The BIGGEST problem with Linux Air Combat

[bbosen]

LAC is struggling. Our online community is too small! We get lots of downloads, but very few people are spending more than a few minutes in our online, multi-player missions.

I have been troubled by this for a long time as I have wondered why our online crowd loses about 99% of the people that download LAC. I am persuaded that the trouble is NOT caused by technical incompatibilities or by difficulties related to compiling from source code. As you can see from other areas of these forums, LAC is very very compatible, easy to install, and it is almost never necessary to compile it. LAC is compatible with more computing hardware than any other multi-player combat flight simulator.

I am also persuaded that the trouble is NOT caused by any lack of "features" or any failing in LAC's support for multi-player missions. Our feature set is the most robust of any native LINUX combat flight simulator. We aren't losing users because they have a better LINUX-based option. As "J-Bird" says in his review "LAC is unquestionably the best linux native air combat simulator out there."

After pondering this question for years, I think I just figured it out: The world-wide combat flight simulator community is really COMMITTED to Microsoft Windows. There are dozens of really fine combat flight simulators for Windows with better graphics than LAC, and several that are better overall than LAC. Although LAC is the best Linux-native combat flight simulator out there, it is NOT as good as the best Windows-based combat flight simulators, and it will never exceed them. The economics of LAC's free, open-source genetics just don't permit competition versus the corporate funding and for-profit marketing that has kept the flight simulator community wed to MIcro$oft Windows.

Every week, about 100 people download LAC. I think most of them are able to get it working without a lot of trouble. I think most of these people are new to LINUX, and they are trying to decide whether or not they can make a permanent switch away from Microsoft. They have heard that Linux Air Combat is the best Linux-native combat flight simulator, and they are hoping to find that it is good enough to persuade them to abandon Microsoft. Alas, within a few minutes almost all of them conclude that they can still enjoy a better, more comprehensive combat flight simulation experience with one of the Microsoft Windows-based combat flight simulators that they already own.

The bottom line is this: A few flight sim fanatics are committed to LINUX. For them, the fact that LAC is free, open-source code that is truly native to LINUX is important. THOSE are the people that stay with LAC and form the basis of our small online community. They are proud of LINUX and are delighted to find that LAC is as good as the "classic" old flight sims that sparked their original interest years (or decades) ago.

The vast majority of flight sim fanatics are still enjoying fantastic, modern, Windows-based sims that surpass LAC in graphic detail, sound effects, or in other areas. Many of those people suffer occasional grief with Microsoft and would welcome an opportunity to switch to LINUX if they found a Linux-native combat simulator that was as good as the best they already own, but they quickly realize that LAC has not caught up with the best Windows-based sims that they have been flying for the past 5 years. I think those people just decide "No. Not time to abandon Windows yet."

[bbosen]

To help you see what I mean, take a look above. It's a brief YouTube video clip that demonstrates LAC's current graphics, sound, and player activity when everything is pretty well maxed out for best results:

Now compare that with the clip above showing one of the latest, greatest Windows-based combat flight sims and you will see the difference. It's a recent clip from "Aces HIgh III":

On the other hand,compare those with this one showing "Aces High II", the best Windows-based combat flight sim from about 12 years ago:

As you can see, LAC is much closer to the 12 year-old Windows sims than to the most modern ones.

[bbosen]

Finally, for historic perspective, compare with this "Aces of the Pacific" clip from 1992:

[bbosen]

Here's another recent LAC video that makes a better comparison:

[bbosen]

Here's an example video clip showing the latest improvements in LAC's cockpit graphics from late 2024:

[Karl Robillard]

Hello bbosen,

Three issues jump out at me about your project:

1. The out-of-the-box experience was very poor for me. Here's a few examples:
   a. On startup the screen is distorted as there's no aspect correction.
   Text is hard to read.
   b. The interface seems flaky as I could not toggle the mouse control mode or exit the game by using the window close widget.
   c. Because modern systems will render at 500+ frames per second the game
   is unplayable until the magic 512 number is subtracted from the
   NetworkMode option. No non-technical user is going to find that, so the game just seems broken.

2. The graphics are terribly dated. Things could look a lot better while still
   running smoothly by updating the rendering API.

3. The development process seems closed as there's no public repository or formal issue tracker. Without the shared repository no one else can troubleshoot things as they change.

Are you looking for collaborators to accelerate development, or is this just a solo project?

[bbosen]

Karl:

THANKS for checking in here and sharing your personal perspective based on your real-life experience with your hardware. I am sorry that you had a struggle during your "out-the-box" encounter. I want to make LAC work better when run on hardware like yours. From your posting (above) and the email you sent directly to me, I can see that among your struggles, two seem to dominate:

1 of 2: Configuring LAC to switch video display resolution to best match your hardware, resulting in odd aspect ratios and menu text that was hard to read.
2 of 2: On your hardware, the framerate was too high (you mentioned 500 FPS) and consequently LAC's flight mathematics (designed around 60fPS) must have done some crazy things (your report is that it was "unplayable".)

I hope you'll stick with me for an extended two-way dialog here because your helpful report generated some questions that I'll need answered in order to implement the best fixes. I anticipate needing to ask you a series of questions and that the follow-on questions will change based on what I learn from your prior answers. I hope you understand....

First, regarding the best video display resolution: What was the best video resolution you found on your hardware? And how did you discover that resolution setting? Did you try both "FULLSCREEN ON" mode and "FULLSCREEN OFF" mode? (I ask this because there are several ways to configure resolution and fullscreen settings and some of those ways are more robust about describing all of the many options).

Second, regarding the overwhelming framerates delivered by your hardware, you obviously discovered that LAC has a "FrameRate Limiter" (triggered by adding or subtracting 512 to the "NetworkMode" configuration attribute within the hidden LacConfig.txt file). I'm very glad you eventually discovered that detail, but I'd really like to know how you learned it? There are several means to manage the FrameRate limiter, and some of those ways are more robust about describing all of the options. About 6 months ago I updated LAC and one of the changes reversed the default setting of the FrameRate limiter. Whereas it was "ON" by default earlier this year, I changed it to "OFF" by default because I can measure that its presence results in a slight but detectable drop in framerate on computers with limited CPU and graphics hardware. My guess was that more LAC newcomers are using hand-me-down or old computers than modern gaming rigs. I further assumed that serious gamers, with powerful hardware, might be more willing to work at deeper configuration. Maybe I made a mistake????

Third, Could you please tell me more about your hardware and LINUX setup? What kind and speed CPU are using? Same question for your Graphic adapter. Also, what LINUX distro are you using?

Fourth, after you eventually learned how to active LAC's FrameRate limiter and settled on the best video resolution you could find, did the results look like the LAC video clips contained in the prior postings in this thread?

THANKS for your observations and for any answers you can provide for my four general questions above!

[Karl Robillard]

Sorry for the late response, but I was expecting an email notice from the forum for any reply (which never came).

I found the frame-rate limiter by looking at the source and config file. My system has a Ryzen 5 CPU and GeForce GTX 960 GPU, which is now 8 years old. Note that with the frame-rate limited LAC runs at 69-71 fps, so some tweaking is needed to get to your target of 60 fps.

To address the text aspect ratio you can look at my Apply aspect ratio on all screens commit in a fork of GL-117 which I'm maintaining. There are some other fixes that are probably applicable to LAC as well.

[Karl Robillard]

If you only make one change my suggestion would be to turn the "FrameRate Limiter" default back to ON.

[bbosen]

Thanks for pointing out the difficulty of finding information about LAC's built-in "Frame Rate Limiter". I've published some helpful information about it in our "Beginner Topics" forum. Here's a direct link:

https://sourceforge.net/p/linuxaircombat/discussion/beginnertopics/thread/cccedde75a/

More info here:

https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/FrameRateLimiter.htm

[bbosen]

Karl:

Thanks for getting back to me. It's great to know that you are maintaining new posterity of gl-117; it deserves to continue on!

I find your argument persuasive about restoring the default for "Frame Rate Limiter" back to "ON". I will do that in the next release (except for the Raspberry Pi and Steam Deck versions, which never need the Frame Rate Limiter).

Now that you have activated LAC's frame rate limiter, your measurement of frame rates ranging from 69-71FPS on your hardware is useful to me. Thanks for that. I have lots of machines that run around 75FPS, and LAC's flight mathematics is unaffected. I think FPS must exceed 128 or 256 in order to cause problems (not sure which).

[itmo]

quite a few of the windows sims are struggling also. Most of them are nice sims but the playability is bad and especially for newbies it is difficult to get in. In LAC's case I assume that the major hurdle is 1. marketing! 2. approachability.

It took me 5 years to find this game and i am very active both in linux and flight sim circles. I am also familiar with GL117. Then i found it by accident.

One immediate gripe is lack of access to source code directly in github. second is that the web pages are outdated and sourceforge is a mess. I havent even gone down the path of installing and playing it yet, but i assume that it has the normal approachability and playability issues of a hobbyproject linux flight sim.

so:
-start by setting up a github repo and pipelines for it. plus a simple github page. It will make it a lot more discoverable
-invest a bit of money into getting it to steam. Many of my simming friends are moving to linux as they discover that IL2 and DCS etc. work on linux with proton, so your sim might be discoverable there too. Sell it for free and add some paid art or soundtrack or something as DLC to make it possible for people to contribute.

Note:
it is not necessarily about graphics. games like "tiny combat arena" are currently very popular, but tiny combat arena also optimizes for playability and approachability.

[bbosen]

itmo:

If you decide to go "down the path of installing and playing it", please let me know if you end up compiling from source or using the precompiled "AppImage" version. Then please let me know if you can revise your assumptions about "normal approachability and playability issues of a hobbyproject linux flight sim". I think you'll find that the best web page about LAC is this one:

https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LacOnlineDocs.htm