UPDATE: Virtual Golden Eagles

Robert-Fierce · Post by **Robert-Fierce** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 3:10 pm

Hey yall, I am really happy for all the support that all of you great people gave me on my last post. For those who are scratching your heads in lack of recolection, we are the Golden Eagles. We are a 4-ship F-86 demonstration. We have been working very hard on everything and recently discovered a little problem with the alignment of the cockpit to the aircraft, so she's in the "shop" getting worked on. I wanted to post a few screens of our 9 April 2010 practice. We flew the Eagle while the Sabre remained in the hanger.

Enjoy and tell me what you think!

I hope you all have enjoyed these screens, I'd love to hear your comments both positive and constructive!

To see all of the pics go to:
http://vgoldeneaglesforums.forumotion.c ... cs-t22.htm

Post by **Lawndart** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:59 pm

The flying looks like it has a lot of potential and I'm guessing a diverse selection of maneuvers too.

There's a little dissymmetry between left and right wing in the screenshots you posted as well as bank angles for breakaways etc. If you guys haven't already done so (and you might have

, so take this as constructive criticism - nothing else), determine a standard sight picture (i.e. references to determine fore/aft, up/down, and lateral positioning by looking at parts of the lead aircraft from inside each pilot's cockpit). Having this ever important standardized sight picture (or "paint" as it's also referred to) will help everyone on the team, including any new comers to quickly know exactly what to look for and gauge their own performance by. Here's an example of how to fly the Thunderbird "Diamond" sight picture and spacing.

My other tips are for taking better screenshots and they would be: 1) Force at least 8X AA on your video card; 2) Remove the menu bar whenever using external views; 3) Crank the resolution to the highest your screen will support; 4) If lower settings are used when flying, increase your graphics options before any screen capture to max, and; 5) Edit the graphics.cfg and use "ScreenshotQuality = 100;".

Hope this helps!

P.S. Hopefully the Sabre will be out of the hangAr soon...

Robert-Fierce · Post by **Robert-Fierce** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 7:35 pm

Thanks a lot Lawndart, I really will take your comments into note and apply them throughout. Now, we tried to "amp up" the power settings, but the Nvidia (I think it's spelled) card wouldn't handle the increase...

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 8:21 pm

Out of interest, what are you system specs Fierce? You can get most of them by right clicking the My Computer icon and selecting "properties."

LockOn may be an older sim, but unfortunately it can be quite a CPU hog. Not quite on the level of FSX, but in other areas, too.

Robert-Fierce · Post by **Robert-Fierce** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 9:46 pm

Lots of info!

Here's a screenshot...

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:27 pm

Your problem would be that your computer is very weak for flight simulators. The 2.79Ghz Dual Core will be a big bottleneck for FPS, especially in LockOn. (Or FSX.) These days, almost any new desktop will come with a quad core processor. Any Quad Core 2.66GHz or above will do the trick. I have a Core 2 Duo at 3.00GHz, and it runs, but its the weakest point of my system.

I'm guessing you have an integrated graphics card... these are a real pain. They have low dedicated memory and try to steal a lot of your computer's RAM to put out graphics. You'll want a dedicated graphics card of at least 512Mb. (Example, Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX) It's not terribly expensive to find a lower end 1Gb graphics card these days... that would be an extra boost above one 512mb card, which would be the least I would suggest.

For the rest, at least 4Gb of RAM, a 7200 RPM hard drive, and adequate power and cooling would complete a decent computer.

Hope this helps give you an idea of where FC1 and FC2 sit on the hardware totem pole... but there's people with much better knowledge of computer hardware here than I.

VGE_Blue · Post by **VGE_Blue** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 12:19 am

Just to clarify the pictures were taken by our right wing who has a much worse computer.

I just wanted to let ya know even though an upgrade for Fierce's computer wouldn't be a bad thing.

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:26 am

I'm sure it's tough trying to fly with that then!

VGE_Blue · Post by **VGE_Blue** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:29 pm

Beaker wrote:I'm sure it's tough trying to fly with that then!

Not much, the only thing that made it hard was getting Fierce to fly military style. Before this he lead a civilian style team and just like people transitioning tactics from COD to BFBC2 it doesn't work out.

"Viper" · Post by **"Viper"** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:41 pm

To tell you the truth, I have an ok computer. I would have turned up my settings, but I didn't feel like it, but I should of have.

Sinister · Post by **Sinister** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 11:00 am

Yeah...I agree with Beaker. The integrated cards just toy with your emotinos.

I say take a screenshot with your rig and let us see the difference. IMHO if you have systems that are borderline decent or average, you should have the person with the strongest system take the screenshots for your team to post.

I struggled with a system that only gave me like 30 FPS when flying and it was rough, but I got used to it, but couldn't take any decent screenshots to share.