G3

i don't wish to corrupt the thread into a hdd debate, all i will say is i've had similar experiences with other brands and always return to seagate. i once lost many gigs of backups on 2 partitions that just disappeared and have had other drives from the same manufacturer fail altogether. once bitten, twice shy as they say... for me brand loyalty is usually due to a good history with their products and nothing else, i am the same with asus m/b's. its funny, i guess its because you don't do it every day yourself but i often get somewhat excited over other peoples upgrades..... and good for you, i am somewhat green, from what you say your savings plan is a great idea, start as soon as you spend, all the power to you...

have to agree, best set those maxtors up in a raid mirror, and get a spare. or backup anything you care about on one of Iguana Kings's seagates :) now who's being the fanboy.... dam, Iguana King, that sounds like a fantastic upgrade, obviously the dualcore isn't directed at lockon, but will be worth it for other things. good pickup on the zalmans walternowi. no doubt we all are keen to hear how things run on your new rig. probably still stutter over the cities as you drop flares :D keep us posted on your build please...

the triplehead2go, oh yes that combined with three projectors along with your fantastic looking pit will probably be as close to simulated heaven as we will get, look forward to some shots of all 3 projected images with the pit in the foreground, especially lights out and no flash so we can see the pit in all its glory, with the glass instruments etc. (ps: never did get that going) can you expand a little on the existing projectors you have and what you intend to buy, as in are they all the same, does it really matter i guess not, and what resolution do they run natively? th2go with no bezel edges...................can i come over :) will be most happy to discuss setting the th2go up in lockon, maybe BS will be different but FC took a bit of editing to the lua files. not to mention the fact changing the in game graphics options would overight the changes. but thats another topic and we had better stay on the one at hand. awesome pit the bnepethomas.

some great ideas already out there i see, and as for the throttle being computer controlled then at least we can use the existing hotas setups. i am inspired, i will also add my vote for the exported/networked abris etc. i know we keep harping on about it but that should tell you something in itself... arm505, i see you are joking, and this is not a personal attack. i see this stuff all the time, guys crying about being married and will have to ask the boss etc. being married isnt the problem, its the one you marry :). come on fellas, but your pants back on, take the balls out of your golf bag and back into your scrotum :D or has she made you sell the golf clubs too, hehe. my wife is a champion and understands my passion for sims, gaming and computers in general. looks like i might be one of the lucky ones. bnepethomas, unfortunately i have to wait till i get home to see your images, sounds like you are indeed ready for the BS. edit: now i see it, oh my goodness that looks amazing, with the projector screen behind, what a setup, well done :)

wonder how we will go when the BS is released and we are to control this beast with out existing hardware. i fly model helis but i don't fully understand the controls in a real heli. i know we have a collective control and a cyclic, then rudder pedals. if we have some here could real heli pilots please advise... my guess is: the stick will control pitch and roll as x and y axis. the rudder will control yaw and the cyclic controls the rotor pitch and maybe throttle also??? if this is correct then we are in need of more axis, unless you have a split throttle, please correct me if thismy assumptions are totally wrong, cheers. if this is the case it might be time we got to work on some custom controls for the heli pits. somehow i just don't think a hotas will feel right, opinions please.

fantastic images, i to would love them in hi res too. thanks for sharing, what an awesome gathering of flying goodness. ps: just as a matter of interest, what's it trying to install? can someone give some details please.

soon enough the new turns into the old :)

i seem to get extended loading times if the graphics are cranked but this is different, its a long delay before entering the game after pressign S once it has got to the cockpit view. after doing some futher testing i believe the delay issue maybe something to do with a modified export.lua file i was experimenting with.

excellent review pilotasso. after recently aquiring a CH combatstick i too found the button reach to be an issue, even if only slight. agreed it is probably the stick on the desk causing half of it, but i do find that top button is awkward even down in the pit position, for me anyway. now maybe i have small hands and we all know what that means, small gloves:thumbup:, but i would consider myself average in size, all round:music_whistling: i found the same grip size issue with the suncom f-15e talon joystick but overcame this with a slice of 1/4" rubber, contoured to match the original, glued between the grips hand support and my hand, glue on the grip, not the hand.:smartass: this fixed everything for the talon, making accessing the top buttons a breeze. maybe something similar for the ch hand support would resolve this for us, its my next mod, if its worthy of being called that:) secondly i tend to agree with the axis transition comments to a degree, both for and against. anyone that has used a talon will know its axis resistance is constant thanks to its single vertical spring design, much the same as saitek but on steroids, giving an even feel thru-out the entire range of the sticks movement. the CH has a internal spring for each axis independant of the other, so when you apply both x and y axis you are moving twice the spring pressure. ultimately i would like the spring feel of the talon with the accuracy of the CH, life is all about compromise... people will nearly always be biasone way or another, thats life. all in all a great review, well done.

it just so happens i kept a backup of the whole FC folder before i modified anything, it was only a couple of the lua files so i will give that a go, good thinking ironhand. edit: replaced all known changes but no result, reinstalling now. thanks anyway, will see if this fixes the issue. fingers crossed. edit2: renamed complete FC backup folder to original and game runs as per normal. no delay, now to make my (now documented) lua changes again. edit3: made all previous changes i could remember, unable to regenerate the previous issue. eveything is back to normal, nothing to see here :music_whistling::thumbup:

firstly how sweet is that new BS vid, yes indeed.:thumbup: now back to the matter at hand: i am getting a long delay between the time i hit the S key and the time i actually start flying a single player mission. previously this would be instantaneous, i am unsure why this has begun to occur, i have messed around with several lua files to modify the views etc but nothing more than that, i have reinstalled windows as i thought that might have been the issue, leaving LOFC on a seperate partition but the delay remains. next is a full reinstall of LOFC which i would rather avoid but will do if we cannot find a solution for this delay issue. searched the forums but failed to find anything reguarding this problem. thanks for looking and please advise if you have any ideas, cheers.

after wasting my time on inferior equipment for years i am now the latest convert to CH products gear, you get what you pay for. cannot comment on the pro throttle's throw or accuracy as i only have the combatstick, so far i have been most impressed with its performance. soon to get a fighter stick for the extra functions that the combat stick lacks. just like the bong, different things appeal to different people, and that will never change. so take in everyones advice but take it all with a grain of salt. i'd say the gear you are considering off ebay there looks like a great start, and as others have mentioned, do yourself a favour and get a trackir also.

hello treudd, as it stands there is no current solution equivalent to wideview for lockon, similar if not better results can be had across 3 monitors up to 1280x1024 giving a total res of 3840x1024 with the use of a triplehead2go from matrox, see there site for info or search these forums. this unit performs better than any wideview setup i have seen, as there is no lag, it just works once you set the correct game res and aspect ratio. performance wise you might be better off going for the large single monitor like a 20" or similar, as your current pc would struggle to run lockon with the th2go even on minimum in game graphics settings as does mine and its of similar spec. now lets talk trackir, this would have to be the most amazing and worthwhile addition to any flight sim enthusiasts computer. the extra immersion it provides cannot be emphasized enough. the ability to look around the cockpit, keeping your eye focused on the enemy just by moving your head slightly is way better than fumbling with numberpad keys or coolie hats. and lets not forget trackir works together with the th2go. hope this helps your decision.

i lile your theory of the same view on each but moves as you look around to be the appropriate view for the angle, good thinking.

here's as thought, was just having a thought, along the lines of what SUBS17 suggested and wondered of the possibility of viewing parts of the cockpit across networked computers, very similar to the way wideview does it for msfs. maybe we could have an instance of lockon running on both the main game computer, and also on the second or instrument view computer. forgive me if i oversimplify things here: it would be a matter of sending the required data from the game computer via export.lua to the instrument computer, we know this is already possible. with then game running on each computer they would each take care of the rendering of images displayed, and would have little impact on the main computers performance. all we are missing is the program that can put the lua data back into the second computers lockon. it would then just be a matter of adjusting where you were looking in the cockpit, as you do with the numberpad, where you hit "0 or ins" on the numberpad and then a number. somehow, can't think how but you can then lock that view. you would just start the game on both or all computers, making sure you selected the same aircraft from any mission, just as long as it was the same type plane. i am sure this wouldn't be a huge program, the info is all there in the lua export, just need to be able to lua import to get the instrument computer sycronized to the lua data, this way you could look anywhere you liked on the instrument panel, at any gauge and maybe even external views, but thats another story, lets concentrate on the intruments for now. bnepethomas, i recon you could do it... imagine...

trouble getting setup i have followed these instructions to the best of my ability. i have copied export.lua into the first pc config export folder. and modified the local host setting to the ip of the second pc. i start lomac2f4glass on the second computer, then start f4glass on the second computer. ??? then it says start lockon on the second computer, should that be the first computer? (as i don't think you would need lockon running on the f4glass second computer, a typo maybe). if i run the test data from the lomac2f4glass it all works sweet and the ias ramps up, so it all works fine on the second computer. for some reason the lockon/first computer is not sending the data or the second one is not receiving it. i can ping both computers from one other, and have turned off my firewalls for the testing also. i see people talking of a bms2.0 patch put i can only find the 1.03 release on the e9s website, can someone point me in the right direction please. please help me get this setup , cheers.

tekateka, i for one would indeed be most appreciative if you would investigate and report the issue, as you have a far greater understanding of these things than i do, one only has to look at your list of mods/tweaks to see what i mean.:thumbup: let me know if you need any th2go testing or anything related i can do to help your investigations, look forward to hearing more on this, good stuff. getting the 3 screen zoomed out fov running as nicely or near to a single screen performance as possible would be the best thing since sliced bread. currently it really is struggling compared to a standard view. just to recap, when zoomed out, lockon is basically still drawing or calculating the graphics for the top and bottom portion of the screen you cannot see, correct?

superkungfu, surely one day your persistance will pay off. you found that old record, with the hit single "give us a new flanker";) and now with the eagle b side. i have a sneaking suspicion that something big is about to happen, but hey my sneaking suspicions aren't worth didaly sqwat:megalol: ED, we do love an update now and then. even if it is just a teaser, screenshot, word from the devs etc. anything to wet the appetite of the anxious community in waiting. and i agree as its been said before the written replies from the devs are worth their weight in gold, keeping us clued up on what the teams current focus is on. we understand things are busy so we are patiently looking forward to any new info or otherwise, cheers.

cinch, if we may call you that? a man after my own heart, lockon and rfactor :) looking forward to v8factor soon to be released my pc is much the same as yours: a64 3400 @2.4, 1gig xlpro, 6800ultra 256. (must get that extra gig) the th2go is a triplehead2go from matrox, it sees the 3 lcd's as one 3840x1024, and yes you do need to run all 3 monitors at the same res. see here: http://www.matrox.com/mga/offhome/th2go/home.cfm after looking at your specs i am still unsure as to how you run that third screen?

zaelu, i think that has been done, i saw it somewhere, no bezels between the screens. mike cinch perry, here's my current configuration with the th2go, this might be the answer for you. http://members.optushome.com.au/symposium2003/th2goFC/solved.JPG can u elaborate on your setup, is it all running from one pc (seperate laptop obviously). i tried this out, agp + pci videocards etc but had little success. the th2go is perfect for 3 screens, what do you usually use the top one for? fufunka, that guys site is awesome, he has some seriously good ideas, i did a bit of digging as you suggested and the more you look at it the more it makes perfect sense. the basic theory of distorting the projected image to then be in perspective on the dome is wonderful, i wonder how much is involved to have a program run in the background that does this independantly of the game running, that way lockon or any other title for that matter would be none the wiser.

to answer this fairly simply: with the same horizontal fov the difference between 1 or 3 screens is negligable, approx 60fps. with the zoomed out fov for the triple screen the fps basically is cut in half, down to approx 30fps. flying with the zoomed out fov with the th2go is very taxing on the computer, and you explained why very well in a previous post. to have it running ok i am currently limited to having all settings on low or minimum @ 3840x1024x32. as for flying low over over populated areas, with the low settings it seems ok, but once i go back to a single screen, it soon makes you realise how much better it runs in the single screen configuration. not saying the th2go isn't great, it is mind blowing, but it will be a year or 2 before we see its full potential realised in lockon. its just waiting for a pc with the grunt to power it :). that being said, if we can overcome the issue with the unseen portions of the zoomed out view still being calculated perhaps then we could see a vast improvement in the smoothness of gameplay, similar to sigle screen performance...

unfortnately missed out on the cougar, looks like i might be waiting and seeing what the future brings. any futher info there ruggbutt?

Poko24, from what i have seen they project the image from the floor in front of the semi-spherical dome screen or whatever its called :) this also needs some modification to the projected image to make it curved to fit the screen, there's a big thread on it here somewhere...

now we're talking :)

sorry for the thread revival, anyone got some screenshots of the simmeters gauges or the lomac2f4glass. i assume thats what would be on the middle monitor of the "highrevsim" cockpit a few posts back. very interested to see these in action....