:grin: :grin: :grin:

+1 ;)

I know there is a setting in FSX where you can visualise the thermals. I never used it though. This video looks like it shows that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXqmlLz31m8


Thermal discussion (breakdown):

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/sho...Soaring-in-FSX

Nice gliding!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjqJ1skEqM

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Found this - Creating ridge lift in the mission builder of FSX:

http://carrier.csi.cam.ac.uk/forster.../dev/lift.html

"FSX has great tools for the creation of ridge lift in the mission editor, so you can design ridgelift boxes working in a very realistic way. Here's a screenshot within the Mission Editor using a development visualisation model: "


"A RidgeLift object is used to simulate the effect of a hill slope on the wind."

http://carrier.csi.cam.ac.uk/forster...gelift_fsx.jpg

http://carrier.csi.cam.ac.uk/forster...sage_thumb.jpg


From that link:

"Here's a list of rules to make your thermals and ridge lift move realistic:
Thermals:

1. A lift strength of 5-6 knots (2-3m/s)would be a good day in most of Europe or the eastern USA.
2. Make them the kind of diameter you can circle in, but not much larger. I'll try and quantify this...
3. Thermals should NOT be designed to go above the cloudbase. Normal cross-country flights involve climbs to cloudbase and no further. Typical cloudbase in Europe and NE USA is 6000 feet.
4. Plant more thermals but make many of them weaker. Real gliding involves sampling and rejecting many more thermals.

Ridge lift:

1. Wind of 16-24 knots is good for ridge lift
2. Lift at ridgetop is typically 5 knots, so you can cruise at 100 knots without losing height.
3. Lift extends to 1000-2000 feet above the ridge but reduces in strength. At 2000 feet above the ridge you might be able to maintain height at best glide speed."

does anyone know the release date for this game?

lol, lol.

i thought i read somewhere that november was the release date.

i built an overclocked i7 rig with gtx 480 to max out this game @ 1080p and judging by the pictures the graphics are on par with birds of prey so it should not be a problem.

November? Not likely... If the release date was november the game would need to gold master probably this week and be student to distribution from there. It doesn't sound like a gold master is likely in the short term.

You'll probably be well served by your new system, however, Birds of Prey although good looking almost certainly will not have the same level of requirements that Storm of War has. Storm of War is significantly more complicated on the physics, AI, damage, etc. side (Birds of Prey is just a pretty IL-2 behind the scenes - even simplified from what I can tell) which will eat considerable RAM and CPU resources.

Graphics is huge for so many games in the industry but flight sims are pretty much the only products that truly stress the other components.

WoP/BoP has, in my opinion, tiny maps and simplistic FM and DM Models. I think this is why it can be run on even modest systems with good fps and excellent-perfect graphics. SoW will have a next-gen FM and DM model which should blow anything that's ever been made before out of the water. The main map will be quite large too.
SoW will also have many more features over WoP, so considering this I think it will require a pretty amazing system.
However, you're system looks great so if that can't run the game, it'll be a while before anyone can really ;)