I afraid that prices of I7 setups wont drop so quickly as we assume and what more, dont forget that flight sims are real time simulations and it's very hard to implement parallel processing, maybe if OLeg will use Falcon4 like "bubble" concept for massive campaigns, but still I dont believe that more then 2 cores gonna be use at full steam.
And in Q3 09 Itel plan to introduce LGA1166 paltform (Lynnfield) base on I7 architecture but only with 2 cores but with lock clock, so it wont be easy to OC!
Also, AMD is puttin all its strategy to PhenomII four cores CPU, two cores new Athlons will be for value market only.
Maybe we are facing bleak times for PC gamers, multicores are not for games (and wont be ever) and two cores wont be maybe less powerfull then todays E8xxx...
So my bet in on highly OC E8400 (8600), but maybe Oleg surprise us all....

It would be nice to know more from Oleg on this subject. I wonder if he realizes the dilemma?
Flyby out

I doubt that anyone involved in the IT industry would not have a fairly good grasp of the situation, and due to that it would be irresponsible for Oleg to give out any more advice than he's done already.

Every one knows that over time hardware will become cheaper and more powerful. (Current economic meltdown permitting!) If you want the best experience playing a sim that won't be released for another year and you can afford to wait, then wait!

Three or so months ago I HAD to upgrade my computer, So I worked out a budget and fitted into that. Trying to plan ahead for future upgrades. If I went through the process today the PC I'ld have built would be nothing like the one I made.

In those 3 months, we've had a whole range of new technology introduced. New graphics sets, Solid state drives, a new family of CPU's and Motherboards, Tripple channel DDR3 memory.

In a years time who knows what our PC's will be like? If you NEED to buy a computer now, try to make choices that will allow you an upgrade path. Just think, by the time SOW is released, you may not even be interested in Flight Sims! Who Knows?

hi Skosh,
I don't think it would be irresponsible for Oleg to give a bit more guidance on system requirements at all. What's wrong with saying a Conroe series CPU would be more than sufficent? Or a Penryn? Or a Nehalem? I'm waiting a bit longer before building a system, but I had not planned to wait until next May when requirements are supposed to come out. So how to plan for an upgrade path when there is no target? Even Rise of Flight has posted system requirements. Surely Oleg has an idea. I know he won't recommend a Cray, but...
Flyby out

Well a couple of reasons,

Firstly, "Traditionally" development of of Hardware has followed the much misquoted "Moores Law", in which every 18 months or so the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubled every 18 months while their price dropped by about half. So fair this has roughly coresponded to the performance of the processors and memory etc.

Secondly Intel has been following their tick-tock cycle, We've only just had the 'Tock' wich was the introduction of the i7 Architecture in the 45nm silicon process, In the next year or so we'll have the next 'Tick' which will be implementing the new architecture on 32nm silicon. (And I bet AMD will be trying their hardest to out do intel!)

So far, from what I've been able to see programs aren't pushing the new i7 chips to their limits because the code hasn't been optimised to run on the new architecture. That'll takes time for the developers to come to terms with. Who knows what sort of performance will be reached? I certainly don't

It basically comes down to that in a years time The CPU's and memory avaliable will be more powerful and cheaper, have more cores etc.

Oleg has already said that they are making a sim that will be around for a long time, hopefully as long as IL2. I'm sure I read somewhere that they are adding features that won't possibly run on current PC, and closer to release they be deciding which ones they will need to turn off to get the sim to run at acceptable frame rates and game play.

Now if Oleg at this stage said the game will run on 'X' and a person runs out and buys 'X' now and when time comes to play the game and the person doesn't think that 25Fps is 'acceptable' They'ld be blaming Oleg for screwing the pooch with his machine specs and we'ld never hear the last of it.

Also that PC that cost lets say 2000 Rubles today would only be workth 1300 Rubles in a years time. Then there'd be a 30 page thread says Oleg robbed them.

This far away from release I wouldn't be releasing machine spec's.

Cheers!

(Sorry for my disjointed argument, my wifes run away to the shops and left me with winging children!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure they can't be mine!!!!!!)

Hey Skoshi I got your point, but still Oleg should at least tell us for ex "Yea it will be optimized for multicored CPU" or "sorry lads, maybe in the future you'll be fine with twocore at 4 Ghz...something like that.

Hey, I'm hanging out for this sim, just about as much as anyone. After upgrading 3 or so months ago, I'm hoping that it will run OK on my new PC.

I would like to know if the problems with SLI will be sorted out in SOW (one possible upgrade for me ) and if PhysX will be supported, How much memory? Will I get by with my current CPU & motherboard (Over clocked of course!) )?

But until the Sim is actually released and we get to see it in action how will we actually know for certain?

I guess that's all I'm asking too, Shosh. At the very least can it be revealed that the code is being written to take advantage of 4 cores (or not)? I "feel" the code takes advantage of dual cores now.
Hope the kids don't wear you out! :D
Flyby out
btw, how a sim runs with either Crossfire or SLi implementation is not a function of the sim, but rather of the GPU's technology. There have been some interesting articles around talking about a new technology that allows multiple GPUs to scale nearly 100%. It's called Hydra and it's been tested, but is still in development. Neither ATi nor Nvidia seem inclined to fix their multiple-GPU tech. It's really sad too because people spend their hard-earned bucks to buy two GPUs because of the implied promise that two work twice as fast as one (universally) and that's just not true. Which is also why some sims run better in SLi (or Crossfire) than others. IMO, Hydra may represent what ATi and Nvidia should have been about all along:true multi-GPU scaling no matter what the sim.

Too true! It's easy to forget! I guess we've been spoilt in the past, where Oleg&Co have "Fixed" up some issues with graphics chipsets and IL2.

There is some amazing technology being released and I guess it's a bit frustrating when it doesn't realise its promised potential or is so new that there are no applications that use it fully.

Cheers and all the best!

the best back atcha! ;)
Flyby out