Friday 2010-07-02 Dev. update and Discussion Thread
 

Today's screen shots show progress of tunings: smokes, flames, AAA explosions, water, lighting, etc
Also you may see correction of 110th.

2nd portion of shots
 

Some more

3rd portion of shots
 

final 5 shots of today

thank you OLEG cant wait to get in to the seats.

The smoke and fire are simply unbeatable and the shots of that boat plane are brilliant.

lol I think Janpitor forgot to read your first post.

Does the Stuka have deflated tires?

Beautiful effects and lighting. The sky looks very great and the level of detail on the planes - awesome!

I especially like the Flak-Puffs and the fire!

Looking forward to see it animated.

Thanks for sharing!

Does :)

the prop on that closest 110 isn't flat on the side view, thats so cool :D

Great shots !
I'm a big fan of the Stuka !

if you are tuning smokes, my opinion is :
- I love flak effect, it looks just right !
- I think (i.e. on screen n°4) the black smoke looks too... thick, too big maybe, i d'ont know, it seems really enormous !

Yes, I apologize, I saw only the photos and thought we have Christmas today.

Very nice :)


Just one personal opinion: i think the smoke coming from ac`s looks to dense/thick/big, again, just my personal opinion.

Are there differant kinds of smoke from damaged planes (engine/oil vs fuel) or will it look like this whenever a ac caches fire?

The thick black smoke with the embedded fire looks frighteningly real!
Same goes for the irregular AAA puffs.
The world itself and the light are fantastic.

IMO the leaking fuel should be tuned. It should be a fine spray.

it is placeholder at the moment

oleg very good!

Oleg, Will the Short Sunderland be flyable? I doubt it but i'd like to fly a seaplane or flying boat. Great effects on the smoke and flak as well.

The Bf 110 shows fighter-style markings with the extremely rare disk as tactical symbol of a IV. Gruppe (at the time of BoB there were no IV. Gruppen in the fighter branch, I./JG 77 became IV./JG 51 sometime in autumn 1940 but did not carry the tactical emblem of a IV. Gruppe until 1941 and then it used a +). But Bf 110s carried the full 4-character code (see the lengthy manual I sent along with the destroyer emblems for the correct codes).

i noticed on the one screenshot with all the british bombers... the markings on the plane are visible from a lot further away, and the planes detail stays pretty high even at a long distance, big step up from il2 where planes instantly turn into black dots....

Only one word covers it:

Awesomeness...

;) :grin:


DK-nme

i think the stuka tires are damaged, wonder how she will handle on the ground :)

+1!

Would be great to fly rescue missions over the channel (did they use flying boats for that during BoB - not sure with that).

Btw: Thanks Oleg, great screens :)

Thanks Oleg!
Didn't you correct the location of the D/F loop antenna on the Bf 110?

Great
 

Again brilliant screenshots oleg,delighted to see that the tire,s can be bursted,will this be so for all planes oleg?

:o:o:o Wonderful :grin::grin::grin:

Thanks. ;)

Amazing Shot's Oleg have you finsihed the singel player map's yet and are you still going for a 2010 release? Anyway looks good I am really looking fowerd to it.

Awesome screenshots Oleg, don't know if i can keep my sanity if the game doesn't come out this year :D.

A question, for first person view, when getting an oil leak will we see oil spray up on the windsheild or will it be more like a splash-decale like in IL2?

Anyway great work, can't wait.

Real volumetric smoke, it looks fabulous!

- ...But almost looks wrong after I have been getting used to the lovely "cheat" in Il-2, with rotating disks standing in for smoke. Together with the multiple texture layers of dense forests, that was one of the best programming tricks in Il-2, to create a believable world with the few computing resources we had available in 2001.

I wonder which programming tricks there will be in SoW:BoB to create a believable world. There will be many and they'll be very clever I think!

Thank you for this wonderful update.
There are so many great screenshots to look over.
I am very anxious to see what the in game movies will look like in the future :)

Fantastic shots- they are coming together very well.
Regarding the shot of the Hurricane close to the two Stukas- in the finished game, will the gunners be looking at their enemy?
In Il2, it is simply a modelling of the head turning- it would look awesome to see the gunner straining to force their gun into position to take the shot. In the shot you've given us the Hurricane would be outside the arc of the gun.

There are so many things to marvel at in your shots- the sun glint off the windows, the modelling of the propellors, the shadows being cast on the models..... your colour pallet looks very accurate and keeps getting better.
Well done, and keep going!

This game is going to cost me my marriage! I will spend so many hours just flying around, looking at things!

A little weird that the battle of brittain only lasted a few months, but I will be playing out his battle for years..

Skarphol

wauuu, i like the smoke

well with all the user made missions that will come out+ all the offical addons from olegit could well cost you your house and pet's as well just rember to eat and drink

It is so cool, it is fantastic

Excellent job...simply unreachable quality...
 

Oleg, what about EXPLOSIONS engine...I really expect something HUGE from your team... really...
Please check my post about the EXPLOSIONS on the main forum screen.
Brilliant job, again!
~S!

awsome,i have new screen for my desktop :)

does the AI spotting/vision is also obscured by the smoke?i mean will they see trough it or not.thanks

It is so amazing how the water looks so different in the various screenshots! And it looks absolutely fantastic! The same goes for the sky. I think it looks very realistic. Its jawdropping.

Skarphol

We should have as many as possible. Ilya did this shot and put just as sample.

For all.
It may happens during combat... or during landing by the case.

Yeah, well ... diversity is a good thing if it's limited to what was there. Bf 110s never carried fighter-style markings so they're not neccessary there.

As to fighters and their tactical markings it's sufficient to say that having a - (II. Gruppe), ~ (wave) or | for III. Gruppe is all you need for BoB. A IV. Gruppe needs just two markings - a smaller version of the ~ (late war) and a + (for mid-war, i.e. IV./JG 51). I'd have to check if the circle/disk was used as well (perhaps with IV./JG 1 but I'm at work and do not have my books here).

No. But as I told, if all will be fine with BoB life as a sim on the market then many planes may became flyable by third party.

Also this plane still can't drop the bombs. We don't cancel it, but at the moment we have more important things to do. The stystem for bomb racks in this plane is very unusual that to make it looking realisticflly working (with reloading in air from fuselage by rails). In worst case we will have simply bomb loadout just as external looking bombs, without lift system (really complex to make looking realistic, at least at the moment :))

Very very nice!!! :grin:
Flak puffs are impressive in their detail and irregularity. The water looks like it's from a camera shot.

On the Sunderland flying boat, the second engine counting from the left.. Is the exhaust slightly off it's alignment with the engine? Compare to the other three engines with their exhausts and smoke trails.

These friday screen shot teasers are getting better and better.. It's the happening of the week! ;)

Hi Oleg,

thanks for the new screen shots, the planes are looking very good (love the detail and sharpness in the 109 closeup)

can you plz give some insight in the dynamic campaign engine the way it is being finalized right now ?

1) can a campaign server run 24/7 for several months with people joining for a few hrs to fly missions and then rejoining a week or 2 later again and see how the campaign itself has progressed with other gamers having played on it ?

2) when we join a server will the choice of missions have a similar interface to falcon-4 where you see a listed of "tasked missions" and you can choose a specific one you like (for ex: combat patrol, bomber escort, enemy fighter/bomber intercept, "free flight" from any airfield, etc..).

3) will blowing up bridges and railways reduce the supplies reaching the enemy front lines and reduce their fighting ability (including supplies to airfields, preventing enemy planes from refueling and rearming there)

4) can we later on also expect to fly cargo planes in BoB ? so that airfields or troops that are low on supplies can be resupplied by players ? (might not be immediatly important for BoB, but will be for Stalingrad, italy, and north africa campaigns)

5) you mentioned before your dynamic campaign server will have a semi-rigid progress sequence where the eventual outcome of the BoB is predetermined for the english side to "win" (or germans failing would be more accurate), will this campaign server program be open to 3e party editing so we can make servers with an uncertain outcome ? (this would not be for every player action to have a different battle outcome, but big issues like "keeping the english airfield south of london closed due to sustained heavy attack for 2 months", or "enemy looses 80% of their combat aircraft and resupply can not be done fast enough with new pilots and aircraft" etc, and another 5 or 6 pivotal events like that could be listed/triggered like that which alter the outcome of the BoB)

thanks for all your effort and perseverance with this project, cant wait to start flying in the new scenery and environment

The damage smoke is all wrong! Smoke that thick would rarely come out of an aircraft, and TBH the texture can clearly be seen to be repeated. I know this is all WIP, but my friend Holy-Grail has hundreds (maybe even thousands) of clips of guncam footage, and smoke this thick rarely comes out of an aircraft.
It should be a lot 'thinner', as the smoke shown is more in-keeping with the kind of smoke from a fuel dump or something like that.

Despite this though the rest of it is just awesome. But this smoke just reminds me of WoP, and it just looks dreadful in my opinion. I know that the MODS may be a taboo subject, but really there is a lot to take from what's been done regarding the effects in the sim ;)

Please don't take this comment as being hugely negative, as it is only one aspect of the sim..

:cool:

you are probably incorrect in this

a military aviator recently in this forum posted the exact opposite observation, and stated that in his experience the combination of combustible material (incl oils etc) can indeed produce very thick smoke of that type, similar to what oleg posted in an older update (and is seen in this current one).

in historical footage of burning tanks, planes, and other military equipment i have seen before you can also see it to be very dense at times. no doubt current smoke is not final, and depending on what airplane and what part of it is burning this will vary, but completely dismissing the current thick smoke as "wrong" is incorrect in itself.

imo the combination of flames and dense smoke on the stuka and immediately behind it looks very good, the trailing flames and smoke to, but the continuing trail of very dense smoke for several 100 meters (and not dispersing) is probably excessive, but that about it :)

Have to agree about the smoke. Looks more Hollywood or early AAA than the real thing. Certainly understand that it is beta however. The flak looks very much like a commonly used photoshop brush though.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...Untitled-1.jpg

Probably you are right.
However in BoB we use some amount of third party source code... because the product is too complex in many items that to make it at all in a small team.

Looking great!
 

I can only agree, the screenshots are amazing!

I also agree that the smoke is too thick. Sure thing, on the ground a single aircraft would sure be able to emit smoke as thick as that, but a moving aircraft seems unlikely to leave such a thick trail.

Regardless - this sim will be awesome for sure! Thanks for these wonderful shots!

Not finished. There is still many empty places (buildings areas incomplete and no bridges set at all yet). But it is on the way.

It gets complex. As can be seen in my post, I haven't said it is completely inaccurate, but to this degree I think it is. Obviously getting evverything 100% realistic will be hard in this category, as so many things can happen when an aircraft gets hit. With this amount of smoke, from guncam clips I have seen, it usually comes out of an aircraft for less than one-second before being replaced by smoke which is a lot smaller in comparison. to any degree, a military aviator from these times would surely be taking modern jets into account(?) which are totally different from these old war-birds.

:cool:

Smoke looking different at diferent speed. It is wider more close to the plane when the speed is small. And it is not wide for a long distance when the speed is high.
Smae with the leght of flame.

Explosions are not from samples of photoshop :)
They are done researching a lot of different chronicles of 1939-41 years

Same was with Il-2... Do you thing that "red" tint and form of explosions for russian AA shells are wrong there? Hmm, than you all should read german pilots recalls how they were looking - "tomaten" - color was imposible to restore from the films of that era for us... just image (and not like these that are now on shots). Howere reading some recalls and the show them real pilots we got looking it close to that type of explosions. Even the form of the explosion cloud was different for different types of shells and regions of battles during of WWII.
We currently will have such types as it was possible to recognize in the films of that time.

On the shots are not visible very short time flame explosive at the very first movement of the full air explosion animation. However it is.

Yeah, the soviet AAA was informally known as "Tomatenhändler" (tomato dealers) to the Luftwaffe crews.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...3&d=1278064549

I am very interested by this picture. Are all these Blenhiem's flying in formation, or is this several formations flying close together, as can be done with the 4 aircraft formations in Il2?

What about this?

Stuka in flame and smoke. How it is fixed on the BW panchromatic film of that time I really well know that to trasfer it to the colors and dencity.

There are possible various.

here is fomations. Shot is done by tele-zoom that would bring closer background (aircft on the background).

Hi Oleg, well done again!
My previous post in occasion of 2010 06 26 dev update was....

Thanks for your hard work Oleg,
I'm sure the final product will repay you for your efforts.
my question is: in the realization of SOW have you ever considered to implement and facilitate your job with 3rd party 3d engine? I post this link related to a 3d planetary engine found on the net, it seem interesting
http://outerra.com/
what is your opinion?.
Cheers

I would like to know your comment.
Thank you

Yep, this photo shows one of the times when lots of burning oil (or something like that) comes out of the plane and ignites in a really violent way. It is, however, not a continuous process...or at least in footage I have seen I have never seen this be continually coming out of the plane.

It is a funny thing though modelling this, as so many different films from the period show different damage effects.

We again calculate real pices flying in different sides.
But with more complex DM it is now more accurate.

Uhmm, i dont understand well your answer, but since i´m also very interested on the question made i refrase the question.

I beleive David asked if its a single flight of 12 bombers, or if its three flights of four bombers?. He ask if you can now increase the number of planes of a single flight, insted of having a limit of four planes per flight like we do have now in IL-2?

This isn't really oil. The oil flame isn't so great in size and really produce more less smoke in air with the amount of burning oil in aircraft. It is fuel.:) Sample: Just try to take a big floor-cloth, then pover over by the car fuel... aproximum 1 liter should be inside the floor-cloth. This will emulate a bit the fuel in a protected tank with the hole of explosion. Now burn it in air (using some long cane that to damage yourself). See the flame and smoke. However the bad thing that modern car fuel isn't so bad... and produce way less smoke. Anyway, the sample for you will be good.....

Then take bycicle oil in a portion of 1/100-1/300 of a liter. Make then the same procedue like above with this amount of oil - that will emulate the proportion of oil comparing to the amount of fuel in aircraft.

Now compare results.

Hope you wont make it in reality, because it is dangerous... but maybe this simple explanation with my poor english will be enough.

I'm not sure I can see any evidence in these screens that the smoke is volumetric- looks more like your standard textured smoke (which looks fine in most games, and looks fine here too). I imagine a genuine volumetric approach would really grind processors down and would probably not be worth the expense...


"I wonder which programming tricks there will be in SoW:BoB to create a believable world. There will be many and they'll be very clever I think!"


...that is, unless Oleg and the team have figured out or can figure out a way to render true volumetric smoke/clouds, etc.. at low cost. That would be a very neat trick. I'm sure they could do it if they really wanted to. Perhaps it's already done. ;)

Hi Oleg,

thanks for the great pics.

Will there be people walking around, cars driving around etc on the airports?

Because I hate to start or land on ghost airports.

Sorry Oleg, I was getting oil mixed up with fuel...

but have a look here; some excellent footage. As can bee seen in a number of cases here, like in the picture you posted, the fire is quite large and violent, but there is little smoke.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...30/y6qyG4kTebE


This one is much more interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...27/Go6jwR5-nho

In many cases, the fire is as violent and explosive, but also in some cases the thick black smoke can be seen. However, this is quite rare to last for a long time, and in most cases the smoke is not too thick and large.

;)

We have many types of formations. the amount in one formation may depends of historical setting. In general currently AI engine in that part of code support up to 40 aircraft in one formation. In future we may change it for more if neccessary.
Inside the one big formation we may have different types of small formations (don't know how to say it right in English).

Enough said for now... too early to open all playing cards :)

Hmm, I thought BoB2 had/has volumetric smoke? If so, it certainly is possible :D

No one sample of low octan fuel that was common for German planes of that time.

We have diferent dencity of smoke for different situations. You will see it in future.

This clarify a lot. For what i understand, now on the FMB we can put in a single flight up to 40 aircraft, and the aircrafts will automatically separate in diferent types of formations.

When we will be ready to say final details of campaign, you will know it. Untill it is not final, I dislike to promise anything that may not go in final.

Usually I ignore the questions that I can't answer yet. Just to remind my principles for all.

Something like this :)

OK, thanks ;) But at least, is there evidence of smoke looking like what you have shown for a continued period of time? Perhaps, i think, it is best to go by what is available in video form until some more evidence appears to show that there are other circumstances where different things can happen :grin:

Philip.Ed:

I am almost sure most of the shots are done in tele objective. (maybe Oleg can comment on this)
Using tele objective (or other extreme lenses) distorts your 3D world to a a point like you wouldn't believe. In the movies I worked on, some sets build in 3D were one day approved, the other day rejected -- the exact same sets! Just because they were filmed one day with this lens, one day with the other. The client thought we had build something new or so--but not at all in reality. This is very hard to understand for someone that has no experience in virtual building -- and filming it for the public.
The smoke is about right in my opinion. It's heavy, but ok. It looks massive in some shots because of image composition and lens. You should wait to judge it until you see it in game.

repeatable patterns: except a solution for this when the first quantum computer comes out ;-)

Hi Oleg,

I'm glad you took my Bf110 corrections seriously. As far as I can tell the loop antenna and antenna racks are now positioned correctly. I can't see the pitot tube, so can't comment on that. Yet there are still the large trim tabs(=wrong) of the 1941 E series present.

Usually engine means everything from terrain to the features of AI.
But this one offers just several intersting things of hundreds that should be really done for a combat flight sim.

So... if we want to get real combat sim with a long life on the market, comparable with life of Il-2 or even longer, we need to make own engine. Engine here means not only the feature to render ligth and 3D objects, but everything... and everything for using of third party with special tools.
Really... we have way more complex system.

Another thing - it is possible to render the great looking and superb detailed earth... then nothing have with the AI, FM, physics of explosions and car movement (I don't speak about a lot of details we model inside the aircraft.... - that is system that should work all at once.

The graphics render and its presentation in a game is just a small part of the whole sim engine.

Hope you understand my explanation.


For more simple sample: there is very good Unreal engine... but it is completely impossible to use for other types of the games without very seriuos limits. And many things there simply is impossible to implement or change as we may need to have for the fligth sim.


Another sample. it is possible to use third party 3d render engine, hovewer probabaly just for fully arcade games.

finally for understanding of my explanation: the other code part than the 3D representation of terrain and sky is way more complex in our sim comparing to that part....


BTW: Really nice engine shown by a link.

Or haven't simply knowledge of photograpy and different focus leight of lenses.

In our sim the tele position is more close to 50 mm focus leght (normal) like it is for human eye.

the wider angle means wide angle lenses with all their ditortions... (less then in real lenses, but anyway presented due to perspective distortions)

Sample of wide anle is here. I don't post such shots that to do not recall some voices that the plane is incorrect in proportions. Howere we need to have wider than in a life angles due to limits of monitors view.

Sample of wide angle view in a sim.

step by step.

That could make sense, yes, but I am going by what I have seen in videos from the period, and I am of the opinion that it is best to go by what evidence you have at your disposal than what may be right.
For example, despite the great damage model in Il-2, usually there are a few types of smoke seen which means that each type of smoke used for each type of aircraft damage has to be the most common type seen for that particular damage. So in some cases, the smoke might be massive, but in other cases it might be a lot smaller, and if the latter happens more than the former than this should be the type used instead.
But I don't know how the damage-model works in this sense for SoW, so I'll wait for future updates for now.
Also, I am only going by a few videos so more evidence will need to be shown to give a better judgement :-P

Very interesting -- I was not able to see this. Thanks for the insight :)

Looking awesome as usual Oleg :D

Great update as usual. I like the shots of the Ju88 aswella s the close-up of the 109. Would love a 109 in-cockpit video for one of the next updates.:)

So this means that, just like in IL2, people will be able (and will have to) change FoV to different settings, like when they are aiming at something or spotting for enemy planes?

On some diferent manner, but comparable.

The render engine looks to have an almost photorealistic potential, great !

Especially on both of these views :

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...5&d=1278064852

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...9&d=1278064731


Just hoping that the colors of the landscape will look like the England countryside and that a good overcast sky will be available.

No questions.. just encouraging comments. Those screen shots look AMAZING!

"Using tele objective (or other extreme lenses) distorts your 3D world to a a point like you wouldn't believe..."

+1
It's like the "screenshooters" who often like to use wideview angle which produces aircrafts looking like bananas.

Best focale for taking such views without distorsion is around 41-43mm, human eye focale.

Oleg, thank you! Looks perfectly! Unique, that embarrasses - smoke looks as though built from the pieces of cotton wool. Is it possible to correct? What he was more alike on stuyu gas evenly dissolving and spreading as far as a delete from a conflagrant object.

I ask to forgive for English - write through online-translator :grin: As far as understand, to write it is here impossible in russian.
Successes to you and Your command! We all very wait the game created by you!

С уважением! ;)

Wonderful shots. The smoke and fire have a real depth to them that you never see in a computer game, incredible work.

Bloody gorgeous shots Oleg!!:-P
Thank you.

For one of the next updates could you do some shots just above a thick cloud layer. In most flight simulations, even the new ones like Black Shark and ROF, the cloud layer looks horrible and flat from above. :( No details no shadows and it simply takes away from the beauty of flying just above the clouds.

Thank you.

This is what i mean:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...louds_0138.jpg

The fire looks terrifying. I don't know if I can shoot down the Englander anymore when I see that 8..(


Looks fantastic Oleg :)

Been following this for a while, but today had to sign on to say WOW! I'm drooling all over!

Oleg, could we have just a teeny tiny sample video? With the fire and smoke perhaps?

Simply... I love this game!!

Looking really good and the growing ammount of information about the capabilities of the engine is begining to lift the veil on what a step change SoW is going to be. Very excited by the visual scale of this sim too.

Thanks for clarifying my question. I was going to edit my original post but Oleg had already answered, and I took his answer to mean that the formations were still limited to 4 aircraft.

This is very good news. Imagine leading a squadron of 16 fighters on a fighter sweep :cool:

Oleg takes the other hand out from behind his back...bam
to all the clowns that said this looked like IL2. LOL
It is a great contrast between the 109(looks like an unweathered scale model) and the Hurricane, (looks like a picture, only the quality of the shot gives it away)
I imagine with a quick look, 80% of people would think that was a picture.

Now all the smoke experts come out.

Right, but this isn't finished effect visually. I simply forgot to remove this shot... :)

The smokes looks about right (especially as it's wip) to me
 

Awesome- just fantastic!!!! You guys rock!

Now, here's the big question- if you fly through the smoke, does it react to the aircraft's passage? I'm thinking of those air-to-air shots where the subject aircraft is climbing out of an undercast, and the wingtip vortex is causing the cloud to swirl.

Now, if you guys can do THAT, amazement, joy and anticipation will be unrestrained!

Great pictures! Maybe in some future update you could show smoke from bomb explosions?

A few things that would be really neat to see in the final version…

1. In looking at historic gun camera footage, many times when a plane is being riddled with bullets one of the landing gear will drop down…like a wounded animal. If this was programmed to happen in the game on a selective, random basis, I think it would be really cool.

2. With the obvious detail and photo-realistic quality being built in the game, it would go a long way in removing the cold robotic feel if we could see a wounded or killed pilot slumped down in his seat. Don’t want to be gruesome but even a spray of blood on the inside of the canopy. This was war and those that fought died. I think this would add a HUGE degree of realism and make the game come to life…or death.

Anyone else in agreement?

PS…if either of these requests add a day to the release date, please disregard all the above.

Wow!

Another amazing set of screenshots. Looking great.:grin:

The flak looks really scary, as does the flames.:evil:

The water looks absolutely perfect.

The damaged tyres should make for some interesting landings, although I think that the Stuka pilot has a lot more to worry about than his tyres.:grin:

A fantastic update this week with 15 pictures, each as good as the next.

Thanks.

Sunderland in the sunset (is that sunset?) is the best :).

One question: is the colors of the atmosphere already tuned?

Just WOW
 

Awesome pictures, Oleg!

I am not seeing the "problems" others are seeing. Better to say I am not seeing them as problems that would warrant a lot of extra development time or frame rate sacrifice. I would expect improvements to be made as post-release updates come out, not a perfect initial release.

The sooner the release, the sooner the revenue comes streaming in ;). We await with baited breath, it looks gorgeous compared to anything else on the market today.

Hats off to you and your team for jamming as much goodness into the initial release as possible.

About "gore" and wounded pilots: I have zero problems with it (I want realism and this is a combat sim so I am actually for it), but many parents would have misgivings. In the US, it would cause an extra warning to be put on the box. Could be worse in other countries. Such problems may decrease sales so I hope everyone would be understanding if there is no depiction of wounded pilots or "blood".

Splitter

i'll have to buy at least 4 copies of this sim. One to fly, one spare, on to fly if i loose the spare, one to hide somewhere in case i loose the spare ones.
A word of critic? absolutely none from me.
Thanks for updates

Isn't there a difference between how light is captured on film and how the human eye processes it? How it looks in a photo may be more dramatic than how someone there at the time may have personally seen it?

I was thinking about doing an upgrade by October, when I will go to Orlando, but probably it´s wiser to delay this for christmas or even first quarter of 2011 for the next generation of VGA and CPUs, based in this comment by Oleg...
I´m not so worried about a delay, because this is probably the most complex flight sim ever and deserves time to be finished properly.
AND rumours are saying that ATI 6870 will be out Q1-Q2 2011 , to be 20% faster than GTX 480.Imagine in Crossfire...