I bought the download copy of BoB II about 2 years ago when I bought my new $5k office/gaming machine. I bought it along with a number of other simulations, most of them of the car racing persuasion. When I went to play BoBII it didn't work very well. So much so that I couldn't even configure my controls so I sort of gave up on it, got distracted by other games and forgot about it.

Fast forward to last week when while cleaning my "games" directory of old and unused games I found BoBII again and decided to give it another try.

This time I was able to map my controller to it but unfortunately I was barely able to fly a test mission for about 3 minutes before crashing, freezing and having generally a pretty lousy experience.

I know this game is somewhat old and I should not expect stunning graphics and gameplay, especially out of the box, but I have flown much older combat simulators that looked and played 100 times better, so I am pretty sure I am doing something wrong.

1) When I start a simple test mission, the first thing I see is a spitfire crashed nose down on a very low resolution terrain. The resolution is similar to what one would see running Microsoft combat simulator on low. I know it has to look better than that, but regardless of the quality of the graphics there is nothing I can do to prevent the plane from nose diving before I even get control of the game.

2) I tried a mission where the plane is already flying and that went a bit better. Graphics still lousy, but at least I had 3 minuted of flying around before the game started stuttering until it froze and crashed.

3) The next mission didn't last as long and the stuttering was worse, but it gave me a chance to look at the cockpit where I hoped to get a better idea of the graphic quality. Still pretty lousy and it looked as it was washed out. The colors were simply very light and the graphics pretty bad.

This is pretty much the extent of what I did so far. Before I proceed I would like to know what I can do to better my experience. My aim would be to spend some time in single player for the foreseeable future.

My machine is a i7 980x with dual GTx460 cards with SLI off I am setting up for triple screens for my racing games and waiting on new screens).

What should my next step be? As far as I can tell, my configuration is correct and everything is set if not at Max at least at high. I also tried medium and low to see if it improved gameplay, but it made no difference in either gameplay not graphic quality. At least none I could tell given the time I had flying the plane.

I'd appreciate any help you can provide. Thank you.

We have 1000's of players running BOBII. We are running and supporting version 2.11 (you did not say what you are trying to run). Here is where the BOBII Players and Developers hang out if you are interested:

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/index.php

You can read all the Sticky threads on the BOBII General Forum, Technical Forum, and the Question and Answer Forum. Full Function Flight Sims like BOBII take time to set up, configure, select options and functions, and learn the game. It is more of a hobby than a game. Most good players are interested in history, aircraft fight, air combat, and WWII strategy.

Here is a download of the version 2.11:

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=21865

First, in Options->Adv->Game , Be sure skip in-game videos is checked.

Did you update your Direct X 9c to the latest version (remember Directx 10, 11.and 9c are all different and stand alone for different games and BOBII uses 9c). See this link for the Microsoft Web Installer (only updates what is out of date):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...;displaylang=en

If you have a wide screen monitor please re-check that you did the following:

First, set you "windows" resolution (in windows) to your monitors native resolution.

Second, because you have a Wide Screen Monitor try in game setting of resolution:

Set in options->GFX use Windows Desktop Resolution (Recommended)=OFF

Then manually select the resolution (in game) as close as possible to your monitors native resolution from the pull down list of resolution options.

Did you make the windows 7 fix (must be re-done when you re-install, NOTE: I assume you are running Win 7)?

Note6: Windows Vista and Window 7 users. All Vista and Windows 7 users will need to apply the 'Vista/Windows 7 fix' to your desktop shortcut as a fresh 2.11 install will overwrite the previous shortcut.
Right click on shortcut and go to properties. Go to the compatibility tab. Check "disable desktop composition" and check the privilege level, run this program as an administrator.

Thanks, I'll try this out and let you know what happens. I am also installing IL2 46 at teh same time so I have my hands full but I should be able to get to BoB later tonight.

Thank you very much.

Both BOBII and IL2 are full function combat flight sims. It is very hard and time consuming to learn "one" full function flight sim much less two.

I would recommend that you go slow and learn well as combat flight sims are a hobby for players who enjoy them and not just a instant gratification game.