I don't know about you but I don't buy games for the graphics. I'd rather the game look like CFS1 as opposed to play like CFS1.

I don't buy games purely for graphics either. But for me it is one of the elements that are important to get right - on a par with many others (including FM, dM, accurate modelling of aircraft, good gameplay, ability to run with adequate fps, etc).

Failing on any one of them can bring a game down. And of course each individual will rate the different facets higher or lower according to his personal taste. For me currently COD fails on terrain/landscape.

(something to make clear - COD's rendition of terrain is heavier resource-wise and more advanced technically than either ROF's DX9 implementation or the old il-2. But I prefer ROF and many old il-2 maps to the current COD. COD's map failing is in its artistic direction/implementation and a resulting lack of coherence in the end result.

Strong evidence suggests that the failings are due to a combination of botched then remade earlier versions, technical difficulties (SpeedTree), and insufficeint resources/time to get things right - in other words the same as with many of the other problem areas in the game.

And from the recent screenshots for the Russian sequel they seem to have learnt lessons and are getting better results by passing off the map-making to a third party.)

2012
with good hardware in the market
the graphics is a must:-P

i was being sarcastic as was the post i quote, there are no planes flying backwards either... no need to raise a fake question, no one has to choose between looking like CFS 1 and playing like CFS 1

for me FM is important AND graphics are important; it's impossible to have a 100% real simulation, there has to be concessions to realism here and there for the good of the global picture, there just isn't enough CPU power available to have a near perfect combat simulation, that is not going to happen; so what's left? for me, immersion; a simulation, among other things, IS a visual reconstitution, so graphics are important, they don't have to trample the FM development, but they also don't have to take the eternal backseat

besides, i've stated before in this thread that my priority is performace of the graphics engine, seconded by the FM issues, and only then the visual enhancements, so there's really no controversy i guess

or perhaps you don't like my avatar? ;)

Something else (with regards to forests) that should be considered is taking away the option to get rid of forests in settings... Just look at some pictures of some WWII 109's stashed away in the tree line. How are we mission builders supposed to hide targets at the edge of the forest for some realism, if people can just make them vanish?

You'll have the people that have paid good money to have the ability to see trees with no FPS horrors, and those people will be the ones that won't be able to see the targets as easily as those pilots that have their trees "turned off".

And another thing is, what happens when they add collision detection to the trees and those that have their trees turned off, come in to straffe ground targets? They'll also have less to worry about when straffing?

Having that checkbox in settings is a ridiculous idea imo. Trees should be part of the map (for everybody).. period.

until or if the trees are done in .NET and not C++ they will most likely leave the option to turn them off because of the FPS/stuttering the interop causes :(

I would propose another solution, one that hopefully doesn't force everyone down a specific road.

Let's do it like it was in IL2. Back when we were flying the previous series and our PCs couldn't take high detail clouds, server admins would set clouds for low detail in their missions and just place a warning on their forums or a pop-up message on the in-game chat bar every now and then.

"Warning: setting clouds to high might result in a combat disadvantage".

This way the players are informed and the choice is up to them.

A similar thing could be done for trees and the feature expanded a bit by making the lowest possible tree setting a server enforced parameter (just like realism settings).

Once graphics are optimized, then servers could simply force people to use, for example, at least low trees: if i wanted to and my PC could take it i would still be able to set trees to high for the eye candy, but only the amount set by the server would have collision detection.

Then as everyone's hardware gradually catches up, server admins could up that setting.

A "Tree setting" similar to IL2's would be a great idea for the team to do, combined with the ability for a server to lock trees as "on" would be just excellent.