GregSM

Regretfully, I feel obliged to offer this nasty little addendum to my review: After using the G940 for a few months, several of the pots have begun spiking such to render both toe brakes, rudders, and one of the throttles essentially useless. Poor show, Logitech. But, oh well, there's still CH Products. Cheers, Greg

Dear Developers, Most sims come with that nagging “this wee blemish that makes (perhaps only) me absolutely crazy is unlikely ever to be corrected” feeling. Not so here. Being already well-polished, it's especially to wonder when small issues are addressed so promptly. Good show! Cheers, Greg

Hi Thewoo1, I use an Asus N51V-a1 notebook, basic specs are as follows: T9600 CPU (dual core, 2.8 MHZ with 6 megs cache) 4 gig RAM (800 MHZ DDR2) Nvidia Geforce GT 240M (1 gig DDR3) 15.6" Screen Vista Home Premium 32 bit For OFF, I use the following settings: 1366x768 at 32 bit (native) 16x Anisotropic Filtering 8xQ Anti-aliasing Vsync enabled CFSIII config slider settings of 553353 The game looks wonderful and FPS generally stay at 40, where it's capped. Only during very heavy scenarios do FPS dip occasional down into the mid-high 20's. Mind, it took some tinkering to achieve this state of affairs. Initially, the game ran poorly, with unbearable stuttering. But advice from both forum members here and the OFF FAQ has eliminated the problem. This notebook also runs games with newer engines surprisingly well. For instance, I play Empire Total War at fairly high settings with good results. Also, bear in mind that at least the graphic card in my notebook is just mid-range. The Nvidia GTX 260/280M cards are considerably more powerful, while the soon-to-arrive ATI HD 5870 promises to deliver still more. Cheers, Greg S

Appraiserfl, Yeah, I really hope so too. But, actually, it won't kill me if this isn't doable. I'm beginning to agree with you that the force effects, while a lot less than perfect, are still an enhancement to the this sim. Perhaps I just needed a little more time to acclimatize. And I've never regretted buying this setup because I really do think it's quality stuff even without the force-feedback. Winston DoRight, There are five axes controlled by rotaries, three on the base of the stick and two more on the throttle handles. Additionally, one of the stick's hat switches acts like a self-centering mouse, rather than a conventional four-way or eight-way switch (sorry, I don't know the correct terminology). This is useful, for example, for view panning. And, of course, the throttle is split into two further independent axes. All axes – even the stick's X and Y and the rudders' toe brakes - can be either analogue or digital. In the latter case there's facility to program “bands” of varied width throughout the period of travel. (I hope that makes sense!) A simple example would be to program two bands onto a rotary, one which fires the “g” key (lower landing gear) when the rotary is spun downwards, and the other to fire CTRL+g (raise landing gear) when the rotary is spun upwards. So, to raise or lower the landing gear, you would just need to push the rotary in the appropriate direction somewhere beyond its centre position. (Deadzones are adjustable.) So there's plenty of sliders and rotaries to control fuel mixture, flaps, propeller pitch - or whatever you like. Cheers, Greg S

Hi All, I posted the same message on the Logitech forums. It received the following response from a G940 team member: “Thanks for the specific feedback on OFF. Our developer relations team will be in touch with the developer shortly. Many of these things can be sorted out, as they are specific to the game's force programming. Mark Starrett Global Product Marketing Manager Logitech” I don't know to what degree, if at all, OBD can access this area of code but it would be great if it were possible to improve the force implementation. Note to Marcl, I've now used the G940 for several marathon sessions without any heat trouble. The joystick base warms only very slightly. It's barely noticeable. Perhaps those reporting severe heating have gotten dodgy units. Cheers, Greg S

Yeah - truly great support! Thanks so much for the effort and what seems like a good solution to the AI issue. Cheers, Greg S

Uncleal: Good advice, thanks. Unfortunately, using DX button assignments exclusively doesn't alleviate any of the anomalies I've described above. Marcl, I've read too of over-heating issues, and so I have watched for it. So far, I've not experienced trouble. Mind, I've yet to fly any marathon sessions, but have left the gear plugged in for hours on end without any degree of heat buildup. Appraiserfl, Perhaps I could have been more clear: yes, I refer only to OFF. (I agree that G940 forces are much better in IL2.) Not being any kind of pilot, I can hardly expect military-grade performance – wouldn't know it. I do expect MS FFB II-grade performance, at least. This, I do know, but I'm unsure if I have got it with the G940. And for me, as presumably for others, the Logitech set is closer to $ 500. Cheers, Greg S

Hi Hellshade, Thanks! I had planned to take the time to comment upon this issue but your comments about the AI are about exactly as mine would have been. So I can just say “ditto”. Cheers, Greg S

Hi All, I'm in China where, it seems, about a third of the Internet is blocked. I can access some of the Avangate order pages via proxy server but still cannot complete payment. So, I want to know if it's possible to have “Hat in the Ring” gifted to me from a friend or family member back in Canada? And should the gifted download link also turn out to be inaccessible to me, which I suppose it may well, would there be alternative means of retrieving the download? Practically, snail mail or having a friend buy it and burn it to CD is out, at least at this time. Beijing customs, says UPS, is backlogged until about forever. (I've currently a Logitech G940 that's been sitting in Beijing now for a month. Ditto a previous TrackIR 5 shipment.) This is very frustrating, as you may imagine. Any advice will be appreciated. Cheers, Greg S

To those who may be in this position, If you cannot access the Avangate webpages, it's possible to have a friend “gift” you HITR. As above, even using a proxy server I was unable to order from Avangate via the OBD “Buy Now” link. But I was able, again via proxy server, to access the link in the gift email. It took a few hours to receive the email, though. Cheers, Greg S

Thank you, Polovski, for the response. My sister is currently trying to send it to me via the gift option. But she too seems to have encountered some snag with the ordering process. Argh, double argh. In any event, I'll post my results, whatever they be, in the event they may be of assistance to others in a similar position. And, while you're here, thanks as well to you and all of the OBD team for such a wonderful flight simulation. To my taste, it's the best one to date by a considerable margin – and I go back to the days of Red Baron I. (I find even the music – usually an irritant to be switched reflexively off - to be invaluable, somehow integral to the sim.) Cheers, Greg S

Dear developers, As it stands, I'm vaguely creeped-out by how much I like this sim. And you mean to feed this with further content!? Seriously, I had been convinced that the virginal delights of Red Baron One could never be rekindled. OFF demonstrates that I was mistaken. But whatever. Add content, enhance existing content - I'll buy it every time. Greg S

“Especially with WWI Birds, many times after take-off, you can attempt to gain altitude too quickly and stall. It's very easy, to change, just level out and build some speed, when you feel the 'Death Rattle'. Without Force Feedback, just stall and die.” This is too true. One of the very few things I miss in OFF is aural stall warning. In IL2, for example, stall is distinctly queued by the sound of buffeting. I don't know that this is realistic but it makes flying at the envelope much more manageable when one's without force-feedback. I wonder if it's possible to manually introduce such a sound file to OFF? Didn't CFS III feature this originally? Cheers, Greg

Hi BaronvonBlitz, I'm no expert but the arbitrary reboots can indicate a failing power supply. A few years ago I experienced this very trouble. Cheers, Greg

Hi All, This sim is wonderful - really wonderful. I purchased CFS III some time ago, in anticipation of the Phase III release, and could bear only to toy briefly with the base product. That the latter was borne of the former simply astounds. I do, however, have this one trouble: stuttering. Thanks to the various information gleaned from the website help pages and from this forum, the trouble has subsided greatly. (Overriding both vertex and index buffers was markedly beneficial, for example.) As it stands, then, the stuttering isn't debilitating but I'd be delighted to eliminate or to further minimize it. To that end, I hope these observations are helpful: 1. Stuttering occurs only at low altitude and only when trees, buildings or other ground objects are drawn out to the horizon (or ground objects and horizon must be visible together). 2. Frame rates don't seem to have impact as stuttering occurs accross the full range, even at very high frame rates, upwards of 50. 3. What's especially perplexing is that while ground objects obviously are stuttering, other aircraft within the same field of vision do not. That is, I can focus on a padlocked aircraft and observe it moving fluidly about the stuttering trees and buildings I can see still in the periphery. (If this is illusory, it's really, really illusory.) Any advice will be gratefully received. System specs: Asus N51V series notebook Core 2 Duo T9600 @ (stock) 2.8 Mhz 4 gig RAM Nvidia GT240M (1 gig DDR3) Vista 32 bit. Cheers, Greg

Hello - and thank you again folks for your help! I have the sim running pretty smooth now such that even in very, very busy scenarios FPS rarely dip below 30. And the stuttering, now mild, is largely localized to airfield vicinities (just as noted above). Perhaps this will help someone with a system similar to mine: 1. Disable vertex and index buffers in Workshops/CFS3 Configuration Overrides (absolutely essential); 2. Reduce “Ground Object Density” in Workshops to “Low” (also really important); 3. Maximize anisostropic filtering and antialiasing in the video card control panel. (This, obviously, is counter-intuitive but with my computer these maximized settings cost just 2-3 FPS and seem either to actually alleviate the stuttering slightly or are at least irrelevant to it - so why not enjoy?!) Still, I am experimenting with the CFS3 Configuration Image Quality settings but so far these seem to provide a good balance of visual quality and playability: Overall Graphic Detail: 5 Aircraft detail: 5 Terrain Detail: 3-4 Scenery Detail: 2-3 Effects Quality: 4 Cloud Quality: 3 And here are a few common recommendations that don't work for my computer: 1. Capping FPS in CFSIII configuration rather induces stuttering; 2. Setting CPU affinity to single core and upping CPU priority have no effect. Cheers, Greg

Hello again everyone, Thank you very much for all of your help. Several of the suggestions I've tried but many I've not. No doubt the solution somewhere lurks (hopefully it won't resemble a better video card) and it should be easier now for me to find it. I'll report back later. Von Paulus, thank you especially for providing the links – lots of buttons and switches to keep me busy in there! Olham, that's interesting. I'll try to ascertain whether or not the stuttering coincides with airfield rendering. Cheers, Greg