I was thoroughly impressed with the game just running through the tutorial. It is much more realistic in terms of vehicles having to do three point turns to get to places, and the men do follow paths that are combat savvy, trying to keep to in cover and finding suitable shooting positions.
However, when I started the British campaign, and had many units to manage, as well as a whole army of germans rolling through a desert valley, the game became unplayable due to graphics lag (I think). It just got worse and worse, until I had trouble controlling any unit with any level of confidence. My machine is no top of the range, but it can handle most of the crop of current games out at the moment. I was really looking forward to large scale desert tank combat, but from what I've seen, even with the graphics turned down to very low, and it really does look barren and hideous then, it had trouble handling just panning the camera. Perhaps its just a graphics driver problem, or I need to delve into performance to get it to work.. but from an initial rush of enthusiasm for the game, if I can't sort out the performance issue it will be dead in the water for me..
Anyway, I've updated my graphics drivers to no avail, still get the game stuttering and the units seem to move forward in lagged time frames, even at lowest graphical settings..
My system as reported by DxDiag (snipped for brevity) is as follows:
------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Dell DXP051
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A05
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3582MB RAM
Page File: 464MB used, 5001MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT/GTO
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 7900 GTO
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0291&SUBSYS_042B10DE&REV_A1
Display Memory: 512.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.8250 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 3/27/2009 10:03:00, 6186880 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: nv4_mini.sys
Mini VDD Date: 3/27/2009 10:03:00, 6280416 bytes
-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Is there any advice folks can give me to get the game running as was intended (like in the low unit count tutorials)?