Got it working!! Wow. The first thing I thought after taking off was how realistic this sim 'feels' now. The animation, or something, seems really fluid, it's hard to describe after playing F/A-18 and FS2004 as my only sims for years. It feels like I'm up in the air when I rotate, it's cool! Somehow it runs smoooooth too on my system. Oh and the solution was to not use my in-laws' old PC (An AMD 2500+ with 1.5GB RAM and a 128MB Ti4200). As a last ditch move I stuck it on my main PC, a 2.4GHz PIV with a Ti4400 and only 1GB RAM. Somehow it likes that system better and will actually launch on it! I have as many takeoffs (1) as landings so far too, which is nice. I'll be messing around with this tomorrow and doing some sight seeing. There has to be some sort of USN play in this sim, right? I'm almost sure the airbase never even moved while I was gone

So that leads me to my next concern - is this thing _really_ scalable? Still cant believe these framerates.. Or is it going to slow to a crawl when I'm not the only plane in the air?

Tom, by your handle, I'll assume that your real interest is in Naval aviation. Yeah, it's in here, but to be honest, that isn't where this sim shines. The F-18 cockpit isn't up to the standards of the F-16, which I think is just incredible. (Still can't believe those dynamic shadows).
The F-15 and A-10 'pits are very good, but this is still, essentially a study sim. Learn the systems and the airplane. That's where the fun and challenge is.
I still can't believe what they've done to this.
I wish I could answer your question about the framerates, but I have a pretty good system, so it's no problem at all with a sky full of jets.
I'm expecting to see your name popping up with a whole lot of questions.

Yeah you probably will see me here with questions, you're right! A guy at work gave me a Asus P5Q-E last week and I have a dual core 775 processor for it so I am thinking of building a modest system (which will KILL my PIVs) for Christmas. I'll still need RAM, a video card, even a power supply and SATA cables and drives, my stuff it soooo old. I looked on NewEgg the other day, you can get 512/1GB video cards for 40 bucks!! I think I may have the pc building bug again for the first time since about 2003

Tomcat : It scales ok, so a multi-core will definately be a benefit. It's not THAT efficient at using the cores - but it does and it shows.
Now, what youll find on an older system is explosions and smoke will prolly give a significant fps-drop - not so much on a more modern one. I have an "older" q6600 quad-core cpu and a HD4850. It runs like hot butter with everything maxed @1920*1200 resolution :



Lovely

And yes - this is primarely a F-16-study sim, but who knows what'll happen in the future?

Wow!!! I'm going to turn the graphics up some tonight and see how much I can add before it loses the smoothness it has now. Looking forward to it! That screen looks amazing, in desperation to see SOMETHING Falcon related I installed the original F4 the other day, it only had 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions on my pc, I remembered it looking better than what it did in reality, odd....

Old F4 is NOTHING compared to this - (or to Allied Force for that matter)
The new advanced flightmodel in BMS is a masterpiece. It has a real physics engine now. In the old days it simulated the effects of the FLCS - today they also simulate the courses. A huge differencee.

I agree with the last comment... amazing (FREE) work from a dedicated and passionate community... This is the rising of the Phoenix!

Ha! Good, so it's not just me then One of you guys coulda PMed me or something, sheesh... My CD has been sitting in the binder for years!