Broadside uda Barn

waiting is the worst part! amazon had my cfs3 here in a couple of days. OFF took about 7 days IIRC. Just read the forums, take notes (cause it's a lot to remember), and also, when you do get OFF, follow the instructions for setup in the FAQ, it makes things like graphics, controls, etc, pretty seamless. First plane to fly? SE5a very stable, fun to fly, will do most of what you want it to do.

Depends on your settings. My rig gives me pretty consistent 30-40, sometimes in the 20s with many planes in the air, but I've got everything maxed out, except the recommended settings of 4 for landscape and the other one (forget the name atm) supersampling probably kills me by 10fps, but its so smooth.. If I turned down AA, that might free up some FPS as well, but there's really no need IMO. I have both sims, and like them both. However, OFF is the one I play the most :yes: Perhaps that says something without saying anything. I had many similar questions when I was thinking of buying OFF, and already had the other ww1 which shall not be named (lol). The pilots here are VERY helpful, and the Devs are seemingly always around to assist with problems (and flight questions. see my recent post on the camel spinning dilemma. Not a game issue, but a pilots how do I live question...so much great feedback by devs and forumers...just wow!). I wont go into my experience with another ww1 sim which shall not be named (that NEVER gets old! lol), as it's very frustrating. Personally, tho, all things considered and if finances are available, both flight sims are great and worth having. HTH Broadside

Bullethead, Winder, Steve, thanks for the responses. Very interesting. At first I was thinking there was no recovery from that spin. I love flying the camel...it's fun and interesting and hard. I'm racking up kills like crazy, not that it matters, since I cant seem to live more than 4 missions in the camel (I do much better in an alb, se5a). I think I'll make an undying pilot named Eric Cartman and run a whole campaign with him in the camel so I can experience it all, and hone my skills with this plane. Steve, very interesting read about colors. makes perfect sense, being that the brits were so claustrophobic about pilot singularity and 'team spirit'. I might just have to get out my paint program and make some skins of the camel and the se5a (both good looking planes, while most of the french/british planes were rather ugly imo, compared to the german planes). Maybe I'll fly with the american esc., since americans can get away with individuality a bit more. uncleal, nice points about the german's colors. makes sense for that very reason. Winder, as to the competition, I dont really see that there is any...OFF is far and away better than anything out there atm. Critics may spout the cfs3 engine as the killer of OFF, but seems to me from this latest patch, that OBD is making this engine do things it didnt know it could. Often when on I see the forum headings at simHQ, I see a half dozen or more reading the OFF forums there, though of course there are 50 or 60 reading an unnamed and never to be identified ww1 sim . Still this shows the growing interest in this amazing sim OBD has created. I think it comes down to advertisement personally.... I'm waiting for a friend to get his mac up and running, and hope to buy him a copy of OFF soon. He enjoys the things in a sim that fill in the gaps (marching troops, a truck passing by--which he'll fire on regardless of whose side its on--etc), so he's really going to enjoy OFF. I guess there is competition in dollars spent, but that'll come (with some advertising)... Thanks for all the great suggestions and help! Gotta try them out NOW.

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Thanks Steve, I'll try those squads. I dont have FSX, OFF and a WW1 sim that shall not be named is all I own as far as flight sims, tho il-2 is on it's way (probably wont play it a lot, just some, and will check out canvas..er..., another ww1 sim that shall not be named and likely will only be for mp). I'm hoping for a record function someday...ala RB and RB2 You might know this: why didnt the brits/us/french paint their planes like the germans did? Most of the skins for the allies are boring...in fact havent found an interesting one yet.

I actually do quite well in the camel, and this particular spin is the only one that I cant manoever out of. I spin every other mission, but am able to escape it. And I get a lot of kills in this rig, so I like flying it (tho I'm tired of the 28th squadron...gotta find another that uses the camel. I'm interested in hearing what the devs have to say about the camel....

After so many pilots who have died waiting for confirmations, and so much time writing claims so that they are confirmed, and taking meticulous notes for the claims (time, location, description), I've come to the conclusion that the claim form writing isnt fun. Especially when I've spent so much time on a claim, to have a pilot die landing a plane at a super low speed, or some other silly death. All that time writing notes and making claims = waste of time. Turning the claim form to easier (the second option, not the 3rd) seems to be the answer. No more writing or copying and pasting flight pilot names (which should be automated btw), pausing for location and description and time, and writing lots of data to get claims confirmed. Not every claim gets confirmed, but most do... However, this option lowers the realism % by an insane amount! 40% Let's put this in perspective: Wind effects off is 10% From "pilot die roll on death" to "pilot never dies": 10% Flight model realistic, to medium realism = 50% Please dont take this as a criticism, Oh mighty excessively helpful OBD Devs...but rather as a plea to reduce the reduction of realism % for claims. 20% seems fair. 40% is excessive IMO. Not that it's a huge deal, what the percentage is. Fun is fun. I dont want to mess with the mixture, and I dont want to die at 5 mph when I land and hit a tree or a building (I think there needs to be an option between "Easy Die roll on death" and Easiest "pilot never dies"...something like "pilot dies only in combat or crashes at 25 mph or faster)....if those two exceptions make my realism 70%, so be it. But those two, and 40% of loss from normal to easy claims, puts it at 30% realism....which is the same as: No wind, No mixture, and medium realism flight model ....definitely not an equal comparison of settings. Is writing a claim THAT much a part of being a WW1 pilot? I recall someone else making points toward this idea a while back. Thanks for listening. OFF is a terrific game! Thank you for making it. Broadside

Thank you! The new splash screen looks terrific! Did Olham model for that pic? Question: should the version say 1.32a, or 1.32? I ask because I've installed both patches, yet the game displays 1.32

Actually, I'm not offended by you or your comments, even if I do find them abrasive. I appreciate your helpfulness, when your comments are directed that way. However, as Hellbender brought out, making degrading comments about another flight sim, or it's pilots that find their way to OFF, is an easy way to start a flame war. Whether this is your intent or not, is inconsequential. And that was why I pointed out your remarks, since you didnt think they were out of hand. And back on topic, my claim percentage is high. Actually, since adopting the "post everything you can think of" strategy, every claim has been confirmed. So it's not the frustration of lost claims, but rather the time involved in making the claims. Some good points made by all regarding %s and fun factor. I think OBD did a nice job with giving us these options. I still think the % for easy claims is too high though.

I was just going to ignore this comment, but it most certainly is inflammatory, degrading, and abrasive. This last part at least adds a comment about the topic. Not helpful, not needed, not wanted, but at least about the topic. Be kind to people uncleal, you will be happier if you do. Might I suggest:

Thanks Hellshade and Polovski. That puts things in perspective.

Everytime I fly thru SFO (which is everytime I fly to the mainland), I head straight for the anchor steam! IIRC, only one place has it...it's just off the the center hub where all the food is. Actually, anchor steam has A GREAT tour at their plant in south city. I'm not one for tours much, but that one was terrific! Favorite non american beer: it's a tie bewteen Tettley's and Guiness. Harp running a close 2nd to those two.

I'm assuming it's a cfs3 thing? I have both working in a ww1 sim that shall not be named...

I love that Fire Rock! We go to Kona Brewing a couple times a month on average. They make an incredible coffee porter. But I digress. Best beer in the world? (draft beer is best in the galaxy, from my personal experience) Beer so good it's worth flying to San Francisco, having 2 cold ones in the airport, and flying home? Anchor Steam! (and their summer ale is terrific too!)

In the texture info setting of the graphics menu, there is an option for "Water Detail Texture Size:" I have mine set to 3 as per HBs setup. What does this do? Would putting it up a few notches give better water reflections, texture, etc? BuB

Thanks uncleal, good to know. I'll put something in there... Thanks!

I've decided to try different graphics drivers to get better results in OFF. Which nvidia driver seems to work the best for you? Also, when you target your nvidia control panel to "select a program to customize", which exe do you target? offmanager.exe or cfs3.exe? Thanks! BuB

lol! The graphics card is only going to activate the specific settings for one .exe I'm so confused!

I just had this happen to me. moving airfields, first mission for the new pilot. got a couple kills, finish mission, no record of it. then it had the audacity to give me the same mision 2 more times. I kept dying. next pilot, same mission, it recorded. tho the next mission I flew, my engine died. I landed at less than 5 mph, and died. nice. You're not the only one HB and condor. I've not had this happen till today a few mins. ago.

I was just playing my part: the dope that just must have the lastest release and fastest fps. glad I could be of help and that someone has benefited from my pain

I set up a turkey shoot with a total of 8 planes in the air, and with supersampling I'll dip down to 24 fps, and with multisampling it stays at about 28 when things are frantic. I remember being in a dogfight with about 16 planes at one point over the front in a mission...dont know what that would do to the fps. Hard to know what settings to leave it at....

Loaded the 182.50 whql drivers and things are running smooth. Shimmering is VERY limited in the distance, but I can see it. I'm assuming that there will always be *some* shimmering, right?

I guess I can be safe and make a setting for both cfs3.exe and offmanager.exe

yes you can install a new driver over a previous one. very rarely will you have issues. That's why it's always a good idea to make a backup in system restore....that's saved my bacon in a number of situations.

I reverted back to the 181.22 drivers I had before the 190.38s, and with 16xAA and 16x Aniso and multisampling, 6 pre rendered frames, clamped texture filtering and high quality texture filtering, FPS are pretty good and solid at around 40+, image is clear, with only a hint of shimmering in trees at certain altitudes. Wondering about newer drivers...nHancer, or specific graphic settings to get NO shimmering (I am not sure that's even possible with so much detail in OFF). I think I'm about to call it excellent enough. :) any other specifics in your graphics setup Winder?