homepage Forums Read Only Forums Read Only Forums Jane's Longbow Series (Read Only) LB2 on W7 x64 ATI

OK guys,

After years of having to hear people discuss how great the old school LB2 is, I decided to try and get my hands on it. Guess what, I succeeded. Initially I tried to install it using Positive G's install guide but that didn't work. I skipped the memory part because A) I'm not using XP and B) those settings would interfere with the daily use of my computer. However, even in software mode prior to applying either D3D or Glide method, I couldn't get the game to run. Not on W7 mode, not on XPSP2 mode, and not on 95 mode.

I browsed a little and found Flyboy's customized installation for Vista and W7. After installing it I could finally start the game. However, a few things trouble me:

- After what seems to be a random interval the game just crashes. Old school crash: screen hangs and the last 2 to 3 seconds of audio playback start looping.
- Currently I'm using a simple Microsoft Sidewinder joystick with a throttle lever and a twist option for yaw. In Windows it is considered one single USB device. The throttle lever and twist option don't seem to work, only the cyclic does. Also, whenever I press the coolie hat in whatever direction, the cockpit view turns to the right and I seem to have lost control of the camera.
- Where is the options menu? Where can I set graphic options and resolution, audio options, joystick sensetivities, button mapping, etc.? When I enter the game I only get the options of flying campaigns, single missions, multiplayer, and training, no option menu present. It seems this game needs a huge amount of tweaking on my rig and I can't find the options to do so. For starters, the game currently runs on 640x480 and I really need to get that up'd to 1280x800 or something close to it.

Hopefully some of you can provide me with feedback! Would be greatly appreciated!
Jp

Windows 7 x64
AMD Turion x2 1.6GHz (If required the CPU can run on 1833MHz but I doubt it in the case of LB2)
4GB (2x2GB)
ATI x1100 using 256MB shared RAM (Integrated/onboard graphics, no possibility to change drivers. I have to use the current one because of ATI's legacy issue and because it's a customized IGP for the notebook and not a universal graphic card.)
DirectX 11

Anyone?

Hi JayPee, sorry no one has replied sooner. It's always the case that when I'm away from online duties for a few days something crops up, never when I'm in the thick of it though!

For your game crash, go here and scroll down to 'Phoenix's Last Fix As Promised'. Get that and install it. It *should* fix it! If not, uninstall it (via instructions provided) and try the next one up, 'Phoenix's LB2 Final Solutions':
http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/setup/setup.html

You may be able to setup your throttle and rudder in the options menu (mentioned below), but you may not have any luck as LB2 can be funny with controllers. As long as the cyclic works, that's the main thing. This is an old sim, remember, so built-in throttles and rudders was not really the thing back then. Again you maybe able to setup your hatswitch in the options menu. After you have configured your controls remember to save it as a key-mapping/joystick-mapping in the menu - or you will lose it after each mission!

At the main menu (base screen) in the game, press ALT-O (o, not zero) for the options menu. In-game, press ALT-O or ESC to access the options menu. You will not natively be able to change the screen res as LB2 runs at fixed 640x480 like a lot of sims of that era. To increase it, you'll have to run the game in 3DFX mode with a glide wrapper and force a higher screen res through that - which itself will show some graphical artifacts such as lines in the cockpit. To enable 3DFX mode, open the lb2cfg.exe in the LB2 folder and set it to 3DFX. Next, install ONE glide wrapper as per instructions included (either latest dgVoodoo or nGlide, link below) and see what happens:
http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/progs/dgVoodoo1.50Beta2.zip
http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/lb2/progs/nGlide096_portable.zip

If you don't get on with one glide wrapper, uninstall it and try the other.

FB, thanks for the detailed instructions. Currently I'm packing as I'll be going away for the weekend. Will try your suggestions monday!

Thx,
Jp