Two interesting bits of information coming to us in this latest Friday developer diary from Jason Williams and the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles team. The first is a reveal that they are (re)introducing a feature into the flight sim that was previously available in Rise of Flight – a dedicated recon GUI. They are also taking a poll to see what GPU popularity is like with a special community poll. Let’s get to it!

Recon features

First up, new recon features are coming to the sim. Rise of Flight pioneered a camera and artillery spotting featureset back during the heyday of its development and many of us speculated and hoped that the same feature would eventually be introduced into the Great Battles Series. And it is!

I never personally experienced either of these modes but I do remember watching some gameplay a long time ago showing an artillery spotting aircraft walking the artillery onto the target by calling for a strike and refining the targeting from there. It adds another dimension to the simulation and I’m excited to see it take shape.

Invariably the question remains on if this will come to World War II aircraft. On that I think it is possible too but we’ll need to consider which aircraft and what capabilities would be available. For now, this is squarely aimed at bringing back an old capability from Rise to Flight to the Flying Circus aircraft and its great to see!

GPU poll

IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad set out a set of system requirements that have carried on almost entirely unaltered through the history of the IL-2 series. Although the engine now requires DirectX 11 over the DirectX 9 that it launched with, little else has changed. The system requirements still ask for just 2GB of VRAM when other sims are pushing that number much higher in regular use.

During the development of the new clouds for the IL-2 series there was talk and speculation too on what more the team could do if the specifications on the sim were raised. With DCS, MSFS, and X-Plane 12 all pushing system specs to their limits (in some cases) there is the question on the inevitability of just when IL-2 would eventually follow suit. 1CGS have walked a careful tightrope ensuring that their sim has run on lower end requirements and that has endeared them to many – but at some point the specs required will creep upwards.

To that end, Jason is asking the community to provide a snapshot on the type of GPU you have or intend to have over the next 30-60 days.

On a much different note, we are working on some changes to the engine and it might require an increase in certain minimum system requirements. Especially in the video card category. So, we would like everyone to take this special poll below and answer the questions. This will give us some insight into what video cards you are currently using, or if you plan to buy a particular card quite soon go ahead and select what you are planning to own say within the next 30-60 days. We know upgrading cards right now is tough due to shortages, but we’d like to know where you currently are or plan to go soon with a new card to give us a snapshot. Thanks in advance!

Jason Williams

Already the poll has revealed some interesting trends. Most respondents do have more than 2GB of VRAM available on their cards although there is a small number that just meet that spec. Also nVidia does seem to have the overwhelming share of the people who have responded so far.

Be sure to check out the poll here and fill in your configuration.