Machine review/advice

[BaldEagl]

I'm running 169.44 right now but only have one flight under my belt with it.  I'm also pushing a 22" widescreen LG monitor @ 1600x1050 with a 3ms response rate so the card is pushing a lot of pixels but the FR/picture quality is great (I've got anti-aliasing maxed in the NVidea control panel).  It hasen't been a problem but I'm not sure I like the top and bottom of the screen cut-off yet to accomodate the widescreen.  I think I'm going to try forcing it at 1280x1024 (game centered on screen) tonight and see what that's like.

Condor... you shouldn't have any problems.  Just keep the motherboard diagram nearby as it helps in locating all the connectors quicker (otherwise they seem to try and hide from you )

[HomeBoy]

BaldEagl,
I am most interested to hear how your monitor responds to being forced 5:4.  I have stayed away from widescreen monitors (still using an old crt actually) for that exact reason.  Please give a report on 1280x1024.

thanks
-hb

[BaldEagl]

I just got offline testing at forced 1280x1024 (turned off scaleing in the NVidea control panel with 1600x1050 resolution and selected 1280x1024 in the game video settings).  It works and looks great!  I got the full vertical screen back in a size about equal to a 19" LCD/21" CRT.  I didn't even notice the black side panels or the few pixels of black at the top and bottom of the screen.  The top and bottom show probably less black border than what's around the viewable area on a CRT screen and the picture quality is much better/sharper than either my 19" Viewsonic CRT or my 17" Sony Trinitron CRT.

Homeboy, don't let the game scare you from buying a widescreen.  Both inside and outside the game it's a treat.

[HomeBoy]

I want to tell the longer story but I'll keep this first paragraph short in case you don't care to read the longer one:

After what BaldEagl has said here, I researched what I would want in an LCD.  I just bought it and it is truly fantastic!  I freely admit that I have been wrong all this time about LCD monitors!  Now, what do I do with this 21" boat anchor?

Now the longer story.

From BaldEagl's specs on his monitor and knowing that I would not be happpy with any monitor running less than 1600x1200 nor anything but 5:4 aspect, I decided this one was the one I wanted:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009113

Well, I was in the grocery store last night (ok, not really a grocery store but BJ's -- one of those discount warehouse places where you buy a loaf of bread and an air compressor).  I decided to push my shopping chart with the wobbly wheel over to where the computer monitors were just to see what they had.  Nothing but a bunch of cheap little 15" jobs and a couple of decent widescreen ones.  Then, I spotted an Acer widescreen.  I looked closely at the specs and it was IDENTICAL to what I was looking for:  24", 1920x1200, 3000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms response.  It even came with a DVI cable.  The model was P241W which was different from the one I'd been looking at at Newegg but the specs were all pretty much the same.  The price was $350.  Not bad.  Turns out to be pretty much what you can get online.  I had been reluctant to buy online because of all the comments about bad pixels and I had been wanting to buy locally because of that.  Well, there it was right before my eyes!  The display there in the store looked beautiful and they had two on the shelf.  I called my wife on the cell phone and talked with her about it and asked her to look this thing up on google and see what people were saying about it.  The reviews she found were good so I just slipped that badboy in my cart along with the tomatoes and off I went to the checkout.

Many thanks to BaldEagl for setting me straight on this.

Oh yea, here's how it looks with Aces High:  http://snomhf.exofire.net/

[BaldEagl]

Glad to hear I didn't steer you wrong Homeboy.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.  I'm continually amazed at what the game looks like with my new system on my new monitor.

[Condor]

I've got a feeling I'll be breaking the other piggy bank soon.