AndyHill

Hmm I forgot to mention that the stutter only appears online. It doesn't appear on tracks or off-line. ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking

I've read a lot about the dreaded online stutter issue that was supposedly fixed a long time ago. At least I thought it was until I saw it surface again recently. A friend of mine is having pretty serious connection problems, here's a track of what he sees when we fly: http://tols17.oulu.fi/~ailomaki/lo/kenguru.trk (LO 1.11). What isn't shown on the track is a stutter effect that causes short pauses every few seconds. Doesn't this sound a bit like the earlier stutter issue? What exactly did the stutter fix change? Why would the same kind of behavior manifest itself in 1.11, which supposedly has the stutter fix integrated? Here's a couple of interesting facts: - We tested a couple of hyperlobby servers to see if it was just my server causing the problems and noted that I had no problems whatsoever, but my friend's situation was unchanged. - A third person flying on my server doesn't have stutter problems. - We tested a few pingperiod values, didn't help much, but possibly had an effect on the frequency and magnitude of the periodical pauses. - At first he installed the FC over 1.02 and after running into aforementioned problems he tried a clean install over 1.0 and nothing changed. - AFAIK the stutter fix hasn't been installed as it should be part of 1.11? What would happen if the stutter fix was installed over 1.11? - We tried different connection setting, I have a 10Mb line, he has 512/???. We are in the same town and pings are pretty good (comparable to the third guy we fly with). We have flown lots of Sturmovik without any problems whatsoever. - I'm running on dual cores, forcing Lock on to one core didn't help. I'm also the only one in the group with a dual core. There's another perhaps interesting observation. When flying the missions I don't see anything strange with the problematic plane, except that when he deploys weapons they seem to hit before the weapon actually meets the target. It's like the planes were out of synch a little. Here's a track I recorded with the three of us flying a co-op: http://tols17.oulu.fi/~ailomaki/lo/threesome.trk It's a long track, you're only interested in the early parts of it. Actually, you don't want to see it to the end. In fact, I totally FORBID you from watching the end of the track. The other green camo Hog is the problematic one, I was the one recording the track. So would anyone happen to have any suggestions? Anyone suffering from the same problem? Isn't this pretty much exactly what the stutter patch was supposed to fix? What was the problem back then? Heeeeelp! ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking

You're not alone. I just spoke to another guy with the exact same problem He also purchased the game today. Tell me if you find a solution. _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

That stuff about lawyers and FBI is just really classy. Does ED really want to be associated with this bunch? Copy protection in itself is a good thingbut things are getting out of hand. I've heard enough to believe that SF most likely does produce problems for many people. Even if it didn't it has no right to get that deep into (relatively) innocent people's computers, since in exchange for the potential to cause harm it offers absolutely zero benefits. That's also why blaming CD drive manufacturers for the damage is a bit like shooting someone and blaming him for not wearing a kevlar vest. The StarForce company seems to have a bit of an attitude that, I dare say, matches their product.

I agree, these would be nice. So would separate on / off for pretty much every input function. It would also be nice to know if radar, ecm or laser are on or off. Hmm now that I thought of it is it possible to somehow get ECM status already? It would also be very useful to know which mission file the system is playing and if a listed world object is dead, damaged or ok (I don't actually know if this already works). ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

Yes, ED is a small team, but it's always a matter of cost/benefit ratios when deciding on new features. Dual cores may still be a minority, but in the (near) future things will change. Lock on is also VERY hard on the system and I'm pretty certain an average Lock on PC is a LOT more powerful than an average gaming PC. As far as features go I'd say a 50% increase in framerate would be pretty close to the top of the list. Especially since most imaginable features will also eat their share of the performance pie and you just can't eat anymore when the pie's already long gone. Unfortunately as far as Lock on goes CPU developement practically ceased about a year ago. Things like flight model and aI enhancements will probably require a lot of CPU power that just isn't there if you can't utilize dual cores. With the Black Shark addon ED are putting the player very close to the ground war, which will give ED a real challenge, since (IMRO) ground war isn't Lock on's strong point (for example the conversation around SAMs shooting down AGMs has revealed quite a lot of room for improvement in AI modeling). I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I can't help it. Lock on is nearing a dead end as far as developement goes if technological advancements can't make it run better anymore. Flight sim business is a bit more personal to me than any other gaming I do and I'm a bit worried about what will keep the ED team fed while they develop the next project after Black Shark. Sturmovik is about a year older than Lock on and thus far I've paid for three full-priced games and one add-on for the Il-2 series, Lock on has cost me one full-priced game and an add-on. There's a slight chance that the Sturmovik sequel will appear this year and there will be another add-on release for Il-2 before that. Since the Lock on sequel will probably require a complete rewrite of the engine (I can't see any new sim being published without multi-CPU support for example) it will probably be a huge effort and take lots of time. It might help if they could keep releasing add-on stuff to the previous sim while developing the new one like Oleg's team does and I think that would be easier if ED could stretch the limits of available CPU power a bit. It just came to my mind that ED have done fantastic job with the export functions. There's still room for improvement, but considering how few users there are it's an amazing effort and already better than any other sim I've flown. ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking

Complete multi-CPU support is probably too much to ask although it has been done before (Doom 3 got a HUGE boost from the new patch http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/page4.asp). Something like that would be pretty nice for Lock on, but I'm afraid it's a bit unlikely. That's a shame, because without dual-core support Lock on is pretty much at the height of its glory; it will never have more CPU power available since CPU frequencies are unlikely to go up that much in the next few years and Lock on really could use every bit of power it can get. The problem with multi thread coding is the complexity of synchronizing threads and all the communication between them. It would probably be a lot of work to include full support at this point, but the rewards would likely be fantastic (50+% framerate increase in CPU limited situations). Reading between the lines I think ED have already made their decision about that and although I might not like it it's quite understandable. Adding some support for multi cpu environments might be beneficial, however, and the best candidates should be relatively simple features that are somewhat separate from the rest of the program (to reduce communication/synchronization problems), hence the lua stuff. People using the export are pretty rare nowadays, I would think, but the situation might be different if the export was enhanced a little. Bullseye mod and different flight analyzing tools might raise interest and if there was real-time mission scripting available through lua it might even be possible to create pretty interesting scenarios and emulate a strategic AI for example. The bottom line is this: Lock on needs lots and lots of CPU power. The good thing is that there's a lot of that power available, the bad thing is that Lock on won't use it. If, as it seems to be, the dev team isn't willing to go all the way with multi-cpu support I urge them to try to find any cost-effective solution available. A 10-20% increase in FPS in cPU limited situations wouldn't be that bad, I think. ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking

It'd be a great surprise to have proper multi-CPU support in Lock on, but how about at least running the lua exports in a separate thread? I've read about problems running Lock on with dual CPU computers, I hope those will be solved in the next patch or Black Shark (if they still exist that is). A couple of interesting lua projects had problems with CPU power and for example the export stuff required to run my home cockpit has about 10-15% negative impact on performance. Lock on NEEDS all the power it can get and true multi-cpu support would be fantastic. It would be possible to do some pretty neat stuff with the export funcion if there was lots of power available and it might not be that difficult to implement. Hmm how about for example mission scripting through lua? Just dreaming perhaps, but it would probably be nice. ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking

Due to hard drive failure I lost over 90GB of aviation/flight sim videos and images I had collected (and used to torture my friends with). I had some real collectors' specials in there and not one stupid picture or video clip survived. The total loss rate was over 90%, the only directory that survived completely intact was teh browser cache. It's time to rebuild. If you have working links for the best Lock on videos (especially Glowing Amraam and LockonSTE series) please let me know. _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

A new video card might not give much more FPS (depending on your settings), but you should be able to have more eye candy options enabled. If you want a really rough rule of thumb CPU makes the sim play faster and GPU makes it look better. It's not actually quite that straightforward. The 512MBGTX is a very powerful card even when compared to the 6800 ultra. Maybe you could try tapping into that power by using higher AA, FSAA or in-game settings? _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

Toe-brake functionality with differential braking. New Lua exports such as radar on/off laser on/off/force ecm on/off gear down/up and gear status 0...1 _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

I haven't tried it myself, but I think this device has more potential: http://www.ivibe.com/ _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

It was very windy on the day of the crash. I think the model was on a downwind leg and the pilot overestimated the airspeed when he started turning and the plane just lost lift and stalled. I can't imagine how he must have felt. ________________________________________________________ Lock on must have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

Well we won't get to see the full potential before someone gets through to ED to see if they can directly support it. Otherwise we're left with the sound interpretation mode which isn't going to work quite as well. Does anyone actually have a unit? I saw Polecat rave about his in the ivibe forums, would it be the Polecat from Lock on community? _______________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes with differential braking!

It does, indeed. Craig said that he's been trying to contact ED without much success. He also says that it should be very easy to implement the feature. Maybe ED could at least take a look at what he's got before the next patch? _______________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes with differential braking!

This at least seems to be a bit better than the usual systems based on running subwoofers under the chair: http://www.ivibe.com/ Does anyone have any experience on the technology? The system can use game audio as a source, but it also has a native support mode (that would probably work better) that has to be included in the game pretty much like the TrackIR. Any chances of seeing support in Lock on? The concept is nice, I wonder how it works in practice? It would be neat to feel the roar of the afterburner, wheels rolling on the runway, plane shaking during violent maneuvers and so on. Including the support in a game is supposed to be easy so perhaps it might be worth considering for Lock on? _______________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes with differential braking!

bada, the learning curve is very individual. I was fortunate and learned to use TIR very quickly back in the days when no games even had native support for it. Some never get used to it, however. TIR is a very difficult thing to recommend. I simply won't fly without one ever again and think it's the best thing for simulators since someone invented the joystick. It's a highly individual thing, however, so I have to be careful about praising it too much. One question that might help you decide is how well do you fly with padlock? The TIR is in some ways similiar and if it's difficult for you to steer the plane when you're not looking forward you might have problems with TIR. _______________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes with differential braking!

No, the (first generation) PPU will not be used for flight model calculations AFAIK. There are no such features in the SDK from what I've heard. For the same reasons it will not be used for radar or other calculations either. I had never heard of fluid dynamics before in this context, does this mean actual fluid dynamics (as in masses of air for example) or is it just another way to say "neat water effect"? What it could be used for is hit calculations and it might be possible to have for example real shrapnel (like for example Sturmovik does, I don't know about Lock on) from explosions etc. IF it could be utilized for all collision detection there might be notable benefits in flight simulations, but at the moment I don't think it's much use otherwise. The big problem is, of course, that few people have the device so it's not really that beneficial to design for example special effects for those who have it. It would be very interesting to see the results if all collision detection was offloaded to the PPU however. AFAIK you have to use the AGEIA physics engine to get benefit from the PPU features and it's probably not designed for flight sims. You also get all the problems of multi-processor systems; you have to be careful with latency and synchronization even when the CPU cores are on the same chip, I'm afraid sunning another CPU via the PCIe bus might pose some problems. Most likely it will only work well in very specific applications, I don't know if flight simulator collision detection is one of them.

It is actually real physics, but in a very limited way. The system is limited to relatively simple rigid body dynamics and as such not very useful in flight simulators. Again I just have to wonder how the communication with the CPU works through PCIe bus. Add a two core CPU into the mix and you'll have to run at least three threads to get the maximum capacity out of the system. I'm sceptical about the usefullness of the physics accelerator, although I do hope they succeed. CPU power hasn't been increasing at a good enough a rate lately, we could certainly use a lot more.

Exactly. This feature should be both easy to implement and improve things substantially.

The airplane AI shortcomings are another thing that makes me a little sceptical about the new SAM feature. So the SAMs weren't very intelligent and not shutting down their radar when necessary, but their opponents have never been sultans of Smart either.

I'm not good enough a person to pass judgement on the new feature, but I was just wondering if I'm the only one thinking that this would already easily constitute good enough compensation for not being able to shut down the radar?

Oops I didn't notice this earlier. Anyway, it's possible to call C functions from lua and that's what we did. I can't help you with serial port stuff, we don't use that. Like I said you shouldn't have any problems if you just send the data via UDP.

Having the brakes on an axis would allow the user to put it on any controller he wants. Building a brake llever on the stick would be possible. _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!

Online co-op missions can be great, but I'm used to playing dynamic campaigns online in Sturmovik and that can be even better. _________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brake functionality with differential braking!