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Helmut_AUT

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Everything posted by Helmut_AUT

  1. Really appreciate it (and I'm sure others will too) Thanks Aggie.
  2. Fubar, that's for SF1 Wings over Europe, for the NF+ mod he updated the files to SF2E and it would be nice to get those files in a neat and simple package for those who don't want to do the full NF+ install.
  3. Sorry to spoil the performance discussion ;) I tried to get the Highway Strips into my SF2E, but failed. If JSF_Argie wants to upload them as separate mod it would be really sweet. ...to get back to performance issues: Fubar, what you write sounds like an explanation why the ENBSeries mod might speed up performance.
  4. Soulfreak, sounds like a workable way to find the required files. Thanks! Still, maybe it might be worth it to release the Highway mod as separate download. Xclusiv8, the answer can only be "because the base game is not very optimized". I get a constant 60 avg. Framerate in First Eagles, but as low as 30 in default SF2E. With NF4+ it can get even more brutal. I think there are just too many objects and textures loaded, which is a poor man's way to generate a nice looking landscape. Engines like "Rise of Flight" for example offload much of the geometry work to the GPU, but in Thirdwire it seems a lot of stuff still happens brute-force on the CPU. Besides, even if the framerate was great, I just don't want to spend 5GB of my HD on the super-complete plane collection if I'm only flying three or four with any regularity.
  5. Jasta18 Pfalz DIII for download

    I'd really love to have a Pfalz in the sim (or a Pup, Snipe...), but I never give out so much private data on the internet as they are requesting on their site. It's a shame that most aircraft available over there seem to be "off limits" for other addon makers, so that there is no second Pfalz around anywhere.
  6. Hi all I really like the Hawker Hunter 6 and 9, to me they are (in the default SF2E at least) the "last of the gunfighters". F-100D isn't bad either, but I get weird TIR behaviour looking at the lower cockpit instruments, it got an afterburner and Sidewinder-loadout - while the Hunter is a true guns only interceptor. However, contrary to the nice instrumentation you get on F-100D and others, the Hunter only has a "Gallons remaining" counter for internal fuel. No PPH, no indicator for external tanks, no range to waypoint indication. I figure if you take 400 external (which are less efficiently used as the 400 internal) by the time you drop the empty tanks, you have enough to get back home and some reserve. For the 200gal external, if you can get to the target before dropping them, you can at least figure 200gals for the way back and everything else buys you time on station. But if you have to drop external tanks before they are empty, you can never really know how much you used up so far. Or doesn't it matter anyway for the distances in the average SF2E mission? But the combat range is given at around 380nm, and I've seen missions that go further. Similar question for the Harrier - it has a "pound per minute" indication - clear enough - but why does it have two separate fuel counters (Port and Starboard) if seemingly it only has one internal tank with max. 50.000 pounds? The "totalizer" counter shows 50.000 max, yet the two separate fuel gauges also show 50.000 EACH. Cockpit bug in the Harrier?
  7. Thanks. But wouldn't it make sense to have each gauge only show half the value? Right now the gauges suggest that 100.000 pound internal are carried.
  8. I just noticed in the SF2E '62 campaign, at least one RAF Squadron has Aircraft "Canberra8" (which doesn't exsist in aircraft folder) and alternate is B-57B. So I hope this works, otherwise there are broken campaign squadrons with nothing to fly.
  9. These are created first time you launch the game.
  10. Word of advise: The GTS250 is a card built on the previous 9-Series Nvidia chip, not on the newer g200 chip. Still better than a 9600GT, but If you are looking for a new one, and not the absolutely cheapest around, start with the 260GTX and up, best performance for value currently being with the 275GTX (which is kind of like the 9600GT back in it's generation a surprising fast mid-range price card).
  11. The SimHQ article is very detailed - as I didn't want to invest so much brain, I started developing my own standard procedure. For me (and that's the base of the article too) it comes down to flying a repeatable profile, in the F4 I'm using the radar alt and a certain throttle setting to ensure somewhat constant speed and alt, together with trying to get the same dive angle most of the time, and a ripple of 3 bombs at 500ms to make up for any lack of accuracy. I've been creating single missions with a 6x Mk82 loadout and then just used the start airfield to practice hitting the radar, control tower and water tower - smallest targets around.
  12. So that means SF2E (and likely the other games on similar engine) are bottlenecking on the graphics card and memory, NOT on CPU? I actually thought graphic effects were more CPU bound and thus high graphics would max out the CPU before the card.
  13. To think that I ignored this series for so long... the dynamic created missions are the best stuff I've seen in a sim (maybe not Falcon 4.0, but I never tried that one). In flight one (F-15A Fighter Sweep) I killed two MiG-21s, flew a 360 degree turn to check radar, called Control for nearest bandit and got "clear". Felt mighty proud of myself and formed up the flight again, was actually watching my 4th guy in external view - when suddenly green tracers hit him and almost fragged him. Number 3 sorted the remaining boggy, another Fishbed. Before we formed up again for the flight home, I had in fact no clue if #4 was still alive and pretty mad at myself for having been so careless in breaking off the initial engagement. I've never before been jumped in a sim that models Radar and AWACS. Never ever. Here the era and mission dynamics are just right to make it happen. In the other memorable flight today (A-7D CAS), I finally managed to kill the russian tanks BEFORE all my own died. I was seriously happy I had a few surviving ground pounders left on my side, and that I saved their butts, and so circled overhead to see if any single russky can was hiding somewhere between the wrecks. Coming out of the last turn with eyes on the ground, suddenly my own tanks burst in a carpet of explosions, as four russky Beagles hit them. I got really pissed and shot two down with my Winders, the next with gun - I only flamed one of his engines in a fast pass, but as I turn around for another hit he explodes. I mean, how crazy is this when you actually run into a CAS flight from the other side for the same battle? When you just saved the life of those tankers and next second they are all gone in a massive bomb carpet? A bit of "futility of war" impression here in fact, would make a good movie scene. Was also impressed to see that the Fishbeds tried to run out of Sparrow range BVR, but as I closed they decided it wouldn't work, turned around and came to fight. This is the best Air Combat single player (also in First Eagles) since... ever? IL-2 had some nice "random" moments, but nowhere near close to this.
  14. Yep, try running the game under the user account owning the documents folder. Vista is crap for rights management - "Admin" just isn't admin and "full rights" rarely are full rights.
  15. Okay, working on the assumption I'm right: What I could think of (if my theory is confirmed) is that there's a rights mismatch somewhere between the user who owns "My Documents" and the user running Strike Fighters. For example if you run SF2 as admin, the admin would actually write those files to your User folder, but can he read them afterwards? In Vista nothing ever is as it seems with rights. The fact it loads once means there's no inherent driver or other technical problem to solve, as was the case with earlier versions, it will come down to a file/rights problem I'm sure.
  16. Okay... some theories: 1) Upon first load after install, the SF2 games create some folders and data in your "user data/Thirdwire" folder. That's what takes a little, it's unpacking certain things and writing them. 2) When you launch it a second time, usually the process is much faster, since these files have already been extracted. To me it sounds like on second load it has a problem reading these extracted files on your install. Check that Thirdwire folder, NOT the one in program directory, for correct rights. 3) Another possibility is that the game is writing other things after first load (options, screen settings, anything automatically determined) to a config, and can then not load the config. One way to test this: Delete the My Files/Thirdwire/SF2V Folder (not sure if it's really "My Files" in Vista, I've also seen "My saved games") and then try again to load the game. Anything the game writes after initial install is in that folder, so basically deleting it will give you the same situation as if you had just reinstalled.
  17. Quarter of a million seems very expensive. Wh are you running out of tanks if you "leave them on the AI planes" - do they not "bring home" theirs?
  18. Thanks. I generally have no problem calculating bingo from the distance to last waypoint (#8) and true airspeed reading, or just by knowing the Phantom does about 400 knots at 80% Fan RPM at about 4000pounds per hour and engine. I was hoping the "sector gauge" would show external fuel, like it's on the F-15 and I think A-10. Seems the only indication about external on the Rhino is when your internal starts ticking down.
  19. Is the default F-100 Gauge hard to read? Never flew that one for more than a test yet. Speaking of Fuel Gauges, can someone explain the F-4F one? What are the sectors above the numeric counter and needle?
  20. Hi all As I try to fly with only realistic amount of information available (no info boxes, no cones, no map icons...) this is something that has been bothering me a bit. In BVR, the only way to know what you are locking up is CTRL+R. But how realistic is it for the F-4 and F-15? I know the F-15C does NCTR - non cooperative target recognition - based on a signature database that reads the radar cross section, number of engine blades... and gives the pilot a "best guess" what he is targeting. The process takes a bit, only works from some directions (preferable head on) and is never 100%. Not sure if the F-15A had the same radar already with the same feature set. The F-4 certainly never had this. Then there's IFF (Transponder based). As modelled in most other sims, the locked target get interrogated and either replies or doesn't. I'm not sure when this came about, and if any Phantom model had this. Lastly, there should be a radio option "declare" for the AWACS, which would identify the target you have locked up. But I'm also not sure when that came about. In summary, for addon campaigns from 1985 on I think STRG+R is alright - but is it realistic to use in the 79 or 69 campaign? Is it an acceptable compromise for lack of other features (like more detailed AWACS picture)?
  21. I think in today's wars "economics" play a much bigger factor too. The cost of every guided munition has to be justified. The aim is not just to get the mission done, but to get it done in a way that it doesn't cost more than the value of the target you hit. And if you are flying super-high tech supersonic drop tanks with all kinds of integrated fuel management stuff around, they become a factor too. For Vietnam Era and '79 "Hot Cold War" scenarios, economics certainly were less of a topic. I recon that's what Jug was referring to. Still would love to know how many fuel tanks per squadron were in store in 1978 West Germany, today it's not uncommon to have just a bunch of tanks, not even enough for every aircraft in the squadron at the same time.
  22. Sorry for the maybe dumb question, but I searched here and at official board, yet found no answer. What does Terraindetail actually change when set to medium or low? Number of buildings inside cities? There's a separate option "Ground Objects" so I doupt setting it to low gives an "empty" map. Does it change the mesh detail, heightmap detail or such? The geometry of the landscape itself? It seems to me that with a high number of ground objects and high res textures, it looks not any worse at LOW than at HIGH - but I get a significant framerate difference. Thanks for the help Helmut
  23. I didn't know about and didn't meant to question his real life experience, but times can change too. When I was at Maching AB in 2005 (or 2006) as Aviation Journalist I learned from real German Tornado pilots that "drop tanks" are not as habit dropped and hadn't been used that way in the '95/'96 Bosnia ECR/Recce missions either. Obviously it depends on the enemy you are facing, and I'm also sure DTs got more expensive with every AC Generation. The newest EF Typhoon tanks for example have fuel pumps internal and a ton of other gadgets.
  24. Nope, that is just incorrect. At least in the Air War over Bosnia and currently Air Support in Afghanistan, drop tanks are not dropped as a habit. I just found this discussion at keypublishing http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=56511 which has some interesting infos Unconfirmed number, but if true - over 65.000EUR per tank. Even if we cut that in half for older designs, at 30.000EUR it far exceeds the price of unguided ordnance. Obviously in an all-out Russia vs. West engagement economics matter less, but it's also a question of supply. In peacetime, I doubt that any squadron has more than six tanks per plane on store. Last, if you are air refueling, it seems at least some AC can fuel up the tanks too. So having them on the way back might mean one less stop for fuel.
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