PFunk1606688187

Close Air Support in a strategic bomber? Oh USAF, you so crazeh!

How can you all be giving such bad advice? You're missing the critical bottleneck. Its the ram. Simple as that. Things get busy, you get stutters. Thats what happens when you run out of physical memory and the computer has to resort to using the page file, which is very very slow. This is happening because of only 4 GB of ram. If you open taskmgr.exe and then select the Performance Tab then select the Resource Manager you can monitor how much memory programs are using, how much free there is, and even how often a program accesses the page file. DCS at a minimum uses something in the range of 3+ gigabytes of memory to run. Windows 7 will use anywhere from 6-800 megabytes for background operation, and only leaves you around 200 megabytes of memory for anything else you have running if you only have 4 gigs. Even 1 extra gig of ram will change your entire experience of DCS. Adding another 4 will solve your stuttering altogether. Your CPU would be the next bottleneck, though not as severe as your ram is now.

The other entries in this file seem to point towards it perhaps being relevant to FFB?

Looks like something ripped off of a Borg drone. :huh:

The specifics of why the aircraft came down how it did can't be known without access to data from the recorders, but probably the fact that they were landing with a 20 knots tail wind made them fast and high on the approach and trying to force it down they came in at a ludicrous sink rate. Lets see, when you're going too fast, ie. the tail wind is blowing you forward, you could have trouble bleeding speed and maintaining the correct sink rate to stay on glide slope. Perhaps the aircraft was too fast and to get down to approach speed they didn't descend as fast as they needed to then finding themselves high on a short final they made the poor decision of trying to come in too steep and for some reason failed to pull out. With no specifics necessary its pretty certain they were in an unstable approach and failed to make the only sensible choice which was to go around. Why they were landing on the wrong runway is another thing to wonder about, but it is Aspen so maybe there is some kind of terrain issue that makes reciprocal approaches dangerous, or maybe the pilot was a yahoo and didn't care to check the ATIS for local winds. Too many questions with not enough info, so its all speculation.

Nobody said it wasn't possible, its just HARDER when you have inferior equipment and course digital trim input. And the issue with say X52 sticks is that they actually have a lot of play in the middle before you get any input, so its not just about it being sticky its about it being harder to get fine control depending on your luck of the draw and your stick's age. All this real life flying advice is legitimate, but it doesn't change any of the complexities of trying to compensate for software and hardware deficiencies of the sim experience. There's a reason TM Warthog users can get away with Zero curvature and X52 users often can't. Sometimes its not about fundamental misunderstandings about the role of trim, and more about the fact that flying a real airplane is so much easier and more intuitive with respect to actual input control.

Actually as I understand it most of the confusion came from non standard phraseology and the fact that interference on the transmission created further misunderstanding because the word "takeoff" stood out while the fact that the clearance was with held was missed. Further interference prevented the Pan Am's call that it was on the runway from being heard. Pilots are frequently impatient, but dangerous systems and malfunctioning/absent equipment make individual decisions more dangerous because the system suddenly loses the ability to control those individuals. Basically it was a crap load of things that were wrong or absent that were changed to be standard today. Pretty much the ultimate watershed moment for aviation.

This is particularly hard on people with poor quality sticks with bad centre play and sensitivity.

Oh good, someone who likes to mis-characterize what people say. I specifically said I disagree with the "any new player makes this community stronger" comment because with Steam you're going to get randoms who buy anything and everything thats on sale and do it all based on one screen shot. Some people really shouldn't have bought it and appealing to those people would be like trying to change the fundamental audience, ergo some players are lost causes. And frankly, if anything your sentiment is black and white. But I guess if you're one of those positive thinkers that doesn't count. I can also speak from personal experience that sometimes the mob can be too big and they can be asses. When TF2 went Free to Play the quality of the average game went down drastically. It used to be that any free weekend was a vacation from good quality play. Then that free weekend became the rest of eternity. No, not every player makes something better. Its not that it can hurt a game thats far more segregated and private like DCS is, its just that it isn't so rosey as all that. Not really. We suffer the problems because we're passionate about whats underneath them. People who think its stupid won't see that and will just find it a waste of time. People who buy a study sim on a whim then exasperate about how absurdly complicated it is are hardly that general group. In any event improving multiplayer stability is important for keeping everyone flying, but its hardly going to solve the fundamental issue of "maybe this isn't the game for you". I am regularly accused of being a negative thinker, far too cynical, etc. Uhhh... ummm... wow this is awkward. :huh:

I'm not really commenting on how much time you spend in the pit as much as the labour one must go through to make it work as well as most mainstream games do pretty much out of the box. Its not about who's the best pilot, its about whether they dedicated their limited time to something that might frustrate and disappoint as often as it is rewarding. But you're entitled to your opinion. :D

I whole heartedly disagree. There is a breaking point where popularity threatens to make the marketability of the niche product untenable without some compromises towards the mainstream. In the end courting any and all comers, especially those who don't REALLY want what this product is all about, is a self defeating prospect. What strength does someone who thinks the game is stupid bring us? More money into ED's pockets? Know your customer, and the ones you pick up as a matter of course because you happen to be featured in the vendor with the of the biggest impulse buyers on the internet is not one of them. I wouldn't say quit, but a cynical roll of the eyes is pretty standard at this point. "You must be new around here. This isn't War Thunder." etc etc Oh thats a laugh. The stability of the online game is such a joke that it would be a worse troll to tell a new skeptical player to try and muscle through the inevitable crashes. 1.2.7 might be our latest "salvation", but until we get the dedi code online is another beast to grapple with, along with the steep learning curve of the sim itself. Lets be honest. None of us play this regularly because its easy on us. Its a dawn til dusk pride swallowing siege being a regular DCS player, and we do it because we're dedicated and we love this with a passion. Passion. Thats a hallmark of the sim world, especially with the buggy twitchy last gen engine kind that stand as the only real option in this modern era of non-Triple-A simming. If he doesn't have the passion to suffer through bugs, crashes, headaches, constant updates breaking old missions, and the obtuse nature of learning to use a combat aircraft with little to no tactical primer available without massive forum searching... there's no shame, because thats what makes simming special. Its not a normal thing and it shouldn't be. I troll the CoD players and the WoW players that want that lowest common denominator type of gaming, but proper study simming a different level where I admit... yea I'm weird, its okay, you don't have to do this. Its not for everyone. There there... :noexpression:

Seems pretty... normal to me that they'd have to deal with these differences? I mean how many truck drivers go over from England to Mainland Europe and have to start driving on a different side of the road? Part of international travel is having to cope with countries having different ways of doing things. Thats true for everything like laws, system of measurements, side of the road, traffic lights, LANGUAGE, culture, customs, etc. Its so easy to be comfortable in your home environment. :P

$5 worth of earth magnets, a piece of plastic cut from the top cover of a 50 pack of burnable dvds. Better than ever. The Pro is no better than the standard for the slop and sensor issues, and even going up to the TM Warthog you get reports of issues with Stiction. I'm sorry to say that there is pretty much no solution to sim hardware that doesn't at least suggest you need to do some home modding. Such is life.

When you're going on a blind date, and at the door to the bar you do a "Fence Check".

I assume its called left and right to identify which fuel system each tank serves rather than its relative internal positioning.

Only reason it would become a forgotten war to this generation is because you guys didn't spend 10 years running around with go pros on your kevlar.

Sounds like if Street Fighter were a sim....

The floodlight does such maddening harm to my framerates that it just isn't worth it for me.

Its a mistake to think that you won't need to alter one or the other on a landing. What you should be thinking is now that one doesn't affect the other, but that when sink rate is off you alter power and when speed is off you alter pitch. Also, aircraft are designed to want to return to the AOA they were trimmed for so when getting into a landing configuration you want to realize that speed will be more stable than sink rate during instantaneous changes. Trim for a speed and then make gentle adjustments to power and you will see the TVV move up and down while your speed will remain steady. Changes to pitch will tend to have more instantaneous effect on sink rate in my experience. The phrase of "Pitch for speed, power for sink rate" is overly simplistic, but its at the core of how you manage a stable landing approach. Consider this. Trimming nose us leads to a speed reduction but it also leads to an immediate reduction in sink rate. To stay on your 3 degree glide slope you want to reduce power. As the aircraft settles into its new AOA the speed reduces and your sink rate does as well so now you add power to keep from dipping below the glideslope. In the above you made changes to the aircraft's configuration and had to compensate as a result. Thats inevitable, but in the end you're still changing pitch(trim) to control speed and power to control sink rate. That changing one forces you to change another doesn't in any way invalidate the concept behind the phrase. Its just not as simple as the phrase sounds. That said, once you are fully configured, with flaps and gear down, speed brakes out, trimmed on speed for landing, changing your power gently will have no meaningful effect on your speed. At this point you really can alter one without altering the other. This is because the trim keeps your plane at the right AOA and by not slamming the power around you will not generate an oscillating pitch that would push you off the glide slope. The most important part of landing is being stable in your approach. Its a lot harder to corral the plane when making rapid configuration changes, ala the overhead break. Even so the same wisdom applies and when on the perch you'll be in final configuration anyway, so then it just means that your final approach is shorter but in the end follows the same rules. Its mostly about anticipating those changes and knowing whats coming rather than reacting to them after they throw you off glideslope. Also, its worth noting that landing involves various stages that involve different levels of required pilot input to remain on the glidepath.

I can't think of a more cumbersome way to actuate a linear control surface than through a key stroke. Frankly I find the process of compensating for slip easy, but I have rudder pedals and time in cockpit to teach me muscle memory that lets me step on the ball without even referencing the ADI and its alway right on. Keystrokes however... bleh, I dunno how you people manage. :smilewink: I believe this has been discussed and the conclusion was that its a bug in the FM, that you actually get slightly better turn coordination with SAS off, and that SAS doesn't actually do its job as well as it would in real life. I can't remember it exactly, but a search might turn it up. Its one of those miscellaneous details that likely doesn't get a close look and gets forgotten on the bug list because it doesn't really hurt the simulation in the end. I know that it was or is the same case with the Anti-Skid system, where its actually more productive to just turn it off and slam full brakes because even while skidding you'll stop faster than the Anti-Skid logic would let you with no consequences. I personally don't care if its better or not, I just step on the ball because thats just a habit from flying IL-2 planes. It would be nice if that bug were fixed, but I don't know if it'll ever get done. That damned triangle in the glide slope indicator is still there.

Real world commercial pilots need to do this frequently actually, though I think usually its supposed to be in a simulator these days, and they do a minimum of 5 or something in a row when they do these check rides to qualify or re-qualify for their ratings or something. In fact, you can see a perfect example here: Civil aviation can teach you so much.

Maybe by 7th gen they're going to replace manned fighters with cheap disposable high mach 9G+ capable drones that can be produced in numbers that allow for swarm attacking. Maybe the USAF can finally adopt some Soviet thinking and use the shotgun instead of the scalpel. Okay, maybe a shotgun full of scalpels.

So we traded a 4 way hat switch in the index finger area for a 2 way hat in the pinkie area. Count me as unimpressed. If it were a K switch AND a 4 way hat then I'd be down. (I am of course thinking of the X52 when I compare)

You can see the controls on the forward part of the throttle at 0:45 seconds in. I'm further disappointed by the appearance that the right most throttle has two buttons on it whereas there appears to be either a 2 way or 4 way hat on the left most throttle. If thats the case, isn't the hat in the wrong spot? Don't think I've seen a real military split throttle with a hat not on the inboard throttle. I rely pretty heavily on the hat switch on my X52 throttle that lets me use it with my index finger. Imagining having to do the same stuff with my pinky or ring finger makes me cringe, but I am a bit anal about having to reprogram my muscle memory. Now I just feel like I'm nitpicking, but I think the above would be a seriously annoying ergonomics issue.

You're telling me that they went to all the trouble of making a split axis throttle and obviously tried to somewhat copy the layout of the ubiquitous F-16 stick and decided to only use a single stage trigger? That alone makes me want to pass. Simmers are cranky, fussy, extremely picky old men (figuratively speaking) who live and die by an absurd number of details. To not put in a two-stage trigger is pretty hilarious. Oh my. There is no hope. I either stay with the X52 or I buy a TM Warthog.