DD_Brando

My father spent much of the war in a battlefield rescue team whose main purpose was to extract the crew from brewed -up tanks. He was the NCO-in-charge and was proud of how his team developed a system using webbing straps to hook-and-heave the casualties out in the shortest time possible, before the ammo started exploding. Often under fire from enemy infantry or armour, and always in danger from the damaged tank, it was a thankless task that doesn't get the same kind of mention as other battlefield heroics do. I recall that he praised the Sherman for being the easiest as far as crew-extraction was concerned. He also mentioned that one of the basic tactics in the dash across France involved flanking the enemies' armour so as to get in a killing shot on the rear where the armour was weaker. That or pinning them down and calling up an SP gun, or a tank with a 17lber gun - both considered the best tank-destroyers. But he also said that a German tank could usually knock out Allied tanks at a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1 if they we well-sited and dug-in. He was never out of work. B

I had the BE6-II with a 700MHz Pentium3 on it - and clocked it to about 820Meg with 768Mb SDRAM - it was my first home-build and it served me well for flying Warbirds and Dawn of Aces

And then banged the mortgage rates up - so we can all drive E-types down to the Jobcentre? Been there BG, got the ragged T-shirt.

Thanks Arthur, A Gresley A4 indeed, built at Doncaster for the London, North-Eastern Railway (LNER), and one of about 32 streamlined Pacifics used on the prestige express trains on the East Coast line back in the Thirties. One of Gresley's innovations for the non-stop London to Edinburgh express, the world-famous Flying Scotsman, was that the tender had a corridor connecting the locomotive to the train, enabling a crew change during the journey without stopping the train. I was a regular visitor to King's Cross station as a schoolboy, while steam traction was still alive. The loco-shed was quite close too and, if not actually open to visitors, no one minded too much if a couple of kids snuck through the fence. I once saw 15 of these magnificent beauties lined up there! Sadly, a year or two later there were none left at all. B

I did a bit of pit-only last night - and we sure had some fun......

I predict this guy will go far.......and stay there! :k9lmao:

I'm in there - 4th from left, five down, wearing a bloody great crash helmet.

Yup, it's like jamming the throttle open (on a motorcycle) and riding everywhere in second gear. Fantastic acceleration, but all sorts of things start to go wrong at these kind of revs. Valves start to flutter, overheating occurs very quickly, vibration starts to undo bolts, all the ancillaries run much too fast (superchargers, magnetos, dynamos, oil pumps etc) and bearings start to fail. Oil thins out under high heat and loading - the balls-out stuff really is about combat, not transiting to it. Actually, this discussion brings up some of the things that really bug me about the on-line game. I get really pissed when flight-leaders take off and disappear into the distance at 110% throttle and fully-fine pitch. One of my old squad was notorious for it. He would jump into the #1 spot and tear off at full speed, without considering that it's just not possible for the rest to catch up and form up from a ground start. He would hurtle away to the target area and inevitably get bounced by the enemy. Then the TS would get really ripe - on the lines of "Where the **** are you, you ******s." and similar **** words. It never seemed to occur to him that the old convoy routine of 'put the slowest vehicle first if you want to maintain cohesion' actually applied to formation flying as well. He inevitably died alone, totally out-numbered, with the only advantage being that he'd probably brought the enemy down a few thousand feet so that the rest of us had a better shot when we finally arrived! He would curse and swear at us - then he'd start accusing the other side of cheating or porking the missions - and start ranting in the chat bar. It got so embarrassing in the end that we just fired him out of the squad, and got along much better after that. After taking off, the Flt Ldr should throttle back to a maximum of 80% throttle, often less, and either do a circle to allow the flight to form up, or stay at that setting until his comrades have caught up if a "straight to target" line has been decided on. Once assembled a flight can increase settings as a group, and ensure that the enemy get confronted by a whole flight or two of coordinated aircraft acting in harmony.

Even the BBC have gotten wind of this 'new' development Those callous criminals, inflicting such outrages on our population! A real case of cruelty to sheep, it's the Internet folks.

George Galloway Definitely a self-seeking, self-publicising fool - he really got caught out by Saddam Hussein, who outsmarted him by using him as a propaganda tool. The nearest comparison I can think of is Oswald Mosely, whose admiration of Adolf Hitler got him ejected from the pre-war Conservative government. Both ends of the political spectrum have people who fall off the edge. Galloway was ejected from the Labour party in 2004 and is not representative of mainstream politics in the UK. B

Ouch

I think I agree with Roger's idea, although you did mention that you cleaned the card? I would also check the fan as a starting point - and take a look a little deeper into the shroud. There's a finned, copper heatsink in there that the air is directed over and those are liable to get clogged with dust and fluff over time. Sometimes it's possible to recover these devices by removing the shroud and dismantling it (a fairly easy job) and then blowing the dust out of the fins. Re-assemble with a smidgin of Artic Silver on the GPU (after first cleaning it off with alcohol) and replace it on the card. I've managed to recover a couple of gfx cards this way. An aftermarket cooler is a good idea though if you don't want all the hassle. B

Snacko, yeah, there is a patch released for the AAA v1.1. It's not large (48.2Mb), or critical to game play. It's called 1.1.1 It does not affect checkRuntime settings either and can be found here B

Give it a go anyway. Try it without the triple buffering if it messes up. I don't have your card or Cats (x1950 & 7.11 here) but this is how Ati deals with the tearing you described. B

Hmm, I ain't written my specs out for a long time, let's take a look - Home-built - AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+Windsor @ 3.3 GHz - Abit Mainboard Model AX78(AMD770+SB600) Socket AM2 (940) - 2x2Gb OCZ Reaper DDR2 Dual Channel memory - running @ 400MHz - 4.0, 4, 4, 15, 2T - Primary HD - Western Digital Raptor 74 Gb (10,000rpm)SATA* - Secondary - WD Caviar 150Gb (7,200rpm)SATA * running XP Pro x86 SP2 - Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro, 512Mb DDR3, PCI-Express, Catalyst 7.11 - Hiper Type M 630W SLi-Certified PSU - Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer soundcard - Some NEC-based 4+1 USB card in the PCI-Expressx1 slot. Total USB slots = 9 - CPU cooled using Alphacool Nexus block on a 3/8" (ID) loop (max temp 30*C) - Swiftech pump, single rad with 120mm fan, & reservoir all mounted externally on my.... - Chieftec full tower case. 11 years old, made of pressed steel, coloured beige, nickname "Old Faithful!" - various optical drives - Saitek Eclipse II k/b, Logitech I/R mouse - CH Pro Pedals - the unique CH Franken-Tripehound joystick, made up from 2 CH Fightersticks grafted together - TIR 3 Pro, with Vector Clip mounted on bridge of Creative Gamer headphones All in all it runs FB 46 very adequately. B

I also have a QuickShot MasterPilot panel lurking at the back of a cupboard somewhere. It served me very well for many years. One point though. When was the last time you programmed it for a sim? I could never get it to work under XP, and had to borrow my father-in-law's ancient 386-based, Windows 95 dinosaur rig to get the keystrokes to register on the cartridge. Even used under Windows 98 I used to get the message saying (something like) "use a slower computer!" I think I used to need to disable DMA to slow down the transmission of data! Lol. A good piece of kit if you can get it to work though - a sort of poor-man's MFP panel. I'm not quite so sure about the Dan Dare-style, widow's peak head-warmer

My 24" (1920x1200 native resolution) wide-screen monitor is a WUXGA type. The advantages of this production method seem to be low glare and good readability, so it may be that this type of screen is just "easier on the eyes" than others. That's my 2 pennyworth Jim - maybe head to your local store and take a peek? B

I know this is an oldish post - but I only just noticed it! I just wanted to deplore your bad luck mate, and add my sympathies. There are some disk-formatting utilities out there which work in pure DOS -

Heres a few scruffy pix attached: Those of you with two hands could do better at being tidy

Hi Jabo No mate, you don't need a second loop - you just take the outlet pipe from the CPU block and run it into the GPU cooler block - BUT this is where it starts getting complex, depending on the graphics card configuration. By which I mean, once you have stripped off the shrouding and the heat-sink from the GPU, you also need to consider the DDR chips on the card too. They get pretty warm as well, on new-generation cards especially, and need cooling. Fortunately, most water-cooling firms have started manufacturing combined memory and GPU blocks, but they are pretty pricey. Also, if you change your graphics cards quite frequently - as many people seem to do - you will probably need new equipment at each change. Notes: CPU water-cooling is IMO a very worthwhile move. It's relatively cheap, and keeps the heart of your motherboard cool and clear of huge obstructions like Tuniq towers and all those other gigantic air-cooling devices! The latter point is useful as it offers more space to site cooling fans aimed at keeping other important areas ventilated. These include the Northbridge, the Southbridge and the power chips (PWMICs). Also the memory DIMMs and last but not least, the graphics card(s). The water-cooling suppliers would naturally like to see you cool everything in the case with their products, even the Hard Drives, but this is really only for the rather rich, silence-loving, super-over-clocking, benchmark-fixated, wannabe plumber.. Air-cooling is still a cheap and practical solution for most areas of the PC. AFAICS the graphics card(s) stay happily cool as long as you are using the kind of shroud that blows the hot air out of the back of the case, and you are prepared to maintain (de-fluff) them regularly. My advice would be to try the simple set-up first. You can always add extra bits to the circuit as you progress. B

As Cold Gambler states, it wasn't such a rare event though it's also true to suggest that the underwater encounter and attack scenario was almost non-existent in the Cold War sense, due to the reasons you mentioned. It should be recalled that WW2 submarines needed to surface-run much more frequently, for battery-charging, rendezvous with store-ships, and patrolling likely hunting-grounds, plus running to and from those hunting-grounds. Electric motors for underwater running produced much lower speeds than diesels on the surface. B

@ Highlander Sorry I didn't get back earlier. I'm not too sure where to direct you as far as watercooling solutions can be purchased in the US. Innovatek might be a good place to start looking, but I don't like placing all my eggs in one basket, as the saying goes, so I tend to mix and match. Here's a few basics to consider: Pick a consistent size of tubing, preferably 3/8" (Internal Diameter) or 1/2"(ID) and stick with it. Always buy the best quality tubing. Don't mix the gauges in a loop. Avoid the kits, and avoid small-gauge tubing and plastic press-fit connectors. Avoid reservoirs that sit in 5.25" trays like the plague! Use either compression fittings (as per Innovatek) or barbs to connect tubing to blocks, pumps and rads. I use barbs and compressible hose clips (called Jubilee clips in the UK) and I don't suffer any leaks at all. Keep it simple. Unless you have detected heating problems in another part of the PC environment, or you want to mercilessly over-clock components like your graphics card(s), you only need a single loop at the moment. That is composed of a CPU block, a radiator with fan attached, a reservoir, and a pump. And tubing to connect them together of course! What you don't need is controller units, in-line flow indicators, or temperature sensor panels. Nor do you need any of the super liquids that are sold. These are just ways of selling you more gizmos for more profit. Liquid wise, you only need de-ionised water with the addition of a corrosion inhibitor. A few dollars from an auto-store, as are the hose clips! Remember that you don't have to keep everything inside the case, unless you are a LAN-party freak. I have my rad, pump, and reservoir located externally, actually mounted on the outside of the Rt hand side panel, and only the in-flow and outflow tubes and the cpu block are in the case (er, natch!) I'll post a pic if I can find one. B

It must've been about 6 years ago at least, when Oleg was still posting regularly on the Ubi forums. His car was side-swiped by a truck during winter if I recall correctly, and written off. A bunch of people clubbed together enough money to buy him a cheap banger, not a Lincoln Continental or anything

I have the old files for Iconscript, which is operated by the command console. I'll put them in the Pound a bit later - after we finish having this birthday party and I've done my chauffeuring duties.