Post pictures and movies.. and the story to them..!

I guess... but why do they need to all go in one place? I fear a thread like that will become a graveyard of dead links and red Xs.

But I'm willing to give it a shot. This is now stickied. Please edit your top post (including the thread title) to give a better sense of what the thread's for.

some random pictures from one of my best missions

A nice B52 shoot.. delivering its payload..



Low level penetration in Serbia.. got 5 Air kills that day.. but lost my wingman

My First Air kill in the new Campain

And one of my best experiences with falcon was the night we had 30+people on the teamspeak server having a dam good time....

Are edited shots ok?

Fulcrum launching a missile just seconds after liftoff (It was a scramble)

Total runway denial

MiG in trouble

This fogis really cool

Vipers with Polish insignias

Just showing off

Firing at Fulcrum @ FL320

Great pix

Pity that such a good idea met so small response
Here are two more pix:

I was flying NOE, but then I crossed the ridge I run dirrectly into SA-6 site, they locked and launched on me in seconds, lucky distance was too shots and missile never armed I left them a few Mavs to remember me by.

Doing a manual in Viper

what a landing

I took these over the last few days:



(click on a thumbnail to get a larger version)

I usually go hunting for screens as i wait for my scheduled takeoff time.

Great shots l3th4l...

BeachAV8R

Here are a few pics from selected missions... Although each could have a story behind them, for brevity just the pics will be shown.

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

A "manual"? You mean a mono?

Too bad I posted a similar shot back in July.

That's easy. This is hard.



Pulled that maneuver again tonight to celebrate a nice MP mission, so it was seen live.

"foxbat"

F4AF is also anexcellent source for sreenshots for editing. Here is one of my latest:

LP if you ever need some screens for ads call me

Harms and Paveways dont mix?

"Morning Rush Hour at Seosan"

[img] [/img]

I love that picture!

I second that!

Falcon47 IMO that is one of the best screen shot I have seen from this sim for some reason. It is my wallpaper this week.

Jerry

Thanks, Jerry. And kudos to our programmers for their nice graphics work.

falcon.. got any other nice pics?

"Heading Home"

[img] [/img]

If you see U.S. AIR FORCE in your rearview mirror, then make way for this herc.


Also check out my AAR's:

• Bridge Attack
• A Silk Ride

my favorite experience was when i finally figured out how to run my radar / identify a threat. before i simply locked onto any ol' signal and if awacks said it was a threat -- even if it was 80 miles away -- i'd go full after burner thinking i'd intercept. of course, i ran out of gas after about 5 minutes and fell to the earth every time.

good thing i finally figured out how to run my radar to figure out distances and understand where the bogey was flying to. ha ha!

Just got myself a brand new ATI and thought i'd share my joy

Patriot Action:





This was supposed to be a IQ comparison shot to the one i posted earlier but i forgot i changed the tiles. also it's from a slightly different angle and a different TOD...

A few more AA 'Action' Shots

Have you ever tried to recover from a deep stall?
It's awesome to find out how the airplane responses just as the manual says, and it's great to finally read why the F-16 falls that way (like a brick with wings) and doesn't get its nose down... I thought that was a Falcon 4.0 bug.
Anywas... Not a ver nice post, just wanted to share it.

Here is my Crew Chief, tells me when I can fly and when I can't



Jerry

Pictures with this story can be found on Puma's Log
http://www.pumaslog.addr.com

TEN DAYS,

We rotate into the Korean Theater of Operations late in the war as the Allied forces have turned back the initial attacks by the leading member of the “Axis of Evil”. Our unit has been stationed at Seoul International airbase, the airfield normally serves as a hub for civilian traffic serving all of Asia but since the initiation of hostilities from the north the airfield has changed hands a couple of time but now is the largest military airbase on the peninsula. Our squadron has been in action for only a few days but already we have distinguished ourselves in combat. Our primary mission was to remove the air threat posed by enemy forces. Although shooting down an enemy airplane is sexy and the measure of all Hollywood fighter pilots, the realities are that the bulk of our missions are flown against ground targets. The easiest way to kill an enemy airplane is while it is setting on the tarmac. Our first missions were to go after the enemy airfields and take out as much of their air combat infrastructure as possible, as quickly as possible. By doing this we would insure that the Hogs and our heavy buddies would only need worry about surface to air threats and thus have a much easier time of it.

Our first target was Mirim just south east of Pyong-Yang. This base was home of a particularly nasty MIG29 squadron that was hindering Allied efforts to penetrate the north.

For this campaign I decided to take direct control of the ground forces as well as manage and fly the air war.
Just to the south, about 15 clicks rest a couple of Marine infantry units and one artillery platoon. I order those units to advance on Mirim. In the vicinity of Mirim is an SA 2 Site and accompanying radar and guarding the base is a significant air defense artillery battery. We will attrit these forces after making the airfield unusable.

At 0645 I taxi my heavy Falcon (Stud 51) onto the active runway. I am right of the center line with 52 slightly behind and on my left. I work my switchology, master arm on, set up my defensive countermeasures, program four, semi auto. I decide to leave my lights burning for the time being. Looking over to my left I see the second element of this flight holding behind the taxi line the bellies heavy with runway denial munitions and cluster bombs. I set my second radio to guard and listen to the world as I await permission to lift off. The whine of the GE turbines is hypnotic but barely audible in the air conditioned office. “Fury 51 you are clear for take off” with that I push my head into the head rest and move the throttle forward slowly at first, as I accelerate down the runway, I push the throttle past the afterburner stops into full afterburner. Now the jet is hurtling down the runway picking up speed rapidly. The noise of the jet cuts the morning air and breaks the serenity of my enclosed world. At 160 knots I lightly pull back on the control stick. The jet clumsily pulls itself off the runway. I hold course climbing out at a reasonable 5 degrees. Pulling my gear into the belly reduces drag and makes the plane feel more like the killing machine it was designed to be. “Fury 51, resume own navigation” With that I select the sound steer point and bank gently to the right to pick up a course of 010. I listen as the rest of my flight lifts off and I call them to close in and assume echelon formation left. I pull back on the throttle holding a speed of 350 knots until the formation is formed. I look left and see that the boys are where they need to be before punching up our speed to 400. I don’t know how long it will take before our ground forces can close on the Mirim area but I want to make sure that we inflict as much damage on the enemy as we can before they make contact.

We level off at 12000 feet, just high enough to avoid shoulder fired missiles but well within the lethal envelope for triple A and most Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs). However, this altitude gives us the ability to duck down into the valleys quickly if the need arises. I anticipate that the need will arise as we get closer to Mirim. Fortunately the sky is filled with F15s, F18, and F16s. Thus I am not too worried about air to air but we fly in air-to-mode as a matter of routine. As we get closer to the target my Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) warns of sweeping radar emanating from the general direction of the aforementioned SA2 site. OK, now it is time to get down to business. “Fury 5 go trail, close up” I start a shallow dive into a valley below. We are about 25 miles from the target and surprise will make the difference as I would hope to make a run on the target before the guns can react. The runway runs east to west, taking it from the west end to east would bring us right over the southern tip of Pyongyang, not a good proposition so I decide to swing the flight to the east and come in from the east side. This profile will take us perilously close to the SA2 site but I figure that this is a better alternative. As we swing out I look down to see dust trails, I did not notice the movement on the ground and thankfully, they are our Marines one the move. Had they been enemy I would have flown my flight right into them and we would have been in big trouble (dumb ass). Ok, after a moment I get back to business. We fly east about 10 miles and I back hard to come 180. I look forward and can see the runway coming into view. I switch over to air-to-ground mode. “Fury 5 Jam it” I flick on my ECM. To my left front I start to make out the SAM site. I quickly run my cursor over a target and lock on. “Fury 53, attack my target” I command. “Fury 52 close up”, I watch as 53 and 54 pull up into an attack profile.

“****”, I think as I see a puff of white smoke and a streak across the sky. The Site is open for business. The missile is not tracking me but the other element. As we streak past we here a distress call coming from the other element, “Fury 53 heading for alternate airfield” never good. We press on towards the target and I am working my switches, air-to-ground, switch to durandal anti-runway munitions, set to drop in pairs, Continuous Computed Impact Point (CCIP). I padlock the first set of guns just as they start to fill the airspace with flak. “Fury 52 attack targets” Since there is only one runway at Mirim I should be able to take it out assuming I don’t get fragged by all the flak. “Rockeye, Rockeyes” a call from Fury 54. I did not see the destruction but we would learn at the out brief that it was significant. Now I am fangs out and locked into the enemy runway. Flak burst all around me as it seems everyone with a weapon is shooting at my. I cross the runway threshold at about 200 feet just over 400 knots. Pickle, a pair of bombs falls away from my plane, followed by another pair and then another. Punching in the burners, I climb out as fast as I can looking back over my shoulder at the black smoking holes that ensure that this runway will not be used anytime soon. I also catch yellow streaks passing my canopy as the *******s on the ground try to ensure that I will not be used ever again…MIGs are moving around on the tarmac but now they have no way of getting airborne…I supposed they could use the taxi way but I intend to plaster them before any such plan can come to fruition. Rockeye, rockeyes, my wing leans into the attack on the triple A. I see the speckle of bomblets as they impact around the target area. I switch over to my cluster munitions and wing over pointing my nose back earthward. On the breaks I maneuver my death dot in the middle of a couple of planes moving about the tarmac. “Pickle” the bombs fall from the rails. As I pull out of the dive I line up a gun emplacement and maneuver, I quick look over my shoulder shows that I have destroyed a couple of planes and some accompanying support equipment. Pulling the trigger, again I release a couple of Rockeyes over another gun emplacement. The bombs fall from my plane and I can see the casing separate and the bomblets form a wide pattern as they continue the descent. I roll and bank right looking over my shoulder as the bombs impact directly center the gun emplacement. “Damn, those poor *******s” I think as I continue to the south. I call my flight to regroup as we clear the target area. “weapons check. I have only a pair of rocks left as does Fury 52 and 54. “Ok, I think, lets go get some of those guns” I swing the formation back to north and get my ground radar to GMT. Expanded view, looking for dots that would signify targets, it does not take long before a line of enemy is in view. I lock the middle of the column. “Fury attack target” I order. I pull off, and swing around to watch my wingmen display their craft. First 52 rolls in, “Rockeye, rockeye” he calls as he pulls off target. His bombs make a mess of the center of the column, 54 attacks with equal vigor and destruction. “Out****ingstanding” I think as my wing does a number on the column. Finally it is my turn to display my skill. I roll in from 10000 feet maneuvering my death dot to the only part of the column that is not burning. Just before I press the trigger, yellow tennis balls leap up from the ground and surround my airplane.

My HUD goes blank, my Multifunction Displays also go dead. Master warning on, “awh sheeeeeit, I can’t believe it” the one remaining vehicle in the column has delivered a lucky but crippling blow to my Falcon. He will live, at least for now. I am not too sure about my own future. My controls are still responding so I should at least be able to get back to friendly territory. However, my ego has taken a serious beating. Pulling away I order the other two ships to return to base. A quick outside view shows me streaming a little black smoke but I seem to be flying alright. I jettison my stores to lighten the plane and clean the configuration. Ok, I start heading south,
I make it back to Seoul and declare an emergency. The plane is responding well as I bring her in and gently touch down right on the numbers.

Mirim was completely shut down; I was credited with two air-to-air kills (actually planes on the ground) and five other ground kills. Fury 52 had five ground kills, 54 had nine. 53 was listed as missing.

Several hours after our mission the Marines took Mirim airfield and the nearby SAM site.

OK, moving my troops around seems to have worked pretty well. Now let’s do it in earnest. I have several units that are on a defensive line just north of the DMZ. Time to convert from a defensive posture to the offense, I order several units to take the airfield at Wonson and all the accompanying support facilities. These include SAM sites, Army Bases, Bridges, and supply depots. I will have about 20 units on the move.

I do the same with my forces near Pyongyang. So just about all forces on the front line will be moving north, some of the routes we need to take will take some forces as far north as the Chinese border.

In preparation for the pending advance we fly several missions to attrit the enemy forces in and around the areas where our ground forces will be moving. Day four, we take Wonson, and several supporting bridges, Army Bases, and SAM sites. Day five, Pyongyang falls along with most of important facilities supporting the North’s war effort.

I anticipate that the Chinese will join on the side of the North any day now as our Intel is that there is much movement on the Northern side of the Border.

We keep up the pressure, Toksan airbase falls, along with Onchon, Nampo Naval base, Nampo shipyard. We control Sunan Kaech’on Mirim, Sunch’on and Pukch’an-up. Day six…the Chinese intervene in a big way.

Several large Chinese units suddenly materialize behind my lines. My troops are tired to exhausted from all the movement and fighting. Additionally, they have been diminished somewhat from fighting the North Korean forces. Actually, the North has not put up much resistance but I imagine the Chinese will put up much more a fight.

I will lead several flights north to try and inflict as much pain and discomfort on the enemy as possible before they are able to come into contact with my ground forces. I will use a mix of Cluster munitions and Maverick Anti-Armor weapons to reduce the enemy strength. I hijack several BARCAP missions and turn them into search and destroy missions. (Yes, even in Allied Force, I still have a long list of BARCAP missions) On the first flight up we will attack the Chinese 588th Mechanized Infantry Battalion that is advancing on Mirim.

We lift off first thing in the morning and start our ingress north. This is a two ship, Cowboy 2, we are armed for this mission with four mavericks each along with six Rockeyes. We take off right into a flight of C130s that is coming in on the same runway…”what the hell is this” I think as I maneuver out of the way of the oncoming C130. “Cowboy 21 close up” I call as I climb to Angels 20000 and head north. It is only 15 miles to the second steer point so we close in tight and as we head into battle. With most of the airfields in friendly hands we are not overly concerned with the possibility of enemy air activity. Not just destroying but taking as many airfields as possible before the Chinese could intervene was a stroke of genius…Ok that might be a stretch, but it did mean that the enemy had to fly very long distances to conduct any offensive actions.

Master arm on, I switch my MFD to GMT, cursor in snow plow mode, and punch my mavericks as the active weapon. Looking through the seeker head on my missile, I expand my view and using the MFD/GMT as a guide I slew the seeker head into the area where we expect to find the enemy. After sighting some friendly units, I finally lock on to the enemy tanks. “Cowboy 22 attack targets”, I command as I move my aim to the front of the tank formation. I am still a bit out of range but within only a matter of seconds; my range line starts to drop until it indicates that my weapons are in range. Without hesitation, I pull the trigger. A bright flash illuminates the cockpit as the warhead falls from my plane and the rocket motor ignites. I pull off to keep clear of the shoulder fired missiles that are sure to be a part of this enemy formation.

Once my plane is established pulling away from the threat I take a look at the weapons view and watch as my missile flies true into an enemy BTR. Four enemy soldiers mill about around the vehicle so I can only assume that this missile ruined their day. I listen as Cowboy 22 leans into the attack firing a volley of missiles into the formation. I turn back and immediately lock onto another target firing a missile, then another and another. Cowboy 22 is doing equal damage to the enemy formation. Pulling off again well outside of the enemies ability to retaliate I feel like the fight is hardly fair…what the hell who wants a fair fight anyway! With my mavericks gone I make the Rockeyes the active weapon.

I stage my bombs to drop in pairs and turn back in towards the target. The enemy has dispersed somewhat now and I am seeing rounds flying horizontal. Which indicates to me that the enemy has now come in contact with friendly forces. The stress level is elevated as now vehicle /enemy identification is critical. No problem, there seems to be several thousand yards between friend and foe so I continue on my line padlocking the first vehicle I can find, calling Cowboy 22 to attack. 22 confirms and that is good enough to ease my apprehension. I move up the column a bit and pickle off a couple of bombs.

I am able to punch off another pair off bombs as I over fly the formation. By now their are burning hulks littering the field. I think our mission has been more than successful but I still have a couple of bombs.

I listen as Cowboy 22 drops his final pair of bombs. Looking back over my shoulder I watch as he makes some defensive moves after the release. I call for 22 to knock off and call him to close up formation. It is time to head home and maybe we can get some good BDA to see how we have done and what kind of follow-up mission might be needed.

Our return to base is uneventful and we land without incident.

It looks like we did do some damage on the mission with each plane being credited with eight ground kills. When I go back and check the status of the unit it does not look like we have done that much damage. However, their fatigue level has gone from normal to tired. this is very good. Now we have some other units to work over and I take several more flight into the Chinese ground forces.
OK, now time to play General again. I have several units moving north. Wonson and Pyongyang are firmly under our control, it used to be that capturing both of these strategic areas would me the surrender of the enemy. The Chinese units that have been inserted behind my lines have been reduced to a negligible fighting force and are completely surrounded by sizable Allied forces. Also, they have no way to get supplies, replacements or air cover so I let them to their fate and concentrate on taking more territory to the north. I give several units orders to move north focusing on the major airfields, Supply Depots, and SAM sites. I set things in motion and...go to bed.

I wake up to find that at 0445 of day ten a peace settlement was reached...well I hope it was a good one. All of the objectives that I set had been met. We control the better part of 85 percent of the entire Korean peninsula.

It took ten days to win the campaign with me taking the role of ground commander as well as orchestrating the air campaign. After several months of flying, I have yet to finish a campaign in allied force where I did not take control of the ground forces. I don't know how long the average campaign lasts without manipulation from the player. Does anybody know?

Puma - Out

Interesting read, Puma, thanks. My last Korea campaign ended Day 10, 1130 Hrs. I let AI task the ground, but I did task a bunch of Air missions, mainly SEAD Strikes. As I mentioned in a previous thread, towards the end it became difficult to find any high value targets, so at one point I launched 8 four-ship strike groups on the capital within a 5-10 minute timeframe just to spice things up (I realize this isn't a needed nor intelligent strategic objective, but I was starting to get bored at the end). This is a pic during that strike, and I gotta admit, to see a bunch of F-16's flying in from all angles and the attendant explosions, well, it was pretty amazing to say the least. Lucky none of us ran into each other, but I'd do it again at the end of another campaign if things start dragging again.

[img] [/img]

LoL my system specs is this:

Windows XP service pack 2, 2002 Model
AMD Athlon 2000+ (1.67 GHz)
256 MB RAM
60 GB Hard Drive
32 MB Integrated Prosavage DDR graphics with shared memory

I did not expect it to run at all as the Lead Pursuit website said at least 384 MB Memory and 3d accelerated video card(I think). However
I run F4AF on FULL SETTINGS and it works slowly but very smoothly! All controls respond instantly!

One more:

very nice pics Dwukwiat!

i touched up some of mine as well:

Put some missles on those planes, this ain't 1940 !

(late post, I know)

Why? thats way its funnier

Fuel is a good life saver..
this was a bit too close for my taste




my pretty falcon has been caught smoking =(

I don't know.... this may have been a little bit closer:


Some other shots....

hehe.. sweet..

its falcon and not Af..


the rest are here , i was messing with skins at the time http://www.wolfstone.20fr.com/photo.html

Did some experementing with skins =)

Im new to Falcon 4 (AF) and I like a lot thus far, I've been training (with AV8R's training PDFs) and I just started a campaign, hopefully Ill get some pics of my first campaign air kill.

I think the wing roundles are redundant. I also think that if Sweden used the F-16 they wouldn't put them on!

Hehe nice skin1!

I usually fly LOMAC/FC and I keep hearing about the rubbish graphics in Falcon 4:AF so I didn't buy it.

Looking at the shots on this forum, I thinks I'm gonna scoodle along and buy it straight away! I don't think it looks too bad at all.
I do have the Win95 version of F-16 - and was expecting something similar. I read the manual through back in '98 and was impressed, but didn't fly much before I got into F-22 and that was that.

well it depends - if you want to make movies or wallpapers F4AF isn't as good as LOMAC/FC. If you want a combat sim on the other hand...

That depends on which aircraft you fly in LOCKON and who you fly with....

Hi FlashHeart,

Also check out RedViper (google it or search the forums). Adds a lot of eyecandy ...

Cheers
Torquatus

I didn't know that AGM-88C is so powerfull:

Event Yugoslavian MDK-2-D destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian MDK-2-D destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KrAz T 255B destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KrAz T 255B destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian BTR-80 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian MDK-2-D destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian BTR-80 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KrAz T 255B destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian BTR-80 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian MDK-2-D destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KrAz T 255B destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian Su-27SM downed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian Fire Can destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian ZPU-2 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KS-19 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian StraightFlush destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian SA-14 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian StraightFlush destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian KrAz T 255B destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian SA-6 destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26
Event Yugoslavian Radar destroyed by sPawiK at 19:57:26

but I love this:

Here's my AF experience that you might enjoy:

Ya know how every now and then Falcon will do something that makes you say "I ain't believing that"?

We'll, me and 3 AI were going on a strike mission and encountered some resistance at the target site in the form of AAA. We hit the target and I'm wanting to get me and my flight outa there pronto, when I notice one of the AI not rejoining. I give him several "rejoin" commands but get no answer. Home is to the south, which is where I'm vectoring with 2 AI, but I see on my HSD he's headed north, deeper into enemy territory. I keep trying commands like "close up" "rejoin" etc hoping to get lucky but he never answers at all. Meanwhile I keep flying south and eventually we're close to the FLOT, all the while I'm watching him slowy continue northward. I think to myself "stupid AI, he ain't going to make it". Then it hits me that I'm the stupid one, I friggin need to go get him. So I give my flight RTB and I turn around headed back into enemy territory. Now I ain't that crazy about doing this, being a bit low on fuel but my gut feeling tells me to do it. It's taking a long time for me to catch up with him even at full mil, but he's moving real slow so I keep after him, though admittidly not knowing what I should do when I do catch him. Finally I got a visual on him and I was able to see that he was low, slow, and smoking. I gave him a few more commands, but again no response, so I just kept closing. As I get closer, all of a sudden I see him start to make a slow turn and I realize he's making a turn towards me! He's got a visual on me! I could not believe he did that!!! The dude saw me and is headed right for me! Once he was with me I turned to lead him home and he followed!

Ok, I think, it's all on me now and I better not mess up and fly over any threats as I wondered if he could make it all the way home with the obvious damage he had incurred since he could barely fly at all and only at about 200' altitude and 200 knots, but that's where we had to try and make it.

We were doing fine on our slow, slow trip home, and luckily no bandits jumped us or ground-to-air fire shot at us. But as we began to get close to the FLOT I noticed that he started vectoring away from me? After all this time that he'd followed me perfectly thus far as we made the slow trip home I wondered what is he was doing now? So I got behind him to follow him and as soon as I did, I got a visual on a divert base that he was going for. Whoa, is he really going to do that! As I orbited to watch, he landed that damaged jet. I just watched at awe that this played out like it did and felt pretty good that I got him home.

linky? I cant find it on google...

ugh nvm said it would take 1 day and 7 hours to download on torrent :P

F-18 Sweep in the Balkans (no better feeling than knowing you have 10 AMRAAMS and 2 AIM-9X's at your disposal)



F-16 Sweep in the Balkans



My first F-22 landing



Flipping around with the 8 view... I believe this was a BARCAP... in the Balkans... never seen anything like it before or since. It could've been an EF/A-18 on ingress.



Ivangrad OCA ingress. I assumed I would be lined up since the computer generated OCA strikes normally do this. When I turned around I got nailed by 2 SAMs. My whole flight got shot down. I flew the mission one more time after lining up the steerpoints and was successful, but the rest of my flight got shot down (only got six BLU's in the runway). On the RWR you can see the EF/A-18s I tasked to jam the enemy radars.



Coming back from a sweep in the Balkans in an F-16 with low fuel... landed with 200 lbs (see altitude).



Refueling on a long SEAD strike mission... it was a good thing I checked the external view because I didn't realize I had left my lights on (no human wingy)!



This was from the early days of the learning curve for me... before I knew when it was time to get out of Dodge (see RWR). Needless to say I was shot down shortly thereafter .



-Odin

Say it with Pictures I say:

BFM practice.

Just a nice shot



A Super duper Hornet

Tonight after a lot of reading and printing until I ran out of black ink so I could quickyl review while I flew, I did my first campaign mission where I arrived right at my steerpoints not only at the right heading and altitude but time! It was very satisfying juggling my throttle to match my TOS and hit the point to the second. My joy was cut short over target however when a SA-6 got me as I was lining up my CCRP.

3 in the morning and after a few tries I finaly did my first campaign mission. I play 100% difficulty by the way.

So my first kill is a gate, gotta start somewhere

Once i shot down an enemy plane with my rockets before he could shoot me down with his rockets! It was fun.

very nice i have 40 but nrver flew it much but that will change

wah.....nice Superhornet's skin

where i can get the skin like this?

You can find many skins available HERE

@ Panther

thank buddy......

after bombing North Korea airfield

Oh man, I just got myself into a furball with Mig21s in my AF Korea2005 campaign. It is only day 2 and there are still lots of enemy planes up, mostly swarms of 21s. Tonight I was doing a 2 ship LGB attack on an underground factory and I knew 21s were in the area on ingress but I wanted to drop my bombs before worrying about them, and CAP flights have been good on my past few missions. However this time on egress I ran pretty much straight into a group of 4 that seemed to pop up out of nowhere at 5-10 miles, I couldn't get a bead on them visually or on radar, didn't know altitude. My wingman was off chasing AN24s because I told him to engage earlier and thought he was going after the 21s while I pulled out of my bomb run.

Anyways I managed to shoot down one of the 21s with an Amraam at short range when I finally managed to pull them up on radar, but in my panic I accidentally ripple fired the rest of my 120s when I meant to lock up the next target! (3 wasted 120s) Then suddenly the merge is all over me and the 3 Migs go every which way, I have barely any SA, I grope around trying to find a target and soon I have a Mig right on my tail and another a few miles behind! I think my wingman finally showed up and shot down a 21 before he crashed into the ground for some reason. I briefly tried to break and get the close 21 off my tail but I pulled too hard and can't get an advantage so I tried extending for awhile in full AB when I realized this guy had no missiles either.

After putting some distance between us I pulled into the vertical for all I was worth but was careful to let up on the Gs when I reached corner velocity. Coming down on top of him it quickly descended into a turning circle with me at an energy advantage and this time slowly but surely he stalled out trying to follow me around the circle and I got on his tail! Unfortunately I missed my gunshot and he dove and ran. I was almost out of fuel and had to let him go. I managed to land at my alternate with like 100 lbs of fuel. I was just glad I didn't accidentally shoot my wingman down with all those errant 120s. For all I know he crashed trying to avoid my missile. One more 21 of the 4 original was unnaccounted for, maybe he bugged out as well.

So, I recently purchased a Cougar and absolutely love it! So, I downloaded Jagstang's configuration files (slightly modified to allow me to change the hud color) to the cougar and went back into the training missions to get used to the new mapping. In the Air-to-Air Radar training mission, I am used to having my ass handed to me by the migs that seem to be all over the sky with me saying, "where the hell did they all come from?" Well, it wasn't THAT bad -- I'd manage to get a few of them before running out of fuel. Ah, but the cougar changed things: the layout is very well done. I was able to use TWS and fire off two 120s (they went pitbull immediately) to take out two 29s, the thumb the dogfight switch and change to vertical ACM radar and splashed another plane that looked like a mig-19 (not sure what that was, but he was running with the wrong crowd) with an AIM-9. And I still had time to switch to guns and spend the energy on pulling the gun-cross in front of one of two more 29s crossing below me from left to right. He was out of plane, but I couldn't miss. After that I unloaded and went to the deck in full AB. Looking behind me I watched two turn and chase me. With all my new energy I went vertical with a slow pull -- I think they lost me for a bit, because they were slow to start their climb. at about 20K I pulled the nose down hard and lost a lot of airspeed. During the pull, a my RWR chirped and showed a 29 had me on his radar, but I have the advantage of knowing that he doesn't have any missiles and I've got all the energy. So, I sent two 120s after him, switched to AIM9s and splashed the trailing plane (again, it looked like a 19, but I'm not sure). At this point I get my fuel warning and I'm feeling pretty good as I start looking for a place to land -- I've never gotten this far in this training mission. I was feeling pretty good as I was heading toward the coast when I see tracers wizzing over my canopy slightly to the right. I break hard left, and am trying to not present a solution to the shooter while I'm frantically looking for him. Back on the burner now, I'm getting the fuel warning and finally see the shooter running away to the north. Decided not to follow -- by now my goal is to land. Couldn't find a runway and saw what looked like a long dark street and decided to give it a shot. Came down over some trees and touched down. Hit the brakes and just about stopped. Hit the trees at the far end and exploded!

The inverted flat-spin. God help you if you ever get into one during a Campaign

da*n, you are flying very low, good flying buddy

New Personal Record: 9 Air Kills
Too bad I only took 5 missiles :\

This is a little story when we flew Head to Head with the Multi-Vipers and we were the Russians...
Getting swept from the skies high overhead, I thought I might go in low!


" I was getting shot down more times than I was willing to admit and so I thought, lets change our strategy and jump into an SU39... fly low and slow and nose cold.
Taxing at 45kts, I turned onto the runway off Bravo ( big mistake ! ) and pushed the throttle to burner.... oppps no burner! 70... 80... 100... 110... com' on you beast! 120... fence is in my HUD! 130... pull baby pull!!! 145... gear up....
cleared the fence!!! okay flaps up, 210... geez this thing is slow... I guess having 8 500kg. bombs doesnt help any... Level at angels...... 0.15 ( thats 150ft ! ) Content that I was still flying and hadn't crashed on takeoff I turned the radar
off, silent wasn't silent enough... I didn't want anyone to know who, what , where I was.

Picking up speed now at 450kts I skimmed the hills and dropped into the valleys. It was nice seeing things from down here as I was use to flying with the altostratus at 40,000. I had target steerpoint selected and was trying to offset my course by about 45 degrees so as not to look obvious that I was heading to Seoul should I be picked up by Jstars or Awacs. With CCIP selected and single bomb rips I was set. The RWR was clean and the east coast of North Korea was bustling with traffic and people all heading North? Huh, oh yeah there's a war going on and the imperialists are winning! But with me low and cold it wouldnt be long before I would turn the tables on the enemy... ICP cruz, TOT 10 minutes...
Looking good. slight turn to the south east 130... TOT 5 minutes, A-G CCIP selected... bit of right rudder (too low to dip my wings) to heading 150... target is just 5 miles away... lining it up in the HUD...

#%&*$#!!!! F16 bugging me dead ahead! come on baby push push!! 500kts over the hill 3 miles to target... INBOUND MISSILE!!! program 4 chaff chaff, flare flare flare!!! BANG!!! a huge shutter goes through the aircraft, the right wing dips and I'm nose 2 degrees down, come on you piece a $#(! Trim it, trim it!!! okay I'm good but now I'm heading North again! What do I do... To hell with! Turn back South and finish 'em off... OKAY CCIP is still working... should I test it and drop a bomb and see if it flies... Nah, might blow myself up at 100 ft AGL! I forged ahead for another mile, my Christmas tree had two or three lights on, not sure as I was full left rudder and doing 380kts, injured and shuddering I pressed ahead!

What was that!!! ping ping clink!!! Tracers over the top, I try and jink left, I'm smoking now and my HUD disappears... there go the MFD's, the Master Caution is back on! #%&*$#, it's al over!!! As I roll lazily to the right I eject...
I'm shot out at a 90 degreee angle at 100ft. My chute opens and I hit the ground hard... both legs broken I crawl under a bush and hide waiting for AHIP to come pick me up in his Apache...

The Shame, the agony, its all too much to bare... As I reach for my pistol I hear a crackle on the radio, the war is over... Not knowing if we won or lost I put my pistol away and wait for the rescue chopper.

What awaits me is probably more painful than defeat... I close my eyes and remember my family and all that was good... I'll be okay I tell myself... Never give up!!!"

Iron Fortress 1998: after losing 2 airbases right away, a lot of squadrons crammed into the remaining two. There was quite a line up to take-off!

Heres some recent formation flying we did in MP:

http://www.youtube.com/user/VeteransGaming#p/u/0/faZI406SE8Y

Blud

Nice skins BluD

Great video

Mike Laskey did a brilliant job on the MP positional update code.

Blud, what software are you using to video-record this? The video framerates are excellent...

Hi all!

Would just like to share this little video i made with my friend Justin
Thanks SimHQ for a great webpage and also ofc to the community!

Hello, I thought I would like to try to play the Falcon 4 game again. I had tried it a few years ago, but I stopped because learning all the buttons was just a pain the butt. I decided to stick IL2 1946 instead. Well I suck at that game, so I decided to try the Falcon 4 series one more time. Let me just say that this sim does nothing but piss me off. Nothing works. I think the most annoying thing of all is the radar. After having nothing but problem with the radar I decided to check at takeoff if it was working. After checking out and seeing that all is working I take off. I get to the checkpoint and start looking for targets only to find out that apparently you can only use your ground radar once. This has happened numerous times. Other times I get the ground radar to come on, but can't move the cursor. Or other times I have the ground radar on, ordinance selected, switch back to AA and then I can't get back to ground radar. I thought this game would be fun, and I knew it would be difficult, but my god, nothing works. I don't understand how the Falcon 4 community has gotten such a following when nothing works in this stupid game.

After getting disgusted with Falcon 4 AF, I decided to try Free Falcon, with pretty much the same result. I started the game and had no throttle. I figured that out and tried to play a campaign. I got shot down screwing around with the ground radar and not being able to lock on a target, and then when I tried another mission, the screen just stayed blue. The hell with this stupid game!@!

Ratt, I'm sorry to hear you had a disappointing experience with the game, but it sounds like you were expecting an easy-action push button game as opposed to a high fidelity simulation. The issues you mention all sound like normal behavior for the Falcon platform: Switching master modes (e.g., AG to AA) changes the displays on the MFDs, such as changing from the ground radar to the air to air radar mode on the left MFD. The ground radar MFD has to be selected as the sensor of interest (SOI) for the slew control to move the radar cursor. Etc.

If cracking open a book and spending hours learning how systems work or which button does what isn't your cup of tea, then simulation mode in the Falcon series probably aren't going to work for you! I'll also give you a heads up that the DCS series (Black Shark and A-10C) are much more of the same! There are easy avionics modes to those games, however, for folks that want to skip all the technical stuff that you might find more enjoyable. Falcon's dynamic campaign really has to be experienced, and you can enjoy it just fine in easy avionics mode.

This product was dead before it launched and they charged money, what a disgrace for charging money !! tut tut. Anyway I never bought it so no loss to me I suppose. Let this be a lesson to people who take up donated community software and try and make money! big load of sh*t Falcon AF was :-)

Kind regards

Mizzy

Well, I have to say that I'm glad to have Falcon: Allied Force in my possession these days.
I just built up a little system here at home. Falcon 4.08 has crashed to the desktop a few times, and I believe it doesn't like my NVidia card...GeForce 8400s series. But I love my Falcon like I love my pets....been doing Falcon since 1991-
Allied Force looks really good on my Toshiba 42"....
Yeh, I have other sims w/great eye candy:
Lock On Platinum
IL-2 1946
MS Combat Sim 3
But what I cherish the most about Falcon 4 and Allied Force is the sorta comic book artistry that the elements are drawn as.
And the modeling styles of these elements just fit so well within the entire Falcon world.
FreeFalcon and Falcon BMS are gorgeous to be sure, but I'm just not in the mood to beta test anymore.
And another thing-
Falcon's history of requiring more and more powerful computers still hasn't changed. I believe FreeFalcon has streamlined their codes well enough that even my little system runs their program with ease.
But again, my heart will always fall back to Falcon 4 and if that doesn't work..Allied Force will....

On a cloudy day, somewhere in the Balkans...

There was an Escort mission available, the targeted Bridges weren't too deep into enemy territory.
With the bulk of the enemy forces out by now (Day4), it wasn't supposed to be much more than
routine. But there was a CAP near the target, a pair of Su29. Not a convincing threat, however.
It takes more to worry 4 F16 armed with 4 slammers and 2 winders each. In the end it wasn't an
exciting mission. Can't always be Sunday - as we say
Nonetheless, observing the clouds kept me entertained and vigil. The shadows they cast on the
ground can create areas lit interestingly. Quite cute.

I took some pics. Sorry there's no fighting here. I have... forgot... to snapshot the BVR we had.
Next time I'll do better. Pics are 1024x768.

Here are the links so we keep this low-bandwidth. Besides, I don't know how to post clickable
thumbnails (anyone can teach me?)

Soon after takeoff, while waiting for my Wing to join the formation:



Enroute to the rendez-vous with Cobra1 Wing:


Going back home. "Mission accomplished!" -I thought...


The mission was a failure. Cobra1, a 2-ships Blk40 in bomber role, failed to even scratch their
targets. Twelve Mk82 dropped and they couldn't take out 2 bridges in a No-Threat scenario.
Am I surrounded by incompetents?! How are we supposed to win this war?
I need another coffee.
As for Avenger1 (my Wing), we succeeded at protecting Cobra1, but we too got from Poor to Horrible
performance rating - Gee, so much for risking the butt. That's unfair, our escorting was superb.
We shot down the couple of Su29 plus three additional An-24. But am I going to see a payrise next
month? Sure not...

Have you had any luck editing the BFconfig file?
I'm still testing...my favorite is to remove the padlock box altogether...
But here's two, the first works just fine...I'm testing the latter-

Works w/o a doubt-
set g_nPadlockBoxSize 0
set g_bNoRPMOnHud 0
set g_fCursorSpeed 1.5
et g_bMFDHighContrast 0
set g_bEnableColorMfd 1
set g_fPOVSpeed 2.5



Still testing-
set g_nPadlockBoxSize 0
set g_bNoRPMOnHUD 0
set g_bUse3dSound 1
set g_bMFDHighContrast 0
set g_bSmartCombatAP 1
set g_bHelosReloc 1
set g_bLightsKC135 1
set g_bLoadoutSquadStoreResupply 1
set g_bPowerGrid 1
set g_bAWACSBackground 0
set g_bRadarJamChevrons 1
set g_fCursorSpeed 2.000000
set g_fRadarScale 0.800000
set g_fPadlockBreakDistance 10.000000
set g_fMfdTransparency 0
set g_bDisableCrashEjectCourtMartials 1

Ya know-
I wonder what's the deal with the clouding in AF...
We have a 3rd party HiTiles addon...and I see posting putting down AF cloud formations.
So, why hasn't someone assembled a cloud addon?

Hello.
I took some loose screenshots yesterday.


I was kind of bored. So I launched the Takeoff training mission and hijacked it a bit.
Ground Control this is UFO16... low orbit achieved and stabilizing...


Ever been on the Concorde? That trap would cruise at angels 60, altitude at which -if you looked
out of the tiny window- you'd begin to perceive THE curvature. But AF is not realistic.
At angels 70 I am, and no curvature is to be seen. I'm gonna file an official complaint and sue
LP for a refund


Anyway there's no point to climb up there. It's even unhealthy as there can be spikes of abnormal
radiation levels piercing in from outer space, or also bouncing on you from radio sources on the
other side of the world. Surely the F16 is not shielded appropriately for the pilot to afford a
prolonged stay without an antiradiation suit. Then again, there's jets better suited for that
kind of performance.



The next pics are from today. Two hours ago or so. It was all going well when I got a wee bit too
much comfortable. And that was my downfall. A Mig21 appeared outta nowhere at 3 o'clock, high
and close. I'd swear there was nothing around me for miles in all directions only a minute earlier.
Maybe I'm wrong. I felt his scanner on me, then he fired a missile. I maneuvered quick, but my
situation was too compromised already. I was leveling after a climb, with an AOA of ~10°, below
300 kts and with the 370 Gal tanks appended... definitely in "Kick My Ass" mode.
There was no evading the missiles. Two of 'em homed in, leaving me no time to eject, blast it.
That's what you get for flying too relaxed. Be on your guard, and always climb overspeed!

These pics I got are from before the disaster.
Here I was, killing time, watching this guy as he was about to land at my airfield.


See the airbrakes? He kept opening and closing them. Almost felt like he was waving at me.


Funny, he has no rails under the left wing. I don't recall seeing more of these oddities. And
I've flown quite a bit with this sim. In fact I recall seeing always empty rails in cases such
as this. I wonder what happened. Probably a glitch.


Here he's on final and gliding for runway 30, when I notice that nice haze in the distance.


Minutes later the above pic, here we are, Me and Two, going on about our business (the Sweep
that ended badly for me). Three and Four are further back, way off-screen. I wasn't looking for
any shot to take at this moment, I just activated the Orbit Camera. But then, Carpe Diem!, and
here is this extremely nice screenshot. I'm going to make it my new wallpaper.




The same person who made the HiTilesAF addon was working on a WeatherAF app to let us modify the
weather informations stored into Campaign savegames, TE and Training missions. The program was
never finished (as far as I know), and the last beta of it that I've seen has bugs (it sets the
wrong wind direction, and it ends up writing 0 Kts for the wind speed - meaning: no wind).
I understand he was waiting for LP to decide if they wanted to support such an app. No idea what
response he was given, if he ever received one.

Honestly there's a lot to complain about the clouds in AF.
With the exception of the Cumulus type (those in my pics), all the cloud formations available
in AF are the same from the original F4. They're just ugly. Too ugly.
Not only we'd need better textures, but also someone that knows where to go mod the cloud models
being used in AF. And then there's the problem that modding AF is officially forbidden. You do
that and you break the eula. Then they might 'bite'.

And finally, AF has a problem with its clouds. The weather is dynamic, yes, but the clouds do not
get regenerated. Once the wind pushes them 'out of the world', no new clouds are 'pushed in' from
the opposing end. If you fly the sim long enough, even in Campaign mode, you will see all clouds
disappear for good. To get the clouds back you have to periodically alter the weather section
inside the campaign savegame (I do ). If you don't, at some point you are going to fly with the sky
perpetually clear.

The 'g_bEnableWindsAloft' BFops.cfg setting might help in this regard. I'm still testing with it,
though, and have no conclusion yet to support either "it helps / it doesn't help" claim.



Here's my BFops.cfg:

• set g_bCATIIIDefault 1
• set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1
• set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 1
• set g_bIDMDatalink 1
• set g_bUse3dSound 1
• set g_bUseMouse3forSOI 1
• set g_fCursorSpeed 1.8
• set g_fRadarScale 0.8
• set g_nMaxSimTimeAcceleration 16

I'm happy with it. But I change this or that from time to time.
Currently I don't know what the 'g_bIDMDatalink' is for. If it's making any difference, I'm not
seeing it. But I see that BFopslog.txt doesn't even acknowledge it. Then it's probably ignored.

As for 'g_fCursorSpeed' I'm still searching for my optimal value. The current value of 1.8 is a
wee bit too fast. I'll try with it some more, then raise it to 1.85 and see if I get a better
feel.

I don't use the 3D cockpit, padlocking and panning around aren't for me. If this was BMS I'd
definitely do. Why spit on a feature that has such good support? Nonsense. But in AF I find
myself more comfortable with the 2D cockpit. I just love it) I even dogfight in it .

The 'g_nMaxSimTimeAcceleration' is one I recommend. Time acceleration past 16x can mess the
Campaign simulation. It can go nuts, with Happenings not happening, and Nonsenses happening outta
the blue. In the cockpit instead there's no safe max Time accel. for everyone. It varies with the
FPS you're having.



File [atc.ini] - This might interest you:

Have a look into the subfolders under the \Campaign folder. In each you can find an 'atc.ini' file.
Each campaign has got its own copy (\Balkans, \Balkans2005, \Balkans2010, etc...)
If you open them files, you find a 'PlayerBumpTime = 10' setting at the beginning. The comment
tells you what it's for.
Many times I've found myself in heavy land-traffic situations with the ATC unable to solve the mess
within the 10 minutes limits past which *my* mission would be canceled. Those 10 minutes start
counting from your scheduled TakeOff time. Over multiple edits I raised the 'PlayerBumpTime' to 30
minutes. Haven't had another mission canceled ever since, even if the airfield is a mess of people
taxing to park and people taxing to takeoff.


I'll go have a coffee. Bye.

Well, I've found the following ( at least on my end)..

3d sound is great in the pit, but kills exhaust outside the pit...
High Contrast MFDs off seemed to be ignored...oh well-
SmartCombatAP...I guess..he fires missles or guns at his own choosing-
AWACSBackground is a nogo at least in Instant Action-

Working Thus Far:..
set g_nPadlockBoxSize 0
set g_bNoRPMOnHud 0
set g_fCursorSpeed 1.5
set g_fPOVSpeed 2.5
set g_fMfdTransparency 0
set g_bRadarJamChevrons 1

I'll Falcon more, but the damned morning has caught up w/me and I have a farm to run.
Ah Hell, whom I kiddin'...the critters can wait a damned while!!
Back in the pm, I'm sure. Turnin' into a damned night owl.
Coffee's gurglin'

I had a weird experience just awhile ago-
I went for padlock on the MiG from Hell...
when the screen came up....it was the SA screen-
Remember, on the left is your gauges and a polygon box noting your plane's position to the horizon and so forth?

I don't recall using any combo keys, but I might have by accident. And I can't recall how to get back to the full screen padlock w/o dragging the book down or at least the keyboard chart. Its kinda cool, but kinda not cool as in alittle too retro.
Man, I've got to RTFM for Allied. I've looked at the PDF manual to get a handle on the AWACS screen, and that's really about all.
I'm just more of a dude that would rather curl up w/the manual in bed...then fall asleep with the book on my chest.

PS- I remember reading somewhere about the nVidia gui code to put in the BFops.cfg file....oh here it is-
// Forces the Falcon User Interface to be rendered without hardware acceleration
// Cures UI stickyness on certain hardware (always turned on for 3DFX hardware)
// (0 - disabled, 1 - enabled, default 0)
set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 1

To toggle the Situational Awareness side bar in 3D cockpit mode: Shift-3


The 'set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 1' setting is mainly used (today) by nVidia users to avoid graphics
corruption in the 'Tactical Reference' and 'Loadout' screens in case you have FullSceneAntiAliasing
(FSAA) forced On via nVidia Control Panel.
Essentially 'set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 1' instructs the sim to render every Graphical User Interface
(GUI) screen in software mode (all drawings done by the CPU, completely ignoring your gfx card's
capabilities).
Btw, are you using that switch? From your screens I see that you don't use of FSAA. In that case
you are better off with 'set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 0' (or just delete it from BFops.cfg).


As for 3D sound...
I found that, on my system, the 'set g_bUse3dSound 1' switch has a tendency to mess up the sound
volumes after a while. It takes minutes, but it happens eventually. When I switch to an external
view my sounds are muffled as if I'm still in the pit. But as I touch the sim master volume (Alb-b
for up and Alt-n for down), the sounds get adjusted to the proper volume immediately.
But when I switch back to the pit I have the sounds at a higher volume than they should, as if I'm
still outside. Again, by touching the sim master volume the sounds get adjusted to the proper
volume. This is annoying. I tried to use the 'set g_bOldSoundAlg 1' switch, which is said to make
the sim employ an older (and supposedly more reliable) sound system. Fail. The sound volumes get
messed up all the same.
I know for a fact that my audio system is fine. It's probably AF. Comes to think of it, there has
to be a reason is these tasty switches are off by default.


I have also evidence that the 'set g_bCATIIIDefault 1' switch is not having effect.
On a Sweep mission the default loadout was AA ordnance with no external tanks. I just Commit that,
but once in the pit I read 'Cat I'.


I think to remember that you can get the AWACS background by joining any squadron of AWACS.
Joining back any F16 squadron will revert to the default background. Campaign mode, only.



[edit]
Your screens are visibly stretched horizontally.
Are you using an LCD monitor?
If yes, what native screen resolution is your LCD? - Maybe 1360x768 (85:48) ?
Also what screen resolution have you chosen in the Graphics Setup of AF?

From time to time AF entertains you with a silly debriefing.



Seriously, to flag a 15 to 1 loss ratio as a "partial failure", and talking of "moderate casualties"...
These debrief guys don't know what they talk about. They weren't in there, for starters.
There was some kind of welcoming party at the door. We couldn't engage them all.

And thank goodness the briefing said that no enemy air response was anticipated! See if I ever
believe their biological waste again. We were mighty unprepared for that hot action. The 120B's
were quick to deplete. Then it was bullet time with the 9M's. Adrenaline was pumping.
Mig21's, Mig29A's, G-4's, J-22's -> you name them, we've shot them. At steerpoint 3 we were all
winchester and spitting out of the canopy for any possible advantage. I'm sure I got something.
Too much traffic for it to have watered the ground.
Once the situation settled there were 3 more stpt to go. With Chalis picturing bogeys all around
I had to call for relief - and we just headed home. But flaks got Ritter on rejoin .
Darn, I forgot to ask the boy if he's affiliated with the homonymous chocolate brand...

Note to self: never again go on Sweep with only 2 slammers each. It's a call for trouble.

My monitor is my 42" Toshiba. It wasn't planned that way, but I use my TV as my computer's monitor.
Turns out to be a joy by sheer accident. When I was putting this system together, I had a 21" and it snapped, crackled on popped after 10 years of service.
I'm experimenting with juggling between screen ratios, Comet. Too many damned options and combo of options for this ol'man to keep track of.
Between 15 alternative switches w/the monitor...30 combinations w/the video card...and the numberous options within FalconAF...you see my dilemma.

So I set the Toshiba's view to 'Full stretch' othewise, I'd have the black bars on the sides while in the 2d-pit.
3d-pit is wide by default however. Now we know AF didn't ship w/widescreen pits.
I'm going over to Cockpits NL now lookin' around.

As for now, I'm having fun cleaning up the Balkans 2d cockpit and creating newer interface pix....and I swap/edit the sounds & scores.
Coffee's callin'. Had a hard night. I'll edit this post shortly.
Good Morn' to all-
Ed
If you're using 3rd party pits, tell me more.
Blue Skies-

I see.
Sorry for meddling, then . I thought you had some sort of mis-setup - and maybe I could help.
But there's little to do in your case. It's either wide pit, or black bars, or stretch.




No 3rd party pits for me.

I did try the stopwork pits for AF (those I got are 4:3 - don't know if wide versions were made).
I remember I wanted them so badly. Sure they looked cute, but they don't work at 1024x768! Must
be at least 1280x860 or something - I don' recall the exact figure. Their native res. is 1600x1200.
All nice and dandy... if it wasn't for a detail: any res. greater than 1024x768 makes the MFD
and HUD fonts unreadable for me. The B, G, E, 6, 8 and 0 all look the same, which makes dogfights
next to impossible, and all other situations in which you've got to think fast become Freeze-bound.
It's no fun.

"Be happy with what you have" -I learned. And you know what? It's a true blessing.

So I stick to Aeyes' AF stock pits. At 1024x768 the font has fantastic readability. And with the
addition of FSAA 8xQ I totally remove the aliasing (as my screens demonstrate). It's pointless
for me to go any higher than 1024x768.



[edit]
I've added the thumbnails to the pictures in my previous posts. They look so cute!

Your FSAA is sweet. Anyone who says Falcon Allied Graphics are dated....pfffzz-
When I force AA, my interface can't be seen...except for 16xQ CSAA...whatever that is-
If I ask the card to 'Enchance'....then it doesn't seem to remove the stair-stepping.

This card was cheap new. It at least let me see what FF5 and BMS were about.
But the onboard graphics did some fair justice to Allied and Falcon4.08-
But F4.08 doesn't like this card either, unless I rollback the drivers.

Thought I'd try another go at the Balkans Campaign. I found an Su-32 that wasn't skinned.
SA-6..(2)SA-10s fired at me from all directions. I couldn't shake'em. I should've stocked a pair of harms, dammit.
I'll upload snaps later.

Yeah, there's some funny driver support (rather say: un-support) for Falcon. Only the more recent
nVidia driver versions (> 266.xx) seem to have brought back some support, and even so it's
exclusively for Allied Force (I heard of falconeers renaming the .exe of their favorite falcon
breed into falconaf.exe, so to fool the driver and benefit from the support given to AF).

Unless you have such newer drivers (I don't), then you're supposed to 'Override' the antialias
settings (as opposed to 'Enhance'), and make use of 'set g_bForceSoftwareGUI 1' inside BFops.cfg.
That should cure all interface problems while granting you FSAA in flight. At least it does for me.

But if you 'Enhance' the FSAA you aren't going to see any difference (per the aforementioned lack
of driver support).

When choosing the FSAA level to activate, keep in mind that we have 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x. That much
everyone knows. What most don't know is that the Q versions (Q = Quincunx, should be a proprietor
technology developed by nVidia, IIRC) are equivalent to the next level of FSAA but with a reduced
performance cost.
So, a 8xQ FSAA is as fast as a proper 8x, but with practically-the-same-quality of a 16x.
The 16xQ is overkill instead. It'd be equivalent to a 32x FSAA. But you have no reason to use it
unless you play an old 3D game that only knows small screen res. such as 640x480 (max 800x600).



Oww, yes if they catch you high in the air there's little hope of fooling them.
Gotta speed-dive vertically, then NOE cockroach-style. That works. But that's where the infantry
usually kicks in, hehehehe. Lost count of how many times I've been downed that way.

Get Outta Here? Are You Serious.
Holy Hell...where'd ya hear stuff like that?
Is there a Falcon Allied Only club drifting around somewhere?

Ok..here's my options via nVidia's panel list-
Here are my AntiAliasing choices for this card-
2x
4x
8x CSAA
8x
16x CSAA
16xQ CSAA
AntiAliasing-Mode
Off
App Controlled (Default)
Enchance the app
Override the app

Anistropic Filtering-
Off
App Controlled (Default)
2x
4x
8x
16x

AA Gamma Correction
On/Off (Off by Default)

AA Transparency
Off (Off by Default)
Multisample
2x Supersample
4x Supersample
8x Supesample

CUDA-GPUs
All (w/option to uncheck the 8400's gpu)

Extension Limit-
Off/On (Off by Default)

Maximum pre-rendered frames
0-8 (3 being default)

Multi-display/mixed GPU acceleration-
Multiple display performance mode
Single display performance mode
Compatability display performance mode

Texture Filtering-Anisotropic Sample Optimization-
Off/On (Off by Default)

Texture Filtering-Negative LOD bias-
Allow (Default)
Clamp

Texture Filtering-Quality-
Quality (Default)
High Quality
Performance
High Performance

Texture Filtering-Trilinear Optimization-
Auto (Default)
Off/On

Triple Buffering-
Off/On (Default Off)

Vertical sync
Use the 3d app setting
Force Off
Force On

I have a layman's grip on the above at best.
I didn't study Computer Science at MS State, Cal-Tech or MIT...
Ain't plannin' on it either.

And here's a goodie-
I've tested the various driver updates...which will load up the PhysiX stuff
I've read where sometimes, the PhysiX doesn't do all that much.
Can't confirm EXCEPT-

I decided a few days ago to remove the video drivers and just load what was

absolutely necessary for windows.
Only about 30 megs...vs the 120 megs for standard express install-
Allied looked really nice with an AA view that put me in mind of maybe say

4x....w/FPS highs of 76 and 30s for lots of explosions...( I use the older explosions found in the old Falcon4)

This minimum device loading didn't give me a control panel to adjust any settings, mind you...

So, as you can see, I'm a dog chasing is tail.
So Basically, from viewing Allied w/this monitor..I see absolutely no polish using 'Enhance the app setting' whatsoever.
What I do witness is as long as objects move....they are smoothed out. But just to look at a plane flying straight and level...you get the stair-step. Move the flight stick and the steps go away. Same for AI...using 9 or 10 key to view, and you get steps.
Use the Shift 9 or Shift ~ keys...the steps go away. Take a pic....you get steps.

I have to use the 'Overide' to see improvements. Using overide, I'll get the silky-smoothe appearance, and my fps are cut in half...using the 16xQ CSAA....lower overide settings of AA kill my interface.

This is what I don't understand...I've never witnessed such mass confusion, and I'm not totally ignorant on computers, but I just became a big dumbass w/this nVidia card.
I'm beginning to suspect that this intel board doesn't like to play along either. I've heard in the past that the intel boards were the most stable, but they were NOT a gaming board. I understood this when I took delivery so I can't complain. It it what it is.

OT- does anyone know how to edit something in AF so I can change the default Instant Action clock from 12 noon to another time.
I prefer 5:30 am-

Later, Boss-
Ed
Roll Tide

Here's my first 'LeaveScreen' I cooked up yesterday.
Try it out...backup your oem, naturally.
Place it in....C:\Program Files\Lead Pursuit\Battlefield Operations\art\ckptart\Res_1024\Common
You'll see your 'leavescreen and loadsplash pix...that's the folder.
Just copy your oem over to the side...be sure its renamed.

or wherever you have your AF installed-


More to follow as I see better scenes to capture-

The whole italian AMVI is an example. Or maybe it was. I don't know anymore what they're up to.
Pretty big a group, they used to fly with Allied Force. When they discovered FreeFalcon, many of
them switched to it. But they would have problems with the FSAA working/not_working.
Then on the nVidia forums appeared a thread pointing out the problems of Falcon with all nVidia
cards (namely, the FSAA problems). The thread quickly became humungus. Then I don't know what
happened exactly, nor when. nVidia seemed to forever ignore the complaints, but then -bang- one
day I hear that their new drivers do re-introduce some support specific for Allied Force.
Support that was previously and implicitly there, as it implicitly is for all games, but that got
silently removed (at some point) because Falcon was labeled too old a game.

Anyway, it wasn't long before there was this advice spreading among falconeers: update to latest
nVidia drivers, then change the .exe name into falconaf.exe.

Someone else hopefully reads this and can recount you the story with the details I'm missing.

But for a quick link to support my claim, read here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win7-winvista-260.89-whql-driver.html
The page takes a while to open. Be patient. When ready, scroll down to the "Other Improvements"
section, and search for the text "Falcon 4.0: Allied Force". See what it says

Man, do NOT download and do NOT try to install those drivers.
The page in the link points to nVidia drivers probably NOT for your system/card combo. I just gave
you a link so you could read about the FalconAF thing. If you want to try recent drivers suitable
for you, you'll have to find those that specifically support your Windows/Gfx Card combo. K?



Here you lost me.
Are you saying that if you use Override + 16xQ FSAA, you suffer a FPS chop, yes, but you *can* play?
Instead if you Override + <other_FSAA_less_than_16xQ>, you do *not* see your interface?
Please confirm.
What parts of the interface, exactly, do you not see?

But anyway, it sounds like you are having some weird problem that you should not.
Maybe installing some beefer nVidia drivers will fix this problem? But I'm no techy either,
so don't take my word for it.
My advice is that **if** you are going to upgrade the drivers, you might as well try the latest
ones (as far as compatibility with your system/card goes).

That's a rog, Comet. The entire interface would be gone, save the jet cursor. If I Alt-Tab back to the desktop and change things in the nVidia control panel...then flip back to Allied....the interface would be restored.
This is why I get so confused...I've never had so many options/switches I've had to encounter before in using any computer.
And I go back to the days of Win 3.1 when we had to configure ports/drivers/IO/ and so forth. Way before PlugNPlay and Plug n PRAY-
And these figures sometimes will change, depending on which drivers are loaded.

I loaded up B61 to test the frames....everything was laid waste for 20 miles....didn't blow me up at 28000 ft. FPS fell to 7 as I stared through the HUD. Viewing the ground FPS would hit 4. Then chugg along up to 11, then 16, then 33, then 27.
I decided to land at my base which was completely erased from the landscape, save all the trees burning...and I have the fog turned on up to 800 ft. So landing in the fog, with the burning trees as a good landmark...I touched down and pulled up alongside the forest fire.
FPS was about 23 thru the HUD.
Then BOOM....I guess the fuel fumes didn't get along w/the bonfire and I was toasted still strapped in my seat.

So, knowing that everyone posting about the 'Big One' thats featured in Allied Force and the huge drop in FPS they report, I didn't see any reason to complain. I can still keep things around 71-76 fps during the calm flying at say....angels 14...naturally fps will go up as you climb higher.
Drop as you fly lower. That's expected.
Flying NOE, I'll get anywhere from 60-45 depending on whether or not a metropolis is in view.
Trees/Clouds/Shadows/Reflections have no impact.
I really think its this card, man.

What's your take on using the PhysiX part of nVidia?

HolySpit...you see how damned many driver updates nVidia has released in the last 6 months just for my card-
at least 6...and this is for a low end card????

http://www.f-16.net/gallery.html

Note the HUD framing in this photo...then think about the MLU variant in Allied.
Hmmm..

Well, I'd be confused too in your shoes. Definitely you're having a problem that we don't. And
that you shouldn't have neither. I don't know what to think of it, save that it could be the
card itself for real.

There's Gaming cards, and there's Desktop cards.

Desktop cards are not built for performance, and in general do not support a whole host of
capabilities that their gaming counterparts do. Often a desktop card of generation X is plain
inferior to any gaming card of the previous generation (X -1).

If your card is a desktop one, it'd explain a lot of things.
What's the exact model of it?



I got a few games that say they'll take advantage of PhysX.
Know what? I'm not sure they do. Whether I enable/disable PhysX from the nVidia control panel I
don't see a difference in game. The FPS are pretty much the same. Or maybe they do use it, but if
it's missing they revert to CPU routines to emulate hardware PhysX support. I don't know.

But I know that lots of games make use of the 'Havoc' library to implement physics in the game.
Havoc is software. PhysX is hardware. Havoc is cross platform. PhysX is nVidia only.

From *my* point of view, PhysX is a technology with no future. Why invest on it when it only works
on 'half' the cards out there? Then you (game developer) have to resort on something like Havoc to
make your game work on the remaining half? Might as well invest *solely* in Havoc and be sure that
your game works the same on all machines, regardless of the card they mount.

I repeat: that's *my* point of view. Nobody reading this start a holy war because I dared speak
against something nVidia. I couldn't care less. K?

^^ Sorry for that . Disclaimers are a necessity when you touch certain arguments.



Drivers no longer support only 1 card . Those days are gone, by a long time. Now they support
entire series at once, and of course your card is going to be mentioned in many different releases.
Make sure you consider only the 'WHQL' (Windows Hardware Quality Lab) drivers. Avoid any and all
the 'Beta' releases, as they lead to trouble more often than not.

And before you download and install a specific driver version that you think is safe, make sure
to search the internet for anybody having anything to say against that XXX.yy driver version you
are thinking to install.
Also, making a combined search for your favorite game name(s) and the driver version you want to
install is a good move. When you don't find anything specific it's a good thing

No, I'm serious. If you don't find too many people complaining for too many different reasons, then
they are good drivers (people will always complain. Gotta distinguish between the Forrest Gumps
that don't know which end of the keyboard is which, and between those that have an actual reason
to complain).
Else do yourself a favor and pick another version, even if older. When speaking of nVidia drivers,
'older' is not always 'badder'. Remember this.

ROTFLMAO


We speak the same language-
Older sometimes is way way better.
The computer industry has become a very sneaky industry, indeed.
Everything wants to 'phone home'

Sorry (afraid of repeat myself)...my card is an Asus GeForce 8400 GS Silent (IE-huge heat sink...no fan.)
No worres about cooling, though. 3 fans inside the chassie and if that don't help, I'll stick the damned thing in the frig.

Thought I'd try OpenFalcon 4point whatever and see what it would do.
CTD.
At least I got to copy the pit files and examine the sounds if I like any of them I'll replace them and//or edit them.

I wish I could just drag the tiles into Allied.
Hmmm..

PS- have you flown enough of the campaigns to see if the B61 became available?
PSS- I'll spit on any hardware mfg whenever the need arises.
I'll also spit on my abilities and capabilities as the need arises.
I've invented a whole dictionary on the art of swearing.

The 8400 GS is a desktop card. Low-end for playing games.
Its main weakness is the reduced memory interface width, chopped at 64-bit.
Not only this makes its memory banks work at a slower speed than other cards do, but it affects
the technologies allowed to the card by the driver. The slower a card is, the less feasible the
use of some advanced technologies. Because they'd just not fit on slow hardware.
So they inhibit them techs entirely when you're lucky, or they do worse and substitute them with
surrogates that only seem to make the job right. But when you ask for that little more, you run
into rendering defects or outright anomalies.

I would consider to upgrade. You can find cheap and robust gaming cards today.
But don't do this by yourself. Find someone who can 'follow' you. The cards themselves today have
hardware requirements:

• Max Watts consumption, which your PSU must be able to exceed comfortably, not just 'sustain',
  or you damage the PSU - then the sudden reboots/BSODs while aplay begin and you wonder wtf?.
  That's sign of a PSU failing.
• Type of PSU connectors required, to empower the card. You'd be surprised at how many people
  cry that their PSU only has got one 8-pins connector while their card wants two (only an example).
• Physical space (Width x Height x Length), taken by the card inside your case. Just will it fit?
  Nothing more hilarious than having the perfect PSU for your flashy new card and then you can't stuff
  the thing into the case. When there is a problem, 99 times out of 100 it's of insufficient Length only.
  Nevertheless, people have gone postal over it.

Upgrading the card can be tricky. Need to know what you're doing. The above list is okay for the due
hardware checks. As for which GPU's are good and which are not, you can ask that on almost any
forum where gamers gather. Nothing better than talking with people that have direct experience
with a card. Reading a web articles that reviewed the exact model you eyed is also recommended.



My first CTD with OF 4.7 happened at 9 minutes into the ramp start.
And this was after a long hour of installation / deflating / rebuilding / younameit.
I've got to be honest: it was the only CTD I had with OF - I have uninfested it after the first.



By my own experience, I have never seen a B61 in the standard campaigns. But I haven't flown them
all yet. I think some custom campaigns may have the B61. The Skunkworks mod, maybe?


Wait. At this [link] there's the official answer to your question:

Looks like the war simulator can't handle the consequences, at a strategic level, that the
deployment of a single B61 would bring. But it's okay, we forgive it.

Comet, You've taken a big load off of my mind.
Today was a super-suck day, and I was almost at the point of exhaustion trying to explore this card.
I finally reached a livable framerate with a buttload of experimenting using Instant Action and TE w/the B61.
If I bump the details down one notch on the sliders, then use some 32-bit instead of Ultra...
Discovered that the bios had a video aperture setting of 256 Mb...choices were 128/256.
I lowered it down to 128.
Installing 'this month's driver set allowed me to force more AA options to the program w/o loss of interface..so far so good.
So basically, with it looking pretty respectable now, dogfighting in the clouds, FPS will average about 50.
Low level ground work will run from 30-50 depending on the details of the metropolis.
Trees/Shadows/Reflection look really good.
Clear skies can go up to 76...
Rotating outside view using 2&4 keys will complete in roughly 3 seconds.
AI aircraft now look smooth, as well as their exhaust.
B61 will result in a 8-33 fps as the dust settles =)

But the HUD is still stair-stepped like hell. Sometimes, the 3d HUD looks cleaner.
I can't understand it. But like you said, this is a desktop card. I should've known that you get what ya pay for.

And a Large A$$ thanks for walking me through this turmoil.
The card was 35 bucks US shipped. So it got me started.
I see that my board's PCI-E slot will only allow/deliver 75 watts to the video card.
That's all I know at this point about this new/overstock board.. I got a new power supply (500watt) and I had to do some sheetmetal work to make it fit. Then recheck for proper air flow to the ps, and a drill came in handy. Pulled the faceplate off of the cabinet and made an inch of room forward so that the dvd drive wouldn't be so close to the ps air intake grill.
It's been a crash course in patience. But I'm a gunsmith, by trade/hobby so it wasn't the end of the world.
But Guns and Electronics are two different spheres.
So buying another card will be like pulling the enamel off of my teeth w/all the computer language jargon out there today.
I speak fluent target rifles, Falcon4 and animals but D915GAG Daddy will ring someone's neck.
I'll need help finding a suitable card. One that doesn't break my little bank.
Anywhoo-
Seriously, Thanks Comet.
We'll converse on Falcon as the years go by.
All The Best-
Ed in 'Bama USA

Glad that all my typing served a purpose
Nah, seriously, I just shared bits of knowledge. Some of it was hard-learned from my personal
experiences. They weren't nice and I hope you dodge 'em altogether.

Do not see the 35 bucks spent on your 8400 GS as a bad investment. Quite the contrary.
They made you understand important things before you had a chance to make any *real* mistake.

Forgive the double-post, gents.
It's just to keep different subjects separate.



This is from yesterday night. 5th day of operation Balance of Power, Balkans theatre.
With the Frag Order of my favorite squadron (315th) seemingly empty, I peeked at the ATO to find
some interesting action. The 77th at Falconara had an Interdiction coming up. Short distance to
travel. Target zone reasonably 'cold'. Mission priority only an 'E'. Sounded relaxing - I took it.

I was ramping up, waiting for the gyroscopes to align. As usual when I got nothing better to do,
I began looking around for anything to catch my interest.

The next series of screenshots will document the last 2 minutes, 10 seconds, and 12 hundredths of
second of flight... of the sorry dude depicted here:



That's not something you see everyday. Too bad he didn't make it v_v
Wish I could screenshot a chute. But there wasn't any.
In the first instants I got him on camera he still had the gear up, the brakes closed, and enough
speed and altitude to make it. If only he jettisoned the winders and made a gentle turn to align...
Instead he hit the brakes and deployed the gear, of all the stupid ideas! >_<"
He doomed himself and the town below. Tragic. I began capturing the screenshots as it became clear
he wasn't going to change his mind.

May he RIP.

Somewhere in an earlier post I said that F4:AF's weather is dynamic (it is), but its clouds have a
tendency to disappear for good, never to return - pushed 'out of the world' by the winds, with no
fresh new clouds pushed 'in' from the opposite side.

I also said that I was experimenting with the 'set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1' BFops.cfg switch to see
if it made any difference.

I still don't have solid conclusions about it, but I'd cautiously say that 'set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1'
may have a positive effect on the weather:


This was taken late into day 5 of the campaign. Usually at this point into a campaign, you have the
sky totally clear theatre-wide by like three and a half days already. Not only I'm having clouds, but
I'm having 3 different types at once.
In fact, excluding the topmost (angels 40) stratum of clouds -which is always present- we have the
puffy cumulus clouds (on the left, they extend from 10000 to 22000 ft), then some flat clouds ('overcast' ?)
that look like snow (it's no snow, it's clouds @ 11000 ft), and finally we have that weird lone strip
high and far. Can't say how far it is, but the height appeared to be above 30000 ft.

I'm not privy of AF's weather details, but if I were to make an educated guess I would infer that
'set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1' somehow makes it unlikely for the wind to 'push out' all the clouds
before the weather system manages to elaborate on new ones to insert into the theatre. And this would
be, 'cause the wind is not allowed (with the switch On) to blow into the same direction for too many
sim-hours.

Hehe, maybe now that I said it the sim will disprove me (Murphy's Laws always linger). Maybe this is
all a coincidence... that is lasting 5 sim-days.

Sh!# Comet, I'd bet that during Easter Sunday, You would've found all of the eggs tucked around the yard here & there.
How'd you stumble up on that line of code? Was that in a list from BMS or FF5 somewhere.
Anyway, cool as spit. I wonder what your FPS numbers reflect with the newer weather 'conditions'

Hang 'Em High, Boss.

I remember when I started my first campaign in Falcon4.08-
That spilled buttermilk cloud layer. I had mixed emotions about that design. But it was what it was.
Then to run into Allied Force, Fall in love all over again, knock the dust off of the brain cells, and get into the campaigns again...
And what did I see...
More buttermilk.

And I had barely finished to say that... ¬_¬"



That 'unlikely' is the problem. It's just an 'unlikely'.
The fact it's unlikely isn't enough to guarantee it'll last. I should have known.


No more clouds. This is 8 sim-hours after the last screenshot:
(am I disappointed...)



Here's where they have gone (I think).


My route later brought me closer to them. I believe to have recognized the same cumulus formations
observed around my home plate only 8 hours earlier. But here is at ~130 nm away from home plate.

This is enough to disprove me (gee, thanks so much...).
The 'set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1' switch certainly has some effect on the clouds (it's no coincidence
that they lasted 5 good days), but it isn't enough to prevent the theatre from turning almost cloudless
in less than half a day. At best it makes it harder to happen.

Looks like periodic clouds injections are still needed to keep the sky interesting. Less frequent injections
than without 'set g_bEnableWindsAloft 1', perhaps, but still needed.

I perfectly understand that the real sky is rarely as full of clouds as I'd like. If I look out of my window
right now there's no clouds. It's the same white-azure gradient filling the sky in all directions as far as
my eyes can see.
But the real life terrain is rich of features. With or without clouds a pilot has constant perception of
movement and speed. In AF the terrain is less feature-rich, and clouds are useful, even necessary, to
some extent, to provide the simmer multiple points of reference, so he retains perception of movement
and speed.



My hardware (which is far from exceptional for today's standards) appears to have enough excess power
to keep up with the workload, no matter whatever about clouds. Nevertheless, I'm trading a lot for all
the pretty clouds I showed in the past days. Do not think they come for free Nothing does.

But since I Vsync AF with my monitor refresh rate, I'm not seeing any performance difference both with
and without clouds. But I'm sure the difference would show up if I turned the Vsync off. It's normal.

The cumulus clouds appear to be the costly ones. Just like all clouds, they cast a shadow on the ground.
The CPU has to work in order to compute *where* the shadows will appear. But the cumuli clouds also
have a 'translucency', which has a cost for the GPU. Little cost, to be sure, but when you put like 400
translucent textures all together and overlapping with one another, then the GPU workload sums up to
something you can't ignore (more so when all nVidia control panel graphics settings are pumped up to
the maximum, as in my case). Still, AF handles the situation very well. I've seen more modern games
cough their soul outta the rear end when asked to perform a comparable feat (and without me messing with
the control panel settings).

Have you tried setting the "set g_bGlueCloudsToTerrain" option to "red_KrazyGlue" instead of just "Elmers_Craft_Glue"?

Well I'll be go to ------
another Einstein.
Where do ya'll get this stuff from?
Amazing

Albert was kidding. There's no 'g_bGlueCloudsToTerrain' switch... I think HA Ha ha ha ha ..

Shot taken in the morning of the 7th day of the campaign I keep forgetting the name of. I love this
time of the day. Beautiful colors everywhere, and they get better as the time advances to 08:00.

Look, the moon almost eclipses the sun:


Nice
Later on I noticed the two were even closer, but I didn't take a pic as I was busy slamming a Su-39.
The damn thing wanted 2x 120s to go down. Stubborn bogeys.


I've been playing with different nVidia drivers lately. What a hell...
Trying to find the most recent one that would support the Force MipMaps 3D setting, I came
across the 186.18 version, which lies to my face by saying that it supports the Force MipMaps
3D setting! Once in the sim, looking at the ground, it's shimmering galore. Haha.

Drivers past that version (186.18) officially drop support for the Force Mipmaps.
Looks like I'll have to stick with the older 181.22 until I find a way to force the mipmaps outside
of the display driver. With that driver version, which I used for like a lifetime, there's no such
thing as shimmering in FalconAF.


May you have a coffee, folks.



EDIT:

For those interested, at the link below can be found loads of old drivers no longer hosted on their
respective devs' websites. Bless the guy that had the idea. When a download category contains modified
files, it'll say (Modified). Otherwise assume that the files are unaltered copies of the originals.
Here's the link: http://downloads.guru3d.com/

Now have another coffee.

Hi.
I'm interested about that. Are those the BOM0001.GIF - BOM0022.GIF files located at \terrdata\misctex?
If so, those files are 256x256 sized in FalconAF and 64x64 in vanilla Falcon 4.0, IIRC. Do you need to resize the later for them to work in AF, or just copy them as they are?

Sorry for the OT, BTW.

Regards.

@Comet

Very interesting screenshot, but in RL apparent size of Moon and Sun seen from Earth is almost the same, in the screenshot the apparent size of the Moon looks like 2x of the Sun.

Or maybe you played the campaign set in thousands of years BC, when the Moon was closer to Earth

I can answer that.
I'm using 2048x2048 gif's at the moment. My guess is that AF will accept any-sized images so long
the files' name and format are respected.
Cheers.




Hehe. I recall there's a period of the year (in RL) in which the moon appears to be *much* bigger
than usual. Perhaps it was that period?
Good observation though.

The campaign is... *checking*... Balance of Power, in the Balkans (1998) theater. I'm replaying
the old campaigns, as I found them to be the most interesting. In the screenshot there's a group
of 4x F16 ramping up (you can spot their lights). I was in the second one from the right (or just
draw an imaginary X from corner to corner of the screen and the jet in the center is me - Hi mom! ).


OT:
Man you should see how pretty become those clouds when the clock is around 10 in the morning (there's
a few pics earlier in this thread -2/3 pages ago- if you want to take a look).
I just can't get enough of the candy. But it sometimes make low-alt bombing runs very challenging.
At times I have to flex, waiting for the wind to push the clouds away so I can get visual of the
target. Not very RL-like, admittedly. I ought to drop the clouds' density to reduce the chances that
one of them will sit right on target. But I'm still busy with testing different nVidia drivers.

So far the one that gives the absolute best visual quality for AF is the old 181.22. The screen is
just... perfekt. I imagine that those with too beefy a gfx card can't afford to run 181.22, lest
their hardware ain't even recognized. Thank goodnesss I don't have this problem, yet.

Thx mate.
Regards.

Falcon AF was a waste of money !!! period

I disagree and kindly point out that Falcon 4.0: Allied Force was THE product that brought a
much needed standardization in the jeopardy that had become the jungle of modifications to F4
over the years.
No more dance and no more what-do-I-need-to-download-in-order-to. You simply
installed it, patched to latest version, and you were good to go and play carefree whatever
mode you wished - Multiplayer and Campaign(!) not least of all.
The developers did focus more on getting the problems solved rather than giving you yet another
eye-candy that only served to steer your attention from the plethora of lurking bugs. Modern
games should have taught you something: they are all graphics and no polishment. Then you have
to wait for patches to no end and pray that in the meantime the publisher won't cease support,
leaving you with a buggy product forever.

Have a coffee

I agree with that, the only reason I entered the Falcon world was because of AF. It was: run the installer, click next, next, next, and play. Period. No mods, no patches (except the updates that were also next, next, next), no settings, no "why I just get a black screen?"... Just run and play, as it should be.

I want to show something.

I was testing cloud patterns vs. cloud distribution vs. performance. To get the cumuli clouds
I so much like I have the habit of altering the wheater of the campaign missions I fly in.
Perfornace wise the cumulus cloud is the heaviest type. It is heavy because of its translucency,
which has a cost for the GPU, and it is heavy because of the shadows cast on the ground, which
have a cost mostly for the CPU.
In the past I was used to activate inordinate amounts of cumuli clouds all over the theater.
It was pretty, for sure, but it made A-G missions a PITA. What with clouds likely obscuring my
targets? Flexing in wait for the wind to push the clouds away was rarely an option.
I kept refining my algorithm for clouds distribution, and have lately found a good one that
gives me satisfactory theater coverage without clustering the clouds in a predictable manner.
In no way it simulates real world clouds coverage, be clear, but for what the virtual pilot
gets to see during his flight the overall result looks plausible.

What's important is that the new clouds distribution allowed me to dramatically raise the terrain
quality without suffering a severe performance hit. I do this during Campaign. It's no TE with
limited action going on.

1) Using the following nVidia control panel overrides:

(Note: In short, everything but FSAA is maxed. Further raising the FSAA is a waste as
it won't improve the screen quality past what 8xQ already does. In my case, at least.)

2) Using the -g5 command line parameter:

(Note: Every new -g you ask for gives the Landscape and Object Detail sliders 6 more notches.
For example, at -g4 the sliders cap at: 1 + g(4) * 6 = 25)

3) Using the following Simulation and Graphics Setup:

(Note: Landscape Detail is set to 31. Object Detail is set to 14. With hindsight, raising Object
Detail was bad. Too high FPS loss for too little gain in far objects' visuals -buildings, mostly-.
Also notice the Disable Shadows in Simulation Setup. It ought to be Disable Clouds' Shadows, really.
With this On, in fact, sim objects still have their shadows. Only the clouds no longer shade
the ground below. The change in visual quality is negligible while the gain in FPS is huge.)

4) It is possible to obtain THIS hi-poly terrain along with lots of Cumuli. Notice how defined
the mountains' profile is. Also notice the reported FPS. Keep in mind that the overrides set in the
nVidia control panel were hitting the performance heavily. And yet...

(Note: Tiles are from the HiTilesAF addon. Active season is: Fall.
Sorry if the pics are somewhat dark. It was ~17:40 in the sim at the moment.)

It doesn't take a super computer to render this beauty, folks. Give it a try
P.S.= Just in case, the last 4 pics are taken from the standard Balkans theater, about 70 nm
East-South-East of the town Split. I hijacked a BARCAP to run tests.

Goodnight


[edited for grammar]

Hello.

Here's a batch of screenshots. First 12 (cloudless) were taken from the "Basic Handling" training
mission, the rest is campaign footage.

The subject was Landscape and Clouds.
To my regret I keep forgetting to make a low pass amidst the hills, to capture their profiles
from up close. Though they look pretty decent from high altitudes, they reveal a lot more details and
beauty as you get closer. Next time.

For now, enjoy this hi-poly stock -g5 Balkans terrain. Sim and graphics setups are explained in the
previous post, with the difference that this time around Object Detail was at the default value of 7.
Of course the gameplay is smooth. I couldn't bear to fly 1.5-hours-long missions otherwise


Training - Cowboy11 flying around.
Just sightseeing, though there's no clouds in this TE.





Campaign - Falcon1 wing on a morning BARCAP.
We had a brief encounter with two loner J22's. AWACS issued the engage order both times. But the 2nd
J22 was way outta my zone. To pursue him I'd have failed my mission for abandoning the station WP.
No thanks. Luckily a pair of F15's happened to pass that way shortly thereafter. Problem solved.




Campaign - Avenger1 wing on a routine Sweep.
So far the most boring Sweep in this campaign. Zero action. Not even the odd AN-24 to shoot at was around.
Clearly the enemy is having hardware shortage. There was a wee bit too much fog here. Normally I'd see farther.
In these pics it's barely noticeable, but not all clouds are having the same base height. They can range
from 1K to 10K ft MSL, thus developing all the way up from 16K to 25K ft MSL. It becomes most apparent
when there's a large cluster of clouds to fly in, though it's hard for them to form up.

I *told you* there was being too much fog.
In the next mission, Fury1 on BARCAP, things wouldn't get better. In fact...

They say "fog makes atmosphere", but this is all out spectral!
And it's Halloween, of all the sinister coincidences...


I beg your pardon? Where the f-?


On our way back things kept improving. Shooore!


You're kidding, right?!
<-- Inbound for landing.

Great. Two lost his way...
<-- Runway is 29. At this time I'm landed, parked and offline.
Knowing that this camera puts *me* at the center of screen, Two is being on the opposide
side of the airfield. Way to go!

And No, none of these pics were edited, aside the conversion to jpg.
I'll have to wait for this fog to lift before I can take close-up shots of the mountains.
Maybe next time.

Sometimes at work I just pretend I'm on the virtual flight line!

I posted this some time ago in the screenshot & video gallery thread but what the hell ... it fits better here I suppose.

How I loved Allied Force...

But without 'TnL' engine support all vertex transformations are done in software, on the CPU, not the GPU, and because of it you can't use the -g commandline switch to increase the polygons count of the terrain. Otherwise you bring the CPU on its knees because she's taxed alreay with logic updates, collisions, pathfinding, simulation of ballistics... having to handle millions vertices per frame at every frame in addition to that is simply too much.
Maybe when we'll have multicore 7 GHz cpus... but by that time DirectX 7 will be forgotten and buried.

I've had the good fortune to play this sim with smooth fps and sweet FSAA on a -g5 enhanced terrain. It's a beauty you don't soon forget Not even BMS comes close to it.