MikeDixonUK

Aye, cannon armed Spitfires are understandable in pre-CGI productions, like the TV series 'Piece of Cake' due to the requirement of using surviving spitfires for filming, and there being a lot more later models such as Mk Vs and IXs as opposed to the MG armed Mk Is and IIas, but at least in that they painted them green and brown rather than the later green and grey - with a CGI based production it just seems lazy. (I think it's meant to be set in November 1940, but from when I recently made a model Spit IIb I think I read that they didn't use grey/green camo with yellow leading edges until 1942.) Think the Spitfire in the short is meant to be a Mk Vb. Granted not everyone is as geeky as us! There is one very silly scene in the short though, which I'll put in a spoiler as I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Now here's some pre CGI Spitage, there are some things that you can only do with real Spitfires! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QVZ4W_2Iec

Ah, nevermind - I found the thread on the CoD forum that showed the whole thing, but the video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim.

Isn't this a short film? I remember whatching what I presume was the full length of it on a video that was posted on the Cliffs of Dover forums a while back, I'll see if I can find it.

Sounds good, one of the main things that RoF was lacking was a career mode, infact it put me off buying it for quite some time - also the field mods sound good too.

I got Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy yesterday and am trying to get used to it - I did get Shock Force and played it a bit but the performance was poor, plus it wasn't quite the same as a WW2 environment (also the quick battles were a bit naff) - Battle for Normandy seems much better though, plus it runs much better (granted I had a different graphics card when I tried Shock Force.) Still a bit of a noob though it must be said, although hopefully the situation will improve when the box and the physical manual arrive in the post. I also played the original, which I have fond memories of (seem to remember an operation that lasted quite a while, and had different times of day - so it started in daytime, then there was a ceasefire and the next bit was at night time with all your units in the same places etc, which at the time I thought was amazing!) Tried the Africa one but it didn't seem as good.

I transfered my Pilot across installs when I updated from Windows XP to Windows 7 (which requires you to reinstall software) and the transfer went ok using the above methods (ie copy your Pilot files and your Documents or AppData files - then making a Pilot with exactly the same name and in exactly the same number 'slot' in the new install and copying the files over) and haven't had any problems.

Here's a comparison of one of the first claims made in my DiD Campaign and one of the more recent claims: 20th of December 1916 Upon returning to base I noted an Albatros DII attacking my wingman from the rear, as such I turned to assist and engaged with zest the enemy craft, swiftly placing myself on his six o'clock position and firing a number of short bursts into the enemy craft. After a number of bursts the Hun then tried to escape by climbing away, however I was able to stay on his rear and force him low, firing another burst of machinegun fire into his rear, causing the Albatros to burst into flames and crash destroyed into the forest 1 mile south of St-pol-sur-mer Airfield. 24th of March 1918 Engaged Fokker Dr1 (Brown Camo scheme, black and white tail) 5 miles west of Lens at 09:10 hours, fired slash attacks until enemy was forced down into trees. The first claim was rejected, while the second claim was confirmed - which just goes to show its not how much you write, it's what you write. (Unless they're just more inclined to believe my claims now days than they were when I was a two-seater Pilot with about 3 hours flying time.) As for my most impressive single claim report (statistics wise), it would have to be this one: 3rd of June 1917 Engaged a flight of the new German Albatros D.V Scouts over our Airfield between aprox 6:45am and 7:05am - Engaging at least 10 enemy aircraft, with natural wood finish, green and purple wings and a white tail with thin red horizontal lines - I engaged and shot down at least 5 of them in combats over the field - setting one aflame, forcing one down into trees and shooting into the engines and cockpits of the rest with short machinegun bursts - finally downing a sixth Albatros through collision, where my tail clipped his wing and tore it off.. I had to make two claims for that engagement, one with the 5 Albs and another with 6th Alb - the five got confirmed but the sixth was rejected - seemingly ramming them doesn't count.

Growler Guncam comes with a two week trial if you'd rather test it out before seeing if you want to buy it or not.

Personally I use a program called Growler Guncam, which for me causes less slow downs than Fraps (although the latest versions of Fraps seem to have closed the gap) and gives more recording options, such as picking a custom resolution for the video (rather than Fraps' Full Screen or Half Screen) as well as the size of the capture area (for example in WW2OL I record guncam videos off my 1920 x 1200 screen by recording a 1280 x 720 resolution box in the centre of the screen - so even though it's only 1280 x 720 resolution it's still the same size as my monitor, just in a square in the centre.) Also as opposed to Fraps, Growler Guncam records the clips into it's own file types (.gcf I think) and you can then export them at different video qualities - which is probably why I find it slows my PC down less while recording. Growler Guncam

What ho! I've switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 (which requires a 'clean install') so Over Flanders Fields needed to be installed again - however whenever I try to run a Mission in OFF after I install it I get a warning about the 'Config file being out of date, restart CFS3', or some such. I've tried running CFS3 in Administrator Mode and XP Compatibility, and OFF in Administrator mode also - and have CFS3 patched to 3.1 prior to installing OFF (also I make sure to run vanilla CFS3 before I patch to 3.1, then again after I patch to 3.1 before installing Over Flanders Fields) I've also tried reinstalling it with CFS3 and OFF on the C drive and also a few times with CFS3 and OFF on the E drive (external hard drive) but still get the same issue. When I go to run the Config program in the Over Flanders Fields install folder I set the graphics set up to Custom Settings and change the slider settings - however whenever I exit and restart the Config program the graphics are always reset to Default Settings (I also make sure to close the config program by clicking on exit, and not clicking on the X, like it says in the install guide.) I've even tried setting the Config editor to run as administrator and/or Windows XP compatibility, but neither of those get the settings to stick. I should also note that the OFF and CFS3 disks installed and worked fine in Windows XP before I upgraded.

Happy Birthday for tommorow TheMightysrc (April the 24th acording to his profile page.) Also happy Birthdays to Vladimir Lenin, Robert Oppenheimer, Michael Wittmann, Jack Nicholson and other assorted persons who share the same Birthday as me. And the first use of Chlorine gas - at the second battle of Ypres, although that one is not a very pleasant Birthday!

Thanks chaps, managed to get it to work! I did a windows search for the ConfigOverrides file and found that there was a second folder from my previous install, made by the 'Windows Easy Transfer' program when I moved from XP to Windows 7, so I deleted that folder and it's started working again now. On top of that I even managed to resurrect my DiD Pilot from my previous install on Windows XP - and managed to fly a campaign mission with him. And to top it all off I got 8 kills confirmed from the last few sorties when I was on Windows XP! So all good!

No worries, Olham - us English flying sorts probably all look the same when we're shooting at you anyway! Thanks.

Two notes: 1, S! Happy Birthday Simon! 2, It's my Birthday today as well! Although acording to Widowmaker's Profile his Birthday is on December the 10th - so maybe you were thinking about me instead?

Thanks, Pol - I'll give it another try with all the tips you've mentioned. (My Anti-Virus is AVG by the way.)

Reminds me of this one:

Here's a short gun camera video I've put together of some sorties over occupied France:

You lot are clever when it comes to tech stuff I must say, so perhaps you can help me! Birthday again soon, been pondering some graphics card upgrades (need more graphics card memory aparantly, as I'm running at high resolution (1920 x 1200) - also Cliffs of Dover needs a good 2gb odd it seems, narrowed it down to three but they all have their issues. The Safe Option Gainward GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048 MB GDDR5Dual This is the safe option as it's not exactly top tier, apparently uses 20w less power (the basic 1gb version at least) than my current card (ASUS ATI HD 4890 1024mb) and is the cheapest, however the stats don't seem to be massively better than my current card (a basic ATI HD 4890 vs a basic 1gb 560Ti anyway) but I don't really know how much better the Gainward 2GB one is and is it worth £250 compared to what I've got? Although seemingly the 560 was only released a few months ago, where as the ATI 4890 is about two years old, so it seems a bit odd if the 560 is only a little better, unless I've go the stats wrong. (The main advantages over my current card seem to be that it has 2gb ram compared to 1gb and is DirectX 11 compatible, where as my current is DirectX 10 I think.) The Hard Option Asus HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 This one is a lot better than my current card and is only about £30 more than the first option, however it uses 60w more than my current card, so I might have to buy a new PSU (not sure what my current one is, I'll have to open it up and look - 500w I think) and also my Motherboard (ASUS P5N-e SLI) has issues running ATI 6XXX series cards and requires a BIOS update (or else it takes about 40 seconds for it to start up) which I'm not to keen about as I hear they can stuff up the Motherboard. The Silly Expensive Option Palit GTX 580 3GB GDDR5 This one is similar to the second one I think, and has about the same power consumption - but has 3gb memory and I won't have to update my BIOS. Of course the question is, with this PC: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33Ghz ASUS P5N-e SLI 4GB DDR2 Ram Windows XP SP3 (Thinking about getting Windows 7.) Would the other components in the PC be holding back the better two cards so much that there's not much point in me getting them, compared to the first card?

If you're looking for a card, I think one of the most important aspects as far as Cliffs of Dover is concerned is how much Memory the Graphics Card has - on my 1GB ATI 4890 I could run it to a playable standard with Trees on very low, or off - shadows off, grass off, building distance low and building detail low, and with a little bit of a slow down when I was attacking a group of Aircraft (such as if there were 3 or more Bombers near me.) Where as with a 2GB GeForce 560 Ti I can run it at slightly better FPS with Trees on medium, shadows on (also I now get those proper shadows that move around the cockpit - when I tried them before they were only basic 'area' shadows - maybe a more advanced shader model or something?) grass on, building distance medium and building detail medium and without the slow down with groups of Aircraft (although I've only tested on attacks with 9 or so bombers in the formation - I'll have to use the FMB and test it out with some bigger formations) Also interestingly when I record videos in Cliffs of Dover they hardly slow the game down at all (in Over Flanders Fields and WW2OL I usually get a 10FPS or so drop) - maybe that's because Cliffs of Dover isn't using the processor to it's full potential, so the CPU has some extra power to use on the recording software?

Looking great! I'm looking forward to flying a few early war careers!

I was having a dogfight the other day in a Spitfire, when I got bounced by another 109 - which blew the cowling off the top of my engine - on the inside in red letters you could read 'Rolls Royce' on the side of the Merlin Engine!

Thanks, Parky - I'll disable hardware acceleration (it was enabled) and give it a shot! Olham, my system specs are: GPU: Gainward Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz Motherboard: ASUS P5N-E SLI Memory: 4GB DDR2 OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 3) Sadly ironic if they tried to design it so that it can run on a 'normal' system, but in doing so they accidentally make it run so badly on top of the range ones! I'm also thinking about upgrading to Windows 7, but to go from XP to 7 requires a clean install, it comes with an 'easy transfer' program to copy accounts and documents and the like, but I'll still have to re-install my programs etc - and of course I might lose my OFF Pilots unless I try to copy everything to my external hard drive and get them to work after I re-install. But then I'm going to have to upgrade eventually, and the longer I wait the more annoying it will be.

Not sure about Motherboard voltage and temperature readings, but I have speed fan which tells me the temperatures and they all seem ok - I'll look for some stuff about the voltages, thanks for the tip, Lewie. Here's a more action based video for you, Olham:

Just the joys of a summer morning, sat in a Spitfire Mk I enjoying the countryside of home. I'll have a look at making something more violent for you.

I decided to go for the Gainward GTX 560 Ti 2GB, it arrived this morning and seems to work ok with my 485w PSU (although since installing it I keep getting these big slow-downs when I'm browsing websites and the like, which bring my PC to a stand still (the mouse still works and the start bar icons and read-outs and the like still move, but everything else freezes and ctrl + alt + delete doesn't work) so I might get a 650w PSU or what not, unless someone thinks it might not be a PSU issue? As for if it was worth the upgrade from an ATI 4890 1GB to a GTX 560 Ti 2GB, let me think about it... I'm going to say yes!