Parky

Hmmm......if you attempted to order the English version, I can understand why they are out of stock. I clearly indicated that in my initial post though. Here's yet another link showing the other language versions as being IN stock. http://www.mediadis.com/games/search.asp?t=19&kw=combat%20flight%20simulator%203 Hopefully it's not inaccurate. If it is, sorry for any inconvenience it caused. Cheers, Parky

You insist on propogating this absolute BULL$#%^ theory of your's about having terrain (yes, that's the correct spelling) sliders on 5 resulting in video abnormalities increasing over a period of time. Well, just to put your claim to the test, I've been running mine on 5 for the last 8 days. The only difference in performance levels or IQ is noticeable immediately after the slider adjustment. My FPS decrease, but not by much. I still haven't seen any pink elephants, purple zeppelins or big white squares. There are NO anomalies......graphically or otherwise. If you're going to offer advice to people in here, please try to base it on something you either have experience with, understand, or can at the very least offer an informed opinion about. It's pretty evident you don't even come close to meeting the criteria in this instance. Let it go......it's starting to get really annoying. Cheers, Parky

Quite an extensive load of goodies there. Really looking forward to it. Tell you what Mr. Andrews.........thrown in a dynamic co-op campaign feature that works in Win7 and I'll buy you a nice, shiny new Ferrari. Any particular colour you're partial to??? Cheers, Parky

Indeed. I suppose it can all be put down to the well known and commonly dreaded, slow but inevitable degradation of your video card's texture fill rate capabilities over a very short period of time. If what you say is true, then it only stands to reason that after about 3 weeks, you'd be faced with having to look at a completely blank, white screen. Makes perfect sense to me.... (By the way Pappy...sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread. What Uncle Al says is in fact true in a sense. The phenomenon you're experiencing is indeed most likely a result of your hardware's inability to render textures at the chosen detail settings. It could also be something as simple as a specific choice of settings at the driver level. Turning those sliders down will improve things. The problem in question on the other hand, wouldn't have gotten any more severe over a period of time.....strictly from a technical standpoint of course. Trust me. The texture fill rate capabilities of your GPU will remain constant as long as there are no environmental problems (ie: thermal issues ) or the card itself starts to fail. Regardless, Al's advice is sound. You'd be wise to follow it, even if the accompanying and somewhat mystifying theory defies any conventional logic whatsoever, and is entirely bereft of any technical merit or value.) I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for comin' out..... Parky

I'm not disputing the fact that the developers themselves recommend people settle for those settings, but I don't seem to recall any of them indicating that if you ran the sliders in question on 5's, that within a week, big, lumbering, pink elephants would start appearing on the screen. Mind you Al, after a couple more beers, they in all probability might just do that. They'd certainly make an entertaining replacement for Zeppelins if you hadn't already looked after that via the addon. Cheers, Parky

That timeframe you keep referring to, I'm sure it came as the result of exhaustive clinical trials that yielded consistent and tangible results. Of course it did, and in your case, I'm also reminded of a little saying. It goes something like this: "Bulls**t baffles brains" Cheers, Parky

I understand the concept of not running scenery or terrain sliders at 5 so as not to overtax hardware that isn't capable of handling it. Please explain though, why would it take a week for any resulting anomilies to occur....if they even did??? Just curious as I've never experienced, witnessed, or even heard of anyone else experiencing that kind of delayed reaction with regard to the impending graphical disaster you speak of. I can pretty much assure you that I'd be able to run with both those sliders on 5 for six months and the worst result I'll get is lower framerates. That however, would occur immediately after having increased those settings.....not 7 weeks later.

Took the liberty of copying this post I found while I had too much time on my hands. It made me realize how time flies.....and how we never seem to have enough time to fly. Post Date: November 18 2004 CFS3 WW1 Dawn Patrol ’14 - ‘18 What?: A freeware addon for CFS3 that will recreate the AIRWAR that heralded the beginning of aerial combat as we know it today. The add-on will encompass at least the following in an effort to immerse the simmer into the 1914 - 1918 airwar: 1) Recreation of historical fronts, accurately placed, that stretch from Nieuport to Switzerland. Front lines will move over the years as they did historically 2) Detailed and accurately rendered front sectors such as Somme, Verdun, Ypres that will include pock marked and devastated landscapes, trenches, barbed wire, sandbags shattered trees/woods and more. 3) Detailed villages and towns such as Arras, Albert, Amiens, St Quentin, Douai, Ypres, Verdun and Cambrai to name but a few, that are laid out logically with proper roads, and details such as French buildings (typical of the era), telegraph poles hedgerows, and more. 4) Detailed destroyed villages that will give the simmer an idea of what happened to the villages and towns unfortunate enough to be near the front 5) Thoroughly researched and accurately placed Airfields such as Bertangles, Boiry St Martin, Flez, Roucourt, to name but a few, complete with realistic hangars, tented hangars and "Circus" hangars as applicable, with grass fields typical at the time. 6) Updated and improved in sim map, that shows the position of the front and names of important towns and landmarks that aviators can navigate by. 7) An initial base set of craft typical of the 1916/1917 era - details to be provided This will encompass the most important single and two seater craft. 8) An initial ground units set that will include WW1 tanks, artillery, and observation balloons etc. 9) Improved objects such as flora and building textures. When?: It is anticipated that the addon will be released sometime during the first quarter 2005 - certainly after MAW. I cannot say more than that presently. How?: The team currently is a very small enterprise that includes: David "Davo" Payne Rob "Capt Winters" Stevenson Bill "wckesq" Kimmelman Mark "Winding Man" Andrews

Thought you might get a kick out of that......and yes, it was that long ago..... Here's the original link: http://www.theaerodr...-announced.html Cheers, Parky

Was hoping you'd get a chuckle out of that..... Cheers, Parky

I would imagine you'd be tempted to jump if it meant avoiding being BBQ'd in the pit. The pistol provided you with an even more attractive alternative....

I'm pretty sure that's why they removed the Spitfires and Bf 109's as well....;)

I see an easier fix somewhere. I know at least 2 people who are running OFF in Vista with the FFB2 without any rudder-specific issues at all. Not sure whether they had to resort to installing the SW software or not....was a good starting point for troubleshooting though. Maybe he needs a bigger power supply, more graphics memory or he has his sliders set too high, huh Al?? Just for the record, I've run OFF successfuly with the same stick in Win7 RC with and without the SW software installed. Very similar to Vista. Although spending 200 dollars on a decent set of rudder pedals is possibly an option (and certainly a worthwhile flightsim enhancement investment), I don't think that's quite what he had in mind when he asked for help. That's just my stupid way of interpreting his post though.

You could try installing the Sidewinder software in XP compatibility mode. Worth a shot maybe. If that works, you should be able to get into the Sidewinder calibration interface and see what's going on there.

If you haven't already done so, try installing the MS Sidewinder software. I'm using it with Win XP 32 and haven't experienced the problem you're referring to. Cheers, Parky

I'm gonna' stop hanging around the Xtreme Systems forums and start coming here for my tech advice from now on.

Not enough to justify the overall cost.....particularly when we're looking at 8 Gig.

Surprised to hear that. Those timings are far more typical of DDR3. Fairly rare to see them so loose in DDR2. Kingston by any chance?? Cheers, Parky

Duck, Don't let the timings on those modules fool you. Loose timings are typical of any DDR3 memory. That RAM should still outperform any of the DDR2 offerings. Sure doesn't hurt that you're packin' 8 Gig of it either....lol. It's makin' me jealous. In terms of the ATI stutters, the only other thing I can think of is the Index/Vertex Buffer issue. Anyone running ATI should make absolutely sure to have all four of those options disabled in the config file. Nice to hear other people are seeing pleasant performance surprises in Win7. That has been my experience also Cheers, Parky

Last time I checked, a decent PSU in the 550-700 watt range runs about 80 bucks...if you shop in the right places. PSU isn't ZoomZoom's issue. It's his GPU (mostly). He can see a significant increase in overall gaming performance with a simple graphics accelerator upgrade....and without even having to think about his power supply. Are we suggesting he buys another 300 watt PSU and runs it in conjuction with his existing power supply??? Is this in order to facilitate the introduction of a $400 card that he can't afford (and won't fit in his tower), or to allow for a fairly useless CPU upgrade....which he can't really afford either?? Quite frankly, I'm baffled, and I'm sure he is too. Tell you what though. If the Zoomster wants to go ahead and grab that card I suggested and he's not happy with the way OFF runs once the card is installed and configured properly, I'll reimburse him for his expenses. Cheers, Parky

Not sure, but I think they should consider changing the name from "Rise of Flight" to "Rise in Price"

Dutch, His problem is mostly due to his graphics card being an absolute piece of GARBAGE. Upgrading his CPU won't yield anywhere near the same performance gains as a half decent card will. Yes....a CPU upgrade would help....but nowhere near as much. Trust me. The graphics card swap is by far his most cost effective and practical solution. As far as overclocking anything on that board, it would be a complete waste of time and effort. He doesn't have the motherboard, RAM or cooling for it. Cheers, Parky

That's the best advice I've seen here so far, but it's obvious you're not in a position to run out and buy a state of the art gaming rig right now. While you're saving up for the new rig though, you might consider something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125277 Doesn't require any dedicated power connections (just drop it in your PCIe slot). Typically uses about 59 watts at peak (should work with your existing 305 watt PSU) and will literally wipe the floor with the previously suggested 8400GS. I'll even go way out on a limb and predict that this card will hold you over nicely until you've managed to fill the cookie jar with funds for a new system. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the performance increase. Certainly the best "bang for your buck" option I can come up with. Cheers, Parky

From experience, this isn't necessarily dead accurate. My Asus Maximus ran stable as a rock at stock settings with all four dimm slots populated with Mushkin PC8500 Extreme Performance modules. This was with an e6850 running (obviously) at it's stock speeds. The only problem I encountered was when pushing it up to 3.6 Gig, at which point I found myself having to feed more voltage to the CPU, RAM and NB. That still resulted in some instability issues until I aimed a fan directly at the NB to bring temps down to acceptable levels. I did have to run a 4:5 divider, but had also jacked the FSB to 1600. Depending on which BIOS you're running on that board, it's entirely possible to run with increased FSB and RAM speeds and no dividers without sacrificing anything at all (and yes...with all four dimm slots populated). Guys have done it. I think success has a lot to do with BIOS version, cooling, the quality of your RAM, and particularly your understanding of strap limitations on that specific board (the Maximus Formula). It also helps if you have enough patience for finding just the right settings to maintain stability. Having said that, I personally don't recommend using all four dimm slots either....particularly in an overclocking environment. I've since gone to two 2 Gig sticks of Corsair Dominator and I'm able to run 24-7 primed at 3.8 Ghz. There's no way in hell I could achieve that and remain stable with 4 slots filled no matter how hard I tried. My point is simply this: It may not be ideal to populate all four dimm slots on your board, but it certainly isn't a recipe for disaster either. Chances are things'll run just fine as long as you've got a decent board, matching DIMMS and reasonably good airflow in your case. If you're running a board that has the memory controller assigned to the Northbridge, it wouldn't be a bad idea to aim a 50mm fan directly at it, particularly if you're gonna' be doing any overclocking. Cheers, Parky

Hi Simon, 1) Yes, it's a better card 2) Yep, it should....but it won't be too "pretty" nor will it be screaming fast. For future reference: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-g...ard,2064-7.html Cheers, Parky