Lothar of the Hill People

I spent hundreds of hours playing Wings on my various Amigas over the years. It was the source of my fascination with WW1 and the air war, and the only WW1 flight game I played until I found OFF. It even came with a book densely packed with info on pilots, planes, battles, etc. that's as good as any I've found. Amazing for its time (just like everything else Amiga), I still hear the music in my head when I fire up OFF. And I still vividly remember the characters, Colonel Farrah, Holy Joe, etc. If you want to give Wings a try via an Amiga emulator, and might be interested in other Amiga games, I highly recommend Amiga Forever, a commercial product that comes with licensed Amiga ROMs, which are not free. It comes with Wings and hundreds of other great Amiga games. The Value Edition's only $9.95 and would be enough to play Wings if you have the ADF from Cinemaware's site that Paarma linked. Hard to play with an analog joystick, though, as it's programmed for a digital joystick (like a game pad). The Gameboy Advance version is expanded to also let you fly German, not just Allies as in the original Amiga version. Thanks for bringing this up and posting the diaries, Creaghorn.

It's not that both have to be running as Administrator, it's that both OFF/CFS3 and TrackIR need to be running under the same user. You'll be okay if you run either both or neither as Administrator, but can't do only one.

That's good to hear, Polovski. Hopefully that'll encourage people to upgrade.

Hello, all. I'm slowly working on some software tools to improve the OFF Campaign experience and am in need of a few brave souls to test my mods before making more general releases. Any volunteers? I'm looking for people who have some experience with the internals of OFF--editing configuration and pilot files, backing up and restoring campaign data for an OFF reinstall, that kind of thing. As always, there are risks with testing software, potentially requiring OFF reinstalls if things go awry, but there will be benefits as well. You'll help shape the features and functionality of the software, as well as get to use it before anyone else. Folks who especially enjoy long-term campaigns across multiple pilots and immersive realism (DiD) are especially encouraged to volunteer. The first thing you'll test is a program with a simple graphical interface that analyzes your OFF Manager and CFS3 settings and automatically configures your play for Siggi's OFF DiD Standard. Future versions will support multiple, selectable (and shareable) configuration profiles, making switching back and forth between play styles a breeze, as well as setting things up simply for OFF newbies. The additional tools I have planned are a secret, whispered only to Alpha Testers. If you're interested, please reply to this post with the following information: OFF Forum Name: Operating System: Service Pack: 32-bit/64-bit: OFF Installation Dir: For example, here's me: OFF Forum Name: Lothar of the Hill People Operating System: Windows 7 Service Pack: 0 32-bit/64-bit: 64-bit OFF Installation Dir: S:\Games\OverFlandersFields\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields Thanks. If you're selected I'll private-message you with more information.

Hey, BurningDaylight. Go for it, you won't regret it. OFF is amazing! To answer your question, no, OFF is a total conversion of CFS3 so you can't go half-ways with it. But you can still play CFS3 separately, your CFS3 installation unaffected by installing OFF.

While we're picking nits, the word reconnaissance is misspelled throughout the game as well. Should have two s's, but in OFF it only has one.

A tip from Bullethead: Seems with TrackIR version 5, the bombsight view doesn't work unless you hold down the F7 key for a second or so. Didn't find anything else in the forums about this, so I thought I'd post it in case others are having this problem.

That makes sense VonGuber, thanks.

Sounds good, Siggi, I'll hold my report until tomorrow. Thanks again for doing all this. I'm working on writing some software which should make managing this campaign a lot easier. Eventually I should be able to automate the sending/collection/assimilation of the pilot reports, have it automatically update the boards for you. Stay tuned and I'll PM you when that functionality is ready for testing. May be a few weeks. Some DiD-related software will be coming first as I learn my way around modding OFF. With any luck I'll have something to show you tomorrow or Tuesday that'll make you smile.

Well then, I'm not about to be the first to try it with Win7, especially when my OFF install is dedicated to the Krauts vs. Crumpets campaign. Anyone else feel like risking a reinstall?

Hey uncleal. Sorry if I was a bit harsh before. Yep, Quick Combat works just fine, as do Campaigns. Haven't tried any Missions under Win7, but then again I never did under Vista anyway. AFAIK it's only Multiplayer that's currently broken, the single-player portions are okay. TrackIR works great as well. Too bad MS doesn't support its own hardware very well, Von Paulus. I like my Saitek Evo Force, though I wish the spring was a bit stronger--I'm sure you could find lots of other Force Feedback joystick recommendations on the forums. I know for me that extra feedback is often the difference between life and death.

You're right, my language was probably a bit strong--I can't and shouldn't try to speak for the motives of others. I guess we'll have to chalk it up to gremlins then, while I knock on wood and thank my luck.

Thanks for the tip, almccoyjr. I've been using the commercial file manager Directory Opus rather than Windows Explorer, and it does a bit better, but it still performs poorly on large numbers of small files, such as the hundreds of thousands of <1k files I generate with some of my simulation work. I'll give TeraCopy a try.

Sounds like a reasonable plan, almccoyjr. SP1 was a big step for both XP and Vista, and I've noticed a few little quirks that could use some ironing out. Nothing as crippling as Vista's slow file copy, thank goodness. Most of my complaints are the usual click++ problem with Windows upgrades--a lot of little things you're used to are now one extra mouse click away, which happens every time Microsoft rolls out a new version. I guess that'll be two clicks for you, coming from XP ! See a lot of XP64 fans among the OFFers, and here I was thinking I was the only one who bought it. But once I touched Vista's searchable start menu, I couldn't go back, a few extra clicks be damed.

I guess so. Can anyone else support or reject if its an XP issue? That seems to be true, sitting_duck, but in that case Vista's still recommended over XP if you MP. I'm glad you're x64 man, at least, but you're really missing out on some useful features from a modern operating system. Others have been claiming things like win7 "doesn't support Force Feedback" which is a complete lie that unfortunately some people have believed.

To sum up: Don't be afraid of Win7 if you're only going for single-player (MP seems to still have some issues, so stick with Vista for now if that matters to you). If you really must cling to XP for some reason, at least get the 64-bit version if you're going to use 3GB or more of RAM now or in the future (and you will!). But even Vista is a huge upgrade over XP in a number of important areas, so don't let all the FUD scare you away from a much more stable, secure, and modern operating system. The improvements in the scheduler take much better advantage of multiple-core CPUs, for example. The new graphics system runs in user mode, letting you upgrade graphic drivers without rebooting and if the graphics system crashes due to bad drivers or whatever, it'll restart itself right back up without crashing the rest of the OS. And the searchable start menu alone is by itself worth the price of admission. Want to launch a program but hate navigating through the endless tangled maze of programs and folders in your start menu? Just click the start button or hit the windows key and type the first few letters of whatever program you want, and hit enter. Finding and launching even rarely-used programs is natural and nearly instantaneous. Crockett12, AMD seems to have the edge in terms of price/performance right now, so the Radeon 5750 or 5770 should do fine depending on your budget. But as an Nvidia fan, also interested in doing GPU computing, I'm really looking forward to their new stuff, but it'll be a few more months probably.

uncleal, people rely on these forums for information so I just want to set things straight. To wit: Check again, Hot Shot. The 64-bit version of Windows 7 was released the same time as the 32-bit version. In fact, the retail package of Windows 7 includes both discs! letting you choose which version you want to install. I have them here in my hand, if you need me to take a photo and upload it just say so. That's weird, my Saitek Cyborg Evo Force worked the minute I plugged it in. Windows 7 detected the device and installed the driver automatically. I opened the game controller properties from the new searchable control panel, and FF was already enabled, the "Test Force Feedback Effects" box checked. Test I did, and it worked just fine there and in OFF. I didn't have to do anything, not even digging around on Saitek's website looking for drivers (they're on the Win7 disc!). Not sure what you're friend's problem is, perhaps a hardware or driver issue with his USB or something. Hopefully he'll get it straightened out. But you didn't just say your friend was having problems, you said: "Windows 7... doesn't support Force Feedback" which is an out-and-out lie. I wasn't hanging on every word, but you were claiming as a "proven fact like it or not" that OFF ran best on INTEL graphics, the exact opposite of the truth, and I just wanted to straighten things out so someone checking out the forum doesn't buy OFF thinking their gonna be able to run it on their crappy thin client at work. Please, be much more careful next time. See you in the skies.

Dittos!

I'm not sure why other people are having problems, but I alt-tab out of the OFF manager and CFS3.exe all the time so I can write-up my missions in a notepad window as they occur. It's so nice to be able to copy and paste the names of my wingmen, etc., as well as just type things as they occur rather than try to translate scribbled notes with my awful handwriting. It might be the Operating System. Works fine for me under the 64-bit versions of both Vista and Windows 7, and I see you're still running XP, Tanyrhiew. What a waste of 4GB of RAM. Anyone else who can't alt-tab in and out? What OS are you using? Ignore all the FUD people are maliciously spreading and UPGRADE! OFF works great with both Vista and Win7! Get the 64-bit version so you can use more than 3GB of RAM.

Nothing we can do as users. For OFF to support windowed mode, the OFF developers would have to add an option to pass the -window flag when the OFF manager launches CFS3.exe. Probably wouldn't be very hard for them to do, but it's likely pretty low on their priorities list.

Um, Intel's integrated graphics chips absolutely suck compared to anything from NVIDIA and AMD. Even NVIDIA and AMD's integrated graphics chips far outclass Intel: Intel G41 vs AMD 785G When you come to discrete, plug in PCI-express graphics cards, Intel isn't even on the same planet. If you're playing OFF on an Intel video chip, I feel very sorry for you. If you really believe you can't do any better, I feel embarrassed for you. But please stop spreading misinformation. That's more misinformation, uncleal. Force Feedback is working just fine for me in OFF with Windows 7 64-bit.

Problem with this idea is that the text becomes too small to read. Labels are barely legible at 1600x1200, and become indiscernible squiggles when I go all the way up to 2048x1538. Any way to increase the font size?

Here's a weird one I haven't seen elsewhere in the forums. My claim form no longer fits in my screen resolution. It cuts off at the bottom right below my signature, but above the button to actually submit the claim. I've found that I can alt-tab out and increase my screen resolution, from 1600x1200 to 2048x1536. The claim form isn't rerendered, the same viewable picture now just smaller in the upper left of my screen, but I can hit the submit claim button by clicking around in the black area below, where the button would be if the whole form was visible. I can then reset my resolution back to 1600x1200 and fly another mission or whatever, but what a pain. Any idea why the claim form and its associated UI elements are being rendered bigger than my screen resolution? I'm running Vistax64 with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 using the latest Nvidia drivers.