Bandy

Um, that would be a penny. But you are from the UK, so I understand the confusion...

I used to involuntarily "lane change" all the time in my 1971 VW Westfalia (aka bus, kombi, van). THAT was like driving a bill board--in fact, I think bill boards are heavier. Don't know why I'm still alive. I was driving my 'bus' on a very windy day with a friend once who had a lot of experience in gliders. When we got pushed around he said it felt just the same. Looking forward to the expansion! Thanks devs!!! Now, the price on it isn't going to drop $20 a month or two after release, right?

Nathan. You mentioned stuttering, did the fps drop as well? I'm guessing that pushing clipping distances out further must geometrically increase the number of ground objects required to render and keep track of. Our systems at this time may not be able to handle that much information (?). Pushing tiles out may be relatively easy for the computer since many/most of the tiles are already loaded and they simply repeat. As mentioned, I'm just guessing. I know Stary's new terrain with all the trees etc. absolutely kills my fps, and my system is still relatively powerful though 3 years old. The HD is likely my bottleneck and perhaps the 667 RAM, though I have 11 GB of it now (gotta love x64!!!). Another observation. That ground fog "line" appearing at medium to far distance only is visible under certain conditions, such as the angle of the sun and what side the sun is on relative to the aircraft. I've noticed it generally gets worse at the periphery of my "vision" with TIR4, and "line" appears only on one side of the airplane, the other side has no "line". Anyone notice this?

Up and running in x64 bit, no compatibility needed, though you should install to a folder/drive OTHER than the default program folder (in order to allow program to write to disk, make screenshots...). Oh, also run the sim as administrator (right click the .exe to see the drop down menu). I installed using only the original download from 3rdwire, vintage 2006, and then simply grabbed the WWI folder from my other drive and substituted. Works fine, no need to rebuild the game if severely modded (and who hasn't?). I had issues with DirX9 needing update, who knew! Error messages fly about dll's missing... I tried the ENBseries mod as well but don't think I've seen the jump in performance that others are talking about. It is a simple install so I'm pretty sure I did it correctly.

Well, that scenario of an "umbrella" sounds like German tactics to me. From all I've read in historic accounts from RFC and RAF pilots, they DID bugger off individually after a quick combat (unless a wingmate was in trouble within visual distance) perhaps to randomly form up if they were lucky and head back to sniff out some more trouble. Would AI retreating be difficult/impossible to code based on triggers? Perhaps, perhaps not. Dare I mention First Eagles here? Well, why not, we can all learn from other places without feeling threatened right? In that sim the AI (depending on experience level, i.e. green to ace) have a code trigger 'chance' to fight on, or not fight on, when they run out of bullets. If they run/retreat for home, they open themselves up to a lead enema. A simple example perhaps, but how it can work. I imagine something like this would have to be supported within CFS in the first place. Without being able to see the internal code, I couldn't say.

I agree totally. There has to be some trigger (a morale check so to speak) that causes AI to split the scene. Low ammo, too many of their wingmates down, leader down, etc... BUT some players want to shoot everything down, and so will follow and shoot fish in the barrel.

Did a keyword search for the title above and nothing came up in this forum, so not sure if this has been discussed. I've been running Win7 Pro 64 bit (picked up at edu price $29) for a few weeks now and just installed BHAH, did all the config adjustments, CCC tweaks, and default folder maxfps=30, etc. It runs FANTASTIC! My fps is now in the 50's and 60's with drops in heavy furballs to mid 20's perhaps. This is substantially (!) better than when running on XP, same 3 year old(ish) hardware with some upgrades (4 x 2.66 GHz xeon, 11 GB 667 RAM, XFX 4870 1GB). Despite following all the tweaks posted, and having great fps, I still get occasional annoying stutters with no apparent loss in fps when they are occurring. Any advice appreciated. I'm currently running 3's on game graphics, shadows off. Running the sim from within the program folder (there are 2 program folders, one for old platform) is a PITA, as it will not allow edits despite the user is Administrator, and applying such permissions to the folder sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. Also the sim cannot write screenshots unless you give the exe admin rights. There is no simply way to turn this off, and if there is, please do tell. Also, when I open the programs/microsoft games/ folder, all I see is the installed CFS folder, the OFF-BHAH folder is not within that folder, or within the CFS folder, or at least not visible. I cannot find the OFF-BHAH folder anywhere on the HD and have searched both visually and file search. While some adjustments need to be made, the payoffs are worth it.

Just found a good link to a free ramdisk driver for XP to Vista. There seems to be quite a few out there, and I haven't found a definitive choice to run with, or solid advice to draw upon... Much research to do. LINK HERE

This sounds like it really has potential! Thanks for the link. As I posted in the other OS thread, that hardware evaluation utility in win7 has recognized that my HD is the bottleneck by far, and as mentioned it is the likely culprit in stutter because fps is not lowered when I experience stutter. Not sure when I'll get around to trying Ramdisk out, maybe this weekend, but I have the available RAM and will report back.

As mentioned in the other post, Win7 Pro x64 and force feedback is perfect on my Logitec Wingman. THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE OF THE OS, BUT YOUR JOYSTICK MANUFACTURER! Perhaps I am just lucky that Logitec has provided good driver updates, especially 64 bit ones! Another poster mentioned TrackIR problems. Again, I have had no such problems with the 64 bit drivers available from Natural Point. No problem with plug-in-play on my CH rudder pedals either. This OS transition for BHAH has been painless, and I cannot say that for my other flight sims. Win7 (at least 64 bit) boots at least as fast as my Mac OSX (I run both on the same 3 year old Mac Pro workstation) and runs BHAH terrifically fast, seeing double the maximum fps that I saw under XP 32 bit, and I haven't really had time to tweak 7 yet for all those unnecessary background processes!!! I expect even better performance to come... My bottleneck is the hard drive, and in fact Win7 has a hardware evaluation applet (name escapes me) that will rank components of your computer on a scale of 0 to 7.9 (why 7.9? I don't know, I would have gone with 11 a la SpinalTap ) to suggest areas of improvement. My 3 year old rig ranked all 7.2 to 7.5 with the HD low at 5.9, so I'll save up for SSD. Christmas is coming, maybe... REALLY trying not to sound like a poster-child for Win7, because I keep Windose on my computer only for simming (no anti-virus required) so my overall needs are very different. However, if your computer can run a 64 bit OS, then there is no reason to wait at least from my experience. Also Win7 Pro or higher (NOT home version) has XP 32 bit emulation for those programs you cannot do without. There certainly is an adjustment to the OS, and some don't deal well with change, but so far I am very impressed and for what it's worth recommend making the jump. Just a few cents thrown in...

No problems running Win7 x64 with FFB on my Logitec Wingman 3D, but Logitec does provide Vista x64 drivers which work fine with 7.

Thanks fellows! Great leads provided, apologies if this is old news in a new thread...

P. Red, not my mod, but Stary's. I bet we can figure out the object clipping thing...

P.Red I implemented your sky mod (many thanks!) a while before using the flightengine.ini mod and only then saw dramatic improvements to the horizon band. I can now fly at altitude (well, up to 7,000 to 10,000 ft. so not historically accurate maximum but I'll take it...) without the sky closing in on me and the visible ground turning into a postage stamp. Hopefully we are talking about the same atmospheric effect, because people in this thread are mentioning different side effects resulting from the removal of the horizon band (and likely partially why TK had it in place in the first place). Mike, while I'm not a well versed v-card tweaker (meaning I did my best setting up what I've got and left it at that), I doubt that the differences you are seeing reside in your video card. I have an ATI card, so likely a different ball'o'wax. But certainly playing around with anisotropic filtering (if I remember correctly, but please correct if wrong...) may help a bit with distant texture resolution, but I don't think that cut-off. I haven't played around with the settings further, mostly because I'm having fun and when there are clouds in the sky you just don't see it, but perhaps it is possible to push clipping distance out further. What are the limits??? EDIT: now that I'm going over the earlier posts and images again, there is a factor mentioned only tangentially to this issue, that being player altitude. The object clipping appears to be closing in on the terrain when you are at higher altitude (see Mike's image of Flanders at almost 8000 ft) because the distance is absolute, i.e. object clipping is not an issue at lower altitudes, but becomes pronounced (or more visible) when at higher altitudes because more of the clipping distance is taken up by your visual reference point "height". Again there is a trade off, game play at historically realistic altitudes, or just enjoy the game at the lower altitudes TK has coded into the combat encounters (rarely over 5000 ft.). I have noticed I do not venture above 7000 ft anymore...

OK, then why do you think an Immelmann turn is called an Immelmann turn? He came up with the maneuver; it was not named posthumously!!! OK, the modern over-the-top roll no, but the vertical turn yes. SEE HERE As far as I know a snap roll is also called a flick roll. Here is a video link of a Dr1 in flight . About 50 sec into the video it looks like the pilot attempted to execute a flick roll (and what most are calling a snap roll here, semantics perhaps...) and he fails and stalls out BUT that is because he didn't have enough airspeed entering it. These crates/buses CERTAINLY could do these maneuvers, as witnessed by the original "vintage" airplanes in "Hell's Angles" doing these maneuvers and more! EDIT: now with the way stalls are handled by this flight engine you may not be able to do a proper snap/flick roll in this sim. That is an entirely different question...

Hi, Was uncertain where to post this question, but figured this forum was as good as any. I in no way wish to demean anyone's efforts here, only to build upon a solid foundation that I have already thoroughly enjoyed for several years. Gepard put togther a great Battle of Britain v 1.4 terrain, of that there is no doubt, thank you! It has been built upon by many others. I am wondering what, if anything, could be done to try to improve terrain detail along the coast, such as along the white cliffs of Dover. See for example the elevated coast along portions of Edward's Flanders terrain for First Eagles. Can the terrain mesh be altered in terrain editor after the fact?

Thanks for reply Gepard! The limitations you speak of are of course disappointing. Regardless, and perhaps just to flog a dead horse (always wanted to use that one...) I'll look for that file "Kreidefelsen_hm.bmp or so". Do I assume correctly that it is included in the latest BoB terrain? Or is this something you left out because of the limitations?

Yes, one has to find what causes the least visual "pain" and go for it. I try to ignore the object clipping, it really only is a factor for me when approaching city tiles. Getting rid of that horizon band was THE most important thing for me. I was easily disoriented and felt very claustrophobic. Now this mod makes a HUGE difference when flying Vogesen terrain, you can actually see the ranges of mountains Gepard developed, it is pure heaven... Mike, I will try your numbers out as well. Image simply lifted from my other post, I'll try to get something more illustrative later

Well these two statements (and your supporting fighter specific text in between) is kind of contradictory. Yes, the obsolete French fighters you provide images and facts for were around on French airfields at the time, I do not dispute that at all. BUT as you say they were truly being phased out and not front line combat aircraft by any stretch of the imagination. There may be rare anecdotes where these fighters experienced peripheral combat, such as getting blasted in hangers , but that is no reason to have to include them as player flyable aircraft unless you are masochistic Maybe these obsolete fighters can be simply modeled for static display to add ambiance. The less successful French bombers had a hard time of it, and certainly do play a sad role in the BoF history and should be modeled for that reason, and I regret not including them in the list. However, strike a balance between a realistic amount of work that will be required and realism for the campaign. Perhaps that is what you suggest by putting the start date in April-May, but why not push it back at least to January in order to include some of the excitement of those Phoney War encounters as well as experience a winter terrain.

Yes, I used to get sound drop-outs on occasion as well, usually engine, mostly in SFP-1, but hasn't happened in a while in FE. When it happens, try rebooting and see if it carries on, could be a bad loading of a driver.

If the stock style city buildings are more correct to the era, then maybe they just need to be arranged more closely together and carefully on the tile to line up with the visible streets, and form the blocks we all are familiar with in old towns. Right now they just look too randomly placed on the stock 3rdwire tile, sort of what you'd expect in a wild-west town with no urban planning (sorry any Tucson residents!). Yes, I know, much more of an 'easier said than done...' thing to say, apologies, just a thought though.

In the Osprey series book on 'Camel vs. Dr1', there is a quote from an advanced training instructor who was watching a newbie Camel jockey get his bus into a spin after a flat turn went bad. He over compensated on the recovery and put it into a spin in the other direction, then over compensated all over again and put it into a spin in the other direction before he managed to get the nose down and recover. So I think 3 spins in total if I remember correctly. While this is perhaps no big surprise to us (we all know about the Camel's character), BUT the remarkable thing is that he mentioned this all happened within a 1000 feet! Just FYI, and I'll transcribe it to post later. Raising the stall speed would be interesting, but how it would affect Peter01's carefully tooled and tweaked FM's AND the AI is another story. An experiment worthy of conducting, but I suspect a Pandora's box in the making! Better back up the AC folder PS: No FF stick Tailspin??? Next thing you'll be telling us is that you fly with the keyboard! Gotta try a force feedback stick, it is worth saving up for, maybe Christmas? That's how I justified to the wife all my sim peripherals...

I seem to stall all too often, but maybe some fly closer to edge than others I asssume you have a FF joystick? It makes a HUGE difference to the way I fly. Yeah, the stall sound and FF joystick shake give too much warning, that is a very good point (and why I push too far sometimes perhaps...) so maybe that margin of error can be reduced? i.e. start the stick shake and shudder sound a bit closer to stall onset. That'd do the trick!

From the Osprey series I'm literally now reading the "French Aces of WW2", a good read and information I am just not very familiar with (maybe that's why it is a good read!). According to the book at dawn 1 Sept 1939 the following numbers of French fighters were on the books: 573 Morane MS 405/406 120 Bloch 151/152 172 Curtiss Hawk 75's 7 Caudron-Renault 714 0 Dewoitine 520 (only under development at that time) 290 Potez 630/631 Basically the MS 405/406 and Potez are the vast majority and would require modeling for BoF. The Hawk is already modeled. Some bombers of course. The rest would be just icing on the cake, or fodder for Bf 109 D's and E's and 110's If memory serves, then on the British side would be required the Boulton-Paul Defiant (now who was modeling that recently?), Fairey Battle, and the usual suspects already modded. Correct me if wrong, but I haven't read of the Gladiator in BoF, they certainly did serve in Norway though... The German A/C are basically done AFAIK with perhaps only minor flight model tweaks to reduce engine HP and armament, though some rare recon-specific crates would be fun targets (but not required) though the "French Aces of WW2" book refers a lot to Do17's serving in that capacity. There are lots of era-appropriate (or nearly so) ground targets, and stand in's would be relatively easy to deal with. I've often thought of learning the ropes and giving this campaign a try since I assume it would be relatively straight forward since it all occurs over land with identifiable goals etc. It would be neat to do some phased action like Baltika put into BoB, i.e. have the 'phoney war' period where both sides were feeling each other out with recon missions/intercepting recon missions, minor fighter-v-fighter engagements etc. THEN the Blitzkrieg with massive swarms of aircraft! Dunkirk and cross channel action would be very special missions (perhaps stand alone missions to do it right with hundreds of ships, burning stuff, swarms of infantry, smoke billowing etc.) to wrap up the whole affair.

Yes, I spotted that 'flick roll' gone-bad right away and had to re-run the video to get a better look. Honestly, on first viewing I felt my stomach wobble in a most sickening fashion; it was such a surprise in what I perceived to be a very controlled event up to that time. I doubt very much it was intentional and bet that gave him a start as well, though judging from his other stunting he is an old hand on that crate. But you know, it is truly amazing how easily he (and the airplane!) recovered from the stall in so little altitude. Amazing. Very nice video, thanks for sharing. Got Hell's Angles on NetFlix a while back and while not an expert on the history of that film at all, I read Hughes used authentic "vintage" aircraft in the stunts (though they wouldn't have been called vintage back then...). Those DVII's were maneuvering with such speed and agility in ways I thought not possible for WWI technology. In this respect I believe Peter01's FM's are closer to the truth (if such a thing can be achieved) than 'other' WWI sims. I truly get a 'feel' for my bus/crate in FE that I just don't with OFF (not to start a fight here, and not that there is anything wrong with that, that sim excels in other ways...). Just a few cents...