The Crystal Ball

[reflected]

Hi Folks,

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be whining or anythig. It's just that CloD has been gathering dust on my shelf for a while after the unplayable release. Now it's kinda playable but there's a long way to go. I'm too lazy to read through 100s of threads, so would anyone please tell me what the status is of the following problems? Are they working on it? Is there a fix already that I missed?

i7-920, GTX470 (newest drivers), 6G RAM, Win7 64 here.

Performance:
- I get a decent FPS, 30 on the ground, and 50 up high, that's plenty enough. But:
- wheel dust, and mg hit smoke puffs give me a massive FPS drop. (from 35 to 5)
- When flying low, the "movement" of trees and houses is stuttery, jerky, not smooth at all (I have trees and buildings on medium, building detail = very low)
-The trees and shadows shimmer like hell. They vibrate and give me a headache.
- Anti Aliasing - it doesn't work. I've tried to force it in the Nvidia CP, or leave it to app controlled, nothing. The edges are jaggy and they shimmer like the aforementioned trees.
- Control surfaces and cockpit controls move at 3 FPS. Very disillusioning.
- What happened to the cool new terrain of the beta patch? I installed the official one and it's back to the cartoon world.
- Clouds: no overcast weather ,jsut a few old il2 cotton candy puffs, still they're a big FPS hit. why?
- Why is it so utterly impossible to spot other planes? This is a first, and I've been playing sims for 15 years.

FM
- A "start with warm engine" option would be nice. It's annoying to sit there for 3 minutes to warm up your engine. It's not historical either, I believe.
-Force feedback coems and goes, for instance when you fire your mg-s in a 109 you lose stick forces. It happens randomly in Spits.
- FFB is not very detailed either, it's OK in the air, but when you roll you feel no vibration whatsoever, no feeling that you're rolling, but a few jerks and that's all. IT's far fro mbeing up to today's standards (or even yesterday's)
- What's with wind vs. rudder? In 109s you can't even turn on the ground, or counter the effect of the wind with full rudder. You spawn and start turning no matter what. So unrealistic..
- You can't collide with trees?! Some people use that as a defensive maneuver online, they hide in the bushes. Joking, right?

AI
- It's a disaster. They either fly straight like sitting ducks or the start a long series of rolls or scissors at the rate of an F16 or a UFO.
- Radio comms don't work, the whole Biggin Hill wing crashes in formation when I land, no matter what I tell them to do.
-Radio chatter is inaudible and crappy. More artificial than in games released before 2000.

With such a long list of glaring bugs I don't see any feedback fro mthe devs, all I see is about 3D support. (why not detailed seagulls? )

Rant over. Thanks in advance for the info, and the tips and hints.

Greg

PS: I'm really gald they gave us a CSP Spit Mk1 and a 109 E-4 though!

[pupo162]

- A "start with warm engine" option would be nice. It's annoying to sit there for 3 minutes to warm up your engine. It's not historical either, I believe.

dispite the fact that i agree with you, a 3 minutes engine warm up its really not that bad. And i dont know statistic historicly. but the "have the mechanic start the engine 5 minutes before, was a practice for scramble missions, wichs wast the only mission pilots flew.

If you were out for a patrol sortie i think the pilot would start up by himself.

[JG52Krupi]

I thought you could choose warm engines?

Also these aircraft are hard to turn because they are tail draggers they have poor ground handling. Update they are reworking ground physics.

AA does work but only for close objects kind of pathetic for a flight sim , but they are going to implement new aa software.

Ground colours are a tough subject at first I preferred the previous ones like you but now I am waiting for the dynamic weather to be installed before I jump to conclusions as I reckon that's why they made them a bit lighter.

[Dano]

The warm engine thing would not just be nice to have, it's a requirement when you're flying campaign missions. How is it at all realistic that everybody else in the flight (who are all lined up behind you) has a warmed engine and you don't?

If everybody started from the hangers and had to warm up then it'd be fine, but in conjunction with the shipped campaigns it's a joke.

[Qpassa]

you should overclock

[reflected]

Originally Posted by Qpassa

you should overclock

Yeah, like that would solve all the aforementioned bugs. Sorry, but I won't overclock.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by reflected

Yeah, like that would solve all the aforementioned bugs. Sorry, but I won't overclock.

Yeah, I wouldn't bother either my overclock doesn't give me a boost anymore so I turned it off.

[FFCW_Urizen]

Originally Posted by Dano

The warm engine thing would not just be nice to have, it's a requirement when you're flying campaign missions. How is it at all realistic that everybody else in the flight (who are all lined up behind you) has a warmed engine and you don't?

If everybody started from the hangers and had to warm up then it'd be fine, but in conjunction with the shipped campaigns it's a joke.

The engine isn´t warmed up, they take off cold. Just activate the automatic pilot and see for yourself .

[Dano]

Originally Posted by FFCW_Urizen

The engine isn´t warmed up, they take off cold. Just activate the automatic pilot and see for yourself .

So how are they able to go from cold to running the engine at full power for takeoff?

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by Dano

So how are they able to go from cold to running the engine at full power for takeoff?

By switching over to AI it emulates that the engines have been warmed up already. This is in Single Player only. In Multi Player you have to sit and cringe in your cockpit as the 109's strafe your airfield while you impatiently wait for the temps to rise.