Tamper

Try clearing/resetting the BIOS, it's worked for me a couple times on machines that got whacked. Also, I admit I scanned quickly through this, but it doesn't appear you gave symptoms - is it dead as in no indication of power at all; or maybe LEDs with power turned on but no boot...? Never underestimate what lightning can do. I've worked around sensitive electronics frequently located outdoors, in some very lightning-prone areas most of my life, and have seen incredible ways lightning damaged things - or didn't, when we were sure it would. Short of an absolute direct strike, don't be too surprised if one thing gets whacked while other components go unscathed. Lightning wants pretty much one thing: to find a path to ground. Usually, one path to ground is better than any nearby alternatives, and (like they say in electronics school) "current takes the path of least resistance" (not entirely true either - but that's another discussion). This is the 'lightning rod' theory...you can't really tell ligthning not to go somewhere, it pretty much goes where it wants. But you give it a better ground somewhere *other* than where you don't want it to go - and it's pretty effective if it's done right. Anyway, once it finds a path and dissipates, nothing else is really in much danger, assuming the path doesn't melt and the surroundings can stand the heat. So one part gets fried and everything else is fine. The part that got fried is the one that provided a path (sacrificially, as it were). Free advice: Don't mess with cheap surge suppressors. Unless there's absolutely no other alternative, get a UPS - my personal belief is it should be illegal to run a PC without a UPS. Especially with the higher-quality UPS, the isolation is much better than the few metal-oxide varistors and avalanche diodes you get in a surge suppressor. I used to be a dealer for Best Power (before they got bought out by SOLA and got all cheap)...I had one of their original FR model UPS - the kind with the *huge* iron-core transformer in it. I could sit in my office and compute with impunity whilst mother nature blew pine trees outta the ground in my back yard. You can get decent protection for phones, modems, ethernet etc...you just can't rely on cheap crap. Many of the cheap products have nothing more than a fuse to open when current exceeds their rating, and by the time that happens, lightning's already done the deed. Good transient protection needs to handle lots of power, sure - but it also must be fast. I mean, really sub-split-blink-of-an-eye fast. And don't forge the cable you use for TV and/or Internet. Don't think it's worth it to pay for good power protection? Consider the investment in your electronics, is all I can say. I have 9 PC's here at home, which is quite a few - but that number is still less than the number of UPS that I own. Everything electrical and of any real value - the home theater stuff, PCs, even the refrigerators - is protected by some means at my house. Never lost anything to lightning, in spite of living in Florida and Georgia most of my life. Best of luck.

And I don't understand why - just because someone may not agree with you, and/or because they have even strongly held beliefs, it makes them "hostile". That's a pretty strong word. I'm not hostile, I just have certain expectations when I pay for something, and with RoF those expectations were not met - not even close. And, when I tried to discuss this with 777, I got nothing but BS, rhetoric, and double-speak...right up until I got ignored. (and I wasn't the least impolite, at any time - so there was no reason to simply ignore me; he just didn't want to deal with it). Plus, as I already said, there was/is a deliberate effort by NeoQB / 777 to make darn sure that no one who was dissatisfied could sell it: No playing without an email account registering, which can't be changed without their consent, and a specific statement from 777 that they would not support anyone who didn't buy first-hand. (And yes, I know of ways around it, but why should I lie to get a company to stand behind their product?) To me, this all makes it sort of obvious that they knew some people would be unhappy with the product, but had no plans of standing behind it. In other words, once we got your money, screw you. Sorry, but you don't deal with customers like that. In my business, we stand behind what we do. If customer is that unhappy, they can get their money back, period. Worst form of advertisement ever is a bunch of pissed-off customers, and the only way to turn that huge negative into a positive is to make it right. I'm not "afraid" of anything, least of all having (and stating) an opinion during an open discussion. I own both sims, and I'm just not impressed with RoF so far. Far (far) less impressed with it's purveyors. As for 'choosing sides', what you do is your concern, not mine. Obviously, as I paid for both, at least from a "support the development of WW1 sims" perspective, I'm not choosing one over the other. I gave *both* a fair chance. In fact, to be honest, I was far more biased toward RoF at one point. However, NeoQB and 777 ruined that in a hurry. Do I have very strong feelings about RoF? Yup, you betcha. Does that make me "hostile"? Well, maybe to some - but not to me. And, like stary, I don't think the state of the economy should have anything to do with releasing such an unfinished product. It's been a year; there are still unresolved issues, and by many accounts, some will never be resolved. I worked with an Irishman once who told me "I vote with me feet"...and I got it: I don't like the way a company treats me, my feet take my business elsewhere. Happy 4th, everyone.

OFF here, too. RoF may one day be something special, but for me, right now, it's just not the best.

Yup, Stary, a lot of us feel ripped, like you. I guess you live and learn. Can't enjoy this..."sim", and they went to lengths to try and make sure you can't resell it, either. Forced updatres, indeed...plus they never fully delivered on the whole hyped up "offline play" thing. Basically that wound up proving all they claimed that made online necessary was BS to begin with; it was nothing more than good ole' DRM, plain and simple. Not that I mind an author's effort to protect his work, of course not...but they adamantly insisted it wasn't about that at first, it was about statistics and somehow necessary to the whole development, blah, blah... And a lot of the other stuff they still rant about? Over-rated, IMHO. The graphics and lighting effects on the planes are very good, no doubt. But the scenery is...somehow off; the word "cartoonish" has been used to describe it. Flight models? Arguable - to this day there are still people asking questions about where neoQB got their technical data (and of course, neoQB refusing to entertain anything they choose not to by way of evidence to support claims). Damage models...well, OK, but only if you believe "advanced physics" includes wooden planes that auger in from thousands of feet, but the fuselage remains straight and solid. And as far as them being 'dynamic'...well, what I saw is the same, exact damage come up on every plane of the same type, when hit in the same area - every _ single _ time. Noop28, fuselage hit? Either that shred of stuff just below and to port of the cockpit (for shots from beneath), or that other shred just aft the cockpit and to starboard. Always the same pieces, from the same place, and the exact same hole...how in the heck is that advanced damage modeling? And some planes still don't respond accurately when hit, in terms of controls or subsequent failure... No campaign to speak of. I've read about limits to the number of objects the sim will tolerate - and it was a very low number. That awful image-at-a-distance thing (still outstanding?) (which neoQB also tried to say there was no way to fix) I honestly gave up counting and following the problems, there are so many. I don't know what updates fixed what, after the 3rd or 4th one, admittedly. But I do follow the boards, and I don't get the impression many of these things were ever addressed. I don't run it anymore, and don't *ever* intend to let any of my money (or my family's, or friends') go toward any product from 777. Just my opinion, as a (now) educated, ex-customer. Fool me once...

Morris, can't speak for 'core' cpu's, but overclocking has gotten easier and easier over the past couple years. most often now it's usually just a matter of going into BIOS and changing a value, maybe two - unless you wanted to get real crazy, of course. I've found overclocking 10-20% very easy, almost as simple literally as changing one or two settings. One suggestion is go to the Asus forums and read what others have to say about overclocking *that* particular board. More experience with it there than probably anywhere. Good luck.

Hi rabu, I can't comment on the difference because I never used the reflective hat arrangement. However, I did look into building a diode array for "Freetrack" before buying TrackIR, and you're right - they don't take much power at all. Although I haven't looked in a while, the diodes themselves require (probably) 2-5V and if memory serves most LED's draw about 20mA current. So, you'd need a battery capable of, say 2V at 60mA. There are *lots* of web sites, forums postings, etc. about building the whole shebang...mostly what you pay for is the exact physical arrangement of the LEDs and clip assembly (plus the cost of "not having to screw with it" *lol*). Point is, if you wanted to use the actual TrackClip and just dispose of the extra wire, I'm absolutely sure you can do it. Of course, you now have that battery strapped to your noggin somehow. MIght not seem like much, but it might bother you. I recall seeing pics of several different arrangements for doing it, posted by freetrack users. To be accurate, my TrackIR was sold with the TrackClip Pro, so I never had to 'decide', really. That being said, I'm a trained electronics tech with 30 years experience...I would've chosen the "not having to screw with it" approach - for what it's worth I hope that helps answer your question.

*lmao* Parky...let's not go picking out curtains just yet...I still want to 'play around' with all this stuff to see if I can *make* the problem happen. Stands to reason that I should be able to, if the folks with much stronger systems than mine have issues. Could be that just raising the sliders would work (mine are fairly conservative for now; 5-3-3-4-3 I think). Kidding aside, I thikn it might be just as important to break one that's running, as it is to fix one that's not. 'Course, trouble with that theory is I don't want to break mine now that I'm enjoying TIR But, in the interest of science... We're doing a garage sale today/tomorrow, so time is at a premium for flying (wife scowls at me every time I glance at the sporty new 'thingamajiggie'). And I also just got an upgrade CPU from eBay for one of my older rigs that I need to install and try out...*sigh*

And thank you, rabu, for your efforts to organize input and hopefully resolve this issue. (I changed my vote just now, having recently acquired TIR5 and the trackclip no stutters or trianagles here). Just to reiterate: CPU: C2D e8400, o/c to 3.7G RAM : 4GB Crucial Dominator PC2-6400 Video: eVGA GTX260 /core216 896M GDDR3 MB: eVGA 780iFTW Viewsonic 19"wide (16:10 aspect; 1440x900) HD: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 500G in RAID0 (C:); 2x OCZ Vertex 30G SSD RAID0 (D: - OFF installed on this volume) - ALL SATA300 drives; ALL on AMCC/3Ware 9650SE PCIe 2.0-16x "hardware" RAID controller On-board RealTek sound PS 750 Watt Corsair HX750 OS: Windows XP 32-bit, SP3 OFF BH&H, HitR patched to 1.47 video settings (generally) per sticky and OFF home page recommendations Use NVCP to set video hardware options (no Nhancer at this time) Also use an app called Prio to set OFF CPU priority to "above normal"; both TrackIR and CFS3.exe are set to run on both CPU cores - still experimenting with affinity/priority. No stutter or tearing at all since SSD RAID array set up, even when using on-board RAID controller. BUT definitely had both stutters and tearing - without TIR - prior to SSDs.

almccoyjr...that's what I wear now (they're called varifocals, because they are the 'no-line' type). While I do need new ones, the three different lense areas only work like that in real life. In the game, all three (near, far, and very far) occur at the same exact focal length. So, it's a disadvantage to have trifocals. It just means you have to hold your head such that the one area - the "near" part of the lens - can focus on the screen. All that other area does no good. Sadly, this may be the thing that means TIR isn't going to work for me...trifocal lenses are pretty much made to only require eye movement to sweep across your normal FOV. In no more than the distance (on a curve, yet) between the bottom and top of my glasses (about 1"), I go from near, to far, to very far lenses. Lot of movement for the eye, but relatively none for the head - which TIR depends on. To be honest, I know I need new glasses anyway. So, I'm telling myself for now that this is the problem. Working on a computer screen shouldn't be a problem, and I would think that includes gaming.

VP - nope, not a bit. I was amazed - I am *very* sensitive to that sort of thing. And imagine, all this time, that's probably the biggest factor that kept me 'on the fence'. O50 - thanks for the insight (pun intended). I recall reading about your adjustments earlier, and will certainly be trying that. I've already fiddled a little with the curves and that, plus the speed. Lots to try; lots to learn. The glasses, as you know, have 'sweet spots' for the focus at different distances....so it take getting used to. To be honest, though? I'm way overdue for an eye exam. Nothing a lot of money won't fix

ser·en·dip·i·ty 1.an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. 2.good fortune; luck: She had the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for. As the debate raged on here, I decided I'd look into getting myself a TIR. And (swear to God) on 30 May, a gentleman no more than 30 miles from where I live just happened to list his like-new TIR5 w/TrackClip Pro on Craig's List. Only used 3-4 times; he's cutting back his gaming...he and his wife are in their mid-20s, and just had their first child. Yup, your attention will be distracted for gaming for awhile. 'Bout the next 18 years, by my count Anyway...I marvel at my good luck sometimes (it's rare, trust me), but a few phone calls and $125 later, yours truly is now ready to lop that hat switch off his joystick (sounds painful ). I don't feel overwhelming motion sensitivity after the first hour or two of flying. God yes, this will take some getting used to (need to learn about curves now and so on...all leads appreciated). And I've been reminded I'm blind and need new glasses...hard to hold my head right and keep my focus at the right pointwhile still centering TrackIR properly, I have 'vari-focal' lenses (a hi-tech word for trifocals...I'm 48). But it does work, and already seems to beat the hell outta that hat switch in terms of 'natural' tracking. And (drum roll) NO JAGGIES, triangles, stuttering, what-have-you. I haven't done much else as yet due to R/L goings-on...but I'll be testing and making videos as soon as I can. Parky: Answers for you sir, as soon as I return.

The controller is a 3Ware 9650SE. For what it's worth, I think you should at least consider benchmarking your present mass media storage subsystem before making a conclusion. If you'll look at the graphs, note that even a single SSD outperforms a single platter-based drive by about 2:1 (ATTO), and a single platter-based drive can't even come close to an SSD in terms of random access. This is the area I believe contributes most to the performance gains in OFF. Even if you bought two drives (cost, about $200) and if your motherboard supports onboard RAID, I think you'd see a tremendous improvement. Still, to each his own I do realize it's not for everyone. In any event, you should check the two (free) benchmarking utilities out (ATTO and HDTach) - and take a look at what kind of performance you get now.

And now the 'platter-based' drives (Seagate 7200RPM Barracudas). As before, single drive left; onboard RAID middle, hardware RAID controller on the right. You can see here that the 2 drives on the hardware controller hit right at 550MB/sec transfer, plus hit over 450 at several block sizes as well. Not at all slouchy - better than the SSDs, in fact, for this test - and volume wise pretty cheap too. Just can't really compete with the burst and random access speeds of SSDs.

Sorry for the delay, had to step out for a while...Now let's see some graphs from the ATTO disk benchmark. On the left, a single SSD (non-RAID). Middle is 2x SSD on the 'onboard' RAID controller; and on the right, 2x SSD on the hardware RAID controller. Note the SSD reads on the hardware controller are 435MB/sec - the maximum theoretical bandwidth of these drives would be 600MB/sec (assuming no overhead at all). Almost double what it was on the 'onboard' controller - which itself was only faster than a single drive in the writes, not the reads.

OK, HDtach test graphs: on teh left, the two SSds on the 3Ware 9650SE 'hardware' RAID controller; right, the Nvidia 780iFTW's 'onboard' controller. Note the difference in both burst transfer and sequential reads. (Also of note, the 0.1ms random access time - this usually goes around 12 ms for an average single platter-based drive; that's a 100x improvement).

I was almost hoping you'd report back that running at 30 FPS had induced the jaggy phenomenon regardless of the lack of TIR in the mix. I know exactly what you're saying - although I can't say I "hoped" for it *lol*; in a perverse technical fashion, I had anticipated that outcome as well. Looking back at the Poll, I see only one respondant (eric) who claims to experienced video "distortion" even without the use of TIR Right - which I do follow you on. But here's the thing (and maybe this is just being overlooked) I, myself - after upgrading to my current setup (but before SSDs) did have the light blue/white "jaggie" triangles (as well as some stuttering). With no TIR. So, even though I couldn't truthfully answer the poll that way now, it's only because I no longer have that issue. If I were asked about 6 months ago or so, I woud've been right there with 'Eric". One bad thing about polls is you get to vote - but the 'answer' you're voting on is as worded by the poll's author. Point is, for me, that some people who have experienced 'jaggies' w/o TIR. Hardly scientific, I know...but I've seen it myself. So it tells me that the 'jaggie' problem, while I agree it's aggravated by TIR, cannot be strictly caused by TIR. Make sense? I was more interested in seeing wether or not we could induce the tearing phenomenon on your particular setup by doing the FRAPS trial. Yup; I was following you, and was just as curious. Not as a substitute for the TIR issue, per se - but a possible different angle on the same set of symptoms. I was also interested in finding out just what kind of impact your hardware RAID controller and SSD's might have on your FRAPS performance, even though OFF is the only thing installed on the SSD's (a couple of questions about that stuff to follow). Also an interest of mine. Though I had used FRAPS before, I hadn't done any recording at all. And, it does appear that if I don't 'cap' frame rate at some level, my machine tops out at about 40-45 FPS. I seem to remember seeing 60+/- when not recording, so I guess all told you could say my particular machine takes about a 30% FPS hit when recording with FRAPs. I was very encouraged, though, that there's no apparent loss of visual quality even with the recording 'hit', and I do not rely strictly on FPS to make that determination. FPS, according to what I've learned, can mislead one into thinking all is well in video land. But, it's very possible to have >35 FPS and still have 'lag' or 'stutters' that are quite noticeable. Even 120FPS isn't (of itself) a guarantee of smooth graphics display; it depends entirely on the 'rate of distribution' of the frames, rather than a strict measurement of frames-per-second. Although I could be mistaken, I believe firmly that performance of the drive(s) has a lot to do with 'smoothness', and the lack of jaggies and stutter. But, as we know, this doesn't take TIR into account, and that appears to be *the* question. I've got four 1T WD's in RAID-10. These are controlled by onboard ICH10. Now I'm curious as to what kind of performance you get from that setup. It is my understanding that RAID10 is second only to RAID0 in performance, but that assumes same number of drives in both arrays. However, since RAID10 is "striped mirrors", I'd anticipate the performance of a RAID0 array with two drives (plus the redundancy afforded by the two other disks, which I don't have). Mind you, your platter-based drives are likely way faster than mine. And the ICH10 controllers are said to be way better than the ICH7s were. What is your experience? Allow me to ask you for a bit more info if it's not too much trouble. I'm curious to know if you have your paging file on the SSD's or if it's on the platter based drives. I recall reading somewhere about concerns over having the page file on the SSD's due to excessive wear? Any truth to that, or is it merely speculation? Also, I'm curious as to which storage solution upgrade on your system seemed to yield the most significant results in overall "smoothness" in OFF. Was the hardware RAID controller installed subsequent to the SSD's or was this part of the same project. If done seperately, which one of the two upgrades in your opinion proved to be the most valuable? Long story, but I appreciate the question; it is perfectly relevant. I think what you read about paging files on SSDs is true for the most part, and not just wear. Obviously, wear is a bad thing - but I recall some analysis done where they determined that it would take 83 years of writing to a drive enough to fill it up to the point it caused a failure (Lord, don't ask me to quote where...) So, although wear is bad, I think a far more immediate issue is that of 'wear-leveling' - what the do in the firmware now to offset the wear problems. Of course, now wear-leveling comes with its own problems: Slowing performance over time, also caused/worsened by normal reading/writing to an SSD. This is all stuff that traditional drives didn't have to worry about, and the industry is only just now becoming familiar with this stuff. As I understand it, these write/erase/move problems are an inherent part of the NAND components used in SSDs. But, most recently, the drive manufacturers are releasing utilities that allow a kind of bulk erase for these drives that restores the original performance. Problem is, it blasts a drive and cannot be done on a drive that's part of a RAID volume. You already know that RAID0 carries the biggest performance, but also the biggest risk - having no redundancy. And, I'll bet you know what a PITA it can be trying to viably image a RAID0 boot volume. (*phew*, forgive me for the length here, just trying to be thorough) All this leads to why my layout is what it is: 2xSeagate Barracudas RAID0, boot volume, C: Performance near twice a typical platter drive, and with the hardware controller it really is good - especially at writing, which SSDs don't excel at. Cheaper per unit storage by far than SSDs; a terabyte volume costs around $100 (just the drives). 2x OCZ vertex 30G SSDs makes a 60G volume that, while expensive per unit, is fast. And, since it's not my boot volume, I just get the volume built, install whatever, then image the drive as normal in Windows. I can break the RAID array at any time, take the two drives out for their 'periodic blasting', and it won't keep my machine from booting. And since I store the image of that D: drive on my TB C: drive, it's only 60G max used space to have on 'on-board' recovery for the SSD's when they come back home after being brainwashed :) So, anyway - back to your question (sorry)...I have tried to do everything I could to eliminate (or at least minimize) writing to the SSD volume; no paging file, only basically 'installed' games (so far, only OFF). By doing this, my intent is to minimize the rate of performance decay and thereby reduce the frequency of 'brainwashing' the SSDs. These two guys are left alone, to do what they do best: read, and even better if it's random. Burst speeds are phenomenal The hardware controller adds to it as well. Far as I can tell, both volumes are performing near the theoretical bandwidth of SATA 3Gb/s (2 drives in RAID0 would be 600MB/s - see charts to follow). Flash drive technology, like SSDs, has caught up with the bus rate - which has prompted the industry to respond with SATA rev3 (SATA 6Gb/s) I'm going to post some results below, and you can see the (empirical) answer to your question about which upgrade did more...from single drive (both SSD and platter), on-board RAID (both), and hardware controller (both). They almost seem linear... From my perspective, I would have a difficult time saying which upgrade was the best, anecdotally, because I either didn't test it long enough to determine, or really preferred to do it another way to fit my particular needs. For example, having the SSDs as the boot volume (with OFF) and the other drives as D: to install everything else...well, it worked just fine, booted fast as hell, etc. But precisely due to the concerns you mentioned about writing to the SSDs, and the obvious maintenance issues imposed by having to recover a boot image, I tested each stage, documented it, and then felt compelled to move toward the arrangement I have now. I think I'm gonna' go try Louvert's affinity/priority trick and see what happens there. Definitely look forward to your observations here. (pics of HD benchmarks to follow...)

"You know" was about Morris and the fact that he doesn't have the problem - and, according to his accounts, nothing worked until he got his SSDs. Take it for whatever you will. I didn't say I knew how much you paid for your rig at all - only that I bet mine, with the SSDs, probably wasn't more than yours. There is a point, and that is that people shouldn't have to do all these high-end upgrades to get the most out of this sim - and obviously some people don't (Lou, for instance). "How much you paid for your rig" became part of this discussion a while back - I believe it was you who promoted the idea that folks shouldn't have to (necessarily) spend money to fix the problem. And I've said all along that the fix for the issues I had didn't cost nearly what some had thrown at their machines. Cost vs. benefit has been a part of just about every problem-solving scenario I've ever had to do with. All the rest of your comments about what I say and do here are...well, maybe more in your head than anywhere else. Seems you're a little touchy that your "solution" isn't the magic bullet. Look, I didn't tell you to go posting in three different threads you had the answer; you did that of your own accord. All I've done is say what works for me. And yes, I'm recommending it to others...so? Why shouldn't I? Any law around here says you're the only one who can make suggestions? The point behind the videos was to demonstrate that you couldn't see the difference between refresh rates, MaxFPS settings or recording FRAPs - which Parky had expressed curiosity about comparing the two (even without TIR - and, as I said, even though we both acknowledge I'm not testing w/TIR). He was interested in knowing whether the added load might make jaggies show up in my case, as was I. So I did some testing. I understood his point, and I think he saw what I was getting at earlier: It shouldn't necessarily take TIR to duplicate the problem, and (again) some people who never even used TIR do have the problem. Along that same line, if there's a 'fix' that overcomes jaggies on a system that doesn't have TIR, then it just might illuminate a previously unnoticed relationship to the others who do have the problem with TIR. Sometimes to solve a problem, you look at what different cases have in common (like how they find serial killers...look for patterns, links, commonalities). In this case, the jaggies probably have something in common - just that no one's figured it out yet. I understand the frustration, but there's also no law that says there's only one way to work on a problem. I'm not keeping you from doing whatever you want, and I'm sure the community welcomes your effort. At the same time, maybe you could try not getting bent out of shape just because I found something that works for me. Of course, I recommend it. I am going about working the problem differently from you, that's all. I think a certain amount of 'diversity' is good in situations like this; makes sure all the bases are covered. Like I said the other day: Good work doesn't mind scrutiny.

Hellshade, Parky and I were discussing his curiosity, as he explained in his post. We both acknowledged that it's unfortunate I can't test with TIR. But, at least based on his response to my questions, he follows what I'm thinking about, and I'm interested in what he has to say. Interestingly enough, I did have the traingles (whatever we're calling it now), with no TIR, after upgrading to my current machine - but before the SSD/RAID arrangement. I believe there are others who reported graphics anomolies without using TIR, as well. So, that would lead me to believe it's not exclusive to TIR. Also interesting, is that during my tests I didn't seem to suffer any loss of video performance - that is, zero stuttering, triangles or anything else, regardless of my FPS settings or when recording with FRAPS. Even when FRAPS was set to lock a frame rate my machine couldn't keep up with (but was clearly trying to, because I saw the numbers go up and down as recording stopped/started). This certainly seems like my video hardware, CPU, and memory are keeping up well enough at about 40FPS, and the mass media storage subsystem is efficiently moving things along without causing video anomolies. As I pointed out, I'm not recording to the SSDs, just playing OFF from them. My two plain old Seagate 7200 Barracudas were doing the FRAPS recording. (The write performance is better on the platter-based drives than the SSDs anyway). So why did it not impact the video performance? Well, two reasons, I suspect: 1. The SSDs are doing precisely what I paid them to do: Reading data faster than anything else can, to make sure there is minimal delay in getting display data where it needs to be - the screen. 2. The hardware RAID controller I use is doing what I paid it to do: It's apparently capable of moving all the recorded data to the Barracudas without loading the system unreasonably, at the same time it delivers what the SSDs put out to the rest of the system (to be displayed). I'll tell you what: I'll post the videos if you want, and you tell me which one's which. I'll bet you can't tell, even though there is an obvious difference in the work being done for one as opposed to another. I may just buy TrackIR to find out how much impact there really is. But I am reminded of Morris, who uses TIR5 and has SSDs...and, well...you know. All the above is particularly interesting when one considers that your rig and mine are substantially different (32b OS v 64b, 4G 800 RAM o/c to 933 or so v. 6G RAM o/c to 1443, a GTX260/216 w896M v. a GTX 280 w1G, a C2D e8400 o/c to 3.7 v Ci7 930 o/c to 3.8). In fact, if I could dare at a cost comparison here, I'd venture that it may be possible I've tied up less on my system (including the 2 SSDs and maybe even the hardware RAID controller) than you've tied up in your system. Gotta be close, I bet. But anyway, I digress...as I said, I was just responding to Parky's interest in my questions.

Parky, I genuinely appreciate your response. I wouldn't mind having TIR, and while I'm always on a budget, the money isn't what stops me thus far. If I can be honest, it's a concern about motion sickness. I have trouble with many FPS games...I wear these silly wrist band accupressure things, and it seems to help a lot (all in my head? Perhaps - but better there than all over the floor ) My wife has always marvelled that the flightsims don't have that effect - can't explain why. But my concern is that if I could TIR in the flightsim mix, well, cleaning barf from keyboard...yuck. Anyway, I'm glad you can see the point in my question. I did actually do testing as you suggested, here are my notes: All tests daytime/bright blue sky, 3 Dr1 v 6 DH2. In teh following, F=FRAPS setting for locked framerate; M=OFF MaxFPS setting. F30_M60 - No visual tearing, no stuttering*. FRAPS showed FPS being 'capped' @30FPS F60_M60 - No visual tearing, no stuttering*. FRAPS showed FPS being 60 initially, but starting vid cap lowers them substantially, they settle around 40 during 'action' while recording. F60_M30 - as above. FRAPS showed FPS being 'capped' @30FPS. I can't see any difference in the changes. * videos show a few 'jumpy' pans, this is actually me struggling to fly, not get killed, and still pan around trying to 'force' visual anamolies - my thumb slips off the hatswitch or lets it center briefly. I can post videos if you want, but I'd need to compress them somehow. Right now they're 'native' AVIs and go 0.5-1G apiece. Note that when recording I am writing to my C: drive (which is not the SSDs). As memory serves, SSDs are not known for impressive write speeds; rather they excel at reads and much more so random access. In fact, my arrangement is designed to minimize writes to the SSDs at all, because writing is where the biggest concerns with SSDs are. Also, note that I probably have an "unfair advantage" when it comes to read/write performance. Recall I use a PCIe-based, "hardware" RAID controller. So, while onboard RAID controllers (esp. ICH7 controllers, if I recall) can experience bottlenecks, especially when moving data between multiple drives on the same controller, I believe hardware controllers are usually the choice to maximize 'throughput' across RAID arrays with multiple volumes. Another point of interest: My "sliders" are set conservatively at 5-3-3-4-3; which seemed to do OK on my hardware, with no problems and plenty of visual detail for me ('course, Im blind as a damn bat anyway). Coud be that raising the sliders would cause the triangles or the stuttering; I really haven't played with it since initially setting them up after my last install. Also, I have the process priority for OFF (CFS3) set to 'high' using a tool called PRIO. So, your opinion? Anything I should try next? I can post my settings as well, but let's say they're pretty basic; not using Nhancer or other bolt-ons at the moment, just NVCP. AF 8x, AA 16xMS, texture filtering = 'performance', triple buffering off, VSYNC = per app (which would be disabled, I'm sure). I would think I could introduce problems somehow, because I (and others) have reported some of this triangle 'jaggie' business, without even using TIR. Do you think I'm wasting my time testing without having TIR? I wonder if I should just turn the sliders up? I have a fairly conservative rig, so I wouldn't want to try "too hard", because I'm sure it will break *lol* I just don't know if it's a 'fair' test at that point; turning the settings up to what just isn't possible on my hardware. Whaddya think? Appreciate your interest. @Lou "...as it's become blatantly clear in this discussion, there is no one magic bullet..." I'm going to go with Lou on this one.

+1 - I'm sure I speak for everyone in saying the work being done is most appreciated. But I'm also sure that at least some of us are getting a bit lost. Also, I had another question: If this is something caused/worsened by FPS being 'locked' or limited (by FRAPS or by other settings), then wouldn't I be able to duplicate that without necessarily having TIR? The question was first raised about TIR, but it seems to me that, if this is a function of resolution/refresh/FPS, then anyone would be able to 'duplicate' the problem by setting the appropriate values to perhaps undesired settings. Why would anyone do that? Well, I for one don't have the problems anymore, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in "optimizing" my settings. If there are 'good' settings, then there must be 'bad' settings as well. And if I'm following, a good part of this is finding a certain combination of aforementioned settings. Can anyone clarify?

Well, Over50, I'm glad we can agree on a few things: Most importantly, that oggling pretty girls is way more fun than anything to do with computers (and no SSD required). Also, I agree absolutely that this is something OFF (CFS3) seems to suffer alone, out of the myriad other games I play - like you, with no problems. It's funny you mentioned SLI earlier, because for a long time everyone blamed it on my SLI setup - which I ultimately disproved by going back to a single card, and was still having tearing and stutters. This was after having upgraded video card, CPU, memory...all the 'usual suspects'. And still, the damned stutters and triangles. Cue the research with mass media storage subsystem. I can't claim I was real smart about it - honestly, it was the only thing *left* after all the other upgrades. But, having thought about it, it started to make sense: Everything you see on the screen has to be loaded at some point; it is all loaded ultimately from the hard disk, and it has to be loaded fast to be smooth. What's the slowest part of most systems, by far? The hard disk. What's the best path to "fast" loading? Well, SSDs and RAID, that's what. Now, I'll agree I've spent a silly amount of time and money to figure this out...but for me, it wasn't (only) about the game, it was about finding out why these two problems stubbornly persisted in an otherwise capable rig. Plus, I'm "allowed" (wife, after all) to spend money on my computer every year or so - I was looking at a choice between going to all new Core i7 stuff (meaning new motherboard, memory, a new CPU...) This could easily wind up costing me well over the price of my SSD/RAID setup. So, at least in my unique position, I actually saved money - and got the performance I wanted. Of couse, your machine is fine. A lot of people blamed everything in my machine over time about this - your video card has too little memory; your CPU isn't fast enough; your SLI is causing stutters, blah, blah, blah... But now I see where at least a couple guys - with far more conservative rigs than you or I have; without SSDs or even RAID - have no problem with the tearing and stutters. But still, no firm "solution". I genuinely hope all this results in someone figuring out the real solution. I sincerly hope it's some configuration setting that costs absolutely nothing - the best thing that could happen for OFF is that it DOESN'T require a supercomputer to run well. And I honestly could give a tinker's damn whether it involves anyone buying SSDs. I have nothing to gain or lose either way, and I won't feel bad about it at all, because I am absolutely pleased with the money I spent on SSDs and the RAID controller. It does MORE for me for than just OFF, by far. (I also own RoF, and though I currently don't have it loaded, it's a total pig in terms of loading times. I'd like to get my money's worth from RoF when it finally gets all the bugs worked out, and the SSDs will definitely help with that). When your question came up, I was only trying to offer up my experiences as a possible solution.

Over50, I do much the same as you with my PC. Primarily games, but also some work (both employment and 'home' work in my case). I regularly keep and play several games as well as doing some work with digital media (music, video, etc., nothing too involved). Interestingly enough, I also own a GTX260/216, and also have tried SLI before (don't get me started, because most people will try to say it's a waste of money - but not in my experience). And I think we all have a budget of some sort that affects what we buy for our computers. I may have misimpressed you, so let me try and clear that up: I wasn't suggesting you remove your existing drive(s) and replace them with a 30G SSD. I don't have that arrangement, and as you say it would be impractical. The SSDs are there strictly for speed. Here's my storage configuration, maybe that'll help clear it up: 2 SSDs, 30G each, in a RAID0 volume (appears as one 60G drive to Windows). Plenty of room for OFF and probably another game or two - but is explicitly reserved for those games that *need* the performance offered by the pricey SSD size-to-cost ratio. On my machine, this is my D: drive, and where OFF is installed. 2 "platter-based" Seagate 7200rpm Barracudas in a RAID0 volume, appears in Windows like a single, 1TB drive. Nowhere near as fast as the SSD's, but much cheaper for the size and (because of the RAID0 array) still much faster than a single drive. *Plenty* of room for anything else I do. This is my boot drive (C:) where Windows is loaded, as well as all the other games I play (which don't require the speed of the SSDs). In this arrangement, I still get very good overall system response and loading times - better than a single drive. I get a night-and-day difference in OFF's graphical performance. best of both worlds. If I could presume to suggest a moment: In a case like yours, the idea would be to use a single SSD as a D: drive and load OFF there (to get the performance benefit at a total cost of $100). My experience shows you will see substantial improvement, for the $100 you spent. *IF* you could afford another $100, and have a motherboard that has RAID support (most do, today), a second SSD connected to the FREE onboard RAID controller will increase performance further still. Total cost, $200. And you're not limited to the 60G on the two SSDs - you keep your 300G drive and everything on it, as is. No need to even reload anything except what you move to the new, fast SSD array. You now have two drives: a 300G C: drive and a 60G D: drive. C is for space, D is for speed. I hope this clarifies that I am not suggesting anyone try to run an entire system on a single, 30G SSD.

Please (please) don't take this the wrong way: It's not your math that's fuzzy, it's your reading. I said: "My experience shows that even a single 30G SSD is enough space to load OFF; doesn't need to be the boot drive, and does make a night-and-day difference in the performance of OFF with regard to tearing and stutters" That single, 30G SSD, as I indicated in the price breakdown, was about $100. For $100 total, in this example, my experience showed improvement in OFF with stutters and tearing. I went on to explain, as I had indicated earlier, the performance was tested, and 'scaled' to follow, using two SSDs in a RAID0 array, which I addressed: "Of course, if you can afford it, the second drive on a FREE onboard RAID array is definitely worth another $100." So, in this example, total cost $200, still more improvement. Finally, although I did acknowledge it wasn't necessary, I mentioned my experience with the continued, tested 'scaling' of improvements: "Hardware RAID controller, $300 - Total cost about $500." This final example shows that, in my case, I got maximum performance benefit with a total cost of $500. No big surprise, really; hardware RAID controllers are known for top performance - and "you get what you pay for". Each of these steps was tested independently, prior to 'upgrading' to the next stage. AS I explained elsewhere, I spent two months basically building, tearing down, and rebuilding, then testing and measuring, different configurations of RAID, boot drives, paging files, etc. to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. The reason for that is I was literally testing, with OFF, to see the impact on graphical 'smoothness' and performance. Each one had a definite impact on visual performance, as well as external benchmarks (ATTO and HDtach) to show it improved my system overall, not just in OFF. As I mentioned, the RAID controller was also useful for other (unrelated) work I do and probably a bit of overkill for OFF alone. But it wasn't without merit, because it scales performance in OFF, as well as everything else my computer does. I hope this answers your question.

Right there with you Rabu. Morris and I have both said SSDs worked *for us*, in our cases - but I don't think either of us said it would fix all the cases out there. What's becoming apparent to me is that this varies, a lot - and so far, machines of the same class seem to vary, and no one 'solution' works for every case. (Of course, I'm sure many of you knew that already). The latest idea - changes in MaxFPS, seem to make all the difference on Hellshade's rig - but I did notice he has a fairly high-end setup. Meanwhile, Lou (relatively conservative setup) didn't notice the difference with Hellshade's suggestions...and, to make it more interesting, Duce has a very conservative rig (perhaps moreso than Lou) and *did* note Hellshade's reported improvement. And, at the same time, you obviously have reason for thinking it's related to power - and it could be. Taking all this in together, it seems to me that there is at least one other factor which no one's identified, that, while it is obviously affected by MaxFPS settings in some cases, it definitely appears to be somehow an interaction between more than any one single factor. In other words, it looks like MaxFPS settings will work in some cases, but maybe (I'm saying MAYBE - no one get all excited, please) it doesn't work unless combined with something else. Make sense?

Thanks, Lou. So, no difference in this case, from MaxFPS=0 to 80, in increments of 20. It would be be excellent to find someone with a rig close to yours who *does* report tearing, and uses TIR, but does not use all your settings. Have them duplicate your settings precisely, and I bet something could be learned...I'd do it, I can build up a rig here similar to yours - but I don't have TIR. I'm seriously considering it after all this, though. (*lol* I do realize the possibility that it could generate completely different results from yours, which will further obscure the actual 'solution' - as has been the case thus far). But, in my estimation, that would be the next test case to prove/disprove. Thanks again.