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Setup
Let's start by reviewing the setup procedure for Falcon 4.0 with RP2 installed and utilizing the great patches to Falcon that have been developed.
- Remove any previous installation of Falcon 4.0 and any files and folders that remain after the uninstall has completed. The folders and files left behind are files that have changed since your original installation. You should open all folders and check all the files left behind to be certain that you have retained copies of 3rd party add-ons like cockpits, keyboard files, or TEs.
- If you have an aftermarket disk utility like Norton or McAfee then skip to the next step. If you use Microsoft's Defrag utility then you should run scan disk then defragment your disk now.
- Load the original Falcon 4.0 program.
- Patch Falcon 4.0 to version 1.08us (sorry but patching to other languages does not provide consistent results, it is not my fault, I think it stinks too).
- Install iBeta's Realism Patch (available from their site, www.ibeta.com, currently 2.1) into the Falcon4 directory. Be sure that Use Folders is selected in Winzip or whatever program you use for unzipping. The current installation program from iBeta is in the form of a program instead of a zip file. This has changed from RP1.
- iBeta patches and changes the name of your Falcon4.exe file. There are several programs which rely on identifying the active window program name in Windows to configure themselves (Game Commander, Saitek's SGE are two of several). You need to make a personal choice at this point. Either, you can cancel this operation and use Joel 'Jackal' Bierling's F4Patch to install the exe modifications by downloading iBeta's Falcon4_108i2.exe (available from their site, www.ibeta.com, and many other places) and unzip it to your Falcon4 directory. Or you may just install the new iBeta exe that is prepatched with all the latest, fully tested modifications at the time of release and rename it to Falcon4_108i2.exe. Joel's latest revision or F4Patch is v1.3b. It allows you to manage your changes to RP 2.0+ and add new features as they become available. If you install the iBeta exe file just remember to point any utility at the new file name 'iBeta_F4_RP2.exe', NOT the old file, 'Falcon4_108i2.exe'. Note: Eric 'Snacko' Marlow of iBeta reports that all future versions of Realism Patches will use Joel's program to patch your exe and reduce the size of the RP download.
Although there are many places to find the various patches for Falcon 4.0, I suggest viewing the Patches and Add-ons section of the Delphi Falcon 4.0 forum maintained by Mike 'Huntsman' Paddon. Mike has taken it upon himself to gather many of the Falcon 4.0 patches including the recently released utilities into an easy to locate and download list. This list includes some brief descriptions and Huntsman's personal experience with the patch if he has any.
You need to download from someplace.
- F4Patch.zip (v1.3b)
- F4Reserves
- Plock1.zip
- Plock2.zip
- 108i2_Cat_IIIv2a.zip or 108i2_Cat_IIIv2b.zip
Huntsman was working on an update of the F4Patch files zip to include the latest patches. If he completes that then just download it instead of files 4 - 5.