column5

There is more to the mod wars than just that. It didn't start out as a fight over quality because in the beginning we all pretty much sucked compared to where we are today. Its more about the approach that people take to the subject matter (being respectful to the fact that these machines are historical artifacts and many of our guys lost their lives flying them) as well as respect for the community as a whole (where else will you find such a great group of people?) and cooperating with other modders.

I think our funk crashed the server...

Oh hell yes! Red Hot Mama! (You know who you are!)

GET DOWN ON IT!!!!

There is a lot to be said for not have a reporter attached to your hip 24/7... You obviously haven't been to Detroit...

Neither do I, but I don't go out on the Mississippi conducting boarding actions.

Even though I suck flying it in ACM, its still too cool for school. Makes me feel like I'm in The Right Stuff!

Didn't we deal with this sh*t 200 years ago?

Yes.

I'd suggest going back to Kreelin's original flight model for the Su-27 and using it as a starting point. Its very good, and was based on actual data and had the benefit of Kreelin's many years of experience. You can then start to identify individual problems that it may have under the new patch, and address them one by one.

You misinterperet completely. This isn't about experienced versus amateur modders. ErwinHans and his team are quite experienced and do excellent work. The problem is that people take these flight models and introduce error after error, compounding problems, and do it under the guise of "improvement" when there is no clearly defined problem. This is running rampant in the CA downloads and its practically impossible to download something and have any confidence in its performance relative to other aircraft.

According to orsin it is neither improved nor debugged--sounds like quite the opposite is true, in fact. Ruined and buggered up.

As with all things related to these sims, you have to commit yourself to enjoying them as-is, and be satisfied with the new features and enhancements TK provides. If you obsess over one or a few missing features, you are just going to be frustrated.

Fubar speaks the truth.

I've got access to MSDN at work and I've downloaded a copy of Windows 7 and installed it on my laptop. Its nice, but its basically just Vista Part 2 so I would not expect it to be a panacea.

Yeah, you can get a SLI or Crossfire board and just use it with a single card, no problem. Those ASUS boards with the P45 and X48 chipsets look interesting to me. I'd look for some reviews of those on HardOCP, TechReport and other hardware sites and see which one is considered the best.

ASUS makes good baords--although I am not familiar with that one, I would be comfortable with their products. Most enthusiast boards are going to have SLI or Crossfire, so I wouldn't factor it in my decision one way or another. ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc. are all good products.

I built a new machine late last year--I think it was in September--and I went with a dual-core 3.0 Ghz Intel CPU that I was able to overclock to 3.6 Ghz with no effort whatsoever. I guess my point of view is that going from 1 core to 2 will give you a very noticeable improvement to the overall responsiveness of your PC, but going from 2 to 4 will be less obvious. I base this on subjectively comparing the performance of my dual-core home machine to my quad-core work machine. The right solution for me was going with the fastest dual-core chip I could afford and then overclocking as much as I felt comfortable with. Your mileage may vary--everything I have said in this post and the one above is just my opinion and I can't guarantee you happiness or success.

Most Vista problems aren't really Vista problems but stubborn users who can't adapt to or figure out how to disable certain security features new to Vista. I run all of the SF games on Vista, and have played a number of other games both new and old without any problems. Discreet sound is still generally better to have than most on-board solutions. Some motherboards offer an on-board chip from Creative, which is fine, but stay away from the Realtek and other El Cheapo stuff. I see no advantage to SLI when a single GTX 260 offers so much performance. SLI would not be a factor in my motherboard choice. Even a single-card video solution today requires a good power supply. Don't skimp on it. Only a 64-bit OS can address 4GB of memory. I run Vista 64 with no problems. You need 64-bit drivers for all of your hardware. XP cannot address a full 4GB of RAM, and the 64-bit version of XP is really Windows 2003 Server with the XP interface. I've used it, and it works well, but driver support for new hardware will be a major headache as vendors aren't supporting it anymore (support was never good to begin with). You would be better off with one of the 216-core GTX 260 boards.

There are a number of Mirage Factory planes that make nice additions: http://www.column5.us/miragef.shtml

The key to ending Vista security frustrations is to disable UAC. It takes only a few seconds and your experience will be 1000% better. http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm

Oh, that's great news!

Yeah but its memberware/crapware. We've acquired the same commercial 3D model though and hopefully one of these days we'll put out a proper Peacemaker.