JediMaster

You know, I think that's just an optical illusion created by him being so close to the camera. I don't think he's REALLY got a head that's larger than that furniture.

And next week iPad 2 is out.

If you get Flaming Cliffs 2 the graphics are improved somewhat over the original LOMAC/FC. The terrain, which is the same one that was updated for DCS: Black Shark, is quite good. I will say IMHO I think the best terrain in any current sim is RoF's, due to the newness of the engine, but the Western Front wasn't the most challenging of terrains so it doesn't really demonstrate how far it might be able to go. No mountains, fjords, deserts, jungles, only small forests and towns, really... It looks better than the ones in First Eagles 2 by a noticeable amount, anyway, especially the bridges which are a blast to fly under, but I've yet to see any tank battles in RoF like I've seen in FE2. Not sure if it can or can't do them, I just have yet to see one.

The other thing is usually releases designated "expansion packs" don't have another terrain in them, with the exception of FE1's expansion. Exp 1 was for SF2:I and 2 was for SF2:E, and I think 3 will be for stock SF2 because it's the F1. As for Tomcat, since it's a full release I WOULD expect to see a new terrain in there. The "terrain engine" thing is more of an internal deal which I suppose is to make things easier for him to make new terrains as opposed to being some dramatic increase in the presentation of terrains we've seen thus far in SF2. Terrain takes a lot more effort to make than a plane (which is why there are 3rd party planes out the kazoo out there while there are only a handful of terrains, and the quality of those varies even more wildly than the planes due to that difficulty).

But didn't TK say in an interview "My customers love me!!" just last week?

I wouldn't assume those units are in degrees or seconds necessarily. TK sometimes uses units of measurement that aren't obvious for these lines. It's quite possible that while scanarc is in degrees, scanbeamangle isn't! Bar elevation could likewise be anything. What I would take from that is that the F-15 radar uses 4 bars in its scan. Also, bars often overlap a bit, so that there's no chance of a plane below one scan bar passing up just as the bar scans down. However, a standard scan will never cover the entire FOV of the radar because that would take too long. It would take a dozen bars or so to cover max down deflection of the dish to max up deflection. That's why in the more hardcore sims like F4 and LOMAC you can manually tilt the scan pattern to look far below or above you, but you do lose the ability to see the other side when you do that because the bar pattern/number of bars is preset for something like RWS or TWS. As for elevation angle, when you lock up a target in STT mode, the radar will try and maintain that lock until the target passes outside the gimbal limits of the radar, which in this case seems to indicate is 60 degrees above or below centerline. It will thus turn the radar to an angle you may not be able to manually adjust it to look with TK's radar controls. Normally the angle a radar can look left and right is referred to as azimuth, but I don't know if that is mentioned in the .ini.

I don't know what the supply situation is for those Sandy Bridge laptops right now with the chipset bug in mid-fix. If you can wait a month or two, then it would be your best bet (for the sake of long-term viability) to wait for a SNB laptop.

My guess would be to check ebay and craigslist and look for what other people are selling their similar MBP's for. I'm sure you'll find a dozen listings easy, although on ebay you'll have to watch and wait for the bidding to end to see what they go for.

Well I don't know what it does in the .ini file specifically, the bar is a unit of radar scan in altitude. Most radars scan straight out ahead, expanding in a cone up and down from the plane's nose. They scan back and forth in a bar pattern, usually 3 bars, left to right, move up, right to left, move up, left to right, move down, right to left, move down, left to right, etc. You can then manually adjust that bar pattern downwards or upwards so you scan only your altitude and below or yours and above, or just below, or just above, depending on how far you tilt it up and down. Generally speaking scan modes use several bars (like the 3 I mentioned) but things like boresight are locked to just one, the one at your altitude. I don't believe the bar can be adjusted manually in SF, TK probably puts that in the "too complex" category, but sims like Falcon 4 and even LOMAC let you do that. Otherwise, if you're cruising at 30,000 ft, a bandit could slip by right in front of you by flying at 1000 ft because your radar would be looking over its head.

Well, the display size is a different issue altogether. Generally speaking the FIRST thing you should pick in a laptop is what size screen you want, then go on from there. A point to consider is due to thermal considerations the most powerful chips (CPU and GPU) are restricted to 17" laptops because only they can house heatsinks and fans large enough to cool them! When I got my 15" Dell XPS I had to compromise a bit on that because the best GPUs they offered were only in the 17" models. The 11" model can't have as good a GPU because of that. I think they managed to get one as good as many 15" models carry with some creative cooling, but a 17" will always be able to beat it. However, a 17" model is barely portable and usually has poor battery life, something the M11X is the opposite of. So again it's what you're looking for. While my XPS mostly stays at home I have taken it on vacations and trips and a 17" wouldn't have cut it. As it is I barely managed with the 15"!

“DCS: A-10C WARTHOG” Released DUXFORD, UK, February 21, 2011 – The Fighter Collection and Eagle Dynamics now offer “DCS: A-10C Warthog” as a digital download for $59.99. Purchase "DCS: A-10C Warthog" at: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/index.php?end_pos=1322&scr=shop&lang=en "DCS: A-10C Warthog" is a PC simulation of the U.S. premier Close Air Support attack aircraft. This is the second aircraft in the DCS series, following DCS: Black Shark, and raises the bar even higher in the DCS series. Warthog brings the most realistic PC simulation of a modern fixed wing combat aircraft in regards to flight dynamics, avionics, sensors, and weapon systems. You also have the option to play Warthog in "Game" mode for a casual game experience. Fly missions in the Caucuses region of the Black Sea against and with a wide array of air, land and sea forces with new and improved intelligence. Create your own missions and campaigns with the included Mission and Campaign Editors, and fly with and against friends online using the included online game browser. Key Features: • Fly the A-10C “Warthog” in either realistic or game modes. • Fly missions in Georgia and Russia. • Interactive training missions shallow the learning curve dramatically. • Rich campaigns and single missions included. • Multiplayer cooperative and head-to-head. • Mission and Campaign editors allow user created content. • The most realistic flight dynamics ever done for a PC simulation. • Huge array of land, air and sea units to flight along and against. • Ability to command ground forces during missions with radio commands. • Fully interactive Forward Air Controller (FAC) that helps you find targets. Website: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/series/warthog System recommendation Operating system: 64-bit Windows XP, Vista, and 7 Processor: CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750 or better Memory: 4GB Hard disk space: 7 GB Video: Shader 3.0 or better; 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT DirectX 9.0c or better Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible DirectX®: 9.0C About The Fighter Collection: The Fighter Collection, as well as developing software for the entertainment and serious game markets, also operates, rebuilds and maintains Europe's largest collection of airworthy WWII fighters and is based at Duxford Airfield, in the UK. For more information visit our websites: http://www.fighter-collection.com/ http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1112308#post1112308

Congratulations on winning the "CombatAce least sensical post of the day" award!

You want to complain? Just look at these shoes, I just bought them and they're worn clear through!

I frankly have zero idea of the relative power of a Mobility 6570 vs a GT335M. However, I WILL say that a phrase I've never heard is "my HP laptop is great for gaming." The ones I've used at work, both Dell and HP, are business models and inappropriate for gaming anyway. The only thing I can say for certain is at least 2 if not more people here have the M11x and say it's good for gaming.

Do you REALLY? If so, why do you bother to eat anything else then, hmmm???

I think that would suit you well. 4GB is enough RAM for any sim right now. I don't know how good the GT330M performs, myself, but my guess is SF2 will run just fine. As for the others, no idea! Don't know if Dave has tried A-10 on his yet or not.

I don't know, every interview I've seen with Rumsfeld as he's promoting his memoirs has had the interviewer mention Curveball.

There was a reason why Northrop failed to submit for this latest bid, and that's quite likely that they figured they weren't going to win and they'd already spent the (unrecoverable) money to prepare a bid before. EADS did it this time, so it was their money they spent instead. Making a bid takes a lot of people a very long time to do, so those salaries are the cost of the bid because there's nothing else they can do while working it. I'll add the C-27 to FC's list, including the C-27J, which was to have an assembly line here in FL but IIRC that was dropped and now we're just getting all the ones on order from Europe. So in short, while in reality the EADS tanker would be just as much a US plane as Boeing's (because Boeing has so much of their stuff built outside the US and shipped here for final assembly), the fact that this thing was so hugely public and political really did mean any win that wasn't Boeing was going to be protested in Congress even if not by the contractor. In fact, that's just what happened last time. If the GAO hadn't ruled that the USAF FUBAR'd that process and got them to cancel it, you can bet there would've been many in Congress on the warpath. Those behind the EADS bid, like the ones from Alabama, are simply not as powerful as the Boeing-supporting ones are.

I'm not sure what you mean about the F-35. Unlike large planes, we have both LockMart and Boeing (via aquisitions) still in the fighter business. For bombers, only NorthGrum has built any in the last 20 years. With cancellation of Comanche, only Boeing (again via aquisitions) builds attack helos. Sikorsky has been the only maker of utility/assault helos. Only one company builds aircraft carriers, only one builds subs. The slow pace of weapons development and few numbers means that we can't really afford multiple contractors building them anymore, but that also means they get to "name their price."

The blue light should go on if it's working right. Make sure you do a games update in the TIR software so it recognizes DCS. Then it should just work, I don't recall having to do anything for BS or FC2 to make it work. As for mapping sticks to controls, that's always a PITA. I know it will be some work getting my G940 setup proper.

Part of the reason EADS won last time was certainly an unconscious backlash against Boeing for the leasing debacle early in the decade that saw the one woman thrown in jail. As for why they were invited to bid, it's because there was no one else! The only other company to make strategic tankers (not tactical ones like the KC-130) was McDonnell Douglas, and Boeing bought them out mid-90s. That meant ONLY Boeing was left building planes in the US that were suitable for that role, and as a general rule the DoD dislikes sole-source contracts (as the leasing deal was going to be). So, you invite the dark horse to bid just for the sake really of getting Boeing to keep its prices low.

http://combatace.com/topic/62930-dcs-a-10c-warthog-final-release/

Well, there may not be dialogue or effects in those scenes, but there is usually music. Film is not purely visual, it's auditory as well. To ignore that is to get half the impact.

Yes, but the point is the pics aren't of the bad weather happening, it's of the after effects which actually look quite scenic!

You fly SF with no sound?? Why bother?