I have the same video card (Cat 11.4 beta drivers). Other Specs are i7 950 overclocked to 3.8Ghz. 6 Gig Ram DDR3 @ 1600. Win 7 64 bit.
I only ran it for an hour or so to test a few things out (I have to go get some sleep before work tomorrow dammit!). I didn't check FPS whilst doing so, but the overall performance I got was as follows;
All medium settings: Runs fine over water in a 6x6 dogfight (Spits v 109). Looks fantastic. A bit of a stutter or two for the first few seconds (loading textures at the start perhaps?), but all was ok after that.
Then tried all settings at
high. Looked even more fantastic! Bloody hell! A longer set of stutters right at the start but was very playable thereafter. A few micro-stutters when I got right in close to another plane but nothing game breaking.
I did not try settings at very high.
I then tried a quick mission over land but then things changed. Over land with all settings at high it was a slide show for the most part. Totally unplayable (IMHO anyway).
Tried it at medium settings and it was a bit better, but still unplayable. Then tried at medium but also disabled roads, shadows and grass. This made it playable(ish)when basically concentrating on the one enemy in view (situational awarenesss can go to hell!) but still far from good enough to be honest. Lots of stutters over land when panning view (track IR4) no matter which graphics settings were used.
In short, the wow factor on my first run over water was immense, this has the potential to be an absolute masterpiece....but.... over land...no good, simple as that. I only tried 6 v 6 over water too, so I don't know (yet) how it will go over water with a lot more planes.
Personally, I will happy enough to stick to quick missions over water whilst I try to learn how to fly the planes...there is going to be a lot of stick time needed to get proficient...I was pleasantly knackered after my first two dogfights as there was so much for me to do..absolutely loved it...but they still have a hell of a lot of work to do to get this beauty running acceptably IMHO...I shudder to think of how any of the stock campaign missions will run.
I am willing to give them the chance to do it, I hope they get the funds they need to finish the job and then continue the series. Seriously, if they sort it all out, this will be a mind-blowingly good game.
Admittedly, I will also have to spend the weekend tweaking settings with my computer, video card settings and the game itself (obviously will be reading a lot of the forums for help) so things may improve after my short test run. As it stands however, it seems a lot of the game will be unplayable out of the box. I was running at my default 1920x1200 resolution (no AA) by the way, so reducing the resolution might help.
I am half disappointed, but also half extremely excited about learning how to fly these planes all over again (IL2 junkie from the original)...as long as I do it over water. I may be a fanboy, but i am happy enough to have paid $50 now for a beta as long as they work it all out in a relatively timely fashion (don't ask me what timely is, i have no idea).
Hope that helps ... and makes some sense.
