BirdDogICT

I played RB3D years ago, but never really got good at it without cheating (i.e., hitting the T for target key and trying to keep track of enemies with the padlock view). Thanks to someone's suggestion on this forum, I reinstalled RB3D Hell's Angel's with my new TrackIR and now know what I was missing all those years. In fact, I now play RB3D almost as much as BHaH, even though it's only 2DOF. It gives me an even greater appreciation for what Polovski, OvS, Rabu, Shredward, Capt. Winters, and many others accomplished with their upgrades to RB3D that dueled the drive to complete the BHaH masterpiece. Sorry, I'm still recovering from lack of sleep due to dreaming about BHaH all night...suffice it to say that I can't imagine flying ANY of my favorite sims now without TrackIR. Cheers

Madmatt, Right on target...if people would only realize that the variation in PC components varies 5-15% or more from the same assembly line, they'd stop taking published specs and performance figures as gospel. When you add in MB, CPU, memory, PSU, OS, etc., good luck on finding the "perfect" settings. Cheers

Rabu, I haven't found the texture settings to make much difference with FPS, either, but setting Fullscreen Swap Effect to Flip completely eliminated stutters for me. Thanks for clarifying that you need to set AA to 8X in CFS3Config before setting up your graphics card. Winder pointed this out to me several months ago, but I ignored his advice. I am now able to max out and customize my graphics card settings without negatively effecting my FPS. Smooth as glass and looks great, too! Cheers

Baywing, It's like that old joke. Patient: "Doctor, whenever I bend my elbow, it hurts." The Doctor replies "Well, stop bending your elbow." Low FPS at airfields is not uncommon. You'll find the same over the frontlines. It's due to the number of ground objects that heve to be rendered, especially troops, artillery pieces, AA batteries, MG nests, and vehicles that require computing power to complete some action. I've found that reducing ground objects in Workshop helps. So does flying at a higher altitude. Cheers

Pretty sweet. Has had some nice reviews...you'll like the 790 shipset. This MOBO has been out for a year, and that should make it easier to find drivers, upgrade BIOS, etc. eVGA's website is full of helpful advice. http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_n...tra_sli_review/ What do you plan to put together with it? Cheers

Sitting Duck, I don't trust anyone that claims to be an "expert", myself included :yes: The ATI 4870 is designed to run hot, and can reach 100 degrees C without artefacts. That 83 temperature was reported by Catalyst AutoTune while overclocking. Cheers

Excellent advice, Test Pilot. If you decide on a 4870, you definitely want one that vents outside the case. I have 7 case fans, so don't have any problems with heat. My 4870 fan rarely spins up beyond 30%, and the temp reaches about 83 degrees C at max load.

Dutch, Just for clarification, AMD Fusion and AMD Overdrive are independent utilities that can be linked together as part of the AMD Spider platform (only newer chipsets qualify). I use AMD Fusion as a standalone utility. I'd say it's the easiest utility of its type that I've found. I'd be interested in what works best for you. I'm playing around some more with AlacrityPC...apparently some users have problems with TrackIR, but can't say that it's been a problem for me. Cheers

Sitting Duck, Looks like we are the defacto ATI experts (a dubious honor, since no one else wants the title ). BirdDogICT

Dutch, I take most of the comparisons between NVidia and ATI with a huge grain of salt. In a past life, I was marketing manager for an electronics company, specing new products with the engineers and writing technical manuals. Each company tries to design products that take advantage of some new technical ability or technical weakness of their market rival (i.e.; playing the game of "my specs are better than your specs"). Much of the specmanship is silly, considering that quality standards are such that products from the same assembly line can often vary 5-15% in performance. My ATI problems (since you asked) were due to using PC4400/DDR 550 memory (which is really 200 MHz PC3200 memory that has been overclocked...there is no actual standard for PC4400). The manufacturer guaranteed stability at 275 MHz with 3448,2T timings and those timings and memory speed were, in fact, 2D stable, and passed Memtest. But I was experiencing problems at high resolutions (i.e.; AA and AF wouldn't work at 1600X1024, but were fine at 1360X1024) due to 3D instability. So I reduced the memory speed to 230 MHz with 3338,2T tmings (SPD timings) and everything worked perfectly. I'm not the only one on this forum who has had memory timings issues...usually you don't even know you have a problem until you use a demaning program like BHaH that taxes your system to its limits. Fixing the problem is just one of the minor technical challenges of building your own PC. It's not an ATI problem...you have to have stable communication between memory and the CPU if you want your GPU to behave. Cheers

Test Pilot, I have absolutely no problems with my ATI 4870 with BHaH. I used all of the recommended graphics card tweaks and get great framerates on an older 939 system (I did have some memory timing issues that effected the ATI at higher resolutions, but I resolved them). Performance-wise, the 9800 performs better than the 4850 (it's market target) in many benchmarks, http://www.legitreviews.com/article/731/17/ but keep in mind that the 4870 is 20% faster than the 9800. I'd say they're roughly equivalent. And I agree that overclocking your video card is hardly worth the typical 5% performance gain unless you have excellent cooling. From what I've read in other posts on this forum, BHaH seems to work better with NVidia cards. I'm a long time user of ATI cards, but I'd recommend the NVidia card. Cheers

AMD Fusion is similar to EndItAll2, but I found it a little easier to use. It comes with three profiles (Basic, Advanced, Expert) or you can create your own. Edit function is limited but very easy to use. When executed, it halts unnecessary processes, speeds up hard drive, and can activate ATI Overdrive if you have it. It leaves your desktop open. On my system, it reduces processes from 41 to 24 and increases my available physical memory from 1.51 to 1.66, enough to increase my BHaH frame rate 15-20%. AMD Fusion can also be used with AMD Overdrive for overclocking Series 7 chipsets (haven't used it...not relevant to my system, and I'd rather do overclocking through BIOS) http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_overdrive.aspx?p=1 I'm not an AMD/ATI fanboi, but have used their components in many PC builds over the years with few problems. There is a hack for allowing AMD Fusion to work with Intel chips, but it would be a lot easier to just stick with EndItAll or AlacrityPC. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Homeboy, Thanks for the FSAutoStart guidelines and the heads up on AlacrityPC. I just tried AlacrityPC with BHaH and found it VERY easy to setup and configure, took me 2-3 minutes to create a working game profile. Didn't even have to read the instructions. For those with AMD processors, you might try the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=1 I've used it for several months and have found it to be very stable... Cheers

PCIEe 2.0 is backward compatible with PCIe 1.0. You lose some bandwidth (500 MB/s per lane vs 250), but works fine. The Gigabyte board is PCIE 2.0, so no worries. Cheers

Sitting Duck, There was a thread on the SOH site about Windows 7 working ok, but no mention of MP http://sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=12151 Cheers

Mike, Running a mission in CFS3 will also help you identify problems with your system that you'll have to resolve before you install OFF. CFS3 works fine as long as you tweak it a little. In my case, CFS3 was halted by my antivirus program. Once I had that problem solved, then I had to install an AMD dual core processor driver due to graphics jitters. It took me about an hour to get CFS3 running properly before I installed OFF (including the research I had to do online to identify known issues). Look at the FAQs at the bottom of this page http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/support.aspx or here http://www.combatfs.com/index.php?loc=tweak&page=index You don't have to perform all of the tweaks, of course. These two sources are included to help you get you headed in the right direction. Cheers Although the OFF code is superior in every way compared to CFS3, CFS3

Best part of theDH2 in RB3D was the spinning engine. Got me to thinking....with a total loss rotary engine, it was common for pilots to have chronic diarrhea from ingesting castor oil. The BIG ADVANTAGE of the push engine in the DH2 is that when you got shot down, you died with clean britches. BTW, thanks for putting together the TrackIR setup guide. It really came in handy when customizing my profiles. Cheers

Offwatch, I was wondering if I should spend the extra mopney to buy a headset to use the TrackClip Pro (after I got it a week ago, I couldn't find my old headset). I set it up today and found that it takes a little more twiddling with the profiles to get it to respond quickly in BHaH, but overall, the performance was about the same as the hat clip. I don't have a problem with extraneous light sources, so there wasn't any advantage to using the TrackClip Pro. I switched back to the reflective hat clip...one less power wire to keep out of my way when I'm flying. Anyone in with lighting problems would definitely benefit from using it... Cheers

Alccoyjr, Thanks for the advice. It turned out that either DGVoodoo 1.50Beta2 or OpenGlidev007b4 work fine with RB3D and my ATI 4870...had to find detailed instruction on setting them up and follow the instructions to the letter. It appears that my old ATI X1950XTX was a lot more forgiving with Glide and OpenGL wrappers: I reinstalled Longbow2 and it would only run with Zeckensack...it's funny because I never had problems with DGVoodo before. Anyway, I've been enjoying RB3D with TrackIR and can't imagine how I ever kept alive without it Traced the NTVDM problem to Iolo System Mechanic. Ain't technology fun?

Olham, Can't imagine how I ever flew those old games without TrackIR...keeping track of enemies with a padlock and/or hat switch is so lame by comparison. I've been flying RB3D with the TrackIR the last few days just to get used to it in a familiar environment. Mapping precision and F12 to my CH controllers made a big difference in targeting enemies. BTW, I bought the infrared TrackClip Pro, and have finally given up on trying to get it to work as well as the reflective visor-mounted TrackClip. I found the precision wasn't as good, despite many hours tweaking profiles, having another power cable in the way was annoying, and didn't find headphones to be an improvement. As the TrackIR website states, it's partly a matter of personal taste. Cheers

Interlocutor, I've been flying BHaH since January, as well, and despite some minor PC problems, have logged many hours. I finaly started playing with a Track IR laast week, and can't believe the difference. I am having to completely re-learn how to fly anyway, so decided to throw away my crutches, following your "12 step program" to the letter I found it a great help to use TrackIR in RB3D to get a feel for flying without crutches...that way I'm never tempted to turn on cheats like the labels, tracking cone, or tactical display. I can then take what I've learned in a more familiar 2DOF world to the 6DOF BHaH world. Cheers

Almccoyjr, I took your advice and decided to reinstall RB3D with Full Canvas Jacket, TrackIR4, and my CH controllers. Now works like a champ (for some reason I couldn't install it in XPSP3 due to a 16 bit process NTVDM.EXE hanging...had to install it in Safe Mode). And you know, it's definitely worth keeping around. In fact, I'm downloading the Hell's Angel's Superpatch right now, and plan to hexedit a little to reduce the "fishbowl effect". I'm so excited, maybe I'll reload Jane's Longbow into DOSBox and experience some really old graphics. And why did I sell my old copy of Wings of Glory? Cheers

Almcoyjr, Actually, I wanted to keep RB3D, and had it working well with dgvodoo with my old ATI X1950XTX. Since I upgraded to an ATI 4870, the glide wrappers don't work very well at all, despite hours of tweaking. I was looking forward to playing RB3D with TIR, but was frustrated by the amount of time I spent tweaking an old classic when I could be playing BHaH instead. Any ideas on how to set dgvoodoo settings for the 4870? The 4870 is supposed to support OpenGL 2.1. Maybe should try Glidos or Zeckensack instead. I'll have to look into it. Cheers

Church, I have a similar setup, with Realtek AC97, and with an ATI graphics card. I had similar problems with CFS3 until I loaded the AMD Dual Core Optimizer found here: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDet...&ItemID=153 The main symptoms were extreme jitters, and double images with graphics card, then crash. Like Herr Prop-Wasche, I don't have to set CPU affinity at all. I tried it manually through Windows Task Manager and used CPU-Control http://www.koma-code.de/index.php?option=c...8&Itemid=93 as well, but didn't notice any difference. Your mileage may vary, of course. I also had problems with antivirus programs halting the CFS3.exe and tmp files, and had to turn AV protection off whenever I played (BTW, I updated my antivirus software to Kaspersky, and can easily specify which files are safe, something you can't do with many antivirus programs). Hope this helps

I just got TrackIR 4 and TrackClip Pro this weekend, and was able to set it up in XP in under 5 minutes. I've been tweaking my profiles in a fashion similar to Olham's...makes it so much easier to check six frequently. I'm not sure if the infrared TrackClip Pro is better than the traditional reflective TrackClip..anyone have an opinion on that? In addition to BHAH, TrackIR works great in CFS3 MAW, CFS3 ETO, Falcon 4 Allied Force, LOMAC Flaming Cliffs, and okay in IL2 1946 (only 4 DOF). I have to say that BHaH and TrackIR have spoiled me. I blew off some of my older flight sims yesterday...couldn't stand to play them without better graphics and tracking. Goodbye RB3D Full Canvas Jacket, and Longbow 2. BTW, older TIR files aren't compatible with the newer XML files. Anyone know a workaround for that? Cheers