Schnitzel von Krumm

I do the same thing with TaskInfo which both allows me to use a nifty gui to set the process priority and the core affinity for various processes and remember them each time they're started. Setting core affinity stops OFF from switching form one core to the next. The switch time, handing off from one core to another, can cause latency. You wouldn't notice it normally, but in an environment like a flight sim where normal human reaction time is speeded up into milliseconds, it's noticeable. I've put CFS.exe on one core, the OFF manager on another, and put told other programs to stay on the other two and mind their own business. Seems to have helped a noticeable amount in avoiding the little stutters. It's actually better under Win7 than Vista. It's easier to give a process complete ownership over a core without letting other things barge in as well. At any rate, the biggest difference between what I'm doing and what you're doing is that I've paid money (for TaskInfo) to do what you clever buggers are doing for free. :) What can I say, I'm lazy (when I'm using Windows anyway). Actually TaskInfo is a very useful program for taming the wilder bits of Windows, and I've been using it for many years. Seems to me there are probably free alternatives out there though. I spend a fair amount of time in Linux (would be all the time were it not for OFF) and similar controls are all there for free as a given. No OFF though. Pardon my tangent. :)

I just picked up FE2. What the heck. For $20 how can you go wrong. And let's face it, every WWI sim that survives is good for the genre. When you support one, you support them all, regardless of which is your favourite.

They're called "ape hangers" aren't they? Born to be wild, baby!

I found this thread interesting, even though I've yet to try the DIIIa in OFF. Over in that "other WWI flying sim", the DIIIa is about the only plane I can reliably fly a complete mission in without spinning into the ground.

Yeah, it gave me the same bad habits. In later more realistic games, it's really taken me a while to unlearn the habit of excessively violent manoeuvres. As a result, I tend to rip the wings off of a lot of planes. More recently, I also spent a fair bit of time playing Red Baron Arcade with my four year old last year. While it is a fun game for what it is, and it is quite possible for a four year old to fly it, prolonged exposure to it does not do wonders for one's finesse on the joystick. Landing hasn't been a problem for me in RoF yet. I hope one day to try it though.

They're very serialized and make a lot more sense if you read them in order. It's worth collecting them all, if you can find them. I have a spare copy of volume six you can have. If you PM me an address I can send it to, I'll throw it in the mail for you. I've owned the complete series three times and given them away to friends every time. Inevitably, a few years later I end up wanting to read them again and have to start hunting them down all over again. It gets a little harder every time, since some of them were first published in the 60s. I'm going to hang onto my set this time, because some of them are getting kind of hard to find. You can have my spare "This One's on Me" though if you want it. There's a site HERE for the small publisher that's taken up the cause of preserving Donald Jack's legacy. Most of the books have been reissued thanks to them. Hopefully they'll get going on Vol. 1, because according to their link to Amazon, used copies are currently going for $998.

Well, I reinstalled RoF last night and then bought their combo sale pack of the Camel and the DR.1. I tried the DR.1 for a while, and it was actually kind of fun. I think I ended every single mission nose into the ground, but I think with time I might actually be able to learn to fly it. It's tricky, though, that's for sure. The flight models in RoF definitely make for harder flying than in OFF. I'm certainly not convinced, though, that it's because they're more accurate, especially given the random nature of occurrences over there. There are RoF fans, I'm sure who will tell me my troubles are just because I'm a lousy pilot. That makes me really mad, because I have no come back. It's true. I suck. In the nostalgia vein, I started with Red Baron on a 286, but my biggest obsession was probably Wings of Glory. I still have the original CD and aircraft recognition poster from that game. Maybe I'll try later to see if I can get it to run in a DOS emulator. What really got me going on WWI aviation was reading The Bandy Papers, which is sort of like a Canadian Biggles, only much better written. Not long ago I convinced my wife to read them, and she went straight through the whole series. As well as great stories, they're also hilarious and full of really clever puns, which my wife appreciates. Donald Jack is the author. Not sure if many people outside of Canada have heard of the series, which is a shame. EDIT: Just noticed who it was who wrote the post above me. Heh.

I love First Eagles! I may reinstall that later tonight. That train busting co-op mission in RoF also sounds like it might be fun too. It might be a busy night. The important thing to remember is that loving one WWI flight sim does not preclude one from loving the others as well. They're not wives. We can have more than one and appreciate the good qualities of each. We also don't need to pick sides, declare the other side evil, and defend our side to the death. This may be an odd thing to say on a forum about a game devoted to simulating war, but "Peace to all".

It's an OCZ Vertex 60 gig model. To be honest, I can't say as there have been huge improvements. To be fair, I previously had the game loaded on a WD Velociraptor, which is fairly fast for a mechanical drive. Before, every now and then, I'd see a little stutter when a new chunk of terrain loaded, or possibly if some other part of Windows wanted to access the harddrive. That's gone now, as far as I can tell. Load times are a bit faster, but because the game still has to access the CFS3 CD when you first start, there isn't as big of a change as I would have hoped. I was hoping for "Contact, Clear" and straight to the field, but sadly there's still a wait because of the CD. Still, once flying, the game is perfectly smooth for me now, so I can't complain. Mostly, I bought the drive for something to play with, and because it was on sale at a decent discount before Christmas. My OFF was already running nice and smooth (Q9550, GTX285, 8GB RAM on Win7 64). The SSD helped by getting rid of the few remaining little random stutters I was getting, but it certainly wasn't a revolutionary change. Ironically "that other WWI flight sim" would probably benefit from it more, because its load times are very long, even if you just want to replay a mission that's just ended because you've spun into the ground or the wings fell off your Dolphin again. If I end up reinstalling it, I'll see if there's room on the SSD. Anyway, I wouldn't go rushing out to buy an SSD expecting big performance boosts. If you're into computer hardware, though, they've come down enough in price that they're worth getting just to play around with. Win7 is pretty much mandatory, though, for the TRIM support to keep the drives' performance up. Otherwise they slow down with time.

I bought RoF and tried it for a while. I've even bought most of the planes. I can't say I regret the purchases, because I think supporting anything that increases interest in WWI flight sims is a good thing. While I support it in prinicple, though, I can't say as I've enjoyed it much in reality. I didn't reinstall RoF when I switched from Vista to Win7 a month or so ago. OFF, on the other hand, has a snazzy new SSD all to itself. :) I had, and continue to have, high hopes for RoF, and I appreciate what its developers are trying to do, but at its current level, I don't find it an enjoyable experience. I bought it thinking it was going to be a good multiplayer game, which is what they were saying before it was released. Well, it turns out the MP is lousy, with no dogfight servers. The single player is also severely limited. Back when RoF was nearing release, my hope was that I'd have OFF for campaign mode, and RoF for quick online dogfighting against other humans. So far, the online aspect of RoF has greatly disappointed me. That leaves as its assets some fairly impressive graphics, assuming your machine can run it okay. I've had great framerates right from the start, and other than the early issues with shimmer, haven't experienced the problems with stuttering and poor performance that some people report. There's also the highly touted flight modelling. Supposedly, according to some real life pilots who've posted on various fora, ROF is the closest to real life feeling of flying they've had from a flight sim. Fair enough. I'll have to take their word for it. I'm not a pilot. Perhaps that's why I could never finish a mission without spinning into the ground. You don't have to be a pilot to see the problems with the mismatch between the damage model and the flight model, though. Just watch for AI planes flying around with some or both of their wings missing. Then there was the Dolphin, which as released, shed its wings if you looked at it the wrong way. It would also frequently go into an unrecoverable spin for absolutely no reason. Supposedly they've fixed that. Maybe one day I'll reinstall the game and see. The AI pilots have no trouble flinging their planes all over the sky, so it must be possible. I also wonder about the developers' sense of priorities. Longstanding issues which would seem easy to address are ignored, while things like river barges are added. Witness the flap in the forums about windsocks not working. How can you have supposedly super accurate flight modelling for the "real pilots" and dismiss the need to be able to gauge the wind? One of the things that bothers me most is the ignorance or disregard of history on the part of the developers. This ranges from the performance of planes are inaccurate relative to each other, to little things like spelling the names of well known aces, including von Richtofen and Voss. To be fair, maybe that's a translation thing. I come at this, though, as a WWI history buff, rather than as a pilot, so I'd like there to be at least some reasonable effort made on the historical side. There's been a lot of criticism levelled at RoF, most of it probably deserved. And there's been a lot of rabid fanboyism from its clutch of supporters. What there hasn't been, IMO, is deserved praise for the game. There are some elements in it that are truly impressive, and the developers are continuing to work on it. Most of all, it's helped to raise awareness of and interest in WWI flying games/sims. In the end, that can't help but be good for the genre. Hopefully those disenchanted by RoF will decide to come over and have a look at OFF, and they'll like what they see. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to follow RoF on the forums. I may also buy one of their combo plane packs in the next few days to be supportive and to hopefully save a few bucks, looking ahead to when there are dogfight servers and the major issues in the game have been fixed. In the meantime, I'll stick with OFF. :)

While I would never condone such actions, what with them being irresponsible, unsafe, etc. I can't help but be entertained by them. The following is video of some guy, apparently somewhere in the southern U.S., buzzing his children and a group of their friends with an RC plane, while the kids shoot at the plane with a variety of fireworks. The video is shot from an onboard camera. There are some fairly close calls with the fireworks, especially from the one kid with the roman candles. I have to give the guy credit for being a decent pilot, both giving the kids opportunities at the plane, flying close enough to scatter them, and as far as I know, not maiming or killing anyone or destroying his plane in the process.

I have it running on Win7 64 without issues. It's nice and snappy too, since I gave it an OCZ Vertex SSD as a home, all to itself.

I just finished Aces Falling a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of accounts in the pilots' own words, well linked together in context. Peter Hart is one of those rare writers who can inform you and entertain you at the same time.

Yeah, I think someone's been coaching him.

Maybe it's like the Flying Dutchman, doomed never to return home, appearing unexpectedly. Perhaps it's the train car in which the Allies humiliated the Germans with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles - the very same car in which Hitler forced the French to sign their own humiliating surrender. Yeah, I been drinkin'.

OFF is not CFS3. It's based on the engine, but it's far more complex and demanding graphically. Don't worry though, your rig will handle it fine with all the settings cranked up.

Congrats on the arrival of what will become your new obsession. I have a slightly lesser rig than yours (Q9550 and a GTX285) and I run 16 AF and 8Q AA at 1900x1200 with sliders at fives, except for terrain, which everyone says to leave at four. I get a steady 40fps (where I've capped it). I would advise against using the in game AA settings. People seem to have problems with them. Do the ATI drivers allow profile settings for individual games? Anyway, there's lots of graphics advice on the OFF website and on this forum, from people far more knowledgeable than me. Your rig should run the game beautifully, though. Now you need the expansion. It really adds to the game. And it's a download. Cheers and happy holidays! (I said that, so you wouldn't fly one too many missions and forget Christmas.

Just out of curiosity, what part of Canada are you in PP?

That must have left you feeling almost piqued.

It took me a little while to find it and type it up, but here's the account of Collishaw's experience from his memoirs. The account is verbatim, other than I've added the paragraph breaks to make it easier to read. Collie didn't believe in paragraphs apparently. His words are in italics. Let me know if there's something that doesn't make sense. I typed it rather hastily. So, to set the stage, the incident took place over the Ypres front in early July of 1917: "We continued our patrols during the next few days without let-up, but although we had plenty of scraps none of us was able to make any decisive claims. It was during one of these combats that I underwent an experience that left me somewhat shaken." "We had become involved in the usual sort of dogfight, with everyone circling around trying to get one of the enemy in his sights and at the same time keeping a lookout behind to see what in turn may be on his tail. I was in exactly this position, keeping one eye on an enemy fighter in front of me, and, thanks to the manoeuvrability of my Triplane, slightly more than matching the tight turns he was making, and keeping the other eye on another enemy machine that had been trying to position itself on my tail." "Things were going very well, and I almost had the German ahead of me in my sights when suddenly a third enemy machine appeared dead in front, coming straight at me. There was no time to consider stress limits and the amount of abuse that the Triplane would take - I jammed my stick right forward and just passed underneath the German fighter. The Triplane held together in one piece but my manoeuvre had been so violent that my safety strap, holding me down in my seat, snapped." "I suddenly found myself completely clear of the cockpit and instinctively grabbed at the two centre struts just in front of the pilot's position. The control column was left to its own devices and with full power on the Triplane nosed down in a steep dive. Left to itself, under full power, the Triplane executed a series of extraordinary manoeuvres, suddenly nosing up only to drop off into a falling leaf spin and then going again into a steep dive." "To anyone who might have seen me I must have presented a comic sight, clinging desperately to the two struts with the lower part of my body trailing in the slipstream and being flung about like a rag doll as my pilotless Triplane displayed its varied repertoire. So far as I was concerned, though, there was nothing funny in it at all." "There was absolutely nothing that I could do, for it took all my strength merely to hang on, and I could feel my grip weakening as excruciating pains shot through my arms. It seemed only a question of whether I should be able to hang on until the aircraft and I bit the ground together or whether we would part company before then. There was always the chance that the Triplane would shed its wings but these matters seemed academic for I was apparently done for whatever happened." "Had things gone on like this for only a few more moments I think that the Triplane and I would have gone our separate ways, for my arms were nearly being pulled from their sockets and were starting to slip from the struts. I recall feeling almost piqued because no one seemed to notice what was happening to me and apparently no one cared. What rescue action the other members of the Flight could have taken, even had they seen my predicament, is questionable, but in a situation such as I was in one is not always either logical or reasonable." "Suddenly, though, the Triplane took it in its head to to pull straight up sharply and the lower part of my body was slammed down on the cockpit coaming. Still hanging on, I was able to work one leg into the cockpit and hook my foot around the upper part of the control column, pulling it back until I was in more or less level flight. Then I was able to let go and regain my seat, which seemed a very secure spot indeed." "As I grasped the control column both my arms felt as if they were going to drop off but I uttered no complaints. Checking my altimeter, I saw that it read under 6,000 feet. We had been above 16,000 feet when we began our scrap and I had fallen nearly two miles." "As soon as I was able to collect my wits I set course for home, a more sober and more thoughtful pilot than I had been some moments before." The part where he's "piqued" because nobody notices or shows concern for his predicament is what reminded me most of the Bandy Papers. The fact that Collishaw not only survived this event, but apparently stayed so calm and lucid, making ironic observations as he flopped around trying to get back into the cockpit of his whirling, diving aeroplane is just one example of why I find him such an interesting and admirable historic figure. Anyway, can we have unreliable safety straps as an option for P4? I think it would really add to the realism.

Yeah, that was the first thing I though of too, Bullethead. Collishaw recounts that story in his memoirs, The Black Flight. The calm, matter-of-fact way he describes it is what makes it so humourous. When I first read it, I thought it sounded like something out of The Bandy Papers which, for those who haven't read them, are the fictitious memoirs of a WWI Canadian flying ace. They're an extremely well-written series of books, both for their humour and historical accuracy. The historical accuracy, while gratifying to a Great War history buff, is secondary to the sheer entertainment value of the books. I would highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't read them yet. I'm not usually one for rereading fiction, but I've read the Bandy series through four times and given away three complete sets of the books to friends, all of whom have loved them. I even talked my wife into reading them, and while she has no interest whatsoever in history, particularly military history, the cleverness of the writing and the development of the Bandy character soon had her hooked, and she went non-stop through all nine volumes. The books are getting a bit hard to find, unfortunately, so I think I'l hang on to this set. For anyone who's interested, the author's name is Donald Jack. Sorry if this post was a slight derail. It just struck me how life is sometimes stranger than fiction, providing of course the main character survives to tell the tale.

Might not be a bad idea. The holidays are far, far worse than other times of the year, but our customs service is slow at the best of times. Two weeks wouldn't be out of the norm for delivery time. Customs is an unfortunate anomaly in our country. Most of our government services are actually pretty good, or at least acceptable by world standards, but Canadian Customs is horrendously bad. My worst ever experience with them was a few years back when I bought a $3500 digital SLR from a known honest seller in California. It took 45 days to get to me, all but four of which (as I later found out) were spent getting kicked around in customs. By that time, paranoia was growing and I was wondering just how honest the seller really was and if he really sent me a camera at all. Meanwhile, he was trying hard on his end to find out what happened to the camera, but (depending on the carrier) things go off the tracking radar when they're in the black hole of Canada Customs. And, I was told, you can't even initiate an insurance claim because it's not officially lost, (although it might be, but nobody will tell you, or in any way try to check for you). You might as well take out life insurance on Schroedinger's cat. Just don't expect anyone to ever open the box. Anyway, it worked out in the end but it was nerve-racking. I pretty much just don't buy stuff from the States anymore unless I really have to. I was glad the expansion was a download. On a positive note, once things get through customs, typically they get to you pretty quick. Canada Post (and it's subsidiary/pseudo-competitor Purolator) is actually very efficient. As a recent example, a couple of months ago I ordered a certain other WWI flying sim, the name of which I've now forgotten, although it's on a shelf around here somewhere. I ordered through NCIX in BC in the evening of a Monday and it was delivered to me in Ontario on a Wednesday, which is pretty good, I think, given the distance. Sadly, though, as short a time as said game took to traverse this great land, the time I spent playing it was even shorter. I won't open that can of worms here though. On a side note, UPS and FedEx tend to be faster at getting stuff across the border, but they charge egregiously high "brokerage fees" for the convenience. In the case of UPS, it's usually about $40, regardless of the value of the item. Duty and taxes are on top of that, on top of whatever the sender paid for the shipping in the first place. Never send a Canadian something by UPS without asking first if you expect to remain on friendly terms.

The problem isn't Avangate or either US or Canada Post. The problem is at the border on the Canadian side. Our customs department is widely known to be pretty much the worst in the western world. Italy is apparently the only country that's even close to being as bad, so I'm told. I've had numerous experiences with American eBay sellers and small companies that won't even ship to Canada anymore because the delays are so bad at the border, and they're sick of customers blaming them and initiating PayPal disputes or credit card chargebacks. At this time of year, as you can imagine, the problem is far worse than usual. As the volume goes up, the delays go up exponentially. Also, by my experience, USPS tracking on international shipments means nothing. Your OFF could be anywhere as far as they know. I was fairly lucky when my OFF was shipped. It took about a week and a bit to southern Ontario, but it wasn't during the holidays. On the positive side, the envelope is small enough, and the declared value is low enough (If I recall, they described it as a "backup DVD" with a value of $5) that it might slip past the customs monkeys unmolested. Good luck. I hope you get it quickly. The waiting is hard, but OFF is worth the wait. On the positive side, the HiTR expansion is a download.

Don't know if it will help, but there's a "Fix MSE Utility" you could try.

Yeah, the hard lock with Win7 concerns me a bit. That's pretty hard to do without a serious underlying hardware issue. I would guess it's memory related, either with bad RAM or maybe a page file problem, like being nearly out of disk space so the page file can't expand enough to give you enough virtual memory. Without knowing more about your system I'm only guessing, but prolonged disk thrashing could be causing your drive to overheat, which might cause a lock up. The most likely cause of the disk thrashing would be either an anti-virus program scanning the fairly large file, or your computer using the page file because of insufficient memory. If you could check how much disk space and memory you have, that might help us to figure it out. And, just because I'm a paranoid sort, have you got a backup of your grad paper and such, just in case?