HumanDrone

Thank you sir! Sometimes I just let that opening video of yours play through, it beats anything I've ever seen in this genre. Wouldn't mind a full HD version now that I have my new rig! But I am wondering why our friends here are having issues with Win64 compatibility. Would, say, different controls software (i.e old joystick) cause this? As I said, I have no issue with either OFF or CFG3 ETO, or even stock CFS3. Install and go, no problems, no "Run as administrator" or "Run in XP_ compatibility mode", and certainly not in the XP virtual machine - I had to use that for some old stuff at work for a while... what a pain! So for me it's a matter of learning how to manage my mixture and keep my carb full and somehow still manage to watch my enemy, my six, and did I mention how nice it is with TrackIR in the SPAD XIII to just lean your head to one side to line up the site...? The more i get into it, the more I appreciate what an achievement this is, and hat the real avaitors had to deal with. I'm surprised the planes could leave the ground carrying their massive brass...oh, wait, this is a family site... Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this new phase everyone is talking about. Best, Tom

Hi all! (waves) I've recently re-installed OFF and HiTR thru Minipatch 1.47b or whatever it is, and I do not have to run in XP mode, administrator mode, or an other funny settings. I just installed and it ran, in stunning beauty I might add. Same with CFS3 ETO. Fortunately with the horsepower of this ring (see my siggie), I just max the sliders and go, but I don't think that has anything to do with running in compatibility modes, admin mode, etc. However, my user account is an admin account, so YMMV... It seems to me that running in XP mode, or worse, an XP virtual machine, would just be more frame rate-stealing overhead, so I hope no one has to go that route. As well, I don't fly on-line (yet, as the other guy pointed out, no use being a sitting duck, or a human drone!) I'm wondering why the varied experiences? I feel kinda lucky! Best, & more props to the developers, Tom err. I thought I had a siggie with specs. Anyway it's this: Box: Win7 Pro 64 bit / I72600K @4.2 GHz / EVGA GTX580 OC'd / 16GB RAM / Corsair 240 GB SSD / WD 600 GB Velociraptor FS Stuff: Saitek X52 Pro Stick/Throttle & Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR 5 Sims: FSX Gold, REX 2.0 OD, UTX-NA, FSGenesis 10m mesh/ CFS3 ETO 1.40/ CFS3 OFF HiTR

I just reinstalled OFF1 P3 and was stunned at the scenery and modeling, and now this... gotta learn to fly, gotta learn to fly! Great work, simply great!

Yessir, I just did the big upgrade last winter. Really makes a difference, eh?! But I've been terribly busy, and so I did not get around to re-installing OFF until this week. So today, after some flying last night, I was going to start a separate thread about how stunningly beautiful the scenery is with all the sliders maxed. I have CF3's ETO expansion, and it's very nice, but this tops even that! I'm tickled to have the new machine, but even more tickled to have OFF - It is some magnificent "Flight-seeing" Now if I can just learn how to fly well....! So welcome, & congrats on your new box. Happy flying! Tom

Here's another vote for HiTR and a word of encouragement for the developers! It must be tough, and I know things have been quiet, but hang in there and keep up the good work. You have my money when OFF2 comes out! Best, Tom

I just wanted to stop by and say Merry Christmas to everyone, and a special thanks to all those who make this possible. May you be blessed in your hearts and homes this Christmas, may the blood-bought peace and freedom we enjoy be all that more precious to us. Thank you all for all you do, & best wishes for the New Year! Tom

Hello, all! Hopefully I will be installing all my sims over the weekend, and my brand-new Saitek X52 Pro. I also have their Combat Rudder Pedals. There are a lot of toggles, buttons, etc on the X52, many of which could be made to give us conveniences that the brave young men we are imitating didn't have. Still, i don't think it's be too unrealistic to have, say, mixture on a slider. Does anybody use this one? Would you be willing to share your settings/asignments? As well, I think I've heard of an issue with the rudder pedals where the axes are reversed in CFS3. My Google-fu is failing me right now, and maybe it's been fixed, but if anyboy has anything input on that, well, say on. Thanks, all! Tom New system: i7-2600K @ 4.2 GHz, Win 7 Pro 64 bit, EVGA GTX580 OC'd, 16 GB RAM DDR3 1600, 240 GB SSD 6 GB/s, 600 GB WD Velociraptor. Sims: FSX Gold, CFS3 (hopefully with ETO/PTO), OFF HiTR

Thanks, I tried again this afternoon, still only one instance. I just don't get it. I uninstalled, plugged them back in one at a time, the whole nine yards. Do I also have to install SMART one at a time? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. But it seems like the D/L's at Saitek point you to the same program. It's working fine in FSX anyway, even with only one icon on the task bar. I dunno, I can write code in 3 languages, I've built a couple of computers, but either I'm losing my edge or, well, like I said, if it's this touchy, why doesn't Saitek have an explicit procedure for installing the two? Surely I'm not the only one that's had this trouble? I'm going to call them Monday night. Thanks, and Merry Christmas! Tom

Nope. I still can't get two instances running. From pecking about, it looks like i have to completely uninstall, then go back with the rudder pedals first, then the stick... I've also emailed Saitek tech support. You'd think that such a logical combination would have a well-defined install procedure available on their site. I kinda figured that, with the lack of said procedure, the software was S.M.A.R.T. enough to figure everything out! Shoulda known... Later, Tom

Okay, trying it now...I unplugged the X52 and installed the software and I can now see the rudder pedals. So I'll see how it goes from here. And then onto TrackIR! Criminee, I'll be dizzy BEFORE I put the hat on at this rate! Thanks again, Tom

Bullethead: Thanks again. I did some more mucking about with it last night after a re-install of CFS3 ETO up to 1.4. Now you say, HEY, WHAT ABOUT OFF? And rightly so, but I was trying to get ETO up for my brother-in-law's off night that he visits with us - he likes to fly BF109's for some reason... So I'll get to it, believe me. Anyway, my problem seems to be that I have BOTH the X52 Pro and the Combat Rudder pedals. In the Saitek stick programming software, there is no place to program the rudder pedals - all I have are the stick inputs. I can knock out the twist axis on the stick, but there appears to be no way to program the pedals. Perhaps, as you say, Vinders just sees this as another keyboard, so I need a second instance of the Saitek software running - but that's mere supposition at this point, I don't know how CFS3 would know which was which, unless, as you say, it's merely another keyboard. I'll be checking around, surely somebody out there runs these two in combination, or maybe you do, too, and I can't get it through my thick skull! But I sure appreciate your help. Thanks, Tom

I hope this is my chance to finally give back a little to all you who have helped lately! See what you think of this: A lot of us are getting, or hoping to get, solid state SATA3 drives for the best Flight simming performance. But these things are relatively small, so we also usually have a large spinning drive (or drives) for data, pictures of the kids, music, & what not. But of course, Windows usually comes set up with the user profiles in C:\Users, and you can’t just move that to the spinning drives, let’s assume it’s your D:\ drive. Well, it’s easy enough to point your own “My Documents”, “My Pictures”, “My Music”, and “My Vidoes” over to D:\Users\<user>\My <things>” , but after all that, there is still a C:\Users\Public that can’t be moved. And if you have a home group or other network, you might want to put things in there. Here is how I moved it to the D: drive, shamelessly copied from some answers I found somewhere in cyberspace - the sources weren’t charging for it, so it must be fair use, besides, I put some of my own stuff into it. My user folders are now under D:\Users\<username> (the nice thing about this is it leaves the rest of your “hive”, including your flight sim profiles, etc. on the static drive where it can be retrieved faster). Now we will end up making a Directory Junction which can redirect to a new location of Public folder. First create a new folder on D:\, in my case I used D:\Users\Public Go to Cmd prompt by running as Administrator. (If you can’t do this, you’d better stop here and just don’t put anything in your Public folders!) Copy everything from existing public folder to the new folder created by using the command robocopy /MIR %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\Public D:\Users\Public (or whatever name you used for your public folder on D:) Note: If as usual, Windows is on your C: drive, you can use the form robocopy /MIR C:\Users\Public D:\Users\Public You need robocopy as it takes care of hidden files, etc, especially if you have Recorded TV folder within public folder. Once the copy is transferred, you need to delete the existing public folder and create a junction in its place. For this, boot into Safe Mode as an administrator (Press F8 after POST) and delete the public contents and folder, and again by starting the Cmd prompt as an administrator. To remove the Public folder: rmdir /s /q %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\Public Having created the new location folder, and deleting the existing public folder, now is time to create a Directory Junction for public folder with the following command: mklink /J %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users\Public D:\Users\Public (or whatever name you named the public folder on D:\) for example: mklink /J C:\Users\Public D:\Users\Public Now, whatever is meant for the original Public folder gets directed to the new location. I hope this helps. One caveat: if you use the ROBOCOPY command, make sure that the target directory is empty! The command given makes a MIRROR of the source directory, meaning it will delete everything that is already in the target directory. Best to all, Tom

Thanks for that, but I sure don't want to go through a re-install of Windows, esp. with all of that extra Geek-under-the-hood stuff going on. The stuff above is bad enough! For a new install it may be ok, but also note in the replies: (Andre) "This is not something I recommend, since it can cause adverse effects on the systems stability: http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/95/1/How-to-move-the-special-folders-in-Windows-Vista.html "I should add that Andre is right, MS states it here: This setting should be used only in a test environment. By changing the default location of the user profile directories or program data folders to a volume other than the System volume, you will not be able to service your Windows installation. Any updates, fixes, or service packs will fail to be applied to the installation. Microsoft does not recommend that you change the location of the user profile directories or program data folders. So take care...

Well. TrackIR is next for me. Do I have to install OFF in the Administrator account (C:\Users\Administrator, i.e. while I'm logged into it), or just an account with Administrator privileges? Sorry to barge in but I noticed what you bolded there was very important to me... I already have to rip out CFS3 because I didn't put it in the right place for ETO! And while I'm on the subject, for OFF, should my "vanilla" installation of CFS3 go in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 3.0, or should I put it....? Thanks, perhaps to keep the thread on course you could PM your reply...

Thanks to all three of you! Yeah, as I said, this stick has to be "dumbed down" quite a bit for OFF. I'm surprised & sorry to hear about the SOH-OBD "split" - at least they still have a link to this forum. This forum is actually listed as a sub-forum of CFS3 over there. Bannantion is awful, too, things must've gotten pretty heated! But such is life. I guess one reason I thought I had to muck about in the CFS3.xca file was that I didn't think CFS3 was "directly supported" by Saitek - well, that and what the guys said over there. But now I have to rip everything out anyway. I wanted to install all my sims under C:\FlightSims\<sim> to get around the Win 7 permission issues, and to keep things neat. But the ETO (and, I assume) the PTO expansions require that your "vanilla" CFS3 install is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\<sim>. So I have to disable my UCA, clean everything out (registry and all), and re-install, patch, then get into ETO and OFF installation. But I'm tickled pink with the machine. The vendor, well, the could've done better, but hey. Someone got in a hurry and plugged the SATA 3 drives into the SATA 2 ports on the MB, but now that that's fixed, I'm gold. And I'm only at 4.1 GHz, still have plenty of room there. They had the VCore up too high as well. I didn't want to get into the overclocking myself, but after I saw what was going on, I thought I'd better check things out myself,so I've had a quick learning curve the last couple of days. Anyway, thanks again! I really appreciate the lists! Tom

Well, I was doing that based on examples over at the SOH forums. I'll try your way - and I like the idea of using macros, that seems like a great way to keep track of things! Others have said not to use the profiles (*.pro) that Siatek makes, but it would seem to be the easiest way to go. I'll give it a try! Thanks, Tom * In the meanwhile, it's also occurred to me that a lot of what I was looking for was listed higher up in the file. My father-in-law used to tell me, "Tom, it's no use being stupid if you never show it!"

So the hardware and software is all installed, but the stick assignments are giving me fits. The box itself is fantastic, even though I'm not fully up to speed. Vanilla installs of FSX and CFS 3 are running at 30 and 60 FPS, respectively, and with CFS3 I simply maxed all the sliders. One of my big problems is the fields in the CFS3 XCA file. For instance, I have these fields for my rudder pedals (And yes,I know we don't have brakes in OFF, but I'm not that far yet!): <Axis ID="X" Action="BRAKES_LEFT" Scale="64" Nullzone="16"/> <Axis ID="Y" Action="BRAKES_RIGHT" Scale="64" Nullzone="16"/> So... where is the definitive list of actions that I can type into that field? I know that Action="HAVE_A_ BEER_ON_THE_WING" probably doesn't correspond to any action in CFS3. And further, does OFF add actions that maybe are more relevant to WWI than WWII? As you said, this stick is insane for OFF, with all those buttons, sliders, hats & triggers all programmable in 3 modes, it'll take some serious dumbing down, but as I'm an expert in "dumb" I can probably handle it! Best, Tom

AHA! Barmy "ossifiers" Club, I'll bet! & Blast it, I started the FSX install already... oh, well, Then I'll do the hardware, then the "important" ones - CFS3-OFF and CFS3-ETO.

Thanks, everyone, and Bullethead, I appreciate your input. By the way, what's that BOC medallion I've been seeing so much around here? & should I install the sims before the hardware, or the hardware before the sims? Thanks again, Tom

Well, I don't have much of a choice there, the X52 is all I have! But I also have TrackIR, as it seems pretty indispensable for OFF. And the X52 will be fine for CFS3-ETO and FSX... Configuring the new computer now, ready to rip somebody's head off - and I haven't even started on the sims... not a good day. Plus, I paid for a 20% overclock and didn't get it, and my SATA 6 GB/Sec drives are reporting at 3 GB/s... and anyting installing off the Pioneer Blu-Ray seems to be crawling slow. Sheesh.

At the risk of ticking somebody off, I noticed the Red Crescent was involved in this... I think they have some housecleaning to do in their respective homelands before they come crying to us about the Geneva Conventions, "war crimes" and "rules of engagement" in video games! Until they do, the may apply their carefully-pursed lips to my exposed derriere!

Wow, one year ago today you posted this! I've been out of the OFF business for a while but am getting my new box today. Just a thought, why not put your video in the downloads section and then we can just grab it? I mean, yeah, 1 GB, but still, it could be a background D/L I'm really interested in seeing this, I chose my screen name for a VERY good reason! As well, I know in the past you all have sent out release DVD's of OFF, etc. Maybe this material and the survival guides could be included on them as well. Remember Pearl Harbor, 70 years ago today...

I'm enjoying the humorous entries here, but if it evolved into a contest of sorts, I'd go with "OFF: Crosses of Honor" or "OFF: On a Wing and a Prayer". I don't get to fly OFF too much, I've been terribly busy, but a new box comes in tomorrow and I plan a full reconfiguration - the new combat rudder pedals, joystick and throttle are sitting there waiting, and the TrackIR is in the closet as well - my old machine didn't have enough ports to plug all this in. Ya know, "Crosses of Honor" could refer to either the medals or the grave markers. One thing I've grown to appreciate from "flying" these birds is the sheer bravery of the men who piloted these things. Sometimes I fire it up just to watch that stunning opening video by Polovski. Brings tears to my eyes. Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to P4! ETA: Holy mackerel! Didn't know the thread was so hot! There must have been a dozen posts while I was composing this! ETA again: I'm a complete idiot. I'd only read page 1... ETA a third time: Has anyone suggested "OFF: Spin, Crash and Burn" (for the humor section...)

My only comment is, having gone for Win7 64 bit, I think I'd have sprung for 8 GB of RAM. But I'm still wildly jealous! Good luck; we await feedback! Tom

Hello, all! I checked around and couldn't find anything on this. One of my Christmas presents was a reasonable speaker set for my computer. It is Dolby 5.1 capable and I have set it up that way, with a subwoofer at my feet, the center on the monitor, and the 4 peripherals where they belong, wired properly, etc. I'd have thought that if it helped one's SA anywhere, it'd be in OFF, with the open cockpits, and what-not; but I didn't seem to notice a difference, other than general sound quality. But this could be due to a number of factors: 1. Concentrating so much on the visual that the audio spatial information doesn't really register in my pea-brain. 2. The sim really doesn't support such sound set-ups, or I didn't know where to tell it I have a 5.1 setup. 3. I only thought I set it up correctly (at 54 years old, that is a possibility, though remote, I think...) 4. My 54 year-old ears just don't work like they should. That's what my dear wife says when I don't hear her, but when she doesn't hear me, it's because I mumble! For option #3, I suppose I could find some little utility that would let me test my sound field. #4 requires a hearing test. I guess it's no's 1 & 2 that I'm wondering about. I'm looking forward to Hat in the Ring. Last night, the novice German Fliegher Rex von Schanups absonded with the Red Baron's triplane again, only to be shot down after poking a few holes in the canvas of a Sopwith Camel. He at least put it down without crashing, but I don't think the Baron will be too happy with him! (Still flying QC "pilot never dies" mode) Thanks all, Tom