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You won it on EBAY? Wow.. first time I have heard of one being available.. you got lucky! If this is you, you saved about $10: Ebay Auction $37.50 with postage. Anyway, glad you got it and hope it arrives in good shape and look forward to hearing more from you here! Your system is almost identical to mine and mine flies great with terrains on 3, clouds and effects on 4 and aircraft on 5... very smooth with fps in the average of about 50 and not dropping below 40 very much. Be sure you get everything configured correctly though in the OFF Workshop CFS3 config file.. read up about it. I have a bit more video memory 8800gts 320mb, but same Duo E6600 2.4ghz processor, XT Pro v3, and 2gb RAM as you. Having a good sound card will also save processing power. I have a now inexpensive SoundBlaster Audigy 2zs card, well worth investing in. Also, set your screen res to your LCD native res, not lower, it will actually run smoother. ie: I have an Acer 22" wide LCD and have the game set to its native 1680x1050 res. In the OFF-CFS3 config set up I have the res set to 1680x1050x32 color and AA 8x. I then set the Navida set up to AA enhance application settings, this is very important and uses the Nvidia special AA processing which is much more efficient.

Welcome and please stay posted with your experiences, or if you need help with anything.. lots of friendly fliers here.

Yep.. there is a LOT "hidden" in OFF that comes out as you play. It's pretty amazing... !

Congratulations!!!! I wish you a long life of marital bliss. And don't pass judgment on ROF, any more then you would have on OFF. I think we should all be open with our opinions and just wait for the feedback on ROF, which won't be very long in coming, right? Thanks to everyone for all your very well explained opinions, concerns and desires.

Good to see ya, Siggi! Visit more often, you are missed. S!

I agree, WF2, that's why I've also repeatedly brought that up. I do hope they can change things though, they will get a much wider audience if they do, and maybe they can eventually. I feel the same way about scripted missions, they are fun, but only a few times, but with their mission generator, I think they are counting on their players to create a constant flow of new missions. The only problem with that, if one even cares, is how historically accurate they might be. With OFF, I know what we are getting and I know it is as accurate as possible. I was flying this weekend near Verdun during the huge battle.. April 1916 N31 out of Toul in my little Nieuport 11.We had to escort a couple of others in our group who were to take recon photos across the trenches since all the regular two seaters were busy elsewhere. Approaching the battle was incredibly exciting, the flashes of lighting and the flashes of ground explosions along with the noise.. just amazing and believable. Bad weather, dark clouds and later rain and wind hit us really hard. We ran into a few enemy planes and shot one down, but managed to get things done and half way back we were flying low to avoid huge clouds, when I got a bit of damage from flak or was it some pot shot from below? Anyway, I limped all the way back across the lines with my engine sputtering and half running, came in for a landing too slowely, stalled at about 100 feet and slid sideways into the ground a horrible crash.. "KIA" and after having made it all the way through the mission! Things like that, unscripted non repeatable experiences with real situations taking place around you are really amazing, IMHO, and are what makes OFF the best WWI sim out there.. if you like that sort of thing. But I'm also looking forward to flying in ROF, not MP, I have no time to schedule it, but just to enjoy all the work they have put into it, like you said, it looks like a lot of fun too. Cheers,

I can't understand Ming most of the time.. he likes to try to speak in riddles, maybe he was a David Caradine Kung Fu groupie? Anyway, he is there all the time, like many of the others but he isn't one of the ones who gets overly defensive and most of the time, he is so vague you can't tell anyway. FlyX is also pretty open to comments, he is just defensive as he has put a lot of work into ROF, but some of the other forum members are arrogant to say the least and will jump on you with all weapons drawn if anything is said negative about ROF that seems to hit at it's currant weaknesses. And, it has many, IMHO, but that's mainly because they have rushed it to sales.. probably are desperatly in need of some money; they are a commercial vernture, after all, so it's understandable. I think their intentions are really good though (the developers) and I have a lot of respect for all they have done and are trying to do. Some of the features of ROF.. the lighting, clouds, DM etc. are really amazing.

DID?

I agree, GZ: What's sort of amusing is the almost blind, fanatical anticipation of ROF though by a constantly present group on the ROF forum.. sort of like the second coming or something. I think some are going to be somewhat disappointed after they have tried it awhile and realize that it, like any other SIM is not perfect, and far from it. I'm definetly looking forward to flying it though, it has some amazing effects with the lighting and details.

HW: I run into that all the time and the hard part is countering the negative comments by quite a few who have this negative obsession with CFS3 and seem to want to pass it on to OFF, even though many of them have never even tried OFF, especially BHH, which is such an improvement over the earlier OFF versions. There is also this strange IL2 against CFS group dogma that I still can't figure out. Rise Of Flight/Knights of the Sky started out several years ago with the announcement of using the IL2 engine and it seems to stick in their mind that ROF must be "one of them," on their side, or what ever. Even though ROF, developed their own game engine early on and has absolutely nothing to do with IL2 except its large following. I've had a run in with a few on this forum and especially on other forums like ROF when someone starts making authoritive comments about OFF that are flat out lies or misleading.. they often express their "opinions" based on things they have heard from others, or their earlier impressions of CFS3, but the problem is the way they state their "opinions" usually as if they are based on fact. There is a huge difference between subjective opinions, and actual reporting based on fact. If one just doesn't like OFF for some reason, fine, but to start making comments about how OFF crashes all the time and has horrible fps or requires expensive computer updates, how the video tears, or that the fm just isn't accurate, or the graphics are 10 years old and it's understandable because it's, after all, just CFS3 in sheeps clothing... it's all very misleading and basically, untrue. I often jump in and confront and then I get blasted for "advertising" OFF, since, I am, after all, a OFF "developer" and must be totally biased, have an "agenda," etc., etc... it gets very frustrating sometimes.

I think OVS summed up a lot of my feelings quite well, though I am definitely going to try out ROF and give it a chance, I still will be solidly behind OFF because I too feel it has definite advantages over ROF. OFF has the most staggering historical content of any WWI flight sim I have seen and I have only touched on a small part of it. Even the weather is historically accurate, not to mention the thousands of plane skins, the huge theater of operation, which we have barely touched on, the historical battles going on all around, etc. The graphics and FM may not be as awesome as ROF, but they are still fantastic and along with the ambiance of sounds and lighting and other visuals they pull you into the sim like none before. Like I said before though, people will probably play each for different reasons while some will play both for different reasons, as they both appear to have their strengths and weaknesses. I am put off by ROF's limited content and somewhat by the online requirement, also the area is only a few hundred miles across, very limited for anything but dog fights and online MP. Then again, they are promising lots of updates and add-ons. If they can supply a lot of free fixes and updates along with reasonably priced add on aircraft, etc. they will keep me interested... we'll see. R Bandy: I regret to say that I haven't bought First Eagles. I too was put off by it's limited content when it came out and the lack of wow factor of what I had seen didn't push me into buying it where as the amazing videos of ROF have swayed me to purchase it., even though it too has limited content. I don't think anyone here has really been unfair in their comments about FE though or tried to block it's discussion. What exactly is it that you said are advantages it has over OFF?.. you didn't actually say and I think we really would be interested in hearing about it from some one familiar with it. The negative things I heard in the past were the lack of a dynamic varied campaign, the weak fm; and the visuals I saw, like the terrain just didn't look that great, though the planes looked good. Have these been improved? I think one mistake we made was deleting an announcement post here of ROF that was just around the same time as OFF BHH had come out. It was understandable based on all the unwarranted put downs and misinformation being spread on other forums like ROF and the sub sim forum, but we probably shouldn't have done it because now that is brought up again and again against us and how we aren't open to any other SIM except OFF.. that just isn't true though. Like OVS, all of us, including WM have said we are very interested and look forward to flying any new WWI flight SIM that comes out and wish them all the best of luck. There's room for all. Again, I think each is going to have different advantages and disadvantages. Right now there is a lot of activity and excitement in anticipation of the release of ROF, but, you know, I've got a feeling that after awhile of playing it a lot of players are going to end up getting OFF too because of what they will be missing in ROF that OFF already has.. again, we'll see.

Who, Cameljockey? Yes, he is, and very dangerous.. you don't want to get in a furball with that guy, he's got eyes in the back of his head!

Great story, I've had similar AI experiences, but couldn't have written them down as well as you did.. thanks!

Each has it's strengths and weaknesses.. hard to tell about ROF yet as it isn't even out yet. All we see are accounts from beta testers who can't really say much yet and a LOT of speculation. I hang around the ROF forum quite a bit making comments and usually getting blasted when ever I even casually mention OFF.

Good question.. I think some one posted awhile back where you can get them.. I don't have one myself, but I would like to. Can some on please help out on this? I think it would be a good sticky.. where to get the DVD version or the best deal on CD versions. We could keep it going to help new players find the best deal on it. What do you all think?

Really sorry to hear you are having problems. Very few people have the type of problem you are describing so it sounds like you may have a bad CD? CD's can go bad over time especially if left in bright light or exposed to warm climates. Incidentally, CFS3 has been available in many of the bargin bins recently for very little money, but you might want to buy the DVD version as it doesn't require you to have the disk in the drawer when you play OFF. Welcome to the forum and please let us know what happens.. lots of good folks here who will go out of their way to try to help you.

I think that if he can just meet a damsel in distress it will all be settled... or.. a dragon?

Just put your skin in a folder of the same plane type and open that model and you will see your skin.

I always ended up just using CFS3 because it's loads the game faster and putting my skins in a sub folder with the rest of the WWII planes.

Wow. Dej.. I'm impressed. Is that ending a true story?

Hi, Paarma: The CFS3 model viewer is OK, problem is you can't get that much detail from it.. I quit using it after awhile, but it was helpful when mapping out the model to the skins for placement of the 3d connections. When CFS3 starts up as a 3d model viewer. You can load anything in that has a M3D suffix and look at it from all angles. I used to run it from CFS3 and view the skins I was making in the OFF folders. Here's how it works, and I think you have to have CFS3 installed. I think I'm remembering this right... it's been awhile... Make a shortcut to CFS3 exe in your start menu and put it on your desktop. ie: go to the Start, CFS3 folder, right click on the CFS3 exe file and choose "send to desktop" Then, right click on the shortcut on the desktop, properties, and add -m3dview to the link. Then rename the shortcut CFS3 model viewer or something like that. Start it up and you will get a window with a sun and another one, probably hidden behind the larger one. Load a file and then play with the controls to zoom in-out, rotate, etc. Some where in there are key controls. I should add.. play with at your own risk.. don't like to have any one cause problems for them selves. Also.. I like the free dds viewer on the Navida website along with the plugin for Phososhop and the plugin to allow Windows explorer to see dds thumbnails. ..all free.

BH can have that last post. Interesting discussion, doesn't prove anything either way, but interesting none the less. I think it mainly shows ones outlook. Anyway, thanks everyone.

Don't worry, it's a discussion, not a flame war!

BH: This one sentence in your post above seemed to sort of sum up your outlook and it's where I really disagree with you. You said, "In this regard, humans are no better or worse than any other animal on the planet. This is a law of nature, ultimately stemming from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which we are powerless to change, so you can't hold this against us." There is no proof that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applies to human nature and our world as thinking, compassion, or religion. It's just a theory from the 1800's having more to do with physics and energy, not humanity and humanism. I'm really not even sure why you brought it up, but you apparently would like to put the human race into the category of physics? I'm not going to pursue this, as you obviously have your own beliefs and I have mine. To me, yours sound very negative though; I am a supporter of existentialism as expressed by Sartre and others.. I feel that what each of us does and even thinks has an effect on all around us, so pursuing the view that we are only violent animals, with the unchangeable attitude of killing and exploitation can only further that result if enough people are convinced that is the truth, while the opposite, a positive attitude is also possible if the majority comes to believe it in it and cares enough to try to change things for the better of all of us.. not just those with the greatest power at their disposal. Good luck to you.

BH: Modern civilizations are a short time line in history and we have the power, now more then ever before to change. Because there is a long history of wars doesn't mean we can't move ahead, solve many of the problems in the world and create a global village that can live in relative harmony. There are, incidentally, cases of people living in very peaceful conditions when they are in situations where they didn't face the severe hardships of life. I can't quote studies right off hand, but there are examples of South Seas islands that were very peaceful under these conditions until Europeans came into their world and exploited them. Tell the people in Iraq or other countries under siege that the bulk of the people are "no longer on the firing line." My point is that we have caused problems by our policy of stepping in and trying to profit in other countries at their expense instead of working with them to solve problems. Would you rather take a strong arm approcah and blow away anyone that looks like a threat, believeing that there is no chance, that we are all just animals, or can you see that we must try to change things while still protecting ourselves because we are headding toward worse and worse results with the attitudes we have taken in the past?