streakeagle

But TK had very specific terminology: A service pack was a major update to the core engine that in later implementations (starting with the 051506 service pack) could be applied without installing any prior service packs or patches. Whereas the 083006 patch consisted of minor fixes and required that the 051506 service pack be installed before it could be applied. So, you must have both the service pack and the patch to achieve the 083006 standard or a downloaded version of the games which have single file installation exe files that install the game already patched to the 083006 standard. Originally, with SFP1 TK required each service pack to be applied in succession to try to keep the download size as small as possible. Over time, high speed internet became a lot more common and some people were having issues with applying the right patches in the right order, so TK made the 051506 "rollup" service pack to simplify the process. Obviously, TK has completely given up trying to manage minimize internet bandwidth for both him and his customers, as he now makes nearly every patch a complete standalone capable of patching any installation at any prior patch level up to the current level.

If you buy (bought? don't know if TK has updated them yet) the download versions of the game, they install already patched to 083006... so no worries about patching anything. Of course of you want to play an earlier version (especially SFP1) you still need original CD releases, but is there anyone still interested in flying SFP1 at SP1, SP2a, or SP3 (post WOV) levels? SFP1 patches were initially called service packs. SP2 had a major glitch, so TK re-released it as SP2a. The release of WOV led to SP3 for SFP1 to bring it up to the same standard. AI and FM problems in WOV led to a series of hotfixes which started to confuse the service pack naming convention. The release of WOE marked the end of the original service pack 1-2-3 designation system. TK switched to using dates, which made a lot more sense since WOE had no service packs while SFP1 would need its fourth service pack to be brought up to WOE standards. The 051506 service pack for SFP1 was never officially called SP4 (which would have been SP1 for WOV). The 083006 patches were the cumination of various hotfixes for WOE (which never had a service pack). The release of WOI has marked a slight modification to the service pack/patch naming convention to make the release date more clear. According to TK, this is the final update for SFP1, which is technically SP5... an amazing number of major updates for any sim. If you can live with the AI, SP4 is fine... but the October 2008 release is better in so many ways: terrain, AI, weapons performance, damage modeling, formation commands, etc. The only consistent flaws I see in this latest revision are AI ground impacts when being tailed and difficulty ordering your wingman to attack your target. But having both friendly and enemy AI capable of getting missile and gun kills and Sparrows that actually miss a lot of the time especially at low atlitudes are worth these two little flaws.

Historically, no single political entity be it a mere country or intercontinental empire has lasted indefinitely. The last vestiges of the British Empire are still lingering, but has definitely been on a downslide since the rise of the United States from WW1 to WW2. The United States may as yet get stronger before it is supplanted by the next world superpower or it may already be on the verge of disintegrating... only time will tell.

Matrox has resolution limits for there triple-head system. I am pretty sure they can't do 3 monitors at 1920x1080. For now, I think the best option would be a 1080p HD projector for screen size (though a 65" LCD isn't too bad). But for resolution, the 30" monitors at 2560x1600 would be impressive... especially with high resolution cockpit textures. Whenever I get around to building a new PC, I may get a monitor at that resolution as I greatly appreciated the jump from 1024x768 to 1600x1200. My current PC simply does not have the CPU power to match up well with a heavy-duty video card like an ATi 4870 or an NVidia 260/280. For that type of resolution, it would be even better to use SLi/Crossfire, but Third Wire games aren't supported for multi-gpu setups. So, I will keep dreaming...

Only 37"? I am much happier with 46":

I love MiG-21s. Great video of the cockpit... love seeing gunsight and radar operation. Sound of the jet engine is nice too.

I think modern evidence/analysis of the Zapruder film is fairly conclusive as to how the "magic bullet" wasn't so magical and confirming the location of the shooter. However, there are still some strange contradictory events/facts that make me ask why does Oswald have to be the shooter? Oswald's background does make him look like a lonely loser that could have been a lone disturbed shooter... but if there was a conspiracy, it would have been hard to find a better patsy. But his background does include something that is exremely peculiar for the time frame: he managed to defect to the Soviet Union (how many Americans did that? and of those how many were ex-US military?) AND he returned to the US to live a "normal" life with a Soviet wife. This was the just after the era of the McCarthy witch hunt and the Cuban missile crisis! Why would the US take him back with a Soviet wife and not even keep an eye on them? Independent of Oswald, Kennedy was considered at risk and only at his own refusal did he not have a bullet-resistant bubble on his car, yet the Secret Service alters the route to one that permitted the "easy" shot at the slowed down convoy?... Mr. President, we have decided to choose an alternate root that will maximize the risk on your life and we are going to make sure the media broadcasts the new route so that everyone will know when and where you will be. The number of potential witnesses to various conspiracy theories that met untimely deaths is also still suspicious. Jack Ruby's assassination of Oswald was just a little too easy and convenient as well. Finally, for those that are so sure that JFK's assassination didn't involve any kind of conspiracy and was just a fluke, I submit to you the assassination of RFK. Compare those two situations to the shooting of Ronald Reagan: the lone nutcase was quickly and easily caught, was clearly the guilty party, and can be interviewed to this day. With the exception of Kennedy's death, Oswald should have been handled and lived through a trial just as John W. Hinckley Jr. was when Reagan whas shot.

Check it out here: http://thunderovervegas.com/ This sim is by the same people that did Xtreme Air Racing. If you enjoyed that sim (as I did) you will probably enjoy this one too. The graphics are no better (or worse) than XAR (very dated to say the least), but with these sims, it is more about gameplay and flight modeling. Though, Vegas seems modeled well enough to be entertaining, especially with the optional high resolution terrain addon. I have only done some free flights and watched the PC fly in "airshow" mode so far, but I have enjoyed what little I have done. This is no LOMAC or Falcon 4.0, so if that is what you are looking for, read no further. This is an independent (one-programmer) sim series much like Third Wire games. It has its limitations, but for only $10, I think it is pretty cool. There are multiplayer and combat options, but I have tested neither and don't expect the air combat gun and missile modeling to even be worth the trouble of trying out. I am curious about how well the multiplayer option works. Formation flying via internet connections cannot be good.

A further complication of the CPU intensive nature of this series is the fact that dual/multi-core cpus are not supported... i.e. the games run on a single core. An Athlon 4800X2 (2.4GHz) is roughly the same as my Athlon 3800 Venice single core (2.4GHz). So, in this case, your 4600X2 (2.2GHz) is a bit more like running a 3500 single core. I run everything maxed out on my video card (FSAAx6, AFx16) and max out almost everything in-game for 1600x1200x32, but limit horizon to near, shadows to medium, and mirrors off to keep my fps typically at 25 to 35, though it still drops below 20s under certain conditions. I can tweak a few other ingame items like terrain to sustain 40 to 50 fps. Not sure why your performance at much lower settings (lots of medium) is still giving you such low frame rates. How much RAM do you have? I am running 2GB. How much video RAM do you have? I am running 512MB. When SFP1 was first released, it ran fairly well (30-40 fps) at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx2 and AFx16 on a 128MB Radeon 8500, prior to that I had it running well at 1024x768x32 on a 65MB Voodoo 5500, my P3 1GHz PC had 1GB of PC133 RAM. Each game release after that pulled down my FPS. I had upgraded to a 9800 Pro 128MB and a P3 1.2GHz by the time WOV was out. I played at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx4 and AFx16 but still had to leave shadows and mirrors turned off to keep FPS at 30 to 40. WOE dropped me down to the 20s to 30s. I built my current PC, which allowed me to play maxed out with mirrors and shadows at 45 to 60 fps, only busy places like Hanoi could take down fps with all the sounds and effects due to AAA and SAMs... especially all the "SAM launch" calls. First Eagles added all the ground objects and droppedmy current PC to 15 to 30 FPS... with a few adjustments, I could maintain 50+. WOI dropped me solidly into the 20 FPS range, forcing me to go with medium shadows and no mirrors with a near horizon to get my FPS back to 25 to 35 (normal horizon is playable but costs me at least 5 FPS). Its all about an increase in the number of objects and an increase in the texture sizes. It looks really good, but comes at a price in performance.

The SR-71 still looks ahead of its time... the aerodynamic lines are unsurpassed. I would bet application of modern materials and engine technology would allow a similar aircraft to be built in such a way that operational costs could be dramatically reduced... Or if cost reduction was unimportant, it could be given much higher performance. The question is, does such an aircraft already exist? Aviation Week rumored that some kind of military hyperspace plane/space shuttle (presumably the notorious project Aurora) has already gone out of service for the same reason as the F-117: too old and too expensive. If we can blow $700 billion on bad mortgages, surely we can afford to pump some money into the aerospace/defense industry to stimulate the kind of technology revolutions that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s due to the cold war/space race (which were really one in the same).

The current patches fixed the CTD due to the terrain pixel shaders, but TK's stated intent is to release new versions of the sims for Vista which organize the game files according to Vista rules. I am hoping he does the DX10 upgrade and multicore upgrade as well to more fully take advantage of modern OS and hardware (better yet would be a 64 bit version). He also may update the games to some extent with higher poly models with higher res textures. No exact release date was ever specified, but by the end of this year was the original goal.

Carriers may not do 100+ knots, but they are much faster than the usual public figures of 33+ knots. Nuclear carriers were required to be able to generate enough wind to launch aircraft no matter what the wind conditions. The aircraft carriers are the fastest ships in the Navy counting the PHMs that did 55+ knots. Submarine sonar techs estimate the speed at about 70 knots, at which point, the aircraft carrier is hydroplaning (bow out of the water) and making a bit of a rooster tail. I have never seen such a thing, but during my service, I met people who had.

The next round of copies will be the "Vista" updated versions. Of course, I don't have Vista yet, but once TK supports Vista properly, preferably with multicore and DirectX10 support, I will finally be able to justify building a state of the art machine with Vista (or better yet, Windows 7).

While I am not particularly interested in flying the Black Shark, I am very interested in the first true hard-core sim released since Falcon 4.0 I hope it is successful enough that the series continues so that it ultimately becomes the first sim to simultaneously be hard-core study sim and multi-plane survey sim. I do wish that they had not selected Star Force for their copy protection scheme, but I won't let that decision stop me from getting the first decent combat flight study sim released in 10 years. When is the English version due to be available for purchase?

I don't have access to Red Flag excercise results, nor do I have access to the simulation rules... So I have no leg to stand on to dispute your Red Flag claim. What I can say is that in high threat environments against enemies that did not have any pulse doppler radar, low-flying, high speed aircraft still took unacceptable loss rates. Strategic bombers always flew high to avoid losses, ever improving SAMs forced them down low since it was presumed losses at lower alt, but stealth wasn't developed because the USAF just wanted to spend a lot of money... They didn't want to face the kind of losses encountered in Vietnam and 1973 Yom Kippur due to intense flak/SAMs/fighters. Pulse doppler radar and AWACS technology have only made the situation worse. Current Soviet radars were developed to try to detect, track, and kill Tomahawk missiles. I am sure they were successful to some degree and a B-1 is a whole lot bigger in size and RCS than a Tomahawk.

So, you think a lone B-1 could penetrate against AWACS with pulse doppler radar? The RCS of a B-1 is much lower than a B-52, but it is not a B-2... it can be detected and tracked on radar at respectable ranges. Beaming a radar to reduce doppler only works well if there is a single radar... a few well-placed AWACS make that tactic useless. Su-27 flights with active radars would further reinforce that. You don't need a look-down shoot-down missile to beat the B-1... you just need to know where he is. An interceptor like the Su-27 would have no problem catching up with the B-1 and closing to gun range, or even a WW2 style ramming attack if need be. A B-1 would be hard pressed to drop a nuclear bomb, or even a nuclear stand-off missile without being detected and shot down first. The goal of low-level penetration was to get in undetected. Low-level penetration was the stop-gap measure to penetrate until stealth technology could be developed. As stealth technology is defeated by new sensor technology (no doubt in my mind that it will be if it hasn't been already), we will be back to square one: How to penetrate defenses without taking high losses. In the mean time, the F-117 approach of flying high in the dark undectected by radar is the only safe approach against well-defended targets. Any bomb-truck with ECM and decoys available will do against undefended targets. In my opinion, the way to penetrate low level would be with very slow flying aircraft/missiles... Low doppler no matter where the radar is. So maybe something like a stealth blimp moving at 50 mph? Virtually undectable by doppler radar (if you turn the doppler filter down to that low of a speed, you get a lot of clutter).

Actually, Jimmy was quite smart. Why waste money on the B-1 which was only marginally more survivable than the B-52 when the money could be better spent on the B-2 (which he couldn't tell the public about). As it stands now, the collapse of the Soviet Union made even the B-2 a waste of time and money while the B-52 continues to serve indefinitely. While the Reagan era threw tons of money at defense spending and combined with his rhetoric suckered the Soviet Union into collapse, the money was not spent very efficiently. Contractors sucked the government coffers dry. The A-12 program is just one example. I would argue that the Sea Wolf submarine and ATF programs that dragged on forever at the cost of billions of dollars before delivering a single production example are further examples. Wiser choices would not have left us stuck with aircraft so old they are falling out of the sky or new aircraft that are either too expensive to buy in adequate numbers (F-22) or less capable than the aircraft that they replace (F/A-18E vs F-14D). The whole military procurement program has been out of control for a long time and there is no easy fix since the house and senate win great benefits for their states from all these programs whether they are successful or not. As for the Spec Ops disaster... the idea was great. If they had pulled it off, Carter would probably have been re-elected. The people that made the mistakes that caused the operation to be aborted were beyond Carter's control or responsibility. If you want to argue that Carter caused a collapse in national pride and a low military budget which contributed to the mission failure, I have two answers for you: 1. National pride and confidence in the military was destroyed by the military-political mess of Vietnam. 2. Congress set the budget and did so in response to item 1. While I loved Reagan's in-your-face responses to hostile actions compared to Carter's "can't we all just get along" attitude, Reagan suffered losses far greater than the failed Iran Hostage Rescue mission. Think about the bombing of the Beirut embassy. When faced with the same situation: Arab terrorists holding hostages, rather than trying a bold, risky rescue, Reagan tried to buy the hostages back by selling arms to Iran via Israel. Carter's response to Afghanistan was to boycott the Olympics (which I personally think was stupid as those games are supposed to be about the athletes and above politics), but Reagan's response was to have the CIA train and fund Osama Bin Laden. Carter succeeded where no President has before or since: he got Egypt and Israel to sign a peace treaty that has lasted. The end result has been a huge stabilizing factor in the Middle East. How many attempts have been made to destroy Israel since this treaty? There is a lot more to good foreign policy than flag-waving patriotism, dumping tons of money into the department of defense, and supporting any group that is an enemy of your enemies. The difference between a popular President and an unpopular one seems to be a combination of personal charisma, media support, and serving during a time when the economy is booming. Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton definitely had all that. Carter, George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. had neither once in office. I think both Carter and George Bush Sr. and going to be greatly respected and admired for the things they did both in and out of office as time goes on. As is typical of Amercian Presidential election politics, both were held accountable for situations they did not create and were not appreciated for the things they did right. Back to the real topic: The B-1 is a cool plane (much like the B-58), but it was just an alternative to the one we should have had: the XB-70. Operation expenses would have eventually forced its retirement like the SR-71, but it otherwise would have been a strong backbone for our manned nuclear deterence compared to the B-52s and B-1s hoping to penetrate at low altitude. To this day, a Mach 3+ aircraft at high altitude is a difficult target, whereas look-down/shootdown radar has made low-altitude penetration difficult if not impossible.

Why is the F-111 an F-111 instead of an A-? Simple: the mindset of the USAF was centered on strategic nuclear warfare and divided itself into two combat groups: SAC and TAC. Large, long range, subsonic, heavy payload aircraft were strategic bombers. Smaller, short to medium range, supersonic aircraft were tactical fighters. The F-111 was born of the tactical fighter experimental program (TFX) to produce a long range high speed nuclear strike fighter for the USAF to replace the F-105 and (thanks to McNamara) merged with the Navy's need for an advanced fleet defense interceptor. The resulting USAF F-111A was technically a dual-role fighter, a precursor to the F/A-18 and F-15E. In addition to its long range strike capability, it was intended to carry AIM-7s and act as a stand-off interceptor. While the F-111B was a design failure, I think it was somewhat unfair to General Dynamics for its subcontractor, Grumman, to take advantage of its inside information on the strengths and weaknesses of the F-111 design to produce a substitute (the F-14). General Dynamics did not create the specification for the F-111, they were merely doing their best to provide what the US government requested. The Navy had never asked for agility (they only wanted a 6g airframe not the 7.33g airframe that the USAF wanted) and were the driving force behind the side-by-side seating arrangement. Rejection of the F-111B while subsequently purchasing the Grumman F-14 was a slap in the face to General Dyanmics. The key to rejecting the F-111B was its weight and the F-14 was still extremely heavy for a carrier based fighter. Grumman was able to shed some weight because they didn't have to meet the USAF range specifications and they were able to re-engineer the variable geometry wing to be both lighter and stronger. The VFX competition for the F-14 contract heavily favored Grumman since the Navy had already been working together with them in secret for years, while the other key bidders had a lot less time to throw a proposal together without being able to recycle F-111B knowledge. On the bright side, every time General Dynamics lost a US military aircraft contract, it was a victory for the US military. GD designs almost never met the specifications, went through years of delays, and were way over budget. In addition to the F-111 fiasco, the whole F-102/F-106 program was even more of a disaster. The F-102 was such a failure that the necessary fixes resulted in the new F-106 designation. Even the plan to deploy the F-102 until the F-106 was ready failed, resulting in the F-101B being used as a stopgap interceptor. In some ways, the F-16 was a less than satisfactory product, but its high production numbers and resulting low price made it a pretty good deal if you didn't need a BVR missile. But high performance and production for a low price is not always better... the B-24 (made by GD before it was called GD) was faster, could fly farther, carry more bombs, and be produced more quickly and easily than the B-17, but it needed the faster production rate to match its higher loss rate. Pilots who flew both will tell you the B-17 was much safer and easier to fly. At the highest levels of the Army Air Corps/Army Air Force, the B-17 was much preferred over the B-24, but politics and wartime needs ensured both aircraft were produced and employed in tremendous numbers. The Navy should quite rightfully see the cancellation of the F-111B was one of their great political and financial victories. The F-14 clearly was a much better fit for Navy carriers providing everything the F-111B was to provide and so much more. Of course, the Grumman F-14 was never built in large numbers and is now retired, while General Dynamics F-16s have been built in tremendous numbers and will be serving for a long time to come... as a product of Lockheed. It is amazing how the aerospace industry in the United States has collapsed between WW2 and the present. Republic, North American, Chance-Vought, McDonnell, Douglas, General Dynamics (Convair), Grumman, Martin, Northrop, Curtiss... all gone from the design and production of military aircraft or absorbed into Boeing and Lockheed. From 1940 to 1980 was an amazing era of US aerospace engineering development that will probably never be equaled. I am glad that I was born early enough to see many of the aircraft produced in the era while they were still flyable and in many cases still in service.

Just dropped this baby in to my WOE install (without fuel tanks or nukes). Used the F-101A for two fighter sweeps. First sweep, I took a MiG-17 head-on and got him... but he flamed one of my engines which eventually blew me up. 2nd sweep, I got me 2 MiG-19s and a MiG-17, one of my wingmen got a MiG-19 as well. I lost two of my wingmen. As a fighter, flies a lot like an F-104 with no Sidewinders and less maneuverability, but also less drag (seems to retain energy and accelerate very quickly with afterburner and nose down especially after a bit of fuel has been burned). Realistic, maybe... fun and challenging, definitely! I think the F-101B will be like an F-4B/F-4C (gunless missile platform) with less maneuverability, worse radar, and much worse missiles. AIM-4s are really too weak to take down bombers and too many launch/maneuverability restrictions to be of any use against fighters. The F-101B could prove to be one of the most challenging US interceptors to successfully employ in this game. It will also be one of the coolest looking ones (though the F-101A/C is a bit more attractive with a sharper nose and smaller bubble canopy). This is an awesome mod for an awesome aircraft. Many thanks to everyone involved. I just wish this plane had been available from the day SFP1 was released. Now, we just need the F-102 to complete the Third Wire Century Series: F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106 If you include the F-111, then maybe the F-110 (F-4C) should also count... the F-117 would be a real stretch. I am also interested in the "what-ifs": the F-103, F-107, F-108, and F-109, but will be content when I can take a screenshot of the true Century series on the ground and flying in formation.

No apology necessary. Good to hear from you at all. I hope your site can be restored. If not, perhaps it can be recreated to a large extent under combatace partnership like the other websites already hosted here.

Finally got time to post a screenshot: I agree the runway is missing. I disagree about the problems with FPS as I understand what was changed and why and am still able to get similar FPS by toning down some settings (all of this started with First Eagles with new terrain features, more ground objects, etc.). As the screenshot shows, I also disagree about VMFA-531 being gone. It was available to me whether I chose an F-4E or an F-4B. As to the accuracy of the decals for the time frame... I will leave that to ghost to critique, I am just asserting that it does exist even if it changed in a way that is not liked.

While I am a part of the Online Multiplayer mafia for Thirdwire games, you are delusional if you don't think most people always want more eyecandy. You can always lower the graphics settings to get FPS back (the meaning of the Low/Med/High and the addition of Unlimited has changed how the game works). Someone that just spent $1500 building a gaming rig with a top of the line video card wants to play games with top of the line graphics. Someone that just spent $500 on an e-Machine wants the same thing... then finds out that they can't get it with a built in video chip... tough luck. Someone that wants to play todays games on a 5-year-old machine is being unrealistic. As it is, TK is still far from top of the line graphics and has bent over backwards to try to keep everyone happy. No one forces you to apply the patch. You simply make a choice. I have chosen: latest patch for me. I don't know what is wrong with Doghouse's install, but I see VMFA-531 in multiplayer. I do see the missing runways. If you have problems, you should be venting at TK's forums rather than here. He can't fix it if he doesn't know about it. My FPS was 60 in multiplayer while in cockpit, 45 in external view (shadows no medium activate on external view). My PC hardware is already 3 years old, but I can run it at 1600x1200x32 with FSAAx6 and AFx16.

graphics are not worse... WOV automatically used advanced card settings (such as antialiasing), but many people complained about having low FPS with FSAA enabled, so TK put it back the way it was with SFP1 originally: you have to force FSAA on via video card settings. Frame rates do drop due to new features, but this is nothing new... SFP1 originally ran fine on my P3 1GHz and a Voodoo 5500 and later on a P3 1.2GHz and a Radeon 8500 (at 1600x1200!), but each new game chomped into my ability to play on older hardware. My current rig ran WOV on max quality settings with mirrors and shadows, but after WOE came out, I started having to go to Near Horizon instead of Far Horizon or I took a huge FPS penalty. With WOI level of game engine, the same rig needs shadows on medium and mirrors disabled to keep frame rates up where they were. The latest code is written to run well on medium settings on a typical gaming PC, you have to have a fairly strong PC to run at max settings any more. The refinements in AI and radar and missile behavior are greatly improved... wouldn't consider flying SP4 level ever again now that WOV is up to WOI standard. Beta testers were stretched thin: multiple betas for multiple games at a very fast rate. I am sure TK will patch other problems as they are revealed, only question is when?

The Vista shader problem has already gone away for WOI. Patches with this fix for the other Third Wire SFP1 sims WOE and WOV should be out very soon.

TK found the problem in his code... just a matter of time before he releases a hotfix... Though more likely a full patch to squash additional bugs found during beta testing for the WOE/WOV patches that bring those games up to the WOI standard. So, be patient as a solution is on the way.