This is only a small point compared to the tremendous and very welcome new round of negotiations now ongoing between so many of the great experts of European Air War development.

I run EAW in D3D through DgVoodoo 2 on Windows 7, which allows me widescreen and horizon fog with an nVidia graphics card. I had been getting framerates maxed at 30, that I attributed to the limits of this setup, although it was still very solid, rarely going below mid twenties even with huge numbers of planes and very heavy flak and tracers. I recently purchased a new joystick, one which has no force feedback, as an alternative to my old MSFF2, and now find my fps at a very solid 60.

In my case, at least, there seems to be a direct effect of force feedback on the frame rate of the game, one which I had been wrongly attributing to DgVoodoo, a fine wrapper which eliminates for me most of the UI graphic anomalies in the game.

Did the force feedback work with the game?

eh, FF only drops fps on occasion of 1-2 fps if your system is older. Its tied into the sound system, and only does that when FF is in use.

So what ever was dragging you down , it wasn't FF.

But its awesome you have Win7 and Direct3D working with DgVoodoo2! I wish it was as easy to setup on Win10 as it is for Win7.

Firstly, in answer to Jack, force feedback works well in EAW with a MSFFB2 joystick.

In answer to Mark, I can only say that with the new non-FF stick, my fps has increased as described. Perhaps, it has something to do with the hardware rather than the software or there is another unknown linked variable.

Without FF in my new stick, I will deploy the very useful 'stall warning' sound, instead.

SkyHigh, knowing you I understand your enthusiasm. Your right it maybe some joystick software conflicting or malfunctioning, or a setting in DgVoodoo2 that may have changed.
Anyhow if you ever find a definite reason, please let me know.

Just so you do know; I use to get 60+ in Win7 with my MSFFB2 stick in direct3d (no wrapper).
I had the stick unplugged too at the beginning of using EAW again and the FPS didn't change like you had indicated.

EDIT:
I was wondering if you found that this FPS drop was intermittent or all the time, while your MS FF2 stick was plugged in?

I have been using Windows 10 for GameRanger games. In d3d the framerate was "iffy", but with nGlide installed I am getting 60 fps most of the time:)

I was referring to the special Direct3D support provided by dgVoodoo2. Its easy to setup with Win7, but Win8/10 you have to hunt down registry keys, and then its no guarantee it will work even then.

Constant at 30fps or lower, while in cockpit, but if I F9'd to other planes, it rose into the fifties, if I recall correctly. It can be a hard game to pin down!

Hmmm, constantly? There's no FF activated like that. So it could fall under a driver/device software issue. Or coincidence of something else taking place. Aw well.
Thanks for replying with the needed info.