Your video card will likely be okay. The issues that are of most immediate concern for me were these:
1. The incessant up view when you install your
HOTAS. There is an easy, easy fix, so that one won't get you.
2. Banding of colors in the water. To me, it looks like the different shades you get with tidal changes and water depth. It is minor and I ignore it.
3. The AA slowdown. I just turn off anti-aliasing. It works fine then, and the anti-aliasing is a minor matter. I am not eye-candy
obsessed. I just want the systems to work.
5. Plane's failing to trap at a greater than normal rate. I have found that after my plane traps, the following planes trap at normal or close to normal frequency. Also, whether it really works or not, I load extra programs and leave them open on the desktop (e.g., several windows files) and I turn off my turbo button. I also have found that with a close-up chase view of a landing plane it seems to trap more often than not, but this could be another anecdotal thing.
6. CTD's happen more frequently with newer PCs. I recommend
CH Products HOTAS equipment, not just because it is good, but because you can avoid the need for the second controller button in TSH Manager. (I have the Fighterstick, Pro-Throttle, Throttle Quad, and Pro-Pedals, and there is little need for another controller as there are plenty of buttons and the PC sees them all as a single controller.) It appears to me that the second controller increases the number of CTD's because of what might be kep mapping conflicts. I do have a
Logitech G15 keyboard that is somewhat infamous as a culprit, so maybe that exacerbates my problem and you will do even better.
This venerable old flight sim has a magnificent mission builder, even if it has no dynamic campaign, but you can build branching variations into a campaign. What you can do with it is amazing. There are also variable occurrences that you can build into a mission so that even the builder cannot fully know what the combination of threats are in each replay. New TSH improvements allow you to change terrain colors for seasons and areas, and there are now player-created missions that model operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Serbia, Korea, South America, California (Training-mine)and elsewhere. It is a versatile system.
For right now, carrier operations modeling is second to none. There has never been a sim without imperfections, but the size and scope of this sim has stood the test of time...and I prefer it to any Falcon version, though I still "fly" Falcon, but, now, only F4AF.
