Coolhnd1

They originally intended that the DVD version would just do a DVD check about once a week but then they changed their plans when someone released DVD-Free version on the internet.

The problem there is your spending time blowing some guy out of the sky over and over again rather than flying a mission which is really what most people play to do. And the thing is you'll probably tire of doing that long before the TK idiot tires of getting blown up. It would be cool to have the ability to program the AI to focus on a particular user that the admin could specify so that you could plant some ZSUs near the take off point that would only kill the person you specify.

There are a lot of ISPs that don't always give you a new ip address everytime you connect to the network. I know I seem to always get the same ip address. Even if it is dynamic your firewall might allow you to block them based on MAC address rather than ip address. Of course if they're determined and they're fairly knowledgable about networks they may still be able to work around even that.

based on the Falcon 4 support that update is more than an year old, maybe two.

After fixing BS it seems the Total War Demo still runs fine so I'm good there. Thanks for the suggestion H-Street but I wasn't sure if maybe the dx loaded by Total War wasn't the more recent one and that's what was causing the issue. In any case I'm good now. I didn't even have to redo my key changes since apparently the reinstall didn't overwrite the current key assignments file. Just something I'll have to be aware of if I decide to buy the game.

Hi, I just thought I'd share an problem I had that I suspect may be linked to the fact that I installed the Empire: Total War Demo over the weekend. I installed the Demo I found I got an error when I ran Black Shark. I could get into the UI but when I tried starting up a mission I got an error when DCS.exe tried to load. According the MS bug report tool the issue seemed to be with the file dxrenderer.dll. I tried upgrading my NVIDIA drivers to the latest version with no luck. I tried doing a system restore to the previous week but XP said there were no changes to restore. :( Finally I decided I had no choice but to reinstall DCS. When I did it also reinstalled it's directx drivers. Once I did that I was back in business. I'll probably have to redo the key changes I made but that's ok since I hadn't done many to this point. It did save a couple of the training missions I had created though so at least I don't have to redo those. The issue may be specific to my GPU which is an 8800 GTX. I don't know but I thought I'd warn anyone else who might be tempted to load the Total War Demo. I will say that the graphics for the new Total War Game are really incredible. They don't allow you to see how the campaign works but the land and sea battles are really beautiful to watch. The only thing I hate about it is putting up with steam. I don't know if the demo will run now since I restored the DCS version of directx but I'll report back on that. I hope it will be possible to run both of these games on the same computer since I've always been a sucker for this franchise since the first Total War came out like maybe 10 years ago.

Oh, I perfectly understand your aversion to it's use in real life situations. I'm just puzzled by your request it not be modeled in Black Shark. After all it is a sim, not real life and it's not like they are modeling the nuclear waste aspects of the weapon. Given the amount of destruction that is modeled it just seems strange that you pick this particular type of ammunition to be troubled about. But hey, like you said, we each have our own limits. Me, when I play WWII games, usually hate playing on the side of the Germans so go figure. P.S. funny how these threads get hijacked sometimes by these little side discussions. :0)

It's good to hear they finally put in 3D models of the hardware you're using. Especially when it looks like they've got it set up for a lot of models. I've used the new version of the software before they had the 3D models a few years ago to setup F4AF and I really missed the 3D models like they had when I had the X45. Particularly when I print out my setup as a reference. I'll have to download this latest version and check it out.

So when are we getting our AC-130 Gunship?:D

He did but he seems to be writing for the more main stream gaming audience. Having said that it really wasn't a bad review and if he can get more of the main stream gamers to buy this game it's more money for DCS. In addition it may mean more gamers get introduced eventually to a great new gaming experience which means more people to fly with for us.

lol, but I'm guessing you don't have a problem riddling virtual soldiers with 20mm now do you? ;) I could understand (to a degree) the aversion to real nuclear weapons but I'm a bit puzzled by your qualms about DU.

Actually I'd say the market for PC games has shrunk quite a bit. Most people these days game on their PS3 or XBOX or Wii. Also you have to remember that the hard core flight sim market is a niche market to begin with anyway. I'm more than happy to pay for the game and manual seperately as long as we can continue to get games with the quality of Black Shark.

I love the fire extinguisher hooked next to seat. I'd just be afraid I'd be tempted to use it if the engine fire warning came on.

Are you sure you're getting improved FPS because it's using both CPUs? Speedstep I think is a power saving feature which slows down the CPU when it's not in use or being under utilized. It's possible that you are seeing the performance increase because you disabled this and not because it's using multiple CPUs. The best way to know for sure is check task manager to see if the BS is using up CPU time on both CPUs.

Just one more note in favor of purchasing this game. I'm one of those that think Steam is far worse than SF or any other Copy Protection scheme but if this game were only available via steam I would swallow my reluctance and still purchase this game. It's that good! Oh and yes, a HOSTAS is a tremendous help in playing the game as is Trackir so good luck with your search. You can get by however with just a joystick until you can afford to buy the HOSTAS.

What he's saying is steam has it's own brand of DRM. My understanding is that it has to check online everytime you play a steam game. If you don't have an internet connection, you won't be able to play the game. Personally I find this even more objectionable than even a limited activation/deactivation scheme because it means they are tracking everytime you play the game which I feel is an invasion of privacy. my own opinion: I normally avoid games that limit the number of activations you can do but this is maybe the one game I'm willing to tolerate this in order to play the game. At least they do give you a large number of activations/deactivations with the downloadable version.

I think the problem is either with your CD/DVD Hardware or the software program your using. There's nothing about the BS install files (that I know of) that would prevent you from writing it to a DVD. By the way I don't like the limited number of activations/deactivations either and normally I'd pass a game that has this however this is one program I've judged is too important that I can allow this limitation to stop me from purchasing it. I also think that the responsiveness of the developers on this forum gives me hope that if by chance you do happen to somehow use up all your activations and you explain the situation to them they will give you more activiations.

I think what they are trying to say is map a keyboard key (like R-Alt) as the teamspeak mike key and then map that key to one of the buttons on your HOTAS. Should work.

But I think DCS is doing something a bit unusual. They are building a game engine that will allow them (I hope) to add additional aircraft relatively easily. I'm hoping it allows them to release additional modules with the same fidelity as BS in a short amount of time. In this way they can hopefully build a relatively sustainable business model and we get great sims. I've often thought this might be a way to get the simulations we've always hungered for. Rather than building entire games (sorry sims ;)) every time build a sim engine and then create modules to sell that simply strap on that engine. I'm really hopeful this works and that other companies pay attention to this model.

see Miguez's post in this thread for a good definition.

I've done it but usually not on purpose. :pilotfly:

anybody try it with a quad core? If I remember correctly Vista will only use 2 cores with BS but I think Win 7 has more multicore improvements than Vista so I'm curious if it can take advantage of additional cores.

They'll have the same problem if they model F-15 this is a multicrew jet. This is usually solved by allowing the person to switch between one seat and the other. I have Steal Beasts Pro and they also have this problem that is solved by allowing you to switch positions within the tank so I don't see why DCS couldn't do the same thing. As for sudden death you have that problem right now with BS. You go out on a long mission, you've been flying around for an hour and then some unseen infantry man sends a missile up you're butt and your dead. What do you do then? Besides uttering a few choice words you just go back and get another Black Shark and make them pay. I still say it would require a new engine. At a minimum it would require that trees be solid but it would also require more detail at the ground level if you're in a ground vehicle. It would be pretty cool I think though to operate a shilka looking to shoot down those flying around in their Black Sharks or A-10s.

I was thinking about WWIIOnline. I forgot about Armed Assault and those types of games although the limited geography of those sims tends to de-emphasize the air aspects. I really do enjoy a game like WWIIOnline and the combined arms aspects. Nothing like getting a bunch of guys together to assault a town in the Zeelands using the Navy, army, and air force. I've been playing that game since it came out in 2001.

Yes, I'm an old F4 and F4AF driver. In fact I doubt there's ever been a flight sim for the PC that I haven't flown. I guess when I think of easter eggs I think in terms of something that one of the programmers has added to the application that only occurs under a very specific set of circumstances. For instance seeing a sign in a game that says Merry Christmas if you happen to be playing the game on Christmas day or I seem to recall in the old game Combat Flight Simulator 2 there was some special key combination that could turn your plane into a flying pig.