Hellshade

TrackIR 5.1 Beta 2 is now available for download. It has 64 bit support so I figured I'd give it a shot. At first it didn't recognize my hardware, but after I plugged my TrackIR 4 camera into a new usb slot it picked it up just fine. Once I messed with the settings a bit, it seems to me like it works a bit smoother. It is a Beta 2 though so try at your own risk. http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/06-support/support-download-software-and-manuals.html Hellshade

Great screenshots Olham! Here's my first OFF:BH&H video using my new video card. Runs beautifully. It's a great scramble mission where I gave myself unlimited ammo. Apparently I forgot to give myself unlimited fuel though. Oh well...I almost made it. Airfield Defense (13:02) 1080 HD Hellshade

Truly outstanding cockpit pics! That is some amazing artistry there. Well done! Once again, the scenery looks top quality as well. I cannot wait to be able to fly over it all. Hellshade

Did you try overlocking it yet? Hellshade

Great story post jaa. Nice work making the front page! That is some excellent advertising for OFF. Well done. Here's the link to my youtube site. It's got a little over a 100 OFF:BH&H videos. I think almost all are in HD. Feel free to link any that you like sir. http://www.youtube.com/hellshade68#p/u Hellshade

I used a Zalman fan, like the one in this link. This one says it needs a special bracket to work with i7 style cpus but mine came with all of the right stuff so you may need to look around. Works beautifully though. http://www.newegg.co...#scrollFullInfo Here is the review on the EVGA Superclocked GTX 580. It's the exact card I purchased. http://www.rage3d.co...vga_gtx_580_sc/ Here is the stock GTX 580 review vs previous Nvidia products http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-580-review/ Overclocking is easy on the P6T board. Once you are in BIOS, select the "Ai Tweaker" tab. Change BCLK Frequency to 190 Change DRAM Frequeny to 1523 I didn't find any need to change voltage settings at this rate and everything works flawlessly. I can bump it up to 4.2 Ghz but that requires a jump in voltage and really, I just don't see the point. Every cpu is different of course so fiddle with those numbers and you'll find the sweet spot for your rig. Save and exit. The system will shut down completely and after a few moments restart. Should post at 3.8Ghz. Hellshade

I have the base line i7 920 quad core as well and have it safely overclocked at 3.8 Ghz (up from 2.66) with no voltage increase and air cooled. If you have a P6T motherboard I can tell you how to do it. As for a video card replacement, it depends on your budget but I have a new GTX 580 factory overclocked from EVGA and I must say it is fantastic. It comes with 1.5GB of GDDR5 ram , runs cooler and quieter than my old GTX 280 and give outstanding performance. I would recommend against the GTX 400 series. They run very hot and noisy and all the reviews say the 500 series is what the 400 series should have been. It's also fully DirectX 11 compatible so you are future proofed for some time. OFF runs better than ever on it. Even super demanding games like CoD Black OPS never drop below 45 frames per second at 1920 x 1200 with all detail settings maxxed. Usually it's a flat 60. WoP is a flat 60 FPS, all details maxxed no matter what...even when recording. It's a pricey card but it's worth the money. ATI is due out with a new card in the next few months so obviously that is comething to consider but for the moment at least, the GTX 580 is the fastest single GPU card on the market. Not sure what your motherboard can handle for RAM but if it supports DDR3 I highly recommend the Corsair Dominator XMS DDR3 memory. It runs up to 1600 mhz stock. 6GB will run you about $245. As for tactical shooters, may I heartily recommend the relatively old Rainbow Six Vegas 2. It's definately not "run and gun" gameplay like CoD. It's fun, challenging and the graphics are still pretty good. I believe it uses the Unreal III engine. Hellshade

Lucky Shot (0:31) 1080 HD It sure as hell wasn't skill... Hellshade

Welcome aboard smilingmonkey! I ran OFF on Vista 64 bit just fine before I upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit, which also works great. Always glad to have another pilot join the War. Make yourself comfortable. New chap buys the drinks though. Hellshade

I run Windows 7 64bit and swear by it. Runs far more stable than even Windowx XP 32 bit did, at least for me. I have no trouble at all running OFF:BH&H and HitR expansion. Plus all of the newest drivers are being written for Windows 7 as well, so it has better support for newer hardware. Hellshade

Outstanding news James! Well, except for the part about being blown out of the sky...but you'll get used to that after awhile. Those Huns really can sneak up on you. I'll give you my personal "golden rule" about WWI air combat. You are most likely to die when you think you are the hunter, but really you are just the prey. Check your 6 like you're checking your watch waiting for a hot date to show up. Every few seconds. Sooner or later, when you least expect them they will be there. Hellshade

For what it's worth, my opinion is the difference between OFF and games like CoD or even Wings of Prey is the emotional investment. In CoD and Wings of Prey you are given a mission to complete and your goal is to complete the mission. No matter how good the story and graphics might be, you don't get to make any choices outside of the mission they've given you. Enemies will appear at certain points and your job is to figure out how to kill them. Everytime you die, *poof* you start over again with the same exact scenerio until you unlock the strategy that gets you past it. No personal growth of your on-screen avatar and no real penalty. You don't die in Call of Duty. You Reload your last saved game. Basically, you've got nothing to lose. In Over Flanders Fields, you create your pilot in your imagination first, give him a name, choose the county he flies for, choose fighters or bombers, choose the squadron he flies in and even what time frame in the war he will start his career. Before you ever get your first mission in OFF, you are more emotionally invested in your on-screen avatar than most other games ever let you become. In Call of Duty and Wings of Prey, they tell you who you are and what you are doing. You get to figure out how. In OFF, you choose everything except the mission...and then you can make a choice to disregard that if you wish and head off the flight plan to wherever you think you'll be needed most. If you make a kill, you don't even get automatic credit for it in OFF like you do in WoP and CoD. You have to prove you got it to the powers that be. And kills are hard in OFF. Because they are hard, when you make one, you feel like you've accomplished something. In CoD, if you havent made 20 kills in 30 seconds you are considered a terrible player. The easier something is to have, the less emotionally valuable it is to you. The harder you have to work for something, the more it means to you when you finally get it. So CoD gets your blood pumping and you all hyped up about making kills before being killed...but it isn't emotionally satisfying no matter how many you get because most of them come so easily and so often. In OFF, your blood starts pumpng when you see the dots in the sky and you realize that your squadron and theirs are probably going to end up in a dogfight that could cost you your characters life. You don't get to reload the last mission if you die. You're dead and have to create a new pilot. Everything you've worked for with that pilot is on the line every moment that you are in the air. So with OFF kills being harder to get and with dying having a real penalty that makes you feel like you've got something to lose, OFF is always going to offer a deeper, more emotionally fulfilling experience. That's not to say that WoP and CoD Black OPs arent fun. I own them both and they both are a trip to play. But eventually the same missions are going to get stale. With OFF, I can always start a new pilot in a new type of plane in a different time period of the war and get all new challenges to face. To sum it up, I'll say what I've said before: In CoD you are simply trying to complete a mission. In OFF you are trying to fight and survive a war. The emotional difference is considerable. Hellshade

Rest in Peace friend. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/09/wwi.soldier.remains/index.html?hpt=C2 Hellshade

Well it looks like I'll have more time to devote to Over Flanders Fields. Worlds of Warcraft (an on-line MMORPG) that I have been playing since it came out in November of 2004 totally sucks after their latest 4.03 patch. They "nerfed" (significantly reduced) the abilities of every class and most especially my beloved Paladin. Everyone was expecting a damage nerf to the classes before the new expansion came out (on December 7th), but they changed the gameplay mechanics of Pallys so much that now that I no longer find them fun or interesting to play. The best part about a Paladin has been the ability to solo dungeons your own level that were designed to require 4 to 5 players working together to beat. That's definately all gone now. After logging in tonight, downloading the patch and playing my Pally for about 20 minutes, I'm literally depressed. All the time and effort gearing up has gone to waste. After reading the patch notes on all of the classes, none of my other "toons" look appealing either. I have several level 80 characters ("toons") all of whom are geared up with some of the better gear in the game which takes a lot of time and energy to acquire. (For any WoW fans, every one of them had at least a 5k gearscore except one who was working his way up there and had a 4.5k gearscore.) 80 Death Knight, 80 Hunter, 80 Warlock and 2 level 80 Paladins, not to mention a slew of other characters at various levels. They sucked the fun right out of the game and I already pre-paid for the expansion, damn it! There have been times I quite playing for a bit because I needed a break, but this is the first time I've ever just plain quit because the gameplay is literally no longer fun. I was really looking forward to the expansion but now I can't even think of a reason to install it once it arrives. So here's a salute to the characters I championed through every kind of trial and tribulation over the last several years. Thanks for all of the great memories. May you all rest in peace. Hellshade

I just spent a long weekend playing Rift: Planes of Telara Beta (even though I was sick and felt like crap). In my opinion, the game is everything the developers have been promising that it would be. Not a single server crash during beta. Massive character customization. No two characters will likely ever look the same (unlike WoW) and as far as class customization, you can make just about anything you can imagine in a fantasy type world. It's still a few months away from release and I'm sure they will do one or two more Beta events before then. If you are interested in fantasy style MMOs, I highly recommend applying for a Beta key. http://www.riftgame.com/en/ Even if you normally prefer single player RPGs, watch the video and see what you think. After having played it, I can honestly say it isn't hype. It has high production values and the Devs remind me of the Devs in a certain favorite flying sim. Highly responsive to feedback. Hellshade

I found my new MMO...it's fantastic and it's still in Beta! Rift: Planes of Telara rocks. Can't say much because of the NDA but I figure I can say stuff the Devs already put out. #1 Awesome graphics and animation #2 Huge amount of character customization. Far, far more than WoW has ever had. #3 You fight interesting monsters right away, even in the noobie zone. No damn rats! #4 just plain damn fun and exciting. #5 Responsive developer. They've been taking in game feedback for only about 7 hours and already decided to close down the servers for 20 minutes to patch a few of the most common complaints (there aren't many) #6 The most common theme of chat from people is "I can't believe this is Beta. It's so polished!" Beta closes on Monday. /sigh. It's going to be a long weekend of "Rift closing". Developer video. check it out http://www.ign.com/videos/2010/12/02/rift-enter-the-rift-video?objectid=14347517 Hellshade

Lucky day for me. I got a Beta invite to play Rift: Planes of Telara. From the screenshots and videos, it looks like it could be a fun MMO. http://www.riftgame.com/en/ Open Beta starts Friday. Hellshade

DirectX 11 demo video DirectX 10 vs DirectX 11 comparison video Hellshade

I have to say I have zero complaints about Windows 7 x64. It never crashes on me. I haven't had an update break anything and it runs so much smoother and more efficiently than Vista ever did. I'd take 7 even over the tried and true XP any day, hands down. If you are going to have total memory addresses above 4GB (including your video card memory), then you're going to need a 64 bit version of Windows to use it efficiently. A 32 bit OS has a logical 4GB address limit. You can use XP 64 but if you think about it, all of the new driver updates will be for Windows 7. Hellshade

I'd ask for Directx 11 support for P4, but I'm afraid of being banned from the forum by the Devs. Hellshade

Well my GTX 280 is starting to show it's age a little bit so after reading a bunch of reviews (and previews of the ATIs next card) I decided to bite the bullet and order an overclocked GTX 580, which is supposedly the fastest single GPU card on the market. It's faster (by about 20%), cooler and quieter than the GTX 480 (and that was the fastest card on the market before this came out) so I figure it should really make OFF fly even on the highest settings. I was looking at possibly getting the new ATI card when it ships sometime next month, but even ATI isn't saying that it'll be faster than the GTX 580. Just that it will be 30% to 50% faster than their previous generation GPU. Hopefully it turns out to be a great choice. It's on next day shipping but with the holiday season starting who knows when I'll get it. I'll let you all know how it does when I get it. This is the link to the overclocked version that I ordered. http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6942892&CatId=3669 Hellshade

Whoot! According to the CompUSA website, my card is in stock and ships today! http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6942892&CatId=3669 Now lets hope it's not somehow defective. I hate mail order returns. Hellshade

When we are all in a snowball fight in a highly unlikely place... Hellshade

I highly recommend (if people can afford it) the Pro version of TrackIR which is able to clip onto the side of a pair of headphones. Works great and you don't have to wear a hat like the normal version recommends. But obviously that presumes you are wearing headphones and not using regular speakers. I too hope they continue to develop and improve the FaceTrackNoIR. The more people that can play OFF with "TrackIR-like" efficency, the better. Hellshade

I still maintain that the #1 feature I would like to see is the ability to warp with enemy aircraft as close as 2 miles instead of 4. I think the #2 feature would be the ability to take a few more hits before you begin to lose some control of your plane. As it is right now, it seems like the first bullet to hit my plane nearly always is a cable that impacts a rudder or elevator. I can certainly see that happening sometimes, but I think currently it happens a bit too often. Hellshade