Callsign.Vega

I fly sometimes down to the Eglin/Pensacola area doing Ranger training missions instructing Army flight school students in UH-60's. FireFalcon, did you fly from Germany to visit the American South? I haven't seen many foreigners around these desolate parts ;). I am originally from Chicago and not used to being out in the middle of nowhere!

I am an old simmer that found out about DCS: BS and I had to purchase it. If nothing else, I bought it just to see the state of current simulations and not necessarily get super involved with it's intricate details. The side effect of also supporting a simulation design studio in future endeavors is also a great bonus. Some random thought's on the simulation: The cockpit 3D work and interaction is incredible. The best I've seen to date. It has the best flight model I've flown, including public and military. It makes the multi-million dollar full motion flight simulator that I train students with feel like a piece of garbage. The KA-50 exterior is modeled very good. The avionics and systems are modeled top notch. A new standard for study simulators. The interface is clean and efficient. The world graphic's are "acceptable". They are quite a bit behind in term's of quality when compared to other simulators like FSX. But of course, hardware requirements in simulators like FSX with those fancy graphics are extremely high. No Dynamic campaign. Huge turn off here. You just don't get a sense of being in a simulated combat "world" when everything is scripted, triggered, and you have no affect on the world. Not much activity going on outside "your" cockpit. Shoot through, weapon see through, fly through tree's. In a helicopter simulator? Helicopter domain is low and fast. You would have thought realistic terrain and vegetation would have been a priority. I understand there might have been some technical limitations. Being a military helicopter pilot has taken some of the "uniqueness" out of the simulator somewhat for me. Although, I am glad I bought DCS: BS. DCS's A-10C simulator also look's to be stellar. I most likely will not play that one much either since just like BS, it will focus almost exclusively on Air to Ground combat. I prefer multi-role aircraft for simulators as I have the most fun in those. If DCS comes out with a study sim of something like the F-16, F/A-18 or the like, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat. For now, I will stick to Falcon 4 and it's offspring and Rise of Flight for great WWI action if they can ever work out the bugs. :pilotfly:

Wow, those screenshots you posted of FSX are very impressive. Too bad they never made a combat simulation off of that engine! I find flying from point A to point B just to look out at the scenery a little too mundane for me. What impresses me the most in those screenshot's is how realistic everything looks. In BS, the cockpit and aircraft models are great. The outside world, not so much. BS's outside world look's a bit more well; computer generated and sterile.

There are a few LCD TV's that have super thin bezels built by Samsung. They are quite expensive though. Last I checked like $5000 for a 46 inch. I don't care what anyone says, having all of those huge bezels all over the large image is a complete deal breaker. Look's horrible. The only other way to really get around a seamless image is with projectors. Then of course the costs skyrocket with multiple projects, screens, mounts etc. Huge space requirements for projecting from behind the screens and costs rising even further with special short throw lenses. Then once you have everything installed, you run into the image distortion issue when you change the angles of the screen to all point toward the viewer. Without a wraparound image being put out from the flight simulator, it can look quite odd displaying a single flat 2D view on displays that change the viewing angle. Most simulator software does not have the capability for that kind of compensation. Heck, even the Blackhawk helicopter simulators that I instruct students in are the same way and it looks like crap. And those are multi-million dollar full motion simulators. For now, I'd rather take one large display at high resolution with TrackIR over displays with plastic everywhere on the screen or displays with goofy viewing angle problems.

Did you ever fly the Falcon4 series with your Cougar with mods? How do you think the G940 would stack up to the Cougar when flying the F-16 sim?

I hope Samsung comes out with better offerings then their current thin bezel designs. So far all I think they have is a 1920x1080 46" line that costs like $5000.

I could never really get "into" these multi monitor setups. Having 5 cm of plastic bezel everywhere you look between all of the monitors totaly ruins it for me.

I have a Core 2 Duo @ 3.2Ghz, 4 GB RAM and a 8800 Ultra and with water turned down I get 20-80 FPS at 2560x1600 with AA and AF on and it look's great. FPS never drop's below 20 even in large cities.

What is that some ancient controller?

I think I might hold off on buying the G940 now after seeing the Saitek. The G940 looks great but it also looks more like a computer controller. The Saitek looks like something you might actually find in a military aircraft. Obviously whichever one ends up having the best features and control will win. Hopefully the Saitek doesn't take too long to come out so we can compare them before long.

You saw what, the Saitek or the Logitech at Fry's (Electronics store)? I'd imagine the Logitech since it is suppose to be released now.

Forget that, I want a way to hook up my three 30" LCD's each at 2560x1600 ;).

I wouldn't say the KA-50 and A-10C are "boring". It's just that the KA-50, A-10C and the "proposed" AH-64A DCS are all virtually air to ground aircraft only. Air to ground is fun, but so is air to air combat. Why not have both? After the A-10C I would like to see a F-16/Mig-29/Su-27 type aircraft DCS. I would like to get something similar to what Spectrum Holobyte had back in the day with Falcon 3.0. A sim where you could have an F-16 and a Mig-29 fight multi player in the same world with study sim quality. Imagine a scenario where the battlefield multi player has KA-50's and A-10C's attacking ground targets and air to air and air to ground sorties of fast movers like F-16's and Mig-29's flying over head with incredible realism? Oh, maybe just a dream... :pilotfly:

Is the quality pretty good? I think I might just print the .pdf out on a color printer after hours at work.

They really hate StarForce also!

Ya, F-15E not a good idea.

What is generally the preferred top of the line HOTAS setup for DCS: BS players? The only ones I know of are the Saitek X52 and the Thrustmaster Cougar. What else is there? I know the Logitech G940 and Saitek X65 are on the horizon, but I need something soon ;).

Where does ED ship the manual from?

Make it so..:joystick:

Ya, I was trying to get back into Falcon 4 when I heard about DCS: Black Shark. Sim's have come a long way in the regard of interacting with the cockpit. Being able to have 6 DOF with TrackIR and look around so smoothly and click all the switches at 2560x1600 resolution on my 30" monitor is awesome. Being a real military helicopter pilot I like to change it up a bit and generally like to fly jet simulators, but Black Shark seems so great I will give it a try.

I am looking forward to the A-10C, but the AH64 pretty much does the same mission as the KA-50 albeit with more capability. Not to mention you run into the whole required two pilot conundrum. I'd like a DCS based off of a current single seat air superiority fighter or multi-role fighter like fox mentioned above. East or West doesn't matter. Obviously stay away from the super high tech beyond visual range only type fighters like the F-22 and F-35. Those aircraft could not be accurately modeled anyways as you would have no data. That brings me to a question about the A-10C. Obviously Eagle Dynamics worked with Kamov to get such stellar flight model and avionics with the KA-50. Does Eagle Dynamics have any kind of solid flight and avionics data for the Thunderbolt II? Obviously since Fairchild-Republic does not exist anymore and the A-10 being relatively old and simple, maybe this data is not classified and/or is widely available.

I have a question about the future DCS series. Right now the only study simulators are DCS: Black Shark and the Falcon 4.0 variants from what I've seen. So far everything in the DCS lineup and future lineup are all air to ground combat aircraft. The KA-50, A-10C and AH-64. Are there no plans for a study Air to Air aircraft? Something like the SU-27/Mig-29 or Western comparable? Does Eagle Dynamics think that this niche is already filled by Lock-On or Falcon 4.0/derivatives so that a study Air to Air sim is not needed? Lock-On and it's jets are OK as a survey sim but I do not think no where near as realistic as the DCS series. I think a study Air to Air DCS title with one aircraft would be great instead of something like the AH-64. Also, bring on a Dynamic campaign! The A-10C sounds great but I think the AH-64 has been done to death, anyone else like me prefer an air combat jet as the third DCS title?

Aldega, as the original poster, I agree with you completely. I am sure BS will kick ass and the graphics are still not bad, having people say they are spactacular is going a bit overboard. A lot of the stuff in BS does look like it came from Flanker and a lot of the ground textures are just horrible. Now keep in mind, myself being a real combat helicopter pilot, we fly as low as we can go and in a sim graphics mean a whole lot in that regard. What looks good at 20k feet might not look so good at 20 feet. Here are a few examples: BS water/mountains, huge ground textures and pointy mountains: FS X water/mountains, granted with some serious hardware: City in BS, gotta love transparent buildings: City in X: Not to mention look at the ground textures and trees in this close ground view in BS: Another thing that always drove me crazy with the LOMAC engine is the transparent objects like buildings and trees. Really detracts from the realism. Anyways, like I said it will be a good sim and I will buy it but the graphics, are getting dated this day and age.

All sims online? If you wait until MS Flight Sim X launches this week with all of their spiffy online stuff, I'd bet the number drastically inscreases well into six digit territory, maybe more.

Hello, I have been following Black Shark for quite some time and it looks to be a really good sim. I have a question though: is the graphics engine getting any updates with BS or is it using the same one that LOMAC does, designed years ago? The reason I ask is, I have been playing the demo of Microsoft Flight Sim X. The graphics in that sim are simply amazing. They will also support DX10 when it launches with Windows Vista. I have been browsing the latest screen shots of BS and the graphics are starting to look really dated. Has anyone heard of any thoughts on a graphics engine update for BS? I know graphics only make up part of a overall excellent sim, but great graphics usually never hurt! :thumbup: