Using the SP3 code with my cable modem in Pennsylvania, I’ve been able to fly regularly with a friend in Wyoming who is on a 56k modem. I cannot compare the current multiplayer code to the older code, because descriptions of getting the old code working were enough to deter this mere mortal from trying. One ordinary sky, with aircraft and missiles Subsequent ALT-TABs out of Falcon alternate between having X-36 programming in Falcon or not! The wider case here is also true: Falcon 4.0 SP3 is a heck of a lot more stable than earlier versions, but it still sometimes requires coddling to keep it from going off in a huff.
One bizarre feature that remains: to get my Saitek X-36 software to integrate with Falcon, I have to ALT-TAB out of Falcon once. It isn’t perfect, but I can spend all afternoon flying a solo campaign without entertaining such arcane worries as whether Falcon will crash if I use laser-guided bombs. Taking the first claim first: stability is definitely much improved. What does the SuperPak series add to your Falcon experience? According to the SP3 manual, the primary new features include a vast array of stability improvements, a redesigned user interface that incorporates easy-to-use theater selection, significantly improved 3D models, flight models, cockpit, avionics, and weapon modeling, and much-improved multiplayer code.
(If you want the full-scale over-the-top install method complete with endless defrags, see this thread I used the one described above. The whole process has been brought back into the realm of possibility for mere mortals.
ERazor’s codework is integrated with the rest of the tweaking, and the SuperPaks are also fully integrated with Joel Bierling’s configuration editor, so tweaking your patch options is easy as well. Instead, you install Falcon 4.0 from the CD, apply the 1.08 patch, and apply the SuperPak patch. No longer do you need to worry about choosing between the Realism Patch or eRazor’s improved executable. Gone are the days when installation required a degree in computer science or the assistance of a two-part article from COMBATSIM. The first clear improvement delivered by the SuperPak series is the ease of installation. Let’s take another look, this time with SuperPak 3.
COMBATSIM.COM reviewed Falcon 4.0 when it came out and we’ve run a number of articles on it since (see the resource section below for a full listing). Despite some rocky periods when various groups haven’t gotten along, and times of great confusion for mere mortals when the installation options would humble rocket scientists, the various Realism Patches, eRazor patches, and now the SuperPaks have steadily improved Falcon 4.0’s stability and realism. A large number of dedicated and computer-savvy fans took the program and ran-in one case literally, with leaked source code-and applied themselves to the task of making Falcon 4.0 be all it should have been. There the story would have ended, but Falcon fans often wind up on the fanatical side. Labels are also on for all the other screenshots so you can see more of what's going on! Falcon 4.0 headed down the same runway, and was more or less playably stable with the 1.08 patch when Hasbro decided to cut its losses and terminated support for the project in December of 1999. In that rosy glow, we forget that it was a festering mass of nearly-unworkable code for at least six to twelve months, until a steady series of patches brought it to the stable state we recall. Remember 1991? Spectrum Holobyte published Falcon 3.0, which many of us remember fondly for many hours of flight sim fun. Let’s begin by taking a step even further back in time. This sky is not empty - but labels are off. Are they a lonely bunch of freaks blindly obsessing over a shattered hope, or do they know something the rest of us don’t? Now it’s 2003, and some people are still out there playing Falcon 4.0. It was ambitious, full of promise, and so riddled with bugs that it could barely run for sixty seconds out of the box. Spec: PII 266MHz (PIII 450 Rec'd.), 64 MB RAM (128 MB Rec'd.), 3D Video Accel., 400 MB HDisk Spaceįalcon 4.0 was published late in 1998, proclaiming itself “The new benchmark in flight sim technology”.