VH-Rock

Thanks for the offer, Sobek, I would love to try it out! At the minute, I will be away from home until the weekend and I am moving house on Friday. Hopefully I will get some time to myself on Sunday so that I can install Windows 7 and get everything back up to speed.

First impressions of the new sim Myself and Julian have both tried the new sim and, soon, our right wing, Marc, will also be buying DCS. So far, we have been very, very impressed with the level of detail that this new sim has achieved. It's fantastic to have to sit on the ramp and go through the full start procedure before being able to start the engine. No more "Press fly and press start". The procedure matches what I have done in FSX for a while (without the necessity to do so) with the exception to moving the mixture control while pressing the starter. The ground handling is a very interesting concept which I have yet to adapt to... it is somewhat more complicated that what we have become used to over the last 7 years of flying aerobatics in IL-2 but it is something that we can definitely get used to. It really does add to the immersion of the sim. Having to do real procedures when flying is a great concept and I can not wait to try the finalised version when all systems are fully functional. I have yet to form an opinion on general handling in the air as I have not messed with my stick settings yet (Saitek X-52). At the minute, she feels very light and twitchy but as I said, I have not set curves or deadzones in DCS yet so I will reserve judgement until I have found an appropriate set up. As the multiplayer feature is not yet working for many people here, we have been unable to try out any formation aerobatics yet but I am looking forward to being able to do this in future. I'm sure we will have to learn to deal with all kinds of new features which we have never even thought about in our previous sim. We have always flown to maximise realism but this sim adds a whole new dimension to that department. The sim in general feels very nice. The UI is nice and modern, the music is not too over-powering and it seems very logically layed out. I have yet to experiment with some of the other features such as the mission/campaign editor, but I'm sure I will at some point in the future. I was a little suprised at how much my system struggled to run DCS as I can run FSX, FC2 and IL-2 quite easily. I have ordered Windows 7 Ultimate and I will be upgrading from 4GB to 8GB RAM. I am hoping that this will enable me to run quite high settings in the new sim. A big congratulations to the DCS/ED crew on a fantastic job and I look forward to further updates! Rob

A couple of general inquiries on the 3D front. Whilst, in almost every aspect, the 3D is perfect, there are a few small things which I was suprised by. The main thing is the Aerials on the fuselage. I am aware of all the different type of aerial configurations used by North American towards the end of the war, but the model shown in game does not represent what the vast majority of P-51's left the factory with, used in combat and still fly with today. I understand that this option may have been chosen to give the users a bigger choice of loadouts as only later variants carried Rockets stored as they are here. I have a question: Would it be possible to add the single aerial most commonly found on P-51s? And then simply use Alpha channels on the texture to hide the rockets and double aerials? That way the user could choose what configuration they want to see in game just by modifying a texture but keep the functionality of the weapons? Another issue I noticed: I decided to try out the damage model so see how it looks (Not that I intend on doing much crashing). As one of the wings came off, you can see on the screenshot below that some parts get replicated. (Rockets attachments are visible on the wings attached to the plane and on the section of wing which has broken off). And also one of the flaps is replicated

Thanks Viper, that did indeed improve my FPS but the stutters are still there. Guess it's time to upgrade (I was planning on doing so upon the release of the new sim anyway :) )

More RAM Ordered, Win7 on it's way. Will look at updating my CPU if I can too :)

So, Looks like I need to look into upgrading to Win 7 64bit and invest in some more RAM. Thanks for the help Nate.

Brief report: I can now load the training missions, which is definitely an improvement. However, my FPS in all missions is now terrible. I'm having some major stutters on missions which loaded just fine before. Could this be drivers?

Nate, Thank you very much for that quick response. I will try it out and report back as soon as possible

Hey guys, First impressions of the game are good, but I've had a few issues so far which I'll explain below. System specs: OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional CPU: Dual Core Intel E6700 @ 3.2 Ghz GPU: ATI HD5750 (1GB) RAM: 4GB (Limited to 3.5GB by XP...) Mobo: Asus P5GC-MX/1333 It's not a great system, but I manage to run FSX, FC2 and IL-2 with very good settings, which is why I was suprised when I had to run the lowest setting possible to even load a mission. At first running the standard settings, no missions would load at all. I would see "Loading Ground objects" in the progress bar at the bottom corner of the screen. The bar would then move back over to the left and a few seconds later I here the standard windows beep when there is an error... (Like trying to delete a file when you don't have permission). NO error displays in game at all. I have to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to minimize the game and then when I click back on DCS in the task bar I see an error message saying that runtime was terminated. I continue to get this error message with some but not all missions. The "Instant Action" missions work perfectly (Although I have some small stutters). So far, the training missions all crash for me. Could it really be that my system specs just aren't good enough? Like I said, I find that hard to believe after being able to run FSX and FC2 with quite good settings. I know I'm never going to max the game out on my system, but this just seems a little odd to me? # -------------- 20120429-221349 -------------- C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\bin\Effects.dll # C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at 02C0D8A0 01:0000C8A0 # # EAX = 00000028 # EBX = 0013F60C # ECX = 0000000A # EDX = 0000270F # ESI = 0013F60C # EDI = 00000028 # CS:EIP = 001B:02C0D8A0 # SS:ESP = 0023:0013F59C EBP = 0013F5EC # DS = 0023 ES = 0023 FS = 003B GS = 0000 # Flags = 00010206

Virtual Horsemen are downloading the sim now. We'll post updates of progress in the new sim in our thread on the boards :)

Many thanks for the comments guys, We will continue to post the new vids each week :)

The Fighter Collection's domain registration expired but it has since been fixed and the site is back up now

Not wanting to double post, but we have just released this weeks training clip of the Photo Opportunity pass. There is a short introduction by left wing pilot, Julian "SkyHawk" Tirazona. Enjoy, Subscribe and let us know what you think :) All the best, Rob

Is that a realistic possibility? I know with a Sim that offers as much as DCS does, It would be a shame not to be able to have the helmet correctly painted

Another little request to do with the helmet; Would it be possible to map the Helmet onto the main skin so we can paint it please? I know a lot of people would like to have custom Helmets and the Horsemen also have a helmet design for the team which would look pretty cool when we fly the routine in DCS :)

It will be very interesting to learn a new platform although I am not expecting it to be too difficult. It will certainly be an interesting process converting to DCS after myself and SkyHawk have flown IL-2 for 7 years

Hi Doom, We would love to help ED promote the product with Video's or other forms of media, but I think if we were to think about that now, we would be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. I think it will be a fantastic day when we fly our first public show in DCS: P-51D Mustang. Although that may be some time away, only time will tell. VFAT 2012 anyone?

I have A2A's current mustang and I am most certainly looking forward to trying out the DCS version upon it's release. DCS has one critical advantage to it that A2A simply can not measure up to: Online play. Now we can have an accurately modeled, High detail P-51 Mustang with great online experiences whether it be Formation Aerobatics which we will be flying with the Virtual Horsemen, Or in Dog Fights against more modern Counter parts. I can't wait to fly a version of "The Final CountDown" although with the rolls of aircraft reversed.

Hi LostOblivion, I personally have not yet ventured in DCS although I do fly FC1 and 2. The reason, my area of interest in aviation is anything from 1914 to 1960 and unfortunately DCS did not fit in that envelope. I heard fantastic reviews about the features of DCS however from my friends who fly it regularly and I was hoping that maybe one day, we would get a mustang so that VH could switch. I am now very happy that we are able to do this :)

Thank you guys, We believe that this new Sim will really bring our show to the next level and we can't wait to see how it looks. It's going to be a special year for us all :)

Thank you all very much for the warm welcome. As SkyHawk says, we will be releasing weekly video updates of our training so make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don't miss anything! We are also posting regular updates on our facebook page with small comments after each flight and the occasional hint to new surprises ;) Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheVirtualHorsemen Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Virtual-Horsemen/110090404400

My Skype ID is robjg54

Thanks Heater, Do you have Skype, Msn or an email address where I can contact you?

Hi Guys, My first post here and I am very excited to see this new development of a great sim for an equally great aircraft! Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Rob "Rock" Brindley and for the last 3 years I have been leading the Virtual Horsemen in the IL-2 flight simulator. We became the first none Lockon team to fly at the Virtual Festival of Aerobatics teams, Performed live at the Low Land Tiger Meet and have even gained official Sponsorship and support from the real horsemen themselves. IL-2 has provided us with a great platform but, as 10 year old games do, it's starting to show it's age and therefore, when we found out about this new development, we are looking forward to switching to the new sim when it is released. Here are a few video's of us flying in IL-2: