IIRC, and Oleg has said so himself (and we have seen it on the shots) that the prop won't look anything like this in the game. Only when you pause the game you will get a situation like this - as if it was taken by a camera.

Which is great, as I hate this kind of unreal propeller look - like many mods have it nowadays.

If I am not mistaking, we should be able to set the shutter speed ourselves and change this option in the game - what happens when we hit pause.

A release in 2011 is NOT OK for me.

SoW is become more and more a neverending story like HALO, Duke Nukem Forever or Stalker. On the one hand, i can understand Oleg. He wants to make the simulation perfect. But on the other hand the wishes of the community are sometimes disgusting (different facial expressions or wind shear in perfection).

Sure Oleg could model some motion captured snails at the runway at last... :|

I am very disappointed about the promises of Oleg. "SoW will have thousands of players until october 2010..bla bla bla..."

I can't wait any longer for SoW system specs, the community have taken IL-2 to such new levels (no I didn't use the 'm' word) that my AMD3800+ 2x64 at 2.4GHz, 2Gb RAM and 2 x 7800GTs no longer runs it smoothly on Perfect.

I'm going now with

Intel i7 950 3.06GHz (overclockable)
6Gb DDR3 RAM
XFX 5870 GPU
ASUS Sabertooth mobo
SSD for the OS and Flying software (IL-2, FSX, SOW)
700w Storm PSU (cos i have one in the cupboard)
plus a couple of HDDs for other stuff

If that doesn't run SoW which has been in development for 7+ years(?) then I won't bother buying it. Also SoW's only going to be 32bit. I expect the 64 bit version will run even better if it ever gets developed but that would take another 2 weeks :^)

Seriously guys, if it's that close (even 5 months away), current products aren't going to change that much and newer stuff will be way too expensive for me. I haven't gone i7 960 or 5970 due to the almost double cost. That could improve over the next 6 months but probably not by much.

btw my laptop with i7 720QM 1.06GHz, 6Gb RAM and 5850 GPU eats IL-2 alive on max settings and FSX is rock solid with 1.2m photo terrain so the new rig should be even better.

The modded propeller has a nice even blur, unlike the photoshop one. I certainly hope we won't get that one each time we pause or take a screenshot, even if the amount of blur varies.
The photoshop blur has a tell-tale 'rabbits ears' at the outer edges of the blur.

I hope it is just a WIP.

Mod/SoW WiP:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...back/prop4.jpghttp://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...back/prop5.jpg

I just hope there is no blur on the moving blades as seen in flight.

This is a cinematic effect and in no way reflects reality.

I see blur with my naked eyes ... clinical case? :D

I guess it's supposed to replicate what a camera shot would look like, and seems to do a good job at that (see below). Oleg has explained previously that shutter speed etc. will be factored in for propeller or tracer appearance when taking screenshots, and that would mean the blur is calculated automatically (propably using the same radial blur algorithm). I'm pretty sure though that this will be optional anyway.

Shouldn't make much of a difference when playing, in most screens we've seen a "correct" highly transparent spinner disk that is completely blurred as it should be.

http://www.airmuseumsuk.org/airshow/...HURI%20HAC.jpg

Insuber, unless you've had a shutter implanted you wouldn't see anything like pictured above.

robtek, I respectfully disagree! On TLAP Day I drank most of a bottle of rum and quite a few things were blurry! ;)

WTF?

It's the final lap, they have a publisher and and a demo for nvidia.
This is the first time the light at then end of tunnel seems to be indeed daylight.
:)

Let's hope so, by goodness!

Obviously an i7 is not going to be a problem - but what would be nice, is to have a better understanding of the game's use of Physx and Tesselation, and whether it matters if we go nvidia or amd (ATI). Obviously both will work, but it could, for example, make good use of features that one card is better at.

Why are you going for a 5870, is that 2nd hand? It seems the new 6xxx series may be better value.

Nope, that's another lost soul with his torch out :)

Can't hold on much longer myself.
:-)

You do know the 58xx is a totally different league?

68xx maybe newer and cheaper, but they are not meant to compete with the 58xx - the 68xx is more like a 460.

I am willing to wait as long as the game is in final state when released. I'm fed up with 'half-done' titles being released every day now for the past few years. So, in a big NO I don't agree with you. If the had the chance to released in 2010 and decided to polish it up more before release - I welcome the decision wholeheartedly.


Oleg confirmed there will be a x64 exe. On a similar note - DCS A-10C is a x64 sim, first ever released. So my bet is that with SoW we will have similar support, for both x32 and x 64.

I think now that its impossible to be a release in 2010

Are there any games being released in december?

Only heaps of junk pushed out of the door in time for Christmas, regardless of its state.

[QUOTE=Triggaaar;194691]Obviously an i7 is not going to be a problem - but what would be nice, is to have a better understanding of the game's use of Physx and Tesselation, and whether it matters if we go nvidia or amd (ATI). Obviously both will work, but it could, for example, make good use of features that one card is better at.

Why are you going for a 5870, is that 2nd hand? It seems the new 6xxx series may be better value.]

Hi Triggaaar
No the 5870 will be new.
I started with the 5000 series as I was impressed with the i7/5850 combination in my laptop. 5870 was the highest in the family I could afford and all review checks kicked Nvidia into touch.

Also, as far as I could see from quick google results the 6000 series was a marginal level of performance down on the 5000 series, especially the 5870/5890. In addition it is much cheaper than the 5870 so "surely not as good as the 5870 even if a strange jump in numbering" (yes, a wild assumption). Strange for a new release.

For example, looking here.....
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=82
See 5870 vs 6870, the 5870 outperforms the 6870 although it is 2Gb vs 1Gb.
But then in...
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...phire_HD_6870/
The 6870 and 5870 swing around depending on the game, at stock speeds, although the 6870 uses less power.
And here...
http://techgage.com/article/amd_rade...6870_hd_6850/1
The 5870 beats the 6870 in virtually all comparisons except where heavy Tesselation is involved (no I'm not some expert - and as you say, will SoW use Tesselation?). One of their conclusions is
"The Radeon HD 6870 is about ~15% slower than the HD 5870, but costs much less ($240 from $400)."

I know there's not a huge difference reported between 6870 and 5870. So now I am wondering and looking forward to more opinions here.

"Oleg confirmed there will be a x64 exe"
Good. Hopefully on release :)

Actually I never tried an ATI. And Oleg saying it will look better on Nvidia doesn't help me change this trend.
If Oleg stated, that it would look as good on Ati I would definately buy the new 6970, because the new gtx 580 stuff of nvidia seems to be a "fail" again.
Hot, loud, ...

Too bad Sandy Bridge isn't out this year.

Didn't Oleg mention a long while back that they were using their own physics engine????

LOL


Cheers!

I've played 15-20 games that had the big green Nvidia logo at the start and none of them looked any better or any worse on an ATI card. Image quality usually becomes a factor if you're playing a game at 16x AF or 8x FSAA.

You're not going to notice a difference between the two cards until you look at your power consumption and your wallet. The screen is the last place their differences become apparent. I don't want to sound like an ATI fanboy, but their cards have been hitting the performance/price sweet spot a lot better for the past few years than Nvidia has.

If anyone is trying to decide what they should get, go to tom's hardware, check out the video card chart in your game of choice, and see the performance stats of all the different cards. Now find the performance area you want and check out the card prices. Whatever gives you the most FPS at the lowest price is the winner.

^ Valid points. But there are other things which make me stay with Nvidia. These are things I've experienced or noticed on forums. Your experience may be different, but of course I'm always going to place more weight on my own observations when making decisions.

Compatibility.
In IL2 my 4870 had graphics corruption issues unless I stayed with the 8.9 drivers. The same happened again to 5xxx owners. (then they fixed the drivers, then broke them again in the next version, then fixed...)

DCS: A-10C (yes, it's a beta, but I still think it's relevant) there are quite a few high-end (i7, etc) computer owners complaining about terrible frame-rates. The link between them? They have late-model ATI cards.

In general, on the forums I frequent, I notice more threads about problems with ATI-based hardware and compatibility than nvidia.

Control panel.
I don't like nvidia's CP much, but the ATI CP, I cannot stand! For example, when using the on-board ATI stuff on a TVPC, I needed to disable over-scan (IIRC). After much fruitless poking around, I found the answer on a forum - you need to press a little, UN-LABELLED button (which did not look like a button!) to get to the relevant section...

Then there's the catalyst AI, which seems to need to be turned off for most of my games, making me wonder why it is there, and enabled by default.

I could put up with the control panel if I were confident about the card's functionality, but my observations about compatibility issues put me off, to the point where I justify the extra cost and (somewhat irrelevant) extra heat/power usage. These are just my observations, no doubt others will see the opposite, or the opposite might be true for a different set of games.

I can confirm that.

But Lock On - the base layer - runs much better on Nvidia Cards for years.

do you guys know, if ...

a AMD - ATI combination works better than a AMD - Nvidia combo?

or if ...

a Intel - Nvidia combination works better than a Intel - ATI combo?

I'm speaking of stuff with comparable power.
Just wondering because AMD and Intel are competitors as well as Nvidia and ATI, so they might have intentionally done sth to make some combinations work not as good. :confused:

Well I just did that and they don't cover the 6000 series yet in their Graphics card best buy Hierarchy. What they do say here..

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...arts,2776.html

is "The Radeon HD 6870 is slower than Radeon HD 5870. Radeon HD 6850 is slower than Radeon HD 5850. It's confusing, we know, but AMD has what it considers a good explanation for the naming scheme." and in the final page Verdict "The high-end Radeon HD 5870 and 5970 will be replaced by the “Cayman” and “Antilles” Radeon HD 6900-series before the end of Q4 2010."... also supported by supposedly leaked AMD information (I won't post the link as there may be legal issues) stating the ATI "Cayman" is supposedly being released late November=6970?, Antilles in December=6990?

There's nothing on AMDs site about the 6900 series and they don't answer the phone ("leave a number and we'll call back") but other Google-guessers are expecting release in late November and guessing the 6970 to be round 1/3 more in price than 5870. It's only someone's guesswork though. So I may have to wait ? :(

Back to this Thread, I don't see AMD doing anything more before SoW is released so for me that's part of the system spec puzzle resolved. 6970/6990 will probably be the way to go for max effect unless you want to wait for Nvidia's response. But what do I know?

Struck by this quote from the TomsHardware article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...arts,2776.html

"And in the midst of all of that jockeying, there are new games launching that may or may not be under the influence of developers who selectively cooperate with one GPU vendor or the other. These are anticipated games. Games we've wanted to test for some time now. But we face the possibility that one hardware architecture might be highly-optimized, while the other company's driver team still hasn't seen the title running. Now there's a recipe for hard-to-explain benchmark results."

Given Oleg's arranged presentation for nVidia this week ( and i believe I remember him saying that he'd made overtures to AMD/ATI but had got no replies or interest...) then we may have another situation like for il-2 where nVidia are the way to go???

Intel is also a competitor of nVidia's. The new Intel processors do not work with nVidia motherboards, PCIe cards still work, but nVidia's integrated graphics don't, only Intel's own. Look at the way the nVidia Ion graphics chip no longer works with the new Intel Atom processor. The Atom and Ion are low power and no use for SoW, but they are typical of how friendly Intel and nVidia are (not at all friendly).

AMD could make their systems unfriendly to nVidia's graphics cards, but then people might choose graphics cards ahead of processors, so they could lose CPU sales, and it would take extra work, so why bother.

I haven't been here that long (which is just as well, I'd be out of my mind with all the expectation), bt if that's the case, thanks for the heads up.

Well obviously ATI was taken over by AMD, do the new 6xxx series are AMD, and will obviously work well with AMD CPUs. And I'm sure all manufacturers want their products to work well with whatever system their customer may have (i've not seen any reports of collusion).

Yes there are some games that have received funding from card manufacturers - eg, Nvidea paid a chunk for Crysis, and no doubt had an input on its development. Nvidea and Ubisoft are boosom buddies - ATI cards were running Assassin's Creed better than Nvidia thanks to DirectX 10.1, and support for 10.1 was suddenly removed, ruining performance for many ATI owners. There has recently been fighting between AMD (was ATI) and Nvidia over Ubisoft's new HAWX 2 game - before it passed Beta it was being used for benchmarking in reviews (not unusual), and was perfoming better with Nivdia cards. AMD cried foul, and said they'd be able to work on the drivers once they were given access to the game.

Particulalry with Ubisoft rumoured to be the publisher outside of Russia, that is a concern. I currently own an Nvidia card, and I'm waiting for this game before upgrading, but the fact is that AMD cards are currently better than Nivdia cards, but it's possible the game could be made to suit Nvidia better.

The sim will run under DX9,10 or 11.

Just one API at a time to be used by NVIDIA and ATI. The "tweaks" to one side or other are minimal.

People are scared for nothing. If some game dev create a game with serious performance issues or visual degradation in some VGA brand, this dev was really a "genious"...

The "optimized" is more "I received some money from X to put some logo in the splash screen"...

Relax! I will buy one HD 5850 1GB to run SoW BoB.

Hi, I wanted to ask...if I bend down with my trackir in the cockpit of my plane to avoid the bullets of the enemy, will it be possible to avoid being killed in BOB?
Strange but valid question, isn't it?

Greetings
Athos

Actually it's not to bad a question. I've always wanted to crouch down behind the engine in a head-on game of chicken.

Of course you wouldn't be able to see where your going and if the other guy does it as well it would only end in a bad way!

Cheers!

I guess you guys have all been following Oleg's latest thread including the page linked below with videos and related posts about system spec Oleg was stuck with for the presentation (particularly 2Gb RAM)


i5 Processor (corrected as csThors post below)
Nvidia 460
2GB RAM

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...=17135&page=74

(Good luck reading through all the other irrelevant crap)

This is also quite helpful:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming...w-32039-7.html

The 5850 is reckoned equal to the 6870 and apparently the 6000 series are better for Tesselation although I don't know if that's an issue with SoW. I don't really know where the 5850 will stand in SoW, I'm trying to decide between a 5870 or wait for the 6970 (if I can afford it). The 5850 runs IL-2 and FSX very well on my laptop but I don't know how well it will run SoW. One comfort is that Oleg's 460 is a little further down the list and if the presentation stutters are caused by too little RAM the higher cards on the list may deliver well in SoW.

In fact that exhibition processor is just an i5, not an i7. ;)

Did Oleg mention anything about a release date at the game exhibition???

Unless you're getting a really good deal, the 5xxx series aren't a good buy at the moment. The 6xxx series are better for equal money, and if the game develops (as IL2 did) to be more power hungry in a couple of years time, you can then add another 6xxx series, as they are much better in CF than the 5xxx series.

The 6970 promises to be a great card, but until we're given more info we don't know if the game will work better on Nvidia cards. It would be good if you could wait for more information though.

Release date

Sure wish this could be one piece of news everyone is anxious to read.

The marketing campaign appears to now be underway.

Updates and information should be available more frequently.

Check around on other sim sites each day as well.

ATI cards will run it just as well at Nvidia cards. The only thing different is that Nvidia likes to give out a lot of cards to game developers so that they get their logo when the game boots up. This is a sales tactic more than a comparability issue. Sometimes a game is slightly more optimized to run on one brand rather than another, but the days of double-digit differences between equal cards running the same game are pretty much over.

Go with the card with the best money/FPS ratio.

Who's the publisher I missed that one :)

...Oh on the edit..1c Soft Club

Well when I bought IL-2 in 2001 it was almost $80 inclueding tax but that's in Canada.

Oleg just said he has one, but not who it is.

But we got another source, which i trust by now; and that means ubi.

Yes I just found it but thanks Swiss. 1c Soft Club

That's for Russia only. Looks like Ubis**t for the rest of us.

It may be you are right. Remember, Oleg has a lot patches and addons coming our way. A lot of distributors want too much control with addons and patches.

So... Ubi may not be a best choice as many view it, but from a developers point of view it may be a best go.

Afterall, Ubisoft was definitely efficient getting the boxes onto retailer shelves. There were alot of IL2 addons, which didn't necessarily make the distributor any money (PE-2), yet Ubi did distribute all the addons.

UBI DRM could be a hard handicap for best selling the game. Ubi DRM is a pain for the legal user, not for the illegal user. Even ROF with a similar DRM change it.

I doubt if it's Ubi Soft.

I, for my part, couldn't care less who the publisher is as long as i can play without
internet connection and can sell (if i ever wanted, just as principle) my copy.

+1

That's really the only important point.

Please don't take any offense but I think you two are very much in the minority. To me the IL-2 series was always meant to be played online. I think if people have trouble with online play Storm Of War it would be catastrophic.

That's exactly why Steam would be a good choice.

Steam?

http://translate.google.com/translat...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Sorry mate but google translation from russian to anything else is nothing else than c**p. I don't understand that.

Well I wouldn't take it as a "reliable source" for sure, and who knows what "Steam" in that context means... but "Ilya replied that there was something somehow will run through Steam" is one of the more straight-forward translations from Google. But ok probably not a good idea to start rumours this way, we should anyway find out soon enough.

Thank you anyway :)

Just to be clear, I won't blame or criticise the developers for choosing whichever publisher they fancy. There's lots of things that can affect their decision, and after all the effort they've made developing this sim who can begrudge them. But that doesn't mean we have to like their choice :)

And what makes you think that i am not a online player???
That is typical black-white thinking!
Completely unsuitable for any kind of discussion.
I just want to be able to play even if my internet-connection is f****ed up again!

Yeah, I also thought you meant the DRM crap.

Misunderstood.

I agree. I'm not against DRM just to be against it and i'm not against copy protection in general. I'm just against certain copy protection or DRM methods that don't let me do what i want to do and what has become the expected norm for fair and legal software usage in my own free time and discretion, that's all :grin:


That being said, UBI was said to have abandoned their DRM scheme. They opted to ship all their latter games (after the SH5/Assassin's creed debacle) with Steam protection. That doesn't mean you can't buy it in a box however. For example, Empire:Total War was a game you could buy in a boxed copy but it required use of a Steam account for activation.

I'm not really a fan of having extra apps running in the background and using up system resources but i'd have to say that even though i've never used it, Steam seems to be the most painless method for online authentication. We can go online once and activate, then we can play in offline mode if our internet connection is down, plus i think you can download the game at no extra charge if you lose the discs as long as you have it registered to your account.

So, if SoW comes along in a boxed copy without securom/starforce/limited activations/permanent online requirement but requires steam for a one-off activation, i'd call that a very good compromise and would have no reservations with it.

I agree even though no specs have been published. I'm expecting the 6970 to at least match the 5870 for performance and add new graphics capabilities like Tesselation (if we need that).

I've asked both XFX and Scan if they know when and what sort of price bracket, hoping for an answer in the next few days (which will probably be "we don't know yet"). Scan have just offered me a good 'Black Ops' deal with the 5870, pretty much what I posted earlier. If the 6970 is several months away (actually to market) I'll go with the 5870.

My fingers are itching now :(

speculum jockey,

I've always been a Nvidia man (2 x 7800GTs atm) but ATI seem to have a big edge just now and I, too, don't believe ATI would allow themselves to be left behind on game compatibility.

Steam is very useful thing, not only DRM, it is:
- global server list (filters, sorting by, and more more etc)
- auto-update (download and install lattest patch automaticly)
- social network (groups, friends and etc.);
- chat (easy chating from in-game, voice chat, messages like ICQ, MSN);
- achivements (military ranks, medals and awards, and etc.)

Steam as a sort of DRM is not really bad, I use it a lot, but sometimes the servers from steam are down or there are malfunctions which causes all servers to crash in ETW/NTW, it does not happen frequently but at least 2 times a month, a bit annoying.

Albeit the lats 5 points are only to make the first one more tasty ;)

UBI please hear me! If need be any DRM then PLEASE Steam!

I'm enjoying the smoothness of my HIS 5870 (CoD version), which comes lightly overclocked @875 MHz (GPU) and 1225MHz Memory. I'm pretty certain that it, plus a quad-core cpu, and some decent memory 4Gb+, will be able to run SoW at a decent setting.

Unfortunately ATI seems to be rather uninterested what Maddox Games does. IIRC Oleg once complained that they never answered his calls for technical support so that MG had to fiddle with ATI problems on their own. Nvidia was a lot more responsive, hence the traditional edge their cards have in Il-2. I don't know if that's changed ...

not much. Oleg mentioned that the build he was demonstrating was an Nvidia build.

ATI's traditional lack of good driver support continues apace.

Good hardware left wanting.

I really can't follow you here, the actual AMD - Drivers, 10.10 as i recall, are working flawless with all my games.
Are there problems with SoW:BoB, was it even tried with a amd-card?

i run ati 5870 900 and 1225 oc. and 6 core amd oc to 3.9 and run il2 with no problems at all, and all my games run flawless. (arma2 to codmw2)

ElAurens is probably thinking along these lines: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=123

I had problems with anything newer than 8.9 in IL-2 (until the 4870 died), then further issues popped up in the early 10s, then they fixed it in 10.5 (or 3?), then on their next release I saw a bunch of posts about the same issues returning (!), and now you're saying it's good in 10.10. I see too many posts that report the exact same issues, to believe the problems are due to anything other than the ATI drivers.

And then there's the better nvidia support for linux (which matters to me).

Nvidia had excellent OpenGL support which accounted for their edge over ATI. Since SOW is going the DX9/10/11 route I imagine it will be even footing again. Like I said before, there were countless games ATI ran just as well or better than Nvidia, and they all had that "Nvidia" logo at the beginning.

Nvidia better get their act together and stop worrying about getting their logo on games. Nobody buys Call of Duty/MOH/WOW, sees the Nvidia logo, and then goes out and buys an Nvidia card. People who are smart enough to buy and install a video card are smart enough to look at a GPU chart and see that there are better options for less money that Nvidia's current offerings.

Personally I want to see them regain some ground from ATI so that ATI will drop their prices even further.

Won't the Hyperlobby make a place for Storm Of War right after it comes out just like they did with the 2001 IL-2 Demo and so on. Hyperlobby is the only way to go for online play...right?

The "problem" is an dated engine using an less used API, and slow solution delivery by ATI regards to drivers issues.

People confuse that with the illogical believes like "ATI runs worse IL-2 than NVIDIA" and "Water=4 in NVIDIA has a HUGE difference over Water=2 in ATI".

Those things don't happens with modern VGAs. They have PLENTY of horsepower to runs IL-2 at the maximum level with only the drops in performance induced by the dated engine, even in NASA computers.

SoW : BoB = DX10, DX11 = standard for game development today = ATI and NVIDIA performing at the same level, with minor gains for one side, as in ANY other title...

Things are simple.

I would expect SOW not to need Hyperlobby at all.

Really? There would be a base gathering point and then other arenas?

Of course SOW needing HL. Dont you fly VR - Virtual Battlefield, Vow, Blue VS Red ect? So of course SOW will be justified in HL. Just because some believe a product they have not seen yet is fantastic, is no reason to be naive.
I want to belive SOW will be good. But I dont know before I have seen it. Will it be complete - No I dont think so. But in time - mabye - like IL2 1946. One can only hope :D

It will all depend on how SoW ios played online.For all we know it could be a system similar to RoF,through master servers.A seriously flawed system that would be...

Here's a screen of the Hyperlobby for people who may not realize the amount of online play that IL-2 gets. Probably very few. When Storm Of War comes out about two weeks later probably half to three quarters of the population of Hyperlobby will have purchased it and IL-2 1946 will become what IL-2 2001 has become, a classic sim that will be loads of fun for people with older systems. Thousands of Storm Of War converts have got to go some where to fly in the new "Spits VS 109s", "Warclouds" and other Dogfight arenas not to mention the online wars etc. and I don't think they can do it without the Hyperlobby.

Oleg has already mentioned a global dedicated server set up, some time ago as I recall.

I think HL will be redundant, but we will just have to wait and see.

I hope so. I don't like it when other programms have to run in background and eat recources.
Anyway, the hyperlobby looks a bit too outdated compared to the high visual standard of SoW BoB.

Actually, there was talk from the developers a few updates back about integrating their server browswer/multiplayer lobby with the game's copy protection.
That sounds a bit like valve's steam to me, in which case we'll still have a secondary client running in the background.

.

I see that u are not into marketing :) or have any clue about consumor behaviour :)

A wild forecast here
 

I searched a game development glossary with the typical duration of each step. Here are my findings, and if Oleg's "BETA" is a real beta, we are some 4-5 months from Gold master, and (presumably) at least 6-7 months from game relase. Adding the complexity of SoW and the amount of bugs I would add at least 3-4 months to the standard times ... Fall 2011? IMHO of course. I cannot understand how this matches with Oleg's previous forecasts and statements about the budget constraints ... unless we will get a flawed version "à la RoF", which I hope not.

**********************
First playable

The first playable is the game version containing representative gameplay and assets, this is the first version with functional major gameplay elements. It is often based on the prototype created in pre-production. Alpha and first playable are sometimes used to refer to a single milestone, however large projects require first playable before feature complete alpha.First playable occurs 12 to 18 months before code release.

Alpha

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features. These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions. Alpha occurs eight to ten months before code release.

Code freeze

Code freeze is the stage when new code is no longer added to the game and only bugs are being corrected. Code freeze occurs three to four months before code release.

Beta

Beta is feature and asset complete version of the game, when only bugs are being fixed. This version contains no bugs that prevent the game from being shippable. No changes are made to the game features, assets, or code. Beta occurs two to three months before code release.

Code release

Code release is the stage when all bugs are fixed and game is ready to be shipped or submitted for console manufacturer review. This version is tested against QA test plan. First code release candidate is usually ready three to four weeks before code release.

Gold master

Gold master is the final game's build that is used as a master for production of the game.

**************************************
I will be glad to be proven wrong by Oleg, of course :)

Plus he's wrong.

ATI don't outperform nv in all games.

They way I understood Oleg, we're at code freeze.

Not trying to be a smart-arse and sorry for the divergence, but your post brought to mind something called the Drake equation in astronomy - used to 'calculate' the potential number of civilisations in our galaxy. It all looks great, but unfortunately none of the numbers you plug into it are known - they all have to be guessed - with the result that different people with different opinions have used it to produce answers ranging from 1 (just us!) to over 100,000.

I think the margins of error in your conclusion could be nearly as big! :)

I can...Oleg KNOWS......and you're guessing based on no evidence.

Not really. If you have a plan, you have a timeline, and you'll have to stick to it, come hell or high water.
Of course you change it all the time, not sure if that is a result of good management though.

I wasn't actually really being that serious ;) :)

If I recall correctly Oleg has previously stated that he doesn't follow the traditional development cycle as other developers do.

I see that Nvidia's market share has been falling steadily for the past few years. Wonder if their guys are into marketing as well?

Read again! This time don't try and discern what's between the lines (nothing there) just read the post.

People don't buy a game, see the logo on boot up and then go out and buy an Nvidia card. They're already playing the game which means they already have a card. Plus people who are likely to buy a video card and install it themselves are much more likely to actually research their purchase rather than blindly grab a green box. Sure some buy Nvidia, but the numbers show that a lot of them are switching teams. A lot of the easily swayed people who make those kind of snap decisions that Nvidia are banking on have already moved on to consoles, they don't have to make that decision any more, and the market is reflecting that.

Hardware junkie today (as opposed to 5 or even 10 years ago) are much more savvy and less swayed by brand loyalty and all the little extras that only add to the cost and not to the FPS. The PC hardware market is shrinking because of the Console market (just like the PC games market) so the people who are left are the hard-core crowd who are willing to dish out the cash for a PC that will play their games as smoothly as possible. 5 or 10 years ago you could be a fanboy and just blindly go with ATI or Nvidia since the prices were so close for the same amount of performance. Now that has widened, and fanboys are feeling the sting ($100 or more in some cases) because they want a certain amount of performance and don't intend on looking at what the other team has.

Never said that ATI can outperform Nvidia in all games, I said they are a much better value. If you look at $/FPS ATI is well ahead of Nvidia, and is set to widen the gap with their latest releases. One card beating all others in all games and categories is not something that you're going to see very often (if ever). Saying one card is the all-out best is a matter of opinion. But the value of a card is something we can sort of decree. Right now it's in ATI's court. Maybe next year or later Nvidia will gain back some territory. I hope so since it's competition that keep these prices low the the technology moving ahead at full steam.

Those ppl change the gpu at least once a year.
[I'd say +/-$100/month is a reasonable number too keep your system more or less up to date(high mid-end)]
Sure they research the GPU, however it comes down to which cards performs beat at their favorite games.

So, if card A outperforms card B in 2 out of 3 (of my favorite)games I'll go for card A.
Even if B is better on energy, $100 cheaper, or performs way better in other games - which I don't play...

You're right, but nature makes no leaps :) ... Natura non facit saltus.

No guessing ... guesstimating ;)
At any rate, only who makes a forecast can be wrong ... and forecasts are always wrong :D, but not SO wrong ... I would say +/-25% in this case. And a last treasure of wisdom... a wrong forecast is better than no forecast ... Augh!

I would be very happy to see a MMOG server like Aces High have. I miss those large historical scenarios we used to run in AH. However I think I read somewhere a while ago that large server setups will be limited, if not prevented, by the capability of user's PCs to handle the extensive amount data passed between SoW (even IL-2) players ( sneaks back to 'on-Topic' :) ) I would be glad to find that isn't so.

What would it take? 5Mb Broadband, 10Mb, 20? It's widely available in Europe/USA. Core i5 ++ power?

It's secondary to the main Topic but an interesting question.

What about cost though? Hyperlobby is free. Aces High, Warbirds aren't.

True, "yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice". I wouldn't mind $10-$15 a month for all the time I play on line if a MMOG Host was going to deliver top-value.

I still think the "free" opportunities will be there but, of course, they aren't really free. Someone is paying for them and many HL servers frequently ask for, and get, donations from the community.

Ten - Fifteen dollars..That sounds good as long as he's fine with paypal lol

In fact Hyperlobby was down(capped to 30 players per game) few days ago due to financial problems.

Sure it lastet only 45minutes, until enough ppl donated.

So no, there aren't free meals.

I haven't used Hyperlobby in well over 5 years and even before that, I used it very rarely. I prefer to direct connect or use more intuitive, more forgiving server finders. I have no doubt there will be a SoW presence on HL and I also have no doubt that it will be redundant.

I'm expecting a Q1 2011 release and I use a core i7 overclocked within an inch of its life with an Nvidia card.

I keep my ear to the ground and talk to people much more in the know than I, but I have no crystal ball or telling tarot cards.

I guess that about covers the last 3 pages...lol.

Hi there!

May I would like to go back to the first post of this thread and the first question:

1. When will BOB SOW be released or or in other words, when can we buy it? :oops:

Thank you very much in advance for a serious answer. :cool:

Best wishes
Gringo