Squiffy

Hi gang. I've been away for a loooonng time but decided to get back into it since I'm building a WWI collection for the school kids at my library next year. My rig is very old at about 10 years but the nVidia card is decent and only a few years old. If the dual pass render is not the main culprit, I would suggest that the facilities that were built for the game are a little too intricate for some rigs. They're just great scenes, but the numebr of objects is a serious rendering tax that causes quantum differences in performance. I wish we had a level adjust on the detail of facilities as well as scenery budgets, terrain budgets and aircraft textures. I built my own for CFS3 and ETO and the rest and it helped a lot. If there is a common set that could be tweaked down, I'm sure everyone could see a huge difference. This might be good for combat immersion for even the fastest rigs. Massive furballs in heavy Archie would please everyone. It's just a theory so lets hope the dual pass does the trick. OK I missed the last few posts somehow. Looks like the new nVidia card is doing the trick. Good to know because I am in the market for a new gaming laptop/ desktop replacement. nVidia GTX setups are my favorite so far.

Check your MFD throttle. Do you see a profile listed on the lcd? I have a feeling no, because somethings up with the drivers and the x52. I was able to use the smart software back before I disconnected. I can't now figure out what it was the proper match for drivers and S6 smart software profiler. All I could do was use the older drivers I posted and sst. Otherwise, the profiels woudl not load and I would get the the no profile, not a dat file error message. And no profiles woudl load onto the MFD throttle (x52). The file format changed too yo can see in the .pro or .dat extension. Along the way, I totally unistalled and reinstalled my loystick drivers with still no luck. It's the kind of thing where the later drivers ask for more hardware than the X52 really has, and so doesn't load properly becasue it's lacking chips or something. I'd love to be proven wrong but after a week wrestling with it it was a no go without rolling back to older drivers.

I ran into this kind of thing lately too. All I wanted to do was move my cpu and disconnecting forced a reinstall on my x52. So I searched like mad for new drivers and software and ended up going back to 151205 Win32 drivers and matching sst software. Saitek does not support the x52 driectly anymore, only the x52 pro. You will probably need to use the older drivers for reliable service. Be careful with the microslider on the throttle and the throttle view hat, scroll wheel. I found these do not read or program very well under xp. I think it has to do with the multiple mouses and the scroll being a 2 way button in dx. So i programed around it. Use more bands than you need in order to keep unwanted keystrokes down to a minimum. Otherwise make your deadzones bigger. I use my slider for flaps. Works pretty well with four bands, middle two empty.

Guys, I got my aerial nuke effect working but now the ground nuke is busted and I can't seem to find the right line to get the mushroom cloud to sit properly above ground. I need the stock one to fix it again. Aerial nuke has hit spike deleted and all effects centered on air burst. Works great with the F-106.

Oh yeah, just in time ofr me to fix my nuke effects. By the way, if anyone has a stock NukeExplosionEffect.ini could you post it here or tell me which .cat it lives in?

Fubar, You got me all worked up for the Korea mod. I thought that was heat blur. Nice artwork but sad it's not an effect.

Velto that's very good. Any chance you can tone down the canopy a little and reduce the slope of the rails and height. It's a little too "pick-up truck" and yes I know a fairing was added for more hightemp performance in the SR version. Really though, it's a little to pronounced for a mach 3 airframe. Would this cause a headache in gmax? I built a 1/48 kit from testors and read the squadron signal book religiously.

Try EndItAll.exe.. The skull and crossbones icon is very familar to me now.

That's low, but then in the desert everything shows. Try to find some sand dunes to hide behind.

BOOM! Shakalaka. Finally a decent airburst with a simple tweak to the effect callout. I set the effects to include an "object hit" in the weapon's air_2A_data.ini and finally got the airburst effect to pop. Maybe it's just me but I think this effect woudln't work unless it actually contacted another object. What do you think? Anyway, I have it set to a closer fusing distance and upped the explosives accordingly. Now it can take out more than one plane. Basically I took the bomb version and removed the plume effect and adjusted everything to center on the burst center. Works great. My wingmen were nukin' bogies too. That was cool seeing the sky light up on their shots. Here are the pics.

Great work guys. On to fix mine now.

Great news! Any chance there's a nosewheel steering mod in there? Cue eagle screech: SCREEECH!

Squid, can you reroute your other background apps? I guess you've already done this. Are new apps being written for two threads?

No, I am working with it now and it's been great. You might tweak your other graphics settings to deal with the fps load but anything above a P4 with decent card should be fine. There might be an issue with runway tiles and the season folders but I am not sure. X cross runway/taxi tiles too. Otherwise looks great

Yes, thanks EricJ! What a crew we've got here. I also just finished installing the new highres Europe terrain. All the better to light off some flash BOOM! Not enough time tonight so it will have to wait.

Just to cover everything, you're sure you're in visual range right?

Thanks KB! I owe you one... and a case of Scotch!

331Killerbee, Dont' get upset on my account man. I was just blowing off steam after a hard week. I wanted to show you what my folder looked like with a screen shot, only to find that i couldn't in this thread. While I've been getting acclimated here, I've found using the site a little trying mostly because of the volume of text one needs to go through to get at real solutions. It's nothing against you or your brilliant work for this sim! The experience you brought to weapons mods is top notch! I was just making a crack about our darn PCPilot banner ad for Rise of Flight that you see above. That dang thing burns up bandwidth (yes I know we need the advertising) while we burn up brain cells and sleep hours trying to slog through the site. Heck, thats just reality and I'm just ranting becasue I'm tired and had a bad week. I work for the city and we're all bummin about the cuts coming from the wrecked economy and budget gap. That just adds stress. So back to the fun stuff... I deactivated my weapondata.ini and sure enough, my F-15CFTs, stingers, small diameter bombs, hellfires and everything worked just fine. So all your work is performing just fine! I just wanted to show you what I had in my install to sort out where the extra files were. I bet I got them screwed up from another download or the wrong one (SF1) and didn't get it completely cleared out. I could have just read the wrong KB thread too! So please KillerB, don't feel like you're getting trashed. I know I was ranting like a 2 year old and should be the one getting spanked. Gunnies are TOP NCOs and a couple whining Jr. zoomies shouldn't be allowed to bring em down. So I guess the effects had an issue or something. You had to put together another pack. I'm sure that was drudgery. We appreciate it man. I for one am embarrased about my own hot headed flak. So cheer up and know that you've been heard loud and clear. Roll your eyes and tell the Colonel to keep us in line. You know "Butter Bars" we melt at the first signs of heat.

Forget it. If I see one more D-VII or Se-5 crawl accross my screen, hogging bandwidth, I'm gonna puke! Annooooooying! We get it, it's a great sim, not THIS sim but great. This is not a penny arcade. Rant much? naw not at all. TGIF

screenie... dangit! Why isn't the post option here?

OK, I'm going to try running with my weapondata.ini file renamed to disable it. Maybe what I am seeing is SF1 vintage aircraft in my SF2 install, having trouble without an ini file? Ya think? What about these dat files. I bought and downloaded the game online.

Suh-weet!

Yikes, another screwed up alpha channel. You guys need to repack those images properly with dxtBMP or some other program. If the alpha doesn't have the proper mask color, it will show through to the edges of the square file. I like the idea of multi tree grove models. It saves on vertices but I haven't got the terrain editor working yet to mod my .tod tiles. Too much overhead. Any advice for a quick startup?

FC, do you mean the Weapon editor does not require one, or that SF2 does not require one? I recently made some edits and lost a bunch of entries from the rest of the pack by saving the weapondata.ini. I could not see new wepons in game without the weapondata.ini. So now, I have been adding new weapons when needed. I seem to remember instructions that said you could delete the file, then save again in the editor with no other steps, and thereby make a complete, brand new file, covering everything. I could have all this messed up, but I don't know how SF2 can use all the weapons without a weapondata.ini. It will run but the weapons won't all show. Maybe I have an old editor? Anyway, I know how to make my setup work so I am not worried, just trying to iron out the details.

But there is a lot of flexibility in the environmental settings. Back up your original files and head off to the KB to see what you can do. Some of it boils down to rendering style too, as you can see in the landing lights and so forth. I haven't flown much at night but I'm looking forward to it in the 117 and 15E. You can color the air with the inclement effect too. Try horizon fade, and start clear setting also. Probably works in other weather settings. There's more to read in the KB.