ruprecht

Apologies if this has already been asked, but how are updates to the manual handled? If a patch alters something that is referred to in the manual, will there be page replacements produced, or is it up to us with our red pens? Just curious.

My understanding is that right now, there will not be any appreciable difference between dual- and quad-core. Although it's automagically setting affinity to all available cores in the new patch, that is not the same as being truly a multi-core app. Personally if DCS is the only consideration, I would go for whichever one will give you a better raw clock speed after OC.

Hi, I'm James, co-founder and mod at vaaf.net, ex-Army, pitbuilder and resident multimonitor tutor. My hobbies include getting sucked into pedantic flame wars and making fun of people with bad grammar and punctuation (except those for whom English is a second language - you guys have my enduring respect for being able to pick it up at all). I've been flying BS on and off since release, and started simming with the original Flight Simulator on my dad's PC XT (I think). I love you all despite my often barbed posts. Anyone who takes the time to learn a study sim and get involved in the community is A-OK in my book, whatever their frankly ridiculous and under-researched opinions :D I'm just a grumpy, impatient old man. Peace

What a shame mate, I thought that after all the help you received in this thread you were well on your way to learning to fly DCS.

As you probably know, page file usage is due to the system running out of RAM and being forced to swap to disk. I would suggest that more RAM and a 64-bit OS might help. Note that more RAM by itself won't help on a 32-bit OS. What settings are you using, and at what resolution? I find this amazing, as my system is CPU-bound with a 2.4GHz Q6600 quad overclocked to 3.2GHz.

Fakum, Are you able to post a screenshot or digital photo of your problem to aid us? And with the FPS counter, the simplest approach would be to run FRAPS. I know that's a hack, not a solution, but it's not a bad hack and gives you screencap/moviecap ability as well as a FPS counter.

Now before you all get in a tizzy, I know that DCS subscriptions have been touched on in the past. I'd just like to ask a few questions that I don't think have been answered elsewhere (and please link me if they have). It seems to me (and happy to be corrected) that the decision to release DCS with the traditional standalone product model was taken to cater for those folks who have no broadband, and/or have no intention to play online. I imagine as well that there were discussions about a client/server model, the problems of running game servers, and perhaps the added complexity ruled it out. However, I do wonder if the subscription/server model would work better for DCS on a couple of fronts: Piracy. the best example of the client/server gaming model today is the MMORPG. Piracy is almost nonexistent because the client must authenticate the session online every time. Even if the player was playing single player, you could maintain a heartbeat back to the authentication server. I imagine that piracy is costing DCS a lot. Ongoing revenue. There are so few genuinely committed teams in this industry that I for one am more than happy to support them with a subscription if I'm playing their sim every night. Let's face it, 12 million people pay monthly to play WoW, they can't be any more committed than hardcore sim nuts (DCS's target market). I'm not saying that DCS will get anything like those numbers of course, but a trickle of funding each month would help fund development to keep the sim alive. Server calculations. I came across a post here recently that said something along the lines that the major limitation to having good ground AI was the load it placed on each client in doing the number crunching across every unit in the battlespace. If this crunching was done on the server, and the clients only needed to know about what was in their "bubble", you get the best of both worlds. Simplistic, I know, but you get my drift. Persistent world. Obviously there's a lot of interest in the sort of dynamic campaign we have in F4. Pushing this off to the server I would think would simplify it? I find it hard to believe that any hardcore flight sim fans don't have an internet connection that would be reliable enough to support a heartbeat to an authentication server? Obviously I don't have any idea what DCS's total sales numbers are, so the commercial viability of running servers is an unknown. As I've said elsewhere, I am an enterprise software architect so I do understand the many and varied issues - commercial, technical, political etc - that a shift in distribution model would entail and I don't for a second think it is straightforward. It comes down to cost/benefit. I guess my questions are: Was a subscription/server model considered? What were the key reasons it was not pursued? Is it on the table for consideration for future iterations? Note please that no criticism is implied (I know how touchy some people can get!) I'm just interested. Thanks for reading.

I believe there was some discussion on this front in regard to another UI element (maybe radio messages?) and it was determined that it was compiled in and not available for editing the placement.

Noted, with apologies for any offence caused to the hardworking devs.

I will happily pay five times the current price for the next engine, if it sorts the trees and AI issues :P When it comes to sims, I'm a Ferrari man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming :smartass: But I know what you were trying to say, I'm just teasing.

I got my TH2G setup going tonight, both with and without the phantom fix exe, by using my configs at the very bottom of the wiki page. The only difference is that when using the phantom fix, you don't configure a phantom. Works perfectly. Also, I noted exactly the same framerate both ways (with and without phantom fix) in instant action - 27FPS with everything up full. I suspect though, that using the phantom fix exe will make a difference in a more realistic test. Fakum, the numbers you posted look right for 2x1280x1024 no phantom. Double check that you're sure it's picking up the correct options.lua and monitorsetup lua? I found the same issue with Win7 tonight that it saved off the options.lua into a different location. *EDIT* attached numbers for 2560x1600 main + left 1280x1024 ABRIS/Shkval using the phantom fix. good luck. Can you post a digital photo of what you're currently seeing? With all the various updates and bugs, I'm not sure what stage you're at. Also, happy to support the phantom fix exe now as I've some experience with it myself as of tonight. Obviously if you change the main monitor resolution you're going to have to change all your numbers right?

I'm genuinely curious Oldflyer2 - which sims that you've flown over the years do you feel gave you the best feeling of being a realistic depiction of flying a full-size helo? I ask because I have over 400 hours (fullsize!) in the business end of real military helos, and I have also been flying flight sims since the original Flight Simulator, and I think DCS:BS is the closest anyone has ever come.

Fakum, my apologies but I've not played with the phantom fix exe much. I will try and have a look tonight. If there are any errors in the wiki page I'd appreciate the feedback, however I didn't write that section I'm afraid. Cheers

Fair post, noted. I disagree on some points, but I'm not going to inflame the argument further, it's all been said before. My thoughts are on the record.

Actually I'm an enterprise software architect and I know exactly how hard it is. If my customers told me that my product was great but lacked a a critical feature, my response would not be "waaah, you think it's so easy, you do it". I also know a defensive response to an obviously sore point when I see it. So I'll stop prodding you. Peace

Is that the attitude in the dev team GG? "Hey, nobody else has good ground AI or terrain-masking trees, so there's no pressure for us to do it". Come on, that's a cop-out and you know it. I thought you guys wanted to set the standard, not use the standard as an excuse. As I said, the sim is excellent and I enjoy it a great deal. However, the trees and AI are legitimate complaints in an attack helo sim.

Stoked about the patch, can't wait, and thank you for all the hard work. GG, I know it's easy to get defensive, but the ground AI is definitely rubbish. Sorry. It, and the lack of LOS-blocking vegetation, are the worst parts of this all-round excellent and splendid sim and I hope they get more love in future updates/patches.

Look here: http://www.vaaf.net/wiki2/index.php5?title=Black_Shark_MultiMonitors#TripleHead2Go_.2B_Abris.2FShkval You can comapre the two different configs, one with the exe, one without. Note that I've not used the phantom fix exe yet, so this is all based on reading.

Excellent, congrats. The radio commands and FPS counter are probably being rendered on your phantom, off the screen. Now that it's working, create an alternate config for the phantom monitor fix exe and you should find that you get your menus back. Will update the wiki with notes on desktop resolution, cheers.

um... This is why I said this. Twice. Neither do I Change your graphic options ingame, then check the last modified dates on both files and see which one DCS is looking at. Delete the other.

I'm sorry Fakum, I have no experience with the phantom monitor fix. Unless you get the same issues without it running, You'll have to take it up with the author of the tool. To answer your earlier question, my understanding is that if you use the phantom monitor fix, you do not need to configure a phantom. It seems to me that you're using phantom-ready numbers, with the fix, so everything is displaced by the width of your phantom? I'd read the thread about the phantom fix and fix your numbers so that there is no allowance for a phantom at all. Or, run it with your existing numbers but without the phantom fix as I've been suggesting. Either way should work if the numbers are right.

Damn man, that is looking fine.

I didn't get any benchmarks, purely anecdotally I'd say 25% FPS increase and it feels much "snappier" if that makes sense. Stutter is a thing of the past, but I think the RAID 0 raptors help with that too.

This I have never really agreed with. Yes a 32-bit application can still only address 2GB with 64bit windows (or 4GB if DCS have compiled with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE), but what if you're running multiple applications (which we all do)? OS processes: 400MB GPU: 1GB DCS: 2GB You're already at the limit of what a 32bit OS can handle. And you've not even started adding VOIP, instruments, firewall, virus scanner and all the other little things you run. On a 32bit OS, every little app takes away from what DCS can address. On a 64bit OS, DCS will get the full 2/4GB because the OS can address the full RAM pool, so the only way DCS will get less than its maximum allocation of RAM is if you physically run out. Now of course when DCS move to 64bit, DCS will be able to use every last scrap of physical RAM in your system and it will be a beautiful thing. I noticed a huge performance increase going from 32/2GB to 64/6GB in day to day gaming.

Splendid. Couldn't be happier!