User manual

F4-BMS 2.0 Technical Manual

FEATURE OVERVIEW

1.1 GRAPHICS ENGINE

New features include: D3D-compliant hardware and software TNL (transform and lighting), Z-

Buffering, DXTn compressed texture support, light scattering, terrain vertex lighting, volumetric

vertex fog, highly detailed 3D cumulus, cirrus, stratus, and overcast clouds, cloud shadows,

heavy cloud transitions, lightning, rain, and an all-new particle system for high quality FX.

NOTE:

Due to fundamental changes in the weather engine, bad weather is undergoing a complete

rewrite and is not yet fully implemented, and has therefore been disabled from the UI.

1.2

PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS

Optimized graphics and sim performance is one of the highlights of F4-BMS 2.0. The infamous

“Falcon stutters“, especially in feature-rich areas, and over the FLOT, are a thing of the past.

Coupled with the offloading of graphical chores from the CPU to the GPU (video card), and SSE

optimizations throughout the executable, Falcon 4 is no longer the performance dog it once was.

NOTE:

One remaining campaign pause (rare 1-2 second stutter) has eluded us so far and is currently

under investigation.

1.3

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Various additions and bug fixes have been introduced, such as more realistic helicopter

operations, improved BVR logic, individual aircraft attack speeds, and the ability to customize Air-

To-Ground attack altitudes.

1.4

AVIONICS

Avionics upgrades and bug fixes constitute a significant portion of this update. Much time and

effort has gone into refining many areas in the avionics department. This includes a massive

Auto-Pilot overhaul, HUD enhancements and weapons employment.