This is a tech refresh article describing any changes since the original article 'A sting in the tail: F/A-18 Hornet 2.0' was published. Updated emulation will be examined along with any resulting changes. The optimised settings in the article 'F/A-Hornet 2.0: Optimum settings' remain valid.
Much of this article will be identical to the earlier F/A-18 Hornet tech refresh article.
Joystick setup
The original article suggested mapping the mouse x/y axes to the joystick x/y axes which although correct, lacked detail. The joystick axes to Windows axes mappings are shown below:
Physical axis | Windows axis |
Joystick x-axis | MOUSE_X_AXIS |
Joystick y-axis | MOUSE_Y_AXIS |
Only the joystick axes are supported. It is recommended to use throttle buttons to control the throttle power. This mapping should be placed in your HOTAS profile software or Joystick Gremlin.
SheepShaver
At time of writing the latest version of SheepShaver is SheepShaver-Windows-20-10-2024. This new version still fails to run the flight engine of F/A-18 Hornet 2.0, however the original article suggested using SheepShaver as a far easier way of transferring software onto a Qemu emulated hard disk. The upgrade info is included below so as to reduce the number of SheepShaver installations. When published the latest version was SheepShaver-Windows-27-08-2023-framebuffer.
To upgrade the settings shown in the SheepShaverGUI app should be copied from the older version to the newer version. This will allow the existing emulated Mac to be run.
If creating an emulated Mac or installing the game, the existing advice in the article 'A sting in the tail: F/A-18 Hornet 2.0' should continue to be followed.
Keycodes
The keycodes facility of SheepShaver has been improved to support both ANSI and ISO keyboards. Within the Keyboard/Mouse tab of the SheepShaverGUI app either the keycodes_ansi or keycodes_iso file should be chosen, depending on your keyboard.
You should also take the opportunity to check the keyboard layout with the Keycaps app within the emulated Mac.
Qemu m68k
The recommended version of Qemu for single or multi-monitor emulation remains Qemu-m68k-Win64-qfb-experimental-05-10-2022.
Later versions of Qemu, including later version of the experimental multi-monitor version all suffer from the same issue. Using SDL as the rendering engine, the Windows key is not handled properly as a modifier key and cannot be held down. This affects the sim as the Windows key is used as the Mac cmd key.
The issue is known to affect the following versions:
Qemu-system-m68k-Win64-06-10-2023
Qemu-system-m68k-8.2-Win64-20-12-2023
Qemu-m68k-Win64-qfb-experimental-26-12-2023
Qemu-system-m68k-9.0-Win64-24-04-2024
If creating an emulated Mac or installing the game, the existing advice in the article 'A sting in the tail: F/A-18 Hornet 2.0' should continue to be followed.
Old versions of the builds are not hosted at the Emaculation website, but I've been kindly allowed to host the old experimental build here, so a big thank you to Cat_7 and the people at Emaculation, (this version has been superseded, see the update below).
Update: A brand new version of the experimental multi-monitor build has been created by Cat_7. The latest version is qemu-system-m68k-9.2-Win64-qfb-experimental-28-12-2024 and can be found on the Emaculation forums. This version correctly handles the Windows key as a modifier.
MAME
The original article was published when the current version of MAME was v0.260. The current version of MAME is v0.272, available at the MAME download page. The download is a self extracting exe file, open the self extracting exe and choose a folder.
Once installed the following files/folders should be copied from your original MAME installation folder into your new MAME folder:
cfg folder
diff folder
nvram folder
roms folder
If you are using the MacFlight plugin, it should be copied from your original MAME plugins folder to your new MAME plugins folder.
Any batch (.bat) files created.
Any hard disk images in a .chd (compressed hunks of data) format.
The Mac Quadra 800 ini file (macqd800.ini).
Run the MAME executable once to recreate any other necessary .ini files. You should then be able to start the an emulated Mac using the new version of MAME with the batch files in the new MAME folder.
The advice to create a new virtual Mac with MAME and installing F/A-18 Hornet 2.0 remains unchanged.
The ScrLk key will continue to enable/disable the MAME UI and the Tab key will open/close the MAME config menu.
Using the MacFlight plugin
The MacFlight plugin continues to work with MAME v0.272. The advice in the article 'MacFlight: A MAME plugin for retro Mac flight sims' should continue to be followed.
The MacFlight plugin will attempt to identify any connected joysticks, so the above joystick mapping is not required if using the plugin, however you may still create a virtual controller for button mappings if required. The plugin should find your virtual device.
It's worth noting that the role of MacFlight plugin was to convert joystick input into an appropriate mouse input for Mac flight sims. It does not control any button mappings, only the joystick x and y axes. Rather than duplicate functionality, the comprehensive facilities provided by your HOTAS profile software, Joystick Gremlin or the MAME control settings should be used to map HOTAS buttons.
Good hunting!
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