I have encountered spins and compressability several times except with the Me109 and Me110. In real life, however both the Me109 and the Me110 had leading edge flaps which in real life made both aircraft nearly impossible to get into a spin. So don't at all agree with you on those points.

I have seen on very rare occasions what you mentioned about the pivot. I believe the AI confuses itself while in the horizonal with a verticle wing over or hammer head as it is sometimes called). I have seen that happen with the Stukas rarely and haven't seen it with any other aircraft. I also have seen the disappearing enemy on rare occasions.

Personally I wouldn't trade a single day of playing BoB for a life time of playing the graphically superior, but otherwise (IMHO)inferior game of CFS2, but there is no accounting for taste now is there.



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catso and Michael 2,

Thanks, mates, and sorry for not reporting back before now. I'll try all of your suggestions as soon as I get the time to do so, then let you know if it helps. Whether it does or not, I want to thank both of your for your replies

I realize that most of what I (and others) are asking must have been asked a million times before, but searches are really difficult to do right (99% irrelevant "hits", 1% relevant ones), which is why I (and others, probably) keep asking them. I was wondering if there was (like the case is for many other sims out there) a "fan site" with all of the FAQs and matching answers, or is it too early yet?

Thanks again

Misha

I do realize that it takes alot of resources to produce a computer game, especially sims. So I have nothing against developers using existing software to go forward. However, only in cases in which it works. IMO, F-18 does'nt work, and BoB does'nt either. I'd bet if one could go deep enough, you'll find old code and algorithims from Flying Corp in BoB, that are no longer required. You might say that I am a little dissappointed with F-18, and after the F patch, it is'nt even buggy. But, maybe I'm unreasonble or vain here, for everthing that F-18 is, if can't run smoothly my machine, a P 1000 w/GF Ultra, 512RAM, and several newsgroup posters machines with P4s of 1.3mhz & more, then there is something wrong. If BoB crashes upon mission exits 100% of the time on, and I'm being leinent here, 20% of the machines, then there is something wrong. Sure, maybe it's a driver thing, but not a driver problem. It's a BoB problem. You know, to sum it all up, I'm just real pissed that there has been no word from Rowan in regards to a patch, and the games been out for almost 3 months now. I really want to enjoy this game! Even if Rowan said, "alright, we're working on a patch, it may take 3 months, but after the patch, BoB will be rendered perfect," that would be cool with me. I would have no complaints. But this "nothing" and all the reviews ignoring the obvious flaws in BoB, is getting too much for me. Hey, any of you guys remember about 4 years ago, someone released one of the Star Wars games that was so bug ridden, that they sent free replacement disk to everyone who sent one in? It was soooo buggy in fact, because one of the Alpha or Beta disks, not the final master, got sent to the duplication company on accident. Well, I thought for sure that that was BoB. I am so dissappointed with the fact that, for building up on a beautiful sim, it turned out, IMO, so ugly.




[This message has been edited by Silverswift (edited March 11, 2001).]

OK, so I'm talking to myself, but a promise is a promise...

Tried the reflections, no change...
Already had Vsynch off and render to 1 frame ahead, no joy...
Disabling AGP fastwrite only gave me a hit in performance...
The 10.50 drivers gave me a hit of 300 3DMarks... In the wrong direction Back to 6.50 for me...
Last thing to check is whether running with FRAPS will change anything. It seems illogical to me that having another program running in the background that does nothing but eat mem and report framerates should change anything, but I'm pretty much willing to try anything, with the exception of installing DirectX 8.0

This last because of the inability to uninstall the junk if it doesn't work. My philosophy with regards to Microsoft "crashware" is that you don't upgrade unless you HAVE to. By the time upgrade is mandatory, there's at least a chance in Hell that it might have been debugged enough to actually run.

(Makes me wonder how on Earth they managed to come up with CFSII. Flawless, runs without tweak or upgrade and has a killer framerate to boot... Rowan, take a trip to Seattle at your earliest convenience. You might learn how to program... Pretty sad when you're so inept that you have to turn to Microsoft for assistance, don't you think?)

Misha



[This message has been edited by misha1967 (edited March 13, 2001).]

I guess I should add that I have directx 8a installed. It doesn't cause any problems in any programs on my system. I understand there are freeware utilities out there that will uninstall it, but I don't have any direct experience with doing that.

It's possible that the 1050 drivers might require directx 8 to get anything out of them. Believe me, those drivers made a huge difference for me. It was completely unplayable in 32 bit colour without them.

Interestingly, I find turning off force feedback kill's what little stutter I still have. Now I'm wondering if a USB stick might do the trick...

Turning sound acceleration down to "basic acceleration" seems to help as well and I can't notice any difference in the sound.

But I agree, we shouldn't have to be doing any of this.

[This message has been edited by Michael 2 (edited March 13, 2001).]

Hmm... Maybe I'm too paranoid about installing Microsloth software on my machine
It just seems to me I heard 'bout a lot of people having trouble after installing 8.0 and I know that I had a TRUCKLOAD back when 7.0 was new... And yes, I'm aware of the utils for unloading DirectX, only trouble is, if you eff upp the process (which, at least for the 7.0 uninstallers, was quite a complicated process) anywhere, your 'puter is really FUBAR'ed.

But you say you haven't had any trouble with the 8.0a drivers. Maybe DirectX has passed the "magic point" in the update process by now



Absolutely right on that one! However, it's good to know, when you have to anyways, that you're not alone and there are people like you out there ready and willing to help

Thanks

Misha

Silverswift- This is kind of off-topic, but what kind of frame rate do you want from a flight sim? I find F-18 pretty playable (with most details on medium) on my celly-600. Yes, it does chug at times(10fps) with a lot of planes in the air, but then so did Falcon4, and I'm generally too busy with avionics etc to notice.
Unless I sit and stare at the framrate counter, it really doesn't bother me. The depth of the simulation more than make up for the slowness.

Are we talking about the same game????
ok fine there are a few bugs true you have to download the latest driver to enjoy the fullness of the graphics but after that wht a blast !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have PIII 800Mhz Nvidia TNT2 256 Ram and i run that game in 1052*768 in 16colors and no problems at all FULL DETAILS...FULL Everything...Reflection on and the graphic is gorgeous and no stutter...
so guess what? download the latest drivers search the internet a little and stop whining...
All games now need to be patch so what? Most of gamers know that and the game are release too soon because they want to meet their budget ...and guess why the budget is tighten each year ?? because of piracy....so the budget is narrower....and the game is not completely tested on all machines...and of course need to be patch...they release plenty of patch fast enough...its a matter of moving your butt to find the right one or sometime wait a little...but in the end the games are still getting better and better and the machines you are playing with are faster and more powerful also...so you still winning so stop whining and enjoy this gorgeous game ...

I think you're pretty fortunate mate. I'm probably repeating what other people have said. Anyway, it's really not on that this game still stutters on a machine like mine: 1Ghz Athlon, GeForce 2 GTS, 256MB RAM. Frame rates are OK but the thing still stutters. Other than installing these 1050 (which I really don't fancy doing) drivers I've tried absolutely everything.

It seems that the problem is with the coding of BoB and not so much the hardware it's running on. It certainly doesn't seem to have been user tested on machines with GeForce 2 cards.

Chip butty, you can either install the drivers that make it work, or wait for a patch that might do nothing. If the drivers cause instability for you, just go back to the ones you're using now. The 1050 drivers got rid of most of my stutter and made the game playable with all graphics settings maxed (except clouds) in 32 bit colour. (Turning off force feedback completely kills the stutter, but that's a whole other issue...)

Guess I am lucky than...
i am playing with Clouds on and Maximum details and Force Feedback on ....
the only thing is that i cannot play in 32 color each time i lock up and back to Windows.
so i am also waiting for the patch
but meanwhile i am lucky enough to play the game on both side...right now in the middle of a campaign with the luftwaffe and the possibilities are so great ...i am planning missions to low level attack on england trying to avoid a maximum the radar net of england and bombing their airfield first...the closest to the action first and in the meantime i am trying to reduce their radar network...than we will go for the juicy stuff....Factories, docks, and more airfield of course.
PIII 800mhz
Nvidia TNT2 32mb
Driver installed detonator 1080

Although the 10.50s didn't do anything for me other than slow my system down (and that may just be my particular system), I'd still recommend that you try, chip. You can always go back to the 6.47s or (my preferred ones currently) the 6.50s if they don't help any.

Just make sure, whenever you change the drivers, to make an "intermediate" change to "Standard PCI VGA" drivers (even if you're using AGP, like I am), restart and THEN change to whatever set of nVidia drivers you wanna check out. That way you won't clutter up your registry beyond repair

And yes, you are right, no one with any sense would dispute that, it's the coding that's ridiculously inept. It fell victim to the usual combo of Greed and Piss Poor Programming.

But Rowan are, sadly, far from alone in valuing sales volume above satisfied customers, it's an industry-wide trend these days.

When IL-2 comes out and (I hope) delivers everything it promises, however, I'm sure that the Western software companies (Rowan et al) will soon realize the truth of the "Marketing 101" wisdom that they seem to have forgotten, namely that one satisfied customer is worth a hundred dissatisfied ones.

If IL-2 turns out to be just yet another overhyped, underachieving load of crap, then at least we won't be surprised. It'll just end up in the sh*tpile along with the rest. But we'll see... For now I'll just try to get this miscarriage of a sim to run acceptably until the patch that Rowan apparently are too afraid to speak of finally comes out...

Misha

Thanks for the feedback folks. I'll give the 1050's a try at some stage, although there seems to be just as many disatisfied 1050 with BoB users than satisfied.

Just a quick question regarding the 1050 drivers. Are these leaked Nvidia drivers, or are they drivers which someone has put together?

cheers.

As another "whiner" with a a high end system Ighz Athlon, 256ram, GTS2 card on which BOB doesn't run, can someone give an url where these 1050 drivers can be got, please?
Are they for Win9x or are they originally for Windows NT, BTW?

It looks like it's been replaced by the 1080. Although you can still find the 1050 in the download section.

Reactor Critical

Thanks

Zmeya, ur right, consider yourself lucky.


I have an Athlon 800 T-Bird with an Ati Rage 32 MB graphics card, and I can't run this with clouds, or I'll get major jerking.
Ur also right, today games get better and better, and the game is a blast once you can run it. But it shouldn't be for the fact that somebody has to fidel more than 2 hours with his system settings till it runs.
Also ,the idea that everything gets a patch today is a true observation, but crap in my eyes.

what with all the people without net, who can't read our tips and tricks, who can't download the latest drivers, and who can't get the patch easily?

I agree that this is a great game, but dont accept the fact that "everything needs a patch today" so fast. We had that with B-17II, we have that with BoB, I hope we dont have that with IL-2. (I'm pretty sure we wont)
Yes, they have to stay within their budget and time, but thats no excuse to release half finished code. I, and many others, can't do this with our work...we have to finish what we work on, and that in time, and flawless. Why should game developers have other rights?
Its the same money you pay, be it for a new work desk, or a new game. would you accept a desk coming with only 3 legs, to be patched 1 week later with a 4th one?

Aside that, Rowan has become pretty quiet about rthe patch...not a good sign at all.

I hope, for the whole flight sim industry, that this "release first, patch later" crazyness stops...THATS IMHO what kills our genre.


[This message has been edited by RSColonel_131st (edited March 13, 2001).]

Quite right Colonel. What about the numbers of BoB fans who have no Internet access and end up taking the game back to the store? I dislike this culture where everything is patched, it must breed lazyness in programmers, "Oh well we'll fix that in a patch".

I come from a Console background (I go back to the Atari days of the seventies) and PC programmers would do well to take note of their console counterparts. They generally write much tighter and efficient code. You vary rarely see a console game with any serious bug or flaw. I accept that a PC programmers job is made much more difficult by having to write for numerous configurations. But even so.

I guess with the advent of the Internet, developers get their product to the stores as quickly as possible, knowing that they can remedy any flaws with a patch.

On a positive note - this really does seem to be a fantastic game.

F-18, hmmmm. I guess I'm getting about 12-15 FPS in the cockpit, depending on whats going on, maybe a little faster outside. BoB, this is how I would prefer to play it: 1600X1200X32, max details, I'd get 6 FPS, maybe. This is how I played before & after the upgrade (had a 733 w/ GF DDR, 256RAM): 1280X960X32, max details, except the Textures, which is on high, I get like 15-20 when alone, 10-15 with a few planes, like in "End of the Defiant," and 8-12 when a bunch of planes are about, like Sept 14, when I can get that stupid mission to run, that is. Add 1-2 FPS if I switch to 1024X768X32. IMO, that is ridiculous on a P 1000. All of my other games, except F-18, reacted extremely good to the upgrades. I can play B-17 at 1600X1200X32, w/max details, and it goes along at a very smooth 20+ FPS, with a lot of fighters about (I even have my R&R DB at 12 fighters at once, per squadron). In F4, I even gained 12 FPS, on average, during the campiagns, in the 2d cockpit (it goes at about 32 FPS, in the thick of it, at 1024X768.

Well,

That's exactly why I'm not buying BOB, even with its good points. I have acquired enough high quality sims that if I don't buy one for 5 yrs, I still have enough to keep me happy. Thus, I can really pick and choose which ones to get.

On another note, if developers would stop flooding the market with junk buggy sims, they would stop shooting themselves in the foot.

Barron out