JediMaster

Murphy had a cousin who worked at Intel?

Vozdushnikon?!?!

I changed the rules of the test to make it possible to win. Got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose.

Ok, THAT is bizarre. I can honestly say I've never heard of that being a problem or a solution! Usually all that affects is what resolutions/timings Windows allows for your monitor. Weird.

Don't click "buy" on that 5870 just yet. The AMD 6900 series comes out next month (the 6800 just came out, and while the number implies it they are NOT faster, just cheaper/cooler--the 6870 is much less than a 5870 while being about 5-10% slower) and will be the new top dog from them.

We've been using drones for years now, this all sounds very recent. That's only a year ago! So as of 12 months ago this software was not being used in the field, but drones firing missiles were long before that. That means there's an older version of this software at a minimum that they could use.

My guess would be that most lasers even at 50% strength are going to be too much. The other issue is polarizing the windows makes it likely more dangerous for the pilots anyway, as the windows are permanently tinted and night flying will be more difficult.

Nice idea, we'll see how THAT goes.

A polarizing screen will only work if they're polarized in the same direction. The guy with the handheld laser literally only has to rotate it a few degrees to defeat that.

Have you tried 32 bit color instead of 16? to be honest I've never tried 16. The other thing is make sure the renderer is set at HW and not HW T&L. Also make sure you get the latest nvidia drivers, as in the ones from this week. They've just apparently restored proper DX7 operation to them, and F4:AF is listed specifically as one that works now.

I wonder if we can find all 4 people who call the B-1B the Lancer.

The Block 50/52 Viper isn't the best dogfighter. IIRC I've heard it's either the 30 or 40, but I forget which. They have the best t/w ratio. The 50/52 is heavier but doesn't have a thrust increase to cover it. That said the F-15C is hardly a spring chicken.

Yes, I noticed you don't need 170 radars for 85 planes, so they were definitely upgrading older Eagles as well.

Those shots of the Beagle just make me want the next DCS release to be that!

Depends on the application. I went from 2GB of 800MHz to 4GB of 1066 and noticed a real improvement in speed in many areas. I don't recall offhand what the CL levels for the 2 sets of RAM were, but they were equivalent IIRC. My gut says faster at the same latency is better than lower latency at the same speed, so I'd go for the 1866 over the 1600 CL7, but I know some people think differently. If they're similar price, though, you can expect similar performance. As to whether that's worth the money for the improvement you get, I can't say. You're already going to be faster than your previous system with the cheaper memory anyway. Make sure the RAM you buy is listed on the site for the mobo as being compatible. My 2GB of RAM was listed as 1066...but only under certain circumstances and my mobo didn't support that, so it ran at 800! If your board doesn't support it, you may find it runs slower than the rated speed or at a higher latency or both! That would be a major bummer. When I bought this new 4GB set I made sure my mobo listed it specifically by model and speed and all so as not to waste my money. Not to say unlisted RAM won't work, it could be fine, but there's no guarantee. Anyway, that's not a trivial amount of money, so I can't say it will or won't be worth it to you because you may or may not see a difference, and if you do you may not think it was worth that much. You'll have to go with your own feelings on that.

Really? You mean you can take a weapon and fire on full auto and it doesn't budge? Geez. Is that in SP as well as MP? I'm not much interested in the MP, but I was hoping when it comes down in price the SP would make the game worth it (like I bought CoD4 earlier this year when the price came down finally).

Now I'm free! Free fallin!

Arguments over whether a particular title is a sim or just a game are neither here nor there, I just mean the types that only fly F4 or Il-2 or whatever and say they don't touch anything else because the ones they fly are "sims". Of course some people enjoy the more educational button-pushing nature of the hardcore sims and others enjoy just hopping in and flying around for 30 mins without having to put their study cap on, there's nothing wrong with either idea. I don't have a problem on paper with such games as Ace Combat and HAWX, it's when people say "they're pretty realistic" that I spit up whatever I was drinking. For some people, "excellent graphics" = "realistic" regardless of modeling of how things are! It's a circular ego stroke. By saying such and such is a sim, they inflate its rep, then they state that they only fly that, to inflate their own rep. Another hallmark of the "wannabe officer" vs the normal sim pilot is that they complain when a new sim coming out will need more than their 4 yr old PC can handle that "I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade just for this". Well, no, you shouldn't "just for this", you should because EVERY newer game will run better, but since they ONLY play 1 or 2 sims the cost is harder to justify so instead they wail about how the developers want everyone to be rich or something. I never have fewer than a dozen games on my PC (that's counting every TK sim as ONE), from flight sims to racing sims to FPS to RTS to the occasional Tomb Raider or other oddball genre. I'm a gamer, and it's not something to be ashamed of, but these people think it is so they have to emphasize just how real their sim of choice is and how they're better than "gamers". The F4 and Il-2 sites are full of these people. They're like the ones that claim they don't ever shop at Walmart because it's so low-brow, like there's something wrong with buying the same bottle of milk they sell at the grocery stores but for 50 cents less. It's all about making themselves feel better at the expense of putting others down.

Don't forget a personal peeve of mine, the "I'm a SIMMER" types. The ones who will get upset if you call DCS/F4/whatever a "game" and say "it's a SIM not a GAME" because, after all, they play it and are obviously above such childish things as playing a mere GAME. They handily ignore the fact that these sims use all the same methods GAMES do, including awarding points, saying you won or lost, mission fail/complete, etc. I just want to tell them to get over themselves, they're not above the rest of us or superior in any manner because they only fly sims with everything set "full real."

Of course, there's no such thing as an absolute stat of "F-4 performance" or "MiG-21 performance." The model, the funding and logistics behind it, the training for the pilot, the environment they're kept in, etc. Unless plane A soundly beat B every time (rarely happens) you can always argue one way or the other. I mean, on paper the Me-262 bested the P-51 in almost everything, yet many a 262 were shot down by P-51s, so...

If ED ignores my concerns, that's their right, but some of the people in that thread seemed to feel I should just STFU and dance a naked jig for the honor of being allowed to buy a study sim. I've been simming for over 20 years, and I love study sims as much as survey sims, but for different reasons. No one laments their virtual elimination from the scene more than I, but to blow sunshine up a dev's ass is counterproductive. I understand why they started DCS with Ka-50, and as it's never been in a sim before (although similar to the Ka-52 in EECH) I was happy with that choice. The A-10C I was happy with for those reasons plus I wanted something more accurately modeled than the A-10A in FC (which was always overly easy to fly and fight in, it's barely more difficult than TK's A-10). I'm just worried what may (or may not) come next, and I think every ED customer should have their say. I've never used the forums over there, only read some things, so I can't comment how people are or aren't treated, but if that thread at SimHQ is an indicator, that's not beneficial. I didn't demand "do this plane!" or "don't do that or I refuse to buy!" even though a differently worded request saying the same thing wouldn't be out of line, I just think what they've said about how they're going to proceed and the timeline of that path is very worrying and it got me emotional. That was weak of me to allow that, I should've posted a day later after I'd had some time to cool down.

Check out TM's home page and they're teasing the announcement of a new all-metal HOTAS. No pictures, no details, just the name "Warthog".

Especially at $500!! I bought my G940 right as the Warthog was announced, leaving me with some buyer's remorse. Hearing it would be $500, though, I was relieved in retrospect as I wasn't going to go that route. For $300 I got a stick, throttle, AND pedals with FFB. I also have more faith in Logitech, as a large company, to keep up with its drivers and any possible hardware fixes while TM's record with the Cougar made me lose faith in them.

The Tesla is a measurement of the strength of a magnetic field, a rather large one at that. A 1T field is very strong. A little of this real-life battle with Edison is shown in the film The Prestige, where Tesla is played by none other than David Bowie, with Andy Serkis of LOTR fame as his assistant.

I still remember an old cartoon from the Reagan years of a king walking down a review line of suits of armor standing at attention, his aide telling him "only some of them contain knights."