Barnstorm
"Molon Labe"

Barnstorm:

The adjustable prop, which preceded the constant speed prop was a bit more like a car transmission. There were ground adjustable props in which the pitch could be changed, say to a fine pitch for a short takeoff, or a coarse pitch for range and top speed. The spitfire originally had a two speed prop, selectable from the cockpit.

The constant speed prop automatically changes pitch to put a load on the engine such as to maintain a constant RPM which is selected. High RPM's are selected for takeoff and max speed, lower RPM's for economical cruise etc. The engines create a lot of wear and internal friction at high RPM, so are much more efficent at lower crusing RPM's.

The idea is to not create too much pressure in the cylinders, a bit like stepping on the gas and trying to start the car off in top gear. So to increase power, prop RPM up first, then MP. Lowering power, MP down first then RPM.

Cheers: Tom

No Cliff, actually, some of us converse quite a lot "behind the scenes" at here at SOH. Some of the newer members to the forum have taken it in a direction I do not care for in regards to language and tone. But not being a Moderator, I am not going to get shot down just to give my opinion. Maybe I should, but I have tried to make suggestions in the past about postings and rec'd no backup from the site Admin or Mod, so I''ll keep my mouth shut. My system is what is it is. I can not afford any upgrades at this time, so I just keep tinkering with the CFS3 settings and Nvidia control panel settings, hoping I find the 'sweet spot'. My XFX Alpha Dog 8800 GTS 512 card is oc'd by 12%, and that helps...some. If I go to 15% oc, the system crashes (failed the Nvidia on-board test). I have even spread my page file over two HD's, trying to balance any VM load. I have 3 gig DDR Ram, so I am about maxed out for WinXP 32 bit. Maybe after next year when my daughter go off to college, I can afford a better all around system (yeah, right!!) My USAF pension only goes so far, and I can hardly bring myself to sub-teach any more....They will not allow us to control the students at all---I can not even make the *******s stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, let alone be quite for it. I deciede it was not worth $10/hr for the grief.
Anyhow, nice to chat. IF you have any ideas for to optimize my system, feel free to advise.

I have to say it's very nice to have a talk that's not biased - thanks for the objective view. I think OFF is fantastic, always have - since I eagerly awaited the very first posting of P1. But all that - well, I dunno - it seems to change once you start asking the full price of a stand-alone game. What puzzles me is why they don't seem to understand that it's not helping their business case to handle the graphics issues as they seem to be. Mind you, *I* don't have all the answers - but what I've seen doesn't seem to cut it.

Re: the white triangles...yeah, had some of that too. It's pretty much history, though, having gone from 2 8800GS's (384M RAM) to the 9800's I have now (1G RAM). Goes to show they *were* right about one thing: Limited memory seems to cause/worsen the white triangles. At the same time, though, these are pretty serious video cards; I'd expect top-notch from them ('specially at nearly $200 each *ouch*) - and I get it, everywhere but in OFF. Anyway, I can *still* get the triangles if I'm jacking around with settings and, say, set the sliders too high (currently, 5-3-3-4-1, I think, and pretty fluid). But still the occasional stutter...*gawd* I hate it :(

Worse part is that a person can be made to feel pretty alienated here, if they don't agree with a certain few about OFF, or even about PCs in general. No matter how many times I assure people it's not me or the rig, it just keeps coming back to that. I post benchmark scores, strictly as comparative data - I get, "Benchmarks don't really mean anything". I mention I use SLI - "SLI isn't right for this" (like I'm actually going to *not* use it for one game when it works so well for everything else!). Its funny you mention moving your POV too fast with TrackIR causing the triangles...I actually remember *several* here who (seriously) suggested "Don't turn your head so fast...". Honestly, all these supposedly WWI afficianados, and none remembers why those guys wore *silk* scarves? Don't turn your head so fast - in a combat flight sim? You're kidding...right?

Finally, as for settings/specs, believe me, when you (or anyone) posts specs, etc. it *is* noticed and definitely noted. I do comparisons all the time; system specs, settings, a vs. b vs. c, etc. It helps. (I run tech support for sites across US/Canada, so I'm pretty fair with comparison diagnostics).

Well, I've gone on, huh? Sorry - but it's nice to talk. I've not used these visitor messages at all until now, so if I'm breaching protocol, I apologize. I'd gladly trade emails if it's more appropriate. Who knows? More people talk objectively, maybe it will result in a fix for (what I consider) the only show-stopper in OFF.

cliff,
I understand your frustration with the tone of the froum. I have commented to several members that it is not the same atmosohere (no pun intended) as when I joined last Feb. I spent most of time on the CFS3 WWII forum, where the folks seemed to be less 'competitive', for lack of a better word. I have just about stopped postting in the open forum and pose all my ?'s to support@overflanderfields.com directly. I get straight forward aswers with no BS, no snide remarks and no Anti-American sentiment. All that aside, as good as my middle-of the-road PC runs P2 and P3, I still get the "white triangles" artifact if I move my POV too fast with TrackerIR. But that is the only issue I have. I have posted my system settings and Nvida settings for all to see, but nobody seems to care---at least they do not respond to my posts. Any how, the offer still stands, and I will not let this forum get hijacked by a bunch of hammer-heads with too much testosterone...or ale in their guts and time on their hands. I don't know what the moderators are doing...they used to keep a close (r) eye on things here. I have noticed we are losing some of the 'regular' members we used to have and they are being replaced by a new breed. I am not shy about PM'ing the mod's to try and keep things in line. This our forum. Let's not forget that.

And what-do-you-know...WM just answered my question, precisely as I thought he would: He's not going to discuss it unless you've already paid. Charming. There's no reason P3 couldn't benefit from experiences of P2 users with regard to this graphics issue. I didn't ask if he were going to 'do any optimizations' for P2, did I?

Hello, and thanks for the reply and your offer to help. I'm not sure there's much to be done, if I can be honest. I've been around here a couple years now, studied/tried every tweak I've seen (and then some!) My machine runs other games superbly at or near max settings (CoD5/WaW, AoE3, CoH - all very graphics intensive). To be honest, there's a looooong story here, with plenty of frustrations. I don't mind sharing but you might regret asking *lol* Oh, and yes, I am using P2 (sorry, just thought it was an 'understood', given I'm not using P3 but still lamenting graphics in OFF). I think there's too much focus on FPS - *I* get very-good-to-great numbers. The point everyone seems to miss concerns 'stutter' and other little graphics misbehavior. CFS was notorious for this, I think OFF inherited it - and, for all their marvelous talents, I'm not sure there's anything the OFF dev team can do about it. But all anyone seems to want to discuss is "I get 50FPS". Great, but that split-second stutter absolutely *ruins* the immersion - and, in a combat flight sim...it can easily get you killed. It's just unacceptable, if I'm to pay $50 for it...you see?

- Best.

Doug, I got OFF 2 yesterday in the mail. I loaded it up last night and had a chance to get up in the air. It is great! Thanks again for sending me a copy. Take Care.

Ryan

we have been looking into it
actually we have more fs members than cfs members
most of the fs members use netwings
cfs is a different story
we are considering it
H