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Master Ironhand, Thank you very much, and Happy Holidays! S! Nowi

Thank you Goya. S! Nowi

Master Ironhand, Thanks again for your effort. Your tutorials are great resources for serious students like me. S! Nowi

Ironhand, Thank you sir. Another excellent tutuorial! In my book, you will always be THE MAN!!! S! Nowi

Absolutely, you won't regret it. I flew Su-33 primarily, and using Track IR + Vector with the Helmet mode is fun. As Woodstock said, you can scale the axis. In my setting, with the cockpit view at the extreme, my eyes are still pointing at the monitor. You can also disable the unit and center it on the fly. Hope this helps. Nowi :)

Most likely. I bought Falcon AT, Falcon 3 and Falcon 4. Falcon 3 was a resource hog. You have to free up every KB of RAM in DOS to run it. Although, I would say Falcon 3 was far ahead of its competition at that time (padlock, dynamic campaign, bubble, etc...). Those were the good old days. Nowi

Current AMD platforms (socket 940, socket 939 and socket 754) support DDR only. The to be released M2 socket will support DDR2 only. Whereas, Intel platforms use DDR2 memory. PC3200 (2-3-2-5) memory runs at a stock speed of DDR400 with timings: CAS = 2, TRCD = 3, TRP = 2 and TRAS = 5. You can set these timing parameters in BIOS. The first number, latency, is generally the most important. There is also the command rate (1T vs 2T). 1T is faster than 2T. 99% of the motherboard do not support 4 memory modules at 1T. The only exception I can think of is the DFI Lanparty Crossfire motherboard. PC4000 runs at a stock speed of DDR500. If you do overclock, the PC4000 memory allows you to go high on the FSB. You can go FSB = 250 + ~10 MHz without changing the timing. If you use a FSB < 250 MHz, you might be able to run at a tighter timing (maybe a latency of CAS = 2.5). For PC3200, you can use the stock timing up to about FSB = 210 MHz. Beyond that, you have to relax the timing. I have the 2 x 1 Gb OCZ Platinum (2-3-2-5). I OC to an FSB of 238 MHz, and I have to relax the timing to (2.5-3-3-7). I think the main difference between the Platinum and Gold series is that the Platinum has a lower latency, while the Gold series is more suitable for overclocking. If you get the Gold series, do not get the Voltage Extreme version (VX) unless your motherboard supports very high memory voltage (> 3 V). Most motherboards supports up to 2.75 - 2.9 V. A great source of information regarding OCZ memory is the "CPU/Processors and Overclocking" forum at anandtech.com. There is a dedicated sticky thread about OCZ memories. Several OCZ technical support guys are present there to answer questions and help trouble shooting. The link to that thread is: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1511119&enterthread=y Hope this helps, and good luck with your build. Nowi :)

Ironhand, Excellent work. Glad to see you back to train nuggets like me. Your 1.0, 1.01 and 1.02 tutorials helped me a great deal. S! Nowi

My 2 cents: Power Supply - Most overlooked component If money is of no concern :D, get PC Power & Cooling TURBO-COOL 850 Otherwise, get a Seasonic S12-600 Other brands worth mentioning are Zippy, Enermax, OCZ and Antec. DO NOT go cheap on the PSU, or you will regret it. To support SLI, you need a power supply that has dual +12V rails. Case: I used an Antec superlanboy. It is a little bit small, so the air flow is not that great. I heard good things about the Thermaltake Shark case, the Antec P180 and the Antec P160 cases. Larger cases are easier to work with and have better air flow in general. Better airflow = lower temperature = higher overclock potential. Get a case with at least one 120 mm exhaust fan. Larger fans move an equivalent volume of air at lower RPM. Lower RPM = Quiet case = good for your ears. CPU: If you have too much money to burn :), get the FX-57 or the X2 4800+. Otherwise, for single core, get the socket 939 Opteron 146. It is under $200 and the word on the street is that this CPU can overclock to 2.9 - 3.0 GHz (> stock FX-57) on stock voltage and air cooling! For dual core, get socket 939 Opteron 165, Opteron 170, X2 3800+, or X2 4200+ and overclock. Heatsink & Fan: If you intend to overclock, get a good heatsink/fan. The great ones I can think of are Thermaltake Big Typhoon, Zalman 9500 LED, Scythe Ninja and Thermalright XP-120. Apply Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound between CPU and HSF. Go to Arctic Silver website and learn how to apply for best results. Motherboard: DFI Lanparty boards with the nForce 4 chipset are great gaming boards. They overclock extremely well. However, there are too many settings to tweak in the BIOS and it can overwhelm a first time builder/overclocker. MSI and ASUS also produce good nForce4 motherboards. MSI generally overclock better than ASUS. Memory: The 2 x 1Gb OCZ Platinum dual channel revision 2 is great. They have a timing of 2-2-2-5 at DDR400, and they have very good overclocking potential. Video Card: Your choice is great (I am drooling). If you do intend to overclock, let the system break in and make sure it runs stable for about a month. Mean while, do a lot of research on overclocking. The following links are good starters: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=107925 I recently build my first system and overclock it. It is a great experience. Have fun and good luck. Nowi

Pyro, Calm down. If you have not overclocked before and would like to get your feet wet. Look here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y I tried my first overclock recently after doing weeks of research. I managed to OC my A64 3500+ Venice to 2.55 GHz. It is not ground breaking, but it is fun and is free. Overclocking do require patience. Nowi

Pyro, Download a utility called everest. The Home Edition is free. http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en It will tell you everything about your motherboard, bios and what not. Hope this helps. Nowi

Quote: "Whew, they burned you on shipping then. I got mine shipped for 11 bucks and some change. Look slike they're making the difference back up in those "handling" charges. It does not cost that much to get one shipped on FedEx ground, USPS Ground or UPS ground." That's OK. With the higher shipping price, it all boils down to ~$310. I think either newegg or provantage are good choices to get the CH HOTAS.

In the U.S., the cheapest place to get a CH Products Hotas set is provantage.com. I got the usb Fighterstick, Pro Throttle and Pro Pedal set last month for $274.00 plus shipping. The cheapest ground shipping is around $30. I am not sure how much they charge for overseas shipping, so Cobra, you have to check with them. Nowi

"Training Days" Nowi