Stalker my current rig is similar to yours:
AMD 3800+ 2.0GHz, overclocked to 2.4GHz on my stock cooler (my Asus AN8SLi32 mobo makes overclocking fairly straightforward and I added a 120mm fan at the front of the case as it ran a bit warm).
2Gb RAM
2 x Nvidia 7800GTs in SLi mode.
The main differences then are:
CPU speed: IL-2 is heavily CPU dependent and going from 2GHz to 2.4GHz increased my framerates by around 10%
Video cards: Look at this
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...50,2782-7.html
your card is twelfth on the list. My Video cards are not really up to scratch now because of the newer maps and I have moved my graphics settings from Perfect to Excellent and am hitting around 20-30 on heavily populated airfields and 40-60 in the air.
Cities like Berlin are a problem for me too, running around 10-15fps worst case but mostly my fps doesn't drop below 20 over medium size cities. In the clear sky I am hitting 50-60fps.
Having said all that your rig isn't at all bad if you can live with your city problem and perhaps lower settings.
You could increase the CPU speed if you can - there are risks of course, mine will sometimes reboot when I close a graphics application or something that has been using high resolution images but NEVER during gameplay. Be warned though that O/C does carry risks. Another option is to try to buy a 2.6GHz (the top of the range) on ebay, around £100-£120 last time I looked. Of course that would mean changing some BIOS settings to a higher frequency.
You can drop in a higher spec video card, maybe having to change drivers, and that would almost certainly improve things a bit.
Something else that may help is FSAutostart, a utility that shuts down unwanted background Windows processes (you do shut down all other applications don't you? If I'm only gaming I even shut down all Antivirus stuff.).
As IL-2 uses only one core you can set it to use one particular core and set everything else possible to use the other. You can do this manually in Task Manager... Processes... but I use this:
http://edgemeal.110mb.com/SetAffinity/index.htm
with its link to the actaul utility file:
http://edgemeal.110mb.com/Files/Set_...y_II_1.041.zip
I set IL-2 to use "Core 1" (actually the second core) and everything that the utility/Windows will allow to "Core 0" (actually the first core). Some can't be put to one core. Note that you can set IL-2 to use Core 1 in the conf.ini file, use Notepad and look for
[rts]
;ProcessAffinityMask=1
mouseUse=2
joyUse=1
trackIRUse=1
DisableIME=0
locale=
remove the ; from ;ProcessAffinityMaskand set it to =1 for the first core or = 2 for the second depending on what you want to do. If the entry isn't there under [rts] simply add it.
If you are going to get SoW you need to be thinking about a new rig altogether but yours may run it at reduced settings.
Best of luck,