cant say how CoD performed prior to this update, since i got the game just an hour after patch release.. i havent really tried fly much, since i dont have a joystick yet!!
however i ran evrything on max, AAx8 (yes aa does seem to smooth some edges so its atleast working partially), epilepsy off, and with around 25-35 planes in the air over water (but close to dover) i had anything between 30 and 70 FPS, around 40-ish average before they started to die away. however i have not yet tested change anisotropic filtering in the CCC
over london it gets a bit tougher with a dozen planes in view, sometimes below 20fps, but still all gfx on max, AAx8
some microstutters over land, no matter what gfx settings, even with just 1 plane
but tbh i was expecting much worse.. afterall old il-2 never was this fast and i could never play on full settings..
CoD looks promising to me!
i7 860
4 gb ram
radeon 6950 2gb @ 810MHz
1680x1050
win7-64