Various questions from a newbie

[T.S.C.Plage]

Got the game with the Hind expansion and already finished the story driven part of the career mode. Now I've some questions that came up while playing.

1. How do I access the hydraulics of a helicopter? Where to look at to check its status (if it needs repairs)?

2. How do I use the FLIR, camera and light? The FLIR gets activated automatically in some missions but why can't I use and control it and the camera all the time and have it displayed via PIP and inboard LCD. Why do the search-/landinglights have no function (for me only)?

3. Is there a way to turn the front wheel of helicopters (like the Hinds or the "heavy" ones) while taxiing on the ground?

4. Is there a way to improve the surface textures?

So far...

[Mattressi]

I'm still reasonably new to the game, but I'll try to answer as best I can.

1) To repair them, you need get into the helicopter, turn on the battery and move the cyclic and collective in all directions (and to their limits, I think).

2) I asked about this same thing before and never got a response. The FLIR in the medium helicopters can be used by a passenger, by going into the middle seat and using the monitor in front of them...apparently. I never was able to control it, just watch it. The camera only seems to work in missions which automatically give you access to it. I've only ever seen the searchlight working in one of the time trials - in one of them it's night time, you have nightvision and a searchlight. From what I can remember, the searchlight couldn't be turned off, but I could be wrong. I was REALLY disappointed that these features don't actually seem to be controlled by the player. I was also disappointed that there were no challenges/side-contracts which made use of them.

3) I don't think so - I just use the pedals, but it seems unstable when I do that. Perhaps there's a way and I just haven't worked it out?

4) If you mean the textures of the ground, there's a simple solution - set the video memory (texture cache? I can't remember the name of it - the setting above texture quality) setting to "default". For some reason, setting it to even "very high" actually sets it much lower. I played the entire game with the memory set to "very high" and thought the textures looked horrible. Found the "default" fix online and was blown away by the huge difference in texture quality.

Hopefully some of that helped. Post back if you still have issues. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[T.S.C.Plage]

Thanks for the reply. I've now found everything to inspect for repairs. Nobody seems to know what's up with FLIR, cam and searchlight. Yep, seems like frontwheels aren't steerable...a shame now that ground taxiing is actually possible. I've followed your instructions with the "default" setting which in my case means "normal" quality. Unfortunately it doesn't seems to make a huge diffrence.

[Mattressi]

I've followed your instructions with the "default" setting which in my case means "normal" quality. Unfortunately it doesn't seems to make a huge diffrence.

I think I might not have explained it very well. There should be an actual "default" option to click on for the 'video memory'. It's the setting above 'texture detail'; make sure that it's set on "default" and it seems to work fine. A lot of people have had this problem and have fixed it this way, though it's possible you might be experiencing a different cause of the issue. Also, the ground textures won't ever look perfectly clear like in Arma 2 (well, A2 isn't perfect, but still), but they should look as good as the official screenshots.

What graphics card and how much RAM do you have? That might play a part in the textures not being as crisp as they could be.

[T.S.C.Plage]

I don't have the feeling that it changes anything when I switch between "default" or "high" as I have it set manually but that's maybe due to my lower-end system. Just have 4GB RAM and an old ATi 4890 OC.

[Mattressi]

I don't have the feeling that it changes anything when I switch between "default" or "high" as I have it set manually but that's maybe due to my lower-end system. Just have 4GB RAM and an old ATi 4890 OC.

That could be it. Unfortunately the video memory setting seems to auto-scale to your hardware - on my other (less powerful) computer I simply can't force the textures to look any better, no matter what setting I use. I'd happily suffer lower frame rates and/or texture popping, but it seems that the game won't do it.

I'm not certain if this is the issue for you, though. Hopefully others who know more about this stuff can come on and clarify.