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Check your PM's Colt

%$#%$#!! I forgot to post that schematic like I promised :( At least ya have a good 5V PS now tho :) I would go parallel man. It's more work, but it's worth it in the end. Let one LED open and you'll have a dead lightplate from that point on. Also, you can always go with SMD resistors and get a one layer etch on the pcb. The lower profile of the SMD components helps alot too :)

Here's a pic of my beer shelf. The center shelf is mostly Belgians. Towards the right are the Unibroue's, but they do the Belgian style so well, I throw them into that category. Hard to see on the right, but it's most of the Great Lakes line. Great beers from those guys. Kasteel, Duvel, Maredsous 10, and Tripel Karmeliet are still my fav's One of these days, when I have the time, I would like to home brew my own triple. Just haven't had the time :(

My X52 died and I was looking for a new HOTAS and was caught between three models: 1) The Thrustmaster Warthog 2) Saitek X-65F 3) CH Fighterstick & Pro Throttle The Warthog was waaaay out of my price range. Also, the thought of paying $500 for something that, to this day, people are having the throttles die on them even after the firmware update....well, that didn't sit well with me lol. To be honest, I was REALLY hoping I'd go for the X-65F. The thought of force sensing really appealed to me. The overall design and options were definitely there as well. Not to mention that I am more than comfortable with the programming suite, so I was looking to find a reason NOT to buy it. Well, I found it. Once my X-52 started waning, I started looking at the X-65. There seems to be a problem with the stick un-centering itself. There's no way to calibrate it as Saitek saw fit to take the calibration portion of their drivers out a few years ago. Saitek came out with some beta drivers last year to offer a centering calibration that worked for some and not others and nothing since. Their customer support on their forums used to be really robust and proactive, but now there's one person from Saitek posting and they seem distant and kind of uncaring. I wound up going with the CH and am not regretting it. Build very solid by a long term proven company. Smooth action and very easy to get along with and to profile. If budget enters the picture, I'd suggest the CH Fighterstick and Pro Throttle over the X65.

Two sticks for sale on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Suncom-F-15E-PC-Joystick-/280728305047?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415cb5fd97 http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUNCOM-F-15E-EAGLE-Joystick-Flight-Stick-96-6630-/220823748752?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item336a1f0090 Also, if you're in the US, this may interest you: http://phoenix.craigslist.org/cph/ele/2542134943.html

Rattler has already said he prefers fast movers more than once. That, to me, is his real issue with the A-10C. That type of aircraft is not high in his interests. If it were a study sim on a fast mover, expecially one that captures his interest, then he would probably be in the cockpit with the manual open beside him rather than coming to the forums and complaining about something he doesn't even own. As it stands, his disappointment in the second DCS installment being an AG aircraft leaves him with the time to troll threads and voice his disgruntlement for DCS A-10C. This includes complaining about things he has no experience with since he does not own the sim to begin with. Everyone who has debated his points have all posted very truthful and valid points, but he still continues to push the debate. In short, stop arguing with him and you'll stop feeding the troll :)

Just paid a littel over $200 for a CH Fighterstick and Pro Throttle to keep playing it. My X52 died after 8 years. Already had the PC, pedals, TIR4 Pro, and 5.1 surround headsets prior to even KA-50.

Or download one of the many profiles... I just got a CH Fighterstick and Pro Throttle. Didn't take but maybe 3-4 (all total) hours to program everything up.

Do the poll at SimHQ or even IGN's PC section and see what the results are. Due to it's commercial success (aka sales) and years of reputation, I am pretty sure that FSX would come out on top.

40 yrs old and going on 18 years of marriage. Went through the video game fights myself. Secret #1: No kids. We decided early on we didn't want children. We're too selfish. We'd rather spend our hard earned cash on us rather than our child become some spoiled ingrate after they hit school and demand everything just because they think they are entitled to it. We also both believe positive reinforcement and "Time Out" is a load of crap, so we'd probably both go to prison for spanking a child. So, I got a vasectomy. Secret #2: Compromise. In 1998, I was spending long hours playing Unreal, but still balanced life with gaming. That balance came to an end in 2001 when Tribes 2 was released. I was playing, generally, from the moment I got home until I went to bed long after she did. I was even taking of early from work to prep for matches. Just when I though I couldn't get worse, I got involved in invite league matches in TWL and CAL playing America's Army. Gaming had become a second job at that point since I was the website admin and server admin for the clan. It came to head. A really, really heated pinnacle. Notes on the monitor, fights, arguments, etc Yep. It was all there. I really had no defense. She was, of course, very right. I was not playing games every free moment when we got married. Had I have been doing that, she wouldn't have married me. I fought back only because I felt she was being unjust by making me feel bad for doing something I liked. When I explained that I had realized both sides of the argument, we both calmed down. She knew we were both right as well. This was a great step cuz now neither of us were the enemy. I still wanted to game and she wanted me to have fun, but she wanted to feel like she wasn't wasting her time with me cuz we really didn't spend any together by doing anything. All of my years of telling her to get a hobby of her own was downright insulting to her. She had hobbies, but she hadn't lost her sense of balance when it came to the marriage. That was where I had failed by letting my gaming addiction rule me. Result: We laugh, flirt, and have killer sex again I still game nightly, but I don't start gaming as soon as I get home. We're doing things together and we're enjoying it. She didn't want all of my time, just some of it. I was in the process of trading her for my friends online though. One thing that helped us both was a LAN party in 2004 where she got to meet several of them. Well, more like spending Labor day weekend getting plastered with the guys and their wives/girlfriends lol. We got to put faces to nicknames and "online friends" became lifelong real friends. I made a commitment to my wife before I made any commitments to anyone online. I had forgotten that and that was my fault for not keeping my word. In the end, we both met in the middle. By that point, I realized just how much time and effort I was putting into the games and how withdrawn from my RL friends I had become. I left the America's Army clan as I just really didn't feel like having my time dictated by the needs of video game addicts anymore. It was relieving not to have to excuse myself from a dinner date to walk someone through which set of league scripts to use to get the server ready for a match that I already felt guilty for not being part of. She just bought me a CH Products Fighterstick and Pro Throttle due to Old Faithful (my X52) dying after 8 years of abuse. Not too long ago, she bought me the Thrustmaster MFD's. Not only that, she searched through alot of vendors until she found one that had them on sale. She got them for under $40...and that was with shipping included! She was also the one who bought me a Matrox Triplehead2go and three LCD monitors. She's my best friend afterall and that's what best friends do. And to think I was trading that friendship to play a game. Either compromise, get a divorce, or be in for a very long and unhappy marriage. That's your choices. Telling your wife or girlfriend to basically deal with it is a selfish cheap shot.

Yes and No. OFP/ArmA has gotten to the point with modern day/Cold War weapons that the community is fragmenting into cliques while other portions are disappearing. BIS has re-written the same chapter three times basically. I, personally, would have like to have seen more challenging and demanding aircraft in terms of fidelity and flight models as well as interiors of ground vehicles. I think this is a bold move for them though and am definitely interested.

That was a fanmade video. They chose whatever music they wanted. I just went to youtube and grabbed the first HD movie I found that wasn't a trailer by BIS :)

A ground combat simulator with vehicles thrown in for fun and immersion factors. Flight models are not sim quality nor are ground vehicles performance (though ground is closer than air). Can be played online coop or pvp, but coop is the most prevalent mode. Maps are roughly 225km x 225km. Also a perfect sandbox for single player. lmOnf6q7tF4 Operation Arrowhead is stand alone expansion to ArmA2. If you're going to buy, I suggest getting ArmA: Combined Operations. Of course, ArmA2 is Free-To_play now too :) http://www.arma2.com/free Comparison chart is at the bottom of what you get vs actually buying it ;)

Here ya go - took this about an hour ago without her knowledge. At least I told her I was posting it lol She apologizes in advance for not looking like she's having the time of her life lol Between the increased stress of work last month (lot of stuff going on there) combined with the death of her father who had been living with us for 10 years, she's actually unwinding quite well :)

When I get back from vacation I can draw ya up a schematic and a parts list. Not too difficult at all and you won't even need to etch the pc board. You can solder everything on a small piece of perf board if ya want :) Right now though, back to watching my wife in a bikini and enjoying the sand between my toes :D

That's the great thing about the X series, it will wait for you as there's no time limit or time constraints. Pop into a station and it automatically saves the game. Close it and go back when ya can. Hell, I haven't launched it in six months, but when the X bug bites - I'm sucked into it bad enough to where I won't play much else until the bug subsides lol!

Actually, check out Steam for the X Superbox deal. The story, for someone just entering the X world, is kind of important. It's also a really well developed, open-ended single player story campaign. The Superbox will start you off at the very first X. The graphics are dated, but the story is there.

Another option is to just make you a few 5V supplies using an LM7815 regulator on each :) Years ago, I worked in research and development on fighter avionics units and we had tried to use LED's in the panels several times. The specification for brightness levels (both dim and full) alongside the power requirements were frustrating as heck especially when we had to have audio amplifiers in the unit. LED's would always meet the full brightness spec, but never really cut it for the dim specification due to the threshold voltage of LED's. Also, the light from the LED's did not behave like that from a small incandescent or even a B1A neon bulb. It just didn't crawl & spread through the lightplates the way "non-green" light sources would. For a home pit though, LED's would probably work out just fine :)

I would shy away from a computer PSU for that task. Computer PSU's are switchmode power supplies that run at a 1/3 duty cycle. The current ratings are for peak current limits and not sustained current. Red, I'll check with a buddy of mine. At one point, we made a surplus purchase of electronic equipment that included some high current +5V PSU's. I can't remember if they were 50A or 100A +5V PSU's. They weren't that large (around 7W X 7H X 14 D), but weighed several pounds each. If there's still one left that we didn't rob the caps out of, I'll elt ya know. He'll probably be happy to get it out from under his feet lol!

Cryengines have always been about pushing the GPU envelope. It performs nowhere near the amount of calculations in midgame that DCS does just at engine start up :P

The CryEngine leaves a lot to be desired. The physics models it is capable of are very good, but it's limited in the number of physics models. It has the eye candy, but it will be several generations of that engine before it can handle anything close to DCS or even ArmA. In the end, simulators generally use an engine designed specifically for that simulator. They usually have no choice as not one engine can run every calculation for every possible instance for any type of simulator.

BF2? Yer kidding right? There's absolutely no FM in that game. There was some slight resemblence of an FM in BF:V, but they nerfed it in the BF:V 1.2 patch and then continued to noob it down up to and through the release of BF2.

Out of all of the ArmA campaigns, I think my favorite was the Queen's Gambit campaign. But, I never bought any of the titles for the SP tho :)

This is not isolated to the X65. Been doing the same thing with my X52 for along time. So used to it now, that I don't even really conciously think about it. Fly, drift, unplug, replug, fly..... takes no more than a second or two I guess lol ;)

I shoulda taken a screenshot yetserday, I swear it was the fourth one LOL!