Rendering capacities of a 2011 game !

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

I don't buy this argument anymore.

In the past ten years, our PC's and our graphic cards have seen their computing power greatly expanded.

If a flight sim is probably more computer-intensive than a FPS, a 2011 flight sim must nevertheless show more than a "last decade style" sim !

Lets say you have a 4 core system and Cliffs of Dover is able to perfectly allocate resources to each one.

Flight model for all aircraft involved
Damage model for all involved (aircraft, buildings, ground, vehicles)
Friendly/Enemy AI (pilots, gunners, ground gun emplacements, vehicles)
Graphics
Object locations/collision detection (aircraft, vehicles, buildings)
Tracking all projectiles (bombs, shells) their size, their paths, their effects.
Fuel and ammo amounts remaining

Take all that, plus the resources to run your OS in the background and you're asking for a hell of a lot from that poor little i5 processor.

Even the best top of the line FPS only has to do a fraction of those things, and typically they are limited to a more or less 2D plane, meanwhile almost everything in Cliffs of Dover is constantly changing location, speed, and altitude. For most FPS the damage model is pretty much "Damage=1/3 hits" while CloD has to think about controlled surfaces, engine temp. . . Another thing is the AI. For most FPS 90% of the AI enemies you will encounter have a few waypoints and 3 types of actions, "advancing attack, retreat, cover fire". Effects in FPS are also simplified in some cases. The static smoke column is a good example, and explosions in many cases are 2d and designed to always be facing the human players. Limited map sizes, lo-rez backgrounds, etc.

Well you get the idea. The amount of number crunching involved in CloD is miles more than most any other type of game.