On the DCS website, the recommended system requirements include the following:
AMD Phenom X3 8750 or better
Memory: 4GB

But if you look at the readme that comes with BS2, it recommends:
AMD Phenom II X4 975
Memory: 8GB

Holy crap! Is this for real? Which one should I trust and why the discrepancy?

Some other questions that I have:

1. Can I uninstall Black Shark 1.01 after installing version 2?

2. Can I simply reuse my 1.01 configuration file instead of manually setting controller assignments again?

3. What happened to the cool menu music? It was so much better than the A-10 menu! Where can I find the source file for BS 1.01 menu music so that I can save it?

1) Yes.
2) No. Doing this will break your controls. (IF you already did it, delete the Input folder in Saved Games\Black Shark 2)
3) I'd have to get back to you on that.

Depending on your install location for BS1:

..\DCS BS\Sounds\EditorMusic\Babylon.ogg

The lower reqts are the minimum to get get you to buy it, the higher (only seen after purchase) are more realistic to reduce the number of support calls :^)
Either way I'm out for now...
Cheers
Keith

Except that you don't need to make a purchase to download or install...

To change the music go into eagle dynamics/DCS Black Shark 2/sounds/EditorMusic and replace the files "A10-C MainMenuIn.ogg" and "A10-CMainMenuLoop.ogg" with the music file of your choice, just make sure its a .ogg file (mp3s will not work!) and you rename them to the file names I just gave you. Not sure if you need to replace both but I did just to be safe and it works fine for me. Also, here is the song I used instead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsMfR3a7UUE

Anyhow, thanks for highlighting that BlueHeron - I've sent a note to ED about it and they're looking at it.

As for why the discrepancy - probably just an innocent oversight. There's so many things to go through and check when releasing something that there's bound to be something slipping at some point.

True, but its kind of peverse to download GBytes of stuff you can't use, then decide whether to buy it or not.
OTOH does this mean I can download the upgrade, prove it installs and THEN buy it - that might be worth doing

Should have put a tongue-in-cheek smiley above, I didn't really mean to imply deliberate deception.
And if I thought it would run well on my system (given that I've had to shelve A-10C, bought as beta on announcement) I would have bought it before now.

Cheers
Keith

EtherealN: Thanks for the information.

Agreed, it's probably a simple oversight. Will be very interested to hear what the "official" system requirements turn out to be, though.

Guess I'll see how it runs on my machine tonight!

dbl

Speaking personally, I feel the reqs listed in the readme are probably more accurate, but don't take that as gospel - I've done all my BS2-flying on a 2600K/GTX560Ti rig so I have no experience of the lower-end-segments personally for it. (Though I might see if I can get it running on one of the older C2D's, but I may not have time for that).

And besides, it is a totally subjective measure anyway. Some people expect the recommendation to be "what you need to max out everything and still always have 60FPS", other as "what you need to run it at medium settings and not have any noteworthy problems" etcetera. I'm usually in the second camp, especially for DCS products - by their very nature it is impossible to guarantee a specific level of "performance", since people can always just add even more units to a mission to make your system crawl. :P

Right, though some publishers put out these silly low "requirements" that mean you have to run everything at low detail and 1024x768 res to get more than 20fps. I usually look at "recommended" as "what you're going to want to have to make it work well while looking like you expect, but that doesn't mean max detail and high fps". I just ignore the lower "requirements" unless it's more than I have in which case I automatically skip!



The Jedi Master