Stingray

thanks for the replies, I'll check all these things when I get home today. Snacko, I'll check out the IL-2 Joycontrol program, but I am curious what are the advantages of using it over the Saitek SST software?

Yo, I picked up an X-52 pro a few weeks ago, it has been working great.

Music!?

Wow, I just got some saitek rudder pedals, they are awesome so far!

I am interested, I should be able to make it on the 24th, what types of planes need flying? Stingray

sorry, I just had to

Yo, do you ever shop at NCIX?

I am pretty wary of mass produced PCs, they typically use fairly lower quality parts as Blairgowrie mentioned. However, they do buy all their parts in bulk and typically get things at a much lower price than what you are able to buy them for, even over the web. Also, they typically don't make very much money on the hardware, but make their profit by bundling in all sorts of third party crap that you can uninstall, extended warranties and service fees, and Microsoft even pays them for every copy of windows that they ship (or so I hear) A couple of things: check the power supply, if it is less than 500 watts, you may have trouble with running a good video card with it. Check the motherboard brand, is it a no-name board? Or is it a brand like ASUS, DFI, Gigabyte? Make sure the case uses the ATX form factor standard, not something else. Also, with 3 gigs of memory it is likely running 1GB dimm + 2 GB dimm, so the memory won't be running in dual channel mode. It comes with Vista, so you may have some fun getting TrackIR+joysticks+IL-2 working on it (or it may all work perfectly, who knows!) All-in-all, this bundle is a pretty good deal, and seems like it could be a decent computer with a new graphics card. If you are hot-to-trot on a new rig, this will probably suit you fine (if you get a good video card). Keep in mind, you won't be getting the performance of building it with better parts yourself, but that is to be expected by saving a few hundred bucks. I think the general consensus you will find among the PC hardware enthusiasts you ask (such as myself and Blairgowrie), building with parts you put together will give you more performance and better longevity. However, if you have never built a PC from scratch, buying a bundle like this and replacing the parts as needed may be a better option than buying all the parts for your own build, and making a costly mistake while mounting the CPU. Just like buying your the parts individually, the key here is to do your research and be patient! Find out the parts its built with, google them, look for reviews (I tend to not look for reviews, as they are always glowingly positive, but google for terms like "Gateway AMD X2 6000 unable to boot" or, "Gateway AMD 6000 problem", where you find posts by users experiencing trouble rather than reviews that the company PR machine paid to have put in PC World) Good luck! Stingray Edit: oh I forgot to add, with a powerful enough video card, it should get you to "perfect" graphics. Getting to perfect with IL-2 typically doesn't take that much actually, the game was written so many years ago that the graphics it uses are kind of dated. Playing perfect at a high frame rate on some of the super detailed custom maps I have seen... well, that remains to be seen. Just keep in mind the screen resolution you are planning on running, the higher the resolution, the more powerful of a graphics card and computer you will need. Running 1024x768? No problem. Running 1280x1024, this computer should be fine. Running widescreen 1600x1000 maybe starting to push this a little bit, running 1920x1200 may not be do-able with good frame rates, but again, depends on the video card you choose.

or a USB hub!

I picked up this book used in Canada quite cheap, going to give it a read, http://www.amazon.com/Better-Aerobatics ... 161&sr=8-1

I was in Dresden about a year ago for a conference shortly after having read Slaughter House 5 for the first time, it was needless to say a very surreal experience, having just learned about the firebombing of Dresden and reading Slaughter House 5, then a few days later being there.

Yo Klinger, how about 109 material for now? Thanks! Stingray

Do you know if there is a similar movie collection for other planes?

The only problem is going to be finding time to watch all of these....

So, I ordered "The complete warbird collection, 26 DVDs" from Zeno today: http://www.zenosflightshop.com/ProductD ... B&Click=71 Anyone else have any of Zeno's stuff?

I'll have to try this out I think, and try ghosting out, I've only ever done it for computers in offices, never my personal one. Do you play LOMAC? I just bought Flaming Cliffs with the digital download from lockon.co.uk, but wow, do I ever suck, I can take off if the engine is already running, take off and fly around a bit, but that is about it, hoping to get into this game a little bit, but wow, lots to learn Stingray

Someone on the ubizoo posted a link to this gun cam video made in IL-2, I think it is awesome! http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v109/ ... s_xvid.flv

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Summer_Time So 10pm BST is UTC* + 1 right now? That means it 1pm pacific time (UTC+, thats a good time, should work well for most of the world I will try to make it , not sure if I can though, already have made some plans sunday unfortunately! Stingray * I used to use GMT, but after reading that wikipedia article it looks like UTC is the new way to say things

Yo, dual booting seems like a great way to have a very clean install of XP with all the services stopped, no extra drivers or software just for flying or games, and having another installation where everything is installed and on (printing, file sharing, yada yada yada) I've never done this, is it just as straight forward as making another partition for the second windows XP to reside, and it will automatically find both and put a menu for you to select which one to boot from when the computer starts? Thanks, Stingray

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1018676/Military-Humor

yo, just watching this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHrLB_mlir4 Which makes me wonder, are difficult cross wind landings like this possible to try in Il-2??

blackvipers guide is the best one out there, I've been using it for years.

I think you are essentially correct, but it depends on the nature of the program that is being executed.