Shiloh

Thanks Olham and Jim!

DiD I mention I'm excited about this Olham?

All my positive energy and thoughts are coming your way Tony.

This article is about 10 months old so I'm not sure if anybody has seen it but it's a very interesting read and may solve the mystery of a missing RNAS pilot. http://www.atoz-guides.com/wreckage-of-a-first-world-war-plane-found-on-thassos/

Some of my friends I do Civil War reenacting with joined a British regiment and they meet twice a year at this site in Pennsylvania. They said it was awesome and I'm considering joining them next year. http://www.great-war-assoc.org/index.html ABOUT THE GWA The GWA strives to keep alive the history of the Great War, and honor those who fought it's battles, through battle reenactments and educational events. Our membership recreates many of the sights and sounds of the 20th Century's most significant conflict. In addition to various special events around the country, the GWA owns the Caesar Krauss Great War Memorial Site near Newville, PA. Here, on a 100 acre sight in south-central Pennsylvania, we have authentically recreated a portion of the Western Front as it may have appeared circa 1917-1918. Our battle reenactments take place within systems of opposing trenches complete with a crater-pocked No-Man's Land. There are belts of barbed wire, used to protect the sandbagged front line trenches, and the opposing positions are punctuated by bunkers with functioning machine-guns. Behind the main lines are supporting and communication trenches, connected to underground dugouts, where officers plan operations and the common soldiers eat and rest. From the moment you arrive at an event you will be submerged in the Great War. From the clothing you wear, to the food you eat, to the trenches you fight in - nothing is out of place! World War One reenacting is truly, "The Reenactor's Reenactment!" From history to practice, the Great War Association strives for the elite authenticity standards

Sure thing fellas and it's good to see you still hanging around the mess.

You're the best Lou! Now if I can only find a way to stop shredding the wings off Nieups. I'll be in business.

I've been QC training on the Nieuport 28's in anticipation of joining the 27th, 94th or 95th squadrons in the Toul area (and just west - forget the name of the aerodrome) and look forward to using this map. A bit of the map to the south gets cut off by that square of white with the miles/kilometers scale. I don't want to create more work for you Lou by any means but is there detail under that area or is it incomplete?

Well done Lou. I used the first map for my ESC 48 campaign and it served me well. This map is even better...thanks for your hard work.

I likely would have never survived that war as a pilot....I'm too aggressive. It is impossible however to project one self into the actual conflict so one can't say for sure how they would fight. For example, French pilots may have been aggressive just by the fact that they were fighting on their own soil and their families may have been in harms way. I guess what I'm trying to say is aggressive or even cocky is not always bad. Some guys fought that way and they survived to live beyond the war. It just becomes less likely the more chances that are taken.

WOFF is an incredible WWI sim and I've enjoyed it immensely over the last 6 days. My hats off to the developers for all their hard work. My rig however is not as up-to-date as it should be so here is my story. I have had a series of flying and testing triumphs and frustrations over the last few days. The triumphs have been the moments where I've figured something out that gave increased performance and the frustrations are the times where I was in a fight at 7 FPS. But now, I've finally reached a workable medium and would like to share my specs/settings so that others with borderline systems may have some more information to work with in getting their rigs running WOFF somewhat smoothly. Additionally, I was hoping some of you may help me out in squeezing even more performance out of my rig/settings. First off, here are my specs. - Motherboard: MSI K9A2CF-F AMD 790X - AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core 3.0 GHz (OC'd to 3.46 GHz) - 4GB RAM - Seagate Barracuda 250GB Sata HD (7200 rpm) - Samsung Spinpoint TB HD (7200 RPM) - DVDRW/CDRW drive - Corsair 650TX 650W ATX12V - GB Radeon 6850 HD video card (OC'd from 1050 MHz to 1150 MHz) - Windows 7 (32-bit) - Acer 23" monitor (max res 1920 x 1080) - TrackIR 5 Pro I knew I would have to OC at some point and clearly now was the time. I figure that even if I get a bit of a shorter life out of these components they are on the verge of becoming inadequate for most modern gaming and I'll be in a better position to upgrade a year from now so fingers crossed. The AMD Athlon is known as a stable CPU and I know many have had success OC'ing beyond what I've done here. I believe my system is stable after 3 days for testing and my temps seem okay. With that said I am currently getting 35-45 FPS in normal flight conditions and 25-35 FPS when in combat (anywhere from 4-10+ craft). It's not smooth as glass but I don't feel like smashing my rig with a sledgehammer either. Here are my AMD card settings. 3D Application Settings AA: 8X with morphological filtering checked (fliter: standard 8X) AF: 16X (per pixel samples) Tessellation: 64X (with nothing checked) Catalyst AI: Quality (medium setting) Wait for vertical refresh: Off, unless application specifies AA Mode: Adaptive Multi-sample AA OpenGL Settings: Triple buffering not checked AMD OverDrive High-performance GPU clock settings: 850 MHz High-performance memory clock settings: 1150 MHz Enable manual fan control: 100% And my workshop settings (the settings I feel affect performance). UI Aspect: 16:9 wide In Cloud Fog: off Aircraft Skin Res: Hi (No Bullet Decals) Terrain Detail Textures: Detail Textures Normal Woods/Forests Density: Low Resolution: 1920x1080, 32 bit depth, 8 samples AA Sliders set to 4,2,2,2,4 G Effects: off Even with those slider settings everything looks pretty decent. This may/may not help others with borderline rigs. Also, this is what I've figured out on my own and in perusing the forums so it's very possible there is some information here that can be improved upon. I would love to squeeze out an extra 10-15 FPS so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Good stuff Royce. When you see that Mobo screen quickly appear on boot up it will often say which key to use for BIOS.

I'm not sure Duke. First I started slowly lowering different settings and the graphics quality was getting pretty bad so I tried raising some stuff up to see what that would do and I came to this. My rationale was that the bullet holes may take more rendering power and tax the processor a bit more rather than a smooth skin although I'm not sure I'm correct in my thinking. Thanks for sharing your settings and your experiences on optimizing a less than optimal system. I have never OC'd before now Royce so I don't know too much about it. I Google-searched, read some articles and watched some videos than rolled up my sleeves and had at it. From what I learned it is best to OC through the BIOS settings. On bootup, when I see the Motherboard load screen I hit the 'delete' key and that gets me into BIOS. Mine is an older BIOS setup so from the main menu I go to Cell Menu>Adjust CPU FSB Frequency>then change that number from the default of 200 up to 230. Next ESC out to main BIOS screen and save settings. This OC'd my processor from 3.0 GHz to 3.5 GHz. I tried numbers larger than 230 first but when my computer was acting up, wouldn't reboot and/or became unstable I kept lowering that number until my system stabilized. The idea is maximum performance while still operating a stable system. One must keep an eye out for the CPU temps to make sure that the OC doesn't overheat your CPU. There are some videos I found on youtube that show how to update the BIOS settings on a newer BIOS. Please do some of your own research before attempting this as there are risks to your system and I don't want to be responsible for pointing you in the wrong direction or providing bad information as I really am inexperienced with this. I have however been able to find a happy medium between CPU performance and stable system that has accepted this OC and I believe this is a significant key to allowing me to play WOFF at a smoother level.

Thanks Lou. I've been testing like crazy and I finally have my rig stable. The 10 vs. 10 fights in QC have gone smoothly with only occasional hitches here and there - typically when all 20 craft or so initially join together on the screen. It has taken a week but finally I can start a serious campaign pilot (RFC 74 flying SE5a's) and enjoy the thrilling and often terrifying skies Over Flanders Fields.

Are you able to include the fences? :)

Awesome Lou! I will have to start a campaign in this area just so I can enjoy this map. When you fly with maps Lou, do you disregard the need to hit waypoints?

I came home yesterday to WOFF in my mailbox and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Starting tomorrow, I have 10 days off so I'll have plenty of time to explore. Overall, I'm impressed with WOFF. My framerates are hanging around 20-25 FPS so I need to make some adjustments for sure. I like the workshop settings - easy to use and a lot cleaner than OFF. I have my joystick programmed for the most part but it needs some tweaking. I really like the menus and the details off my squads and mates. The detail on the planes is amazing and the atmospheric effects are wonderful. The AI is tough and I've really felt challenged by it. I do need a bit more time with her before I can really provide my full impression but overall I'm enjoying WOFF immensely. Flight 1 My first pilot was a spring 1918 German flying for Jasta 6 in a Fokker D.VII. I became separated from my flight as I couldn't keep up when I encountered none other than the RFC-56 boys flying SE5a's. Outnumbered 3-1, this wasn't the fight I wanted on my first scrap in WOFF. I was able to outmaneuver and get behind one eventually - although it took some time as he maneuvered well - and at about 250 yds I started dealing some damage although my accuracy was crap. I saw a few puffs of smoke so I know I did some damage. Just then, I heard bullets whizzing by my head and hitting my fabric. I went into a wild-dive to escape and somehow managed to shake my pursuer. I got on the tail of another and he was able to outrun me. I had fired a few bursts from distance and then my guns jammed. I couldn't figure out how to unjam my guns so I went to land and did a little sideslip maneuver to get into position to land and spun and crashed into the ground and died. Strange - I pulled this same maneuver a hundred times before but never crashed. My plane must have been damaged from the initial hits or WOFF is less forgiving. Flight 2 My next pilot was an early winter 1917 Sopwith Pup pilot with RNAS-3. Again, I couldn't keep up with the flight so I peeled off and made for the lines. I hadn't gone to the front yet and I wanted to see what it was like. I couldn't see much as I was over 9,000 ft. Finally I spotted an enemy sausage and I dove on it as the wind whistled through my wires. It went up in a ball of flame on my second pass as I dove on it almost vertically. Then I made for the lines and was surprised as hell to see my flight leader coming right at me. He swung around once he got past me and I felt like he was really looking out for me and was there to help me get back safely. Nice immersion detail. Flight 3 My last pilot was a spring 1918 Dr.1 pilot from Jasta 26. The odd thing is most pilots are D.VII pilots and I'm one of only three Dr.1 pilots. I never saw that in OFF. My first flight was with two D.VII pilots and we were to patrol the front. Again, I couldn't keep up - I'm taking the flight lead from now on - so I became separated. I flew smack dab into the middle of 3 Spad XIII's from ESC 57 and I quickly dove for the turf as I was still on my side of the lines. I figured it would reduce their speed advantage and feature my turn advantage. So it went and I was able to isolate one from the rest. He fought well but just above the turf I was able to out-turn him. I finally got him lined up for long enough to punish him with some bursts. I saw him go into a quick nosedive and missed the crash into the ground, I circled around, saw the smoke and the crater and I knew I had my first kill. He was French ace Charles Marie Joseph Leon Nuville (12 victories). I chased another one toward the lines (A. Franzosisch) but he quickly outdistanced me.

Thanks Von Baur and rjw. I've flown 4-5 campaign missions and so far I'm able to keep up. There are times when I'm full throttle and just keeping pace and I've used Olham's technique of stair-casing. It is dangerous business though as the craft are often so tight together. Just last night two of my mates collided while switching direction and both perished. I'm ok with auto-mixture right now Von Baur though thanks for the technique and your dads story connected with it. And yes, I will try auto pilot to see how I keep formation.

Duke and Olham. From what I can remember, Olham has a better rig than me. With that said WOFF was stuttering like a school boy in front of a large crowd until I made some changes. I OC'd my processor and my GB video card and tinkered with the settings until I found an acceptable medium. Right now, I'm getting 35-45 FPS on regular campaign flights and 25-35 FPS in medium combat, near the front and involving 10+ craft. It's not great performance but I can live with it for now. I simply need some upgrades but they can't happen now. I feel like I can squeeze some extra performance out which is why I'm going to post back with my specs/settings, and see if the community can help out. And sorry for hijacking your going away thread Olham...but you are going away so you'll probably never know.

Have a safe and fun trip with your family Olham.

I think I may have found the issue Javito. Since I checked 'on' for auto mixture, it seems I'm able to keep up. I will have to test more though to be sure. That's odd Olham. I wouldn't think the handling would change that much if at all. But if anyone would know it would be you. After many days of testing, I believe I'm getting closer to optimizing this game on system but it did involve some over clocking.

Well done my friend. May peace be the tie that binds us all.

Prediction: I will get killed by more fences than enemy aircraft.

I believe I've hit every fence on Flanders Fields. Damn you Farmer Flanders!!!

Merry Christmas to all of you. Be safe, be merry, and remember what this holiday is all about.