
Vertigo – a public domain 3D flight simulator (2003) - app4soft
http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/
======
boudin
There is also FlightGear that is still being developed and is published under
GPL. [https://www.flightgear.org/](https://www.flightgear.org/)

~~~
qwe098cube
TempleOS also has a flight simulator, with a banger soundtrack
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQEfLaR4Pg)

~~~
ksaj
At first I was thinking that there was a lot of unlikely stunt piloting going
on. Then the bird legs came out for the landing.

I don't know if he was the smartest programmer who ever lived, but he
certainly was one of the more dedicated and interesting ones.

------
marcodiego
I had just recently download old xsabre source code and made it compile on a
modern system. Interesting that it is possible to compile something pre-c++
standardization with just a few changes.

Another interesting project: This guy resurrected gl-117 and is maintaining
and improving it:
[https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirComb...](https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LinuxAirCombat.htm)
makes me remember "Certain Impact" a little.

If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim,
Palomino ([https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-
sim/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/palomino-sim/)) seemed very promising
while it was under development.

~~~
app4soft
> _If anybody else is interested in another abandoned open source flight sim_

Also _Search and Rescue II_ flightsim reborn this year.[0]

[0]
[https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/](https://searchandrescue2.github.io/sar2/)

~~~
marcodiego
A quick search on sourceforge revealed these:

\-
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/drts/)

\-
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/csp/)

\-
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/facsimulation/)

Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for someone
to rescue whatever is still valuable. Makes me a bit sad and hopeful in a
certain way.

~~~
app4soft
> _Abandoned source code feels like carcasses of sunken ships waiting for
> someone to rescue whatever is still valuable._

Yep.

This year I discovered that there is active development on _ACM 6.0_ (enhanced
fork of _ACM 5.0_ ).[0]

I just hope that someone would also take a look on _Vertigo_ for continuous
development and porting it to Linux and other modern platforms.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076](https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1237898195385987076)

~~~
mysterydip
Vertigo is old enough and lightweight enough it might work for a side project
of mine, so thanks for making me aware!

~~~
app4soft
Great!

Ping me on Twitter when there would be some progress ;)

P.S.: There is already mirror of _Vertigo_ files created by someone on GitHub
today.[0]

[0] [https://github.com/gspu/Vertigo-Flight-
Simulator](https://github.com/gspu/Vertigo-Flight-Simulator)

------
mothsonasloth
Another game is Falcon BMS which was released in the late 90s and has a
community that is constantly maintaining it and upgrading it, it looks
fantastic.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI3i8Kn3KI)

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
That was a great video, and incredible that games still going. What other
games have been going for that long? I know the community has kept Doom going
to some extent, new maps and textures and stuff. Can’t thank of any more still
being developed since the 90s.

~~~
anthk
On just libre games:

\- Nethack

\- Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

\- The campaigns for Freedink

On the rest, the list is huge, really, really huge.

------
blauditore
I was wondering why it looks so old - it's because it is old, latest release
is from 2002. Perhaps add "(2002)" to the title?

~~~
anthk
That in 2002 already was looking outdated.

------
rl3
The first screenshot reminds me of _Fleet Defender_ (1994):

[https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simul...](https://www.gog.com/game/fleet_defender_the_f14_tomcat_simulation)

Now of course supplanted by DCS: F-14.

~~~
nix23
Now DCS F-5 Tiger and Mig-29 but long long time ago was:

[https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter](https://www.gog.com/game/f19_stealth_fighter)

Pixel-hunting par excellence ;)

------
trynewideas
Not open source, but Tiny Combat aims to reproduce the general 90s flight sim
aesthetic: [https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-
arena](https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena)

It's under a lot of active development, with clips posted to YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvUO3lqf0Y)

The author puts quite a bit of free Unity-related code from related
experiments on GitHub:
[https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories](https://github.com/brihernandez?tab=repositories)

~~~
anthk
Unity, that sucks. Unusable on lowest computers. At least, ACM and most libre
games with these graphics will _actually_ run at least in 2002 era computers.

------
w0utert
Makes me wonder, ho does one start to build a serious flight simulator? Is
there any publicly available resources about implementation techniques and
pitfalls specific to flight simulators, like there are for so many other
topics, so you don't have to learn everything the hard way, make all the
obvious mistakes, etc? Or is this a topic where you can really work from first
principles, using just basic physics and incrementally adding simulation of
more advanced effects?

~~~
13415
Look up _blade element theory_ , that's how Laminar started with X-Plane, and
they incrementally refined their model over the past 20 years. I bet the
physics will take the least and the graphics will take most of development
time, though.

~~~
mhh__
The graphics are why an increasing number of projects are just using Unreal
these days. Not sure how well it would work (level size) but it looks
fantastic in racing games which also have fancy physics.

------
jsmolka
Does anybody know other old 3D flight simulators for the PC? I really enjoy
the low poly style but don't know where to start looking.

~~~
rixed
Something I did about 25 years ago, with low poly and software rendering:

[https://github.com/rixed/fachoda-complex](https://github.com/rixed/fachoda-
complex)

Plain C with minor dependencies, should still compile.

~~~
franzb
Rixed, that’s a nickname I hadn’t seen in a while (25 years?). You were on
Eden BBS maybe? You contributed to Le Reporter didn’t you?

~~~
rixed
Indeed, I'm not sure what part of oneself survives that long but that nickname
did.

Have you been time traveling in a similar trajectory?

$nickname at free.fr

------
globile
Off topic, but a great window to HN demographics via referred traffic in these
legacy stats trackers.

 _Sigh_... The days when showing off your traffic stats was more important
than privacy or confidentiality.

[http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3](http://extremetracking.com/open?login=norupv3)

EDIT: spelling.

------
nix23
I mostly play
[https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/)

But look witch Models you buy, you have the more simple models from the
Flaming Cliffs 3 module, or the really realistic one's like the tiger/tomcat
stuff

~~~
app4soft
_DCS_ is off-top in this thread as it is not open-source, even not fully
freeware flightsim.

~~~
nix23
>even not fully freeware flightsim.

What does that even mean? You can play it for free (Frogfoot) and with that,
it is at least freeware.

------
iso8859-1
There was an svgalib flightsim shipped with some old Linux distributions, I
ported it to SDL and 64-bit, it is here, it is called Sabre, Dan Hammer made
it: [https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre](https://github.com/ysangkok/sabre)

~~~
app4soft
> _There was Sabre Fighter Plane Simulator — an svgalib flightsim shipped_

Nice! If possible, add screenshots of your fork into README file.

FYI, Take a look on _ACM 6.0_ too.[0]

[0]
[http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html](http://www.icosaedro.it/acm/download.html)

------
huhtenberg
An odd question - does anyone remember a flight sim from the early to mid 90s
that had a dog-fight multiplayer mode _over a null-modem serial cable_? Back
in DOS days. F16 or some such. I still have the cable, but for the life of me
I can't remember what the game was.

~~~
rzzzt
F29 Retaliator?

~~~
huhtenberg
Looks familiar, but I _think_ that's not the one either.

------
whywhywhywhy
Would love a polygon aesthetic flight sim that sort of expanded on the feeling
A-10 Cuba was going for but more planes and more weirdness.

Really cool bits in that game where you can break the tips of your wings off
your grind your gears in and still keep flying, also had some really surreal
multiplayer arenas like space and futuristic cities.

------
MaxBarraclough
Another flight sim shoutout: it's just over a week until the release of the
new Microsoft Flight Simulator.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_\(2020_video_game\))

------
major505
Love this image when the guy is heading nose first in the tarmac
[http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif](http://stjerneskud.info/vertigo/v018img/nose.gif)

------
praveen9920
Hoping to see a open-source version of flight sim. Are there any ?

~~~
Naac
[https://www.flightgear.org/](https://www.flightgear.org/)

------
deorder
Reminds me a bit of Interceptor from the Amiga:
[https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE](https://youtu.be/oHsUbGTIXyE)

------
DrNuke
There is a Bohemia Interactive humblebundle on sale right now, offering a few
really interesting 2010s simulators for $1, Take On: Helicopters among them.

~~~
app4soft
Commercial flightsim out-off scope for this thread.

