The traditional post here if you are up and running P3

Hooray! BHAH is the bee's knees! Ordered on the 30th (payday), and received on the 4th! Have not tried campaign or MP yet, as I am still tinkering with my setup to get better FPS. Right now, in QC with 5 opponents and 4 wingmen, I am getting FPS in the mid 20's. Sometimes, however, these dip into the single digits. :crybaby: I should note that I am getting heavy clouds, which probably are affecting my frame rates. Is there any way to choose the weather in QC?

I guess I have a medium-low system:
AMD X2 4200+
Nvidea 8600 GT (256 Mb)
3 GB's RAM
Windows XP Professional 32
 
Taffy glad you like it - have a read of Rabu's post further back in this thread for tips on configuring Nvidia.
 
Got it running with no problems. A great job, Winder and team! Worth every penny. The only issue so far is that I could not get Phase 2 missions running, not even by correcting the plane names in the Air Formation parts (plus adding payloads) and by inserting the frontline texts for the correct periods.
 
Stickshaker said:
Got it running with no problems. A great job, Winder and team! Worth every penny. The only issue so far is that I could not get Phase 2 missions running, not even by correcting the plane names in the Air Formation parts (plus adding payloads) and by inserting the frontline texts for the correct periods.
Click to expand...

Phase 2 missions? I believe that Winder said that none of the older phase missions or other things will work in Phase 3, I think it's in the FAQ too, but not sure about that. Anyway, why not just get into the P3 campaign in an area and time that interests you?

BTW, will the CFS3 mission editor/creator even work in BHH? I'm not interested in it, but I know a few people enjojed creating missions in P2.
 
Rabu, I can’t find that in the FAQ’s but perhaps I did not look closely enough. Since the mission format seems the same I though that some missions might be modified to make them compatible with phase 3. But perhaps this is not possible.
 
Stickshaker said:
Rabu, I can’t find that in the FAQ’s but perhaps I did not look closely enough. Since the mission format seems the same I though that some missions might be modified to make them compatible with phase 3. But perhaps this is not possible.
Click to expand...

OK, thanks for the response, ...Pol? :wavey:
This really should be in the FAQ as I know several people have asked about it. I do remember Winder, or some one, answering about it a few weeks ago. I think the response was that it was not advised to try to modify any thing from P2 and try to get it to run in P3, that it might cause problems and we're trying to avoid any problems that arise from player modifications to files that might not be compatible with P3.
 
newbie loving it

I installed mine today. Got it week or so back, but have been super busy. Anyway, I'm new to this sim. I had bought a cd of CFS3 but not installed it, and installer used it to copy necessary files, so I guess it was 3.1. Install went without a hitch. I couldn't wait to try it out, so without reading any manuals ( so I didn't even know the control keys...yes, I was that impatient), I jumped in and started flying. I set everything to 5 or 4 (can't remember for sure on the last couple of settings options, but scenery and terrain to 4 for sure) and am getting 50s and 60s as fps. I picked some mission that put me in an SE-5a and I was flying! Wonderful! Recognized my stick and TrackIR great. I flew around a bit, trying to practice wing man work on another friendly and didn't see the little triplane that got on my tail. He chewed me up a bit, including engine damage, so after shaking him, I had to set it down in a field. Successful landing, but that ended the mission.

What a blast!

I went up next on a quick combat mission that basically had me just flying to waypoints in a Pup over snow covered fields. I got cold! :applause: Gave me a chance to learn some basic keyboard commands and remap some buttons on the Saitek.

I love the way these birds fly, and the sounds are incredible! And the flight modeling....I love the way the frame starts to shake at excessive airspeed in a dive, or the way the whole frame creaks when pulling excessive g's in a tight turn. I'm going to love this thing! I tried to roll the Pup. No go! I think that's great. She did a very nice half loop and roll to gain altitude, though. I loved how her engine would start to stumble if I kept her inverted at the top for very long. Obviously a lot of time went into modeling these birds to be accurate!

Sorry to carry on in a post meant to just say, "I'm up and running."

But, since I'm here, and I'm a total newbie (no prior experience with OFF or CFS), what are the recommended missions/tutorials for getting my air legs, so to speak? I'm an old RB and EAW vet, so I have some basic air combat skills, but it's been a while.

Also, I can't wait to try out this multiplayer thing. Never have done that with any sim!

Finally, there was one issue. When in the Pup mission, I consulted all the various manuals, and when closing out of that, there was a crash. Vista gathered some info and then closed out, but the CFS3 box was still on my task bar, so I clicked on it and the mission picked up where I left off. But when I ended that flight, the whole shooting match closed abruptly, rather than taking me back to any menus. No big deal, as I can read the manuals out of the folder with Adobe. Just thought I'd mention it.

Again, first impressions are VERY favorable! I see myself spending hours on this sim just to hear the engine blip while at idle (that's me blipping the throttle to keep the engine from icing up and stalling out, I imagine) while coming in for a landing.

One last question. Any way to zoom in or out on the mission map?

Thanks.

Phil
 
Great Hans good news.
Old missions probably will not work as many things including craft have changed. Can't rem if it was in the FAQ at some point but not now, if I remember I'll add it sometime.


Good to hear from a total new user Phil - you seem to be having good fun so great :)
 
just curious what of what kinda system spec u have griphos? if i move the settings any higher than 3 i sink down to 15-20 fps in dogfights or near airfields.
 
Well, the only place I checked FPS was when I was in the Pup just flying over the winter countryside, so it might slow down in a furball.

Anyway, specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3ghz
4 gb memory (of course, Vista 32 can only see 3gb of that)
NVidia GeForce 9800 GT 512mb

Edit: Okay, I flew another mission and checked fps and my settings. I don't want to encourage fps envy. The only reason I mentioned it in the first post was to indicate that things were running quite smoothly. But I'll go ahead and post what I found.

I did set the resolution this time (hadn't done that yet...set it to match my normal Windows resolution of 1440x900 32 and I set anti-aliasing to 8x). I adjusted my settings this time to be all at 5 except terrain, which is at 4. I briefly tried terrain at 5, but it slowed things down too much. With all but terrain at 5, I seem to get about 40fps just flying around the countryside, which I like to do, since it's so darned pretty. When I come in to land, it drops down to about 35fps. When I had the map up, for some reason, it dropped some more, closer to 30fps. By the way, thanks, Over50, for the tip on the map. The regular zoom keys worked for it as well.

I'm not sure what fps was when I was in the dogfight, because I was too busy trying to stay behind that Albatros to look at the counter. :) But it seemed smooth to me at all times. I don't usually leave fps showing. I've found that in FSX, I get too uptight about it. So I leave it off and just change settings if things slow down noticeably. That's what I'll do in OFF now.

By the way, I shot down my first German! This is going to be addictive, I can tell. Also, I loved how the smoke coming out of the houses near the airfield served to indicate wind, and so landing direction. And the SE-5a slipped in to a landing beautifully! Wonderful!

Phil
 
Oh My Go...I mean "Oh My Word!"

This is an incredible sim! I feel as though I just got back from experiencing living history. Wow! And, I've barely scratched the surface!

I guess the ranting of a newcomer and first time user of OFF and of CFS 3 may not rate as highly as accolades from many veterans of P1 and P2, but permit me this moment.

I posted some early thoughts with questions in another thread as I had assembled all the 'toys' (TrackIR, CFS 3, and OFF P3) at once and it became one of those slightly more challenging installs (setting up and making everything work at once) although OFF installed flawlessly.

Today I finally spent a fair amount of time in FF just to get some flying experience in my Camel, make video graphics adjustments, get used to game controls, and take a better look at the P3 experience.

Wow! Summer 1917. I flew off an airfield and headed east to find the front. Flying along at about 500 feet I admired the beautifully detailed scenery...farms, fields, villages, with trees scattered and in groves. Hedge-hopping along a road I found a convoy of vehicles. Following a railway line I came across a TRAIN IN MOTION with smoke coming off the loco! I flew down at near box-car height and as I slowly passed the locomotive I swear the engineer waved at me!...well, I THINK he did! Finally I saw the distant smoke and dark earth of the front so I gained a bit of altitude and flew over to the German side where I spotted some balloons. I gained some altitude and went after the nearest which I took down in two passes while Archie made some passes at ME! I turned to go after another but they must have hauled it down as it vanished as I flew toward it. I turned and re-crossed the front heading toward the allied side and at very low altitude so I could see the activity. Amazing shell explosions were beneath me sending up dust and smoke...I could almost smell it! All of a sudden tracers zipped by me and I heard rounds hitting the Camel...machine gun fire, the curse of low flying aircraft over the trenches! Finally over, I climbed to take a look at a nearby Allied balloon and as I passed, I swear the observers waved at me!...okay, I THINK they did! Finally on the way home I spotted another airfield and feeling rather tired and thirsty I went down to see if they had a bar with some ale. What an indoctrination flight!

What a great job the OFF team have done! The ground detail is incredible. I wonder how many other surprises are in store for this newcomer to the front, as I've barely started. This is an amazing piece of work and one the OFF team can be truly proud of! A really BIG thanks for all that hard work and perseverance. My very highly modified CFS 2 which hasn’t seen any much use over the last two years is going to sit and gather dust now that I have this new adventure.

I can see a big degradation in frame rates at the front especially at low altitudes, although for most other flying I seem to run from 20-50 fps depending on the altitude, scenery, activity, etc. I'm still honing the graphic parameters and I admit I am running sliders at 5-4-4-5-3 at the moment since I love good graphics. I want to see how high I can keep my frame rates with those slider settings before I decide if I have to lower them. More about that in another thread as I'm still searching out information on settings that others have used successfully in OFF particularly for the evga GTX 260 -216 OC.

As they said in the RFC…Cheers!
 
Good news guys, it seems many people are feeling we have achieved something good at least, and great to hear from guys that have never even seen CFS3 or OFF!

Let's hope the word spreads we need support to carry on improving and adding to OFF !
 
Jimko said:
Oh My Go...I mean "Oh My Word!"

This is an incredible sim! I feel as though I just got back from experiencing living history. Wow! And, I've barely scratched the surface!

I guess the ranting of a newcomer and first time user of OFF and of CFS 3 may not rate as highly as accolades from many veterans of P1 and P2, but permit me this moment.

I posted some early thoughts with questions in another thread as I had assembled all the 'toys' (TrackIR, CFS 3, and OFF P3) at once and it became one of those slightly more challenging installs (setting up and making everything work at once) although OFF installed flawlessly.

Today I finally spent a fair amount of time in FF just to get some flying experience in my Camel, make video graphics adjustments, get used to game controls, and take a better look at the P3 experience.

Wow! Summer 1917. I flew off an airfield and headed east to find the front. Flying along at about 500 feet I admired the beautifully detailed scenery...farms, fields, villages, with trees scattered and in groves. Hedge-hopping along a road I found a convoy of vehicles. Following a railway line I came across a TRAIN IN MOTION with smoke coming off the loco! I flew down at near box-car height and as I slowly passed the locomotive I swear the engineer waved at me!...well, I THINK he did! Finally I saw the distant smoke and dark earth of the front so I gained a bit of altitude and flew over to the German side where I spotted some balloons. I gained some altitude and went after the nearest which I took down in two passes while Archie made some passes at ME! I turned to go after another but they must have hauled it down as it vanished as I flew toward it. I turned and re-crossed the front heading toward the allied side and at very low altitude so I could see the activity. Amazing shell explosions were beneath me sending up dust and smoke...I could almost smell it! All of a sudden tracers zipped by me and I heard rounds hitting the Camel...machine gun fire, the curse of low flying aircraft over the trenches! Finally over, I climbed to take a look at a nearby Allied balloon and as I passed, I swear the observers waved at me!...okay, I THINK they did! Finally on the way home I spotted another airfield and feeling rather tired and thirsty I went down to see if they had a bar with some ale. What an indoctrination flight!

What a great job the OFF team have done! The ground detail is incredible. I wonder how many other surprises are in store for this newcomer to the front, as I've barely started. This is an amazing piece of work and one the OFF team can be truly proud of! A really BIG thanks for all that hard work and perseverance. My very highly modified CFS 2 which hasn’t seen any much use over the last two years is going to sit and gather dust now that I have this new adventure.

I can see a big degradation in frame rates at the front especially at low altitudes, although for most other flying I seem to run from 20-50 fps depending on the altitude, scenery, activity, etc. I'm still honing the graphic parameters and I admit I am running sliders at 5-4-4-5-3 at the moment since I love good graphics. I want to see how high I can keep my frame rates with those slider settings before I decide if I have to lower them. More about that in another thread as I'm still searching out information on settings that others have used successfully in OFF particularly for the evga GTX 260 -216 OC.

As they said in the RFC…Cheers!
Click to expand...

Jimko...

Just to comment, I'm running a GTX 260-216 SC (super clock) edition in tandem with a E8400. I found that forcing v-sync off in the Nvidia control panel vs "Use 3D application setting" allowed a tremendous performance gain (clipped at or near 60 fps max before to +100 fps at times above 2000 feet with terrain and scenery sliders set to 3 and the rest at 5).

Bumping up my cpu speed from the stock 3 Ghz to 3.6 GHz was somewhat helpful - but again, the major change was forcing v-sync off.
 
Over50,

Thanks for the note!

Yes, I latched on to the fact that we run the same video card in a previous post of yours (I made a mistake above when I called mine an "oc" when it really is the "superclocked" version...it was way past my bedtime!) However Vsync Off did not make a great amount difference to frame rates in my system, although I was hopeful. I think that my CPU is somewhat limiting as its an AMD 64 2.2g dual core...with the AMD patch for single core apps. I'll have to see what my MB can take for a cpu upgrade as I upgraded the system somewhat but the MB is the limiting factor at the moment. If I have to change it I may as well start looking at a complete new system. And that won't happen for a while.

I am suffering from "frame rate" envy when I see your specs...:costumes:
 
Jimko said:
Over50,

Thanks for the note!

Yes, I latched on to the fact that we run the same video card in a previous post of yours (I made a mistake above when I called mine an "oc" when it really is the "superclocked" version...it was way past my bedtime!) However Vsync Off did not make a great amount difference to frame rates in my system, although I was hopeful. I think that my CPU is somewhat limiting as its an AMD 64 2.2g dual core...with the AMD patch for single core apps. I'll have to see what my MB can take for a cpu upgrade as I upgraded the system somewhat but the MB is the limiting factor at the moment. If I have to change it I may as well start looking at a complete new system. And that won't happen for a while.

I am suffering from "frame rate" envy when I see your specs...:costumes:
Click to expand...

Your processor may in fact be limiting the 260 216 card performance.

Although my system will handle the max slider settings my frame rate drops into the 20's when the action/content rendering gets heavy in places (especially close to the ground) and to where the game play is no longer smooth enough to my liking.

As I noted, with the terrain and scenery settings set to (3) and the rest (5) I really don't see that much difference in scenery quality. Probably the most noticeable thing is distant scenery is rendered in more detail as you approach it whereas at the max settings there is very little if any of this effect. View panning is also smooth as butter at the terrain and scenery (3) settings.

I've tried the various display setting tweaks posted here with unsatisfactory results (in another thread) and I'm back to the "keep it simple stupid" level of performance options...like bumping up my cpu to 3.6 GHz, forcing v-sync off, and cranking in some additional OC (680 core, 1105 memory) on my 260 card. As an aside, for my particular GPU the 680 core, 1105 memory values are the max stable additional OC I can get with my card. I've read on the Evga boards where others have been able to go higher with this card...but for whatever reasons this (my) card won't..
 
Over50 said:
Your processor may in fact be limiting the 260 216 card performance.

Although my system will handle the max slider settings my frame rate drops into the 20's when the action/content rendering gets heavy in places (especially close to the ground) and to where the game play is no longer smooth enough to my liking.

As I noted, with the terrain and scenery settings set to (3) and the rest (5) I really don't see that much difference in scenery quality. Probably the most noticeable thing is distant scenery is rendered in more detail as you approach it whereas at the max settings there is very little if any of this effect. View panning is also smooth as butter at the terrain and scenery (3) settings.

I've tried the various display setting tweaks posted here with unsatisfactory results (in another thread) and I'm back to the "keep it simple stupid" level of performance options...like bumping up my cpu to 3.6 GHz, forcing v-sync off, and cranking in some additional OC (680 core, 1105 memory) on my 260 card. As an aside, for my particular GPU the 680 core, 1105 memory values are the max stable additional OC I can get with my card. I've read on the Evga boards where others have been able to go higher with this card...but for whatever reasons this (my) card won't..
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for this additional information, Over50...! Some good tips here that I will try asap.

I have to catch a ferry to the mainland in a couple of hours to help my "ancient mariner" parents (92 and 90) for a couple of days. The patriarch
has congestive heart failiure and the matriarch has a broken hand so I spend a couple of days each week recently when the others are at work giving these two some job help as they still live at home.

But, I will keep a close eye on this forum. Mother has a computer and is an avid user of email and internet (and can still walk at a brisk pace)...:running:
 
Hello! I am up and running and I have an issue. I have unlimited ammo clicked on, but machine gun stops firing after about a minute. What do I do?
 
Skywolf said:
Hello! I am up and running and I have an issue. I have unlimited ammo clicked on, but machine gun stops firing after about a minute. What do I do?
Click to expand...

Stop trying to melt the barrel? :icon_lol:

Short bursts, otherwise it jams and can't be un-jammed.

If that's not what's causing your problem, over to the devs.
 
Yeah, I think it's overheating. I've noticed (in my brief experience so far) some guns seem to be more prone to it than others, such as the Lewis gun on the Nieuport. I had one stop for a while on the Sopwith Triplane, so I just chased the guy around (I guess he didn't notice) until ground fire got him. Then they started working again. :-}

Anyway, I'm suspecting my firing habits, and appreciate another touch of realism.
 
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