I've just got LOMAC just this week and I've got some questions:

1.) My system specs are:
AMD 64 3000+, MMx, 3Dnow, ~2.0Ghz

512Ram (not sure which one (im pretty sure its ddr) but I'm assured its a very fast RAM even by modern standards... in dxdiag, it says page file 515mb used, 730mb available if that means anything to you.

80 gig hdd (SATA 1 I think)

Radeon 9600 128mb

Not sure which motherboard is in there but I'm pretty sure it's K8N Neo or something.

My question is... what should I upgrade to improve my performance? At the moment it's doing a lot of disk swapping so that to me indicates there's not enough ram but when I look under task manager, it's not maxing out. The CPU on the other hand is at 100% all the time so that probably needs to be changed. At the moment I'm getting around 30-40fps most of the time but if I drop bombs it just stops for around 2-3 seconds and then I'm dead because I'm not able to control the plane while I've got a frozen frame rate in front of me. Rockets are more or less not a problem. I'm running 800x600x32 with medium to high gfx. When I set everything to Max I don't know how much FPS I was getting but it was too jerky... probably around 15 I'm guessing. At 1024x768x32 i was getting slight jerk probably around 20fps at the same setting for everything else as I'm running now under 800x600x32. I read in another thread that LOMAC isn't very gfx intensive so I was wondering whether I'm getting my lag from a lack of RAM or CPU rather than a poor video card but I simply don't know.

2.) What is the best version of LOMAC? 1.00, 1.01 or 1.02? I'm talking about realism. In several other threads there's ongoing debates about A-120 characteristics being way below real world characteristics and I just want the most realistic version that is out there. 1.2 or whatever it is, sounds like it will be unacceptable to me. I fly the SU's primarily but I still want competitive F-15s etc.

3.) Why is the Adder not available for the SU loadout? Is there any other reason apart from game balance? Is it possible to somehow get it or make it available?

4.) Why is there no SU-33 campaign? There is only 1 fly now mission for the SU-33, I want to try out some more, are there any 3rd party campaigns for the SU-33 available somewhere?

4.) I know there's track IR available but I don't find moving your head while having your eye balls glued to the same point on the screen acceptable, is there some sort of virtual reality goggles set out there? I saw one for around 500 bux a while back with 2 LCD screens as lenses on a glasses type platform, but I can't find anything on it anymore.

4.) Apart from Falcon 4.0, are there any other combat simulators available to the public that are worth having a look at? There was a fighter simulator being developed a while back but I can't seem to find any information on it.

ALL of it. That's some ancient hardware.. If you don;t have to turn everything way down just to run it at anything resembling acceptable frames- count yourself blessed.

None of the above. Version 1.12b is the latest, with a final 1.13 patch supposedly coming in the not too distant future. The F15 is certainly useable, but functionally porked in all versions. The list of modeling inaccuracies is enormous, and the AAMRAM is god awful outside of about 13 miles.

The SU's in Lomac (S/K) are models that never received the avionics/ radar upgrades needed to launch an active radar missile. If you're frantically working to list a bunch of website links & pictures showing it on the aircraft- save it. The project was in motion, but never got funded. Period. It's not coming to LOMAC in it's current form. There are so called "mods" , but don't even THINK about getting online in the hyperlobby servers using them. The servers are privately owned, and strictly forbid cheating. They are all closely monitored and cheaters WILL be hung in public (named, IP published, banned by all) with no warnings and no excuses accepted.

Make your own campaign, or download one. ED was forced to release an incomplete product by the greedy buffoons at Ubi. Thankfully, they got themselves out of that relationship, and continued the product on their own. Hasn't been anything close to perfect, but it beats what we would have gotten with Ubi running the show.

Heh.. Let me get this staight.. You're complaining about how a track ir- arguably the most important & useful flight sim gadget ever made- works? LMAO.. that's rich...


You're probably talking about fighter ops. Big on hype, but so far- low on results. Maybe they let the public in on it too early in the development of the company/ product. Maybe they are going nowhere fast. Don't know- after about.. 4 years... still nothing there to get & hold my attention yet.

1.) Ok, I know it's not the newest hardware but I'm not about to rush out and get a new comp. I want to get the most out of what I have at the moment. Def getting more RAM soon so see how that goes, a new CPU is certainly not out of the question, as for video card, I've played around with the settings a bit and I don't notice much change in fps going from highest settings to lowest at my current reso settings so I think it's good enough for now. I think I'll just stick to getting more ram and a new CPU and get a second HDD so that SATA actually gets utilised... see how that goes. I was just wondering if there was any glaring thing that I have that is creating a bottleneck for my specs at least. Besides from the screenshot folder, Banabob seems to have similar to worse specs to mine and he's got some pretty sick GFX happening.

2.) Ok, so that basically means I'll be patching all the way up to the latest versions... that's settled.

3.) Fair enough makes sense. Doesn't really bother me. I don't see the point of getting Adders on the SU anyway considering from what I've experienced thus far, you basically go BVR and then dogfight straight away. It suits the Mig a lot more in my opinion in terms of usability. I was just curious.

The only other thing that I've thought of (well 2 things) a.) How come you can get R-27AE for the SU if it doesn't have radar capable of firing active? b.) isn't the Mig radar even older than the SU one? How come it gets the adder? (soz... v. limited knowledge on this topic).

4.) I actually found a SU-33 campaign just tonight so I'm pretty happy with that.

http://www.virtual-jabog32.de/...at=4&file=80&lang=en

But that makes sense why they didn't release it with more campaigns. I agree the whole game does feel very incomplete but oh well.

5.) I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that the form that it is most commonly seen in, is to me annoying. I've not used it before but I would much rather swivel around in my chair to the same extent that you would in real life with the aid of the reality goggles that I was talking about... just wanted to see whether anyone else has seen them and has the link for them.

6.)Yes fighter ops is the one and having checked out the site once again in a long time I agree with what you're saying

Finally... I have another two questions:

What level should the missile effectiveness be set at for maximum realism? When you put realism to ace it goes to a default of 50% but how does that make sense?

I read somewhere that in Lock On the G effects aren't realistic on highest setting, but I don't have a G meter scroll thing similar to the missile effectiveness... whats the deal with that heresay?

I **think** the AE suffered the same fate as the radar upgrades. Developed, then canceled. I also recall something about that it WAS produced in small numbers, but sold only as export or something like that. Either way- the Russian Air services never got the missile, and these aircraft were never capable of firing it. (not to be confused with Ukrainian AF or any other former Soviet Union country)

You should seriously try the track, man. Buy an older one used/cheap and see for yourself. I'm telling you-- you will kick yourself for every start you made without it. What you're describing sounds a little like speculation by others (that don't have one) poo-pooing it because... they don't have one. Best device ever made for our craft. If you really don't like it after a month- you can re-sell it.

Set the Missile slider to EXACTLY either 50 or 100% because if you don't- you will introduce a long time bug that will cause every Maverick you fire to miss, possibly others too. The developers have stated that 50% is more realistic, however this exacerbates the already ****-poor modeling of LOMAC's missile flight dynamics.

Neither one of the G settings are very good, but several highly qualified people (combat pilots) have determined that the "reduced G" setting is the better of 2 poorly modeled choices. In the end- the server admins decide the forced settings. Argue with them if you like, but they will always rationalize the configuration/ mission layout, and well... you're wasting your time.

Example: version 1.12 has this ridiculous bug that allows BUK launchers to fire SA11's all by themselves- with no SR unit present. First of all- terrible job. Second- setting up missions with dozens & dozens of BUK launchers acting like super-stingers is so stupid and lame- makes me red-faced thinking about it. I can bitch about it all I want- but it's their property.

Latest version of Lockon?
Well your vanilla Lockon will patch up to v1.02

Here is a link to more info about the various addond and patch levels of Lockon

http://www.lockonfiles.com/mod...826e81d34195b9924b96

If you want to go further, then you need to purchase the addon Flaming Cliffs (FC). That will patch up to v1.12b

If you wish to fly online at some point you really need FC as that is what 99% of the servers use.

You have a slightly worse system to me (I have same CPU, 1024Meg, 9800Pro). I noticed a difference when I added the 2nd 512Meg, I noticed some difference going from 9500 to 9800Pro, more eye candy but not really much more FPS. Lockon is CPU dependent (once you have enough memory and a good enough graphics card).

I run

Textures - medium
Scenes - High (so I can see the forests - 9500 couldnt handle it)
Terr Pld - 50 km
Civ traffic - No (hits FPS for minimal eye candy. Only ever switch it on if I want to see and attack the moving trains)
Water - Low (it is a real FPS killer. No difference if you are over land or not since the water is rendered under all the land as well)
Lights - All
Haze - advanced (haze is a poor name as other lighting effects are lumped in with it (runway theashold lighting, nighttime flares) and you lose those other effects if you dont have haze - advanced and lights - all).

visib rng - medium
effects - medium
heat blur - off
shadows - active
color 32 bit
resolut 1024 x 768

No mirrors,
No reflections.

TrackIR concerns? You shouldn't have. I was sceptical at first but I thought why not, so I bought one. Took me a few days to get used to it and tweak its setup just right for me and noew I just cant imagine flying without it. Without dooubt the best money I EVER spent on something for my PC. The worry of moving your head but keeping your eyes on the screen? Nah! Not an issue, trust me.

Only 2 contenders for vaguely serious (modern jet) Sims are F4 and Lockon. Nothing else comes close.


Not enough missions/campaigns? The philosophy is to have something basic that comes with the game, but let the Community publish the bulk of them.

You have already found the excellent JaboG32 by our German chums. It's strength isnt campaigns, it is skins and Mods. You should also check out the extensive Lockon movie selection - it is the business.

Other sites for missions, campaigns, skins, mods, etc :-

http://www.lockonfiles.com/

OK, I'm a bit biased as I help moderate their Forum, but it is the premier English language site for Lockon stuff. It has 4 Su-33 campaigns and a couple of Su-27 campaigns.

http://www.checksix-fr.com/

Ok, it is in French but not a stretch to navigate. The French for Campaign is campagne. The French for mission is.....well it's mission. Not too difficult then! There are four Su-33 campaigns there, easy to find they all have Su33 in the campaign name apart from the 4th one called Deux nationalism. Also 4 Su-27 campaigns there.

http://www.alasrojas.com/Descarga/lomac/ficheros.htm

In spanish, but click on campanas to go to their campaigns. El Reino de Elbrus is a huge campaign (missions are 12 Su-33, 20 Su-27, 6 MiG-29, 3 Su-25 for a total of 41 missions)

http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/index.html

The site for training movies about Lockon, be it an intro to the mission editor and the Lockon GUI to missile avoidance techniques. If you dont learn something useful from every training movie that IronHand made, then I'll eat my hat.

http://forum.combatace.com/ind...=downloads&showcat=1

CombatAce is not so frequented now by Lockon folks, but has a lot of older Mods, skins, etc that are not on some other sites.

Hope this all helps.......

Awesome... thanks for the input guys...

The links look pretty worthwhile... definitely check them out a bit more tonight. I've downloaded all the videos from Flanker training by IronHand and I'll agree that they were more than just entertaining. Great stuff... some really great pilots out there.

I'll have a think about track IR I've definitely had something of that sort on my list for quite some time as I didn't want to go the multiple monitor route etc but I'll try to find the thing that I was talking about first and then go for track IR if that is either too expensive or not what I was expecting.

I suppose next up i'll be upgrading as I said, my RAM then CPU then HDD.

So in other words, 100% is the more realistic setting of the two?

In relation to G's, as I said, I don't really have a slider, so where is this setting that you are talking about or is it only available on multilayer?

In relation to the AE, I'm still bemused as to why it's on the SU's load out for the Bomber escort mission, or am I getting it confused with another missile?

I think you got one thing wrong there you can use 100% missile effectivenes offline
But if you ever should decide to join an online server you will find that all of them are running 50% and "reduced G"-settings
so if your planning to fly online some day (or maybe join an online squadron) you might aswell keep it that way in singleplayer.
You will find the "G" slider in the same options menu then the Missile slider in the top left corner.

Hmm ok in that case 50% it is. Not going to join the online for a while yet for various reasons but anyway.

I did manage to find the headset that I was talking about... check it out.

http://arstechnica.com/hardwar...y-headset-review.ars

quote:

In relation to the AE, I'm still bemused as to why it's on the SU's load out for the Bomber escort mission, or am I getting it confused with another missile?

Dont read too much into what missiels are/aren't available to Russian aircraft. There is little consistency in Lockon in that regard.
The Devs added in the Kh-41 anti-ship missile to the Su-33. But whilst that project was planned, it never happened, the budget was cut.
But it makes for fun Su-33 missions sinking ships so it's in the Sim (but it isn't realistic).
Similar with Air to air missiles. A big clue with anything you read on the Internet about such things is the date the missile alledgedly entered service. If it is late 80's to early 90's, then think back to what was happening then. Soviet Union collapse, Russia and other countries emerging from that, chaos for several years. Many projects in development at that time were canned due to budget cuts but Western intelligence sources still had guesses about in-service dates that were published.
By all accounts the R-27EM was either cancelled or is not carried in real life on Lockon's variant of the Su's. Ditto the AE. Where you read -AE, you should instead think -RE, the extended range version of the R-27R and therefore still semi-active.

quote:

Originally posted by Atomic_Sheep:
Hmm ok in that case 50% it is. Not going to join the online for a while yet for various reasons but anyway.

I did manage to find the headset that I was talking about... check it out.

http://arstechnica.com/hardwar...y-headset-review.ars

I have seen and read about this device in other forums and to put it short ...... it sucks.... and if you read the review carefully:

•Stereoscopic 3D is nearly impossible for newer video cards, ATI cards, or Vista owners

•The video and USB cable can't be removed

•Low refresh rate can be bothersome at times

•Getting games to utilize the head-tracking is an in-depth process

And for that amount of money (399$) youll get 2 of the newest TrackIR5 including a trackclip pro and youll even have some money left.
http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/

Just wondering, the altitude and speed hold functions available in Lock On, are they available on the real SU-27? The real cockpit doesn't seem to have the same number of lights as the one in Lock On so I'm guessing the real SU-27 doesn't have autopilots of any kind? Also, is it just me or is it impossible to trim the aircraft to fly at the same altitude? (still haven't patched my version).

Lastly, when you look at the recommended system requirements of Lock on, they only expect an AMD 1800, 512 RAM and 128 video memory... so how come I can't do full gfx? As I said, the main slow down issue for me at the moment is the RAM so still looking around for it but when that issue is sorted I think my next bottleneck would be the video card? The processor seems to be way over what is needed to run the game based on what the recommended specs are.

Try not to compare LOMAC and real life much. Especially with Russian planes. Almost impossible to separate fact from fiction with the Soviet/Russian AF.

They are world champs at building prototypes with a couple of pieces of really top-notch showcase technology,show it off with a world-class public display only to see it crashed, mothballed or just fade away into obscurity. The existing models they do have in numbers have been sliced & diced, modded, used for experimentation, cannibalized for parts, & rigged up with phony payloads for airshow displays. No doubt a few airframes' cockpits have seen some mocking up/some upgrades as well. Upgrades sometimes means removal of certain hardware. Then- all the models built for other countries. They are all customized. Often they are built stripped barea$$ed because that nation has it's own avionics suite..

quote:

Originally posted by Atomic_Sheep
Lastly, when you look at the recommended system requirements of Lock on, they only expect an AMD 1800, 512 RAM and 128 video memory... so how come I can't do full gfx?

LOL - you are not the first to wonder at that

The specs on the box are just not realistic. Maybe done by UBI marketing guys who had no clue. Maybe done on a Friday afternoon after they had been out drinking at lunchtime and they came back drunk and thought they would have a bit of a laugh!

When they developed Lockon back in the early 2000's, the Devs (Eagle Dynamics, not UBI. UBI were the publishers) were really aiming Lockon at PC's that were yet to be built far in the future. Hence they had to make lots of things as options. No-one back then owned a system that would allow them to max out everything. Only top of the range systems nowadays have the power to allow folks to think about that. Your system is not one of them. Sadly for you (and me) it is about the same spec as the system I built 6 or 7 years ago.

By the way, here is another site for campaigns.

http://www.dpsimulations.com/CampaignList.htm

Many are for FC 1.12 but they might still run on v1.02, it depends if the campaign designer used any of the things that FC added. You might have to use the Mission Editor to take out such things.

You may have to consider that anyway for any mission or campaign you get from the user community. I often find that I have to edit things out of a campaign when it has too many eye candy vehicles/aircraft that are not pertinent to the actual mission in order to make it run with reasonable FPS.

quote:

Originally posted by Atomic_Sheep

is it just me or is it impossible to trim the aircraft to fly at the same altitude? (still haven't patched my version).

If your flying any Russian Airframe in this sim (like in real life) you have to trim all the time.
I think most of us have a 4.way button/hatswitsch on the throttle or stick assigned for that purpose.
You dont have to trim the F-15 though it has autotrim.

Ok, another question. I've been trying to fly the Mig but I can't seem to figure out why it handles like crap. The missions that I've so far flown, have all started in the air and for some reason, on that indicator panel that tells you whether your air breaks are active or whether your flaps are down etc (the one that has the picture of the plane with the green lights), well in both the missions that I've so far tried, the top part of the wing lights are lit. Basically the flaps on the front of the wings are down and I don't know how to retract them. I'm pretty sure that is whats causing the plane to vibrate like crazy. Any ideas?

Leading edge flaps--"slats" function along with the regular flaps. If your flaps are retracted- they should be too. I don't think they operate with speedbrakes..

Those missions you talk about are they built in training missions (training section) or campaign missions (mission section)
and another question .... what LOMAC version are you running right now? did you patch to 1.02, or even Flaming Cliffs 1.12? because each patch has some impact on how some missions behave.

Well, I d/l that Mig-29 campaign that "Brit_Radar_Dude" sent a link to... the Spanish site. But it's the same story when I fly the standard Mig-29 quick fly mission. Still on the stock version, haven't bothered patching it yet. I ill make some screenshots I think when I have some time.

I think we have the identified the problem allready cause if you didn't even patch to 1.02 youll have a problem
because im quite sure that Brit created those mission files in 1.02 (correct me if im wrong Brit)
So my advice would be .... patch up to 1.02 Click here download and install the patch and then try again.

Definitely. Going on and updating to the latest version with flaming cliffs addon wwould be more ideal, but if that's not possible right away- get 1.02.