Questions

[mariereid]

Hey All; I have been trying to learn to fly the F4F. I got pro flight rudder pedals and pro flight throttle quad to go with evo force stick. I know I do not need them, but they add to the fun. I have a few questions. How did pilots deal with trim. Aileron, elevator, rudder, were there seperate ways to control these? My oil pressure is always low. At 1,000 rpm it is 39. On the F4F check it says 65-75. Do I have a way to controll this? Should I use true or indicated air speed? About graphic cards. I have a nvida geforce 9800 gt. On stock scenery fps are 60 99.9% of the time. This seems fine to me. When I install some really great scenery, like a lot of pretty ships the frames rates drop a lot. I get really jerky flying and if I fire at anything there is a couple of seconds delay before anything happens. I have been working on improvements. Turn off this, turn up that, etc. I have followed advice from some guys. The only thing I have not done is switch from vista to xp. I am acomputer moron. I know a lot of guys hate vista, but it is all I ever used. Anyway, is there a card out there that can handle anything I want it to? At the moment I am flying on the stock game, except for The B-24 Guys F4F and Law Dog sound. So, I have not been able to try out all the adjustments for improvement. I will download some great scenery and see what happens when SOH is back in full swing. Thanks guys. I know we all have many other things to do, so anytime you have a free moment and can answer will be great. Now I have to clean the boss`s floors. Thanks, see ya, Rick P.S. I`ve really learned to crash in a realistic way!

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Trim is set by default to the number pad keys (num lock = off). I always elevator trim to level flight (keys 1 and 7). This will need to be adjusted as you expend fuel and ordnance. Use the aileron trim to balance a plane with battle damage (BD), and rudder trim for take off - especially with 1% planes. Depending on tour stick/throttle key setup you can assign elevator trim to a pair of buttons or a rotary for convenience.

Your slideshow effect and trigger delay are probably due to a large number of those "pretty ships." You can replace them with stock, VN or other ships which are more frame rate friendly. If you want a "busy" mission with about 28 ships and 110 planes (not all at once), try my Leyte Gulf Fictional mission. It uses all stock ships and planes with B-24 Guy's upgrades and I never get low frames. I have an unpublished version, using VN and Collin's ships along with 4 of Usio's IJN carriers and never have any problems.

Most of the add-on Pacific Theatre (PTO) sceneries I've seen - especially Maskrider's bases - are frame rate friendly. I'd recommend that you try the Pactex textures for the PTO. B-24 Guys replacemnts for the stock planes are real good too. Get Lindsay Watt's (LWD) clouds too. :)

I don't know about the oil pressure. I've never paid much attention to it. On stock planes, don't worry about it or the cylinder head temp unless you take BD to the engine. Cowl flaps on stock panes don't matter much - a few plalyers I know swear you can get 5-10 more knots out of the plane if you open them a couple of clicks (Shift + E).

I have seen no difference in the way CFS2 or CFS2 Mission Builder work in XP or Vista. I have XP on my desktop and Vista on my laptop. As far as using the computer itself, I prefer XP.

Enjoy! :icon29:

SW

[p14u2nv]

Rick might I suggest you limit your frame rates to 20-30 max. This will free up resources in other areas such as what your graphics card will need. also use a program called AlacrityPC. What this does is turn off all unnecessary programs that are running in the background and this will allow even more resources for CFS2, FS9 and FSX. Initially you will have to set these programs to turn off when you run CFS2. At first it will seem to be somewhat overwhelming as to what each program does but not to worry. The trick is if you are not sure let it run. You can also Google the specific program in question and you will find the answer as to whether it is critical to run or not.

You mentioned dloading new scenery. What works well for me with these MS flight sims is to have a storage file structure on a separate hard drive similar to the sim itself and in roughly the same order; AIRCRAFT, EFFECTS, MILITARY FS9 and FSX (AIRCRAFT, SCENERY etc), OBJECTS, SCENERY, SHIPS etc. I use this whether it is CFS2 or FS2004 and now for FSX. I also use this file system for other, non MS flight sims also.

Also keep in mind that any time you add scenery, aircraft or any changes to CFS2 or FS9 or any programs that the file structure on the disc(s) changes or becomes what is known as "fragmented." The more changes you make the higher the amount of fragmentation. All this means is that your new file info was deposited on the platters of the hard drive in a random and messy order as the first open areas large enough the hold the new info was used. That means a small part of the new file may be here and another small part elsewhere and the remaining parts somewhere else on the disc. The higher the amount of fragmentation the slower your frames per second will be. This is known as "seek time." I always try to defrag at least once a week regardless but always after adding new stuff. Don't worry as I cheat alot too and have to try it out NOW! By the way, if you can find another defrag program other than what MS has bestowed upon us by all means use it. I use O+O as it allows custom file structures to be formed, i.e keeping all CFS2 files in one basic area of the disc which results in smoother graphics which results in much faster frame rates. I can also simply defrag just the area of the disc where CFS2 resides which is even faster.

As far as a graphics card is concerned I remember back in the early days of my CFS2 online squad flying using a 1.33 AMD chip with a tweaked out 7000 series ATI AGP card that would give easily 100 frames a second and I had no real issues but when I did a simple reboot fixed them. Not sure what your system specs are but I am sure that any of the newer cards will give you fine service. The main issue I would consider before changing cards is are the drivers for your present card the best that you can install? Many times all it takes is to install the latest set and that will of course make a difference not to mention $$ saved. Stay away from beta version drivers unless of course you want to experiment. Starting out with computers like you stated I would use a proven driver and have less headaches. Also you may wish to consider a memory upgrade as an initial boost to your system as it is much cheaper than a new card. Something to consider. You make want to do both. List you pc specs here and I'm sure a few here can help you along the way.

Hope this may help you somewhat or possibly even give you some new ideas for your own setup(s).

[OBIO]

P.S. I`ve really learned to crash in a realistic way!

And that, in my book, is the mark of a champion. Anyone can fly a plane with grace and style, but very few of us master the crash. Crashing a plane, in the real world at least, is something that few pilots get more than one shot at doing..so there are very few good crashers in the "wild". That is where flight simulators come in handy...they allow those of us who seek the mastery of the crash to gain lots of experience crashing, so when that day comes that we get to crash a plane for real, we can do it with a grandness of mayhem that will become a mark of distinction, will become an example for all other crashers to look to, will be legandary.

OBIO

[mariereid]

I put the trim controls on the buttons on the base of joystick. I did not expect trimming would make such a difference. I am sure there is much I can do to improve frame rates. At the moment I am just learning to fly on stock cfs2. I`ll try all the tips when I put some new scenery in the files. Maskrider, patex, most things I installed, never made a lick of difference. That beautiful New Briton stuff was the first time I had a problem. Dog1 gave me a lot of advice. I had some kind of a problem, ended up starting from scratch, something I do a lot. I have not had a chance to try out all of his advice yet (waiting for downloads to come back) I downloaded Alacrity pc. After I read the unline manual for several weeks, I may have the guts to give it a try. Thanks a lot guys. Thanks Obio, it`s nice to be wreckognized by the master, see ya, rick

[bobhegf]

Is ther a good fast free defrag program for win 98se out there?