The game from NWS (IL-2 1946) is a physical copy (DVD) in the case. Same for 'Forgotten battles: Gold Pack', but it's on CD-Rom.

Perhaps your PC specs will help us advise you further.

Original IL2 was ok with 16/32mb GPU & 1.5/1.8 CPU 512mb ram

Later versions required required more "grunt" in all areas.

IL2 1946 is around the min spec of 512 GPU 2.5 ghz CPU and 1gig ram

Please note the above is dependant on what settings you choose to use for graphics.

Just to be clear; I already ordered IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles Gold Pack. I'm not buying 1946!.

My system is pretty old but it runs IL-2 Sturmovik okay. Also, old flight sims like Combat Flight Simulator 2 and Flanker 2.5.

Radeon 9500Pro 128MB DDR
DirectX 9.0c
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Pentium IV 1.8GHz
Windows XP Professional
512MB RDRAM PC800
Logitech Cordless Freedom 2.4GHz Joystick

It will be nice to be able to use Paul Lowengrin's - Dynamic Campaign Generator with Forgotten Battles, since it doesn't work correctly with the original IL-2 Sturmovik. http://www.lowengrin.com/news.php

Have you considered buying IL2:1946?

;)

I think you guys are getting paid to promote 1946. =)

Not even ! Guess how it is good :D

I used to run Forgotten Battles on my old Athlon 1.0 GHz, with Geforce 2 GTS with a whole 64MB of ram on the GPU (I remember that Sturmovik used to crash after a random time, and FB would crash reliably after two hours and some number of minutes (I never did time it exactly to find out what the number of minutes was)). I could play at 1600 x 1200 on that, since I had a pretty decent monitor.

I built that computer in 2000.

I built a new PC in 2005 for Pacific Fighters, it was an Athlon64 3000 (actual clock speed 1.8GHz) with DDR memory and a Radeon X800 pro, I don't think it was really needed for IL*2 after all, though other games certainly required it.

IL*2 1946 will run on anything half way modern, though you're probably better off with a graphics card that's a bit ahead of a Geforce 2 GTS.

If it's not being shipped already, you could cancel the order and get 1946 instead :D

It's just a good advice as you'd get more bang for the buck.

The main reason: It's the same + more. And just by looking at your name, I get the impression that you might want to fly the Corsair. It's in the 1946 package (= FB + AEP + PF + Pe-2 + Il-10 + 1946), but not in FB Gold (which is just FB + AEP). Technically it's the same simulation, so it doesn't need better hardware. Graphical improvements are optional. Just make sure you put some graphics settings down, especially in the conf.ini (effects=0 is very useful for example).

Igo kyu, the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB DDR is better than a Geforce 3 card. Also, IL-2 Sturmovik never crashes on me, ever!.