Slammin

That is a nice OC! I almost cannot wait to upgrade next year. You are definitely correct on the CPU cycles/FPS relationship with A10. Folks have a hard time understanding that just because a CPU is not at 100%, they can still be CPU limited. In reality, as you've also observed, CPU processing speed is directly impacted by CPU clock speed. My 580GTX overclocks like mad but it makes no difference with A10 on my system.

In WIn7 it's called Slider. In A10 it's called joy_slider1

I hope that chair doesn't recline. You might blow your head off!

From what I gather, you need the Vector expansion for it to work with a TIR3. We are in the same boat since I do not have the Vector expansion with my TIR3.

I've had my Hog throttle Inc/Decr axis assigned to zoom view from day 1.

That is pretty frickin awesome!

My home office. I work from this position 8-10hrs daily. Here are pics before and after adding an additional 19" ws monitor: I have since cleanup the wiring and gave everything else a nice cleaning :-)

The Cougar bashing must stop! :-) The WH is great, no doubt, but the Cougar ain't no slouch either!

I never power down. Sleep mode only.

Right now Helios beta is free but I think I saw a price of $69.00 when released.

I want to upload some pics but it keeps telling me that the image is invalid. edit: Posted here http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3160708.html#Post3160708

Well, from what I see, running across multiple displays is not the main issue as far as performance goes. It is running across multiple display adaptors that cause the severe fps hit. If you want to span your main view across multiple displays using more than one vid card, you probably MUST use Crossfire, SLi, SoftTH, or some other means to optimize the output. Using none of the above, displaying output from A10-B3 main display to my main monitor attached to my primary video card while displaying an MFD (or both MFD's) to another monitor connected to my secondary video card = very bad performance. Once I connected my second monitor to my primary card's secondary port instead, fps shot way up, and I am exporting both MFD's to it. Bottom line as I see it is that you have to be running CrossFire or SLI if you want to span across two video cards. Or SoftTH, maybe. Never messed with it. Right now, I'm cool with what I got setup.

Wouldn't you need to add 1600+1280 to get to your game x resolution (2880) and then use the smaller of the two monitor's y (900) for your game y? You'll probably need to configure your cards scaling to line things up. Just a guess.

You might want to give buying two 8" LCD's a second thought. I already had one 8" touchscreen and was considering getting another but found out my daughter wasn't using her 19" ws LCD monitor and so I jacked it from her, lol! I'm doing what AirDog did and it turned out pretty nice! I just got it setup tonight but will post pics tomorrow after I tweek a few things. Basically, I have the two MFD's velcro'd to the bezel of the 19" monitor and am using my 8" touchscreen for TouchBuddy. Pics to follow soon. Also using Helios to fill in the dead space between the MFD's. It's coming along nicely! edit: Just to add a bit of clarity to the above, if you are not running Sli or some other means of optimizing A-10 across two video cards, you will not be happy with the FPS hit. I'm driving the left and right MFD output off the second monitor port of my primary video card. When I tried exporting an MFD to my secondary video card, the fps hit was totally unacceptable. I mean, really bad, compared to running it off the primary card. This is why I scarfed the additional monitor and went with velcro'ing the Cougar MFD's to the bezel of it. I get great fps and as a bonus can use Helios to fill in the dead space, or not.

Is this version 5.1 software supposed to work with TrackIR3? It doesn't work for me at all.

Huh?

I think TM is going to eventually address this with another firmware update.

Yeah, TouchBooty would have been a better name for it :-)

You can do this with TouchBuddy as well but Helios sure makes it a lot easier!

You gotta admit that using the ANT Elev for elevator trim in IL-2 is almost cheating since you can trim farther than the actual joystick input, but it sure was handy :P Point taken, but just as you've said, we adapt.

They are very cool when you put a monitor behind them. I use an 8" touchscreen with 1024x768 resolution and when you export a display to the screen with a Cougar MFD attached, it is totally awesome. Too much of a framerate hit with A10 beta 3 for me right now when exporting, but even without exporting the display, I still prefer to 'press' the button with my finger rather than with the mouse. Pretty reasonably priced too, for what you get.

"I agree the Warthog may not seem as fit as the Cougar for other sims, but there s always a trade off isn t it ? And its probably more a matter of adaptation than anything." I keep seeing statements like this and wonder. Basically, the WH is a stick and a throttle with a LOT of buttons, and some of the buttons have labels. Is it the labels that makes one think that the the buttons cannot be reprogrammed? One of my main gripes with the Logitech G940 was that it didn't have enough buttons. I had other issues with it too, but at the time that was my main issue with it. I think it is really cool the way the WH throttle has lit up descriptions of the switches, but that will not stop me from reassigning them for whatever I need them to do. The WH can be whatever you need it to be via TARGET, just as most sticks come with software that allows you to do the same. I don't have the desktop space to support multiple joysticks and faced with the hard choice between WH and Cougar, I've picked WH. That said, I feel the Cougar U2/NXT stick is still better than the WH, but I also love the extra buttons on the WH throttle and am making good use of them with other sims. Granted, it was a little painful getting my WH stick to feel the way 'I like', but a small price to pay. And for anyone wondering, the WH grip is almost identical to the Cougar grip (stick) though it is not the same. I can reach the WH buttons easier than I can on the Cougar, and the extra ooph needed to press the WH buttons is no problem for me, being a bass player for 42+ years. I can see how some would balk at the need to press a button so forceful, but I really like the feel of the WH sticks' buttons. They do feel like The Business, and I like that. Also, as far as the feel of the stick, folks need to keep things in perspective. When an o'l timer says that the motion is not as fluid as expected, or as can be, you can almost bet that the o'l timer has a very good reference point to base that on. If you are not an o'l timer, you may not have a whole lot to compare to. Us o'l timers that make posts regarding smoothness of the stick are just stating that we know it could be better, but not that it is bad. I like to fly without a thought to anything other than completing the mission. I don't want to be distracted by anything other than the element that is trying to stop me. This element cannot be my own tools. I guess that's why I spend so much $$$ trying to keep my rig updated, lol!

You are absolutey correct in that if the stick had a larger shaft, ANY imperfections regarding stick travel would be diminished. Barring that, a good heavy, plastic-friendly grease works wonders! I am using automotive synthetic lithium grease. Just be careful. Repairing a pinched wire is not fun!

A ball bearing mod, and/or perhaps replacing both ball and socket with stainless steel is probably going to be the U2/NXT-type mod for the WH. It still wouldn't be as fluid as a Cougar with U2/NXT, but it would be an awesome mod. Then again, a lot of WH users are quite satisfied. Not sure what the market would be for an overhaul. Me personally, I doub't I'd be willing to pay to upgrade my WH. Granted, it's definitely a different feel, and not as good as my Cougar U2/NXT (feel-wise), but it's not bad at all either. I do see the wisdom in the WH design in that it really cannot develop slack/play, even if it does start to wear. What you got, is what you got, 5 years later. I guess the engineers knew they needed to balance longevity, reliability and performance against 'feel'. I think they struck a nice balance, though only time will tell but if you look at the design, wear & tear cannot introduce play/inaccuracy, so to that end, the WH should have a very long life, modded or not.

I hear ya man. Good luck, and that is a pretty awesome and well written review in your link. S!