Wayfarer

It had been a great mission. Registering corps artillery ... white AA bursts showing Huns swarming all over the place ... me dodging and weaving every which way to avoid them ... a crooked bit of front so I couldn't quite tell where the enemy AA would come from ... our chaps raiding an airfield a few hundred yards away ... turning for home and then ... complete seize up! Wouldn't move or respond at all, and I really wanted to get this one logged. I tried a tentative pause, then a pan around ... nothing. I wandered sadly off to unburden my woe to middle daughter, who politely didn't listen. Returning disconsolately to the screen, however, I discovered that the pause and pan had now registered ... revealing a concentration of allied AA slightly below and ahead of me, bracketing a formation of enemy aircraft that I had not noticed. Unpausing, I abruptly changed heading and escaped! Pondering on this, I think it is quite obvious what happened .. OFF was warning me! Realising I was heading for danger it did what it could to alert me and prevent me from meeting a fiery demise! Cynics may point out that a check on my frame rate immediately after OFF became unstuck showed that I was getting about 11FPS and, with these busier times, I may have to take my sliders down a notch. Middle daughter may simply tell me I am being stupid. I, however, prefer to believe that I was saved by OFF ... or the Angel of Mons.

Thanks Olham. I have taken my terrain slider down to 3 now. It has been doing ok at 4, but I think that now things are getting busier something has to give. I think the anti-virus and firewall are in game mode but I will check it again.

Well our system is fairly modest for nowadays, the processor is 3.0GHz dual core, the graphics card is an NVIDIA GEFORCE9600GT and we have 4GB RAM. I don't ever remember experiencing a complete freeze like this before, but it was very busy. There was a frantic barrage going on, several groups of German aircraft being fired at, me being fired at, allied aircraft were bombing an airfield very nearby. I guessed what the problem was and was hoping it would catch up with itself, but it hung for a long time. I really didn't want to lose the mission as I was just starting on my way home. As I am working my way through chronologically, and am up to October 1916, the sky has gradually been getting busier. I guess as it gets into 1917 it will be even more so. I have put a couple of my sliders down a notch. That begs a question, can anyone explain how the 'Overall Graphics' slider relates to the rest of the settings? Still it was fortunate how it showed up that enemy formation, or I might have run straight into it!

In trying to wean myself of any HUDs, I have got as far as just having the the compass in one corner and navigating using paper maps and occasional looks at the in-game map, so I am not following waypoints. In navigating to the target point I try to minimise the time that I am behind enemy lines by staying on our side of the lines until roughly at the right latitude, then dashing across the lines to the right point. I return by the reverse route. The 'official' waypoints seem to take a slightly more direct route, with longer portions of the flight behind enemy lines. I was wondering if these followed the way that actual mission routes were worked out, and were they constrained by considerations such as fuel usage? I am concerned that I might be 'cheating' a little with my own choice of routes.

Javito, sounds to me like you're in 'Sim Shock'! Something I have experienced several times when things appear have to been running smoothly. The alarming of other family members by desperate cries, and the instinctive need to post the details on this forum are classic symptoms!

That is certainly true, Flyby. When I first started OFF I was dutifully following the waypoints and got promoted quite quickly. I have traded that off now against sheer survival! Those are good points Olham. I am flying a two seater campaign, and fly very warily. I hadn't thought about the likelihood of an ambush if you just traced the same route back on the return journey.

I've been exactly the same. You can't always 'do' much with historical knowledge other than know it, but having something like OFF that gives you such a feel for even one small part of the period, as well as an idea of being part of the wider events, helps it all feel that much more relevant. I had a basic knowledge of WW1, but since getting OFF I have got several more specific books on the period itself, gone through my Dad's collection for the 'boring' political ones that I didn't read when I was a kid - and now seem so fascinating - and even my Mom's books on the royal families of Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which give such an insight into the relationships between various nations in those years. Like yourself, I also spend ages on the internet looking for related subjects. Just watch out if you go to a WW1 German uniform site that prompts a alarming warning from Norton - it was about the last site I visited before our hard drive crashed. I still wonder if it did something nasty!

After struggling to get OFF running properly again since our hard drive died, I have had several false starts. I have, however, just completed the 3rd mission in a row without a hitch. The main culprit all along looks to have been the most fundamental thing that I should have remembered - optimising for the AMD dual core processor. It's there in the FAQs - which I thought I had carefully perused - and I must have downloaded it when I first installed OFF. I even remember making a birthday card for a CFS3 ETO playing friend from a Spitfire photograph, to resemble a 'Biggles' book cover, with him taking on a dastardly 'dual core' weapon which threatened flight simmming! That'll learn me to read the FAQ's thoroughly!

Yep, that's the thing Lewie. On the OFF FAQs it isunder question 9: 'graphics seem to stutter or go very fast'. It just mentions it on one line - I'm trying to make excuses for not noticing it now! My main problem was that it kept shutting down, but when it didn't crash it was sometimes 'racing'. I remembered that I had seen a solution to that and finally found it again. Since downloading the optimiser, it seems to have cured the crashes as well.

And I thought it was just me! I always felt embarrassed that I sometimes felt too tired to start OFF, being convinced I would get my pilot killed because I couldn't concentrate. What was it like for people who had to do it for real!

I am really glad you posted this Olham. I run my pilots consecutively, starting each newcomer from the date of the previous pilot's demise. This is usually some way into a campaign period. I have been furiously advancing time to get to the required date! I suspected something like this was possible but was too convinced I'd mess things up. I have just recreated my latest pilot for thr third time, owing to fallout from our hard drive crash, and this has saved me a lot of time.

I give the Aerodrome gallery a quick click virtually every day, in anticipation of some new piece. There is some superb work there. I always liked that Al Forbes picture of the Taube. The way it picks out the wood and the wire around that birdlike shape. It almost has the air of a fantasy, like a pastiche of an early design which never really flew.

There were a couple of points I wanted to look up recently that I specifically remember him replying about. Is it possible he could have requested all his posts to be removed?

Fifteen days and two reinstalls after our hard drive died I finally completed an OFF campaign mission. I unplugged from the router and disabled every firewall and virus protection I could see (we have Norton). Still can't be sure that's the problem but it worked for 40 minutes without a hitch, and it's very satisfying to get the old Quirk all the way there and back again. Thanks to forum members for advice and clues as to what to check Wayfarer.

Has any one else found that his posts aren't appearing when viewing past threads?

When OFF gives you a 'this program must close' message, does it produce an error log anywhere that might give a clue as to why? I am on my 2nd reinstall after having to replace our hard drive. My campaign is all set up but it keeps crashing with that message at some point - up to half an hour into the mission sometimes. I though it might be the graphics settings being too high, but I wasn't sure if it would cause that sort of crash - so hit upon a cunning plan. I racked all the sliders up to 5 and ran another mission to see what would happen when it finally got overwhelmed, and whether I got that particular message. It looked magnificent, but would it crash ... would it hell! I was even chasing a formation of Rolands in my solitary BE2 in the hope that it wouldn't cope! I exited in disgust in the end. I guess whatever it was may have cured itself, but if I keep getting the message, is there anywhere that gives any clues as to what the problem might be?

Thanks LIMA (again). Yes, I had a feeling that any error log wouldn't be understandable anyway. I did download the latest graphic card drivers, which seemed to solve a couple of minor glitches, but I was aware that it could cause other problems. Might be worth trying rolling back the driver. I wouldn't have thought that the hard drive was that fragmented yet, but it's true that we seem to have a host off background processes running so that's also worth a try. Olham, the wierd thing is that we only have quite a modest system. I wouldn't have expected it run for a minute with terrain and scenery at 5. I suspect it of being just plain contrary!

After my hard drive died two weeks ago, I have fitted a new hard drive and reinstalled OFF BHAH. I patched and configured it, and ran it. It appeared to work fine in all aspects that I could think of. I then installed HitR - from my saved version, and patched it. Now, in Campaign, when I go to the breifing screen, there are no boxes visible to set the fuel and ammunition levels. Also, by general clicking around, I found that clicking airstart resulted in a change of mission - although it might always have done that as I never used air start before. I have the latest drivers for the graphics and sound cards installed. I have OFF Manager running as administrator, and CFS3.exe running as administrator and under XP SP2 (the OS is VISTA 64) I don't have CFS3 loaded, which I did have before the hard drive died. Is there anything I can try apart from a reinstall? If it comes to that, can HitR be 'removed' and the reinstalled by itself, or should I remove OFF completely and start again from installing BHAH. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

LIMA, thanks - that gave me the clue I needed! It is an option button in the Workshop. I had got so wrapped up in configuring and graphics settings I didn't look for anything that simple.

Loved the poem! I only usually fly the BE2, but recently tried the Roland in a test flight to check I had installed Bletchley's mods correctly. Perhaps a BE2 pilot should keep quiet, but at one point I was flying sideways for quite a bit! As my reinstallation isn't going perfectly, however I would be happy to fly either one of them. Off now to post in the general help section!

Just a comment on the photos. There is something about the 8th (I think) one down, with the Nieuport some way behind the Dr.1 that has the atmosphere of an ‘authentic’ combat view taken from another aircraft. The position of the aircraft at either side of the frame has an unposed feel, and it gives me an impression of looking down on the aircraft, which I think you might not get in colour. Quite surprised me when I first saw it!

Well, after our hard drive died last Saturday, I have managed to install a new drive, which is seems to be working so far (this rates as a highly technical operation for someone like me), and get back on the internet. I have reinstalled OFF and it seems to be working generally ok. The OBD initial screen is off centre for some reason but the game seems to run alright in Quick Combat. Unfortunately we seem to have lost a few pixels toward the top right hand corner of the screen. Needless to say, they make a dark shape which looks just like a turning aircraft! On the good side, I discovered that my OFF background information and templates were backed up after all. All I have to do now is reconfigure the joystick, reallocate all my personal OFF key commands and troll through the forum for all the posts on tweaking settings. This time I am going to note down any alterations that I make! Hopefully I'll be able to re-set up my BE2 campaign sometime next week.

Only saw this just now. Highly entertaining! I was so proud my partition post was mentioned in 'Other Items' I had to explain to my wife why I was so excited!

Well, if I am ever going to run OFF again, I am going to have to fit a new hard drive. I am thinking of getting a 1TB drive seeing that our 500GB one was already half full when it died. I have been reading up about partitioning discs. The general consensus seems to be have one partition for the operating system and programmes - which will need defragmenting periodically, and one for data that probably won't - or not much. There seems to be quite a variance in the suggested size of the partitions, however. I thought I would ask, how, if at all, other OFF players partition their discs, and what sizes do you use? Thanks, Wayfarer

Thanks. I'll certainly look into these further if we can get her up and running again.