Geezer Gamer 0 Posted October 24, 2009 I bought OFF for a machine that could barely run it, if I had more than three planes in the sky it slowed to a craw. Well after months of research and gathering components I finally completed my first build am back to playing this game. I only have three sims on my rig...BOB II, ROF and OFF. ROF being the newest toy it was getting most of the attention, but I finally got everything configured for OFF and just completed a one on one dog fight. Against the moody dark skies my little Sopwith Pup was going head to head with an albatros. We went round and round, got a few good hits in, but than got too close and snipped my lower wingtip. The albatros was slowed down too, staying low to the ground, but still lining up on me and getting shots in. I struggled against the joystick to keep in control and came around for one more pass. I was able to force the albatros into the tree tops and heard a loud explosion as I passed over. Just as I cleared the crash the clouds finally broke loose and it started to rain. I found the airfield and barely managed to land the plane, making it home in one piece. Wow...I forgot how good this game is! The mix of the soundtrack, the dark skies, pounding of the artillary in the backround, the immersion factor on OFF is something else. It also seems like the AI has improved a lot from when the Phase 3 first came out. Anyway thanks to the OBD folks, now I'm going to have to figure out how to get time in on all three of these flight sims. Processor -Intel Core i7-920, Cooler - Zalman CNPS 99900, MB - EVGA X58 3X SLI, RAM - 3GB RAM CorsairDDR3 1600 Dominator, GFX Card- 896MB DDR3 EVGA GTX 260 Core 216, Soundcard – X-Fi Titanium, HD - WD Velociraptor 300 gig, PSU - Corsair TX750W, Case-CMStorm Snyper, OS – XP SP2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Baldric 42 Posted October 24, 2009 Totally agree about the immersiveness of the flights, and the campaign is just added gravy for me. I've all three on my HD as well (plus a Steam version of IL2 since my old discs were too old for vista). Lots of choice, tons of great simming...soooo many options, so little time. Maybe OBD can invent the 28hr day with working for two hours, paid for eight.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VonGuber 2 Posted October 24, 2009 (edited) <snip> Processor -Intel Core i7-920, Cooler - Zalman CNPS 99900, MB - EVGA X58 3X SLI, RAM - 3GB RAM CorsairDDR3 1600 Dominator, GFX Card- 896MB DDR3 EVGA GTX 260 Core 216, Soundcard – X-Fi Titanium, HD - WD Velociraptor 300 gig, PSU - Corsair TX750W, Case-CMStorm Snyper, OS – XP SP2 Hey Geez... I just did the same thing, i.e. built a new rig. Funny thing is, except for the case and the cooler, my new machine is just like yours. Same CPu, video card, RAM, MB, OS, etc. You obviously have good taste. How do you like it so far? regards PS: I'm finding the immersion amazing also. Edited October 24, 2009 by VonGuber Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geezer Gamer 0 Posted October 24, 2009 Well two things about the rig The smartest thing I did was spend an extra $75 on a Belkin KVM switch that allows me to keep the old computer and share the keyboard mouse and monitor with both. No one touches the gaming rig but me and the only software on it is to support the games. When Mom or Daughter line up behind me for answering e-mail or doing homework a quick flip of the switch and they can get on. Very common to have both running at the same time, hit some snag on the gaming rig troubleshooting something and flip to the other machine to search the internet for the answer. I think of it like the commuter car and the hot rod. Dad polishes the beast and keeps it running and only he gets to drive it. Regarding the performance of the gaming rig, have loved it, but not without some problems. After many crashes on ROF, realized that the game is so demanding (although running fine) that my video card was overheating and shutting down. Discovered that the "auto" setting on the cards fan was coming up to late and once it got hot couldn't recover. Had to use the precision monitoring software and crank the fan up to 75 or 85% to eliminate that problem. Is now part of my "start up" procedure in ROF ( does that increase immersion when you have to keep a digital temperature readout on the screen to make sure your computer doesn't over heat?....just like a plane engine right? Too bad I can't map the radiator lever to the video card fan!!!) The second problem has been more evil, and hopefully I've solved it. Was getting sparadic crashes in 2d inside the games ( like just finished flying and am at the ingame menu) The standard Microsoft message would say (OFF encountered a conflict and had to shut down). After much chasing, the error was a conflict with "dinput" inside directx . This part of directx interacts with all your peripherals ( track IR, joystick, foot pedals). The problem seemed to be worse if you used any profiler software. I am suspect that it was actually Saeteks profiler software that somehow corrupted directx. Anyway much grinding of teeth, reloading of operating systems, running of chkdsk and right now I am crash free...........knock on wood. Looking forward to having a single player campaign running in both BOBII and OFF so I can have a foot in WWI and WWII at the same time. For ROF I will just keep reading the forums, since they are almost more entertaining than the game right now. Future goals would be to gradually move into the early jet age, something from the Korean War era. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites