Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: james_coulter@panam.wimsey.bc.ca (James Coulter) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Fighter Duel Pro Flight Recorder Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 12 Apr 1993 16:02:08 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 145 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1qc3q0$k00@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: james_coulter@panam.wimsey.bc.ca (James Coulter) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: flight simulation, rendering, graphics, game, commercial PRODUCT NAME Fighter Duel Pro Flight Recorder BRIEF DESCRIPTION The Flight Recorder is used to generate records of your flights (in one or two player mode, called "demo" files) or generate motion files (for Lightwave, Imagine, Videoscape, or VistaPro, called "path" files). Path files must be converted within the program to the desired format. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Jaeger Software Address: 7800 White Cliff Terrace Rockville, MD 20855 USA Telephone: (301) 948-6862 E-mail: GEnie: M.SHAW15 LIST PRICE $79.95 (US) SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Two megabytes of sequentially addressed Fast RAM. Joystick(analog or digital) Two player option requires a null-modem or an external Hayes compatible modem (1200 or 2400 baud). SOFTWARE Kickstart 1.3 or later. On AGA machines, you must turn off promotion and set the pointer to "lo-res." COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga B2000 with A2091 SCSI controller, A2320 display enhancer, and A2620 68020 accelerator board. 6MB Fast RAM, 1 MB Chip RAM. AmigaDos 2.04 REVIEW The main reason why I purchased the Flight Recorder was to be able to view flights of other players. Unfortunately (for me at least), the Flight Recorder seems more geared towards animation use. While the program does a great job of recording flights (complete with flap, throttle, gun, and even view panning usage), it lacks some other features I expected. The Flight Recorder is able to play against Fighter Duel Pro in two player mode. Your perspective is the only one recorded. After you've completed a two player duel, you must get the opponent's demo file to see the battle from his view. In addition, the output files can be very large: thirty minutes of two-player flight yields an one megabyte file. Fortunately, these demo files compress at about a 60% ratio (with lh5 compression, e.g., "lha"). Still being a 2400-baud modem owner, transferring my demo file and getting my opponents' files is cumbersome. When playing back demo files, you have little control. You cannot jump to specific points, no external viewing is possible, and you cannot cut out sections of a duel. All that is offered is pausing. After playing the demo you must reboot. To play back demo files requires the Flight Recorder. It would have been nice if some form of external player was included. Despite the listed memory requirements in the manual, I could not get the program to work in a 1MB Chip/2MB Fast environment. Even took drastic measures such as booting from floppy and disabling all hard drive partitions. PROGRAM OPERATION The Flight Recorder takes over the machine; this precludes any access to floppies or a hard drive, so it must record all information in RAM. The more RAM you have, the longer you can record. To retrieve the data, you have to warm-boot and immediately go back into the Flight Recorder. From there, the program will know if there is a recording in memory. So far, this has worked without any problems. DOCUMENTATION The package includes the original Fighter Duel Pro manual and a Flight Recorder supplement. BUGS Sometimes demo files of one-player flights do not play back properly. If recording two enemy planes, one appears to get lost in sections. Occasionally, it just appears to freeze. This has happened numerous times, but two-player flights record fine. WARRANTY 90 days. CONCLUSIONS If you want your fights with Fighter Duel recorded, this is the only choice. It records duels with perfect authenticity, but it lacks playback features that I want. Currently, I have no use for the animation aspects of the program. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 James D. Coulter. All rights reserved. /------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | James D. Coulter FIDO :1:153/911 | | {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} // USEnet :james_coulter@panam.wimsey.bc.ca| |"Punishment is a crime." \X/ | \------------------------------------------------------------------------/ --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu