Dudikoff

What are you on about? i7 8750h is a standard high end hexa-core CPU on laptops which goes up to 4.1 GHz on a single core and 3.9 GHz on all six cores which even a cursory Internet search would corroborate. The only stronger laptop CPU in that generation is the i7 8950HK, but it's *much* more expensive with negligible gains in higher-res gaming, plus produces way more heat and is more often throttled than not, unless you're willing to repaste the heatsink (not an easy procedure) and undervolt it. The only other option are DTR's with desktop CPU's, but that usually means much fatter laptop cases (except the Area 51m), more weight and dual power supplies which kind of kills the point of having a laptop, IMHO. Plus, the only slight gains in gaming performance are not really worth the extra price and portability loss.

Same here. Again, it would be great if ED would offer different variants of a module as DLC's. Backdating a C to an A should definitely be much easier than doing it the other way around.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, but.. I need all the keyboard commands as I want to make a custom Target profile including both the HOTAS and the Cougar MFDs. I don't use default profiles.

Oh, BTW, there's also the thing called external graphics card for laptops. For that, you'd need a laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 port (full speed, ideally, as some laptops implement a half speed one) and a separate external graphics card case (which doesn't come cheaply) and then of course a separate desktop graphics card (and these new Nvidia cards cost a premium). And even then, you'd get a performance hit over TB3 usually which can vary from about 15-25% (compared to the performance of the same card in a desktop), depending on the game and resolution. The problem might be that commonly used TB3 controllers show a bandwidth problem in more demanding games and higher resolutions (as IIRC, there was a test with a Macbook Pro where the losses were much smaller, presumably due to a better TB3 controller or something, but that's just a non-educated guess). Alienware has a clear advantage here as they implement a proprietary connection for these (a direct PCI-E 3.0 x4 bus connection which takes a smaller performance hit, about 5% from what I've gathered) and they have their own external GPU case (which actually costs less than the competing TB3 options at around 200 USD or under). This way, you could still use your laptop later on (rather than selling it for scrap) as a desktop of sorts (upgrading to a stronger graphics card), especially with an Alienware laptop. I got a used external graphics case for my AW 17 R4, but only the 2080Ti would be a worthy upgrade on the 1080 and it's exorbitantly expensive so I haven't tried that external GPU option yet.

Hour or so? Yeah, right. It would take more just to type in all the commands assigned in DCS, let alone how many hours to program the script file to use them. I forgot to mention that I'm programming the Cougar MFD's as well, hence why there's a bunch of commands needed and why it will take me a lot of time. So, I'd rather do it this week and be ready for release. But, why would this be unlikely or require a precedent? There's a bunch of people flying out there and these commands are not classified and won't change till release. It takes only a few clicks to export an html profile for the keyboard category.

Would it be possible for someone (dev team, beta testers, etc.) to export and share the keyboard assignments assigned in DCS for the F-14 module? And perhaps a screenshot of all of the possible axis assignments? Those are needed so we could have the custom HOTAS profiles (e.g. for TM Target) ready before the module is released. Thanks.

The point I'm trying to make is not to throw money at them without any critique, but just to lower the expectations realistically as the thread started going towards asking ED to forbid the 3rd party devs from releasing an early access module until the previous one is 100% feature complete which I don't think is a viable option to say the least. And by lowering expectations, I mean, don't hold every developer comment and estimate as something set in stone and then feel cheated if things don't pan out as expected. If they're silent, they get hit at, if they give a current best estimate, they also live to regret it. E.g. HB at one point practically sweared that the F-14 will be out in 2017. In development, things change rather quickly, unexpected problems pop-up, not to mention constant changes or limitations present in the base DCS engine. So, 3rd parties being rather small teams, have to manage and shift their priorities constantly and for many I'd presume this is their side-job so there's only so many work hours available.

Or perhaps they realized that they lack some data on how some of these radar modes work and are waiting to visit France and re-do the whole system once they get more info rather than waste time on fixing this feature now incorrectly? I think some of you guys need a reality check on all the things developing these modules entails. First, releasing one complex module every three years (or more) at the current prices is obviously not a sustainable business model. Likewise, finishing the last e.g. 10% of the features and ironing out all the bugs is going to take a while as these are naturally lower in priority. Even HB is still releasing large patches to their Viggen module. Second, there are things that have to be done in parallel. E.g. once the 3D/cockpit modeler work is done on one module, what should he do? Wait for two years until the systems and the FM is finished, the module is released and all the subsequent bugs are ironed out so the module is declared as finished and he can start working on the next one? Sure, you can be unhappy about how they run their modules and you can voice that opinion and decide not to buy any further modules until the first two are feature complete. But, you shouldn't presume that the current issues with the modules bother all the customers the same way or that the current release model can be made much stricter without significantly boosting the module price. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you're better off to have these modules in DCS as they are or not at all. As last time I've checked, I didn't see any new 3rd parties queuing up to bother with these DCS flight sim modules, so that might give you a hint or two, as well.

They're not marked with "m" anymore as that used to mean gimped versions of the desktop chips (with lower GPU core unit numbers, etc). They're just marked as e.g. 1080 (Notebook) now as the chips are the same now, it's just that the laptop versions have lower clock rates to reduce the TDP to something more manageable by the laptop's cooling system. In slim & light laptops you normally get a Max-Q version of the same card which has its TDP limited even further in vBIOS. So, the performance also takes a hit and it's more often than not not worth the premium (e.g. 2070 Max-Q is only slightly faster than full 2060, but you pay the premium as for the full 2070 GPU which it essentially is, but you won't get the full performance out of it without modding the vBIOS or undervolting it). Regarding your laptop query, the first thing you need to decide is whether you need something closer to a desktop replacement 17" laptop (which means 3.5 kg or more) or you want something more portable (i.e. these newer slimmer and lighter models at roughly 2.5 kg or less with Max-Q GPU's and normally higher CPU/GPU temps and louder fans). If you want to save some money, it might be a good chance to score one of these older systems now being on clearance sales (with 10XX GPU's now since they are being replaced by 20XX GPU's which are not much faster, e.g. 10-20% between 1080 and 2080 on laptops IIRC) before they're sold out. E.g. Alienware 17 R5 or Aorus X9. You could even aim at those older models with a quad-core CPU's like the unlocked 7820HK (as hexa core doesn't really bring anything to games except noticeably more heat to an already stretched laptop cooling system) since some of the better desktop replacement laptops with them haven't been refreshed yet (like e.g. HP Omen 17X or even Razer Blade Pro which has a 1080 Max-Q) as thin & light seem to be more popular these days. There are also proper desktop replacement systems with upgradeable GPU's and sometimes even desktop CPU's, but those are much thicker and heavier usually (unless you opt for professional workstations with Quadro GPU cards like Dell 77XX or Lenovo P7X) that I personally don't see the point (like some Clevo or MSI models, e.g. P751 or GT75 variants). The exception might be the new Alienware Area 51m which is a newer case design than what MSI and Clevo use (which means thinner case and with smaller display bezels), but since they reduced the bezel size, they only have the FHD screen option currently. These large DTR's with desktop CPU's normally also require two power bricks for full performance which reduces the portability even further. If you want some of these newer thinner and lighter laptops (with Max-Q GPU's), the 17" options are more limited compared to 15", but there's the new Alienware m17, Asus GX701 or MSI GS75 (with 20XX Max-Q GPU's), etc. but expect more noise with these. Having mentioned these thin & lights, my favorite would be the Asus GX701 design and cooling-wise, though it's rather expensive and doesn't have a TB3 port nor a camera (there's a clip-on one included, though), plus the keyboard is pushed to the bottom edge to improve cooling and the touchpad is pushed to the right side, which could be off-putting to many, I guess. I'd love to get one, but I already have gotten a used Alienware 17 R4 with a 1080 card that I use for DCS on a 4K external monitor.

Yes, it works now, thanks.

Great, thanks for confirming that.

Not sure if it was answered by HB before, but I presume the F-14A will also be capable of dropping bombs, right? I know that they're making the mid-80's standard, but AFAIK, the A2G panel was present on the F-14A and (if wired and connected) technically it should be able to drop bombs, it's just that it wasn't tested and used back then. Right?

F***, yeah! Cool video, although the climax resolution was a bit too easy. I guess the MiG pilot was checking his mobile or something.

DCS is a single-threaded application, with only the sound processing running in another thread IIRC. You've probably bought the hexa core CPU because of marketing as there's no benefit from it in gaming over a quad core and even that one is an overkill in most cases.

Definitely not the same. SparrowHawk HUD was a commercial HUD product chosen because it was supposed to be a cheap and fast upgrade, IIRC. But, the program started in 1998 (?) while the HUD finally entered operational service in 2001, IIRC (it was developed before, but I think there were some reliability issues with it). They came in different stages as the HUD was finally ready in 2001 IIRC while the PTID was available from 1996 or 1997 I guess. In any case, the HUD itself would not be classified and would be described in a non-classified flight manual.

They said they'd rather make the F-14D before the F-14B w Sparrowhawk HUD, but they don't have the weapon system manuals needed, so I guess that's probably a no.

IIRC, Lock On did support playing avi files before and after missions, but at some point this was removed. It would be nice to have this back, but I suppose we have to wait till those announced changes to the current campaign system are released.

But, that's exactly the answer to your question. If they had the docs for the MLD, they'd probably do that instead of the MLA. I would presume that the only reason they have the manuals for the MLA was that it was exported to some current NATO countries (but, it's just a guess as I don't know what the source is for those manuals). Some MLD's were exported, though, but those were not the same as the Soviet ones as they lacked the exterior changes to improve the maneuverability. Since the MiG-27K was not exported IIRC, I doubt those docs could be found. The MiG-27M was license made in India, but they still use it (albeit further modernized), so I doubt they're willing to share the manuals.

Opera here, but they use the same engine now (Chromium), IIRC. But, yes, you're right, in Firefox it opens up correctly. I'm not really a web-developer (more like a general programmer), but I've checked a bit the CSS code and the table elements holding those images lack the width definition (to e.g. 100%) which when added makes the images show correctly. E.g. if I modify the custom.css file for that exact table class (and remove those two commented out parameters which seem to introduce a problem) like so: table.docutils { width: 100%; } the images show correctly as the table is stretched across the whole row. Not sure why it works in other versions of the Chrome browser or Firefox, maybe some different default handling is present.

Given that one was an F-14 study flight-sim and the other an action flight-sim game pretty much, I wouldn't even mention them in the same context. Still have the FD installed on some portable laptop (and the Tornado), while I could never get into those USNF/ATF/USAF games with their generic system modeling, weird physics and arcade gameplay. Though, I was surprised to read they were released in the same year, also thought the USNF was released a few years later. Always felt it's a shame Microprose didn't merge some of the FD features to their earlier F-15 SE3. The systems modeling there was quite decent, but the game world was empty (i.e. no wingmen or civilian or friendly flights) apart from a few scrambled interceptors. With a wingman, squadron management and some friendly support flights, plus some enemy groups to encounter, it could have been a much better sim.

The predominantly quite serious comments on this post really show the current state of mind on this forum. Waiting for the Tomcat, I feel some of these guys wouldn't know a joke if it hit them flat out in the face..

Err, it was a TV-series quote which even the most cursory Internet search will corroborate. But, thanks. You ruined it. You ruined the moment.

Thanks, Captain Obvious, but my quote was in fact quite literal, too.

Is it just my browser or the images showing Pulse and Pulse-Dopler examples for DDD under "Detail Data Display" heading are super small and unreadable? Also, can we get some diagram showing all the control options for the Target Designator switch? I find it confusing that the switch apparently has a left and right arrow drawn on it, while the controls mentioned in the description are UP, DOWN and DES (designate) whatever that is (push-in?).

Said Ripley to the android Bishop..