BirdDogICT

Working fine for me, too. One important change is 64-bit support (necessary if you've installed 64-bit version of DCS A-10C).

Can you set it up so that you're flying in a fishbowl like RB3D? That would be retro! LOL Good advice Hellshade. Keep it coming!

Sorry, Gents, I hadn't seen this thread...was lucky enough to land a new job and have been very busy. I check in every day or so, but am mostly lurking these days. Parky is exactly right...opengl triple buffering in Catalyst doesn't work without a third party vsync program running. I use D3DOverrider with good success. I simply start it before I run BHaH. It's a simple program, doesn't make any registry changes, and the interface is easy to use. Adjusting z-bias can be a can of worms, but Hellshade's advice is good. I only made two changes...set Z-bias Resolution to 13 and Z-Bias Clouds to 0. No cloud popping at all. Cheers

The new Catalyst 11.2 drivers are out, and I've been trying out morphological antialiasing (MLAA) with my ATI 5770 card. Since this type of AA is post process, it allows high quality AA without a big hit in performance. THIS MEANS, FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE WHITE JAGGIES WHEN CHANGING VIEWS WITH TrackIR ARE COMPLETELY GONE, even with all sliders set at 5. Woohoo!! However, it seems to depend on what combination of AA (Multisample, Adaptive Multisample, or Supersample) and MLAA you use...I'm using Edge Detect 8X MSAA with MLAA and am getting great results. I' will have to try it with other combinations and see which ones work best. If you have an older ATI card, you're out of luck...MLAA only works with 5000 and higher cards.

After experimenting some more, I've changed my Catalyst settings to MLAA only ("Use Applications AA" and "Morphological filtering" are both checked). Looks absolutely stunning and smooth as glass.

Amazing. That other sim that cannot be named doesn't hold a candle to your work!!

Tamper, I totally agree. I always wait six months to a year to buy new equipment. By that time, most issues have been ironed out, with new BIOS available, and there are serious bargains to be had. But be sure and check the model numbers and release dates carefully if you can. Your I CALL BULLs**t is one of my favorite phrases. Unforunately one I can't use at work. Best regards.

Wodin, I tried all cores. A dual-core Phenom II X2 550 can become a high-performance quad-core processor, but it depends on the semiconductor die used. If it is a fully-functional die with two blocked cores or a die with two defective ones that have been blocked it's possible to unlock the cores, but most late production X2 chips cannot be unlocked, no matter how hard you try. I got one of the later production runs, and it was priced so low that I didn't care whether it was unlockable or not. I'm not running hot at all, it idles at 27C and never gets over 48C.

Olham, FWIW, I'm running an AMD 3.1 MHz Black Edition X2 550 overclocked to 3.6 without any voltage increase, and runs nice and cool. Delivers minimum 40 FPS with sliders at 5 on an ATI 5770. Performance is the same down to 3.1MHz thanks to improved CPU caching. I was unable to unlock the third core, but it actually works in my favor, as it reduces the possibility of overheating due to overclocking.

Al's right...I've been able to resurrect some failing older cards with dried up thermal paste by installing new heatsinks and aftermarket cooling (e.g., Arctic Cooler makes some nice ones).

To answer the question: I started playing BHaH two years ago with a 2.6MHz processor, ATI 1950XTX, 2Mb DDR memory in WindowsXP, with sliders at 32233 on a 1600X1200 monitor with very decent performance, frame rates averaging 30 per second. It was a satisfying experience, but I did experience some slowdowns in performance over airfields & the frontlines. I ultimately decided to upgrade to improve the game's "eye candy", requiring a faster processor and graphics card.

My budget build from a year ago CPU: AMD X2 550 Dual Core @ 3.6ghz oc with 9700 Zalman cooler Mobo: ASUS M4A79XTD EVO Mem: G Skill Ripjaws DDR-1600 4gb oc w/timings @ 9-9-9-24-2T GPU: ATI 5770 stock w/Catalyst 10.12 drivers HD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda 32MB cache (decent but nothing special) Controllers: TrackIR 4, CH Flightstick, Rudder Pedals, & Throttle Quadrant Mon: LS W236 24" widescreen OS: W7 64 Home Edition Same workshop features as NS13Jarhead & almccoyjr but w/FOV at 30:18 Run sliders at 53355 with some slowing but no stutters with consistent FPS 40-60. Can run at 55555 but experience more slowdowns & occasional stutter when loading textures ATI tweaks mostly a waste of time. New 10.12 drivers allow supersample AA, which dramatically improves overall appearance, no jaggies at all.

I always enjoy the technical discussions on this board, especially those with Parky, Tamper, Almcjoyjr, and Von Paulus...no disputing that you have a lot of talent when it comes to PCs. However, I have to defend Uncle Al on this one, even though he's tried to twist my tail a time or two. There are still plenty of users here with older or budget builds, including me. I'm running BHaH at 3.6MHz with a relatively slow 5770 card, and can easily run all sliders at 5 with a decent framerate. However, there are times when flying over an airfield, over the frontlines, or during a flak attack when the framerate drops, the game may stutter briefly, and interferes with the sense of immersion. I run BHaH looks with supersample AA, and dropping the sliders a notch or two DOES improve overall graphics performance. Your mileage may vary.

Olham, I have to agree with Parky and Lou about setting affinities and killing unwanted background programs...this approach was helpful when running on older hardware, but like many here, I upgraded my PC solely to increase my BHaH enjoyment. Just for grins, I tried several of my old softwares to adjust settings with my newer machine, running Windows 7 64 bit, and actually found BHaH performance was worse. I found the "sweet spot" for running BHaH to be about 3.6 MHz...I was able to easily overclock a dual core AMD processor 20% without generating much additional heat, something that would be more difficult with 4 cores. Since BHaH only needs one core, I decided on a budget dual core processor, with the option of upgrading later if need be. While we're on the subject of new builds, the newer ATI cards are getting better all the time, and driver support is much better than a few years ago. I'm blown away by the performance of my relatively slow 5770 with the Catalyst 10.12 drivers. I'm waiting to hear how well the 6970 works with BHaH.... Anyone?

All too true...it's just another version of the old "blaming the victim" game, wearing a slightly different skirt. Basically the same game we've been playing for 40 years: http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/0394722264

I've had several cards that overheated when using the default fan speeds...or the cheap stock fans themselves overheated. When the cards were out of warranty and acting up due to heat, I replaced the stock coolers with heatsinks and cooling fins by Arctic Cooling. I used high temp adhesive on the heat sinks, and added the optional fans to the cooling fins and was back in business. The fans are whisper quiet at full speed.

VonPaulus, themightysrc, You're lucky to have survived all of the layoffs of the 90s here in the U.S. with corporate restructuring. At age 45, I lost my wife, house, life savings, and there weren't any jobs to be had...my career in health planning ended with a stroke of the Medicare pen. I was just one of thousands whose jobs were obsolete. I discovered that no-one cares if you make the best buggy whips in town, if no-one is buying them anymore. After several years of unemployment, I finally came to grips with the fact that my executive career was gone, and there wasn't any point crying about it anymore. So I dragged out the books from college and took my state boards and went back into patient care, working weekends, holidays, night shift, anything that would earn a few bucks. I wasn't happy taking such a giant step backward, and it wasn't easy being on the bottom of the dogpile again, but after a few years of rebuilding my credibility and rediscovering that there can be joy in life, I was offered a position managing a department in a local hospital, and am now in better shape financially and spiritually than ever. The path I took was not my first choice, but oddly enough, it's where I belong. Our identities are so tied up in what we do for a living, that it's hard to get past the fear and anger and start building a new life. It's painful as hell, but things do eventually get better. Don't lose hope.

The blades are usually made of fiber-reinforced resin, which may be adhesively bonded with an external sheet metal layer to protect edges. I remember back around 1968, in my teens, my Dad was loaned from Boeing Wichita to Boeing Vertol in Philadelphia and brought home a sample of the internals of a helicopter blade he was working on...the core looked like very hard rubber, but was flexible, and the blade was made by layering material around the core. The materials are a lot more sophisticated now, but the basic process is the same. Knowing how flimsy the rotors were always made me a little nervous riding in choppers during the 10 years I was part of an air ambulance crew. Really hated flying in icy weather thanks to no de-icing on the rotors. And our pilots flew for days with the chip light on. I was lucky, though, and was in only a couple of near crashes. All of my old flight buddies are nearly deaf thanks to the cabin noise and constant sirens when on the ground. But I have a lot of great memories from those days.

Greg, Glad you mentioned this...I noticed the same thing. In fact, I can now use supersample AA (as long as I turn terrain and scenery down a notch or two) and it looks great with FPS 40-60. Cheers

And nothing pisses me off more than spending my money on a really bad port to PC like, for example, Dead Space. What should have been a fun addition to the horror game genre was just about unplayable on the PC.

I feel your pain, even though my only knowledge of WOW is the South Park parody. Maybe try the new Starcraft?

wsmwsm, Parky and Almccoyjr are some of the best PC gurus on this site, and are offering good advice. A standard uninstall of CFS3 will usually leave behind a lot of unwanted, invalid registry entries. I understand your reluctance to edit your registry, but there are some painless ways to do that. While I'm not a big fan of third party registry cleaners, I've had good luck with a free cleaner called CCleaner (aka "crap cleaner"). I've used it on some very buggered registries, and it does a nice job. Worth a look.

Anyone know if Wings is available as a Region 1 DVD for play in the U.S.? Haven't found a copy

CFS3 works great in Windows 7 64 bit as long as the cfs3.exe file is set to run as administrator. Some users set XP SP3 compatibility, as well, but I haven't found that to be necessary

If you have updated your graphics card drivers lately, you'll need to go to Workshop, click on Graphics Config, and reset your graphics settings.