Is CFS2 better than CFS3?

P

Phantom

Guest
Hey guys,

I have lots of problems with CFS3 freezing and crashing. I read in another forum that CFS2 doesn't do that. Is CFS2 a better solution?

Thanks
 
:friday:
With a lower end system,,, you'd probably have less functionality problems with CFS2.
But then... it doesn't take much money these days to blow both sims out of the water.
 
Phantom,

CFS2 will have an easier time running on a lower-range system, yes.
 
That is a bit of a power-keg question, simply because your going to get a very biased opinion here. But I'll try to answer it as level and as even as I can.

I do think that CFS2 is the better choice. I have tried CFS3, and while the Aces did try to implement interesting things like auto-gen in to CFS3 and other nice effects. But they really took the CFS line down a different road. I won't say a bad road because CFS3 was matured very well with the community's support, and the same can be said of CFS2.

The fairest way in the end to compare the two is to look at each in their stock installs. I don't have a lot of experience with CFS3, but when it came to aircraft types, CFS3 has the upper hand. CFS2 is stock with 7 flyable aircraft, and all of them are fighters. CFS3 had over 18 flyable aircraft, again mostly fighters, but CFS3 did have some dedicated bomber/attack types such as the Ju-88. This allows the player to be more then just a fighter pilot in the stock game.

Graphics wise I felt CFS3 was lacking in clarity. CFS3 introduced auto-gen scenery to the CFS line (something which had been introduced with FS2002). To be honest the ground reminded me alot of Microsoft's Mech Warrior 4 game series which also had a bit of a bland landscape with auto-gen trees. CFS2 looked to me much more crisper in its stock format, when it came to land and sea textures.

CFS3 same back with some very good effects. Smoking tracers and smoking guns. Smoking tracers are not possible in CFS2, and the smoking guns was an community add-on effect. But the aircraft models I felt were lacking for being a next gen build over CFS2. The stock model of the P-38J just did not look right to me, while the CFS2 stock P-38F looked and fit better.

CFS3 also introduced a rpg element with the pilot. Its an interesting development, but that move left me wondering why. CFS2 is strictly a flight simulator, no RPG element. I like my simulators that way.

The multiplayer aspects of both haven never been the big selling point. In my opionion. If I want to fly WWII combat agianst living people I will fly IL2 '46.

CFS3 when it came out was a perfromance nightmare, and I understand to this day that it still is somewhat. CFS2 on the other hand ran well even on low end machines of the time, and no one should have trouble maxing it out useing current hardware.

In the end the huge make or break thing between CFS2 and CFS3 is modability. CFS2 from stock modeled the entire world. Its not a perfect depiction, but it was still there. CFS3 unfortunatly for a reason I will never understand was locked in to a single theather much like IL2. This limitation has been overcome to a great extent in the CFS3 community, but it has never ben an issue with CFS2. There are more aircraft choices for CFS2 as well then for CFS3. I'm extremely picky of the aircraft I keep and so far I have around 350 different types and variants of aircraft ranging from fighters to bombers, to recon types, and patrol types.

In the end CFS2 is a WWII aviation history nut's paradice. It is easy to learn and work with, but at the same time it also had alot fo depth as well.
 
I entered the world of combat flight simulation with CFS3. I was over joyed to finally fly and dog fight my beloved WW2 aircraft. The feeling did not last long, as it quickly became apparent that my old system (which was twice as powerful as the basic requirements listed for CFS3) could barely run the program. The sim was choppy, crash prone, had tons of lag. There were times that I would be on the tail of the enemy, preparing to tear them apart, when suddenly my plane would freeze. When the sim unfroze the enemy would be far away while I was right where I was when the freeze happened.

Add to this the overall feeling of an arcade game that CFS3 has. Very linear, very contrite.

For 3 years I fought with the sim, trying to get it to run well. Bought new power supplies, new video cards, more RAM,,,and nothing helped make CFS3 enjoyable.

A couple years ago I bought a new copy of CFS2 off of E-bay. When it arrived, I had my doubts....doubts based on my experiences with CFS3. Those doubts were very quickly put to rest. CFS2 ran very smoothly on my system, had a much more open and free feeling, had more immersion factor than CFS3.

Last year I was given a very powerful computer...maybe not when compared to the new stuff out, but definitely when compared to my older systems. P4 3.0gig processor, 512 meg video, 2 gig RAM. I thought for sure that this system would be able to run CFS3 well...so I installed it. Still, CFS3 ran like a 1976 Chevy Vega with a flat tire trying to go up hill. After a few hours of tweaking CFS3 in an effort to get it to fly well, I gave up, unistalled it and put it back on the shelf to begin collecting a new layer of dust.

CFS2 is simply a better combat sim. It is much more open, much more modifiable, much more expandable. This is just my opinion based on my experiences with both sims. While there are some things about CFS3 that I did like (being able to be a gunner on a bomber, trains and tanks that you can attack without having to create missions for that purpose) there was more about CFS3 that I absolutely hated. While there are some things about CFS2 that I don't like (lack of destroyable ground attack objects in Free Flight, no gunner positions in bombers), there is a whole world of things about CFS2 that I absolutely love.

OBIO
 
Again...CFS3 runs fine

I'd consider my current system med-hi end and don't have a problem running CFS3 maxed out.
Do I prefer 3 over 2...no...but then you might;;; as many do. :spider:
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I have a good computer and I use many demanding simulators, including auto racing sims, but I have lots of troubles with CFS3. It freezes all the time. I have never seen such poor software.

I guess I'll buy a coy of CFS2 and give it a try.

Regards
 
I don't consider my rig to be high-end, but it will smoothly run dynamic campaign missions with up to 27 squadrons, lots of infrastructure, and several squadrons of ships, all in one mission, at better frame rates than the CFS3 stock dynamic campaign. I would like to have the computer that can do that with CFS3, but I'm not so sure I'd like to pay for it.

My rig runs CFS3 fairly well, with frame rates around 10 in the typical combat situations. And CFS3 has some features I really like, like autogen and automatic spawning of columns of mech, trains, and ship squadrons. I also like the looks of the CFS3 effects.

But all in all, I just think CFS2 is more adaptable and smoother running.

CFS2's standard addon dynamic campaign generator by Paul Lowengrin is not perfect, but it is user-adaptable to different theaters and different types of campaigns.
 
Phantom said:
Thanks for the replies guys.

I have a good computer and I use many demanding simulators, including auto racing sims, but I have lots of troubles with CFS3. It freezes all the time. I have never seen such poor software.

I guess I'll buy a coy of CFS2 and give it a try.

Regards
Click to expand...

Hi Phantom,

CFS3 lasted on my pc about 30 minutes after I installed it. :hand:

Being used to the natural screens offered by CFS2, the weird CFS3 fish-eye effect in external view bothered me very much as an unnatural and unrealistic view.:frown:

Not counting the way CFS3 weighs down on an average medium level computer.

The final thing that brought me to remove it from my pc was that I was supposed to learn keyboard commands from scratch all over again. :faint:
I carried the keyboard layout in CFS2 over from CFS1 with ease, and most commands are the same in older civilian MS-FS versions as well.

That did it. CFS3 cd's are collecting dust ever since somewhere on a bookshelf in my studio.

On the other hand, you WILL enjoy CFS2 and the tons of addon freeware you can find here at SOH!

Cheers!
KH :ernae:
 
I end up running laptops because I travel for a living and Cfs 3 is a nightmare on the 2 that I have had,and these were both 2 gig processors and 2+ gigs of ram,I tweaked and swore and gave up.

Hated that they changed all of the keyboard commands. I have a nice ,new copy if anyone wants it.:friday:
 
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