Venator

Umm, pretty sure you need to install the game on a new machine. RoF installs to a windows program folder, so it does have registry settings. You can install, then copy over your updated RoF folder from the old install. If it ends up you can simply drag it over to a new install, then let us know, and I'll eat virtual crow.

As mentioned in the other post, polls such as "which is the best" mostly only serve to create deeper divisions between entrenched sim-camps. I own the 3 titles that are in the lead, and honestly enjoy them all for different reasons. Personal taste will always enter into debate, and that's fine, but polls such as this are nothing but mental masturbation (no emoticon for that one!).

Dagger, I did not notice that you were a moderator here when I questioned the direction of the thread (and unfortunately used 'diatribe') and for that I apologize. At one time or another we've all read between the lines. It is rather curious, and unfortunate, that these 'camps' have developed surrounding the various WWI sims. "The sim I support is the best, your sim sucks so you must as well!" You see it all in every single forum, this defensive lashing out against dissenting opinions. As mentioned, we WWI simmers certainly must be a small group, especially when compared to other games/genres, and should instead be working to the benefit of all. Maybe this would make a more interesting article, although much tougher to write... maybe I'm just naive or idealistic... In my post I discussed my personal experiences and opinions with several of the more recent offerings. My personal perspective is unique (it has to be by definition), and what I appreciate/want is different than someone else. I've honestly enjoyed all of them for one reason or another simply because I love WWI simming. In the end all of them become somewhat repetitive and can be boring, so it is good to move on to one of my backup titles even if only briefly. Then I remember what I loved about them. So far for me RoF has shown itself to be less prone to boredom perhaps because the aircraft are so unique in their handling characteristics. I take a new aircraft on to study, start up a new campaign with Pat's generator which is admittedly still a work in progress, but does a good job thus far. I truly hope that the new official single player campaign will make a wonderful difference and attract more people to the sim. There is so much potential with a new game engine that is so very well coded.

I'm curious. The OP says a review of all WWI sims, yet the title of the thread is specific about RoF, and specifically mentions RoF (and no others) in the body of the post. I can certainly see why 777 responded, it looks to be an "odd" post to me and has certainly gone in a different direction than where I assumed it was meant to go. If I may ask, is this a personal review or has it been "commissioned" by a host? Back to the OP, if you are truly soliciting opinions and not a personal diatribe. I flew Red Baron back in early 90's (was it that long ago?) but missed out on the golden era while in grad school (probably wouldn't have gotten my PhD otherwise). I got back into WWI sims with First Eagles which by all accounts is a fine sim-lite. If you want quick no nonsense action this is the one for you, but not in an arcadish way either, it has very nice scaleable player features. Runs well on almost all systems, has a good flight model with stalls and spins, looks good on higher end rigs with some of the 3rd party mods which are great (I believe the most types of aircraft available in ANY WWI sim) from a solid 3rd party community. Yes, since OFF and RoF came out TK likely sees FE as a loosing interest, but he still supports it. The sim was meant to modded, is relatively simple to mod, and that is its greatest attraction IMHO. You can make it look and behave how you want it to, no begging devs -- do it yourself! OFF: I started with OFF2 and then OFF3 as well as HiTR. Yes, it has a very detailed campaign system, and the front is 'alive', yet when you see your wingmates go in for a flaming Burton they show back up next mission. I have an aging (going on 5 years now) PCI-e quad core system with some upgrades, but back when OFF3 came out it was still very powerful. I could never get OFF3 to run at its best (though mostly 3 and 4 on sliders), and forget HiTR which was a slide show when more than 10 planes were in the air towards the end of the war. The sim flight engine is a one-core wonder. I should have asked for my money back, but I didn't because the devs tried to help and they seem like an sincere bunch of guys with an honest mission. I had some fun with it, the aircraft and sound is very fine but the flight model is limited by CFS3 (AH! There's the rub!), stalls and spins are awkward at best. The sky has corners, the rivers and roads run straight make angled turns and go nowhere... Never felt that I was in an airplane, though it played very well down low with the trees and houses, which is a definite asset to any WWI sim. Unless CFS3 is abandoned this will always be its achilles heal, and there is rumour of alternatives. RoF: After my experience with OFF I took a big gamble by purchasing RoF ICE this summer. After a near heart-stopping initial issue where it would only run on one core on Win7 x64, I got it running on all 4 cores most grfx features maxed out. Remember, that's a 4 year old system I speak of. Up until patch 1.016 I was thoroughly enjoying a very immersive environment, with curvaceous rivers that look like rivers that glint in the sunlight, and except for some minor shimmer at the horizon when below say 1000 feet. I can navigate by the map only, now that's immersion! However, now that clouds throw shadows after 1.016 (which currently cannot be turned off AFAIK) performance has degraded. It appears to me that the quality of the texture draw distance has closed in also. Most people acknowledge these issues unless you have a monster rig. There are not enough plane types, but that improves little by little. I couldn't imagine what it was like to buy and fly this sim in the earliest days, I certainly avoided it. The DRM is not as intrusive as most make out. With Patrick Wilson's 3rd party campaign (which can be flown totally offline) you can have the skies filled with patrols, bombing runs, escorts, etc. I HAVE spent hours with RoF, it is not one-dimensional at all, but like any other sim it has pros and cons, though it pushes the envelop in many areas and these differences make up for it. The damage model is not perfect, but second to none. People nit pick about crashes (I have about propeller damage on other airplanes) but as mentioned, the world is a very complex place. There are a few other WWI sims but I have not tried them. I can't believe that they're trying to make a payware WWI expansion for IL2. The market seems saturated with good established titles, and the dev pics I've seen are, um, less than I expected.

Funny, I have exactly the opposite problem. OFF stutters constantly like a bad copy of a 35mm film for me, yet my 4 year old quad core system (with XFX 4870 1 GB upgrade) runs RoF all on high (including high shadows) except medium terrain texture, and thats just to keep fps maxed. In truth, I can't see much difference b/t high RoF terrain texture and medium. A well coded core engine and quad core makes a huge difference. Once the new campaign mode comes out, and with a few more plane updates, RoF will be hard to match for overall WWI sim experience. There will be little to compare.

Grim Viper started a long thread of FE2 bugs at 3rdWire LINK He mentions that a/c are unable to spin currently, is this so? I'm on the fence about upgrading and have not yet.

Stary has also provided some code tweaks over at 3rdwire forum. It also helps with building shimmer and trees fading into the distance. Should be worth a look... Like the earlier poster, I also noticed that water is not animated anymore. Anyone have an idea of where to look for this yet?

Well, shouldn't one simply be able to extract the necessary SE5a files from FEG and install them in the mod folder of FE2? Or is the Aldis hard coded? Helmut, I did not see your bug post at 3rd wire, have you asked TK about it?

Great job Jan on the original, and Pauld895 for fixing the tree shimmer! This mod to the terrainDATA.INI is the kind of thing that will unfortunately get buried in a few days, and what a shame it will be for others coming behind us. I would say Pauld895 should add this simple adjustment to the "tweaks sticky thread", and/or it should be added to the original download for everyone's enjoyment.

Please let us know after the weekend.

Only if it stays a float, or off-the-ground so to speak. Couldn't resist...

The stuff left behind after a bird strike is called 'snerg' (not to be confused with the Urban Dictionary definition). A woman at the museum where I work ID's bird strikes for the FAA, her name? Have to check out the link ...

I wouldn't worry about it UKW, it is precisely this kind of "informal review" that needs to get out to the sim communities. When I saw the price and the game promo (wow!) I came pretty close to picking it up (I've been beating myself for passing on $20 RoF sale now that I heard they're dropping online req'm). Siggi, good luck and need I ask to report back on developments?

Apparently DRM for RoF is going to be a thing of the past... see latest dev news.

Is the demo of RoF worth the try, or a waste of time? Some demos are so hamstrung that they are actually bad advertising. Looking at the latest dev news, the online connection req'm is going to disappear for SP mode. I figured I was going to regret passing on the $20 sale, though I expect more sales to come I suppose. Meanwhile there are all the other WWI offerings!

If near the front and disabled do you think any pilot would try to fly all the way back to home base and risk an encounter with a dud engine? Find an aerodrome near by (the targeting 'scope' shows airfields as well, hit 'T'...) or simply locate an open farmer's field, preferably one with the farmer's daughter near by to "rescue" a brave pilote, and attempt an emergency landing. They aren't easy and it adds to the fun, seriously. There are lots of things to do like this to increase your immersion, try to think outside the box.

AFAIK, "Wait for vertical refresh" should be always 'on', unless you're running a CRT monitor... Catalyst Control is OK, but ATI Tray Tools (shareware) provides more flexibility (if you weren't already confused) and the ability to have GPU specific profiles for each sim that automatically configure when the .exe is initialized. This is in case you move between new sims but can really push the envelope with old sims.

Nothing derogatory meant here, it is a matter of personal taste of course, but I prefer the original BHAH title opening page artwork rather than the HITR opening screen that pictures the Nieuport (I do LOVE the parked SE5 screen though, nice job). I still have original BHAH (Pre-HITR) backed up and would like to replace this opening screen for the old one. So I went looking for the location of the HITR opening title screen and just can't find it! I located several splash screens though... Anyone?

What is your range of experience in WWI sims? I have to seriously disagree with you on this point. While I would agree some sims just offer lame AI, others are excellent, and OFF AI is also among those, but just different.

I had the entire config file disappear in the past as well, the reset did not work, but a kind soul passed along a zipped copy so I didn't have to re-install the entire game. Learning the hard way I now back it up everytime BEFORE patching or updating GPU driver. PM me and leave an email address and I'll pass the file along if you still need it.

I've had AI follow me down to the deck as I tried to escape in my wounded bus. They were pretty effective in the chase, but weren't dodging trees and such. When I managed to land the SOB strafed me. So much for esprit de corps! On the other hand, when with the advantage and AI go to the deck in a very wounded crate, they deliver a prolonged death display, almost comical in its extreme. They do have an unnatural ability to avoid the ground for as long as possible... Wish I could say the same

Assigning OFF to a cpu 1, TIR4 and my joystick profiler to cpu 2, and ALL other system and background processes to cpu 3 & 4 does help improve fps BUT does NOT help stutter (a very different problem). BTW I do NOT have antivirus/malware running. Clean Win7 x64 install on 4 x 2.66 GHz Xeons, 11 GB RAM, XFX 4870 1 GB. Barring a wacking great solid state drive to speed texture loading, I'm not sure how else my hardware can be improved without building a whole new machine (and I ain't doing that anytime soon! Too much invested already). My attempts at tweaking seem endless and frustrating. (Apologies for the self-indulgent windeging...). Although it would be much worse if I was alone in this...