von Baur

iPad-bike-bunny. Gun to my head, 13-5-2, although I might make a case for no bunny at all and split them or give them both to the iPad. The kids may not be able to read but how much reading is involved in Angry Birds and Ninja Fruit?

I'm putting together a gaming rig. I've already got the blah-blah stuff (case, power supply, a couple of disc drives) and I figure I can afford the guts (motherboard, cpu and memory) for a build timeframe of February 16, 17, 18 (an observed 3-day weekend where I work). I've got an idea how I want to go with it, but my big question is future video card readiness. I see that PCIe-16 curently comes in three flavors: 2.0, 2.1 and 3 and I've read that 3 has double the bandwidth of 2.x (a good thing). But I'm having trouble getting a handle on the physical, if any, difference(s) in the cards and/or motherboards. One of the things I read seems to indicate that a v2.1 motherboard can be upgraded to run v3 cards. Is that the case or is there something special about the cards' slots themselves? I'd be willing to invest a little more in a motherboard now and delay the video card(s) a bit in order to be sure that when I do that's all I'll need to get. Along the same lines, it seems that an APU's advantage over a CPU is limited to the former's ability to handle graphics without the need for a seperate video card, though not as well as a CPU with a video card. Am I on target with that or did I miss the boat (or maybe the whole fleet)? Bear in mind that I'm not...repeat, not...very tech-savvy. So please construct any responses somewhat like you're trying to explain advanced mathematics to a three-year old.

GP's. Just figured more RAM=better performance. If there'd be no significant increase between 16 and 32 I'll save the extra nickel. That is, until games advance to the point at which there is. And history teaches that, eventually, that will happen. But by then the extra 16GB will be significantly cheaper, too. Thanx for the info.

Kingston for $128 and ADATA for $156. Tale of the tape for both is identical: DDR3 Desktop speed 2133MHz size 2x8192MB My mainboard does support 2133MHz.

Thanx for the help, almccoyjr. One more question, though, and it's regarding memory. I've rather narrowed it down to two choices, virtually identical except for the price. Ultimately I'm going for 32G in four sticks and the difference is nine bucks per stick (and yes, $36.00 matters to me. That's nearly two days' worth of gas to drive back and forth to work.). The only performance difference (on the website) is the cheaper set's latency is 11ms while the more expensive is 10 and the timing is 9-9-9 and 10-11-11-30, respectively. First, I have no idea what the timing numbers mean, and second how significant is 1ms latency. Does that mean it's going to add one millisecond for every calculation required to create a frame or just one millisecond total for that frame?

Workshops...bottom half of the screen..."Other Options" at the bottom of the third column...you can choose between Unique Player Skins or Fuel and Bullet Loadout; you've chosen Skins, which nullifies the loadout option. I couldn't say where it shows up if it's enabled because I, too, choose the skins. If memory serves (and it may not) I think I remeber reading that WOFF will allow both.

Too true. And sometimes more fantastic.

Very true, Tom. And it was John Adams, lawyer and member of the Continental Congress and driving force behind American independance, who said, "One useless man is a disgrace, two useless men are a law firm, and three or more are a congress."

That didn't surprise me, so much, Widowmaker. After all, cyncism is optimism that's had one too many disappointments. So inside any cynic there's an optimist hoping (because that's what optimists do..it is, in fact, what makes them optimists in the first place: they never give up hope completely, no matter what they tell the world) to get out. You only have to listen to the last part of his "Baseball vs. Football" routine to see that. The only part that sounded un-Carlin to me was the "pray too seldom", given his very well-known view of organized religions.

I always liked Carlin.

DAMMIT!! I had when Hell freezes over in the pool. I was off by one day!!!!

I just had a chilling thought: What if they've decided to mark the centennial as the release date?

Peace, love and happiness to all. My son arrived home on Christmas leave yesterday afternoon. Santa's gonna have to dig deep to top that. In fact, if you're reading this Mr. Claus, don't even bother. Spend your time and energy on others. MERRY CHRISTMAS

http://simviation.co...e-Military-57-5 Third plane down. Enjoy.

I didn't vote because you asked for the oldest and the youngest. I figured I'd fall somewhere in-between those two before I even opened the thread and saw there was a poll and I've since been proven correct. Perhaps you could ammend your question to include average and mean ages, thus giving sticklers like me justification to join the fun. What's funny to me is how people chimed in even after it had been established that they were neither. *edit* to Hood. I fly FSX as well. More since I downloaded the OV-10a Bronco. It's a lot of fun. I rode in one back in '75 when I was in the Air Force. They're fast but can stay in the air at about 80 knots, maneuverable, and excellent visibility. As they said on the commercial many years ago, "Try-y-y-yy it. You'll li-i-i-i-ike it."

I think your basic screen ratio may be off, Hellshade. On a 16:9 monitor the correct setting would be 1920x1080. Mathematically, you would take 1920 and divide it by 16 (the width) for a result of 120, then multiply that times 9 (the height) for a result of 1080. Or you could do it the hard way, as I did: open up a paint window, draw a perfect circle using the legend as confirmatio. Mark a piece of paper with the height or width and adjust your settings until the other direction matches it perfectly.

"Who put the hay bales on the airfield?!?" or: "That's what happens when they make an ex-cavalryman the CO!!"

For what it's worth, that's what happened in my first marriage. I gave up nearly everything else in my life that meant anything to me at the time to save it but it was for naught. It took nearly ten years and a LOT of water under a LOT of bridges, but I found the woman who was truly my match and we have a son who's progressing nicely in the Army with one tour in Afghanistan under his belt. Sadly, I lost her to a stroke nearly two years ago, but she kept her promise to give me the rest of her life. Know that this woman was NOT your match and the right one is out there and you will meet her. Keep your spirit and your wheels up.

96 years ago today the fighting ended in The Great War. Most nations that still mark this day on their calendars do so as a remembrance of that and of the suffering in the four years of industrialized warfare that preceeded it. We in the USA have made it a day to honor all veterans of military service, whether or not they fought or even were members during a time of combat operations. My father flew B-17's and B-24's in a squadron that trained the radar bombardiers and one pre-raid radar recon mission over Germany during WWII and my son has one tour in Afghanistan under his belt so far. to veterans everywhere, in every country, but especially to those who've faced the ultimate test of honor and courage.

Kudos, and an excellent find. Your collection is the envy of us all, I daresay. A shame about the haphazard numbering system, though. It would obviously be outstanding to be able to put a name with it.

In all fairness, the Germans held the high ground, meaning the British (Aussies) could dig nearly horizontally, or at least at a shallower angle, and still wind up below German trenches. The Germans had to dig much further down to get low enough, resulting in a greater actual distance covered and a generally more difficult dig.

Is that throughout the city, Olham? I'd heard that West Berlin was cleaned up and repaired after the war but that the Soviets left most of the damage in the east as kind of a message. Ya gotta be careful where ya park things. It did, however, lead to the popular cable program "Bait Jet".

At least it happened after they'd landed safely at their destination. Imagine how upset they'd have gotten if it had been before they took off!

Your point about the 'average' online player is taken, BH, but I don't think it applies to our community. The type to which you refer can generally, maybe almost exclusively, be found flying high-powered jets or even X-Wing fighters (if they bother with a flying game at all) where, as you say, energy management is a foreign language and the weapons systems do more real targeting than the player/pilot. Games like OFF/WOFF require...require...more skill, more patience, more dedication than that. The average phd might log onto a server but after finding out how badly he sucks and how hard it's going to be to get good he'll likely give up and leave (after possibly dousing the area with expletives) never to return. Or stay and learn and become the next quality wingman. Or opponent. I started online toward the end of Red Baron's glory and remember the Thursday night tournaments (sadly they folded just about when I felt I was getting good enough to try my luck), but that's pretty much what happened in RB. Then, of course, came the hackers and the fm wars and that was that. But I moved on to Richtofen's Skies, where it was difficult enough just to get the plane off the ground that many gave up over that alone. Now OFF has arrived and its followers are as committed as RB's and RS's ever were. I flew in the first three or four 'Vasco's Volunteers' events (and each event was several weeks long). We were a very dedicated group, many of whom would fly the events with TAC and labels off to heighten the realism. The point is that the quality and difficulty of the game will eliminate the weak or unworthy. And the graciousness and generosity of the core players will teach those who really want to learn and will raise their skills to that of the veterans. But only if the online play can support it. You can't train an Olympic athlete on balsa wood parallel bars. (Devs and moderator, please note here that I refer only to the weakness of the online experience, not OFF itself. Overall, this IS the best WWI sim yet and I eagerly await your next offering.)

I've tried FaceTrackNoIR and could never get the accuracy or response that I do with TrackIR and I have a 16-9, 1080 webcam. That said, I bought my TIR Pro3 w/Vector back when they were the best thing out there (2005 or thereabouts) and it still works very well, so don't feel like you have to shell out the big $$$ for Track IR5. Check ebay for a used 4 or even 3 in good condition and you'll be quite pleased. To your original question, I agree with Hauksbee...scout the area on your side of the lines north and south of your field (east and west where that applies) during solo flights in QC mode and note the major landmarks like river and road layouts. That way you just have to keep your general position in mind and if you get terribly disoriented head straight across the lines and once there make the appropriate turn to get you on your way. Then it's just a matter of flying until things look familiar. Paper maps work well enough, but the one complaint I've always had against OFF is that their landscape doesn't match reality accurately to the point of making precisely locating your position with a real-world based map difficult at best (though they, too, can usually get you 'in the neighborhood') and their in-game maps are basically CFS3 maps which, IMO, suck. Fortunately, the rumor is that WOFF will correct both of those deficiencies. Happy flying!