MTM

HansPeter1981, Greetings my German friend (I’m about half German myself coincidentally). When you said you almost don’t want to call it a game, I know what you mean. The term “game” doesn’t seem to fit. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your story. See you in the skies my friend!

After 8 years of playing Flaming Cliffs 2 on an ancient laptop from 2009, I recently built a new gaming PC and dove into DCS: F/A-18C. What a difference 8 years makes! In childhood I dreamed of being a fighter pilot. As a teenager, my parents nurtured that dream and paid for private pilot lessons. In 2001, I started AFROTC at Fresno State University in California. A month later, 9/11 happened and I was more determined than ever. Then one fateful day 19 years ago, the Department of Defense Medical Examination Review Board sent me a "we regret to inform you" letter. Asthma. Permanently disqualified from military service. Fought it. I got two doctors two say they disagreed with the diagnosis. Got in the best physical shape of my life to prove I didn't have it. Didn't matter. The dream was dead. Eventually, I figured out another path to go down. Devoted myself to school. Met my wife. Got a PhD in Forensic Psychology. Became a father. Lived a different life than the one I envisioned, but still a very good life nonetheless. But I never forgot the dream. I rarely talk about it, but it's something about me that my whole family knows. For years they've been catching me lost in YouTube videos from Wags, the Grim Reapers, Spudknocker, Growling Sidewinder, and BelGeode. Three months ago, for my 38th birthday, my wife and her parents handed me an envelope with $3,000 cash inside and told me "Don't you dare spend it on the kids." I won the lottery when it comes to the family I married into! Learned how to build a gaming computer. Reverb G2 on pre-order. Learning the ins-and-outs of the Hornet until that box from HP arrives sometime in November. Thank you ED! I can't say it enough! Thank you for DCS! I'm completely blown away! Mike

I've never owned a Thrustmaster, but I currently use an X52 Pro. I'm pleased with it and I feel like it was a good buy, but the rotaries seem pretty stiff and I've decided not to use them. And I haven't found a way of programming the slider to make it useful. I'm sure there's a way to do it, I just haven't had the need to. The slider and the rotaries really aren't serious problems though. You have so many buttons and hats to work with, I've just assigned trim elsewhere. The only thing that's ever really frustrated me with the X52 is the twist rudder on the stick. In a dogfight when you're lining up a gun kill, you're pulling back on the stick to pitch up and twisting the stick to get him in the crosshairs. It makes for an awkward feel. I liked it much better back when Saitek had the rudder on the throttle. Anyway, that's the only complaint I've ever had. I'd still buy the 52.

Can you describe the problem a little more... Is it a yawing to the left, rolling to the left or both? When you increase the throttle, do both engine rpm's go up or just one? It might also help to know which plane you're flying. If you can hop in something with afterburners, then just go to full afterburner and make sure both burners are lighting. That's odd about the x/y axis, but I don't think that's the problem. It looks like that would cause a shallow dive rather than a left turn.

I'm sure just about everyone on this forum knows how to do this and has been doing it since FC2 came out, but I just bought FC2 (which is awesome!) and I noticed there is no meinit.xml file like previous versions of LockOn. How then do you make a non-flyable plane flyable? Also, once you make a plane flyable, will it automatically have the 27's pit or can that be changed now? Thanks!

It sounds like an upgrade on the GPU isn't practical, but the the GPU and the CPU could both handle FC3 as long as I don't put the settings on High. If I didn't install FC3 and just used a fully patched version of LOMAC would that put less of a demand on the GPU?

I really appreciate all the feedback everyone. I tried downloading DCS World, but when I ran the .exe file I got an error message that said "The source file is corrupted." I redownloaded the .exe file, but same result. It sounds like overclocking my processor and upgrading the GPU are good starting points. Though, as joey45 pointed out, this is a laptop. Not as easy to upgrade as a desktop (at least not for a novice like me). As for DCS World, anyone familiar with that error message enough to know what I did wrong? I'm certain I followed the instructions on the website. They're pretty straightforward.

I'm thinking about purchasing Lock On and FC3 but before I do I wanted to get an opinion from people who probably know a little more than I do. With these system specs, will my laptop be able to handle FC3? OS: Windows 7 64-bit Processor: Intel Core i7 Q720 @ 1.6 GHz Ram: 4 GB DDR3 Hard Drive: 300 GB (5400 rpm) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M I'm a little worried that a 1.6 GHz processor (albeit an i7) isn't going to cut it. Thoughts? Thanks!