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Red Baron 3D: Full Canvas Jacket
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Graphics
(continued)
If I
had to compare the improvements graphically I would probably
say they are on par with the improvements made to European
Air War. In fact, the game has something of an updated EAW
feeling to it graphically. While EAW has never been the beauty
queen of flight simulations it always was serviceable and
the gameplay more than made up for it’s graphic shortcomings.
Likewise FCJ won’t take the graphic crown from LOMAC
but the improvements mean that now you won’t be negatively
distracted by the graphics.
What
appeals to me the most is how well the game looks with the
Glide wrapper. I have tried to use glide wrappers with RB3D
in the past with less than stellar success. RB3D in non-3D
mode looks, well dated. Very few people still have V2’s
or later V4s or 5s in their boxes so a good glide wrapper
is very important.
Glidos
works well but the game isn’t perfect with it. I did
notice some graphical errors with the game, especially if
the game ran for longer than 20 or 30 minutes. I found that
terrain tiles wouldn’t load properly and graphics for
aircraft would either come up wrong or simply would not be
present. This tended to be present more in campaign mode rather
than with single player missions. It didn’t happen every
time but when it did it was quite noticeable. On the other
hand it renders most things well enough, you get the ‘opaque
cockpit’ that wasn’t available in software mode,
it runs with FCJ well and you don’t get any real crashes
with the game. Not everyone is posting some of the graphics
boo boos that I have, they may be driver related but don’t
expect total perfection here.
If you
think that this is a reason to not buy the update, well, don’t.
If you own a Voodoo based video card these problems are probably
moot. Even those with newer cards in general report that the
game runs well and looks good. The biggest problem with glide
wrappers and video cards tend to be difficulties with game
slowdowns, especially for those with older machines. Unless
you have a higher end Pentium III with a 64 meg video card
you may see some serious slowdowns with the game. I had rock
solid gameplay with fps’s in the range of 70-110fps in
general but my machine is a relatively fast PIV 2.8GHz with
an 800MHz FSB and 1 Gig of RAM. I am willing to bet that many
RB3D players are working with Pentium III boxes still.
Probably
the biggest problem with the game these days is the relatively
short drawing distance of the horizon and some objects. Even
with all the graphic updates given by Kess the game still
has an ‘in the goldfish bowl’ feel that probably
can’t be corrected. Lets face it, the code for RB3D is
over seven years old now and there is only so much you can
do. Luckily, this is less of a problem for a WW1 flight sim
than a more modern jet or even WW2 sim. Aircraft in WWI were
lucky to hit 140 mph in level flight so the time it takes
to traverse terrain is much slower than it would be in a game
like EAW. You will notice the distance limitations in the
game, especially if you have played games like IL2 or CFS3
but unlike the distance limitation won’t create gameplay
problems.
Ok,
so overall the graphic impressions I got with the game is
mixed but generally I have a positive view of the graphics.
Compared to the original game the graphics are a massive improvement.
The game looks so much better than it did before. Immersion
has improved dramatically as a result. Still, it is not a
modern game graphically. If I had to place a year to which
the game was updated I might boost it to a game released in
late 99 or early 2000. Does that bring the game to ‘the
21st century’ graphically? Maybe, but barely. That’s
not a bad thing, especially when there is little else out
there. Plus, the real strength of FCJ is the base game it
works with, Red Baron 3D.
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