Specs are an i5-460 or something, and an nVidia 330m. Next ones will be much, much better
It didn't run that bad, to be honest.
I think I'll need to see how realistic it can get. I've been spoiled by IL-2... I mean, it can get frustrating, but I like to try to experience it as close as I can get virtually. I'm afraid I've become far too elitisty to enjoy many of these games
I just came back from a
B-17 sortie where it took me 52m56s to take-off, climb to 20.000ft, form up on another B-17's wings, head to target, then get promptly get shot, engine on fire, exploding, and bail out... all this while seconds from dropping bombs. That was frustrating. My broken plane and its missing wing almost hit the target though. And I parachuted pretty close to it, if that counts!
The other bomber did his drop, which due to wind and high-altitude drop fell slightly east and missed its target, but just barely. Then he lost an engine to enemy fire, but feathered it to reduce drag, and started heading for home. He had a fuel leak and had taken 30% fuel loadout, so he ran out while still quite a few grids away at 18.000ft. He decided to try to glide across the Mediterranian to Malta! He managed half the distance and was only down to 12.000ft, all engines feathered, engine cowlings closed... the whole shebang! It looked like he was gonna make it.
I had taken off in a P-47 in the meantime and found my way to him through voice-comms, but unfortunately I was still a distance away and co-alt when some Axis joker comes after him, no matter if he's out-and-out(-and-out-and-out, since it's a 4 engined bomber...). He came in from high alt, did a quick slashing pass that set one of the B-17s engines on fire. He then zoomed back up, with me on his tail, but I had much less energy than he did. I took a few potshots, but he came back down and used his high-E to get dive away from me. He scored another pass at the crippled B-17 then dove away, me hot on his tail. In the meantime, the engine exploded on the B-17 and he had to bail out... and so close. Then the game crashed for me, which is just as well, as I'm a terrible dogfighter and the Axis plane (looked like a FW-190) would be on my tail soon enough
Got carried away and off-topicked quite a bit. Sorry
I get the feeling that it'd be hard to get these experiences from the few scenarios that I saw in War Thunder. I mean, there's a tech tree you have to unlock and go through to get new planes, and lots of updates and upgrades and up-thingies for each plane that make it better. In IL-2, if it was in the Theatre of Operations, it's in the mission and you can fly it. You can pick loadout (bombs/rockets/etc), fuel, and weapon convergence. The only thing making you better or worse than another guy is how you handle the plane and little else!
I get the feeling that, even though War Thunder will also model the B-17 as having large bomb-loads and many turrets, it's ultimately not going to provide quite the same level of realism and immersion. The fact is, it was 55m and we were just climbing for most of it, but I didn't get bored because I was having a handful controlling that B-17! Shallower experiences due to less realism make it more boring, or less entertaining since I don't get the feeling of being there.
But I'll give it a serious try as soon as I get the new rig