I wonder about this too, the patch comes out everybody gets better framerates, but it doesn't really look any different, people start complaining; "that's it, that's what we've been waiting for all this time..?" and then the whole thing starts all over again. I personally will be disappointed if the LOD's aren't better I find that I can see planes(dots) better when they are farther away than I can when they should be filling my gunsight, but instead appear more hazy and diffuse but we can only wait and see ...and get out our umbrellas and galoshes because I think it's gonna rain.

That will happen. I can understand the developers idea to first have a sturdy engine and then release bug fixing patches on top of that but I seriously don't hope that they will be surprised/shocked when the rotten tomatoes comes flying. I hate being a realist sometimes but take a look at il2bugtracker.com, it's already starting to fill up nicely, does anybody really think all of those bugs will be fixed? or even half of them? Certainly not before BoM will be released me thinks and that's when the feces will really start to hit the fan. I'm still hoping for the best though, there is a small, crumpled up little optimist sitting on the other shoulder whispering like a crippled old man "everything will be good, everything will be good"....he's dying though.

P.S A nice little easter egg or surprise in the patch would certainly go a long way to prevent a total meltdown over at banana, I hope they've thought that far at MG.

Im hoping the patch will also address the land target dots showing through the landscape.
The prop and clouds problem.
The long distance dots disappearing from view.

We will also see if this new engine is for the future, ie FSAA, AAF and DX11 or stuck in 2005 like the one we have now.

There is no doubt the sky is going to fall even further shortly after the performance patch is released. It will make it possible for more people to fly the sim and actually see how bad the AI, and Commands are. Hopefully for the developments sake, some of the earlier revisions of the performance/graphic patch were bug free enough to test some fixes for the AI etc. That said the performance patch could swell the online community where the AI etc is not quite as big a factor.

I totally agree with you Chivas. That was more or less my journey throught ClOD: first performance issues, sorted with tweaking, then upgrade of computer; when that was sort of under control came the sound bug (resulting in no sound at all in many cases) - and the sim went back on its shelf; when that was sorted, I thought "yay, time to enjoy this sim after all!". And then, with my smooth visual experience, with the ok sounds, I remember finding myself staring at G50s, heck, even bombers pulling uber rolls as if they wanted to compete for the ultimate vomit machine. As I'm interested in solo and coop multiplayer with some player vs AI elements (even online it's hard to make this big map alive without using some AI...), needless to say ClOD went back once again to the shelves. Many people still stuck with performance problems (they will luckily skip the audio bug step) might find themselves just hopping on the next game breaking aspect of the game...

It's sad. I was chatting with my best buddy this week end - we're both long time fans of IL2 - but we found ourselves admitting that for now we'll simply accept that the franchise is dead, and maybe, just maybe, we'll still be lucky enough to find it in a working state in one or two years, but from a pragmatic point of view it's probably best to assume this is not the most likely outcome...

Pretty much how i feel FlyingMonkey and i would guess alot of people are the same. If im being generous i would say CLOD has 3 months of life left to prove the other fixes are coming otherwise most people who are not happy will simply bin it until BOM(if they buy BOM)

Im reading "The Big Show" by pierre clostermann at the moment and it really put me in the mood for flying last night, but i couldn't bring myself to fire up CLOD again and face the same old problems.

I'd not started it to fly it for eight weeks plus. With the wisdom of wine on me I uninstalled yesterday and I won't be re-installing unless there are big strides forward to address the issues. I never thought I could be so 'not bothered' about a Maddox Games sim but there it is.

On the plus side the dog gets even more walks !

I haven't flown the sim for sometime even though I have no performance issues. I don't think at this point its a problem that most people bin the sim, because 99.9% of us will be back, unless some other sim comes out of the netherland. I would guess its going to take a few months after the release of the performance patch for the AI, and Commands to get sorted. That said whether its a month or a year from now, everyone will be back, and those that haven't followed the sim will buy the Sequels if they work.

Chivas, why would it take longer than 9 months to sort the AI? it should be ready to go if they have been working on it.

I'm not sure about that time frame...I made a mission with a AI Spit on my tail set to engage fighter's. Well he slowly over took me and continued to pass me by, not 50 yards from my window. I just couldn't bring myself to shoot the poor fool down, so I returned to base.