Brainless

Thanks mate. I'll take a look. Having looked........... Well thanks for the information as noted below but I can't find this reference in any of the aircraft files. ''For those with ATI cards having issues with a white square in the HUD here is the fix for it. Resize the "F-18_pitch.tga to about half its size and make it square. Then you will be set.'' Please state just exactly which file this is in and what is to be altered. It's Brainless posting and as you guys probably know I'm no computer genius!! Thanks

Just some pics for Blackhawk fans. I know you'll love 'em. With acknowledgements and thanks to YAP and all the modders who make this type of mission not only possible but IMHO even more thrilling than any fixed wing a/c encounter with ground forces. Enjoy No I haven't gone over to the other side just yet but I'm tettering on the edge.

Yes it is DS terrain (can't hardly wait for the new stuff) plus a lot of addons from YAP and others to numerous to detail.

Quote 15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are. O.K. I know the answer to this one. Soft tyre pressure with soft suspension and on the tarmac. That's right isn't guys?

See my post in the 'Lead Pursuit - No answer except Automated' about the sound problem. I might help!!

Well guys I've just discovered that I am as stated ......er... Brainless. I was browsing the Simhq forum and came across a tutorial in the Sticky section noted 'ramp start up'. I downloaded this and way and behold up came the part about ATC communications. The reason why I wasn't getting a response from that lovely lady who gives taxi permission was because I hadn't turned the comms switches on. ERRR.. unbelieveable and I've been trying to discover why the ATC wasn't working for months..nay...years. So simple and in a way so stupid of me not to have sussed this out sooner myself. With apologises to all at Falcon 4.0 Allied Force for my careless stupidity. P.S. It would have been nice if someone from that organisation had bothered to reply to my e-mails about this which would have saved a lot of aggravation!!

It can be done my friend. It just takes practice!! Fly it carefully with small control inputs and don't try to hover as zero knots don't work.. you'll just tip up and crash. Try 25-30 knots as a starting slowest speed... you can land at 15-20 knots. YAP (Yankee Air Pirate) have some good models which are as close to a flight model as you can get with the Thirdwire game engine but you have to pay for the priviledge. Actually I don't find that much difference between the YAP flight models and the ones you can download here for free but that's just my view. Once you've got the hang of it they are good fun and an extension of the great Thirdwire sim series but you do need patience and don't give up if you crash the first few times. You need to set the flight options to normal (I wouldn't use the easy or hard mode) and go gently. Have fun and after a while you'll be landing on carriers with no problem!! Best of luck.

I've just read in the paper that there is a proposal to re-make the Dambusters film which prompted a thought ( yes my brain's in today) what about creating a Dambusters mission? We've got the aircraft and the scenery although I guess the rivers would need to be added plus the dam structures...way beyond my ability I'm afraid...but wouldn't this be a great mission? I remember doing it in the CFS2 Justflight add on a few years back and yes I could hit the dams nine times out of ten but my feeling is it would be so much more compeliing in say WOE. Well guys what do you think?

I've spent about four hours trying to land the Huey on the LST without success in the Seawolves Long Xuyen mission. I've modified the file to make the LST come to a stationery position at 0knots in the centre of the river (IMHO opinion a general improvement on the ship sailing over land) but I still can't land the 'copter on the deck without exploding. I've reduced the fuel load (25%) dropped the stores (doesn't seem to work as stores stay on) deployed the flaps, speedbrake and hook( is the hook necessary anyway?) and useed the VTOL keys but the best I can do is 33kts at 20% throttle (edge of stall) but as soon as I hit the deck, I either go below the structure or explode. I've even tried with collisions off but all this does is stops the 'copter exploding and I just sail over the deck. Has anyone done this and if so can they explain what I'm doing wrong?

Remember Dave's advice a little while ago about backing up your files? Well I bought a FreeCom moblie drive to backup all my files. I ran the programme with no problem and got the 'files successfully backed up' notice. I thought good now I've backed up my entire system so nothing to worry about eh! I put the drive away safely and got it back out again thursday to run the 'incremental' backup. I'd divided all the drives into their own drive number so I just went to the saved drive and ran the incremental programme. No problem it said all backups sucessfully completed. Then after reading here you could run programmes directlly form the moblie drive tried to open WOE this way and guess what... It didn't work. I got CTD. So I started to investigate and when comparing the properties of the original found the so called sucessfully backed up files were in some cases only 99.9% completed and not all files had in fact been copied. I spent the best part of my weekend reformattting and manually copying my entire system onto the Freecom mobile drive. This is now foolproof ( I think ) and I can run Thirdwire and all other sims from the external drive plus I have my entire system backed up. Moral of this tale is don't trust automated computer messages the're not always right! I expect you computer buffs know this already but if you've recently backed up your files you might want to check that they have actually been backed up. Don't you just looooove these machines!!

Looking thro' the download list I noticed that there are no seaplanes. Well I can't find one anyway and I wondered if there was any particular reason for this... like no-one wanted to make one or is there some other reason like the game engine won't allow it? It's just a thought now that my brain's back in gear..

Hi guys Well I thought I'd just tell those of you who had been following my 'New System' posts and those who had kindly replied, especially Buff who has been so helpful, that I installed a new Sapphire 1950 Pro graphics card today with updated drivers and its very disappointing. Considering that the new card is ( I think 2.5 times) faster than my old one there seems to be little if any improvement in frame rates and image. Unless you guys know something I don't ( I expect you do) I wonder why I spent the bucks upgrading. I know that I am only waiting on the new stuff to come out so I can build a new better rig but unless I have not done something right - yes I did connect both power supply cords to the PSU and yes it all seems to run O.K. and yes the PSU is within the specified 450w rating- mine's 480, it all seems such a waste of time and effort. All day tinkering and evaluting for no gain. Don't you just love thiese machines!!

Thanks for the info. This is something which I had already considered but my 754 chip can't be upgraded further so far as I know.

Well thanks for that. As far as I can make out from the Iiyama manual I'm running in the native image. It says 1280 x 1024 which is what I'm using. As for the other settings they are in default at present. Perhaps you can advise better settings?

Err..... now you've lost me What is interpolated and how would I know and what settings do you mean? I think there is now some very slight improvement in the image definition. I think the system has sort of tuned itself a bit. Would this be right?

CPU? See my first post in the 'New System' series of posts. It's an AMD Athalon 64 3700+ (2.4 Ghz)I believe.

I'll send a joystick directly!! Well done mate.

More trees in the terrain

I'm thinking of buying/building or rather having someone build for me a new system as mine's getting old now. The one I've got has been the best system I've used to-date. It's been first class from day one after my nephew sorted out the BIOS. He's an IT man but moved out of the country so I have trouble contacting him now. This is the one I'm using:- Operating System Windows XP with service packs 1 & 2 AMD Athalon processor ™ 64 3700+ at 2.39 ghz 1.50 mb dual channel 400 RAM Video card Radeon X800 series Motherboard Gigabyte GA-KA8N Pro with ( nforce3 150 chipset) Iiyama prolite LCD monitor model no. E481S I had the original system built to the spec given to me by my nephew, which cost 600GPB about 300 dollars US with a few odd parts from my old system. I later upgraded to the processor noted above and bought the flat screen (shop display model) so I guess the whole rig has cost me around £1,200 over its life. I know from past experience that you can pay a whole load of cash for hardware and it turns out to be no better or little better than the stuff you've already got. I found this out upgrading processors etc. It seems to me that a lot of the time performance has more to do with the software programming than the hardware but again I'm no expert as I guess by now most of you know. I have no problem running any of the sims on the system I'm using and have all the sliders up to full or nearly full including FS9 with all the airport scenery add-ons etc. but I'm thinking that when the new SOW etc. comes out I'll need to upgraded or rather buy a new dual/quad system. I can't afford mega bucks and Alienware although showing what seems an excellent spec is way over my budget. Anyway I wouldn't know which of the different spec is good value for money and which is OTT and not worth paying for. So I guess what I'm asking is does anyone have a good spec for a new system to start with and then I can go from there.

Well yes, that's what I've just worked out after much further research. I've discovered I need a 4X/8X PCI card and that fits the bill I believe. Thanks for the advice. I won't be too worried about the cost as it seems it will be well into next year before I go for the new rig based on your current info. Perhaps if you remember you could let me know when the DDR3 & 45NM components are available so we can go tho' this again if you can stand it

Having spent all afternoon researching this question on the web realise this is frought with all sorts of difficulties trying to work out what will fit my GA-K8N Pro mobo. Why don't the manufacturers and suppliers give a simple list of what fits their products it would make life so much easier for computer illiterates like me or do we all have to be computer geniuses. Sheer frustration!!! BTW my existing tower size is H410mm x D430mm x W200mm

Can't wait. When will it be available and Tazkiller's hit the nail with useage

Thanks for the direct link which I looked at and which seems a great price and really good but my socket size is 754 so it won't fit my mobo. I really need to know the best AGP card to fit my current Gigabyte K8N Pro mobo. I've looked at sites offering GFX but I really don't know what's best and I'm waiting for advice on this before I splash my cash. I know you guys will tell me.

Thanks for the info but I think buying a new fan for my existing system probably wouldn't be worthwhile unless the existing AMD fan packs up. I will note this for the new system though. All advice gratefully received!