AndyHill

Some very interesting points there, this one just left me wondering a bit. I would assume you get info on if the player is red or blue? If so, wouldn't the campaign engine know which side Batumi is on? Whether or not it was taken over during the mission is another thing altogether and would of course be nice to know, but not vital at this point. Unless of course you're talking about a constantly running campaign on a dogfight server for example?

I haven't looked very closely but judging by the results (TacView) and what I know about export.lua, yes they should provide a pretty comprehensive set of data. I don't know if something important is missing (like for example destroyed bridges, buildings?), but what there is could take us pretty far. It's just a bit heavy-duty solution for something simple that already has a simpler existing solution (the debriefing of singleplayer missions). I don't know how hard it would be to have something similiar for multiplayer as well, in general Lock on / BS have excellent export and modification functionalities. One thing that has been puzzling me quite a bit is the strong separation of single and multiplayer functionality, for example the campaigns don't work in multiplayer mode at all (unless I've really missed something). Another puzzling thing (and quite relevant to dynamic multiplayer campaigns) is the way human flyables and AI planes are separated in multiplayer. It's very handy when in Il-2 you can just pick any flyable (unless specified otherwise) while the AI takes care of the rest. Anyway, I've flown a lot of dynamic campaigns in Il-2 and although they're not exactly perfect, they've offered countless hours of fun especially when shared with buddies online. Lock on / DCS represent a much more complex environment, but I'm pretty confident that it should be possible to create enjoyable DCs for them as well. I can't code worth ****, but I would be very willing to assist in design work or at scripting level if someone is seriously working on a DCSDCS. "Digital Combat Simulator Dynamic Campaign System", wow that's poetic, someone just HAS to do it now!

It would be a good improvement for campaign creators if there was a comprehensive eventlog created from all the missions. I actually enjoyed the BS campaign more than I thought I would, but unfortunately it doesn't work online.

Hmm definitely interesting. Could you guesstimate ballpark figures for the lowpass parameter if I wanted to try slightly lower, more base heavy sound in cockpit?

I suppose thanks are in order in this thread as well, LoVP and BSVP are both great software and I've enjoyed using them. I did some more pit building stuff for BS, though and ran into a bit of an issue. I attached a screenshot of my configuration, the secondary screen is a 21,5" touchscreen. What I'm trying to do is to display BSVP instruments, TouchBuddy and ABRIS + Shkval screens on the same monitor, unfortunately so far with little success. The first problem is that When BS starts (Windows 7 windowed mode) it overwrites the BSVP screen and I can't see the gauges. This could be alleviated by adding the option "always on top" for the BSVP just like TouchBuddy (I assume TB an BSVP would then sort their order based on which one was touched last (TB). This way I could display BSVP and BS screens on the same display as long as they don't overlap. If you look at the screenshot, however, you notice that I've arranged the gauges so that they utilize all the free space left from TB and the screens, which means that the BSVP window overlaps the ABRIS and Shkval screens. Now if BSVP was "always on top", it would completely cover the BS screens unless it was possible to make the BSVP background transparent. Is it possible? Actually the monitor software (or Win7?) already knows how to make any window slightly transparent and although this means the gauges are also ghost images I can sort of live with it. But the "always on top option" would be very useful for me (as long as it doesn't clash with TB which I don't think it would). Don't know if I'm just a freak exception, but perhaps other people might find the feature useful as well? Another neat but not ver critical feature that came to my mind is the way TouchBuddy window is immune to focus shift. This makes it possible to actually touch the screen without minimizing the game window every time. In my case the BSVP is also displayed on a touchscreen, which carries the risk that if I accidentally touch the BSVP window focus shifts to it and the game minimizes. I can get around this by extending the touchbuddy screen with an invisible background over the entire monitor area, but having BSVP optionally immune to focus shifts would make life a bit easier for me. Again, thanks for the great software.

LoVP is great software and the BS version is just epic! Now we can have navigation instruments in combat modes as well! One question, though: what factor determines the update rate and resolution of the gauges? I took a look at export.lua and it seems that the data is sent after each frame so the rate there is very high. BSVP does some pretty neat smoothing, but the gauges still seem to have quite discrete steps between different values. The software uses negligible CPU power and there's memory to spare, so would it be possible to adjust (or have a separate version with higher resolution) or would it be a lot of extra work to render? I have worked with physical gauges, but especially the navigation instruments are very complex to be recreated with servo based gauges and I would like to use VP gauges on a pretty big screen, making smooth operation important. Again, amazing software, thanks. Does anyone know of anything similiar for Il-2 by the way?

Vapor effects would of course be nice, but I have to admit I've been waiting to see wing flex in a sim for a while now. DCS would probably have enough details in different aspects of modeling to include such features, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. There's of course much more important stuff to tackle first, but then again the features might not be mutually exclusive.

Definitely something I'd like to hear more about. We had some good fun brainstorming campaign engines at the Lockoncampaign site, but seems that the site isn't operational anymore.

Unsurprisingly, here is the answer in all of its simplicity. Small scale models can be a very useful tool even in modern aircraft design, but you have to calculate in all the factors that change when you have a model that is for example 1/4 of the size of the real thing. When flying model airplanes trying to make them look as real as possible you have to put a lot of effort into flying it just the right way, which usually means making everything look like it's happening much more slowly than the plane would really like to go. For relatively light models inertia is only a fraction of what it is on the real thing, which makes realistic flight with models quite difficult and gives them the incredible handling characteristics seen on your video for example. Here's a pretty impressive video of what a model chopper can do: Needless to say, you shouldn't expect something like this from a real helicopter.

Go to main page, sign in, check out Files - Products. There you can download the missing files.

Hmm you actually got a review copy? I bought mine (actually twice) and it would be interesting to know if ED actually hand out review copies or other materials. It might not be very relevant unless there's a chance of getting to test the stuff before release, though, since I will be lining up for my own copy at the moment of release anyway.

It could also be that adding 64-bit support is just easier and thus more cost effective, even if a fully-threaded paraller processing optimized engine might provide greater benefits.

Ok, it appears that full screen might have done the trick. I'll have to do some more testing later, but it appears I may finally have got this working. Nice tip, Yossarian. Anyway, it would be really interesting to find out what's really going on. I noticed that the FPS curves are pretty similiar, one is just constantly higher than the other. This would indicate that the game is absolutely CPU bound in all the measured circumstances, which is within the limit of possibility, but somewhat unlikely. Then again, if the FPS increase comes from a huge boost in CPU power, why isn't the CPU working any harder? Anyway, I'll have to do some more tests when I have the time.

Ok, just tested Instant Action with and without the affinity tool. At first I thought I actually had some sort of a result with total CPU load hovering at around 30+%, but then I realized that I had some processes running that would account for the ten or so percent increase over the 25% load (maximum for single CPU). Sure enough, when I ran without the Affinity tool I got exactly hte same result (was only checking the CPU load, not FPS). The affinity tool did work since I saw the load bounce constantly from one CPU to another, but it didn't manage to utilize the extra CPU power. If anything, there was slight extra load from constantly switching the execution from one CPU to another, which is frankly pretty much what I'd expect to see when making an inherently single-CPU application run on several cores. Any ideas about how I could get the FPS increase?

Oh of course I forgot to mention that I was referring to the DCS affinity tool. I first ran the test by simply launching the single player mode, loading up a track file and recording a one-minute piece from the moment the chopper lifts off. Then I went and did it again by starting the single player mode through the affinity tool. The recordings came up practically identical. I'll try the Affinity tool again while recording the CPU load.

I have tested this program a while ago, but gained exactly 0 FPS. I tested with Fraps while running the same track twice and here are the results: http://tols17.oulu.fi/~ailomaki/bs/bsmulticoretest.jpg My CPU is a Q6600 quad core and the OS is 32bit Vista. HAve you guys tried to run tests like that? Are there some settings in Win I should be looking for, I don't really quite understand how the affinity trick would help an inherently non-multi-CPU simulator such as BS and I would definitely like to learn more.

A tight deadline shouldn't be that much of a problem, especially since the Russian version has been out for a while already and magazines aren't actually competing for their Black Shark review releases. I suppose ED would also be willing to hand out betas in advance to the press if someone asked for it. Basically it's always great to see someone go through the trouble to write reviews on hardcore simulators, but it pains me to see them treated this way (also referring to some other reviews posted here). I know for a fact that there are a lot of simulator enthusiasts in the Netherlands / Belgium region not to mention Great Britain or the US, I'm sure some of them could write great expert reviews on hardcore sims. Unless the magazine insists on using "casual gamers" to write to their target audience it really is that simple, write an email to the editor in chief, preferrably with a sample review and offer to write reviews on a freelance basis. It will probably mean working on single-digit hourly salary, but if you were going to play anyway, it's just bonus.

Praise the Lord for this bug. I was happily escorting my tanks along and noticed that there was enemy armor ahead and I was all out of vikhrs. I dashed like a madman for a reload, but knew I was going to be too late. When I got back to the crime scene I locked the first tank I could see, fired and killed it. Then I picked up another one, but the laser shut down while the missile was in flight. After the mission I kind of didn't get medals or anything, because nasty rumors say that it was me who attacked our forward units who had already smashed the enemy resistance and were happily sitting in defensive positions.

At the moment I would advice against purchasing iVibe, because things appear to be just as bad as I feared they were. I have been following the technology for years and from what I've heard from people actually using it, iVibe seemed to have potential close to TIR-scale, but due to some reasons it didn't take off. I said didn't instead of hasn't, because due to total lack of anything new for a good while now it seems that even the manufacturer has given up. This really is quite unfortunate.

Ok things don't seem to be going very smooth with iVibe, but I was wondering if Black Shark actually has support and if it's theoretically possible to get an iVibe file for it?

I have to say that this is a thoroughly fantastic idea. I think such a feature already exists in the real chopper, does Black Shark output the same kind of data?

This is actually a pretty common problem for hardcore sims that have an arcade mode. It's easier to get into, but in the end it'll teach you to do things the wrong way, which can be a bit problematic if the ultimate purpose is to learn to fly properly. Edit: Of course, I'm not against arcade mode in general, it's good to have something for people who don't have the time to dedicate for flying in the sim mode. I just don't think it's the best way to learn if the goal is to fly sim mode at some point.

Ok, the new functionalities seem to work pretty well in single player, but in multi I get error message Dispatcher::Can't execute Lua file ./Config/Export/Export.lua - ./Config/Export/Export.lua:79: attempt to call global 'GetDevice' (a nil value) EnableExportScript = true in the Configlua file. Anyway, I've had a look at the new export file and things look very promising indeed. There are many interesting and useful new export options, ED really seems to care about us crazy people building cockpit stuff.

Thank you, I'll try the new file ASAP.

I've been doing some testing and was wondering if there are some bugs in the system or if it's just me, but some export functions don't seem to work. For example altitude exports, bank angle and true airspeed seem to work, but indicated airspeed, slip ball position and vertical velocity return only nil values. The config file has "true" in it to allow export, I've tested mostly in singleplayer mode and I have the Russian download version. Any ideas?