My first impression

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

Yesterday I finally made my first series of flights with TOH and I have some comments and questions to share:

Graphic Performance:

I'm using a top of the line VAIO laptop, it has a i7 1.73 (4 cores, 8 process), 8GB ram, and a nvidia geforce 330M (1GB). To have a minimum of 20fps over any scenery I need to fly at 720x576 pixel resolution and almost any settings to low/disabled. Wings of Prey runs at 30/40 fps at 1280x720 with any settings at about medium/high. Same performance with DCS Black Shark. There is room for improvement guys, I hope this will be your first priority.

Scenery:

Awesome, I love it, some improvements can be made at the traffic, cars disappears when they arrive at a cross; the trees lower dramatically the fps, they need to be imrpoved or reduced, I would love to have a "Trees Density" slider in the option, and also a "Scenery density", not only visibility distance and object distance.

Flight model:

That's my favorite part, I love it. I just don't like how it shakes when there is turbolent air, it looks irrealistic to me but overall it's fantastic, congrats !

Freeflight

In freeflight I would like to be able to see a helicopter list with a list of available skins, setup (payloads, fuel, passengers weight), a list of heliports/airports where to take off from, time of day an weather, just like when you start Flight SImulator X. (maybe it's possible already but I didn't see it, please let me know)

Views

Is there only "toggle view" to move from cockpit to external view or are there other views ? why not making a "view" category in the controls list, and the controls why are not sorted by name ?

I will now try some online flying with friends and see if the fps goes even lower, I hope not...

Thanks for the fantastic sim, I love it. I will post more comments in next days.

[dale0404 5]

The Nvidia GeForce GT 330M is the successor of the GT 230M and technically a faster clocked GT 240M (but it should still maintain the power envelope of the GT 230M as the naming suggests). Therefore, the GT330M is a mid-range laptop graphics card that offers DirectX 10.1 effects.

Looks like your graphics card is your bottleneck mate.

[bowser 10]

I'm on a quad core system with 8GB and a HD4850 video card here. I was a little worried about frame rates while playing the beta but the full game gives me very smooth game play on 1680x1050 resolution. Did play around with video settings a bit but still enjoy excellent graphics and a great flight model.

This.game.is.amazing. Thank you Bohemia!

[hellfire257 3]

Top of the (Sony) line the laptop may be, but it's CPU clock speed is very slow.

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

Top of the (Sony) line the laptop may be, but it's CPU clock speed is very slow.

yes the video card and cpu are not super fast stuff but why then Wings of Prey or BlackShark runs very fast with medium hight settings and full HD res ?

There is a lot of room for graphic optimization

[dale0404 5]

No, there is not a lot of room for graphic optimization as you put. This game simply needs more CPU / GPU resources than those other 2 (older) games.

Do not blame the game mate, look at the above posts.

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

This game needs more cpu/gpu than BlackShark ?? Have you got an idea about what a hell of a sim is Black Shark?

I don't blame the game as you can read in my initial post ("Thanks for the fantastic sim, I love it"), I just say they need to improve performaces, and I'm sure they will do.

Also Rise of Flight had very low fps at initial release, now it goes 3X faster....

It just takes time and feedback from customers, and some extra options to customize graphics (for example trees are lowering the framerate a lot, if I could only exclude trees or reduce their density it would be lot faster...)

Thanks anyway for the suggestion about the graphic card, but I think the biggest bottle neck at the moment is software. I'm playing Battlefield 3 at medium high res with medium high settings right now and it goes very good as well... (not a simple graphic game...)

I'm probably going to buy an iMac 27" for work soon, fo you think it's a good computer also for games like flight sims ?

THis will be the config:

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB

1TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive

AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5

Thanks

[zoog 18]

This game needs more cpu/gpu than BlackShark ?? Have you got an idea about what a hell of a sim is Black Shark?

Well, it's a completely different engine. Black Shark uses the TFCS-engine, developed specifically for flight simulation. TKOH uses a modified Real Virtuality 3 engine, the first version originated from Operation Flashpoint (or earlier?). OFP was big, but never build to handle areas etc like TKOH. And even Arma 1 and Arma 2 are completely different type of games compared to "real flight simulators".

I think that's the biggest cause and makes comparing it to other simulations quite tricky.

Just my $0,02

[Zipper5 74]

Your current setup only partially meets the minimum requirements, and even then, they only barely meet it. Laptops are pretty poor for gaming usually, especially simulators. ;)

Minimum requirements for TKOH:

OS: Windows XP

Processor: Intel Dual-Core 2.4 GHz or AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz or faster

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or ATI Radeon 4850 with Shader Model 3 and 512 MB VRAM or faster

DirectX®: dx90c

Hard Drive: 20 GB HD space

Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible audio-card

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

Your current setup only partially meets the minimum requirements, and even then, they only barely meet it. Laptops are pretty poor for gaming usually, especially simulators.

so will that iMac described above be good to play this sim ? (on win7 bootcamp)

Edited October 31, 2011 by zaGURUinzaSKY

[LeftSkidLow 1]

Black Shark looks like shit low level. Isn't it basically just the scenery of the LOMAC engine? I don't know why everyone keeps comparing this to Black Shark. If you get that much enjoyment out of flipping switches in the correct sequence you probably aren't a great candidate for enjoying a stick and rudder flight model.

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

candidate for what ?? I'm a player just like you. trying to enjoy this game.. like many others..

---------- Post added at 01:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:28 AM ----------

I don't know why everyone keeps comparing this to Black Shark.

may be because heli sim enthusiasts buy heli sims ?

---------- Post added at 01:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

If you get that much enjoyment out of flipping switches in the correct sequence ...

that's how heli works.. it's not a matter of enjoyment.

---------- Post added at 01:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

you probably aren't a great candidate for enjoying a stick and rudder flight model.

I fly real airplanes, skydive, use simulators of all kinds from ultralights to fighters to civil helis to military helis... I pilot rc planes, rc helis, uav drones (my work), flight is flight, is always cool for me and I love this sim aswell, and hey I pay these products and this makes me the perfect candidate from the software hous point of view. ;-)

[LeftSkidLow 1]

It's a personality difference. Airplane pilots tend to have personalities which get enjoyment out of operating complex systems, procedures, structured tasks, guidelines, and things which have absolute answers. Of course this is a generalization and there are always exceptions, especially bush pilots and ag pilots.

Helicopter pilots are generally a touch crazy to be honest. Many, but not all are turned off by "flying by the numbers" (ie Va, Vx, Vy, Vs, Vs, V1, V2, Vwhatever, etc). Yeah we know what our Vne is and abide by the weight and balances limitations but almost everything is done by feel and looking outside the cockpit. You could put any competent helicopter pilot in any other helicopter and they would be able to fly it, assuming someone got the systems going and unlocked the frictions. The same is not true for airplanes.

Myself and many others I know didn't pursue fixed wing careers because we got bored flying them early on. Yeah, we learned the systems required to get and keep the helicopter in the air but it wasn't a source of enjoyment. Yeah, we got instrument ratings so we could get a job but most of us hated IFR. Although DCS is a heli sim, it is targeted more towards the people with a personality closer to fixed-wing pilots. I shit you not, myself and another real world heli pilot got much more enjoyment from the flight model in the BF1942 mod Desert Combat than DCS.

So being that this is a game, which should be source of enjoyment, I don't want to study another manual to get the helicopter in the air. That outlook is usually despised by hardcore simmers and why I don't think they will find what they are looking for in ToH.

Edited October 31, 2011 by LeftSkidLow

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

I just love them all, in sims especially when they run above 25 fps... I go gliding once a week , fly complex uav almost anyday.. I just love flying. Aircrafts are like music, different songs for different moments.. all can be perfect, sometime Metallica, sometime Tchaikovski, they both kick me hard if the right moment, same for aircraft... can stop love them all.

[PuFu 4600]

yes, the iMac you posted should be fine..

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

thanks, I will probably buy it in few days...

[nightsta1ker 10]

Leftskidlow has a point about helicopter pilots. And I personally hated DCS Blackshark. For one, I guess I am just not an attack helo kind of guy. I probably would have been happy as a Loach scout pilot in Vietnam. That looks like my kind of flying. In any case to each his own. I am glad zaGURUinzaSKY is happy with the flight model. Clearly, though, he must not be a real heli pilot, because the flight dynamics are all kinds of jacked up. I don't find the flight model on expert realistic in the slightest. In fact, it's probably CLOSER to being realistic on the n00b mode because you don't have to deal with a ton of innacurately modeled difficulties that you would not see on a real helicopter.

In any case... the rest of the game is alright. Fun even. I have been enjoying flying missions. I just can't get over how poor the flight model is.

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

I'm not a hely pilot, I pilot rc (remote controlled) helis for work, but they are a kind of flybywire, very different. I like this flight model because it's demanding, I don't like it when I try to hover, looks like it's impossible to me to keep it still, don't know if real helis are like that but having no difficulties to hover an inverted rc heli I don't see how I have difficulties to hover TOH helis in place (maybe I just suck piloting ahaha), but this is what I like, realistic or not, it's difficult, requires concentration, skills. Like in rc world, any aircraft is different, for now I just have fun flying again different helis, I hope they made it as real as possible.. and I would be very curious to know an opinion from some real heli pilot aswell.

[nightsta1ker 10]

Well you just got one. I am a real heli pilot, and my opinion is that the flight dynamics are not correct. I think they tried to implement some behaviors that they did not fully understand, and so now the flight model does things that a real helicopter would not.

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

ah ok very good, so for example, is it normal that when you start forward flight you need so much left stick and pedal to keep it straight ? I noticed this behaviour in rc models when flown manually but not so much strong

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 AM ----------

otehr question, does rotor pitch variation really need so much tail rotor compensation like it this sim ?

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 AM ----------

what do you pilot ?

[nightsta1ker 10]

ah ok very good, so for example, is it normal that when you start forward flight you need so much left stick and pedal to keep it straight ? I noticed this behaviour in rc models when flown manually but not so much strong

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 AM ----------

otehr question, does rotor pitch variation really need so much tail rotor compensation like it this sim ?

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 AM ----------

what do you pilot ?

No, this is not normal. If you read my thread about flight dynamics, you will see I have included this in the list of faults.

I must be having some issues with torque yaw, because I am seeing very little change needed during pitch change, but in a real helo, yes, the torque causes the helicopter to want to spin in the opposite direction, so the pilot must manually increase the tail rotor pitch with left pedal, and then must use right pedal when reducing torque.

I fly S300 and R22 helicopters right now as an instructor. Check out my youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/nightsta1ker1?feature=mhee

Edited October 31, 2011 by nightsta1ker

[Sellig63 10]

Very great game BIS :ok:

Now, just add :

- Rain on the windshield and functional wipes, like this :

- Lowering / raise landing gear on the heavy helicopter :

http://s3.noelshack.com/uploads/images/15840358365744_takeonh_01.jpg

And TOH is perfect !

[zaGURUinzaSKY 10]

No, this is not normal. If you read my thread about flight dynamics, you will see I have included this in the list of faults.

I must be having some issues with torque yaw, because I am seeing very little change needed during pitch change, but in a real helo, yes, the torque causes the helicopter to want to spin in the opposite direction, so the pilot must manually increase the tail rotor pitch with left pedal, and then must use right pedal when reducing torque.

I fly S300 and R22 helicopters right now as an instructor. Check out my youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/nightsta1ker1?feature=mhee

thanks, good info, I hope they are listening you... ;-)