Thinking about purchasing BUT.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by finfly

I'm wondering the same question, but there is several points I'm not sure while I consider myself a serious WWII air war buff. Firstly I loved European Air War but never got used to Il2 Forgotten Battles. Is here anyone who can compare EAW and this?
Secondly I'm currently very short of time, and will be to years to come -is it possible to get a grip of this simulator quickly and fly only short missions.

Finally I don't know whether my computer can run it. It's relatively new and because of lack of time to use it to the full potential I'm not going to update it in anytime soon.
My computer specs are:
AMD Phenom II X4 810
4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 401MHz
896MB GeForce GTX 260

Should I buy it or not?

I used to fly EAW too back in the day, then i gradually switched over to IL2 and now to this.

Overall, EAW at full difficulty is about 70% of IL2's difficulty and IL2 at full difficulty is about 80% of the new sim's difficulty.

Of course, you can still adjust your realism settings to gradually ease yourself into the new challenges. If you want short missions you can simply use the quick mission builder that gives you some preset scenarios, you can select which aircraft to fly and what to fly against and you'll spawn in flight near the combat area. After the fight is over you have the choice of exiting the mission or manually flying back to base to land.

Keep in mind though that until revised documentation is provided by the developers, you'll have to take a look at various community resources and guides posted here to get you up to speed. There's a lot of depth in the sim that's not yet fully documented (to the point that realistic features and restrictions on certain aircraft have been wrongly thought of as bugs), it needs some "study time" to get the full out of it if you want to fly at somewhat higher difficulty settings.

You PC is mostly ok, just two things to keep in mind:

1) The sim is not very "friendly" to windows XP. Having a version of windows 7 (preferably the 64 bit version to get advantage of more than 4GB of RAM in the future) is the way to go. I used to dual-boot on mine and as time went by, i found out that some games i couldn't run well on XP were running maxed out with very good frame rates on win7, so i just stopped using XP altogether after a while.

2) The sim needs a lot of video card RAM. I have an Ati 4890 1GB which is among the most powerful cards of the previous directx10 generation cards and i run most settings at medium detail. I don't know if this will change with the revisions to the game's graphics engine (see the sticky development update thread for more details on that) as they are supposed to help gain some extra performance, but currently the general consensus is that the game needs 1GB of video RAM to perform adequately.

In any case, if you are using win7 i think it will run comfortably, you'll just have to turn down detail settings to keep the frame rates fluid.

[finfly]

Thank you for your answer! Now it is even harder to resist buying it... And oops, didn't mention my operating system, I've been using Win7 since RC state, I take it as the one and only Windows.
May I ask two more questions. Would updating to Radeon 6950 2GB be total overkill? It might just in my budget. (I have to buy pedals too as my Saitek X52 is losing it.)

And what's about Steam being better? Quick search didn't give me an answer. DVD-verion is 20€ cheaper and I'm really old school when it comes to buying online-only products.

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by finfly

Would updating to Radeon 6950 2GB be total overkill? It might just in my budget. (I have to buy pedals too as my Saitek X52 is losing it.)

And what's about Steam being better? Quick search didn't give me an answer. DVD-verion is 20€ cheaper and I'm really old school when it comes to buying online-only products.

Overkill? No, not at all. It's a good card and I would recommend it. I think it can be flashed to a 6970 as well, if I'm not mistaken. Very good card for the price.

Whether you buy the DVD or download through Steam, it's the same game. Any updates will still be through Steam, and Steam will launch the game.

[ATAG_Doc]

This title is pure erotica. Buggy yes but so is anything new.

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by finfly

Thank you for your answer! Now it is even harder to resist buying it... And oops, didn't mention my operating system, I've been using Win7 since RC state, I take it as the one and only Windows.
May I ask two more questions. Would updating to Radeon 6950 2GB be total overkill? It might just in my budget. (I have to buy pedals too as my Saitek X52 is losing it.)

And what's about Steam being better? Quick search didn't give me an answer. DVD-verion is 20€ cheaper and I'm really old school when it comes to buying online-only products.

DVD and steam versions are the same after installation. DVD version will still require steam and update that way. Whichever is cheaper...

[hiro]

1. make sure you have a uber system

2. make sure you have a uber system

3. if you get issues, look here at posts where its a similar issue and people who have gotten the game to run. Some find it easier to cry than to spend time figuring it out

4. make a decision and stick with it. don't bother to let others make it for you. Use the forums for info, but you have to separate the lame from the useful (more so here) .

5. My general experience with steam is its better having the dvd. multi gig d/l take a long time and can be wonky.

6. When installing the game on windows 7, log into a true administrator account and right click the install and run as administrator (if the game install lets you some software just run straight from auto play on the CD). half of buggy window 7 software installs is solved by running as admin during initial install.

7. make sure drivers are update

[robtek]

NO THINKING, NO BUT'S!!!

Real men buy the sim and tough out the problems!

Your decision: Fly with the eagles or scratch with the chicken!

[Screamadelica]

Chuck Norris would buy this sim!

[unreasonable]

You may already know this but some people are under the impression that having Steam means you have to be online all the time in single player mode. Not so - you can play offline and only connect to Steam when you want to update or go MP.

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by robtek

Your decision: Fly with the eagles or scratch with the chicken!

Haha...that should be printed on the retail box. Lovely.