F-16 Combat Pilot (Amiga version)

5 days ago6 min read

This is a guide to running the Amiga version of the 1989 Digital Integration sim, F-16 Combat Pilot under WinUAE emulation.

This guide assumes a working emulated Amiga, with a hard disk based Workbench as created in the earlier article, Amiga emulation with WinUAE.

Version

This guide assumes a copy of F-16 Combat Pilot pre-patched for hard disk use with WHDLoad. Converting a disk/disk image copy of F-16 Combat Pilot with the relevant WHDLoad support files into a patched 'hard disk supported' version is beyond the scope of this guide.

The recommended version of the WHDLoad patch files is v1.5. The prepatched WHDLoad distribution is normally packaged as an LHA (LH Archive) file. The workbench installation created earlier, supports LHA files.

The original game was distributed on a single 880 KB 3.5" Amiga floppy disk. Various copies may be encountered utilising the TOSEC naming convention.

WinUAE setup

The following is a list of differences from the Workbench configuration in the Amiga emulation with WinUAE article. It is recommended to load the Workbench configuration file and save it as a separate configuration file specifically for F-16 Combat Pilot. Make sure to load this new configuration file before continuing and give it a suitable description.

CPU and FPU

The 'CPU Emulation Speed' section should be set to 'Approximate A500/A1200 or cycle exact'.
In the 'Cycle-exact CPU Emulation Speed' section, the 'CPU Frequency' should be set to '4x (A1200)'. You may wish to set this to A500 speeds if you think it's too fast.

Chipset

In the 'Chipset' section make sure 'Cycle-exact (Full)' and 'Cycle-exact (DMA/Memory access)' are both checked.

Display

As F-16 Combat Pilot was developed by Digital Integration (DI), a UK game developer, it was probably written for a PAL based Amiga. In the 'Settings' section the 'Refresh' drop down menu should be set to 'PAL'.

Sound

I've encountered sound crackle in F-16 Combat Pilot and other games and I believe these settings reduce/eliminate it. However you should feel free to experiment with sound drivers if you continue to experience crackle.

The top drop down menu was set to 'DSOUND: Primary Sound Driver'.
In the 'Settings' section, 'Frequency' was set to '44100' and 'Audio filter' was set to 'Always on (A1200)'.
In the 'Drivers' section, only 'DirectSound' was checked.

Filter

The filter settings selected should be compatible with the refresh setting selected on the 'Display' page. As PAL was selected, the filter settings should be compatible with emulating a PAL display.

For a discussion of filters and slider settings, John Novak's article, Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators — Part 1: The Amiga should be consulted.

The 4.0x PAL filter was chosen, 'D3D: CRT-A2080-PAL-4.0x'. Depending on your display or personal preference, you may wish to choose a smaller 3.0x or 3.5x multiplier.
The 'Horiz. size' and 'Vert. size' sliders were both set to '2000' as required by the PAL 4.0x filter.

Finishing up

Don't forget to save your new F-16 Combat PIlot WinUAE configuration with these revised settings.

Installing

Firstly you should create a new folder (or drawer in Amiga terms) on the System disk to store any games. The next steps are:

Open WinUAE or the configuration utility (if WinUAE is started) and go to the 'CD & Hard drives' page.
Click on the 'Add Directory or Archive...' button.
Add the archive file as shown in the screenshot. The 'Device name' will be DHx where x is the next device no. (so DH2 in this case). Make sure the 'Read/write' and 'Bootable' options are unchecked. The 'Select Archive or Plain File' button is used to select the F-16 Combat Pilot archive file.
Once selected, start the emulated machine, or if it is already started use 'Reset' to reset the machine.
The archive should appear on the Workbench desktop as a new disk. Open it and copy the F-16 Combat Pilot folder/drawer into the Games folder/drawer.

That's it the game is now installed! You don't need to save this configuration, once the folder is copied onto the Amiga hard disk.

HOTAS setup

This next section is more advice than hard facts as I believe the exact settings you'll need will depend on your particular HOTAS setup. This will describe how I set up my Warthog HOTAS and things to consider when setting up your own.

F-16 Combat Pilot was I believe written for Amiga digital joysticks, not analogue joysticks like your HOTAS joystick. WinUAE has two joysticks types, joystick and analogue joystick. F-16 works with a joystick type but not an analogue joystick type, however WinUAE seems to do an excellent job of converting inputs

WinUAE also has native controller support, with the HOTAS devices seen by Windows also being available to WinUAE. However using the native controller in WinUAE had a 'sluggish' response. If I used the TARGET profiling software to create a virtual controller, it had a far more sensitive response.

This suggests the virtual controller uses a larger scale across axes than the default one provided by Windows. For this reason I opted to use a virtual controller.

There are also two control schemes supported by F-16, a single joystick and dual joystick schemes. When set to dual joysticks, the second joystick acts as throttle and rudder. However this control scheme did not map well to physical or virtual devices, so I opted for the single joystick control scheme.

HOTAS axes

The HOTAS axes were set as follows:

Physical axis	Windows axis
Joystick x-axis	DX_X_AXIS
Joystick y-axis	DX_Y_AXIS

The throttle and rudder pedals were added to the TARGET profile but all of their axes were disabled.

Throttle

Throttle buttons were mapped to the throttle up/down keys within F-16, with a toggle mapping the same buttons to throttle full/afterburner and idle. The throttle up/down keys were sent to a hold type keypress as game polling tended to miss inputs when key-presses were sent as a pulse.

Rudder pedals

The rudder axis was split into 3 sections, and configured as follows:

Axis percentage	Action/Keypress
0-40	Yaw left
41-59	Deadzone
60-100	Yaw right

The rudder key-presses are active as long as held, so map well to this rudder control scheme.

WinUAE configuration

On the 'Game ports' page the Joystick should be set in Port 2 as your virtual controller. The type should be set as 'Joystick'.

Manual configuration

Not all configurable options are available from the config utility. The configuration file (.uae) can be edited from a text editor. The following settings:

input.joystick_deadzone=33
input.analog_joystick_multiplier=18

were changed from their defaults to:

input.joystick_deadzone=5
input.analog_joystick_multiplier=5

The dead-zone was reduced to improve responsiveness from the severe 33%. The multiplier seems to reduce analogue inputs by this multiplier when converting to digital inputs. Smaller multipliers increase sensitivity while larger multipliers reduce sensitivity. The following setting:

input.analog_joystick_offset=-5

seems to be required as an offset between analogue joystick input to digital joystick input, required in-game, and should be left unchanged.

Custom configurations

An alternative is to create a custom configuration. This allows you to map multiple physical axes and buttons from native controllers to virtual Amiga joysticks in ports 1 and 2.

The Game port section should be left unchanged and a new custom configuration created on the 'Input' page.

Running

To run the game, open the System disk and your games folder/drawer. Within the games folder/drawer there should be an F16CombatPilot folder/drawer. Within this folder there will be a game icon which looks like the title screen (this is a facility provided by NewIcons).

Simply double click to start the WHDLoad config for the game. A WHDLoad dialog box should appear with a Buttonwait option, this can be checked or left unchecked and the game will start shortly.

Buttonwait

Buttonwait is a WHDLoad option. Due to the speed increases possible with emulation, title and credit screens, that may have appeared on screen for short amounts of time with a physical Amiga, can appear and disappear in an instant.

If buttonwait is checked, these title/credit screens will remain on screen until a button press or mouse click is detected.

Documents

It's recommended to try and obtain the following documents:

Amiga manual or Amiga key reference. To have a list of Amiga key commands. Some Amiga manuals may be budget versions or extremely limited in content, however the important part is the key commands.

DOS manual. To have a long form version of the manual with complete content, to learn how to play the sim and fly the aircraft!

Good Hunting!