Just for the sake of discussion.....

[eddiek]

I was at a friend's house this afternoon, showing him what AH was like online.....
He lives in a town of about 20K people, much larger than my town, with it's 1200 folks and four dogs, one deceased....
To my surprise, on his system, I was able to pull off moves that are impossible with my system.
Took a Spit9 from A29, climbed to about 20K.
Now, the climb to alt, on his system, was virtually effortless.  On mine, I gotta watch what I am doing, even on autoclimb.
Found myself almost headon with a con, turned out to be an F4U.......neither of us fired on merge, I looped ( and I mean literally) over the top and was on his 6 before he made it to D1K.........more like 850 yards and I was saddled up, then closing.  Got a kill, to my friend's delight, but it gets better......
Grabbed alt towards A8, found myself co-alt with another Spit....did a zoom climb, merged again, did all kinds of maneuvers I am never able to do at home, eventually ended up stalling and having to dive to the deck with the Spit on my 6, 700 yards back or so.........
Started weaving back and forth, then tried a little trick I had been thinking about, made the guy overshoot, then got him from 179 yards and down he went.
The point of this whole post is whether or not the system makes that much of a difference in how you are able to fly in the arena.
My system:  Celeron 333
            Shuttle 661-P motherboard
            128mb RAM
            Viper 770 video card, 32mb
            Normal connect rate:  33.3K

His system:  Pentium 3 600mhz, OC to 672
             Tyan motherboard
             256mb RAM
             Voodoo 5 video card, 64mb
             Normal connect rate: 45.6K

What made the sim so much easier on his system?  The better system, or the faster transfer rate?
I have wondered for months about whether or not I have been experiencing what I was told were "lost packets", and what I saw as hits on the enemy planes never got sent to the other computer or host, or whatever the proper term would be.
There is nothing I can do about the transfer rate......FDR had the existing phone system put in, it is that old.
I can get a faster CPU without too much trouble, and even a more compatible motherboard if needed.
I am just dumbfounded at how easy it was to fly and pull off things I would never dare here on my system.
Like Will Smith said in "Independence Day",
"I have GOT to have me one of THESE!!!!!!!"

[This message has been edited by eddiek (edited 08-15-2000).]

[funked]

Three possibilities, in order of likelihood:

1.  Placebo Effect.  Nothing was different, it just "seemed" different because you were in a different place on a different machine.

2.  Fuel state.  Did your friend have the Spit set up to carry a different fuel load than you do?

3.  Throttle calibration.  Maybe your throttle at home is not giving you full manifold pressure.  Maybe your friend's stick is better too.

[eddiek]

Fuel state was exactly what I always carry when I am bored and just wanting to goof off in a Spit.
The joystick was the same one he had loaned me for a year, before I took it back and bought another one.  The one at his house was a MS Sidewinder Precision Pro, and I never did anything spectacular with it.  Now I use a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital 3D (whatever all that jargon means )here aat home.
Placebo effect?  Huh-uh.  I was nervous as heck and did not want to get hammered, blasted, enemaized with lead, or any other malady while he was watching me "demonstrate" how much fun AH is to play.
Next..............

[This message has been edited by eddiek (edited 08-15-2000).]

[Pyro]

What he means by throttle calibration is that if your throttle is not calibrated correctly on the system that it's on, you may not be able to get full throttle.



------------------
Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

[funked]

setup/joystick/calibrate

Try that before you spend a lot of money on the upgrade.

[Fishu]

Couple reasons to pick:

1. bit higher FPS
2. Stick spikes or different stick configuration in the game (sliders towards more smoother controlling)
3. different position for playing.
4. you either got more or less oxygen at your friends house.

[wells]

What about the stick scaling?  Maybe on a fresh install, everything was set back to 100?

[Sharky]

Eddiek,

I am willing to bet that you weren't able to do anything at your friends house than you can't do at home.  I think you'll find that at your friends house you were being a little more careful.  People tend to try to perform a little better when someone is watching especially if they are trying to impress them with (in this case) a great game like AH.

On the other hand you may have just been having an "On" day.  I know that there are days when everything just clicks and I can do no wrong in AH (not very damn often but it does happen).  However I thing you were just putting your best foot forward for AH.

Sharky