REAL System Requirements

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

We have the 'Official' system requirements, but in fact, the info there is misleading.

To run the game well with the quality of graphics which really reflect what the game is capable of, players actually need much better systems.

From a lot of reading of the boards, chatting with others, and my own experience here are my suggestions for 'minimum' and 'recommended' system requirements.

Minimum system requirements:

CPU

First and most important in this game is having a Quad core CPU. The game is now optimized to use a core for the textures. When you add in Windows system requirements, and the rest of the game's requirements, you are looking at minimum 3 cores to be at a decent level of performance. Dual core machines, even fast ones, are going to be seriously handicapped. It is expected we will see more optimization for 4 core CPU's.

Minimum CPU: Core 2 Quad, preferably 2.66 ghz or higher, OR AMD Phenom II X 4 955 Black edition 3.4 ghz or higher.

Video Card

Right after the CPU, the video card is the key to running this game well. The game requires a minimum of 1 gig of Video memory, but more is better. There doesn't seem to be a huge difference between ATI cards and NVidia, there are some artifacts present with the ATI cards, but countering that, it is possible to get 2 Gig cards for less from ATI, key if you want to run higher resolution.

Minimum Card: GTX 470, GTX 560 Ti, HD 5850, HD 6870

Memory: 4 gb is the minimum required, but in fact, it is probably better to have 8 gb, although this is unclear at this point. The game uses close to 3 gb by itself, when you factor in the operating system and any other dormant programs, it's pretty close to going over 4 gb, so 8 is the safe way to go. Obviously, DDR3 is the best choice. Slower memory is not going to give you the same performance.

Minimum Memory: 4 gb DDR3 1333

Hard Drive: Players with 10,000 rpm drives or multiple 7200 rpm drives in RAID config are getting best results. Have heard mixed reviews of SSD drives.

****

Recommended System Requirements

CPU: Intel Core i7-860 2.8 ghz or higher OR AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (Thuban 6c) 3.3 GHz
Video Card: GTX-560 ti 2 gig, GTX-570 OR ATI 6950, ATI 6970
Memory: Two X 4 gb DDR3 1600
Hard Drive: Same as minimum

****

Obviously there are a lot of options to vary the components. I have been reading very carefully the reports by various players, and it seems to me the optimum system based on a price/performance tradeoff is as follows:

Optimum Price/Performance system

Intel Core I5 2500k overclocked to 4.0 or higher (the game reacts very well to faster CPU's)
Nvidia GTX-560ti 2 gig or ATI 6950
8 gb DDR3 1600
2 X WD Caviar Black 500 mg 7200rpm in RAID 0 + backup WD Caviar Green 1 TB

This will run the game extremely well. Make sure you get a motherboard which is SLI or Crossfire capable for when the game is optimized to use multiple cards. That will allow an easy upgrade.

***

If price is no object, the very best systems are those built around the Core I7 2600k CPU, the higher you overclock the CPU better performance you will get, the 2600k can be easily overclocked to 4.3 ghz without liquid cooling being required. Best video card seems to be the GTX-580. Memory and HD's same as above.

***

EDIT: Operating system should be Windows 7, and 64 bit is probably a good idea, since they are talking about enabling DX-11 sometime in the future. Windows XP has serious problems running the game, and there have been quite a few reports by people who have Vista having odd problems.

Crossfire and SLI: Right now the game is not optimized to use dual cards, Luthier has said Crossfire will be enabled within about a month, and SLI will be coming after the next NVidia driver update. When these are enabled, the potential for running the game at max resolutions will really come to the fore. In fact, for those who already have a single video card system which meets my recommended standards, and who have a motherboard which is SLI/Crossfire capable might think about adding an extra card which matches their existing one. So for example someone who already has a single ATI 5770, could add a second one and see really big improvements for a small pricetag.

[jibo]

i agree and last but not least the OS, Win7 is mandatory,
also having more than 4gig is useful

[*Buzzsaw*]

i agree and last but not least the OS, Win7 is mandatory,
also having more than 4gig is useful

Yes, my mistake, the operating system should be Windows 7, and 64 bit is probably a good idea, since they are talking about enabling DX-11 sometime in the future.

[Vengeanze]

Harddrive is not important. A SSD Vertex 3 won't give more frames over a regular 7200.
Harddrive speed shortens the loading time for the game though.

4 GB of RAM is good enough for any game as of today. 8 GB is overkill.
Try it yourself. No framegain with 8.

Would be interesting if anyone has any input on speed of ram. Dual channel versus triple channel and 1600Mhz versus 1066Mhz etc. What does CL-level do for the game?



Forgot; thanks buzzsaw for the compilation. Agree on the Optimum Price/Performance system. Those specs would allow for 30+ low flying over London in a >100 pilots game.

[Phazon]

I agree that a quad core and a current-gen videocard are a must. 4GB of ram is ok for the game as it is today but it will grow more ram hungry as we get more and more aircraft made available to fly with and against.

Having a fast HDD will definately help. It helps reduce stuttering as the game streams textures in for terrain and objects. CloD has a reasonably quick loadtime when you load up a mission but this comes at the cost of the game streaming textures in, as I'm sure alot of you notice when you load into a plane on an airfield and watch the textures load in on the cockpit and terrain around you.

[Feathered_IV]

Very useful information. Thanks!

[Vengeanze]

I agree that a quad core and a current-gen videocard are a must. 4GB of ram is ok for the game as it is today but it will grow more ram hungry as we get more and more aircraft made available to fly with and against.

Having a fast HDD will definately help. It helps reduce stuttering as the game streams textures in for terrain and objects. CloD has a reasonably quick loadtime when you load up a mission but this comes at the cost of the game streaming textures in, as I'm sure alot of you notice when you load into a plane on an airfield and watch the textures load in on the cockpit and terrain around you.
My and many other gamers experience is that the performance of the HDD in games has no significant relation to framerate. However I can't A/B CloD so perhaps they programmed it different.
Might be stutter when running CloD with a 512MB g-card but shouldn't be any on a >1,5GB g-card.

[MadTommy]

Very useful information. Thanks!

Just a shame it is inaccurate and misleading.

Running Windows 7 (x64), trackir, fraps, teamspeak & CoD i have never maxed out my 4 GB of RAM. Suggesting 8 GB is needed is inaccurate.

Also saying FSB speed of 1333 is a minimum requirement is untrue.

Also quad core might be desirable, but it is not essential by any means. My dual core E8400 running at 3.6Ghz does just fine.. neither core gets utilised more than 60%.

The only thing roughly right is the graphic card section. But here there are also mistakes. The GTX 480 gets higher benchmarks than the GTX 570, so saying the 570 is optimum is inaccurate.. the 580 & 590 are the optimum cards, but the 480 & 570 will still run the game on High settings. (i known nothing about ATI cards)

You just need tons of VRAM and a well setup BIOS/PC to get smooth gameplay.

[Doc_uk]

You forgot to mention to run 8gig of memory you need a 64bit machine:rolleyes:
regards
Doc

[Mattius]

Hopefully, further optimizations will reduce these specs.....;)

[Helrza]

Buzzsaw, im just wondering what scenario would the reccommended settings youve posted here would be applied to? overall including london? to have all settings on full?

Atm my cruddy system is running it quite beautifully with nearly everything on full (with the exclusion of ground shading and ground detail on low, and SSAO off). Im asking this because going to upgrade solely for this game, so i want to know wat im getting is going to be overkill, or if i can slacken off on some parts :)

[Rattlehead]

Running Windows 7 (x64), trackir, fraps, teamspeak & CoD i have never maxed out my 4 GB of RAM. Suggesting 8 GB is needed is inaccurate.

Also saying FSB speed of 1333 is a minimum requirement is untrue.

Also quad core might be desirable, but it is not essential by any means. My dual core E8400 running at 3.6Ghz does just fine.. neither core gets utilised more than 60%.

You just need tons of VRAM and a well setup BIOS/PC to get smooth gameplay.

I have win 7 32-bit, which only recognizes 3,5gb of my 4gb of RAM...but I literally have no RAM left only a few minutes into the mission. Maybe that extra 500 megs is enough to tip the balance, I'm not sure.
I also think 8gb RAM is too much, but maybe 6gb is about right.

I agree about the dual cores as well...quad is optimal but a decent dual core gets the job done. Mine is a stock speed 3gig processor and it copes quite admirably with the game...never seen it loaded beyond 70%.

[MadBlaster]

I thought a 32-bit application (i.e., the launcher.exe) couldn't possibly use more than 4 gigs of ram, whether your running 32-bit or 64 bit? If your running 32-bit operating system, then it can use up to ~3 gigs and if your running 64-bit, then up to ~ 4 gigs...so the 64 bit gets you 1 gig ram more to use...but then if your running dx10...wouldn't that take up more memory and partially offset this apparent advantage? And if the launcher.exe was 64 bit, that would be a different ballgame. Then 64 bit op sys could use a shizload of ram, but 32 bit op wouldn't even be able to run the game I guess. Where am I wrong?

[MadTommy]

I have win 7 32-bit, which only recognizes 3,5gb of my 4gb of RAM...but I literally have no RAM left only a few minutes into the mission. Maybe that extra 500 megs is enough to tip the balance, I'm not sure.
I also think 8gb RAM is too much, but maybe 6gb is about right.

On my 2nd monitor i have a number of apps i run.. CPU, RAM, Network & GFX resource monitoring..

My RAM utilisation sits at just over 3.5GB, 3.7 is the highest i've seen it. 6GB might be optimal, but 4 GB is fine as a recommended amount.

That extra 500MB should make a big difference.. get Win7 64bit! :)

[Blackdog_kt]

Strange, as my only serious problem is that my Ati 4890 1Gb is not throttling the clock speeds correctly (as many other Ati owners report).

My system?

i7 920 @ 2.7 Ghz: not overclocked

only 3GB of RAM: win7 didn't exist when i built it two years ago and i didn't want to go with vista, so it was the only reasonable choice--> i decided to go with triple channel RAM so it was eitther 3 or 6 GB but since i was initially sticking to XP it didn't make sense to get 6

Ati 4890 1GB: I had a 4870 1GB initially but it was faulty and died on me, so i swapped it via warranty for the 4890 1GB.


My graphics settings:
1680x1050 (native monitor resolution)
Roads, cockpit shadows and Vsync on
SSAO off
Model detail, damage decals, effects and land shadows on high
building detail on low
everything else on medium

I used to get FPS in the upper teens to low 20s over land with noticeable stutters, until i realized the GPU wasn't throttling up as it should. It stays at the underclocked "power saving" mode of 240Mhz.

So i downloaded Ati tray tools, made a custom profile for CoD that forces the maximum reference clock speed (but still not overclocking above it) and what do you know?
Lowest FPS dip in the black death track is around 18 or so but it stays above 25 for most of the track. I can fly the London sightseeing QMB mission fine as long as i don't get too low (that is, skimming the roof tops drops below 20 FPS, 200-300 feet up and it's playable and getting better the higher you go...for example when spawning at the starting altitude everything is very smooth).

In a representative mixed terrain setting with both land and sea in view, some buildings and a good amount of AI units i get anywhere between 25 and 50 FPS and over water it's capped at 60 due to Vsync as i have a 60Hz monitor.

For example, i tried one of the QMB Luftwaffe ground attack missions as a test. Low level flying, my flight in four Bf-110C7s, three enemy Defiants scrambling from the airfield just inland of a coastal town (aka buildings on screen), the enemy vehicle column, a train loaded with fuel carriages, a whole lot of static AI units around the airfield, some well placed bombs and a whole lot of very large explosions and fireworks after hitting the train, followed by repeated strafing passes on the Defiants as they were taxing to take-off, all in all a good mid-range benchmark sortie.

The only time i got very mild and momentary stutters was when diving on something and shooting from a zoomed in view, but i had that problem with the original IL2 back in 2001 as well, if i fired rockets from a zoomed in view the magnified smoke effect gave my PC the hiccups. I don't have this as much with RAF fighters and their smokeless tracers, so i guess it's a similar thing.

Who knows, maybe if i turn down effects to medium i can get rid of this but i like them too much, i can shoot well enough from the wide FOV and keeping the wider view helps with terrain avoidance through lack of target fixation :-P
Plus, it only happens when zooming in with the ground in sight at low altitude as the textures are initially loaded, if i make a secondary pass it's much smoother. It certainly doesn't happen in air to air combat with the sky in view or even with the ground in view if i'm a bit higher up. All in all a minor annoyance for the extra eye-candy.


My only problem was that i got reboots due to instability, since i forced the overclock through a 3rd party program with minimal testing (i tried the 850 MHz that's the default maximum clock setting in my catalyst control center, then dropped it to 750Mhz but it still rebooted). In other games the GPU clocks up automatically via the Ati driver and it's perfectly stable.

My conclusion from all this is that i'm not spending a penny on hardware until the sim is fully optimized (especially the full screen mode that's not detected by Ati cards, which results in the GPU not throttling up properly), as it seems that when my hardware is fully utilized it's perfectly capable of running the sim at settings that are far from shabby.

A lot of people don't realize that the latest DX10 generation cards like the Ati 4870/4890 or the nVidia 28x series are just as fast if not faster than a more expensive, low-tier DX11 generation card like an Ati 57xx/56xx. Since the sim currently doesn't run DX11 mode graphics, neither benefits from other DX11 features (like parallel processing), it really makes no sense to upgrade the GPU if you have one of the latest DX10 generation cards.

Much better to wait until it actually utilizes DX11 features, by which time it might be possible to grab something like an Ati 6970 2GB or equivalent nVidia GPU for $180 or so (it's around $240 currently).

I think the only upgrade i might do is get three more sticks of 1GB RAM for my second triple channel bank (for a total of 6GB) since i've been running win7 x64 for some months now, RAM is currently dirt cheap and i'm starting to get marginal with my current amount.

Long story short, i wouldn't throw more hardware at the sim until it starts fully utilizing the existing one ;)

[Vengeanze]

Buzzsaw, im just wondering what scenario would the reccommended settings youve posted here would be applied to? overall including london? to have all settings on full?

Atm my cruddy system is running it quite beautifully with nearly everything on full (with the exclusion of ground shading and ground detail on low, and SSAO off). Im asking this because going to upgrade solely for this game, so i want to know wat im getting is going to be overkill, or if i can slacken off on some parts :)

I'd say get a new g-card like Radeon HD6950 or similar. Everything else in your setup should be fine (haven't looked in detail).

[jibo]

8gig is totally overkill but on a P67 dual channel you have no choice :/ or go 4+2

[Vengeanze]

8gig is totally overkill but on a P67 dual channel you have no choice :/ or go 4+2

No choice? Ellaborate please.

[jibo]

P67 chipset does not support triple channel so you can't go 2/2/2 if you want more than 4gig, you need the same amount of ram on each bank to support full ddr

[Helrza]

I'd say get a new g-card like Radeon HD6950 or similar. Everything else in your setup should be fine (haven't looked in detail).

I saw another bloke in the forum state he got excellent results from that card. To be honest i was looking at that and a few others, but was really considering the gtx590 lol.. solely cause i love nvidia. But with both requiring PCIe v2 ill need to upgrade the MB too, which means a new cpu... and ram rofl. Well, a top of the range card aint needed then ;) cheers :)

[Vengeanze]

P67 chipset does not support triple channel so you can't go 2/2/2 if you want more than 4gig, you need the same amount of ram on each bank to support full ddr
It was the "8GB required" that puzzeled me. 4x2 on a P67 is a perfect combo.

[pupo162]

im running hte game mac graphics with a well below specs than the provided.
out of my quad core 2.5 and my 3gb ddr2, only 35% of CPU is used and1 gig of memory is being used. still plenty of space for cod to get better.

[Vengeanze]

I saw another bloke in the forum state he got excellent results from that card. To be honest i was looking at that and a few others, but was really considering the gtx590 lol.. solely cause i love nvidia. But with both requiring PCIe v2 ill need to upgrade the MB too, which means a new cpu... and ram rofl. Well, a top of the range card aint needed then ;) cheers :)
Those where the details I didn't look at. :-(
Maybe O/C then!?

[Langnasen]

I'm running maxed out except SSAO is off at 2560 x 1600 and while the FPS dips into high to mid 20s on occasion even then the feel is still fluid enough for the game to remain perfectly playable. At 1920 x 1200 it's far smoother of course, just needs decent FSAA (forcing it via the NV CP does nothing, even with the latest full-screen patch, and the game's own x8 is lacking effect).

[Helrza]

Those where the details I didn't look at. :-(
Maybe O/C then!?

I did that when it 1st come out lol (had to be done) :D could only overclock the cpu from a 3.0 to a 3.24 (216 fsb x 15 multi) before it became unstable or no boot, and didnt really make a difference, which was a shame. Also chucked the voltage up on the card to see, but made no difference either. NM, im lookin forward to a new build :D This ones lasted a good few years, the next one will last for ages i should say :)

[*Buzzsaw*]

Made some edits to reflect feedback.

[II./JG1_Wilcke]

Good points Buzz and good feedback as well. Aside from the London area which renders painfully slow at 10-20FPS the other areas of the Map are excellent at well over 50FPS. Large dog fights over 50 AC render beautifully and smooth as silk. Once the ground rendering of buildings, homes and city scapes are thoroughly massaged for performance; this is an out of the park home run hit for 1C. I fell in love last night!

Oh a must have for CH Products users is the new MAP that Revvin has uploaded for CoD at the CH Hangar.

Everything maxed out, 1920 by 1080.

AMD Phenom II 955 BE
Nvidia 580 GTX
8 gigs of RAM
Win 7 Pro 64

[Seeker]

It runs fine as a server (not dedicated) with 22 live pilots on my lap top. It kicks ass on my seven year old game machine.

Performance has never been the real problem. Clod doesn't stress my system as much as Oblivion.

Bugs, interface and a lack of content are the problem.

Some of you need to learn more about Windows and less about hardware.

[Bricks]

i agree and last but not least the OS, Win7 is mandatory,
also having more than 4gig is useful

If you are speaking of DX11, please note, that you can also install DX11 on Windows Vista. So I would at least say Vista and Win7. Especially at the moment, while there are even little DX10-features included.

(Besides that, Windows 7 is just a makeover of Vista and using 98% the same files. Hence you can use DX11 with no problems and you can also use the same drivers unless the installation routine checks for the version explicitly.)

[AARPRazorbacks]

This is what I'm flying CoD with:

Intel core Duo E8600 @ 3.33GHz
Ram 4GB
550 watt power supply
Video card GTX 470 1280 MB GDDR5 set at Quality
MOBO- Gigabyte GA-EP45_UD3P
Duel partition
Windows XP Pro 32bit.
Windows 7 64 bit.
CoD in W-7 64 bit

After the last Beta I have everything set on High But Texture Quality= Original
AA 8X
Everything is on.
1680x1050 60Hz

Getting good FPS and smooth.

To say you need a high end PC to fly this sim is not right.

Now if you have the $ then yes, I would get a 4 core CPU but you do not have to have that for this sim.

I use Fraps and a freetrack and still looks and flys very good. I will have Track IR 5 up and running in the next day or so. and it will probably use less of the CPU then the freetrack.

Like I said if you want to upgrade to a PC that is not needed for this sim do that.
But you do not have to to fly this sim.



flyer01

[Oldschool61]

Just a shame it is inaccurate and misleading.

Running Windows 7 (x64), trackir, fraps, teamspeak & CoD i have never maxed out my 4 GB of RAM. Suggesting 8 GB is needed is inaccurate.

Also saying FSB speed of 1333 is a minimum requirement is untrue.

Also quad core might be desirable, but it is not essential by any means. My dual core E8400 running at 3.6Ghz does just fine.. neither core gets utilised more than 60%.

The only thing roughly right is the graphic card section. But here there are also mistakes. The GTX 480 gets higher benchmarks than the GTX 570, so saying the 570 is optimum is inaccurate.. the 580 & 590 are the optimum cards, but the 480 & 570 will still run the game on High settings. (i known nothing about ATI cards)

You just need tons of VRAM and a well setup BIOS/PC to get smooth gameplay.

I was thinking the same thing as you lol a little knowledge can be dangerous when in the wrong hands lol. Until game is finished we wont know the actual requirments to run.

[Rattlehead]

That extra 500MB should make a big difference.. get Win7 64bit! :)

I just did...:grin: