Perfect Mode - advice from designers, please?

[mango42]

Originally Posted by bomath

Alienware or not, an AMD2400+ and 2x7900GS won't help you too much on 1920x1200; since lowering the resolution is not an option (it'd be ugly on any LCD monitor),

Agreed - that's why I haven't even tried to lower res.

you have to accept one of these solutions:
1) Buy a 8800GT or 8800GTS with 512MB (not 320 or 640MB, they're less powerful than the cheapest 8800GT).

Not an option as I gather these GS cards were designed specifically for laptops - it seems even the drivers are different to the std nVidia offering, if my Linux experience of trying to get them to work is anything to go by!

2) Lower AA/AF; no AA is acceptable on a high-res screen like yours, and 4x aniso (AF) could get by.
3) No 3Dgunners=1 (modify the conf.ini, set 3Dgunners=0).
4) Get rid of the lensflares; it's only a bit of eyecandy which usually annoy me when I come over a heavy situation (conf.ini, search for NoLensFlares and set =1).
5) Compressed textures are unnoticeable most of the time, and the planes always use .bmp skins; (conf.ini, TexCompress=1).
6) Maybe you can accept Forrest=1 too.

Thanks for the tips - I'll give them a try. With this sim I can accept anything that doesn't produce a slideshow (or pop-up scenery!) as, judging by the amount of whining here and at the UbiZoo, I seem to be one of a very few that are still totally enamoured of this brilliant, if ageing, piece of software.

As to your sig line - are you a member of that increasingly fascist organisation, FAST, by any chance? Your aspersion about liars is irritating to those of us who have not only bought every commercial update of IL2 from the very start but also bothered to take your poll!

It seems very simple to me - the more piracy, the less development. I would encourage all pirates, however casual, to spend at least six months trying to program something worthwhile - only then would they come to realise the patience, tenacity and dedication required - especially if they write for bug-ridden Windows[tm].