shadowze

The main wish I have regarding DCS (which I would think make things better) would be to change the way you can access the options.... I want to be able to, when in the middle of playing a game of DCS , hit escape get a menu so I can go in a modify for example a key binding , I mean its NOT rocket science even IL2 can do it , as can many other games. Come on it should be easy to fix , please for the love of god DONT ruin A-10 by having the options configured in such a half assed way

Best ever OFP2 DR video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_CWSXS2DYo&feature=player_embedded

Can someone answer me why this thread exists ? OFP2 most definetly is NOT a SIM why give this peice of poop a thread ? Its just another p1ss poor FPS game

Using 1 x Dell 2707 and 1 x Dell 2407

Arma2 for the win OFP2 , if your a battle field / COD kiddie

Looking at it from an Electronics Perspective Dust has a capacitive effect , that might be what was causing problems

Qualifiers: Things like went through 3 sets of crucial ballistix in 9 months That was running them at stock speeds and voltages I suppose the bright side was they have a life time warranty so when this last set dies , I can get another set that will run for a while then die. 2 sets dying is not good in my book. Hint: If you are thinking about buying something google "nameofitem problems" To see what comes up "crucial ram dying" is a good one to look at

To answer the original post CPU: i7 920 ( you can overclock the hell outa them) GPU: Fastest single GPU available 4890 or if you have more money gtx285 PSU: aviod hyper psu's like the plague , tagan make some nice ones Mobo: for i7 there is a nice entry cost board from gigabyte ex-58-ud3r ram: IF you are going to use 64bit OS then get 6G of the fastest DDR3 you can afford , otherwise just get 3G. AVOID crucial like the plague. Corsair do some really good stuff at not bad prices. OCZ if you can afford it.

Iam running XP , I didnt want Vista to slow my PC down too much

I have tried several types of configurations with different parts types In the last couple of years I have had a e6600 , q6600 and an i7 920 I have tried a couple of P35 chipset mobos , one P45 and an x58 The i7 920 at default 2.66 was about equal to my Q6600 overclocked to 3.3G in processing power. Currently my i7 is clocked at 3.6G and is a flying machine , I tried a gtx280 and also a 4870x2 in both my q6600 system and my i7 system. The GTX280 wins hands down , while the 4870x2 is impressive in benchmarks the frame rate is very inconsistant which lead to intermittant frame rate drops which are annoying. Suggest you get: i7 920 + decent aftermarket cooler 6G of 1600Mhz ram X58 motherboard of your choice GTX285 , I would avoid crossfire / SLI ( after all you are at the mercy of the driver writers tweaking things to make your game run well ) 800W PSU or higher would do it. My current 3dmark 06 is 20442 with my current system ( with HT off )

Yes , I do know what Iam doing (Iam an Electronics engineer for a living - I get paid quiet well for my knowledge of electronic/computer/software systems) The XFI hardware is well designed The driver support is not so good (god forbid you might want to use linux) Their uninstallers are pretty crap also leaving stuff scattered all over your system. Creatives attitude does defy logic sometimes ( like when user hacked their drivers to improve functionality and was hounded for his troubles - they probably should have hired him) As regards a performance difference between onboard / XFI , its not noticeable at all.

Dont know which one to recommend just DONT GET AN XFI , they are shite Mine makes a lovely paperweight!

BFG GTX280 OC2 @ 650 182.06 drivers CPU i7 920 @ 3.36GIG 3dmark SM2.0 HDR/ CPU 19811 8155 8683 5945

HI dude, Sorry to hear you are having problems with your SLI rig One thing tho , the x58 mobos have a "cookie" (data bytes ) stored in the bios , the graphics driver checks this cookie to see if you are allowed to run SLI on the board ( as in have they paid nvidia a cut per mobo for enabling SLI on it) Maybe yours got mangled / damaged on bios update and thats why SLI option is denied to you. I will assume that the BIOS settings were defaulted after bios updated , cos this can cause some weird ass problems. Best of luck mate

Yes it sure does , it adds about 5-10 deg C extra temp when enabled I run with it off

I have both x52 and x52 pro Dual springs and different coloured leds Thats about the only real differences , my advice if your happy with your x52 dont bother getting a x52 pro

Arma only allows 1 input device ( joystick etc ) So you cant mix n match sadly

Yep I can confirm the same problem You alt + tab back to desktop but I cant select any windows , nor can you alt tab back to dcs. The only way I can get control of my PC again is logout and login again :-( DCS is the only app that causes this , other games do this fine.

I have a 4870x2 on a 27" @ 1920x1200 I did some test runs to check it out here are the results. 1. Cat AI set to standard ( default ) , both gpus ran at about 30% usage Cpu usage was about 70% 2. Cat AI set to advanced , both gpus ran at 30% again but frame rate was less consistant and more stuttery ( not good ) , cpu usage 70% as before. 3. Cat AI to off ( crossfire off ) , single gpu ran at about 60%ish , cpu usage about 70% as before. Heres the kicker , the frame rates on all modes ...... were about the same , with advanced showing some stuttering. frame rate was between 40-60 on average but got real low in towns sub 20-fps With both the GPU and CPU not getting near 100% I would say that game is neither gpu or cpu limited , but poor programming / optimisation limited. I tried manually setting some AA on 2x , AF x2 , it didnt drop the frame rate much 1 or 2 fps. My thoughts , once I get my GTX280 back from repair , I will be getting rid of this 4870x2 , the card is good but not great certainly not £370 great. I am not alone in this opinion , I have read several other posts with people going from GTX280 -> 4870x2 -> GTX280 again. The gtx280 gives me better performance on most games I play and the frame rates are far more consistant. The 4870x2 is good on paper and on benchmarks but is lacking in actual game performance. Arma , Black shark , cod 4 , Company of heroes , IL-2 , Vegas 2 , silent hunter 3 , sins of a solar empire Tests done on XP32 bit

I would say the gfx card is the slowest thing in your system If you got a better cpu cooler you could over clock it to about 3Gig ish If you really want to update your CPU your board could take most of the E or Q series intel chips (may need bios update for newer cpu's mind you ) ( dont touch amd CPU's they havent had a good one out for about 2 years now ) A E8600 with a touch of overclocking would be damn fast The graphics card I would upgrade to a gtx260-216 core version You appear to have a SLI board so I would stick with nvidia cards and at a later date you could add another.

If you really want to stress test your cpu / ram get your self a copy of intel burn test It will make your cpu heat up like no other utility , half an hour of it is like hours of orthos / prime Its far faster at telling you if something is up

Its a right pain in the arse and no mistake. Dcs is just using the lcd display to show a retarded message , it is not overriding your profile settings. Roll you left roller thing on the display and you should see your profile name again. I have ended up just disabling the service that handles displaying the messages with: net stop "Saitek DirectOutput" It does mean tho that no messages will be displayed on the lcd at all ( apart from the time /date )

go to the main root dir of your installation inside \bin\stable you will find protect.exe BEWARE: Just incase you fancy updating your Motherboards BIOS deactivate first

I thought I would chip in my 2cents worth I have tried both a gtx280 and a 4870x2 on my rig to see which it best. Rig: Dell 27" @1920x1200 + dell 24" @1920x1200 i7 920 @ 2.66 ( not OCed YET! ) Gigabyte X58-DS4 3G DDR3 1600 Corsair 9-9-9-24 800W Tagan Psu In 3D mark 06 benches: ( in no way indicative of real world performance) 4870x2 = 19124 GTX280 = 17493 As you can see for 2 x the card you only get a small improvement :-( In actual game performance for me IL-2 , arma , COH , Black shark , sins of a solar empire the GTX280 has a far smoother gaming experience. Also I get less crashes ( none ) with the GTX280 , it was a crashfest with the 4870x2. Also I can use the 24" display for my Shkval camera ( which I could not get to run on my 4870x2 ) I gave the 4870x2 a fews days to test its mettle , but alas it was not up to the task :-( As Jack Burton says "You never can tell"