RAF_Louvert

. Redpiano and Buddy, and any others new to OFF, I'd like to mention that while the various patches and modified DM's each offer something different, you still need to fly very, very smart in this sim if you wish to survive. If you are taking hits from the enemy, be they scout or B/R, then you are attacking them incorrectly. This may sound trite but it is the honest truth. If you rush in and start blasting away at your opponent without considering his counterattack and your means of escape, you are going to take damage and lose agility. You need only read the letters and diaries of the Great War pilots to know that the successful ones carefully stalked their prey and attacked only when the moment was right. In OFF you must do the same thing, or you will become just another statistic. Two-seaters should be attacked from directly underneath when they are flying in formation, and this will necessitate you taking your time to slip up below them undetected. Once within about 40 yards of the underbelly of the trailing bus, bring your nose up quickly and lace the target from front to back, then dive away to avoid gun fire from the rear. If they stay in formation repeat the attack. If they break formation pull away and assess the situation and pick a wise target to chase. If the odds are against you DO NOT attack, but fly off and try again when the tables have turned back to favor you. With the scouts you should try and get above them before initiating an attack. You can do this by choosing to lead your flight. Do not use warp but instead fly real time and climb to the full operational ceiling your kite allows. This will often provide you the luxury of being above your opponent when and if you run across him. If you are attacked from above, (and you best be watchful and know the attack is coming), turn towards your opponent to jamb him up and jinx around so he can't get a line on you. The AI will often make the mistake of giving up their alt in the initial attack at which point you can get above them. Alt is life, so do your best to keep it and initiate your attacks with this advantage. If you can keep above your enemy and fly smart, taking time to hit him when it's to your advantage, you will normally win the day. But if you end up low and slow, the AI in OFF will pounce on you so fast you'll wish your mother never had you. Really Gents, it all goes back to the basics here. OFF is modelled to give you quite a realistic WWI air combat experience, which means it is deadly. Welcome to the 20 Minuters. .

. Well Creaghorn, you are WAAAAAY out of my league Sir. That's more than I paid for my entire system. I am sure the high tech gurus here will be able to steer you in the proper direction. .

. Si, where do you suppose all the dark matter in the universe comes from? Thanks for the kudos SIr. Tranquillo, glad to see you're still doing well. Keep up the fine effort Sir! And since you asked, here is my chart showing my progress to date: You will note that you have competition for that book certificate, my friend. .

. "Over Flanders Fields II: Weekend at Manfred's" hee, hee ... I crack myself up .

. Olham, here is another of his well-known MvR sketches: .

. "Over Flanders Fields: Brave New World" Oh wait, did I meniton that one already? .

. With all due respect Redpiano, I don't see how you can decide after a dozen or so flights that this sim needs all sorts of mods and changes in order to make it somehow more "correct". RoF is certainly not the begin all and end all when it comes to the FM's and DM's either, and despite all the original documentation that exists no one but our WWI counterparts, (and a lucky few modern day pilots who've gotten to fly these kites), really knows just how they should feel in actual flight. Every dev team takes their best shot with the same goals in mind concerning flight characteristics, and every one comes with differing results. I will say that I have flown light aircraft and ULs and I find the planes in OFF to handle about as I would have imagined they might in RL. But to each their own I suppose. None-the-less Redpiano, I don't believe you've given the unmodded sim even close to a fair shake. .

. Outstanding Soppy! Next time you must try it in an open cockpit. You will be hooked for life. .

. I've been shopping around for a while now, in an effort to make a move up from my old GTX 9800+ vid card. While it has been serving me very well in OFF, it is max'd out as far as I can safely take it in order to push P3 at a good pace on my system. Since I don't use my flying computer for anything other than OFF when it comes to sims and gaming, I don't need to go hog wild on a new card, but I do need a step up from what I currently run. So, after a fair amount of research and hunting about the bargain bins, the replacement I've settled upon is a brand new EVGA GTX 460 SC edition from TigerDirect for the very nice price of $143.99, including delivery. This card not only has twice the onboard memory as my old 9800 but will easily be three times faster in nearly all aspects. I can't wait for it to arrive so I can pop it in, load up the new drivers, and give it a spin. Hardly cutting edge technology I know, but a massive jump over what I have, and likely more than enough to max out OFF 2 when it debuts, which should be any day now ... right? .

. Buddy, here are the Nvidia settings I have been running since my benchmarking session last weekend: Hope this info is helpful for you. .

. Greetings All, After reading through Redpiano's recent posts I thought I would mention again that while state-of-the-art gaming systems are very cool, you do not need one to push OFF well above and beyond. Now then, if you will all indulge me, ("What, again Lou?!") ... yes, I know, I can be tedious. But please, allow me to outline briefly my system and the most recent adjustments and tweaks I’ve made. To start with, here is what I am now flying after the latest graphics card upgrade: CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz Wolfdale 6mb 1333fsb 45nm with Arctic Cooler, (OC'd to 3.33) Memory: 8gb DDR2 PC2-6400 800mhz, (set on ‘auto’ via the ASUS control panel) Mobo: ASUS P5QL Pro Hard Drive: 2 Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite Video Card: EVGA GTX 460 SC PS: Corsair HX 850 Watt Windows XP Pro 64-bit OS LG 22" flat screen LCD monitor, 1920 x 1080 native resolution Three large case fans, plus the PS, CPU, and card fans Saitek AV8R joystick Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals Track IR4 with IR5 software Out-of-the-box card speeds are as follows: core clock 867, shader clock 1735, memory clock 2025, with the fan at auto. I have not bothered to tweak these at all as this is already the OC version and everything is working great just as it is. On my Windows XP Pro 64 I have gone through and disabled all the superfluous MicroSquish programs that run even if you don’t need them, (and believe me there are a lot of those). I also have my ‘C’ drive dedicated to the OS, with the ‘D’ drive carrying everything else, including the paging file. With my current system tweaked as described I can now run sliders at 5-4-3-5-5. I initially had the sliders at 5-4-4-5-5 but discovered that the landscape actually looks better with the ‘Scenery’ moved down to ‘3’. I also have Ground Object Density on ‘high’. Temps inside the box are quite constant, running at a cool 20-to-30 C. I used the Alsace region in August of 1918 as my benchmark, and even on a bright sunny day in a massive dogfight above the mud I have beautiful, smooth performance throughout the entire affair. The only artifacting I encounter are the occasional tiny white triangles along the very edge of the screen when I snap my head around very quickly, and only occasionally. And, I can make this go away entirely by moving ‘Terrain’ down to ‘3’ if I wish. Here are a few screenshots of what the vistas are now like when flying my favorite WWI combat flight sim: Notice in particular the density of the trees and how far away they actually fill in. Really gives the landscape a much richer look. I hope some of our newer flyers who are running older systems will find this info useful and encouraging. Cheers! Lou .

. Yes, wouldn't we all Olham. BTW, you and Mike can fight over her all you want, but you're both too late. She's already mine. .

. Look Gents, I've just found a wallet ... and there's cash in it! Drinks are on me! .

. Herr Olham - Blitz Fighter "Back off Franz, you're cramping my style! That sweet young Fräulein is clearly giving me the eye, and I can't work my magic with you tugging at me like that." .

. Fine chaps? Oh Lanz old boy, you clearly don't know us very well. .

. Rest in Peace, Flying Officer Allen. .

. I had a thread moved to the alley behind the Pub once. Again, it was nothing personal, just a more appropriate place to hold the discussion. As I recall, my opponent won said discussion in the third round by a TKO. .

. Driving along a seemingly endless rural highway in North Dakota yesterday, pondering the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything, I had a possible name for OFF2 P4 suddenly pop into my head. "Brave New World" Not only does it capture what the devs are creating in their latest outstanding efforts, it also has a great ring to it. Plus, for the literary types among us, it's a nod to not only Aldous Huxley and Rudyard Kipling, but also to Shakey Bill himself, by whom the line was originally penned: "O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in it!" (The Tempest, Act V, Scene I) Nice bit of irony to it as well, don't you think? .

. Beautiful Olham, the waters of "das Fragezeichen" and it's surronding area never looked better. Glad that you too are enjoying your new-found scenery. .

. During my time in the AF our crew once flew with a pilot who couldn't keep his RC-135 on the runway during a landing. We decided he must have pronounced it "Boing!" .

. Yuppers, new things continue to reveal themselves in their own unexpected ways, even after all this time flying in the OFF skies. The mark of a truly great sim, IMHO. .

. Duke, in the 50+ years I have lived in Minnesota I've never seen a non-Winter like this one. 40 degrees and sunny all day today, and no snow on the ground at all. .

. I'd say "Amazing!", but that's giving the word far too much to try and live up to. .

. Yes Duke, you should be compatible. However, the bottleneck will be the card port architecture. Think of it as trying to cram eight lanes of busy, freeway traffic onto a two-lane road.

. hee hee ... maybe. But compare these two shots of the same kite in the same locale and you decide: I'm going with normal res for the majority of my flying. However, as you have noted and if I may paraphrase that sentiment: To each their own. .