Bwaze

Kudos to "Deltaalphalima1" for offering this upgrade. I was very reluctant to order it, since I thought I would eventually switch the whole HOTAS to Virpil, but it now looks that it might take years for new stick base and throttle with analog slew to come up. If they ever will, seems that majority of customers want space sim controllers, not modern fighter jet stuff... So I ordered the slew upgrade - the stock one is really crap. Now the wait begins.

I had a similar problem quite a while ago. Try to disable USB xHCI mode in bios for the duration of applying new firmware. In my Asus Z87-PRO it's under: Advanced menu > USB configuration > Intel xHCI Mode Default is Smart Auto, I changed it to Disabled, and then I could update the firmware without problem. After the update I switched the xHCI back on.

Flight simulator in 2050: Only the oldest will remember what airplanes looked like, lifespan will quite shorten during nuclear winter...

I asked somebody who was actually at E3 and had a chance to play with the TPR Rudder, and he was confused why somebody would need exact position of brake while steering wildly. Not really helpful. :doh: But to me it looks like the change in angle is quite a large portion of available toe brake angle change from zero to full. In the Jabbers' video above it looks like the toe brake only depresses about an inch.

I have a question about the geometry of this rudder: I'm not sure I understand the benefits of "pendular pedals"... The angle of the toe brake pedals changes relatively with the position of the rudder - pressed in side has steeper angle of the pedal, the other side has lower angle. This video shows the effect very well at 4m 16s: So if you're trying to brake to a certain level (not fully down), and then steer, you would have to compensate for this change of pedal angle? :huh:

I would also be extremely grateful if someone could share the Early Access Manual!

:thumbup: Thank you!

Beautiful trailer!

I really enjoyed the show the first time I watched it several years ago. Would love to have it in better quality than YouTube uploads, or torrents which nobody seeds anymore, I think - files were ripped with really bad settings, lots of interlacing problems... I searched for a DVD, but it looks it's not that easy to get it now. Paperny Entertainment was acquired by Entertainment One, and there is no more Paperny DVD store... There is one used DVD on Paypal from Australia (for about 100$) and some Pakistani online store kind of sells it for 8$ (but wants 90$ for postage). It's easier to find 100 years old books than a 10 years old DVD... Anybody got any idea how we might get a better version of Jetstream? I don't think contacting Paperny Films or Entertainment One would be helpful, but if enough of us do it...?

AMD GPU Shipments Increased Big Time in Q4 2017, NVIDIA and Intel Decline – Over 3 Million Graphics Card Sold To Crypto Miners in 2017 How come Nvidia's market share is falling, is AMD making cards faster than Nvidia? Is Nvidia screwed by memory chip makers, they can't get GDDR5 while AMD has no problem with their HBM? That's... More than all combined value of all cryptocurrencies? Anyway, it looks like this won't blow over fast. :noexpression:

NVIDIA Allegedly States That GPU Prices Will Continue To Go Up And Any Sort of Normalization Isn’t Expected Until After Q3 2018 https://wccftech.com/nvidia-gpu-market-prices-sky-rocket-till-q3-2018/ And mining isn't even mentioned... Are game developers even worried about this? According to Steam Hardware Survey most of the people use low end graphic cards to game on PC: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 16.59% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 14.52% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 14.47% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 12.72% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 6.32% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 4.89% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 1.88% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 1.84% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 1.72% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 1.53% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 1.11% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 1.01% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 0.94% NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 0.78% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 0.72% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M 0.54% AMD Radeon R7 Graphics 0.52% NVIDIA GeForce 940M 0.51% NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M 0.55% NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 0.42% The graphic card segment that interests me (GeForce 1070, 1080, 1080 Ti) represents only about 3% of graphic cards in gaming computers?

I don't think DCS is unique in this regard. I remember long struggles in Flight Simulator X for better framerates... Games that are CPU limited are much harder to improve than GPU limited ones - unfortunately CPU progress has slowed in the past couple of years to single digit improvements from generation to generation... And making games (and most other software) use more than a couple of cores seems to be difficult. And I disagree. There is a bad time to buy a new tech. When that tech is about to be replaced, yet it still sells for premium for some reason. Is there a chance nVidia can satisfy both mining community and gamers in the near future, let's say in April or May, when the Pascal replacement should arrive? I don't think it is, unless something drastic happens in cryptocurrency market (world-wide taxation, bans on mining)... I mean, miners are paying their cards with the cards themselves. If the price of card lowers, they will just buy more cards, and I don't think anti-miner limits are a serious attempt... It's such a bizarre situation. And for what? Just to produce tokens that say "coin"? :doh:

Try this thread, this helped me: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=168869

Is anyone else following the prices of DDR4 memory and graphic cards in disbelief? I have a relatively old PC now, 4 years old i7 4770K with nVidia GTX 770. It was working pretty well for most of the time for HD resolution, but last year I upgraded to 4K monitor - mostly for photo editing, not gaming. Of course poor GTX 770 could not cope with 4K, and I was looking to replace it with GTX 1080 or GTX 1080Ti cards. I also wanted to upgrade the whole computer - buy a i7 8700K, go from 16GB of memory to 32GB (also for photo editing, although it now looks it could help with DCS too), but the i7 8700K just wasn't available for very long time after the launch, or was selling at a prices much higher than MSRP. Also, the DDR4 modules were selling at twice the price from mid-2016 - most of the people were recommending to wait for the early 2018, when new DDR4 factories should lower the prices of memory, and nVidia should be launching their new line of graphic cards before summer of 2018. Well, I have waited for several months and this is the result on the memory market: G.Skill RipJaws V DIMM Kit 32GB, DDR4-3200 is a popular memory kit from 2015, so in terms of computer parts it should be ancient and cheap, right? Yes, price of this DDR4 kit has climbed down from 390 EUR to 355... But it debuted at 300 EUR in October 2015, and could be had (for a short time) for 149 EUR! :doh: And it also doesn't look like it's plummeting now. Also, while I was waiting for the memory prices to come down the new cryptocurrency craze has started. I imagined it would be short lived, and prices would come down after the various coins started to loose their steep upwards curve... Well, that also didn't happen. This is an interesting price curve of Palit GeForce GTX 1080 Dual OC, 8GB, months ago one of the cheapest models with better than stock cooling: First sold in January 2017, it started selling for 700 EUR. It had ups and downs, lowest price was 443 EUR just before AMD revealed they can not compete with this card, and it now sells for 707 EUR, if you can get it. That is a graphic chip from May 2016, almost two years old, and only a few months away from the new nVidia line, Volta... As we see, the price of graphic card is not proportionate to the cryptocurrency value, which plummeted some time ago. Apparently cryptocurrency miners are now anticipating another rise in value, and are mining as much as they can before it starts to become too complex for their rigs, and then they change for another currency (there seems to be no end to them): Sooo... Where was I going with all this? Since I have started to look for an upgrade several months ago I haven't bought any module here. I also haven't bought any game on Steam, or elsewhere. And I also haven't made any hardware purchase, because I was always waiting for that perfect pricing. Anyone else in this situation? How do you think this will turn in couple of months? Will we see launch of nVidia Volta completely taken over by miners, like it happened with AMD, and gamers won't be able to get any card even close to MSRP? Will the focus of memory manufacturers on mobile phone modules continue to hold the prices of DDR this high? Will we see any other "shortage", and another PC part driven to stratospheric prices? All these price hikes remind me of price increases of hard disk drives after the floods in Thailand in 2011 - it took almost 2 years for the prices to go below the pre-flood prices, and since then the prices are not falling as quickly as they did before the crisis. Last chart, I promise. These are the estimates before the price hikes. Will desktop PCs become completely niche products? Will gaming industry largely abandon PC if price of hardware becomes unreachable, and this also influences sales of software? How long is a piece of string? Has Greenback gone forever? Will the person who took my bicycle pump please return it? For the answer to these questions and some that shouldn't be answered, tune in next time, for another exciting adventure of the world's greatest everything, Danger Mouse!

I had a similar problem quite a while ago. As others have stated, try to disable USB xHCI mode for the duration of applying new firmware. In my Asus Z87-PRO it's under: Advanced menu > USB configuration > Intel xHCI Mode Default is Smart Auto, I changed it to Disabled, and then I could update the firmware without problem. After the update I switched the xHCI back on.

I chose BRD-MS3 mainly because of the price - they are 280 USD with shipping to EU, and the F2 have been quoted "380 - 480$, depending on the configuration". I also did not think that the damper would be necessary before I bought and tried them. After a while I got much more used to the ultra frictionless rudder and I don't have major problems using them, but I'm still thinking about making the damper. I have searched for some advice on designing such damper, but I think I will just have to make it and see if I dimensioned it properly. :)

Aren't they selling the whole "gimbal" part, with magnet, sensor and connectors? I know some people bought them when they damaged just the stick connector on top, but it wasn't cheap - close to 100€ with shipping.

From Wccftech, uncorfimed leaked benchmarks: Ryzen’s Single Threaded Performance – AMD Back In Gaming Let’s move on to the last and perhaps most important benchmark we have. Passmark’s single-threaded performance test. This has always been AMD’s Achilles heel and why its CPUs have struggled to compete with Intel in gaming performance. Is it possible that Jim Keller and his team were able to close the gap that Intel has built over five years in a single generation? This is the moment of truth. The answer is a resounding yes. Regardless of the fact that the engineering sample we’re looking at may be only running at 3.4Ghz without Turbo, the result would remain just as impressive even if it was hitting its intended Turbo clock speed of 3.8GHz. It manages to successfully edge out the 5960X and the 6800K and falls behind the 6900K by no more than 3%. That’s a very impressive feat considering Intel’s i7-6900K and i7-6800K both turbo up to 4.0GHz and 3.8GHz respectively in single threaded mode thanks to Broadwell-E’s Turbo Boost 3.0 feature. This means that even if the Ryzen engineering sample was in fact running at 3.8GHz Turbo frequency, it would still be outperforming Broadwell-E clock for clock ever so slightly. Only Intel’s i7-7700K Kaby Lake speed freak with its 4.5GHz turbo manages to distance itself from the 1700X. Although, we’re talking about a 91W quad-core going up against a full blown octo-core rated at only 4 watts higher. Ryzen is so far ahead of AMD’s last generation FX 8350 Piledriver chip, it’s almost dizzying. It puts into perspective the enormity of the challenge that the company’s engineering team had to overcome. Bringing this to a close we have to remark on one of Ryzen’s surprising strong suits and that’s its efficiency. Despite having double the cores, threads and cache of the 7700K it somehow manages to only dissipate 95 watts of power. Granted the 7700K is clocked significantly higher but all of AMD’s 8 core Ryzen chips that we’ve seen to date manage to come in at 45 watts and even up to 75 watts below their most directly comparable Intel counterpart, the 140W eight core i7-6900K. It will be very interesting to see if Ryzen chips will live up to their impressive TDP ratings in real-world independent testing. All in all the Ryzen story has been an exceedingly positive one. No matter what metric we look at, whether it be absolute performance, value, power efficiency or features we can’t help but find Ryzen to be one of the most compelling products that AMD has ever developed.

Intel Core i7-7740K is HEDT part on LGA 2066 socket, not LGA1151 as some sites accidentally posted - but yeah, even the prominent sites such as TechPowerUp made that mistake. 2.3% increase of base clock, 0% increase of turbo clock compared to i7 7700K, and 23% increase of TDP. And disabled integrated graphics. And probably much higher price, and much costlier motherboards. Not really a Ryzen buster.

My Baur BRD-MS3 has arrived! Although all communication went through Google Translate, there were no problems and misunderstandings, and Roman answered all my answers quickly. A large, sturdy cardboard box, with 7.7 kg of metal! On the top a sticker "Inspected at customs!" - they were apparently baffled by the lack of proper documentation. The box was well packaged, and it arrived undamaged: The rudder pedals arrive almost completely assembled: Contents: rudder pedals BRD-MS3 come with Su-35 style pedals, extra springs for changing resistance (and for spare parts), USB cable, and (a gift by Roman) two more sets of cams with different centre feel! You can also order a pedal stand, but I think it's a bit narrow for these pedals, so I will build my own. You only have to assemble a couple of things. Installing soft pedal springs, using tape covered pliers (so I didn't scratch the black finish). Springs can be attached on two different heights (for two different spring strengths), and the pedal angle is adjustable too. Attaching Su-35 pedals. They have to be disassembled first, and fitting locking nuts on the back is a bit fiddly work. I helped myself with a duckt tape covered spanner, so it holds the nut. All done! Pedals in all of their beauty! You don't need much tools to assemble them, and without taking pictures it's only a couple of minutes work. Left pedal has quite a rough edge on the left side, I guess a de-burring step has been accidentally omitted on this one. Paint covers it quite thickly, so it's not sharp, but I think paint will wear out sooner here on such a narrow edge. Front of the cams with the softer spring attached. Back of the cams with the actual portion that slides over the ball bearings. The surfaces are not finely polished, but I couldn't detect any roughness in movement of the pedals, so I think they are fine enough. Bottom of the pedals. They come without any cover, so you should take care when handling them before they are attached to the cockpit floor or a stand. Comparing Saitek Pro Combat and BRD-MS3 rudder pedals. So, how do they work? I have only tried them for a short time now, crudely attached to a board of MDF. And I can only compare them to Saitek Pro, Saitek Combat Pro and Simped F-16C rudder pedals, the only ones I have used. BRD-MS3 are heavy, sturdy and strong rudder pedals, but all of the main moving axes have ball bearings, so there is almost no resistance when moving them - apart for the spring resistance. That has it's ups (like an ability to reposition them very quickly) and downs (like an ability to reposition them very quickly) :smilewink:. Pilot-induced oscillations comes to mind! I understand why people try to attach motorcycle steering dampers. I think this is even more crucial with German WW2 F-type of pedals, where your whole foot is on the pedal. With Su-35 style, the heels of your feet are usually on the floor, so you still have some resistance to moving the rudder too easily. Saiteks and even Simpeds don't have this problem, they have quite a bit of resistance to moving. But they also don't have this smoothness of movement, and the gradually progressive resistance strength of the cam mechanism. Brake pedals themselves have quite a large range of movement. This is a good thing when you want to be precise with your input, but it poses some difficulties with the placement if you want the rudder to be comfortable in all it's range of movement. By comparison Saiteks have very small range of movement (especially Pro Combat), and Simpeds have a very non-linear brake. And pedals in DCS? Best rudders I've ever tried, no doubt! But I'm looking at options of damping the movement of rudder. I think I will not go with usual motorcycle steering damper - I understand it has some "slack" with mechanical links, and a bit of a "dead band" when you reverse the movement. The option I'm considering now is making a DIY rotary damper - simple one, just the moving paddle in viscous cup. I have quite a bit of Nyogel 767A, and some less viscous damping fluid, so I will try that. But first, some more flying with the new precise instrument from Baur!

That's a bit drastic! :) I think if you disassemble the whole upper part of the stick you gain access to a wider part of the stem. And you can disassemble the whole "gimbal which is not called gimbal" and grip just the upper "ball". And even if you fail, the replacement parts in the "not gimbal" are only about 30$ each. And you can also combine the disassembly and reassembly with regreasing the whole mechanism.

You could try to grip the stem of the stick with a narrow pipe wrench or something similar - just protect everything around and the plastic stem itself so you don't scratch the soft plastic. Then grip the wrench and unscrew the extension.

About this document called "McDonnell Douglas document MDC A4277-5 FA18A and TF/A18a Human Engineering Crew Station Design" - I can't find it, and there are only a couple of references of it on the net (mostly to the older version, MDC A4277-4). Seems to be an internal thing to McDonnell Douglas, so it's really great that we got these scans with measurements! I have cleaned up the images a bit and added measurement in millimetres (they are rounded to nearest millimetre), and uploaded them up on my Photobucket. I also made an aligned common image of all three views, but I'm not too sure about alignment of back view. And since Photobucket compresses the images, I'm attaching the ZIP with better quality images: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18800395/F18A%20Dimensions.zip

The caliper shows 20,28 mm, or 2,028 cm. :)

Hehe, reminds me of David Hasselhoff's True Survivor (video for a short movie Kung Fury):