CaptSopwith

Well for me WOFF UE is still somewhat new. I'm still flying about 1-2 nights a week and sometimes more if time allows. I have posted less mostly because of time constraints.

Some fantastic scenes from an evening's flying. Hope you enjoy!

I'm not usually one for preferring one board over another but... I have to say that my desire to post dropped off after the move over to the other site. There's something about the design that doesn't quite work for me, the inability to see people's avatars - which I very much grew to associate with handles - and now the clunky manner in which we are required to post photos for our AAR... I just don't feel like I want to take the time to post like I used to. Would be nice to see a move back here - under a streamlined WOFF board but... who knows.

PART I: Today, I am delighted to begin a new series of posts, which I am entitling "CaptSopwith Plays WOFF." I thought I'd start a new thread since most of you have been playing this amazing sim for over a year now. Anything I say will probably be a repeat of the experiences you've already had. But I also wanted to share my first impressions on WOFF as someone who has been playing since OvS sent me a copy of Phase 1 way back when. This post includes some broad impressions, as I'm still getting my new computer set up and running. Again, my sincere thanks to Hellshade. Without his kindness, I would not have a copy of WOFF 2 to even play! Thank you again my friend! First Impressions The most noticeable difference between WOFF and its predecessors is the ease of installation. I've kept my game backups on an external hard drive for years and my OFF folder was a bit of a jumble: I had my OFF disk, the various patches that followed, the HiTR expansion and its patches, and screenshots of how I set up my nVidia settings and configured OFF's graphics to run smoothly. I was prepared to learn a new routine - knowing that the rewards would be more than worth the learning curve. But I was astounded at how easy it was. I ran WOFF 1.0's installation file, made a cup of tea, and returned to see that it was already finished. Then I ran 2.0 and before I had finished a few sips of Twinnings English Breakfast, it was also done. Lastly, I added on the latest update from the site and before I knew it, I was ready to play. The "fit and finish" if you will, of WOFF is astounding! The quality of the menus, the feel of the interface, the sense of immersion that drips from every pixel from the moment you start the game and see the old phonograph spinning, is remarkable. And it's the small details that made me smile time and again. I just toured the Imperial War Museum's new WWI exhibit this summer, and the interface - with it's mix of film, newspapers, photographs, hanger renderings, and gorgeous maps, made me feel like I got to bring part of that experience back home with me. I love all of it and I shook my head time and again at the level of detail, the insane dedication to getting it right - and right to a degree that only the most die hard First World War aviation enthusiast or, a scholar who makes a living studying this time period - would ever notice. The type set on the reports, the font and official stamps on the log books, the pilot photos, it's all fantastic and I cannot congratulate the team enough on a job well done. The level of accuracy is such that, if I could teach my dream course on WWI, I would have a WOFF station set up to rotate my students through so they could get a glimpse of the experiences of these men. An idea, I should add, that first came to me when I played Red Baron as a teenager - only now, I think I could actually convince other people of the idea! The other massive difference is the score. Matt, you've really outdone yourself this time! I couldn't help but smile when some of the themes from OFF's previous scores came through, but the new material, especially the music for the briefings, really provide you a sense of for-boding and dread. It captures the mood, the spirit of the period, without making it into caricature. It lands the mood brilliantly. I also love the additional information in the menus! (Note, we haven't even gotten in the air yet!) The pilot logbooks, the detailed information on my fellow pilots, their moods, their abilities, their morale, all give me a sense of flying with living people, who want to survive this terrible conflict they've been dragged into. I also LOVE the intelligence menu. The addition of knowing where the enemy is - to the best of our knowledge at least - and what types of machines they are flying, is fantastic! I also LOVE the renders of the machines. They have a hand drawn artistic quality to them that I spent a lot of time admiring. I also enjoyed the Gothas. After seeing smaller scouts and reccy planes in hangers, seeing the Gotha sitting outside in a dark and stormy landscape was perfect. Well done! The final part of the interface I'd like to compliment is how easy it all is to set up! I no longer load up the CfsCongig utility and look at my screenshots to see what boxes to tick. I simply started the sim with the settings it came with. The results? The graphics are jaw-dropping and on my computer, even a full furball in quick scenarios, the sim ran at 60fps with only the slightest pause if the action became incredibly intense. Fantastic! One last thought for the day before I go: the AI is remarkable! I feel like I have to learn how WWI dogfighting worked all over again - and for real this time. I am no longer facing enemies that either fight to the death or plod along straight and level until I can flame them. These pilots feel alive! I tried a quick mission in a Camel (more about the incredible cockpits in another post!). I wound up chasing an enemy, and watched as a he rolled and dived for the deck. I've seen this trick in a hundred other flight sims - the enemy dives, hits ground level, and then tries to turn fight you until you shoot him down. But now this time, he hit ground level and kept running! I suddenly realized that I was fighting a new pilot and he was running scared, trying to get over his lines before I could catch him! Mind. Blown. I've never seen such complex AI before. I've also been shot down three times and I've flown five missions... so they are also lethal to a degree that I've never seen. Ah, so much to say. So much to compliment! There will be many more posts. I also need to start taking screen captures to go along with these updates. My God, guys! What have you done!? I'm never going to finish this bloody dissertation now! Cheers! PART II: Thoughts on WOFF After One Week: Hi Chaps! It has been a week since I installed and started playing WOFF and truthfully, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. So far I've flown some Quick Combat missions as well as some of the Quick Scenarios included with each nationality. I too, had to sort out the micro-stutters that seem to appear in the sim, even on a high end rig (more on how I solved that later). All in all, I have to say, I am floored by the massive improvements seen in WOFF from its predecessor. I've started a British campaign set in 1915, for a young pilot named Cecil Coles. He is currently in flight training just outside of London, doing circuits in a BE2. It looks like he will be destined for Front Line duty with a squadron flying Bristol Scouts and Morane Parasols. The new aircraft are a fantastic edition. Before WOFF, my sense was that, for the most complete catalog of First World War, the now ancient Western Front Patch for Red Baron 3D was really your only bet. The last time I saw a Parasol it was rendered inside of Baron. The new models are, across the board, the finest set of World War I machines I've ever seen. If you haven't heard of The Vintage Aviator before (Link here: http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/) it really feels like OBD is their digital brethren. The depth of detail on the surfaces of the machines, and the little details within - a WWI era pin up card inside the Aviatik or the life insurance warning in my British trainer, speaks volumes about the lives of the men who served in this era. I thought this was a particularly nice touch: :D And while I'm still in training, I've already engaged in combat dozens of times (and been shot down every. single. time.) As seen here: That would be me on the receiving end of some twin German Spandaus. AI: The AI in this game is more than brutal - brutal implies that the skies are imbalanced and the game is programmed to punish you by any means necessary. Older flight sims used to "cheat" a bit with their AI: the computer controlled machines were not prone to stalls and spins and it always felt like you were playing against a loaded deck. WOFF transcends this brilliantly and does so in the most difficult way possible: by programming the most intelligent AI system I've ever seen. As we've all seen over the last ten years, large studios have abandoned single player experiences. Whether it's a Triple-A title like Call of Duty or games closer to our genres, studios favor multiplayer. The problem with that, in my experience, is that the quality of the game you get is entirely dependent on the people you're playing with. I've had matches in Battlefield that knocked my socks off, and others that left me beating my head against my desk. WOFF's AI is the most convincingly human I've ever seen. As astutely pointed out in the Dev Comments, the AI you fight have something to lose - their lives. Unlike a human opponent who suffers only a 15 second respawn delay, the AI fight like their real life counterparts. Flight time and mission success trump kills. The result is that I am constantly faced with an enemy that I cannot predict. The literally thousands of parameters that inform their thinking demonstrate that beautifully. I wish I could get Pol or Winding Man or James to explain how they did it - the details here are fascinating to me. How on earth do you get a computer to think on such a complex level without dragging the machine to its knees with processing cycles? Not only are they unpredictable, they are downright lethal! By the time I moved Red Baron to the back burner, I was a crack shot. Even online I could lead an aircraft and literally pick its wings off from hundreds of yards out. I knew how long it would take an enemy to engage my 6 if I was chasing his wingman. I knew I had time to sit, complacently, shooting away at my next guaranteed kill, before I had to worry about my tail. WOFF has changed my understanding, historically, of how dangerous target fixation was for a new pilot. In the blink of an eye I have had my plane shot out from under me a dozen times in QC. Also, being wounded is horrific. I know that other sims have simulated this and I applaud OBD for including it in WOFF. It was reality, and it was gruesome. Having the option to switch it off is good. But man, the visual impact and subsequent emotional response I feel when I've been hit is genuinely unnerving. You simply can no longer sit still. You have to keep moving. Hellshade's videos now make a new kind of sense. Fire and maneuver - don't ever fly straight - doing so is a sure fire way of getting killed. The sense of damage on the machine is also intense. You do not want to get hit. This is not a P-47 you're flying - a WWI machine cannot sustain damage and from a historical sense - after all, this is the subject I study - that rings true from the documents I've seen. I remember there was a debate back in the RB days about how much a WWI plane could take. Some stories of American flown Nieuports coming home with a hundred bullet holes supported the theory that if you didn't hit the pilot or engine, a WWI kite could handle a surprising amount of punishment. But, in my opinion (take that for what it's wroth) the construction of these machines was so fragile that if diving could destroy the air frame, a few lucky rounds into support struts could easily render an aircraft easy prey. Unfortunately, I'm usually the prey! To be honest, I'm dreading my deployment once I finish training in London. I don't suspect Cecil is going to last long... Campaign: I've run through a few campaigns so far. I've start one the using the new features flight training and then deployment and I've let WOFF decide my fate. I've also started a campaign the old way - picking a unit and time. And since I was setting up my rig to play WOFF smoothly, I jumped into a 1918 campaign as a German pilot just after the start of Operation Michael. The details now make the campaign a fully realized experience. I actually know my wingmen now. I know the morale of the unit. I know the latest news from the progress on the ground. I can research my planes and those of my enemies. I love the details included! The sketches of the aircraft and their details remind me of the intelligence updates we used to get in Red Baron. It is clear that WOFF is an inspired sim - drawing on the best of what we remember from before, but still creating a startling new experience at the same time. Still, those little nods to the past - the small touches in the menu interface, and even the melodic themes from Matt's previous scores that subtly reemerge here, make it both nostalgic and new and I never want to stop playing. Stutters: Finally, on matters of setting up WOFF for heavy combat in 1918. I too suffered some stutters and found that - all of the computer logic I've used for two decades - did not work in WOFF. I tried dialing settings back in both the workshop and on my nVidia control panel and it only grew worse. I play tested the sim with heavy load Quick Scenarios and then some 1918 missions. Looks like Heavy Air Activity will but a bit of a strain on my system, but I'm getting butchered enough with Medium settings as it is. So I checked the boards here and found the threads Pol mentioned in the FAQ. Defying all logic, I then cranked up my settings - everything five except landscape is a 4 and scenery is a 3. Vsync on, and then dailed up my settings in my video card control panel. The results speak for themselves: The graphical quality of WOFF was apparent from the moment I started it but, now, with the settings cranked up as you see here... My God, look at it! I remember the intro video that played at the start of Red Baron - with a Camel chasing a Red Triplane and descending from the clouds over a lush green landscape. It was, of course, all CGI rendered footage. This game looks ten times better than that ever did. I've traded stutters for a slight dip in frame rate. I'm hovering around 50-60 with a dip down to the teens, but only over heavily populated landscapes. So, flight training over London can get choppy from time to time. But otherwise the microstutters have vanished and frankly, I'm too hesitant to play with the settings any further when for the other 95% of the time it runs smooth as silk and looks like this! I'm speechless fellas. I'm going to try to write more as I get into the meat of the campaigns and keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed reading! Cheers! PS: Here are my nVidia settings: [img:gal:198355fd8c87dd988]http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergals/2015/09/full-1983-109100-woff_settings.png[/img]

Well now, it has been a little while since I last posted. November to be exact... My apologies for the considerable delay in my presence around here. RL has gotten incredibly busy as I'm in the last stages of closing in on my degree. With holiday travel back and forth I've had very little time in front of the gaming computer. Toss in some surprise Christmas presents in the form of Battlefield 4 for PC and a brand new PlayStation 4 with Star Wars Battlefront thrown in, and the time quickly got away from me. But I have to say, the other night I finally had some gaming time that was longer than the 20 minute chunks I've been working with lately, and I got back to some WOFF. My 1916 German pilot has survived a few weeks of combat duty and even notched up his first confirmed victory (so that's 1 for 3 so far) and I was terrified of losing him so I spent about two hours bouncing around the fantastic Quick Scenarios that WOFF has to offer. Bombing runs, balloon busting and defense, close air support and of course, the massive furball dogfights of 1918. I'm also happy to say that I have fine tuned the graphic settings in WOFF and the game looks gorgeous! At this point, even with my nvidia GTX 745, I'm running all of my settings on 5, with the exception of scenery detail, which I have ticked at 4. I've got all of the graphical goodies cranked up on my video card settings and the skies are stunning. I'll say this as well, the new games are fantastic. The attention to detail in Star Wars Battlefront is astonishing for any fan of the series. And the set pieces in Battlefield 4 are epic. But, like getting back to a classic Jazz album after listening to just so much pop, there is an explosion of endorphins when I fire up WOFF. It's not just entertaining for the eyes and the twitch reflexes, but it's the most immersive digital experience I've ever had for my brain. Flying some training flights for my soon to be certified 1916 ESC LAF pilot, I noticed the smoke from the trains steaming out of Paris as I sat in the observer's seat on my first flight. Back over the lines, I could hear the eerie echo of the barrages as our early war Halberstadt's flew over the front. The explosions below combined with the atmosphere of it all - the haze of the summer sky, the lighting casting shadows across my wings and the patches of dark earth from the cloud's shadows below. It completely sucks you in. Rather than those 20 minute bursts in star fighter or cargo, I lost two HOURS simply flying and staying alive. I love how different the goals are in this sim. It's not about racking up victories, it's about the incredible, soul-satisfying feeling of your wheels touching down on friendly grass after an hour up in the very unfriendly skies of WOFF. Hoping to post far more often. I've missed hearing your exploits and tales from the front and darn if I haven't missed seeing the familiar names around here. Hope you guys are well. If you have time, give me a shout and let me know what you've been up to! Cheers! Soppy

And another round from this morning's 1915 patrol over the lines with a pilot who, I think, would qualify for the DiD campaign. There isn't any action here. Instead, I was enthralled with the staggering lighting and texture work that is now so prominent in this sim.

Had some excitement last night in Quick Scenario where I was trying to get the hang of my Halberstadt DIII. Wound up in a large furball with some French N11's and I was hit early on. My aircraft's roll ability was compromised pretty badly but thankfully, some crafty throttle work on my part allowed my French assailant to overshoot my craft and I didn't hesitate to take advantage of the situation. Managed to put quite a few rounds in at close range and the rest, as you can see, sorted itself out from there. My favorite touch from this exchange? The cows or sheep in the field next to where the poor French pilot met his end. It's the little things in WOFF!

Bloody bureaucracy and all that. You know those paper pushers back at Whitehall can get those commendation forms jumbled up sometimes!

Gorgeous shot 33LIMA. I have a real attachment to the N28 in those colors. I think it was one of the first crates I took up in Red Baron II back in the day and that livery always gives me a wave of nostalgia! Cheers!

Hi Olham! Hope you are doing well my friend. My apologies for the... belated reply. Yes, I am still flying my campaign in the Halberstadt, but this time we've been upgraded to the DIII model. It has slightly better horsepower. As a German pilot, I was usually piloting Albatros fighters, but I'm growing quite fond of the Halberstadt, and it's helping me understand the attachment pilots developed to their machines, even if they were not the most "cutting edge" at the time. I believe my pilot has passed about 9 flying hours or so and he's still plugging along. Funny how you sometimes make a "throw away" pilot to get the hang of the sim and he winds up being the one that lasts a while! Cheers mate!

Hi Lou! Glad to see you around as well mate! Hoping the boards will get a bit more active again. I was just looking over the DiD Campaign rules. Might be time to set up a pilot and see how long I can coax him through the war. Given my survival rate (how far below 1% can you go before it no longer counts?), I might work my way through the alphabet with disturbing speed! I'll be glad to buy you around my friend. What'll have?

Hello again and welcome back to another installment of "CaptSopwith Plays WOFF!" Or, perhaps I should re-title it, "CaptSopwith Survives WOFF!" It's been a few weeks since I've had a chance to really put in some flight time. RL will tend to do that. However, I am happy to report that not only is WOFF running smoothly - even more so after the latest patch - but is continuing to leave me white knuckled and ever so thankful to be back on the ground after a mission. After losing my previous German pilot due to the terrible blunder of using time compression for just a tad too long, I created another German aviator, this time flying in the Autumn of 1916. Willy Fußl is serving with Jasta 3 and flying the Halberstadt DII. Willy's first few missions were pretty eventful, with his squad mates getting into a few nasty dogfights along the way. Willy, wisely with a grand total of 8 flying hours under his belt before deployment to the Front, stayed high and out of trouble. This morning's escort mission, however, finally gave Willy a taste of combat. The patrol took Jasta 3 over enemy lines escorting two Aviatik reccy aircraft as they photographed the enemy sectors of the Front. A-Flight broke off early in the patrol to tend to other matters, leaving Willy and his two wingmen to escort the Aviatik to enemy territory. All appeared well - the reccy aircraft took their snaps of the Front and began to turn for home. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lone French Nieuport sweep in to attack our Aviatiks so I turned and attacked. Aiming from the Halberstadt is a difficult process. I tend to lean towards the iron sights and follow the tracers out ahead of me. It's usually just enough to get a few well placed strikes on my target. So as I pulled in behind the Nieuport - he failed to see me - I opened fire and immediately hit something vital. The enemy plane jolted in the air and a billow of black smoke poured from the aircraft. He tried to get one last burst into the Aviatik in front of him as I hit him with a second burst - careful not to hit our friendlies further ahead. This time the French craft lurched and nosed over, spiraling until it hit the ground. A second Frenchmen appeared out of nowhere and was making a b-line for b-flight. I turned and nosed my Halberstadt down slightly to gain speed on him. My flight leader and his wingmen failed to engage the first Nieuport and were flying blind as the second closed in. I managed to open fire and clip the Nieuport with a few rounds as the rest of b-flight finally woke up and engaged. We opened fire on the Nieuport and a fellow member of Jasta 3 put him down for good. By now I was low on ammo and the Aviatiks were nowhere to be seen so I split for home. As I neared our side of the lines, two Nieuport 16s dived out of the clouds and took on my wingman and myself. By now I was incredibly worried that the next round I fired would be the last in the gun. I turned and went after one of the Nieuports as my wingman and the second Frenchmen vanished somewhere into the morning haze. The second Nieuport pulled into a high left climb and, as I got my sights through him, I opened fire. Again I got lucky, striking something vital and sending black smoke pouring from the back of the plane. As he turned to bank right, I followed, and put another long burst into him. This finally finished him off, leaving him to fall into the shell holes of No-Mans Land. By now it was really time to get on the ground in friendly territory. I managed to make for the nearest field and as I approached, I spotted black flak bursts overhead. It was one of those moments when you really have to weigh your options. The closest field is right in front of me, but there are obviously enemy aircraft nearby. Do you try to land? Do you bank away and find another field and hope that whatever is circling over head in front of you doesn't follow? I zoomed in the view and as I did, saw a friendly Halberstadt from Jasta 3 shooting down an enemy aircraft - a trail of smoke and fire highlighting the meteor like decent. And, with the impact, the flak burst ceased. As I circled in I spotted the rest of my flight, all circling for their approach to the field. We made it... The Small Things What struck me over and over again during this sortie is just how incredibly lifelike this sim feels now. The way observation balloons seem to actually float at the end of their tethers. The way the light plays off your wing struts and casts shadows as you slowly turn to change formation. The way other aircraft seem to actually fly through air rather than track along a linear flight model. The haze on the horizon, the shadows cast by trees and buildings. The thunder of artillery and the explosions in no mans land. It all adds up, little detail by little detail to completely immerse you in this amazing world that is alive around you at all times. And the interface picks up where the sim leaves off. After landing, Willy filled out his next claim form and found out that he had been awarded one kill, complete with a victory cup! I spent the next fifteen minutes just looking around - reading intelligence reports, looking over the daily newspaper, flipping through the squadron profiles, reading the immense history on Willy's goblet. It's a completely immersive time machine that instantly transports you back to a completely different world. One that's always hard to leave when the night is over...

Poor Gerhard Roth... I suppose he didn't stand much of a chance, what with being the first "Skip Training and Deploy Straight to the Front" pilot of the lot. No take off and landing training. No flying circuits. No chance, really, to even enjoy a little peace and quiet - unlike his British counter-part: Cecil Coles, who just finished flight training around London in 1915. Straight into the meat grinder - that was poor Roth's fate. And he fared well. Our pilot entered the war at the worst possible time: 1918, just before the Michael Offensive. His unit, Jasta 74, was often outclassed in machinery and the unit's airmen lacked a certain... how should I put it gently: situational awareness. But Roth not only survived, he thrived. He shot down two Sopwith Strutters that invaded German airspace near his own field. But, as the saying goes, "Unconfirmed by Army means unconfirmed." The weather that day was atrocious and, given the state of the lines at that point, Army Command simply didn't have time to go rummaging through some woods for a few wayward Strutter carcasses. Roth finally earned his goblet, however, with a third Strutter, this time bagged over friendly lines, with a squadron witness. It took just eight missions. Already he had been wounded once, with a nasty gunshot wound that left him in hospital a fortnight. But Roth got a bit impatient and started to time compress during his missions. And it was the compression that killed him... His final mission, just three weeks since he joined Jasta 74, took him near the front lines again on a line patrol with only two wing men who, as I mentioned, often to fail to catch the small details. As he came out of time compression, three dots rapidly grew clearer at his 6 o'clock. Three SPAD VII's with the fangs out. It was not only Roth's final mission, but that of one of his wing men. They came in fast and opened fire. Before Roth's flight could even break, he was hit. Roth, the lowest rank in the group was flying at the rear of the formation, leaving his comrades clueless as to the fate about to descend upon them. The sounds were awful. Gunfire ripped his Albatros DIII OAW to shreds in a matter of a few seconds. Wood shattered, support wires snapped violently and then, with the sickening thud and thwack that will stay with me, the rounds hit Roth. The screen flashed red, the Albatros slipped out of control, and crash landed about a minute later. Smoke trailing as Roth slowly faded while strapped in the shattered remains of his craft. Four days later, he died in hospital. So the telegram says. WOFF is indeed an enhancement in every respect. It models the flight characteristics, the tactics employed, the history from the period, and the horrific end that so many pilots faced. Even after all these years of playing WWI sims, and all of the fatalities along the way. Roth's death felt especially hard to take. You cannot help but care much more for these virtual pilots than any that preceded it. WOFF is a holistic sim - everything you see and interact with forges a connection with your pilot. You feel invested before they ever get off the ground. Even the simple act of picking a birth date and place of birth changes your attachment to them. Well done OBD. WOFF is the first sim where I truly "get" the sort of loss experienced in this war. RIP, young Roth.

I think it's time we brushed off the dust here and display the real beauty of this sim! From the last week of flying - my favorite kind of downtime at the end of a long day. In no particular order: Cheers! Hope you enjoy them!

Good to see the maps being updated, mate! Been too long. I imagine the map is looking pretty populated compared to its humble origins! I'll have to print one of those out someday and hang it on my wall! Glad to have you back Olham!

Well hi there Widow! Great to see your name pop up again! I can relate to falling away from the boards. My ancient computer basically played one game for the last two years - although "fix the glitch" felt more like a glorified version of whack-a-mole than anything fun... So I also gave up on OFF - and WOFF? Ha, didn't have a hope of running it. So I finally caved and with some help, picked up a new computer that also happens to have the specs to run WOFF at a respectable rate. I'm more than happy to post my exploits over here at CA - especially if it would draw you back to the sim. I have to say, a week in and I'm astounded at the thing! PS: I'm sure you probably tried every trick in the book to make it work, but did you try cranking your settings up in WOFF to see if it ironed out the micro stutters I've read about? I had the same problem and every time I'd tick the settings back it only got worse. So I took a play from the boards and cranked my settings up to what I thought were impossible to run and sure enough, no more stutter. I get some slight frame rate drops - but only if I'm over heavily populated terrain, like London at dawn with Terrain and Scenery on 4. Otherwise, it's smooth as silk. Completely buggered two decades of computer logic in my brain but it worked! At any rate, good to see you drop by! We'll see if we can lure you back in full time.

Hi Jim! I can just post them here if that works for you. I will qualify my settings by saying - I set them about five years ago now from my old copy of WoG, so how I got to these settings and why they work, is now well beyond my memory. I also remember having the dragging mouse issue. I found, for a while at least, that the solution was to hold the joystick opposite of the drift of the cursor, doing so at least neutralizes the thing so you can use it. Somewhere after that, it just sort of stopped doing that, from what I remember. Grad school has fried most my my brain lol. Hope this helps at least! You'll be amazed at the difference once you get to fire it up again.

I echo your sentiments Hellshade - what a shame to have lost him. Widow was always one of my favorite members to chat with as well. It was always a pleasure to see him kicking around the boards - his subtle and not-so subtle messages asking for a Snipe were good for a laugh. Hope he is doing okay...

Hi Jim! Good to hear from you mate! I still have WoG installed on my Windows 10 box! I get at DOSBox using a program called D-Fend Reloaded which works great. The link to the latest version, I think, can be found here: http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/ You should then be able to either install WoG through D-Fend, or if the CD allows, simply copy and paste the files from the CD en masse to a folder in your D-Fend VirtualHD (the folder is usually located in your user folder if you're using Windows 7 or 10). Then you can run the wizard in D-Fend to set up the game to work accordingly. Pretty easy, at least in my experience! hope that helps! If all else fails, give me a shout and I can send you my D-Fend settings for WoG. Great old game!

Still here. I've kept the boards bookmarked under my "Daily Links" section and they've never left. Been busy with RL, and didn't have WOFF until this week. Finally back though! Always pop by when time allows.

After spending a few days home sick as a dog, I began tinkering with the computer and two days later I have this to show for it. Behold, I have the ultimate gaming computer! (At least in my mind ). I now have, in one place, the ability to run everything from OFF to Wolfenstein 3D and all of the games in between. By my count, my PC now covers every game I've ever owned from 1993 until last Christmas. And I still have 200GB free! Not bad for a couple of sick days! The best part is, for some reason, with the latest set of nVidia drivers, everything runs smoothly without any major tinkering. Now the hard part is going to be deciding what to play next! PS: You'll notice, however, what shortcuts are on my desktop, ready to go at a moments notice.

Well now - it's been a while since we had a new post here so I thought I'd share some OFF screenshots from the last few days. I recently discovered the amazing AnKor mod for WOFF and found, thanks to Widowmaker, that it works in OFF as well! (Albeit with a LOT of tweaking on my part to get rid of some dreaded micro-stutters that users were seeing in WOFF). If you you're interested in how I adjusted my settings, see our discussion here: http://combatace.com/topic/82497-does-ankors-mod-work-on-off/page-2?do=findComment&comment=663286 While it took some work, the added immersion to the sim was more than worth the effort. Even OFF, which isn't nearly as graphically optimized as WOFF, looks like a class-leading flight sim! That added depth of shadows filtering across your cockpit is absolutely astounding. And the shadows have an amazing amount of depth to them - you can see shadows cast from the air cooled jackets of your twin Spandaus against the cockpit, or the shadow cast by a guage mounted on the cockpit's dash. The shadows also add depth and immersion to dogfights: wing struts pop as the sun glints off of the canvas that's tightly bound to the struts underneath, shadows cast across enemy pilot's faces as they whip their planes around to attack. The effect, whlie subtle at first, makes a tremendous difference in the look and feel of the sim. So, to celebrate this little breakthrough, I've posted some before and after photos. The first is from a dogfight I found myself in last week - before installing the mod. While it's certainly beautiful, it's nothing comapred to the screenshots that follow. Hope you enjoy them!

Hi All: As promised, I am going to post my settings. They should be attached below. I'll also note that I have aircraft textures set to normal in the workshop (high seemed to bring back the stutter a bit.) I've been playing with them yet again this morning and I think (knock on wood! I've gotten OFF smoothed out). My system is also woefully out of date, so if you have a better system, you can up several of these settings (both in the workshop and in your respective video card settings). I found that the biggest help in reducing the stutter in game (which only appears when D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC is disabled - and has to be in order for AnKor's mod to run in OFF), is enabling Adaptive V-Sync. For me, choosing Half Refresh Rate had the best results. OFF now runs locked in around 30fps and while it doesn't have those moments of liquid smooth FPS, it does reduce the immersion breaking FPS drops when the sim suddenly plummets from 65fps to 18. I also notice so far that the instances of FPS dropping into the teens is much reduced, even with regional activity set to high. Again, this hasn't been tested completely, but Quick Combat, and Quick Scenarios look good - even the missions with 20v20 and a few campaign missions in 1918 with high regional activity. So... fingers crossed. Of course, the easy answer would have been to just yank AnKor's mod out and play as it was - my OFF worked fine before - but the shadows are just too good of an immersion enhancement to give it up. It really looks like a top class, current gen flight sim now! At any rate - I hope these settings helped! Sorry for my prolonged absence around here. RL, as always lately, has been very busy but rewarding! Cheers!

Hi Andy! I will post my settings later today. I'm still having some micro-stuttering issues with my OFF... which is why I've been hesitant to jump into WOFF. I just don't think my rig has anywhere near enough power to play it... and, being a grad student on a super tight budget, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Looks amazing though, wish I could try it out! I'm still playing with my settings trying to see if I can get the stutter to disappear once and for all. Once I remove AnKor's mod, the problem disappears. I really think if there was a way to enable D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC that would sort out the problem as it is the ONLY setting that is different in the workshop from what's there when I'm not running the mod.

Hi Mud! I narrowed down the issue that was preventing OFF from starting for both Widow and I. It appears that checking the D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC option under the Texture Info part of CFS3.cfg was causing the problem... ...removing that problem opened up a whole host of other issues for me. Without that option checked, OFF starts having the same stuttering issues that appear to have been a problem in WOFF. After two hours of checking the WOFF boards and tweaking my options, I seem to have it working but man, it took some effort!