Hellshade

Before I had Duo Core 2 @ 3.16 Ghz Nvidia 680i chipset motherboard 3GB DDR2 800 RAM 650 watt P/S Vista 32 bit 160GB SATA hard drive GTX280 1GB Video card (from EVGA) It ran good. Even very good. But now it's basically all flawless. The 4GB memory limit bothered me with Vista 32 bit and even though the Nvidia 680i MB is supposed to be easily able to overclock the Duo Core 2 cpus, I must have gotten a dud because every time I tried the system froze up, even when I used the auto tune software to do it. The i7 Core 920 was a breeze to OC. /salute Hellshade

I decided it was time to upgrade heavily, so I custom built myself a new rig to play OFF BHaH on (Ok, and I've finally started playing a little Oblivion again too). i7 920 Quad Core 2.66Ghz OC to 3.8 GHz PT6 Motherboard 6 GB DDR3 RAM (Corsair XMS) Vista 64 bit 850 watt P/S 1 TB SATA hard drive 7200RPM (not 10k) New Armor Mid Tower black case Zalman CPU cooling fan (keeps it at 46c under heavy load even OCd) and reused my 28" I-INC widescreen monitor GTX280 1GB video card (OCd to 675 Mhz Core and 1352 Mhz GDDR3 RAM) TrackIR 4 Saitek II keyboard (lights up the keys so I can see them at night when the wife is in bed sleeping and I'm still trying to win WWI) Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick crappy little logitech mouse The Results: OFF looks and plays beautiful, smooth as glass with 12 planes or more on the screen even over an airfield! Not a stutter anywhere even at 1680 x 1050 and everything on 5. But a great rig does not make a great pilot!!! The bosche were not impressed and gunned my arse down without hesitation. Apparently Winder programmed them to "Fear No Gear". LOL Seriously though, what a beautiful game Devs. You should be proud. I literally sometimes like to fly freeflight and just look around at the world. Simply breathtaking. Thanks for the endless hours of fun. It's gotta be the best $50 I spent on a single player game since Diablo. Maybe Oblivion. Keep up the great work because I am ready to buy whatever expansion you put out. It's just amazing how satisfying this game is on so many levels. /salute Hellshade

No problem. Once I get in the cockpit of that N-24, I'll put plenty of little german crosses right down the side of my plane. Ha ha. :) J/K /salute Hellshade

I actually witnessed an EA I shot down do exactly the kind of physics defying manuevers you are talking about Winder. It only happened once. I circled it for nearly 3 minutes watching it spin uncontrollably horizontally and even gain altitude. I was pretty funny to watch. It was on fire and smoking heavily too, so it was easy to keep track of. It never crashed. I eventually just ended the flight. Anyways, sounds like a perfectly reasonably explanation for why you chose to handle it the way you did. /salute Hellshade

It's the big "This way to the Bad Guys" sign for those pilots new to the war... /salute Hellshade

I'm the kind of hunter that sees the enemy, sends in the wingman and circles wide to try and find a lone EA a bit outside the furball to engage. When they (Enemy Aircraft) are working in pairs or are in general close proximity to one another, it's too easy to pick up someone on your six while you are target fixated, even for 10 seconds, on his friend. So I'd rather go home with 1 kill to submit than go down in flames with 2 or 3 kills that I won't live to toast to my wingmen about that evening. That said, once the battle has begun, sometimes your prey leads you right back into his friends. Chasing a wounded Alb back into a hornets nest of his very angry friends in hopes of finishing him off isn't wise, but does happen. There is one interesting thing I noticed that happens though. When I shoot enough holes into someone and I know they will eventually crash (burning engine, long slow descent trailing smoke, etc) I know in real life I would probably have mercy on them and not "finish them off", but in the flight sim I tend to put a few extra rounds into them to make sure they go down. Apparently I'm a bit more blood-thirsty as long as it's only "virtual" blood. In real life, I'd look over the side of my plane and see how far down they have to fall and, imagining the terror that must be in the EA pilots heart, leave him to save himself as best he can instead of absolutely sealing his fate. Then again, if I'd just watched one of my own real wingman go down in flames, I might feel differently and do exactly as I do in the flight sim. /salute Hellshade

Of possible interest to all of us WWI buffs: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/05/04...aves/index.html /salute Hellshade

I had the sam exact problem. Feels like your fighting in WWI with a violent case of the hic-ups. I went back to V4 also. Still, once they get the bugs worked out, the interface really looks great. /salute Hellshade

Ever since I got OFF BHaH, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day anymore. And of the 24 I get, some of those have to be spent working, sleeping, spending time with the family, etc. To make matters worse, every patch OBD releases just seems to make this problem get worse instead of better. I've noticed I've come down with a medical condition because of BHaH too. I call it "The just one more Quick Combat / Mission" syndrome. It's starts about 10pm every night when I should be going to bed and seems to last for hours. I'm pretty sure it's incurable, but with treatment I may be able to find a way to co-exist with my condition. Maybe I should look for other "survivors" of the condition and start a group therapy session. /salute Hellshade

I tried it at 1920 x 1200 before and it would occassionally (not all the time) get stutter, usually over large forests or airfields with FPS locked at 30. I raised the GPU Core and Memory speeds and now nothing slows me down. I have the same E8500 3.16 Ghz CPU you do. So we probably have the same type of system RAM also (3GB of DDR2 800). Just something for folks to try before they invest big $$ in a new motherboard and CPU if they aren't already getting the performance they want out of the game. /salute Hellshade

So I've been messing with my system trying to get the most out of it in OFF BHaH (who hasn't?). I read an article that said for most modern games, anything over 2.2 Ghz on the CPU speed starts to have diminishing returns. It said after that, the bottleneck in modern 3D games is usually in the GPU. The three parts that matter are the interface (PCI express (x16, x8, x1), AGP or PCI) the GPU Core speed and the GPUs Memory speed. Whatever interface you are using is what you're stuck with unless you change out your motherboard. But the GPU Core speed and GPU Memory speed are easily increased. On Nvidia cards, just download the NTune software from Nvidia http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html and start slowly raising the GPU Core and GPU Memory speeds. Bump them up a bit then play some intense 3D games for 20 - 30 minutes and go back and check the GPU temp. If the game runs stable and the temp stays within your cards safe temp range, bump them up again until you are getting the perfomance you want within the temp range specs. I raised my GTX280 from Core = 602Mhz, Memory = 1107 Mhz to Core = 665 Mhz and Memory = 1305 Mhz. It's been running stable with temps at full load of 72 C degrees or less. Hovers at 60 C idle. According to Nvidia documentation, GTX 280s are designed to run safely at up to 105 C before it auto backs down the speed to cool the core if the fans can't automatically do it. The difference in the game? I'm now running 1920 x 1200 16Qx AA with Maximum Ground scenery with all sliders on 4 except for Effects which is on 5 and I don't get a stutter or slow down no matter how many planes are on the screen or how many trees or other ground scenery! It's just so super smooth it's unbelievable! (new drivers helped a bit too). Before I changed the settings I was getting some stutter at 1680 x 1050, 8Qx, AA with medium scenery amount if too many planes were on the screen. So...if you want to give it a try and have an NVidia card (I'm sure ATI has their own Core and Memory adjustment software tools), you might just be able to upgrade your already awesome experience in OFF BHaH without spending a dime. /salute Hellshade 3.2 Ghz Duo Core 2, 3GB DDR2 800 RAM, GTX280 1 GB, Vista 32 bit, 28" monitor.

I've seen that a few times myself. Quite odd. So to stop that from happening, if I see an explosion I keep on shooting as long as possible. Sometimes you just have to be sure you got em. /salute Hellshade

ohhh. Then it would seem that it is possible to set the explosions so they do damage to various parts of the aircraft. It's not so much that I "get off" on seeing parts exploding as it is that I think it just seems odd an aircraft "explodes" but then it falls to earth completely intact. I would think if you hit the fuel tank and it explodes, the plane would break apart in some fashion or at least catch fire to the canvas and wood frame and send it down burning. But yes, it would make for some pretty killer videos too, wouldn't it? /salute Hellshade

Ok well that makes sense for why it would sometimes explode instead of just burning. But it still leads to the fairly jarring sight of an aircraft exploding and then falling to earth looking perfectly intact. I'm wondering if there is a way that when an aircraft explodes there is a way to show actual damage to the aircraft? Perhaps some wings could come off? I certainly have no idea how the Damage Model system works and since there are two official DMs (did I mention the Devs rock?) that certainly makes things trickier. But is there a way that explosions could generate a certain amount of damage to various parts of the plane, thus causing them to show rips, tears or even lose wings? I think it would add tremendously to the immersion if this were possible to incorporate. Polovski, I'll put the effects slider to 5 to see what that does. What do you think about the idea of explosions assigning a certain amount of damage to various parts of the plane? Is that feasible? /salute Hellshade

Yes, Winder slipped the pandemic flu into patch 1.30c (the "c" is for coughing, congestion, etc) without mentioning it in the release notes. It's a suprise ment to bring the immersion level higher. Let's just hope that they don't decide to put in the stock market crash of the 1920s too. /salute Hellshade

Has anyone else noticed that sometimes when you hammer away at an Enemy Aircraft particularly hard, you apparently hit the fuel tank because it suddenly explodes in the air? That's really cool, but it's a little jarring that after it explodes the plane itself doesn't usually catch on fire. It generally drops from the sky, yes. But shouldn't it catch on fire and go down burning? If it's supposed to be like that, does anyone know why? If it's just a glitch, hopefully it will get tossed onto the list for things the Devs plan to address in the future. And yes, I'm nit picking here but I've seen that happen several times so I wondered what was the story. For what it's worth I run with everything, including Effects, on 4 so I do see flaming aircraft from time to time. Just NEVER one that just exploded. /salute Hellshade

I have to agree as well. I play BHaH 95% of the time. Lord of the Rings Online 5%. The rest of my games are just gathering dust. I'd like to try Diablo III when it comes out, but I doubt it will hold my attention like OFF BHaH does. This WWI air combat flight sim is the most intense thing ever. It keeps me challenged and lets me have a blast no matter how I feel like playing it. And now that I have a huge new 28" monitor to play it on and am able to bump up the settings to 4-4-4-4-5-4 at 1680 x 1050 at 8xQ and fly at a smooth 31 FPS regardless of how much action or scenery is being rendered, it's blowing my mind all over again!! And yes, it has gotten better since it was released. 1.30c is an amazing patch. Best game I ever bought. Period. /salute Hellshade

That was the cure. Uninstalled the drivers. Used drive sweeper. Installed fresh drivers and now I am running at 4-4-4-4-5-4 with high ground density at 31 FPS and no stutter at all at 1680 x 1050! It looks simply amazing. I'll have to try it again at 1920 x 1200 and see if any stutter shows up then. Regardless, it looks just jaw droppingly beautiful and runs so smooth even with 10 aircraft on the screen and a ton of ground scenery. To me, smooth flight without the stutter is necessary to keep me immersed in the game. Gives me the real feeling of flight. Thanks Madmatt. Now OFF looks and plays better than I could have possibly imagined. /salute Hellshade

A little bit. 1920 x 1200 native resolution. But if I put it back to 1680 x 1050 it still looks fantastic, even at 8xQ. What I have noticed though is suddenly I have the occassional screen studder back. max FPS is still set to 30. Can only get rid of it completely by turning scenery down to 1, although it is certainly more than playable at 2 and 3. Just installed the newest Nvidia drivers, motherboard drivers (Nvidia 680i SLI chipset) and updated the bios. Not sure what I have to do to get rid of it. Running a Dual Core 2 Duo @ 3.16Ghz, 3 GB RAM, 1 GB GTX280, Vista 32 bit. I wonder how much upgrading to Vista 64 bit and adding another 2 - 3 GB of RAM would help. /salute Hellshade

Just for the heck of it, I put all of the sliders on 2 and you know what? BHaH still looks impressive! The planes still look great. Sure if you pause the action some of the details are a little more blurred, but while you are in the middle of white knuckle combat, they still look spectacular. The action runs smoother too. Nice work Devs. /salute Hellshade

I'm sure the medals could be improved...but until I have a pilot who actually earns more than 25 medals flying DiD style, I can't say it much matters to me. But since they have stated the will continue to improve P3, who knows? They may well put that on the list. My wish list leans more towards Gothas and HP 400s as well as Random Enemy Aircraft choice for QC so you never know what you'll fight next, or how many. But whatever they do, it will be well thought out, realistic and fun as hell. Just saw your post Paarma. You must have been putting it in as I was doing mine. To me, those look great. /salute Hellshade

That sounds like a great idea to me. /salute Hellshade

I have the Victoria Cross. My question is, after you get it, is it still possible to earn more medals of any kind? /salute Hellshade

I have a QC pilot who is most definately not flying DiD, and so far he's racked up 4 or 5 DFC and a Victoria Cross. It doesn't look like there is room for any more medals to be awarded. Can he still get them or is 5 or 6 the max number you can get? Just curious. /salute Hellshade

Oh I am definately keeping it. The one bad pixel is located in the far, upper right hand corner. Truth be told I hardly ever notice it unless I'm on a still screen with lots of black in that area (such as with the OFF spash screen). I don't see it at all when playing games. It may be an off brand, but apparently it's the same exact monitor as a Hanns-G which is the best 28" available on Newegg.com right now. I got it at CompUSA figuring if I didn't like it, I could always just bring it right back. Hard to say no at that point. I had a 22" Dell which was pretty good, but when I saw this I jumped at it. Glad I did. /salute Hellshade