streakeagle

Gotta love the Razbam F2H2 Banshee!

Going from XP to Win 7 with DX10 support gave me both better looking effects and higher framerates. None of my older games have had any problems running on Win 7 so far (still in the process of installing my library since I wiped my hard drive to go 64-bit).

To the best of my knowledge, never in human history has such a dramatic change occurred without terrible amounts of blood spilling. The Berlin Wall marked the beginning of a tidal wave that ended with the total collapse of the Soviet Union. There is simply no precedent of such a global power giving up its control so quickly AND peacefully. Though, to be fair, the UK did give up its massive colonial empire relatively peacefully with a little prodding from the USA during WW2. But, correct me if I am wrong, the UK did so over a span of decades slowly shrinking and with some fighting. On a historical scale, the collapse of Soviet Communism occurred in a flash with hardly a shot fired. I still don't understand how this happened. Traditionally, those in power hold out and fight to the bitter end, which in this case could have produced the expected WW3 scenario in Germany. Alternatively, the people rise up and kill everyone they blame for their problems such as in the French Revolution and Bolshevik Revolution. Of course the American Revolution was a one of a kind as well. Most people that rise up and fight in a revolution do so because their very lives are in danger. The French and Russians were starving and/or dying in unpopular wars. But, the people of the 13 colonies decided that they hated their tax rates so much that they would die to have the right to vote for lowering them. If only they could see how we are being taxed now despite our right to vote! Hooray for Germany! As bad as they were, the experiences of WW2 and the Cold War should make Germany an even greater country than it ever would have been otherwise. Reunification must have been painful in some ways (and to some extent probably still is). But it was not right for one people and so many families to remain so divided for so long. I would like to see Korea unified. They essentially have the same problem and both the North and South would have much to gain if the Communists collapsed and merged with the South.

I was entertained for years by the gathering of SFP1 haters at Die Sim Fanboi. Now it appears that Bard has shutdown his website and forum. While Stiglr is the favorite bad guy here at CombatAce, there was a whole cast of characters at Die Sim Fanboi that absolutely hated the Third Wire SFP1 series and the community that formed around it no matter how much the game and the mods for it improved. I think some of the less aggressive members are active here and at SimHQ with other sims.

CombatAce is not most forums :) Of course, it is nice if you pay a subsription fee every now and then if you are using bandwidth here.

I installed this without any problems, but the paratroops did not show up in the loadout selection screen. None of the files seemed to be right and when I finally got a paratroop to show up, he was huge, larger then the C-119. After much struggling, I made the paratroops work by going to Capun'a site and getting the paratroops from his C-47A. Strangely enough, the bitmaps matched. So I am not sure what was wrong with the C-119 paratroops which appeared to be the same model. Both the C-119 and C-47A paratroops call for an effect that doesn't exist. So, while the aircraft looks good and flys well, the paratroops part needs to be reviewed and fixed.

The bitmaps for the AA-3 missiles in this SF2 package were renamed to match the lod names, but that doesn't work. The missiles have no textures and show up black in the game. Both lod files for the ir and radar AA-3 missiles specify "aa-3.bmp", so either the bmps need to be renamed back to "aa-3.bmp" or the lod files for the AA-3s need to be edited to point to the new names. Renaming the bmps is by far easier. The Su-15 is one of the jewels of the SF series. What other sim allows you to try to intercept B-52s, B-1s, and/or FB-111s in an Su-15 or try to slip by Su-15s while flying one of the bombers? The model and pit are awesome. P.S. This is another candidate for the DirectX 10 effects edits.

I think it is safe to say that HOTAS setups have a lot of features and that no two people will ever agree on what the best feature set should be or which model available on the market meets their requirements best. About the only thing that I think the majority of high-end HOTAS owners might be able to agree on is that CH has the highest quality product backed with excellent customer support. But, to date, the first and only decent HOTAS with force feedback is the Logitech G940. Combined with the split throttle and assuming the quality of the product is acceptable, Logitech deserves and will get a bunch of new customers who already had CH or other competing products. I am not surprised to see RuggButt say he went back to CH after getting the Logitech, though. If you like the feel and functionality of CH a whole lot, force feedback and a split throttle isn't enough to justify switching. I like my X-52 Pro a lot as it is a product improved version of my still functional and much loved X-36. I know a lot of people can't stand Saitek and have had terrible experiences with their quality and support, but that hasn't been my experience. I would like to try a Logitech G940 in person before deciding to replace a stick that is already working perfectly and whose layout and button programming I have been using since August of 2000 (when I got my X-36). But, if I were going to get a new stick, the G940 is the best candidate for me. It has a lot in common with the Saitek X-52 Pro plus force feedback. The new Saitek stick with its rigid strain gauge sensor has no appeal to me whatsoever. So, I know for sure my next stick won't be a Saitek despite 9 years of enjoying my X-36 USB, X-45, and X-52 Pro. Despite all the positive things offered by CH, I just don't like the look, feel, or layout of their HOTAS, especially the throttle. If the pricing of their new military grade A-10 HOTAS isn't too unreasonable, they might actually sell me a stick. But the force feedback and similarity in layout to the Saitek still makes the G940 much more appealing to me.

The F-111's sure look good... but the afterburner effect isn't working for me. The only thing I see that let's me know I am in afterburner besides nozzle animation is the glow on the rear of the aircraft. I see the effects file is there and are pointing to the tga file, but no flames edit: this is in a merged SF2I install on Windows 7 using an ATi 4890 1GB.

There is a small problem with this package: the engine sound is in a folder called "Sound" which should be called "Sounds". So, if you install this package and try it out before installing the other F-101 packages, then you will have no engine sound. The other packages have it right, but then you will end up with a spare unwanted "sound" folder in your mods if you don't pay attention to your mods folder. I love the entire F-101 series. They may not be the best aircraft to knock down fighters, especially MiG-17s, but they are challenging to fly and look awesome!

I finally got the chance to install and try out this package. It is simply breathtaking to see a 1959 B-52G in SAC colors with hound dogs under the wings lifting off the runway with a 4x0.50 cal turret. These are B-52s the way I remember them: Cold War warriors. My son is going to love it too. There is a B-52 on display near the Orlando International airport that he has seen and he has a die-cast toy B-52. He doesn't know his airplanes by numbers, but when he sees a B-52 he knows to say "Stratofortress".

The old CVAN-65 was better than nothing, but after seeing the carriers in YAP2, it burns my eyes to look at it (especially the terrible textures). I want the CVAN-65 that I thought I was going to get with YAP 1. Given that the people that would were producing it are probably the same people that were screwed over by 05, I bet it doesn't show up in YAP 2 either.

That doesn't look much like an F/A-18E or an unmanned drone? That looks more like something the USAF is buying aside from the swing wing

My ATi x1800XT was a bargain and it still works fairly well, but I was shocked to discover when I went to download Catalyst 9.4 that my card is now a legacy product no longer supported after Catalyst 9.3. On the other hand, my 9800 Pro just now became a legacy product after 7 years! I think my video card and processor are well matched, so I don't think it is worth it for me to buy a 4870 or better since it will probably be CPU bound. Hopefully, I get moved to Kissimmee sometime this year so that I can start saving up to build a newer PC.

Upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7, now the 4890 really shines with DirectX 10 shaders and improved performance.

What happened to that character? Is he also known as ZeroCinco? YAP2 hasn't gotten any more $ from me for 2 reasons: 1. I don't fly anything less than SF2 now, and there is not even a plan to upgrade YAP to work with the Oct 2008 update. 2. I don't see my primary interest released yet, if ever: CVAN-65 USS Enterprise. Has Diego and friends sorted out their issues with Z05?

That isn't two pippers. The big one is a fixed reticle for reference (especially when manually aiming). The smaller one is the traditional gyro-driven pipper. It is quite correct, there is nothing to fix.

<S> I am in shock. I can only imagine what his local family and friends are going through. His presence will be greatly missed worldwide in this community. This is taking time for me to digest.

I didn't have a solid opportunity to do a solid benchmark before switching cards, but in SF2 series I was getting 20 to 40 fps in normal cockpit view with mirrors turned off and shadow on medium and now I am getting 30 to 45 fps, mainly in the 40s until some bases come into view. Aces High 2 apparently taps into to newer hardware pretty well, went from a mid 30 fps or less to a 40 to 60 fps, only less than 40 on the runway... but turning on self-shadowing (an option not even available with the other card), caused a big hit. If only I could give my cpu a boost... I might even be able to play Armed Assault. This will have to do until I can build a new machine. One thing I noticed is that the 4890 was barely longer than the x1800xt and in some ways smaller. So it easily fit into my somewhat large Antec aluminum case. I am pretty sure it would be a tough fight to get the 5800 series into this case unless I completely relocated the RAID 1 hard drive array. I bet a 4850 would have given similar performance gains given my CPU limits... but the 4890 didn't cost that much more and I can use it in the next machine to help keep my new build costs down.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! In a time of economic challenges, there are now three new high end HOTAS setups? There is also an independent company planning to market a high-end setup with a variety of stick and throttle grips. Okay, what is CH Products gonna do? I have so badly wanted to buy CH for its quality, but just don't like their throttle at all and don't really want an F-16 look-a-like stick either. If CH would put their name and quality into a HOTAS/rudder setup that has the best features of all the other sticks, that would suit me fine. If the independent company follows up with decent hardware and software at decent prices, they may open up a new market: interchangable B-8/F-15/A-10/F-16 stick grips and throttles including dual throttle support. Of course they don't have force feedback :( CH... get your but in gear and make force feedback stick AND rudder pedals (almost all planes have a real or artificial pedal shake that warns of stall conditions.

http://www.saitekusa.com/prod/x65f.htm I guess this is their answer to the G940. It looks like it might be cool, but at a glance not having tried either stick in person, I think the G940 wins hands down: Force Feedback! Real pilots hated the non-moving force sensing sticks on the F-16, so the sticks were modified to move a little bit. I haven't tried such sticks, but I suspect I would prefer to have a stick that moves. With no force feedback and no movement, I can't see where I would ever choose this stick over the G940 unless there was a huge price difference and I was on a tight budget.

Given the current market and the fact that it may be a year or more before I build a new PC, I decided to get a 4890 before they disappear. Picked up a Sapphire 4890 1GB at NewEgg for $189.99, plus a $20 rebate, and free shipping. Of course, I am still CPU limited and running only XP, but I still expect to see a bit of improvement in FPS and/or image quality.

This poll doesn't quite let me answer accurately: I play a merged install of SF2/V/E and while I use the SF2E icon and make all my mods to the SF2E installation, I am primarily playing using SF2V planeset and terrain (of course I take some hops in Germany with F-15, A-10, A-7D, etc.).

[Edit] I finally got my MC-2/B-8 stick grip. Despite using the stock number for an actual F-4 grip on eBay, it has the hand rest that was not present on F-4 grips. It is definitely used, but has been restored to a nearly new condition. I would have been happier without the hand rest, but the stick looks good and all the buttons work. Now I have to figure out how I am going to use it :) I have figured out how I am going to use it! I got lucky, a guy on eBay is parting out his F-4 cockpit collection. I can't afford to get the instrument panel, but look what I got: It comes with everything but the stick grip, including the $100 metal connector lug that my stick grip doesn't have. [/Edit] I didn't want to draw the X-52 Pro thread any further off topic, so I started this one The more I re-read other people's experiences with Cougars, the less I want one. Too many quality control issues to risk that much money. I am thinking about buying a B-8 stick grip to make my own realistic F-4 stick. The B-8 was used in many aircraft from the P-80 to the F-15A, so it is a good choice for playing Third Wire's Strike Fighters series games. If I decide to do that, I will probably use my X-45. If I make a mistake, no big deal since I mainly use my X-36. But if it works... the X-36 will get moved to the server and the X-45 will become primary. The stiff spring of the X-45 will be meaningless if I actually replicate the F-4 mechanical setup using metal piping and levers. The weight and leverage of the long stick will probably require supplemental springs to generate sufficient centering forces. If I wanted to go all-out, I could make the trim-hat 100% functional by connecting it to drive motors with fine worm-gears that would adjust the centering forces mechanically rather than via computer keys as on the real F-4, but I think I will be lazy and just map the hat switch to the pov hat, which also offers more flexibility if I don't want or need trim controls. I could use pneumatic pistons similar to the ones that hold open hatch-backs on cars to provide centering forces with a hydraulic feel when moving the stick... but once again, I am probably too lazy to do that initially. Apparently it is pretty easy to get a B-8 stick grip: Replicas with prices varying from $144 to $539 depending on the quality you want: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/el/gripspistolstick.html Here is an actual PC joystick available: http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/95025100.htm A high-end military grade manufacturer: http://www.guardian-electric.com/html/b_8_control_grip.htm Not B-8s, but interesting industrial custom sticks: http://www.daco.co.uk/html/custom_built_controllers.htm Real ones for widely varying prices depending on condition (brand new is $235): http://www.warbird-parts.com/invent/postwar.htm The F-4 E-gress trainer (basically a complete cockpit on wheels for $2800!) is very tempting! But I don't have a place to put it and need the money for more important things including a baby boy due in December and finally getting my real pilot's license. Looking at these prices for just grips with switches (no electronics) makes the Cougar look like a bargain, but these are for real aircraft which means the switches should be very reliable unlike many Cougars. I am leaning toward the brand new military grip for $235 if I decide to do this.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is a great setup if not the best setup available (if it doesn't have quality control or longevity issues)... But CH sticks are so good that anyone who has used one for any length of time becomes a very loyal customer and for very good reasons: quality and support. I can see people with Thrustmaster and Saitek hardware giving this a shot, but on all the forums I tread through, CH sticks are the dominant product among hard-core jet jocks and prop-heads with cash to burn. Perhaps being the only high-end setup to support force feedback will get them the marketshare they seek, but I question whether the number of people that buy this system at this price is sufficient to justify all the development and production costs. I hope it does really well since that would force the competition to offer similar products and/or drive prices down. As for looks and styling, I suspect I am not alone in considering the look and feel of the controls part of the immersion, otherwise most people would just be using a mouse and scroll wheel for their stick, throttle, and fire buttons (very doable in Aces High 2, I have met some "mouse" aces that fly rings around people with good sticks). The X-36, CH sticks, and Cougar all looked like a real HOTAS. The X-45 started drifting toward the shiny blue/glowing lights neon look. The X-52 went even further in that direction and pretty much all other Saitek, Thrustmaster, and Logitech products looked and felt like space toys. The X-52 Pro and now the G940 is a back to basics return to what HOTAS is all about: providing great performance and functionality in a package that also helps with overall immersion. CH is to be commended for never having deviated from this standard. The Thrustmaster Cougar was the last big push in this direction, but the price was very high for a product that fell short on quality. Had they simply used better sensors than old spiky pots, they would probably still be getting $400 for each one they sell. Had they also followed on with equally realistic interchangable stick grips for other aircraft types as originally planned, what hard core junkie flying different sims wouldn't have a Cougar? For me, the choosing a stick grip is like choosing a pistol grip: functionality alone is not enough. Every gun has a trigger and fires bullets, but some fit and feel much better in my hand, have smoother trigger actions, and are more reliable. While I have tried quite a few guns and stick grips, M1911A1 0.45 cal pistols and US military spec B-8/MC-2 stick grips are the ones that suit me best. Judging by the proliferation of both of those, I think I am far from alone. Besides the B-8 grip that I have set up on a real F-4 stick, I ended up with a spare that can be easily mounted on any stick available at the loss of extra hats and buttons. I am not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but it might end up on top of my X-45. As much as I want a G940 for the throttle and force feedback, I just have too much hardware already laying around to justify it