streakeagle

The F-4Bs had their chin IRST replaced with RWR antennas similar to F-4C/F-4D (the F-4C never had an IRST, just an empty fairing and early F-4Ds were slick noses like F-4Js). As the RWR's capabilities were expanded, the chin fairing gained bulges. Look at F-4B photos and you can see this evolution. The F-4Ns were made much later, but the chin fairings went back to the original streamlined shape used by the original F-4Bs. So my question: is the chin fairing on an F-4N still a RWR antenna, empty, or was the IRST restored by given that the RWR could have been relocated to match F-4J/F-4S which have no chin fairing? From all of my reading, I doubt the IRST was restored, but if the both the money and space were there, it would have been smart to restore it. I will have to review my references to find out.

I already had this working correctly with bezel correction when I posted. TrackIR doesn't like Triple Buffering with an AMD ATi gpu, so it is always disabled for me. I didn't need to do anything to the SF2 viewlist to make this work. The actual field of view of the three displays in landscape mode is on the order of 100-120 degrees, so why would I want to be able to look behind me with a 240 fov? SF2 crashes to desktop if the monitor is in portrait rotation (3:4), so I was forced to use landscape (4:3). The flaw I see in the system is that the monitors need to be angled toward me to have correct colors/brightness/contrast whereas the graphics engines of games distort the images to accommodate flat screens. So, theoretically, one big flat panel viewed at the right distance (i.e. matching the game engine's FOV) would have little to no apparent distortion. Whereas the angled monitors will look distorted regardless of the view range.

I just got in an active adapter today to permit me to use three old Samsung Syncmaster 204B 20" 1600x1200 LCD monitors via DVI ports. My card is an AMD 7870 with 2 GB GDDR5 RAM. I wondered if this card could handle flight sims at 3 x 1600 x 1200. It cost me some FPS, but still played well with SF2. In DCS world, I had to go from maxed out settings to medium settings to get similar frame rates. But it worked very well and looked very good. I think the key would be to have 3 1080 TVs at 46" or larger, then it would be even more amazing. I would prefer to use the monitors in portrait mode for more vertical depth, but SF2 would CTD until I went back to landscape orientation. As it is, the wide view angle greatly enchanced my sense of speed and helped me know where I was looking while panning around with Track IR. Looking down into the cockpit and seeing the sides of the aircraft makes you feel like you are really inside a small cramped cockpit. I can see where using a high end card or multigpu would be very useful to use multiple screens and still have high FPS while keeping quality settings maxed out.

It remains to be seen where TK is going to take SF2 development beyond previously announced releases. I doubt it is going to swing back toward what I like/want based on all the hard-coded tweaking during the run up to and after the release of SF2NA. I will use the upcoming Mirage expansion pack to make a decision as to whether I will continue to buy more Third Wire releases. As for the Android game, I don't even have a phone or tablet to play it on. My only cell phone is a basic camera phone issued by my employer and I don't want or own a tablet. DCS, on the other hand, is giving me a MiG-21bis and a UH-1, both aircraft that TK should have provided as flyables. I still find it extremely ironic that exactly as Third Wire began steering away from my preferences, ED steered toward them. I don't think either one consciously did so, certainly not intentionally carving up the market, but the timing and precision couldn't be better for me :)

"KAW" in the title does the trick. Makes finding related downloads exceptionally easy :)

I have always wanted a decent hard core UH-1 and AH-1 simulation as much as an F-4/MiG-21 sim. I am pleasantly surprised by this decision and will most likely thoroughly enjoy this addon if they don't do something grossly wrong. I want a sim that combines all the best features of every sim ever released with a complete planeset ranging from the Wright Flyer to the latest greatest aircraft being built. DCS is short on the map/world and planeset, but is probably the best sim available for just about everything else. Clearly, the planeset is being expanded as rapidly as possible in all directions. If they could just go to a global map like xplane and FSX.

I think all items associated with the once and future KAW release should have a common tag in the title, either KAW or Korea to make them stand out in file searches. In the test I just did, I had to first do a default search of SF2 downloads with just Korea and then a 2nd search with just KAW to cover all the recent releases. If they all had the same tag, probably KAW being the most specific, then they would all show up in the same search. Hard to find or not, it is great to see all this stuff being made accessible instead of wasting away in "beta" installs. The piece are there. Now if someone will put in the effort to glue them together into a single coherent release with lots of spit and polish to make it into a nice addon that looks like payware and is easily installed by noobs :)

Of course Warthogs have the stick in the center ;)

Yes, FRAPS. Works fairly well now that I have a modern quad-core PC :)

Here is a new one I just uploaded at full 1600x1200 resolution with stereo sound. It took quite a while, so I don't know if I am going to bother to upload the first two parts. Here are the links in order part 1 to part 3:

This is an old video at far less than HD quality, but it demonstrates my style of gameplay: no external view and no icons: TrackIR makes this style of play more realistic by not using a POV hat or zoom axis. The WoV game engine allows you to see objects if they are at least one pixel in size, so you can lean forward to zoom in and spot distant targets. Unfortunately, SF2 eventually took this capability away, so aircraft now pop into view at a hard-coded range. I am still playing this way despite the new limits, which are painfully obvious with B-52 sized aircraft but not to bad for MiG-17 sized targets. I use this same style with all every game I have that can use it: DCS, Aces High, ArmA 2, Falcon 4 BMS, However, I don't have videos for the others.

Driver version doesn't affect me much. It takes very little time for me to set up the one profile I like for all my games, I save it, and then never really look at it again. I didn't realize that the ability to look 180 was a TrackIR driver problem rather than a Third Wire feature. I just realized one day that I could look all the way around if I wanted to. Usually I am too lazy to edit the viewlist and just play stock anyway.

I can do that without any problem at all. The cockpit ini settings don't matter as the viewlist parameters are like a master key in disabling all limits. I used to have the TrackIR limits in SFP1/WoX series no matter what ini settings I used, but I have not had that problem in SF2 (not sure when it was "fixed"). I am running SF2 to the latest patch level, but had realized the limits of SFP1/WoX had been removed from SF2 long ago. I would check your TrackIR profile and make sure it is not preventing you from turning around 180 degrees. I am using a TrackIR 4 Pro with the latest software from natural point and I can easily exceed 180 degrees on the virutal sphere co-ordinate grid when turning my head left or right.

I can use TIR to look freely in pitch and yaw anywhere in the cockpit by editing the viewlist.ini file: [ViewClass002] ViewClassName=CockpitViewClass LimitPitch=FALSE LimitYaw=FALSE File placed in: C:\Users\Stephen\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 NorthAtlantic\Flight

The only unique difference between the A-7H and A-7E 3d models is the removal of the refueling probe. This appears to be consistent with reality. Anything and everything I could find on the A-7H said that it was pretty much an A-7E with the refueling probe removed. I barely glanced over the cockpits and didn't see any obvious differences. The price says it all. None of the DLC variants with significant 3D model changes had the $2.99 price tag.

In place of the ADI2 on the far left, I can get a RWR to work. The only other node that can do this is the radar, so it had to be the somewhat clipped ADI2. It does work even if it is small and partially clipped: By streakeagle at 2012-09-08 I have many questions about the later CF-104 upgrades. In the original delivered version with no gun, what was the gunsight like? Fixed reticle identical to the standard sight? Once the gun came back, was LCOS restored if it was previously deleted? If there was LCOS, could the radar provide gun ranging? Did the radar ever get upgraded/replaced to provide any air-to-air modes such as search, track, boresight, ranging? For now, I have restricted all my CF-104s to ground mapping and terrain avoidance modes with no LCOS, just a fixed reticle. The absence of a search radar makes finding incoming bandits harder, but the functional RWR partially solves that problem. What versions of the AIM-9 (if any) were carried on the various CF-104 variants?

Whether Putin has been legitimately elected or not, I think he is one of the most capable leaders Russia has had since Peter the Great. But the very thing that molded him into such a strong person also limits his ability to lead his nation into prosperity: his Cold War/KGB experience. It may never happen, but I would like to see Russia and its people do as well as the USA without needing a war to get there. Those people have been oppressed for centuries and despite shaking off the Czar and most of the Soviet chains, continue to suffer despite having abundant resources and a large and fairly well educated population. At least they have Vodka :)

Thanks for the history lesson. I love B-26s but never knew about this mission.

I have really enjoyed the abilities of the new system to run older games well such as ArmA 2, FC2, and SF2. I can see that I may need the 7970, multi-gpus, or better if I am going to go "Ultra HD" (the new 2160p TV resolution) or use multi-monitors with DCS.

The slider that kills my DCS performance is the Anit-Aliasing Mode in the max quality "Super sample AA" position. Super sampling greatly increases the image quality, especially when looking at gauges from longer distances or looking at terrain into the distance from a low altitude, but the FPS cost in DCS is just too high. So, I knock it back one notch to Adaptive Multi-sample AA, which still looks almost as good, but gets much higher FPS. In other games such as SF2, I can use Super sample AA and maintain Vsync 60 fps, unless I am over Iceland, then its more like 30 fps.

There is a CF-104 "walkaround" website that shows a cockpit without the RWR, but otherwise looks very similar: http://www.arcair.com/awa01/101-200/awa101-CF104/00.shtm

I have been studying the history of the CF-104 and wanted to know how its cockpit looked, especially the later variant with a RWR. After a bit of poking around, I found this photo, which is somewhat different than the stock cockpit found in the old SFP1 F-104G: CF104 STARFIGHTER COCKPIT by JmHerigstad, on Flickr

The original free MiG-21 cockpits created head bobbing effects. Use those as a reference. Essentially, you are creating a g-meter, but instead of connecting it to a needle on a gauge in the cockpit model, you are connecting the animation effect to the entire cockpit model. So, select the correct instrument parameter, connect it to the right node of the cockpit lod, and choose the correct type of movement (roll, translation, etc.) around the correct axis and you can get any kind movement you want.

Focusing on the F-15C means focusing on the US market, which makes sense for a lot of reasons. I am the US customer they are aiming at and I prefered flying the F-15C in LOMAC/FC/FC2 primarily out of familiarity with the systems combined with the fact that it was one of my all-time favorite aircraft long before there were flight sims or even MiG-29s/Su-27s. While I would prefer an F-4 to the F-15, I prefer the F-15 to the MiG-29 or Su-27. The DCS:MiG-21bis, if done well and I am able to employ it as successfully as I can in the SF series may end up outranking the F-15C. Of course, as an air-to-air fanatic, I prefer all of them to the A-10, Su-25, and Ka-50. FC3 will hold me until the MiG-21bis, and the MiG-21bis may be my favorite for a long time until F-104/F-4 aircraft and others of similar capabilities from that era become available.

I saw this on SimQH and wanted to make sure it got echoed here: http://forums.vrsimulations.com/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9059&start=0&sid=e6bcc07dc7df8535afc45cab7ef27466 I hope this does well, as competition is good for us simmers :)