Headwarp

Can't really knock TM for giving more entry level options for any kind of flight simming. I kind of feel like developers who push games that make you want a joystick and manufacturers that sell you a joystick that make you want games to use that joystick kind of go hand in hand with the survival of the niche. One day I decided to rant to TM customer support about quality standards.. pointing fingers at CH Products, who you don't hear much bad about from flight simming communities, and lesser known manufacturers within these communities that are producing products that are smooth as butter and built to last. How I'm using a near 2 decade old Microsoft stick I found off Ebay that was built like a freaking tank for certain simming situations. I'd be vain to think they actually listened to me, but, if they ever do decide to put out an F/A 18 stick I certainly hope the base includes a higher quality gimbal design. Even then.. I'd be a lot more tempted to buy a cylinder base for existing Warthog sticks that included said new&improved gimbal than another stick with less hats and switches.. although, I have to admit, having a replica stick would be a tempting shiney knowing how good the hog feels with the A-10c in DCS.

Your extreme 3d pro is actually a decent stick but as far as modern fighters are concerned it's mostly lacking on the amount of buttons available. TM Warthog has that front covered with 4 hat switches on the stick, dual stage trigger, pickle button, master mode button, pinky button and pinky flap. Then the throttle from the A-10C is also pretty much found in the f-15c offering many many more switches and buttons. What I will say is - the gimbal design in the TM Warthog stick is stupid. It seems like they aren't sanded or lubricated very well from the factory... and with all these cam designs popping up on the market it's kind of sad that TM hasn't addressed this issue. I love the feel of the stick.. and if I'm not making tiny adjustments it's fine and the stiffness feels good. But it has stiction using small motions. Some people solve this with an extension.. others have taken the sticks apart and sanded/greased the gimbal themselves. Personally... I think that's a bit much to ask of a customer when they're dropping $400 or more on a USB flight stick. That being said.. I do use my warthog in jets and the a-10c and even elite dangerous.. and while I use the throttle for everything I was using an extreme 3d pro for ww1, ww2, and heli simming until I picked up an msffb2. I've been tempted to pick up a VKB gunfighter so I could put the adapter in the warthog stick and enjoy their cam based gimbal, then the thought of spending another $300 to enjoy my WH is just seems stupid. So I'll probably open mine up and see if I can make the factory gimbal work better since I've already invested in the thing. Long story short I don't really recommend the warthog unless you just want access to lots and lots of buttons.. and even then the vkb gunfighter with the modern grip might be a better choice, if you can last until they are on the shelves. Then you could get away with something as simple as a CH throttle quadrant if you wanted to.. or maybe find just a warthog throttle or something else on eBay. CH Products are still in business.. still producing basically the same products they have been for years.. which might be a decent alternative to the warthog.. albeit you will be stuck with potentiometers rather than hall sensors. They do have a f-16 style stick though with plenty of hats and buttons. I have no experience with their products but they don't seem to get the kind of hatred that Saitek does and Saitek IS something I've had experience with. Unless Logitech somehow ups the standards for quality control on both hardware and software within Saitek.. just stay the heck away.

This guy has some good info. If I may add.. personally I was worried about upgrading from my 27" 1080p asus to my Acer x34 due to the higher resolution and the effect it might have on contact visibility. After getting the monitor however those fears changed. The Acer x34 has much better picture quality and color/brightness/contrast management.. and this actually made it easier to see contacts in the air with the added benefit of more screen surface and FoV. The only thing I might have done different is go for a 3 monitor setup rather than one semi large screen with a semi high resolution. But, I settled on the Acer x34 as I feel like my system will be able to handle 3440x1440 for a longer time period than 5760x1080 as programmers begin to adapt to newer technology. Although.. most developers are programming for xbox and playstation.. so I imagine it will be awhile before video games catch up with hardware.

My only experience with Saitek brand products is when they were owned by MadCatz. That being said I took a vow of Never Saitek Again long before Logitech bought saitek up. Maybe under Logitech's belt they will improve their quality control and software issues, but after my saitek experience.. I invested in peripherals I likely won't need to replace given proper TLC. I actually enjoyed the rubberized grip and potential functionality of the x52 pro, unfortunately, potentiometers and plastic screw threads didn't hold up, and to be honest I never did the magnet mod and never really flew well with it. Most of my logitech products have generally been pretty solid. A few bad apples here and there.. but I'm hoping Logitech + Saitek ends up being an improvement on Saitek's quality and Logitech's ingenuity. Personally, while it sucks that people may be out of jobs.. I will not miss Mad Catz. IMO when shopping for my msffb2 on ebay I read some articles about how when MS announced discontinuing the sidewinder series it was due to the amount of competition on the market. From my viewpoint - Microsoft HAD no real competition. Even if made by plastic their sticks were mostly tanks. This second hand msffb2 that is getting near 2 decades old is my most accurate stick.. and still the best FFB joystick ever produced as far as I'm concerned. Microsoft was it's own competition. When I first started the MS Sidewinder 3d pro was the favorite. they made the precision pro and nobody liked it..so they discontinued the 3d pro and upon that announcement people bought them off the shelves til out of stock...stock piling 2-5 joysticks a piece.. my family even had extras for the 3 of us. The next real gem they had was their FFB stick.. then the MSFFB2, which people bought multiples of on the annoucement of discontinuation just like the 3d pro. I recently acquired an unused one someone finally decided to offload after all this time. With what they've done to the gaming community since "xbox" I hate to admit it... but at one point MS were the leaders of Innovation in the technical world. 15 years later the FFB in the msffb2 is still miles ahead of anything the competition put out. The stick lacks the excess of buttons we've grown accustomed to and people have taken to modding it... but I certainly wish MS would've paid attention to the sticks that flew off the shelves once people discovered we didn't have access to them anymore. I wish they still at least sold and supported this one stick if nothing else.. and perhaps added more buttons on the stick surface or interchangeable grips. But at least it's still a tank. Of the two I own.. one looks like someone may have chewed on the grip..scuffs indicating she took a bit of a beating. Works FINE.

@ ground level i may drop to 60ish but in the air i'm usually betwen 80-100fps @ 3440x1440 on my i5 2500k @4.5ghz , 8gb ddr3 1600, 980 Ti. But I do run without civ traffic, and I might lower shadows just a bit. But if you're running on a 60hz monitor then it sounds like you're right where you want to be and probably using v-sync. Not putting you down.. just saying i think @ 1080p you could get more if you had a monitor that supported higher refresh rates. JUST AN OBSERVATION. Nothing's broke..nothing to fix.

lol 6k.. man if you can run that thing with decent FPS you'd be able to handle StarVR no prob. Thanks for mentioning your mod to the center stick. I have extra posts that were meant for the side of the chair which would put it further forward but honestly I think the post holding my msffb2 could stand to be a couple inches taller and be fine. The warthog stick mount just fits the circlular part of the stick so that fits between my legs without an issue. (.. who knew peripherals could sound so dirty)

Cool. Was just foot for thought. I have to remember how to fix my iaStor errors just about everytime I format my pc. :) I'm on a EVGA z68. I still hope you enjoy the heck out of your new system. :)

Today I was on a ww2 dogfight server taxiing off of the runway and considering a place to park without stopping in someone's spawn point... some other guy starts his engine, throttles up and plows straight ahead into me. Says "I couldn't see you" and proceeds to call my taxiing crazy. I'm not going to name names.. but I do hope he reads this. You're right.. you couldn't see me. But that's not my fault, as ww2 aircraft mostly being taildraggers offer perfect visibility from the side when on the ground. Taildraggers do not have the benefit of taxiing in a straight line due to the lack of forward visibility. So, with a little work from the toebrakes you can avoid ever running into someone again. Instead, we go from side to side down the taxi way, looking left if the plane is going right, and looking right as the plane goes left. Doing so you can always see what's ahead of you on the taxi way. Even pulling out of your parking spot, you should probably turn a bit to view what's ahead of you... that way, people like coming off of a runway after a landing and know how to taxi in a way that we can clearly see you, don't have to worry about you throttling up into me and attempting to blame it on me when I'm turning left on to the taxi way, suddenly throttling up in fear hoping to get out of the way of you blindly plowing forward in to the nether. With an unlocked tail wheel you can even learn to turn in extremely tight spaces without hitting walls or moving far from where you started. I'm no expert by any means.. I might even flub a take off.. but..I can at least try to explain how to taxi properly. My experience led me to MS Paint.. so there's always something to point that guy who can't see what's ahead of him to. I made a typo in my picture. You'll see it.. "You need forward momentum" Here's a video I just made attempting to demonstrate the concept. I just threw it together without any kind of script or rehearsal so pardon my pauses for thought.

Not sure what kind of mobo you're using but iaStor errors are apparently a common issue for people with a chipset supporting the i5 2500k. I generally try to check and make sure my ide/sata controller is "intel" rather than windows generic (or at least the recommended win10-64b driver for my mobo's sata controller), and feel like installing the software for my kingston ssd seemed to fix my BSOD's and freezes caused by the sata controller.. all peripherals (sticks, keyboard, mouse) are in usb 2.0 slots. Since installing win10 any driver causing errors immediately makes itself known.. and usually updating gets me back to being stable. 2500k is still a beast imo as well as it handles OC'ing. Congrats on your amazing new system and I hope it lasts you a long long time. ;) Perhaps you have a family member or friend who could benefit from that 2500k who's willing to put a little TLC into it.

Thanks. :) No VR for me anytime soon. I think several things would have to happen for me to make that leap. I'd have to somehow be able to see all of my various gaming peripherals without lifting the headset up... like some kind of slider that lets me switch from seeing the world outside to not. StarVR would have to be finished.. and machines that could run at its high resolution smoothly enough for VR would need to become way less in price. Heh. TrackIR and my x34 will probably last me a long time yet. Which, this viewing angle seems to have improved my ability to see things in the air and on the ground for some reason. My biggest concern regarding VR is that I have way to many keys/buttons/switches to fumble with to not be able to see them. That being said.. I think the best thing to raise my immersion level would be a 17-19" touchscreen and helios so I can see gauges with eyeball movement rather than head movement. ;) I have an iPad I've been using the free iControl for a-10C with but the mfcd's lag.. and I was hoping for just a CDU on the iPad (but not for $30), which I might be able to work out with airwaves and helios. And thanks to BitMaster as well. ;)

The problem with trying to overclock a laptop is that you don't have access to the heatsink and cooling components without completely dismantling the thing. That and you do not have near the amount of room for airflow that you would from a full tower desktop. From what I just found on google people can overclock the videocard but I'm certain it has a large very open vent to exhale and move air out. So while people report successfully oc'ing the GPU.. don't even try it with the CPU, and be aware that even oc'ing the gpu can add heat to the enclosed space inside. Personally I'm running an i5 2500k @ 4.5ghz with a 980Ti, and a monitor with 3440x1440p resolution. There are certain settings I don't run max with when flight simming because the maps are larger than any other format of PC gaming, with much more to process graphically all while calculating flight models, wind, gravity and other various factors. Is your laptop struggling? What resolution are you running at? Is Civ Traffic off or at least low? you don't have trees and clutter sliders maxed do you? Have you made sure all of your drivers are up to date via the manufacturer's website? Have you ensured that your graphics card is indeed being selected rather than cpu graphics when you start DCS or any game that might not be performing as well as it should? (This setting is somewhere within nVidia control panel for m series cards.. it's a power saving feature, and sometimes you have to make sure it's enabled, and sometimes graphically intensive games don't want to switch even when it's enabled.. which requires a patch from the game developers to fix.. I have no clue if this is at all an issue with DCS.) Hit CTRL + ALT + DELETE and open task manager, click the performance monitor tab and then click "CPU". Make sure it's running at the advertised clock speeds. If it's not running at least 2.6ghz when just in windows your cpu is being throttled due to heat. Hit winkey+P and set it so one of your monitors is just a second monitor, and put the performance monitor on the monitor that the game isn't running on. Check your speeds when gaming.. it should stay @ 3.6ghz while gaming. If the CPU is being throttled, turn the machine off, TAKE THE BATTERY OUT* (good catch BitMaster) spray some canned air through the air holes. Give about 20 minutes for any condensation to evaporate, turn it back on. May not provide any results.. I've seen many a heatsink so gunked up that you have to scrape the dust bunny family off. If this doesn't help, the only real solution would be to take the thing apart, which for a laptop I would pay someone to do professionally as not to risk messing it up. Unfortunately laptops kind of are what they are IMO.

If you can swing a new system I'd say it's not a horrible time to do so. Personally I'm an Intel fan ever since I built my first intel machine having been an amd budget lover in the past. Intel is pricey though..but in my experience, 4 intel cores are stronger than 4 amd cores by far. The reason clock speed is a big deal is because most of flight sim's calculations are done on a single core. The prices I mention are all in terms of USD. The i7 7700k comes stock at 4.2ghz @ $350 for the processor. i5 7600k is stock 3.8 ghz @ $239 on newegg. Reading newegg reviews people are successfully clocking this thing up to 4.8ghz on air, which is rather impressive, leading me to believe 5ghz or more is possible with water cooling. It may just yawn at a clock increase between 4.2-4.5ghz. I stick with the copper based heatsink and fan personally. (Might I recommend some Arctic Silver for thermal paste.. stuff is wonderful). If OC'ing is an interest.. my understanding is that the i5 is easier to do it with, as people tend to disabled hyper threading to OC an i7 chip. (this could have changed over the years idk) Personally, if I were building a new system right now I'd probably choose one of these chips, and pick my motherboard and ram accordingly. (i7 7700k if I didn't want to risk overclocking, i5 7600k if my intention was to overclock it for faster clock speeds) This will leave you room for more upgrades in the future if you want as well.. such as bigger displays with higher resolution, or VR.. the motherboards will be able to accommodate large amounts of physical memory.. like at least up to 64gb of ram (not that you need that much for anything right now as far as gaming is concerned). Again just food for thought. I'm not going to tell you what to spend your $$$ on. :) If you feel like you can afford to take the risk, it might be worth seeing if you can get higher clockspeeds out of your i7 950, but get an aftermarket heatsink/fan and some arctic silver at the very least before doing so. If you can get near 4ghz, you might be able to get away with just some more ram and a more modern GPU. Personally I know nothing about overclocking the i7 950, whether it's multipliers are locked or what. All i can really offer is food for thought. Overclocking requires research and an understanding that you do so at your own risk. All I know is I was thinking about upgrading my old i5 2500k, until I finally decided to see what kind of clock speeds she could handle without crossing the threshold of "too hot". And at the point I did so.. I was well outside of any warranty timeline, I had just bought a new copper heatsink/fan as my older one was dirty and throttling my stock cpu speeds due to not cooling properly, and my system was old enough that I didn't mind replacing it if my overclocking experiments proved fatal.

Thanks!. Just got done with a few test flights and just wow.. if I pay attention to the walls of my office in my peripheral vision I get disoriented and am glad I've never been one to suffer from motion sickness. Having solid surfaces to mount stick/throttle to rather than the wobbly ikea tables I cut down and mounted to a piece of plywood with my rudder pedals is so wonderful I'm not sure how I managed before. Same with the seat not trying to move with me when I move with TrackIR. So far central stick feels great.. although the stick mount i put the msffb2 on is a bit of a tight fit. But, the cold steel on the warmest part of my body is honestly slightly comforting. :music_whistling: The base of the ms stick presses into my thighs just a bit but kinda makes me feel locked in for flight and doesn't hinder my ability to use pedals. I didn't expect this thing to enhance the immersion factor so largely.. what a pleasant surprise.

Do some research and don't take my word for it, but flight sims are pretty CPU dependant. For simming, bumping my i5 2500k from stock to 4.5ghz provided a much larger increase in frame rates than say, upgrading my gtx 680 4gb (evga classified or ftw i forget) to my current gtx 980 Ti 6gb. That being said, looking at the specs on amd 6800 series cards they don't have much VRAM at all so, upgrading video card to something with more VRAM is probably a great idea. I also notice you said second hand, so I take it you're trying to work with a budget.. but the 1000 series from nVidia might be a better investment if you can save a little more over time and is liable to be more "future proof" than a 900 series card. Also just mentioning that I plan to upgrade from 8gb ram to 16gb soon, as is suggested by the recommended specs to run DCS (and other sims now). I'm not saying to go buy a new system or anything.. Just giving you some food for thought... with emphasis on CPU clock speed, as it seems that flight simulators performance is very heavily tied to CPU use. Sorry for stepping away from your question on "shortest and cheapest".. just giving you some food for thought and sharing my experience with you. In your case a single 970 is a huge upgrade to your current gpu setup and should increase gaming performance quite bit overall, but I wouldn't be surprised especially flight simming if your cpu was showing it's age a bit even after upgrading. Might be possible to OC but, I've only ever done so on my i5 2500k which is known to be rather simple and forgiving in that department.. so I'm not going to make the suggestion of attempting it without some careful research and know how. My PC felt like a brand new machine when I did, and it's honestly pretty old at this point. Just to be less confusing - don't be scared to buy your 970 after reading my post.. if/when you decide to upgrade more of your PC later on you can still use it. ;) And it should leave your 6800's in the dust, providing you don't bottleneck the cpu/ram. My last edit here - Personally PC's are one of few things I kind of go big on when I build them, I aim for overkill. I also like warranties on expensive components. If my 980Ti died tomorrow I'd have a new one within a week or two from EVGA no questions asked aside from perhaps shipping charges, and this i5 2500k system I put together 5-6 years ago will probably still be my main machine for several more years without much complaint at the clockspeeds I'm running at.. (on air btw). I just have to make sure to keep it clean so that heatsink cools properly. ;) Heck I'd probably still be ok with my old 680.. but the 980Ti was purchased to run at higher resolutions (I should have waited for pascal tbh but, the 980Ti is still a strong card.) That being said - I'm not rich. My house was cheap. My truck was bought used and is an '02 model. My couch was under a grand. Outside of that the most valuable things I own are my bass guitars/musical equipment, my memory foam mattress, and my gaming rig atm. I only say this to go along with the above statement that when it comes to PC's.. I go big.. and as a result my "aged" system is still running strong.

So, after a lot of hard work unboxing/unwrapping and putting the thing together as well as moving my old desk out of my office.. I finally have a worthy simpit. It isn't as pretty as what some of you guys have done with your homebuilt pits.. but.. this is so much better than the setup I was trying to sim with before. Ergonomically its better.. and the r3v just seemed more and more practical the more I looked into it with the amount of peripherals I have. I have extra mounting posts I'm going to try to build something to mount them to for switching between my Hog and MSFFB2, as well as for having options to store my stuff easily and not on the floor when I don't feel like simming. I also plan to get the tabletop accessories.. as my x34 is just too big to allow for a display to be attached to the steering wheel mount. I don't have my touchscreen yet anyway so.. this will be a future addition. I love this thing.. I never had room for my g13 before. >.< I'm also a fairly big guy at 5'11 3/4" and 225lbs, and the seat is pretty freaking comfortable.. and they threw in a little head pillow. The lumbar support is better than my older reclining office char and even with my feet on the pedals my thighs are still planted in the seat offering support by taking some weight off my spine. (which is important as I've had back surgery on the disc between my l4/l5 vertabra a couple years ago. My bum right shoulder loves me for this purchase too.. I don't have to stretch or reach for anything. Here are a couple pics =D The first with the warthog stick in place, the second with my beloved msffb2. Also I'd like to give a shoutout to Velcro and zip ties.. as they made this process so much easier. I may invest in a steering wheel/pedals some day.. so.. velcro seemed the best route for my Xwinds.

Milan and MFG provided some of the best customer service I've seen in the 21st and even 20th century. Enjoy your Crosswinds.. they're excellent pedals. Kudos to Milan for taking the steps to ensure you got a quality product.

Interesting. Solved my helo woes with a MSFFB2 off Ebay. But I only fly the Ka-50 so far. I will say when holding the trim button in the ka-50, the stick goes completely limp with zero resistance and I was initially pretty amazed at how easy it was to control this way. I was using an unmodified Extreme 3d Pro prior to that. From what I can tell, the completely limp stick is more in line with an actual cyclic than a center spring. In the video above that cyclic looks like it's plenty loose and just sits where the pilot holds it without fighting him at all. I'm not sure if that varies between choppers. I mean.. when not holding the trim button there are strong spring sensations holding it to wherever I've trimmed which is accurate afaik. I guess I'm saying I'm not surprised that removing your center detent made helo flying easier.

Your stick is fine. Center play is normal. It should/will still recenter when your hand is off (if you have the sensor taped over) Hatswitch will clack when you push it up and let it go. Enjoy your stick in games that support it.. remember to swap the ffb x/y axes in DCS ffb tune.. most other games that support have them right by default. It really is nice for ka-50 and any prop plane. Might miss extra buttons in more modern jets/a-10c but you have the best FFB stick on the market and I'm sure you'll love it.

This guy's got a point. As far as DCS goes when I was using my x52 pro the only thing I programmed were 3 stage bands on the mouse/slew nub x and y axes and asign that to the keys that controlled slew. I also put bands on the rotaries and turned them into china hat/boat switch on throttle. In SST I would delete any kind of shift state modifier, and in control panel I would disable clutch mode so the clutch button would perform as a normal button. I'd set one of my buttons in the game as a modifier which allowed for the rest of the stick/throttle to have 2 functions each. Modified and unmodified, basically giving you all the hat switches and buttons you might need to have full hotas control of even the A-10C. Good luck with your Saitek. I'm going on memory here.. as I don't use one anymore.

Keep it in storage.. introduce the kids to the hobby when they come of appropriate age. Build them a simpit too! lol. J//k. Good luck with your bundles of joy man.

Dear Santa, Please haz IPAD for use solely as a-10 CDU and a kneeboard. No really that with what I've listed above should cover all my essential simming needs >.< <--trying to convince myself.

I blame the developers of flight sims, ED included, for the charred holes in my pockets. And the player base for having cool pictures of all their setups. My list of products since jumping into the genre- Saitek X52 Pro - tried to take the throttle unit apart to clean pots and plastic came with the screws - no longer functioning.. owned maybe 2-3 years and didn't use very often. Saitek Proflight rudder pedals - somehow managed to snap the right pedal off. (I think I stretched one night with my feet in them..oops) TrackIR 5 - I've purchased 2 of their trackclip pro's, both broke, had 2 sent to me for free, both broke. Got a Delanclip and it never sat right on the surface of my not so flat headsets, so I ended up with a Luke clip. TM Warthog - slight stiction out of the box. But love the amount of buttons - It's my go to for the a-10c, and any of the FC3 jets and Falcon BMS. But I needed pedals so in the meantime - for helos and propplanes I bought -Logitech Extreme 3d Pro - an excellent joystick that you probably won't feel bad if the need to replace it arises because its cheap as heck. 9/10 recommended MFG Crosswinds - the waiting list for which caused my need for the logitech stick... but so very worth it in the long run. Looking at Milan's website it seems he produces them faster these days. 10/10 recommended. Very smooth.. very solid construction.. velcro or mounting solution recommended. Can be tipped if only one foot. Acer Predator x34 - while three screens would've given more screen surface, I decided for a single 34" screen at 3440x1440 and am not displeased with the decision. My system seems to handle this resolution rather well, and takes advantage of the higher refresh rates. It also has better picture and color quality than my older 27" Asus monitor @1080p. Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 - bought a used one off Ebay with obvious signs of use..but still working strong.. completely replaced the Logitech.. I use it with all wwI, wwII, and helo simming. My ability to fly the Ka-50 increased rather dramatically with this stick. I purchased a second one of these listed as unused, and seemed to be the case when I got it. It's in the closet "Just in case" as these have been out of production for a very long time. As a result I've not been flying jets and the a-10c as often ( I still use the hog for that) Obutto R3volution - man..did this hurt the wallet. it's currently being shipped. Switching from hog to msffb2, and having access to my keyboard, mouse, g13 Is just NOT working for me with my desk. I Built a makeshift stick/throttle/pedal mount out of plywood and some ikea tables but it's not very ergonomic and my body has taken enough abuse to notice. I got the warthog mount and the non warthog stick/throttle mount adapter to give myself more options for keeping both sticks I use nearby for when I feel like switching them out without having to put them on the floor, or maybe even build a place to store them on a nearby wall by just dropping them in a tube. This is going to replace my desk entirely and take less space. You'd think I'd be done.. but.. I still have a couple items I'd like to add..such as a touchscreen for cockpit displays and functions..and I'm kind of drooling over the thought of adapting my warthog stick to a VKB Gunfighter base, as that cam design seems like it would have a beautiful feel, at the same time however I may just mod one of my msffb2's to have a grip similar to the f-16/a-10c and the stick part of the hog will gather dust. I also wouldn't mind picking up a CH Throttle quadrant for more axis to bind things too. By this point I hope to be done sinking money into flight sim peripherals 0.o

I use TrackIR 5, but I don't wear hats.. and the trackclip pro isn't $20 worth of plastic imo. Have gone through 4 of them..2 were free.. I love the TIR5 camera and software. But.. I've been loving my Lukeclip lately. Was using a delan clip previously which works fine but I suggest using velcro to attach it rather than twisty ties. (i bent mine out of shape because it didn't' sit on my headset right, which is due to the shape of my headset not the delanclip.) People do successfully hack ps3 eyes and use freeware (which as mnetioned requires more tweaking) for much cheaper than you can get a TiR5 - but personally I went with the product that I didn't have to take apart and had a team of developers constantly updating the software.

this thread http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3733240/2 The x52 was mostly just because I have one laying around that I have no problem destroying. is my main inspiration once I decided to get the unused msffb2 for backup. I definitely notice that the ps2 port from the x52 is still connected to the stick. But you do bring up a fair point.. he kept his ps2 connection to the stick on the msffb2. I was honestly hoping I could bypass that so I could keep the base of the x52 stick to turn into the button lever box. That ps2 cable was always annoying when I used the x52pro.. so I guess I should look into alternative options. The x52pro is in no condition to be sold tbh.. the throttle unit is basically trashed in an attempt to take it apart to fix the spring detents as they somehow got borked and were stopping me from maxing the throttle. Plastic chunks came out with the first few screws and one was easily stripped so I'm going to have to cut it out likely.. As much as saitek has failed me I have no qualms gutting them and turning them into something useful if I can manage it. decade and a half old MSFFB2 has more solid construction than that x52pro ever did. I could handle bridging the x52pro stick base and throttle unit together.. but I don't need it to be connected to the stick >.< I'll look into other grip options. A CH stick sounds like a plan and I think I've seen thread with that mod. So thanks for that reminder as well sokol. (You're everywhere man) Food for thought guys.. glad I posted. thanks for the input. Will be checking to see if I can find a cheap or broken CH stick most likely. Looking at the FLCS (the f-16 flcs) and thinking of TM replica products.. I have to ask how heavy that stick without the base is. The guy who made the cougar + dual msffb2 boards really made an awesome thing but myself am not going that far lol. But I'm sure I'll find a thread that details that information somewhere. Thinking ch is the way to go. Would be cool if I found out there was a light weight f-16/a-10c stick with a dual stage trigger. But apparently that can be modded too.. Would it possible to wire this for arduino+usb? http://www.ebay.com/itm/CH-Products-F-16-Fighterstick-for-Macintosh-used-24-function-joystick-/302209688490?hash=item465d19e3aa:g:H54AAOSwLEtYjluD

So, having owned an x52 pro, logitech extreme 3d pro and my warthog I finally decided to buy a used msffb2 last month and have fallen in love with the stick. That's not to say I don't still have uses for my warthog stick atm (jets..a-10c, falcon bms) but for bi-planes, ww2 prop planes and especially the ka-50 this the msffb2 has taken over. I have hardly flown jets or the a-10c since I got the thing. The msffb2 had a little cosmetic wear on the stick, and I didn't realize it until today but the throttle slider is slightly loose, but not to a point where it's unusable. (i use it for ka-50 throttle and prop plane radiators) Well.. a couple days ago I saw a "Open box unused"" listing for an msffb2, and I snagged that sucker. And as described - it seems completely unused. Is fully functional...the software was still sealed and the little green thing was still on the end of the usb cord. It had to be new.. had the rubber coating and it was in pristine condition...no stickiness.no tears..no scuffs. Needless to say.. I put that gem back in it's box and put it on a shelf in one of my closets. I don''t foresee the first one i bought giving up on me any time soon as it functions perfectly other than the new one's throttle is just a bit stiffer and feels better. (i only use it for ka-50 throttle and radiators in other sims anyway) I've looked around at various threads for different sims and come across a couple threads where people put an x52 pro stick on their msffb2 base. Having what appears to be an unused msffb2 in absolute pristine condition sitting in my closet.. I think I'm going to start a project with the help of my father about making this mod happen with the older stick that doesn't have that "brand new" feel to it. and building a button/lever box out of the x52 stick base and throttle. (all inspired by others' work in the simming world) The x52 stick is relatively light weight so I'm imagining the motors in the msffb2 shouldn't struggle with it.. and honestly I believe it'll probably cover all the buttons i'd ever need in any sim ever as far as hotas paired with my warthog throttle. I hate to neglect my shiney metal warthog stick.. I love how it feels in my hands and it's absolutely a dream in the a-10c module... and will probably still use it for that. Anyway.. I'm getting wordy and I haven't even started the project yet.. so I'm going to get with my father soon to utilize his skills with a soldering iron after I get the parts I need.. which I believe includes a teensy board or something to that extent. This isn't something I'm going to be able to get done over night.. but once I'm certain I know how to do this I'll upload pics of my process as it happens. If I do screw up, I at least have a working msffb2 in my closet to keep using as is.. but I have to admit I'd feel bad about there being one less working msffb2 in the world if this project doesn''t work out. If my Frankenfeedback works out however.. i get a msffb2 with an x52 amount of buttons. Wish me luck?