brewber19

Sorry Moose, forgot to say thanks ;)

Nice job ;)

Ah, is this why, when my a/c gets blown up and the wreckage is falling to the ground, the wreckage looks like a different skin to what I was 'wearing' before I got hit? e.g I might be using an a/c with the Standard skin...get hit by a manpad and as the wreckage of my a/c falls to the ground I find the 'bits' are wearing one of my custom skins. I haven't got a screenie to hand of this happening but I can if it'll help my explanation of this oddity.

Feuerfalke's review hit the numbers for me but in my own words... Simulation 85% (Lack of collidable/"transparent to enemy" Trees, improved textures but still looking dated, Trees, same old water, excellent frame rates though...did I mention Trees?) Cockpit 95% (6DOF is excellent and smooth - can't think of an improvement other than some buttons without a function) Weapons 95% (targeting and ballistics for AP rounds impressive compared to previous 'laser beam' cannons) Editor 75% (Removing the satellite view was poor show, adding triggers was useful except someone forgot the 'Or' logic or at least a way of making 'Or' easier, templates good but not excellent due to lack of ability to template statics, still time consuming and tedious to add multiple player aircraft in MP - why oh why do we still need to add each player unit one at a time?) Multiplayer 95% (Most solid MP code out of the box I've ever seen! This value of this can't be underestimated. -5% due to occasional crash/stutter but this migtht be Vista/multicore hack) Singleplayer 90% (Campaign missions I feel are really well put together) Overall average score 89% A very reliable and polished product for an initial release. For the complexity level I'm very impressed it is so "finished" a product. Overall FEELING is that I am very glad that at least one developer still has the desire and ability to produce a simulation of this standard, sometimes in spite of its online community's "contributions" (this thread being an exception), so kudos to ED staff and its testers - looking forward to future modules. For what its worth, things that would improve this score for me in Black Shark are clearly around graphics, collidable and "non-transparent" trees that we can hide behind, functionality of the mission editor around unit placement, adding MP aircraft as groups rather than individuals, did I mention collidable and "non-transparent" trees? For other DCS modules like A-10 then collidable trees not an issue, but transparent trees for enemy still would be...but by then of course I am sure I'd be moaning about flight models or lack of HDR or whatever ;) I've already said it but will say it again - well done ED, keep up the good work!

You can't include static units in Templates...at least I havent managed it...and static objects are bugged because they (a) can't be hidden in the F10 view no matter if Enemy Externals are disabled and (b) all static icons in F10 view initially appear Blue...but then go to Red if you click on them. Just a couple of related niggles.

Sarcy, even with the smilie, but RichardG is exactly right. Compared to a SAM any helo is not much more than a stationary target - there are no 'evasive maneouvres' that consistently and reliably work every time - dispensing flares preemptively helps alot...and dumping them like hell when you spot a launch can spoof missiles a little...but not every time. In an aircraft, even something as slow as a Frogfoot, you can still manage 700kph in a descending turn, whereas a helo can only manage 300kph (not withstanding some n00btube videos of 500kph dives etc), and you have that much more energy to then use in a climb, further bleeding a missiles speed - you don't get that in a helo. In essence...hide behind things, or be high enough (3000m+) so IR sams can't reach you...and dispense flares when you think you're in bandit country.

Another CH fan here - costs more but far better than X52. I've had X45, X52, Ch Fighterstick and (stock) Cougar....CH gets my vote, worth the extra £.

Hi GA, Looks like we're all fresh out of ideas:( How did your reinstall go? B.

same here - seems either than whatever is set in the ME isn't acknowledged...or the settings 'use settings in every mission' on an individuals PC overrides. My issue is icons appearing in the F10 view...can't seem to stumble across the right settings to hide enemy icons though :(

Good advice right there, rep inbound ;)

GA, If you haven't already, choose the Compatibility Option 'XP Service Pack 2'....as that would be 32bit AND try to run the program as Administrator? B.

Vault - that is a really nice rig...it should run anything without a struggle. I would wonder why your PC performance on any game doesn't murder what your xbox can produce! It ought to ;)

Then I have misread/misunderstood your posts #1 and #19...:shocking:...which focus on performance on Xbox for games being better than how they run on your £2k system. Good to hear you're getting good performance on DCS...guess just F3 is proving uncool on Vista huh?

Hi GA, I'm still away from main PC but have a look at this link: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/75909-compatibility-mode.html This should cover whether the option exists (which it should) and what to do if greyed out. Let me know how you got on ;)

Hi Vault, Don't worry about being 'difficult', some of like an honest debate ;) re: why F3 can look better on Xbox than PC is for two reasons... (a) Xbox hardware is fixed and its drivers for that hardware are fully known. By that I mean, programmers can provide very accurately to squeeze the very best out of the various shaders available to the gfx card/driver. In many recent games on Xbox you will see much more use of HDR lighting (High Dynamic Range I think it means), which means you get 'bloom' and 'glare' lighting effects. (b) PC games are designed to get quite alot out of the various shaders available and have to consider you might be running a DirectX 8 card, DX9a/b/c or DX 10 card. Moreover, quality/performance is also affected by what gfx options the user chooses to enable, what compromise between resolution versus gfx settings they may/may not make...and what driver version for what card is being used. So...its perfectly possible for a game to look better on Xbox versus PC...but there are many many factors and in every case it should be possible for a PC game to look better as we have more control over the factors affecting look/feel/performance (e.g. AA, AF, resolution, texture quality etc). Ok, lengthy answer...but its not that something is a dedicated device but any edge on performance/difference can be atrributed to a console being a fixed asset that can be coded for/around whereas PCs cannot due to the plethora of options of hardware/driver. Again, don't be shy about a healthy debate...you should have seen some of the previous posts concerning ECM jamming and missile performance in the old LOFC days (ducks for cover :D) - now those were high temperature ;)

I can't even bear to begin to tell you how wrong your original post was...but that isn't helpful or constructive. To be helpful & constructive, Fallout 3 for the Xbox and Fallout 3 for the PC are two very different code bases, added to which is that a console (any console) is a fixed set of hardware and drivers...for which a company can precisely code its game....ergo...games that can run like poo on a PC can run very well on a console. This has less to do with how 'powerful' the console is...and more to do with companies being able to code for a hardware of known capability. By the way, for your specification of PC you should be getting at least 20-30fps if you're using XP and 40-70fps if Vista. Anything outside of this I would attribute to poor setup, drivers out of date, too many background applications running etc etc. Sometimes people appreciate consoles for their "plug and play"-ability versus the effort sometimes required to get their PC, with all the complications the almost infinite combinations of hardware can provide, to run nicely for XYZ software. Others have also answered why DCS isn't likely to go to console...and I notice you mention in response to another persons post that you can get a keyboard for an xbox...and in time I am sure a joystick would become available....so isn't a black box with kb and joystick ultimately a PC? Ah, back to square one except a console is a fixed set of hardware = infinitely predictable. P.S. I have PC and Xbox...PC for sims, RTS and FPS games...Xbox for Forza and the occasional FPS. Anways... flying games on a console there's always the up coming Tom Clancy's HAWX?! If you want some help looking in to why your PC might run like crap, let us know and we can try to help you out ;) PC gaming musn't die to console crap :D

Hi GA, If you right-click on the icon, go to the tab 'Compatibilty' (I think its called, am on my lappy atm) and in there should be a check-box to run in 32-bit mode (or compatibility mode as it might also be called). If I've got the name of the tab wrong...then flick through whatever tabs are available having right-clicked the shortcut...and you'll stumble across the 'run in 32bit/compatibility' mode ;)

That all looks entirely normal (I guess you had quite a few web pages open when you took a screenie ;)). Its only using about 500Mb of memory, which is good. Hmmm...did you install the x64 nVidia drivers, or the 32bit version...and did you install the drivers with the AV software running? P.S. Any other issues you're still experiencing, other than Crysis/slow driver install. Is it the same with any install of any software or drivers etc?

Hi GA, You are running Vista Ultimate 64bit ;) It should have an 'x86' Program Folder as this is where 64bit vista installs 32bit applications! So, we're sure what OS we have...just need to dig a little deeper I guess to see if we have an competing antivirus/spyware stuff installed...which may be competing with Vista's 'Defender' or Windows Firewall or similar? As InnerLoop said...I presume you installed the 64bit version of drivers for everything? Gfx, mobo etc? Brewber.

Hi GA, Vista Ultimate isn't necessarily 64bit....Ultimate can be either 32bit (x86) or 64bit (x64) and so it depends on which disc you used to install. This might be worth a quick check just in case you're trying to install x64 drivers into an x86 system. Not having seen a 32bit install of Vista I believe an easy way to check is whether in C:\ drive you also have a C:\Program Files (x86) as well as a normal C:\ Program Files. Alternatively there's the My Computer tab which'll tell you whether its 32bit or 64bit Vista. I know it sounds ridiculous to check but from your assumption that 'Ultimate' is 64bit makes it sensible to check ;) Also, 1.5Gb of ram in constant use seems a bit high...and idea via Task Manager what might be using all that memory? Also, what AntiVirus software do you have? Norton, Zone Alarm, Kapersky, Other? Is it active when installing drivers? That's all I can think of off the top of my head...could you post a screenie of what processes are running (under Task Manager)?

What's your struggle GA? I recently went from XP Pro x86 to Vista x64 without issue...except for tinny sounds which I think I have almost solved. In terms of hardware I have... Intel E6600 o/c from 2.4Ghx to 3.0Ghz 4Gb of PC8500 RAM (DDR2) X-Fi Fatality sound card BFG GeForce 8800GTX (stock...although BFGs are 'overclocked') I use a BFG 680i motherboard, 2x74Gb Raptors in RAID0 + couple of other normal HDs. I don'r know how that compares to yours but the install of gfx drivers was no problem whatsoever...and BS runs at 40fps+ versus 20-30 in XP. Let me know what other hardware you got (mobo, sound etc), perhaps theres a conflict somewhere? Happy to help if I can.

I think he (GG) might mean an online RU release of A-10 in 9 months after EN retail DVD release...so a DVD release of an A-10 is likekly another 3 months after that (gives the biggest window). Mind you, what the hell do I know? Its only supposition and if ED get another military contract it could be frickin years before we see it - alot can change ;)

LOL - I caught the subtlety there ;) March 2009 (Retail Release) + 9 months = possible Xmas present for 2009?! Super

That's a real shame Devas, cos that's some good looking work there :( Rep inbound for your effort though.

No solutions or suggestions huh? I'll take it by the resounding silence none of us can hide static icons...so I'll write that one up as a bug :( I'll add it to the bug where Red's static icons appearing as Blue in F10 view until you click on them...where they then turn Red.