgVoodoo2. If we want to replace a local dgVoodoo2 wrapper with a local nGlide wrapper, then we have to: Remove the local dgVoodoo2 wrapper files from the game folder (or move them to another folder if you might want to re-apply them later). Extract the nGlide files from the installer into the game folder (or if you took my advice above, move them back into the game folder). Take a note of the system nGlide config BEFORE you set the local nGlide config, if required. I'd suggest keeping a 'Glide settings.txt' document on your desktop. DOSBox-X When it comes to DOS Glide games and Glide wrappers, we need to talk about DOSBox-X and why it's still my preferred DOSBox app for DOS Glide games. There have been a few DOSBox apps that have included Glide support, DOSBox 0.74 with Glide/3dfx patches, DOSBox Staging and DOSBox-X. Each of these support a virtual 3dfx card which can play Glide games, but the support is in software, with the CPU having to do all the heavy lifting, with a corresponding hit on performance. However DOSBox-X has an additional option, Glide passthrough and this is a game-changer. With Glide passthrough enabled, DOSBox-X does the equivalent of throwing the Glide requests over the garden fence for someone else to deal with. That someone else will be the Glide wrappers. They will convert the request into a modern equivalent and fire it over to the GPU to do all the heavy lifting, a far better situation (after all that's what it's there for!) As far as Glide wrappers are concerned, DOSBox-X is just another Glide game sending out Glide requests to intercept and convert. How would DOSBox-X use nGlide? This is probably the most common use case. DOSBox-X would be installed as usual and Glide passthrough would be enabled within the DOSBox-X configuration file for a DOS Glide game, One of the latest (if not the latest) nGlide versions would be installed as the system Glide wrapper. A glide call from within the DOS game wouldn't be handled by DOSBox-X, but passed through to the nGlide wrapper, to be converted and passed over to the GPU (via the Windows OS). As long as DOSBox-X and nGlide is installed, Glide passthrough enabled in the DOSBox-X game config file (.conf) and the nGlide config options are suitable for that DOS game, it should all 'just work'! And in fact it does, I have my copy of JetFighter III (a DOS glide game) configured in DOSBox-X to use Glide passthrough and it just works! If you want to stop using Glide passthrough, simply disable it in the DOSBox-X game config file (.conf) and DOSBox-X will start dealing with Glide requests. Can DOSBox-X use different versions of nGlide? Yes, but it's a bit of an extreme use case and this is my subjective recommendation. A potential scenario is that all of your DOS Glide games work well with your installed version of nGlide, except one that's tricky to get working and needs an earlier nGlide version. Assuming the latest version of nGlide is the system Glide wrapper and you want to use the earlier nGlide v0.97 in DOSBox-X, I'd suggest taking a copy of your DOSBox-X folder (I'll assume C:\DOSBox-X) and renaming the copy to: DOSBox-X with nGlide e.g. C:\DOSBox-X with nGlide0.97 Then nGlide v0.97 would need to be downloaded and the files extracted into this DOSBox folder as a local, game specific (or in this case, DOSBox-X specific) Glide wrapper. You would need to change the desktop game shortcut or whatever game library manager you use, to run the copy of DOSBox-X in the 'C:\DOSBox-X with nGlide0.97' folder, rather than the standard 'C:\DOSBox-X' folder. Again, you'd have to manage and set the global nGlide config using the appropriate nGlide configurator, as and when needed. In fact there's nothing to stop you using as many different nGlide versions as you want with DOSBox-X, as long as you're careful in managing the global config! This is an extreme example and you may want to try dgVoodoo2 as the Glide wrapper (as described below), so you don't have to manage the global nGlide config. How would DOSBox-X use dgVoodoo2? Again, the potential scenario is that all of your DOS Glide games work well with your installed version of nGlide, except one (or nGlide isn't installed as the system Glide wrapper), but this time we want to try dgVoodoo2. Again my subjective recommendation would be to copy your DOSBox-X folder and rename the copy with Glide wrapper info, such as: DOSBox-X with dgVoodoo e.g. C:\DOSBox-X with dgVoodoo2.82.4 Then dgVoodoo2 v2.82.4 would need to be downloaded and the files extracted into this DOSBox folder as a local, DOSBox-X specific Glide wrapper. You would need to change the desktop game shortcut or whatever game library manager you use, to run the copy of DOSBox-X in the 'C:\DOSBox-X with dgVoodoo2.82.4' folder, rather than the standard 'C:\DOSBox-X' folder. Can DOSBox-X use different versions of dgVoodoo2? Yes, there's nothing to stop you using as many different dgVoodoo2 versions as you want with DOSBox-X, just use the advice above. Be sure to use a sensible naming strategy, so you know what you've got and where! Issues In addition to the global nGlide config that's already been covered, the only other issue would be a new release of DOSBox-X. In order to install a new DOSBox-X release: Download and install the release to your existing DOSBox-X folder (I'll assume C:\DOSBox-X), effectively replacing the old version. Copy the files and folders in 'C:\DOSBox-X' and paste into each of the folders named: C:\DOSBox-X with As long as you followed the advice above there should be no Glide wrapper files in 'C:\DOSBox-X', so pasting should only replace the DOSBox-X files and folders, leaving the Glide wrapper files untouched. In conclusion It's turns out that Glide wrappers are a pretty peaceful & harmonious bunch and can coexist quite happily. In fact you could have every single version of them, all on the same machine (not recommended!) and as long as you can manage the nGlide global config, it should just be smooth graphics and blistering performance!

  • Unresponsive Thrustmaster rudder pedals in TARGET: A workaround

    This is a quick post about Thrustmaster T-Flight Rudder Pedals (TFRP) becoming unresponsive when a Target software profile is run which includes the TFRP. Warning : Make sure your are comfortable doing this, this is for informational purposes only. I can't take responsibility for any loss or damage incurred. This is working on my particular machine and setup, your experiences may differ. Setup You have your TM hotas setup and working. You have TFRP plugged into a usb port using the supplied TFRP adapter. The TFRP adapter is correctly set to the 'flight' setting and the LED on the adapter is green. All the devices can be seen by windows and are calibrated and seem to be working. You have the latest version of Target installed and Target GUI application works without issue. The problem You create a new Target profile or update an existing Target profile in the Target GUI, adding the TFRP. You run the profile in Target GUI and it starts correctly. However when you look at the test tools available, both the Device Analyzer and Joystick Control Panel show the TFRP to be unresponsive. Moving the pedals just doesn't change anything within these test tools. You may have also noticed that the LED is not showing at all on the TFRP adapter. The TFRP has been disabled, the physical TFRP controller is replaced by the virtual controller created when running the Target profile. This is normal and all the physical TM hotas controllers will be disabled, replaced by the virtual controller. They all come back once the Target profile stops running. However the other hotas controllers remain powered on, while the TFRP seems to go into a powered off state. An update and a fix! The below workaround is not longer recommended, as an actual fix has been found for this issue, take a look at Unresponsive Thrustmaster rudder pedals in TARGET: A fix! The workaround (not recommended) Run up the profile in the Target GUI. Run the Windows Device Manager application. In the View menu, change the selected option to Devices by container . This makes it easier to find the rudder pedals. Expand the T-Rudder section. You should see a HID-compliant game controller and USB Input Device . Right click on the HID-compliant game controller and select Enable device . This should make the LED on the TFRP adapter come on and the pedals should be responsive once again. You may have to repeat this each time you run a profile with the TFRP included. If you look at the Joystick Control Panel test tool you should see the rudder pedals working in the virtual game controller normally. Some background This is a quick list of some of the things I tried before discovering the workaround, none of which resolved or reduced the frequency of the issue: Plugging TFRP into a USB 3.0 port in a hub. Plugging TFRP into a USB 3.0 port on the motherboard. Plugging TFRP into a USB 2.0 port on the motherboard. Setting the power management in Windows 10. Disabling USB device powering down in Windows 10  power management. Disabling the 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' option for each USB device, USB controller and Thrustmaster device in the Device Manager. Notes: If you continually move the pedals as you run the Target profile, the pedals will remain responsive and the green LED remains on in the adapter, as soon as you stop moving the pedals they become unresponsive and the adapter LED goes out.

  • DOSBox Staging: Why do GOG menus look bad?

    This is my quick explanation and DOSBox Staging team workaround for why GOG menus created for some retro classics look fine under vanilla DOSBox bundled with the game, but look bad under DOSBox Staging and what we can do to fix this. As retro sim fans we've probably got one or more retro sim releases from GOG and some of these classic DOS games have a little DOS menu added by GOG. These menu may allow you to run an installer to set graphics and sound options, or play the game in a different language. Before we start As an example I've be using my GOG release of Subwar 2050 Complete. It has been installed using GOG Galaxy and the installation folder is found at D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Subwar 2050 . Obviously your installation folder may be different. If we run Subwar using the GOG added icon, vanilla DOSBox is started and we see the GOG menu. Everything looks good and we can run our game with vanilla DOSBox. DOSBox Staging But we want our aspect correct, CRT like graphics, we want our MT-32 or fluidsynth midi, we want all those extras we don't get with vanilla DOSBox. So lets create a DOSBox Staging configuration file. I created mine in D:\games\dos\Subwar 2050\conf\Subwar2050-staging.conf . So the menu is defined in the GOG DOSBox config file dosboxSUBWAR_single.conf in the Subwar installation folder. Lets take a look. Well that menu doesn't right, what's happened? The text looks ok but the double border characters look all kinds of wrong. Well it's due to character encoding. Character encoding We deal with letters, words, sentences, computers deal in numbers. All character encoding is about, is converting letters into numbers, so your pc can deal with it. And there's more than one character encoding. DOS and vanilla DOSBox uses a character encoding called codepage 437, this is the character encoding used to create the GOG menu, with the nice border, and set the yellow text and green background colours. The text editor uses a different character encoding called UTF-8. Some of the characters are the same like the alphabetic and numeric characters, but the border, text and background colour setting characters aren't, but the text editor tries it's best and shows us those weird characters instead. No problem then, we'll just copy the autoexec section from dosboxSUBWAR_single.conf into our DOSBox Staging config, change the mount commands to point to our Subwar installation folder and create a DOSBox Staging shortcut using our new Staging config, fire it up and it should all be good. For a good cause Well that kinda works, in fact it actually does work. You can choose a language option or set game settings and it works as intended, it just doesn't look as intended! It turns out that while DOS and vanilla DOSBox use codepage 437 character encoding, DOSBox Staging has switched to using UTF-8 in their configuration files. But why you ask? Well UTF-8 has an extensive set of characters, not just English characters, but characters from a multitude of languages from around the world. If a DOSBox Staging user wants to use his native language for folder names, DOSBox Staging is jolly well going to support them. Classic DOS gaming knows no international borders! Retro flight sim fans of the world UNITE! Workaround Well it turns out the DOSBox Staging team understand we want to have our free cake and eat it! So a workaround was implemented. The configuration file continues to use UTF-8 character encoding but a DOS batch file will use codepage 437 character encoding. They really are too good to us! What this means is: We can create a batch file in the Subwar installation folder, I let my imagination run wild and chose gogmenu.bat and copy the menu into this batch file. Call the batch file from the DOSBox Staging config file. So my DOSBox Staging config file now looks like this: [autoexec] # Lines in this section will be run at startup. # You can put your MOUNT lines here. mount C "D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Subwar 2050" mount C "D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Subwar 2050\cloud_saves" -t overlay c: call gogmenu.bat We use the call command as we are calling a batch file from within the DOSBox Staging autoexec (batch file) section. Now when we run DOSBox Staging with this config file we get.... SUCCESS!! References [BUG] ANSI Text Not Displaying Correctly in Latest Dev Build

  • Controllers and retro sims part 4: DOSBox

    When it comes to configuring DOSBox, we'll want to take a look at the joystick section: [joystick] joysticktype = auto timed = true swap34 = false deadzone = 10 These settings will take some trial and error as they'll depend on your controllers and on your personal preference. You need to try some test flights, to see if they need to change. I set my joystick type to 4axis. If you experience controller drift as you fly you might want to try setting timed to false. After a few tests flights my controllers were ok so I left this setting at the default. If the throttle/collective acts as the rudder and the rudder acts as the collective you can swap these axes. During my first test flight, this happened so after quitting the sim and DOSBox I had to swap axis 3 and 4 by changing swap34 to true. I also prefer a smaller deadzone but that's just personal preference. In my case I ended up with the following settings: [joystick] joysticktype = 4axis timed = true swap34 = true deadzone = 1 In DOSBox-X the deadzone option doesn't exist, instead there's a mapper section immediately following the joystick section, with a deadzone option for each joystick and axis: [mapper] joy1deadzone0- = 0.60 ... joy2deadzone7+ = 0.60 I tend to set mine to 0 but you can tweak them to your personal preference. DOSBox Keymapper Also known as just the Mapper in DOSBox Staging. This utility allow you to assign buttons to keys and shows you which of your controller axes are mapped to the 4 axes in DOSBox. If you aren't using profiling software, this utility will allow you to rebind DOSBox axes to your controller axes. Each axis is split in half into a negative and positive area. Clicking on the box representing a joystick axis shows the current axis mapping. Depending on your controller(s) you may want to rebind the axes if you're not using your HOTAS profile utility or you don't have one. You have the ability to del ete the current binding and then add  a new one. Once you click the add button, move the controller in the appropriate direction. Setup the game You'll probably have to return to the game setup to configure and calibrate your controllers. First flights So it's time to fire up the flight sim and kick off free flight or a training mission. The aims of these tests will be to ensure the controller(s) behave as expected. So get up into the air (if you can) and test each of the axes you have configured. Might also be worth ensuring your disabled axes are actually disabled! When I first set up pedals, the pedals controlled the collective and the rudder pedals controlled the collective, so I had to quit the game and swap axis 3 and 4 in my DOSBox config before trying again. Once the testing is over you're done, now go enjoy all that hard work!

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