BirdDogICT

Only $44.95. If they throw in a free copy if Fish Tycoon, I'm in!

Nice.

Yeah, why bother? I re-installed it recently to try out TrackIR with an old familiar game. TrackIR made a massive improvement in my dogfighting, but after a few days, I got tired of flying in a fishbowl. Even with Full Canvas Jacket and Hell's Angel patches, just wasn't up to modern OFF standards. Gump's bonus page used to offer patched copies of RB3D, but I think it's moved here http://www.rb3d.net/phpBB3/ Not sure...

I grew up near the so-called Air Capital of the World, Wichita, Kansas, home of Boeing, Learjet, Cessna, Beechcraft. My dad worked for Boeing, and I spent much of my early childhood traveling with my family on lengthy "field trips" for Boeing during the 60s space race. Hard to describe the excitement of being part of the community of machinists and engineers who created the Saturn V rocket and other equipment that eventuallly put a man on the moon. My most vivid memory is taking a tour at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama and seeing those massive rockets laid out on the assembly floor. The first WWI book I can remember reading was a copy of The Boy Hero of the Air, Captain Albert Ball, V.C., by Walter A. Briscoe from the local library. My friends and I were very much into making high quality WWI and WWII models, even investing in airbrushes and books on authentic camouflage and squadron markings. Wish I still had some of those models..they were works of art (at least we thought so when we were 12-14 years old). As an adult I flew for an air ambulance crew for 10 years. Spent more time in small fixed and rotary wing aircraft than most people. This flying sure does get in your blood. BTW, after reading some of these posts, I decided to download the ROF demo, just to see what all the fuss is about. After three hours of downloading and installation, I was able to take a spin. I reacted to it the same way many OFF players have. While the planes sure are pretty, the landscape doesn't hold a candle to Winder's work. There's great potential, but feels very much like a beta product. I think it will be interesting to see in five years, when and if it becomes a fully developed product.

I think you're referring to this link: http://www.geocities.com/ww1fighters/media/maneuver.htm When I tried it today, I received the message that "Sorry, the GeoCities web site you were trying to reach is no longer available."

You're absolutely right tone 12. Instead of bashing other WWI sims (http://forum.combata...ww1-flight-sim/) let's all have some REAL fun and kick the CFS3 engine in the nuts one more time. Ooh, that's gotta hurt!! But look, that little engine is trying to get up off the mat. He can sure take a punch. Now he's getting to his feet, unafraid, ready to face the champ again. Plucky little fellow! Frankly, I'm a little tired of all the negative comments about the CFS3 engine. In the right hands, it's a terrific platform for modding (e.g.; European Theater of Operations, Mediterranean Air War, PTO Solomons, Korean Skies, etc) or for a complete conversion (BHaH, HiTR). Can't say I've ever played a flight sim that was more fun and engaging than BHaH. Truly a work of art. So stop picking on the little guy!!!

Duce, Memtest 86 is good at finding physical and memory/controller problems, but isn't foolproof. It sounds like the memory you installed is okay, but your problems may be due to being "4-up", that is, all four memory slots are populated. Oftentimes you will have to declock your memory due to the increased electrical load on the memory controller when you're 4-up (good discussion on this here: http://www.corsair.com/_appnotes/AN806_Memory_Upgrade_Resource_Guide.pdf). It depends on your particular BIOS version and motherboard. I had a similar problem last month. I was replacing the SATA I drive and upgrading the memory in an old Socket A machine I built 8 years ago. Memory was same brand, same Samsung chips, same SPD timings, the BIOS and memory controller supported having all three memory slots populated, and everything passed Memtest86 with flying colors. Unfortunately, XP didn't like the memory configuration and the only way I could avoid BSODs was to populate 2 memory slots only. Hope this isn't off topic...von Paulus is providing good support here.

Can't agree more!! I'd like to thank all of the knowledgeable users here who provide free technical advice, especialy almccoyjr, Parky, Sitting_Duck, Von Paulus, Dutch_P47M, Homeboy (where you been lately?) and others. Happy New Year

Firecage, My experience with the Track Clip Pro is that it doesn't offer any real advantage over the hat-mounted reflectors unless you are in a room with bright lighting or want to use a headset. Works fine, but in my opinion is just one more USB cord to get tangled up. Your mileage may vary.

Al, I've tried several freeware and payware programs to create a CFS3 ISO for BHaH, but am unable to do so thanks to Microsoft's copy protection. All I get is "unrecoverable read error" messages. Mounting ISOs is convenient...use them a lot to save time loading terrain files with older flight sims.

Duce, Do yourself a favor and download all XP Service Packs and burn them to CD before you install XP. Install the service packs from the CD after you install XP and before you install any drivers (this is assuming, of course, that your copy of XP doesn't include any service packs). I've discovered from experience that many recent drivers won't install properly (if at all) without SP2 or SP3 installed. Download the following and install in the same order: SP1a: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0136e5f8-1684-4202-b2d0-c6a43430f12a&displaylang=en SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en SP3: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en As an alternative, you can use Windows Update to download and install the service packs, but installing from CD is fast and you can keep a permanent copy of the service packs for later use. Good luck.

I noticed an immediate increase in FPS from avg 28 to 33 with HItR, and just jumped to avg 39 with Catalyst 9.12 drivers and the usual ATI tweaks (the one exception is that I didn't set max FPS). The only change I've made is to reduce ground density to the lowest setting. Nary a hiccup. That's with a 512Mb ATI 4870 with AA and AF maxed out, Sliders at 53355 and 1920X1080 resolution and AMD Opteron 185 OC'd to 3.0GHz, 3Mb DDR 550 memory in XP SP3. I was afraid I'd have to upgrade my PC for HItR, but no need. Really enjoy the AI, even though it's not quite as tough as before, but it's evened out by the wind effects scattering my shots more than before. Enemies holding their altitude seems so much more realistic. HItR is the best early Christmas present!!

Can't agree with you more, Von Paulus. I used Catalyst A.I. and Adaptive AF when BHaH first came out (was that almost a year ago???) and liked the results but they were resource hogs, killing my already low FPS. Not now, with the combination of HItR and new Catalyst 9.12 drivers. Smooth and no real FPS hit at all...still averaging 39-40 in ten plane furrballs over the airfield. This just keeps getting better. Enjoying your new 4870 aren't you? I have now collected many of your new screenshots and they are now my favorite Desktops. Thanks!!!

Olham, I have to agree with you. ATI has come a long way in the last two years, especially with new and improved drivers released monthly. I have had absolutely no problems running BHaH with either my X1950 or 4970 on my old 939 socket PC. Looks great and smooth as silk.

Gaw, It's a known issue. Been discussed and being worked on: http://forum.combatace.com/topic/50795-off-hat-in-the-ring-cpu-and-gpu-loads-and-known-issues/

Great job, guys. Easy download & install. Runs flawlessly. In fact, I just got a 30% bump in FPS with all of that great new eye candy. Love the buffeting effects and tracer effects. No complaints about the AI here...still difficult to take down opponents, but managed to in my first QC flight. Don't have time to write more. Must fly!

When you turn your head to look at, let's say, the edge of the monitor, your onscreen view is your six (i.e., you only have to rotate your head about 15 degrees to be looking behind). If you move your head closer to the edge of the screen, and look down, you can actually look over the side of the plane. Or you can look ahead to see around the cowling when taking off. You have 6 degrees of freedom with OFF, so it's very much like your normal view. Check out this demo... I can't imaging now how I ever flew BHaH without TrackIR. I have now gone back to some of my older sims (e.g.;, RB3D, IL2, EECH, F4AF, LOMAC) and can't believe the diffrerence in my ability to fly and stay alive.

I think Von Paulus is on the right track...TrackIR is a power hog compared to joysticks (e.g., on my system, 286mA for TrackIR, compared to 32mA for each of my three CH controllers). I set up three different USB hubs (one on front, two in rear) since my motherboard has 3 USB headers, and that way I always have enough power (especially when the wife wants to charge her iPod while I'm playing). You should also go to Control Panel>System>DeviceManager>Universal Serial Bus controllers>USBRoot Hub, then right mouse click Properties>Power and check the voltage for the devices connected. Click the Power Management tab to see if the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" checkbox is checked or not. My personal preference is to use NO power management schemes on my machine. When I'm not using it, it's turned off. Hope this helps.

I've had good luck with Iolo System Mechanic. Does a lot more than clean your registry. Runs in the background, using very few resources.

Are you using a powered USB hub?

Von Paulus, Haven't had any problems with the latest Catalyst 9.11 drivers for XP32 with a 4870...still getting decent FPS with sliders at 54455. Makes me reluctant to try Win 7. Sitting Duck's problem may be a problem with the 64 bit version of the driver. I dunno...

Jim Attrill's post was close, but may not be the exact dual core optimizer you need for your Athlon 64. You might try a newer version here: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=153 CFS3 stuttered like crazy before I applied this driver. You can safely install it without any danger of corrupting your OFF installation. Hope this helps.

Crepitis, Since you're using a CH Fighterstick, you'll want to add CH ProPedals...can't fly tail draggers without them. The ProThrottle is also very nice, but a bit of overkill for BHaH. You could then create profiles with CH Control Manager (found here: http://www.ch-hangar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6200) or modify the folowing profile made by Bonz at the CH Hangar (http://www.ch-hangar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6204). Using CH Manager is a little intimidating at first, but the main advantage of loading profiles is that you don't have to tweak BHaH controls at all. BTW, Thanks, Check Six. Good info.

Parky, Good advice here. I've found that it also pays to explore who actually makes the PSU. Many "brand name manufacturers" like Corsair, OCZ, Antec, etc. buy their PSUs from private label ODMs like Seasonic, Channel Well (CWT), Topower, and others: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/370 Many of these manufacturers make excellent products, and you can buy directly (e.g.; Newegg.com) at a decent discount below the price of a brand name.

Redkite, FPS varies quite a bit, depending on where you're at: if you're near an airfield, near the front, or in a big furrball, an FPS of 25 is good. IF you're still seeing FPS of 25 flying solo at 10,000 feet, a graphics card upgrade would help, but this game needs raw CPU power. Consider 512MB of graphics memory a minimum requirement. I've had good luck with a 512MB ATI and have tested all Catalyst drivers from 8.8 up through 9.10 with no problems. The developers recommend nVidia, but some users have reported problems with the latest nVidia drivers. Good luck.