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You don't understand flightsimmers: we need realism.
By what you describe Flightgear is too realistic for you. You are looking for something like this:
http://phoenixosfs.org/
http://targetware.net/
Also, I have a large console (yoke, switching, throttle, prop control, mixture) that only works with MS FS2004.
Oh, Im impressed. How do you think does that compare to this:
http://www.flightgear.org/Projects/Genesis3000/Gen esis_3000_Overview.html

It is possible to control an aircraft in FlightGear using a mouse. So, as long as your headmouse looks like a two- or three-button mouse to Linux (and you have some way to activate buttons), you should be good to fly.

I would expect it too. Most FlightGear Windows users get framerates comparable to what the Linux users get; and your framerates are well below what they should be. I have a comparable or slightly less powerful machine than yours (XP2000+, GF4 Ti4600) and typically get framerates that are an order of magnitude higher than what you're getting (it depends, of course, on the plane, the area, etc.). So something's wrong on your end. Apart from all the usual "check your driver" crap -- I don't think that's it, you've said FS2004 runs well, but it doesn't hurt to make sure -- I'd check the default configuration for FG. People who have complained of absurdly low FlightGear framerates in Windows in the past have often turned out to have FG configuration issues like their visibility turned up to an absurdly high range (e.g. 200km, causing FG to have to worry about all ground structures within 200km, which takes a lot of memory, which causes thrashing, which slows down the machine). I'd also check your version; old versions of FG and the libraries on which it's based (especially plib) were much less powerful than the current. If you still can't solve the problem, and you're feeling helpful, please do subscribe to the flightgear-users or flightgear-devel mailing list and post your problem. Your framerates are abnormally low, and if the problem really is with FlightGear rather than with your setup, then the FlightGear developers would certainly like to get it fixed.

By comparison MS Flight Sim 2004 runs smoothly and looks great

No argument. FS2004 is a great piece of work. I have some knocks on it, but they're mostly because it's not fundamentally the software I'd want it to be, rather than what it is (see below). Compared to its goals, it's fabulous.

- as well as having well regarded flight dynamics,

This is one thing I'd take a bit of exception to. Among real-world pilots who have moved to FG from MSFS, including FS2004, the most common complaint about MSFS has been the realism of the flight dynamics modelling. Among non-pilots who try FG after MSFS, the most common "complaint" by a wide margin has been "the Cessna keeps pulling to the left as I go down the runway and try to take off! FlightGear has a bug!" -- which is, in fact, not a bug.

That's not to say that the modelling of flight dynamics in FlightGear has no problems -- it does. But on the whole, I'd pick it over MSFS. A large fraction of the core FlightGear developers are aero engineering types (some with Boeing and NASA), so it's no surprise that this is where it'd do best. On the other hand . . .

a excellent weather modelling

Yes, here's an area that FG really lacks. It draws clouds well as scenery; but flying through/among the clouds isn't done well. And all the rest of weather -- rain, snow, icing, etc. -- is really nonexistent, and these are important things, especially for pilots. It's not like the FG developers aren't aware of this, and this is an area where slow, halting steps are finally being taken.

and a pretty comprehensive ATC system.

This, too, is an area where FG lacks; but it's an area of current development, even more than the weather issues, if I'm following people's conversations correctly.

The problem is that producing a game requires much more focus and many more resources than 99.9% of OS projects have access to. What's really needed is a high quality, high level OS game engine. Something that hides all the OpenGL/SDL details, that's easy for programmers to pick and use, that's easy extensible, that's cross platform, that builds with multiple compilers and that doesn't require hundreds of lines of code just to initalise.

I'm sure you know this, but what's needed from a g

Cedega is a non-free version of wine with directx capabilities. You can browse their supported games here.

Of course not all games now-a-days require wine or cedega in order to run on linux. Games like unreal tournament and doom III include fully functional linux versions.

There are several open source games developed for but not limited to linux. torcs, flightgear, tuxracer are some examples.

Projects like libsdl are making cross-platform game development easier.

Probably the biggest problem you'll encounter is building drivers for your video card. I've heard it argued both ways but as I understand it, both nvidia and ati drivers are ass-pains in linux. Nvidia's drivers are free as in beer, not speech. If you don't really care about free-software principles and philosophy then this is not a problem for you. ATI's drivers I understand to perform less than ideally. If you haven't already purchased your video card, I would encourage you to do extensive research beforehand.

In reality, linux distributions have few differences. Any recent, major distribution should be able to accomodate gameplay. I myself use debian unstable for amd64.

As far as performance, it really boils down to hardware. My advice is to install the linux distribution of your choice. Once you get glxgears to run, give ut2004demo a try, and if you like the way it works, then stick with linux.

In case you haven't seen the flightgear flight simulator project, now's the time. In addition to being more accurate in a lot of aspects than any other PC-based flight simulation programs available to the general public, as well as being a popular research platform for aviation-related folks, it features a lot of exotic aircraft, including the model of the ornithopter. The ornithopter team folks, featured in TFA, collaborate with the flightgear project, and AFAIU the computer simulations mentioned in the TFA were in fact partly done with the help of the flighgear.

The FlightGear flight simulator (GPL) has an ornithopter modeled. It uses wind tunnel data and should be quite accurate. Here's a screenshot (38 kB). Start it like so: $ fgfs --aircraft=ornithopter

I don't think so. No real commercial flightschool training 747 pilots would use flightgear or something like that. They use real flight simulators, not something aimed at the consumer market. On the other hand, if you learned flying with flightgear, and then get into a Cessna, you will get what you deserve....

I don't think so. No real commercial flightschool training 747 pilots would use flightgear or something like that. They use real flight simulators, not something aimed at the consumer market. On the other hand, if you learned flying with flightgear, and then get into a Cessna, you will get what you deserve....

I don't think so. No real commercial flightschool training 747 pilots would use flightgear or something like that. They use real flight simulators, not something aimed at the consumer market. On the other hand, if you learned flying with flightgear, and then get into a Cessna, you will get what you deserve....

Imagine thousands of Flightgear fans all taking pictures from hilltops and airplanes and submitting them to a server that performs geometric transformations on the images, per the location data, and adds to a downloadable database of free scenery.

Imagine thousands of Flightgear fans all taking pictures from hilltops and airplanes and submitting them to a server that performs geometric transformations on the images, per the location data, and adds to a downloadable database of free scenery.

...with the exception of the "write the serial modem code" argument, which would be reasonable if the code hadn't already been written for Linux (including emulators), none of your arguments hold water.

You can write and run your software on an ordinary Linux desktop, without even the need for a simulator module for the most part. The same Linux which runs your desktop can also run your 'plane, and for a considerably smaller performance and resource hit than XP (although in real life you'd go to the trouble of having a highly modular kernel and not load very much for the instance on the 'plane).

I have no idea why you'd bother with Atmel chips.

Linux runs natively on the Crusoe, another performance gain.

So you used MS-FS for testing algorithms? Then FlightGear would have given you even more control and oversight over what you were testing.

Reading between the lines, you didn't even look.

...i nearly always install on new systems:
CoreWar: simulation game where a number of warriors try to crash each other while they are running in a virtual computer.
Battle for Wesnoth: fantasy turn-based strategy game.
BZFlag: multiplayer 3D tank battle game.
Crimson Fields: tactical war game in the tradition of Battle Isle.
Crossfire: cooperative multiplayer graphical RPG and adventure game.
Enigma: inspired by Oxyd on the Atari ST and Rock'n'Roll on the Amiga.
FlightGear: Flight simulator.
FreeDroid: clone of the classic game "Paradroid" on Commodore 64.
Frozen Bubble: puzzle-bobble clone.
Globulation 2: Real-Time Strategy.
LinCity: city/country simulation game.
LBreakout 2: breakout-style arcade game in the manner of Arkanoid.
NetHack - Falcon's Eye: mouse-driven interface for NetHack that enhances the visuals, audio and accessibility of the game, yet retains all the original gameplay and game features.
netPanzer: online multiplayer tactical warfare game designed for FAST ACTION combat.
Pathological: enriched clone of the game "Logical" by Rainbow Arts.
Project StarFighter: xy-axis star fighting game.
SuperTux: classic 2D jump'n run sidescroller game.
XKobo: astpaced multiway scrolling shoot-em-up.
XRick: clone of Rick Dangerous.
XScorch: Scorched Earth clone.

Have fun!

Flightgear is fun.

Yes, the lack of free geodata outside of the U.S. is a major problem for us at the FlightGear project. This is one area where the rest of the world (I'm Canadian) needs to emulate the U.S. rather than making fun of it.

In fact, not only does the U.S. make its own geodata available for free, but it provides nearly all of the available free geodata for the rest of the world as well, though at a lower resolution. We use the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 3 arcsecond for worldwide elevations, the 1:1,000,000 vmap0 data for landcover, roads, railroads, lakes, etc., the GSHHS for coastline data, and the DAFIF for airport and navigation data, all courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers.

DAFIF data contains all sorts of aviation related airspace and airport information. Here's a link:

https://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/index.cf m

Make some neat tools for that and a zillion simmers (and lots of poor pilots like me) will love you forever. Check out X-Plane while you're at it. Or even better, the open-source Flight Gear could probably use your help!

An irregular grid can often represent the same level detail as a regular grid with 4-6x fewer polygons. This is very desirable in a flight sim where both detail and rendering speed is very important.

An irregular grid can often represent the same level detail as a regular grid with 4-6x fewer polygons. This is very desirable in a flight sim where both detail and rendering speed is very important.

May not be exactly the same, but FlightGear has a pretty good database of global 3D geography. AFAIK it's all Free.

I'd *love* to make an easy to use way to create scenic flythrus based on FG's graphics engine. The work is pretty much done, it's just that their program integrates it with a flight simulator.

One of those universe/solar system simulations - I forget the name.
Possibly because there's more than one name to forget... (=

Let's see, for general touring around the Solar system and neighborhood, there's nothing quite like Celestia. Hours of fun, and very pretty to look at.
Noctis is also similar, but set in a fictional universe.
For more pretty pictures, but less interactivity, see The Solar Journey homepage or the Solar System Simulator. Also The Nine Planets for Kids.
Naturally, kids aren't that interested in just flying around. Well, Orbit lets them blow each other up in space, but with realistic physics and visuals. Once that gets boring, you can let them fly a space shuttle to the ISS with Orbiter. Beware, though. Orbiter is no simple game - you actually need to know how space flight works. There's also the Microsoft Space Simulator, which Orbiter has more or less superseded.

If you're not looking to get that far off the ground, FlightGear's an excellent flight simulator in which you can fly everything from the original Wright Brothers' craft right up to concept superplanes.

More links, mainly astronomy related, here, here, here, here, and here.

Finally, you might wish to try browsing the Tucows Games site and Freshmeat's game section (you'll need to login to make full use of Freshmeat).

Good luck, have fun searching.

Because The Sims isn't so much a simulation as it is a charictiture of it's environment. When I think of a simulator I think of a flight simulator such as Flightgear. I'm not sure flightgear would keep young ones entertained for very long. But if by simulation you mean something like The Sims, then just about any other Sim-related title should suit you. There's SimCity, SimAnt, SimEarth (might be a problem if you're in a state that forbids the teaching of evolution). Some open source alternatives would be: LinCity or Freeciv.

The Soft Walls FAQ (PDF) says:

6. How does Soft Walls relate to flight envelope protection?

As explained above, fly-by-wire aircraft have efficiency advantages over more conventional mechanical and hydraulic control systems. But because control is mediated by computer, such systems can also be made more intelligent. Airbus systems impose flight envelope protection schemes, where the computers ensure that the pilot does not force the aircraft beyond its safe performance parameters. For example, the computers can prevent the pilot from stalling the aircraft.

Flight envelope protection works very synergistically with Soft Walls. In particular, Soft Walls works by introducing a bias into the commands issued by the pilot when the aircraft approaches too close to a no-fly zone. To ensure that the aircraft does not enter the no-fly zone, the bias needs to increase as the craft gets closer until the bias overwhelms the commands that the pilot can issue. For instance, when the aircraft has penetrated the boundary sufficiently to be very close to the no-fly zone, the pilot may be commanding a hard turn to the right, but the bias will nonetheless force the aircraft to turn to the left, away from the nofly zone.

In aircraft with flight envelope protection, as for example most Airbus planes, the limits on pilot induced maneuvers are known (because they are imposed by the on-board computers).

Thus, the extent of the bias that must be applied is known.

Not all fly-by-wire aircraft have flight envelope protection. The Boeing 777, in particular, does not. The computers will permit the pilot to make maneuvers that exceed the safety specifications of the aircraft. Boeing argues that this is safer than flight envelope protection because these safety specifications conservative anyway, so allowing the pilot to exceed them gives the pilot the authority to consider and compare the risks in responding to an emergency.

Both approaches have their merits, but Boeing's approach requires that a Soft Walls system be more aggressive. In particular, for example, since there is no fixed limit on bank angle, there is no single amount of bias on bank angle that is guaranteed to exceed the pilot command. This complicates the design of the Soft Walls system, which must ensure that the bias it introduces does not take the aircraft outside the safety specifications.

To some degree, a Soft Walls system must realize some flight envelope protection. For example, if an aircraft is flying above a no-fly zone, then the Soft Walls system must prevent the pilot from stalling the aircraft. If it does not, then it cannot ensure that the aircraft will not enter the no-fly zone (because the stall could lead to loss of control).

Yep, some of the researchers are in the Airbus camp, where the software limits pilot maneuvers.

A case can be made that the pilot could save the plan by executing a loop or roll that was outside the specs of the plane that would be prohibited by the software.

Is Is it possible to loop or roll a 747 jet?

22Mb MPEG of a 707 barrel roll - seems to be corrupt?

However, the point of Soft Walls is to prevent disasters that harm more than a plane load of people (large plane crashes in to nuclear powerplant etc.)

I looked a little in to some of the Airbus fly by wire crashes and if I remember correctly, it seemed like some of the errors were UI problems, especially when a display or control had multiple purposes (modes). I'm not sure if I remember the above correctly, b

I hate you for making me say this:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight
(Gimme my Amazon 50 cents!)

Although, in pennance, I'd like to reccomend Flight Gear (and it's free!); also, Leo's Flight Sim works on the Pocket PC, and is also free.

The aircraft configuration file is in XML format (more or less), and contains information about mass properties, landing gear positioning, propulsion, etc. Of course, the aircraft aerodynamic characteristics must also be described. This is done by entering the stability derivative information on one of three ways:

A static value A one-dimensional table (i.e. CDalpha as a function of mach) A two dimensional table (i.e. Cnbeta as a function of mach and altitude

We are also looking at being able to specify stability derivatives given aircraft geometry, using standard equations you might find in a textbook, as well as being able to specify them as polynomial functions.

flightgear runs under linux.

Flightgear runs under Linux, Windows, OS X, IRIX and Solaris. BTW, there is a binary of 0.92 for OS X - follow the link to the master location for OS X.

Why do that when there is a perfectly good open source flight simulator available in the guise of FlightGear?

If these people contributed that passionately to FlightGear then it would be awesome.

I am not familiar with X plane , but I wonder how it compares to the Flightgear project. One of the advantages of that project being open source was extensibilty. The project has all sorts of modding potential.

apt-get install flightgear for all you deb heads.
runs on win32 also

You mean Flightgear?

Let me be the first to say that's an amazing piece of work.

Of course, I wouldn't be, if he was running FlightGear on a beowulf cluster. People would be falling all over themselves to congratulate him then. But there you are.

This is just begging for a FlightGear hookup.

"Just for that, Microsoft is removing Munich from its next version of Flight Simulator."

Replacement

Scenery

"Just for that, Microsoft is removing Munich from its next version of Flight Simulator."

Replacement

Scenery

Linux has a very good flight sim

I have yet to see an opensource program that was anywhere as cool as Flight Sim. :)

Don't know whether you will like it as well as MS Flight Sim, but you should check out Flight Gear.

http://www.flightgear.org/

steveha

I haven't personally used it, but FlightGear uses PUI. It looks slick, and FG is probably one of the most advanced Open Source projects ever.

It seems like a great flight sim, but you apparently need a pretty fast computer (either that or I don't have opengl set up where it can find it)

You'll notice that Flight Gear is giving it a good shot; but Flight Gear, being Free Software, sidesteps the cost issue by being volunteer work (and having some absolutely mind-boggling volunteers on the project). Plus, I doubt you'll ever see Flight Gear being viewed by anyone as a game.

Another interesting site rejected by /. is here which features cross-country robot racing.

All hail Dubya! Bringing the worst of cold-war era eastern-block governments to a city near you.

I don't know if we are talking about the same company, but Microsoft has produced many amazing games.

Flight Sim 98, 2000, 2002, Combat Flight Sim 1, Combat Flight Sim 2, Links, MechWarrior, MotoCross Madness... not to mention all there Xbox games that kick ass.

I'm sorry, but Windows 2000 runs just fine, Windows XP runs just fine, Office 2000 is a great suite, Microsoft Money is a life saver, and i can go on and on.

Flight Sim 2002 alone is worth every damn penny, and without microsoft a game that advanced wouldn't be available for the 39.00 you can purchase it at. Good simulation programs can run upwards of 200 bucks, and have alot less features!

Also see FlightGear for linux, SGI, Mac, and Windows.

"The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development and pursuit of other interesting flight simulation ideas, and as an end-user application. We are developing a sophisticated, open simulation framework that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing.

There are many exciting possibilties for an open, free flight sim. We hope that this project will be interesting and useful to many people in many areas."

Flightgear is an open-source flight sim that kicks ass. Check out some screen shots - especially this one or download it.

Flightgear is an open-source flight sim that kicks ass. Check out some screen shots - especially this one or download it.

Flightgear is an open-source flight sim that kicks ass. Check out some screen shots - especially this one or download it.

Flightgear is an open-source flight sim that kicks ass. Check out some screen shots - especially this one or download it.

One of the tools he's using is the FlightGear flight simulator.

Maori

IIRC, they also have a 'flying on Mars' flight model that was in development. Whether or not it was ever finished, you can find out by getting into the project.

Having full source to an OpenGL flight simulator is really nice. In the early days, I would modify the flight model to allow super-jet properties out of my little Navion (small propeller) plane. It was a bit unstable at 400 knots, but a lot of fun anyway.

In any case, you can hack a Mars flight model YOURSELF into this flight sim, and be happier for it.

Oh, and adding a environment like that on the Mars would take only a few lines. Generating the (accurate) Mars scenery is also trivial, but takes a bit longer untill all the data is passed through TerraGear...

CU,
Maori

This is one development which I think could be seriously interesting. We know Linux has been ported to the PS2, and we know that the Xbox uses a standard PIII and NVIDIA Gforce chipset. Given GL support and reasonable performance under both graphics chipsets imagine porting FlightGear to the PS2 (it's a given that it should work almost unchanged on the XBox) and providing ISO images for folks to download and burn. This would be a great way to get desirable free software out to the masses. It might even spark greater interest in Linux to boot!

FlightGear is an impressive flight simulator with a huge amount of scenery data taken from satellite images. Unlike Ace Combat 4, FlightGear actually flies like a real airplane. It's got some networking support and a userbase of real pilots working to make the simulator as real as possible. It's one of the only simulators out there which strives to make star field, moon, and sun locations as real as possible.

Of course there are other potential targets for GL games ported through Linux, and Linux would provide an ideal quick cross platform development platform for both systems. End users don't need to know that Linux happens to be driving the game (or program) underneath, and it would cost nothing to distribute. I love the idea that free software developers could distribute software for free to both PS2 and Xbox users -- something which I think would surprise quite a few console gamers. Heh. :)

Cheers,
--Maynard

This really doesn't matter, since most folk won't want to download any decent game (too large with all the multimedia resources). Therefore you can bundle the VM (JRE) with the game, of course checking to make sure its not already installed. This is actually good in the sense that you proliferate a modern VM to more computers. :-)

That being said, at Java One I saw a game written completely in Java. It was definitely an interesting concept and it seemed to run pretty smoothly (it was a FPS-type), but it was damn ugly. That may be just that they didn't have the artists necessary for the models, but it sure wasn't quake3. The technology is almost there, but other posters are right, Java isn't great at graphics. Almost, but not quite yet.

That was an art issue...you can do anything with gl4java you can do with OpenGL 1.2 (in other words Quake, or Doom 2).

Did you see the Grand Canyon Demo at JavaOne? Pretty impressive stuff, also using gl4java! I think an Open Source Java flight simulator using the FlightGear art and other data is fine idea in fact. Anyone interested?

299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!

I've always wondered where I am when flying over the US... never really thought about taking a laptop and GPS aboard to chart progress.

... you could even plug the data into Flight Gear in real time so you could look at your computer screen instead of looking out the window (of couse using the cool A href="satellite photo textures:)