Microsoft(r) Patch Set 1 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 98(tm) ReadMe November 1997 (c) Copyright 1997 Microsoft Corporation. This document contains important information about the patches provided in this patch set. Don't forget to visit the Flight Simulator Web site for the latest information about Microsoft Flight Simulator. The Web site includes a product support page with up-to-date tips, answers to frequently asked questions, and articles. Click Flight Simulator Web Site on the Help/Microsoft On the Web menu, or use the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/games/fsim CONTENTS INSTALLING PATCH SET 1 FOR MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 98 PATCHES APPLIED BY THE PATCH SET 1 INSTALLATION PATCHES THAT WERE ALSO SHIPPED AS PART OF THE FLIGHT SHOP CONVERTER PATCHES THAT ARE NEW TO THIS PATCH SET SPECIAL NOTE FOR USERS OF THE JAPANESE VERSION OF FS98 =========================================================== INSTALLING PATCH SET 1 FOR MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 98 After you download the patch set, double-click the file FS98PAT1.EXE, a self-extracting compressed file. Double-clicking the file extracts the components and runs the installation utility. The location of the installed files is determined by the location in which you originally installed Flight Simulator 98. If you have renamed, moved, or otherwise relocated your Flight Simulator 98 directory since it was first installed without uninstalling it first, the patch files will not be installed to the correct location. =========================================================== PATCHES APPLIED BY THE PATCH SET 1 INSTALLATION Patched files installed by this patch set can be identified by their Version number, as viewed by right-clicking on the file, choosing the Version tab, and reading the version number. Files modified by this patch set will contain a version number of 6.10.443. This patch set includes all non-converter related patches that were shipped with the flight shop converter as well as a few new patches that were made since the converter was released. Any future patch sets will only contain patches that were made since the previous patch set release (i.e. the patch sets will not be cumulative). The converter patches are included in this first release for those who don't plan to use any add-on aircraft or adventures but want the patches that were included in that release. Descriptions of the patches applied by this patch set are described in the next 2 sections. The first section describes the patches that were included in the converter install. The second section describes the patches that are new to this release. Files containing patches: [In root folder] FLTSIM98.EXE [In modules folder] ADVDRV.DLL CONTROLS.DLL FE.DLL G3D.DLL HG2D.DLL MAIN.DLL MULTIPLAYER.DLL PANELS.DLL SOUND.DLL WINMSG.DLL [In gauges folder] Bendix_King_Radio.AP.gau Bendix_King.ADF.Slaved.gau Cessna_182_RG.Controls.gau [In adv folder] B3EXECC.ADV B3HKGIGS.ADV B3RED_I .ADV B3TYOFRY.ADV CFBFICLM.ADV CRMVIN.ADV LJCPERKS.ADV LJEXECC.ADV LJMEDEM.ADV LJSLOTS.ADV [In lessons folder] b3dintro.LES LJDintro.LES =========================================================== PATCHES THAT WERE ALSO SHIPPED AS PART OF THE FLIGHT SHOP CONVERTER Patches Applied: * Multiplayer system allows host to remove other players from a session. * Multiplayer system properly displays user names containing extended characters. * Multiplayer system can transmit and receive visual data from converted Flight Shop aircraft. * The slaved ADF gauge in the Bell 206 JetRanger III helicopter now works correctly. * The control position indicator in the Cessna 182RG now moves in a fashion consistent with the other aircraft in the product. * The ILS system reception volume has been adjusted to allow the user to intercept the glideslope from farther below without losing the signal. * The VOR reception volumes have been adjusted for more realistic tail-off curves. This change should alleviate problems receiving Low or Terminal class VORs at high altitudes. * The Cessna 182S autopilot no longer automatically engages the wing leveler when activated from the panel's radio stack. * A potential GPF when shutting down Flight Simulator while an Adventure or Lesson was running has been alleviated. * Fix to FLTSIM98.CFG file creation and parsing. This fixes the support for the NT361 control module from NT Systems, Inc. * The visual system now properly avoids texturing scenery of the Rolling Hills seed type. * The instrument panel system now properly colors the panel when the panel starts in night mode. * Fixed an adventure system bug related to the order of commands in the the adventure source code. This problem occurred when adjusting the autopilot parameters to be for consistency with prior versions. * Fixed adventure system bugs related to the following APLC functions: SET_POSITION - was ignoring the 3rd parameter (Altitude) WEATHER_CHAR - was ignoring the 4th parameter (Speed) VISIBILITY - wasn't handling values between 0 and 1 correctly * Fixed a bug in the ATIS window when the system is using large fonts. * Fixed a bug in the sound system related to playing crash sounds. * Fixed bug with mouse cursor not disappearing on 3DFX based boards when using Mouse As Yoke Mode. * Increased internal scenery buffer from 256K to 512K to fix problems with London scenery (and some 3rd party scenery as well). =========================================================== PATCHES THAT ARE NEW TO THIS PATCH SET Files containing patches: [In modules folder] FE.DLL G3D.DLL MAIN.DLL MULTIPLAYER.DLL [In gauges folder] Bendix_King_Radio.DME.gau Patches Applied: * Fixed bug in the Scenery Library Dialog where the dialog wouldn't recognize that a new .VIS file had been selected unless you went into the Files dialog first. Added saving of the currently selected .VIS file to theFLTSIM98.CFG file so it will always start with the previously used .VIS file. Also added /VIS:file.vis command line switch to override whatever the current default .VIS file is. * Fixed GPF fault that would sometimes occur in the MULTIPLAYER module. * Fixed GPF fault that would sometimes occur in the G3D module. * Fixed incorrect season selection in southern hemisphere. * Fixed bug in Aircraft Settings dialog that would affect fixed or variable prop setting. * Fixed problem with gouraud shaded textured polygons when the texture wasn't available. * Fixed bug in the Bendix King DME display. * Some users have reported problems in getting their joystick to work with FS98. The problem was tracked down to a hardware interaction between their sound card and the joystick. FS98 by default plays stereo, 22KHz sound. The places a high load on the DMA channel. Some sound cards, when run in this mode, cause the joystick to stop functioning. The default sound has been changed to be monaural, 11KHz sound, which reduces the joystick problem. If you want to try stereo sound, edit the FLTSIM98.CFG text file and add the following three lines at the beginning: [SOUND] Channels=2 SamplesPerSec=22050 If your joystick has problems working after this change, you should remove these lines from the FLTSIM98.CFG file. * Fixed exception 10h faults (FPU exceptions) that were occuring on some systems. * 5-10% speedup in software renderer when Image Smoothing is on and/or Image Quality is set to High. * Fix for cloud texture turning black on PowerVR based boards. * Changes to decrease PCI bus bandwith tie-ups when using 3D hardware accelerators (to fix garbled sound problem on most/all systems). * Fixed garbled sounds when frame rate is above 30ish * Fixed volume problems with flaps and gear sounds * Fixed problem with display of numeric variables from FSFS adventures. * Improved performance in Elevation Mesh sceneries (Vegas, Chelan, etc) when using 3D hardware accelerators. * Fix to allow Windows 98 or NT 5 to see secondary DirectX devices (not relevant to Windows 95 or NT 4 users). =========================================================== SPECIAL NOTE FOR USERS OF THE JAPANESE VERSION OF FS98 If you are using the Japanese version of Flight Simulator 98, you may experience some problems after installing this patch set. The problem will occur whenever the program has to rebuild the FLTSIM98.CFG file from scratch (i.e. because it was deleted or renamed). There is a simple modification you can make to your installation to keep from running into this problem. Copy the file JAPANESE.FLL to ENGLISH.FLL. This file is located in the root directory of where you installed Flight Simulator 89 (you can use Start | Find | Files or Folders and search for JAPANESE.FLL).