I am an old fart who missed this for real by about 10 years. I am new to sims and thought I'd like to try on the computer what my brother flew for real.

I recently purchased COD and installed it. Got it from steam and found to my dismay it was a 4+ hour download. Steam is totally unresponsive. Their forum says the ID, Email and password they approved and Emailed to me is nonexistant. So hear I am.

COD seems to load up normally. I can pick planes etc. When I try to start a training mission the audio comes on but no video.
Can anybody give me a clue?

I am running win7 on a Dell Inspiron. The Processor is an AMD Anthalon 2.8 GHz w/ 4 meg ram. My sound card is a Nvidia GeForce 5800. I am using an old Logitec Wingman Attack stick and a Star Tech 5.1 PCI card. I am not running a separate came card and if I get into this I would appreciate advice on whether I need one and if so an affordable choice.

I am a total newbie here so I did anything wrong just let me know and it won't happen again.
Thanks in advance,

John

Hi, I believe the Steam forums require a different account to the Steam service. You're probably better off asking questions here (or on the 1C forums) than Steam, anyway.

Looking at your computer spec I think you may struggle to run the game - it's very demanding. The Geforce 5800 you mention is actually your graphics accelerator and rather old. It probably does not meet the requirements for CLOD and might well account for the lack of video, although there may be other reasons for that.

I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions for upgrades so you can play the sim. In the meantime you might try getting hold of a copy of IL2 1946 which is a generation older than CLOD but will look good and run well on your system. It's still being patched (actually upgraded with new features) and will give a satisfying sim experience rather than struggling to get CLOD to run.

Don't worry about being a newbie. Everyone has to start somewhere and asking questions might save you some money! I might cost some, too...

Cheers!

PS Welcome to SimHQ.

PPS If you can get some more info on your system spec with full names for motherboard and processor type it'd help, too. If you click the windows start button and type dxdiag in to the search box then press return. Say no to the digital signing query (if it asks) and it should come up with the spec info.

You're right they do. They denied me access there too.

I took your advice and ordered 1946 on Ebay (not from steam). This means I'll have to wait a week or so but I'll ceck back then.

Thanks for your advice

John

You should be able to get il2 working OK. Hope you only paid about £10 for it.

As you probably know, the forum for that is one below CLOD. I don't have IL2 installed at the moment but someone there will point you to the latest patches etc.

Do try and find your system specs as I mentioned earlier. It'll help with any hardware/software problems you get.


Cheers!

Hiya John and a warm welcome to SimHQ. Good advice from Vitesse, I agree that IL2 1946 is a good starting point for now most definitely. Cliffs of Dover is having some 'problems' right now anyway, but hopefully it will improve. The reason you are not getting any video looks like it because your graphics card (Nvidia Geforce 5800) does not meet the minimum requirement as Vitesse says. The 'official' minimum requirements are here

http://il2sturmovik.ubi.com/cliffs-of-dover/en-GB/game-info/pc-configuration/index.aspx

As you can see, you need an 'Nvidia Geforce 8800' bare minimum to run it. Your 5800 card will run IL2 1946 fine. I'm not sure how familiar you are with computers, so I'm going to assume not so much to be on the safe side. Apologies if this is not so! In order for us to help you more, more information will help, so here is a quick tip. You can download this program for free called "Iobit advanced system care".

http://download.cnet.com/Advanced-System...&tag=button

It has over 100 million users, has lots of very good user friendly features and I use it myself, so trust me that it is kosher. There is a version you can pay for too which has more features, but you don't need that at all.....the free version is more than good enough.

Once downloaded and installed, in the options bar second from right you will see an icon called "Toolbox". Click on that and in the bottom far right box you will see a list headed 'control', under which 4th down you will see something called "system information", and click on that. This will tell you all about what your computer hardware is in a very easy, clear and user friendly way. You can also do this through windows by typing "system information" in your computer 'start' bar, but it is a lot less user friendly and more complicated if you are unfamiliar with it to find things out.

Once you have done this, you can then give us your definite "specs". Useful info is how much RAM (memory) your computer uses, your graphics card type (Nvidia 5800, cheers and it would be useful to know if it is the "Quadro FX" or plain "FX" model) and also the exact model type of processor you use (we know it is an AMD Athlon by the sounds of it) and also the type of "sound card" you use. We know you are using Windows 7 (good operating system).

Don't worry about asking questions, the vast majority of us will be glad to help you, as Vitesse says we have all been in the same boat and its no problem at all. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box with computers but I will try to help you as best I can, as will many others.

Hope you stick around anyway mate, its a good little hobby and great fun once you get the hang of things (takes a bit time, but Rome wasn't built in a day). Don't be shy to ask questions, its what we are here for. Apart from the free cucumber sandwiches and soup kitchen, that is (hehehe).

EDIT: Sorry, regarding a graphics card upgrade that would depend on how much you are budgeting for.....could you give more detail please? IE 150-200 pounds, dollars etc.

Best of luck and I hope this helps John.

Mark.

Thanks Mark, I have done as you sggested. WHAT, NO WATERCRESS? :DI am thinking of the $100-125 range.Some system information is shown below. Please excuse typos. I couldn't find a way to copy and paste out of the info pages.

Os -- Win 7 Home Premium Version 6.1.7601.Service Pack 1 Build 7601 System type x64-based PC Physical memory=4 gb Available= 1.82 gb Total virtual mem=8gb Available VM=5.20 gb

Display NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT Adapter RAM=1gb Resolution=1920X1080 60 HZ Bits/Pixels 32 FYI This is a dual monitor card. I am running two HANNS-G monitors.

1946 ordered but not arrived yet.

If you need anything more let me know.

John

Ah, this is rather a different animal than the "GeForce 5800" you wrote above; much better, but still relatively modest.
As you can see by doing a search for 9500 on the page here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
(in the first column, nVidia cards) it is still a bit below the 8800 minimum
for CloD, but quite a bit above the 5800, so it should handle 1946 fairly well.

Aye, you'll be ok in IL2 1946 with that John like PV says. Regarding your budget for the graphics card, offhand I would probably recommend going for something like the Asus Geforce GTX 550 Ti 910 Mhz 1GB http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-geforc...fs=12&src=2 (roughly 144 US dollars) at the upper limit of your budget; this is based on UK prices though and we get terribly ripped off on hardware over here hehe. EDIT: *Sorry I misread your budget of 125 dollars John, its a little over but I would still recommend spending a little extra if you have to and can manage it.* Chances are that someone might point a better and cheaper deal out Stateside or in Canuckland,....not sure where you are from mate.

ATI (an Nvidia competitor) do some good cards too....but in my experience having used both in these sims and others, you will generally have less hassle and issues with the Nvidia cards in the IL2 series in particular (please don't flame me any ATI people, not saying ATI runs it bad....but there is more grief and its true lol ).

Like anything else, you get what you pay for.....but that looks a pretty decent card for the price to me.

A lot of Americans talk about a website called "newegg.com" found here.........

http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=38&name=Video-Cards-Video-Devices

which apparently frequently has good deals going on, and you might find something there. Probably other good sites out there too, ask around with the US/Canuck folk who will know better.

Hope this helps and let us know how you are getting on.

Cheers.

I'm confused 5800 or 9500? But anyway I had the same problem after the alpha 106 patch, I fixed it by starting the game, lowering my resolution in CLOD to 1024x720, then going to my documents>1Cclub and clearing the cashe then starting the game. Then I raised the resolution to what I needed. I don't know why but it worked. Here's the post about it.
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3588173/Problems_with_the_106_patch_so.html#Post3588173
I don't know if that will help with Clod but its worth a shot.
EDIT: Biggles has it right the Asus Geforce GTX 550 Ti will do great for you, don't fall for the 520 like I did (great for streaming movies but sucks for games)
Try Amazon.com for cheaper than new egg too.
129.00.. not bad Video card

Only paid $7.