Test Pilot

Those arent the Rumplers still fighting in 1918 are they???

You can't get carp with that one!

Im using a Saitek evo force forcefeedback joystick, and my hat switch stopped working in the virtual cockpit. I had this problem in phase 2 as well, but had not had any issues till today in phase 3. The hat switch still works when viewing from outside the plane and as well in button calibration accessed in game despite have stopped in the VC. It will work when starting a flight but then stop after a few uses of the hat switch. Any one else have this problem or know how to correct this? Id assume it was a joystick driver issue except for the fact that in external views the hat switch still works fine and dandy...

Saitek throttle quad and rudder pedals. Ill see what some of the throttle keys are assigned at, but good to know the padlock was seemingly the issue.

You know what, you may just have figured it out. The padlock button on the joystick by default is on the base somehow Im hitting it apparently or maybe the joystick wants to randomly switch the button on its own... Nothing a deleted key command wont solve even if the latter.. hopefully at least! Thanks for the quick (and I do mean quick; Im posting while flying and getting help - truly amazing support)!

Just went flying in a Spad XIII (which is the plane I have flown most all of the time since running P3) and no issues with hat switch. However, went back to a Nieuport 11 (which is the plane I just noticed the hat switch not working) and alas, the hat switch doesnt work. Guess it's an issue I have with specific planes.... How do I go about reseting CFS3? You mean a complete uninstall of anything related on my system to CFS? Edit: not just a specific plane problem I guess.... stopped in the Spad too now

This is just a pure curiosity post and not a request in any way, shape, or form, but I was wondering as to whether or not there were plans to add some of the earlier model planes such as the French Parasol and the like to fill in some of the early squadrons?

Here is some info: http://pond.dnr.cornell.edu/nyfish/Cyprini...yhead_chub.html

The first thing I look for when telling a carp from a buffalo is for barbels. Buffalo look a heck of a lot like carp, but carp have barbels while buffalo don't. Curiously, despite their near mirror image, they arent considered too closely related as buffalo are members of the sucker family (with obviously suckers, redhorse, quilback etc) while carp are in the minnow family along with chubs. Just caught a huge horneyhead chub last night and will be going out for more today! Ive actually taken to rough fish more so than "sport" fish of late (except pike of course!). And of course always catch and release, barbless

If the lag you are getting is what seems to be stuttering, try limiting the framerates. Hit Z to see where your average is about at and set it at a level below that by a comfortable margin. As low as 15fps could be smooth enough to use. The to actually edit them, go to the program file directory for OFF and then to the default folder and then open config file (I think!?) by using a text editor like notepad. It probably will be a bit jumbled, but read through it till you find something like FPS. If it is currently 0 that means it is set to unlimited frames so just replace that with your desired frame rate (eg. 30). Limiting the frames really helped me out and made my flights much smoother. But once you get some cash, go and get Phase 3 As good as phase 2 is, 3 is far and away better and way more immersive. It even seemed to run a bit faster than 2 for me as well. Plus, Uncleal wont be so grumpy towards you once you join us phase 3ers!!!!

I plan on reinstalling Vista soon and was wondering if instead of having to reinstall CFS (I only have the CD version) can I just copy CFS's installed folder to a temporary location after the OS reinstall and have OFF find the files it needs that way? Itd be kind of nice to keep the new hard drive as clean as possible....

Haha! That sounds all too familiar to me......

Thanks for the help! Finally found the file to limit the frames and now got it set to 30. That takes away most all of them, even while running 16xS combined anti aliasing on the video card. So much better now :)

Thanks Birddog! Guess I thought the window button there wasn't anything other than a description of the window. Must remember to use my mouse!!! I dont have my computer with OFF in front of me, but is there a way to limit FPS or do I have to use a 3rd party app such as the frame rate limiter? Im getting an occasional stutter despite constant FPS in the upper 50s largely regardless of my main graphic settings and I think my best bet for getting rid of these is just to smooth out my frames down to 30. At least that was the cure in FSX and hopefully here too!

Where do I open these other windows up for the parameter editor?

The faster he gets phase 2 running the faster he will want to get phase 3. And then the faster us all get phase 4 (not for a couple years though - got to get my fill of phase 3 yet!)

Yeah good choice on the barbless hook at least! That's one of the reasons I only use barbless ones. Along with making it easier on the fish to release him. Keep tension on the line and a good hook set mean you wont ever lose a fish due to it not having a barb on the hook! You survive all those combat missions only to get wounded while on leave... CO will not be pleased at all!

And by finally, I mean it took all of 4 days (including a Sunday!) for OFF3 to arrive after ordering it. Now, any suggestions for whom/what/when/ to fly???

I don't think that shade of green had been invented yet....

Yes, it is a very nice and useful guide!

I just got a 22 inch monitor and was flying OFF2 at the native resolution of 1680x1050. The game was impossible to play as frames were around 1.5. After setting the resolution to 1280x800, I was able to once again get flyable frame rates. Certainly a bigger monitor would increase the load on my GPU, but no way would I get just 1.5 only to get mid 30s at a slightly lower resolution. Is this a known issue with the game or do I have a problem on my end???? Regular CFS runs fine as does FSX at the native resolution of the monitor so Im doubting it would be an issue on my end (at least not all my fault!). If it is a bug, can I run Phase 3 at my native resolution? Using Vista 64 with 5gb of ram and a 9800gtx+ 512mb video card.

Well in case anyone else has the same sort of stuff going on, it seems I had some conflict with my nhancer settings. A reinstall of it seemed to fix every thing in OFF and now runs much, much better.

Faster processor is always nice, but Im never going less than a quad core since they are getting faster and cheaper now. I can say for certain though that Flight Simulator X uses all cores you got, provided you have SP2. For all the heat that ACES has taken for coding the game the way they did, their multiple processor support (up to 256 or so) makes it one of the few programs that even now utilizes all of them - not to mention very little memory leaking. OFF isn't designed to use them all, but I will say that I see spikes in CPU usage from the other 3 cores when flying OFF so a quad at the very least takes some pressure off the other processor for background tasks (and maybe even some in-game processing/texture work). I can run virus scan, defrag in the background or anything else (with Vista 64) and not see much of a performance hit if at all. So even if a program doesn't use all cores itself, other programs still can operate without impacting the game. Unless of course I have a freak computer, and perhaps upgrading isn't a great idea then..... More likely though, I m just confused about what Im saying!

Not sure how much this would matter (more so if you have a smaller case and are concerned about heat) but the ATI card will run up to 25 degrees C warmer than the 9800 as a result of higher power consumption according to a couple tests.

I thought the 4870 was shorter than the 9800? I'd say the performance gain, especially considering the price difference, is marginal. I for one wouldn't be cutting away at the video card as it is one of the more common things to go wrong in a system and that would void the warranty I'm sure. But then again, I'm scared to overclock my card even though it came with overclocking software!