What is your point? That the game is badly optimized to run under DX9? I don't think that DX9 have such limitations that with graphics shown in the screenshots DX10 is a must. I have seen far prettier games (even flight sims) that runs very well on DX9 (BMS, Rise of Flight, FC2, even MS Flight just to name a few).

But as I said I will have to switch to Win7 eventually, and the SF2NA will probably the title that will make me do this. TK should get some money from Gates for this

I would like to fly something (A-6?) in this campaign that can attack the Soviet fleet with Harpoons from standoff ranges. I think SF2VN has a flyable A-6 but I wonder if it has the ability to fire Harpoons?

One of the most exciting things about this sim is that it finally gives me the title that will drive me to start enjoying the rich modding community that surrounds TK's works. I own SF2E but I never got into it because it was essentially Lock-On which I preferred because it went a little deeper into the systems modeling. But, since there are no other Tomcat games out, I plan on making a sincere effort to become absorbed in this lite sim.

It's no more unrealistic than the Red Army pouring thru the Fulda gap in 1979. :P

I thought the GIUK gap was a shipping choke point that was strategically important to control?

Regarding the F-15As in Iceland:

If you:
-> already own "Strike Fighters 2: Europe"
-> and if you own or purchase the "Campaign Customizer"

than having a player F-15A squadron in Iceland will be the easiest think to do or to have in "Strike Fighters 2:North Atlantic".

But those have bigger budgets and more programmers. DX9 is an entirely different API from DX10 so supporting both means twice the work.

I don't think that BMS had any budget at all (it's free), Rise of Flight developers are also a small team with limited resources AFAIK (at least when they have started). And since previous Strike Fighters 2 titles supported DX9 and SF2NA can even be merged with them I don't see why the need for it to be DX10 exclusive? The new water and terrain engine? Maybe... the static screenshots don't show it all, we will have to see when this is going to be released.

damson,
as much as I liked in through the years and years, Dx9 is dead end technology, Dx10 with Dx10 shaders were behing the big improved performance and in noticeably more XXI-alike look of the Series2 games.

edit:
also what Evil Flower wrote in his post above

I'll be interested to see if it actually doesn't work with either XP and/or Pre-DX9 cards, or if TK just doesn't feel like supporting those anymore. IIRC,the current XP/DX10 situation is that XP DOES support DX10 cards (as in, they won't explode when you load the drivers), and kinda-sorta-maybe-sometimes works with DX10. Sounds like something someone developing on the DX10 environment doesn't really want to muck around with on the support side. Wouldn't surprise me if NA does run on XP,albeit not perfectly.

A risky move for TK though.

the SF series has always been more accessible based on it's lighter system reqs versus heavy hitters like DCS, FSX, and RoF.

If TK decides to cut those with older hardware out of the loop, he might be lobbing off a larger audience than he realizes.

Then again, DX 10 cards have been around a while (we're talking' 6 years people!). Now is as good a time as any to plunk a $100 down an AMD 6770

Personally, none of this changes my buying choice any, but an interesting topic no less.

It was, but unless the Soviets figured a way to strap a couple of MiG-23s to the wings of a Tu-95, there was no way Russian fighters would have been coming to Iceland, except for Yaks on the Kiev (which the Navy should have been able to handle, anyway). Against bombers, even against Yaks, the F-4s or F-106s would have been more than adaquate. There were not that many F-15As in 1979/1980, and I suspect the USAF would have rushed all they had to the real air battle in Germany.

I know Clancy in Red Storm has F-15s at Iceland, but that scenario takes place in the mid '8s, when more F-15s were available.