Forget about the 550ti, its not much of a gaming card but I'm sure someone that has one may disagree.
Don't no how powerful your PC is or what resolution you'll be playing at but get the fastest GPU you can afford.

Is it worth getting? YES! has it's issues but most works beautifully. Where else can you see a Defiant and Whimpy flying together?

Funny, Creative Assembly have just stated their older Empire Total War is still selling strong, even though when released it had many bugs. It was and still is a great game .. just like Cliffs of Dover. Mods for Empire have improved it immensly, maybe a hint for 1C ?

Why developers keep reducing prices of great game is beyond me, mods and word of mouth will keep people buying.

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For online experience check out this channel showing gameplay on ATAG server http://www.youtube.com/user/Semashko27/videos It is better to see for yourself than listen to others ))

Offline experience is limited by not working radio-commands and AI mistakes in some situations (like crash on landing). If you do not care about friendly AI crashing sometimes and not following your orders there are many great user-created campaigns available (see link #1 in my sig).

All these are very old video cards (like mine). They will not allow you to run the game in resolution higher than 1680x1050 with not very pleasant FPS and visual quality.

I would buy one of these second-hand only as a temporary solution till I save for gtx580/670/680/HD6970.

If the patch brings significant FPS increase you can go for ATI HD6950 imho.

Make sure you get 1.5, 2 or even 3 GB version to use high quality textures.

That card won`t do well with anything else than a fast i5/i7.

I have a 6870, as much as i know, is pretty much the same as the 6850. In my experience its a good card and moves the COD in a very decent frame rate with medium/high config...

As they say, i dont think that buying anything better is worth unless you got a nice CPU (i5 2500k or more), otherwise you would have a very unbalanced PC. I´m not good with computers but as far as i know you should always get Medium end Cpu/Medium end Gpu, High end Cpu/High end Gpu, etc.

Well, I went with the 6850 from my local shop just for the warranty really. Didnt fancy a used card, as ive been using used for years. It's nice having something new :)

Got the Asus OC version. Should do well.

Now just waiting for the game to arrive...ugh

Thanks for all the advice though guys. I got a good deal on the 6850 so if it doesn't do as I want in medium resolutions then i'll sell it on and save for something with more DDR onboard.

Hopefully the performance patch will arrive before your game arrives. The patch should help people with average system play the sim with decent frame rates when selecting the appropriate graphics options. The only problem with this scenario is more people will be able play and see all the work thats still required to make the sim playable offline. I'm sure the developer is well aware of that fact and will make every effort to release an AI, COMMANDS, FM patch as quickly as possible.

were? its still $50 on steam?

Well, if it costs at max. 10% of your hardware (probably only 3% to 5%) and gives you 10 hours entertainment you are in the positive zone, imo, any additional hour of entertainment out of this is pure gain.

Plus, you are supporting the still uncertain future of wwii-cfs.