A guide to running the NovaLogic sim, F-22 Raptor in the PC emulator PCem. This guide explains why PCem is the preferred emulator, PCem changes required by the game, installation, patching and finally HOTAS setup are covered.
As usual I recommend working from cd images rather than the physical cd to save wear and tear on the cd and drive. The cd can be ripped as a data only iso cd image as there is no cd audio on the Raptor disc.
Background
F-22 Raptor the second game in the F-22 flight sim series by NovaLogic. It is a reworking of the original F-22 Lightning II DOS sim into a Windows 95 application. At the time there was some criticism, whether this development justified a release as a separate game.
The preferred method of running is with the PCem emulator. This is because the sim only supports legacy gameport joysticks. PCem allows the emulation of modern HOTAS controllers as legacy gameport devices, making it an ideal solution for running this game.
The sim does not have 3dfx/Glide support, relying of the MMX facilities provided by Pentium MMX processors and above, so the Glide capabilities of PCem will not be used.
PCem setup
If you're completely new to setting up PCem or need a refresher, I highly recommend the excellent YouTube tutorial video by PhilsComputerLab, PCem Windows 98 Setup.
Once you have a basic, clean Windows 98 virtual machine and hard disk image, I recommend:
Taking a copy of the basic virtual machine to create a game specific virtual machine.
Taking a copy of the basic hard disk image to create a game specific image.
Use PCem and reconfigure the game specific virtual machine to use the game specific hard disk image.
If things go badly wrong, you'll always have the basic image to try again with and it'll save a lot of time and effort if you ever want to try a different game with PCem.
Sound card
If you have followed the PCem tutorial video, there should be a new clean Windows 98 virtual machine, ready for this specific game. However the sim seems to experience frequent crashes to desktop with the Soundblaster PCI 128 sound card which has been configured in the virtual machine.
The sim is far more stable using a Creative AWE 32 sound card. Windows 98 drivers for the AWE 32 can be found at the VOGONS Vintage Driver Library. To install:
Start the virtual machine and remove the Soundblaster PCI 128 software..
Stop the machine and change the sound card to an AWE 32.
Mount the virtual hard disk in Windows 10 and copy the AWE 32 drivers onto it.
Unmount the virtual hard disk and restart the virtual machine.
Run the AWE 32 driver installer app.
You may have to reboot the virtual machine a couple of times during the installation process. Once complete you may wish to take a copy of this clean Windows 98 AWE 32 machine and hard disk, for future games that struggle with the Soundblaster PCI 128.
Installation
There seem to be two versions available on cd, the original retail release seems to be v1.00.05.00r. Later releases/compilation releases use a later v1.00.21.00r. In this guide, a v1.00.21.00r release is used.
Once PCem is correctly configured, mount the F-22 Raptor cd image and install as normal. Installation should be straight-forward and complete without issue.
Patching
The is a single patch to update the NovaLogic Integrated Battle Space (IBS) standalone multiplayer app. This allows F-22 players to fly and fight alongside F-16 Multirole Fighter and Mig-29 Fulcrum players.
I'm not certain if this changes the single player game but I recommending installing it anyway. The patch is available from The Patches Scrolls. The patch should install without issue under PCem.
Setup options
To prevent/reduce crashes to desktop you may find it is more stable, when DirectSound is turned off. From the F-22 Raptor readme file:
To change the game to not use DirectSound, exit the Raptor game and use any text editor to edit the file "RAPTOR.CFG" which is in the installed game directory on your hard drive. Find the line in this text file which reads: DIRECTSOUND = 1
Change the number 1 on this line to a 0 (zero) and resave the file. Now when you start Raptor, all music will be played through Windows default drivers.
All other options are set in-game.
HOTAS setup
Take a look at my Controllers and retro sims part 5: PCem guide for installing HOTAS controllers in PCem. Once you have a custom calibrated Windows 98 controller the hard work is done.
As long as the 3rd axis is the throttle and the 4th axis is the rudder, which can be checked in the Windows 98 control panel in the Game controllers section, then the game will correctly assign the axes.
Just remember to calibrate the custom controller in Windows 98 first and then select Joystick, throttle and rudder pedals enabled, within the in-game options.
Virtual controller
For those with HOTAS controllers with more than 4 axes, you'll need to use your profile software to limit the total number of axes to four. The below example is how my Warthog joystick, throttle and rudder pedals were configured as a virtual controller:
DX_X_AXIS (Joystick x-axis)
DX_Y_AXIS (Joystick y-axis)
DX_Z_AXIS (Throttle)
DX_XROT_AXIS (Rudder pedals)
This virtual controller was used to set up the twin joysticks in PCem.
Documentation
The later retail releases supplied all documentation as pdf files, these included:
The manual.
The reference card.
A single page release addendum.
A keyboard overlay.
Good Hunting!
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