just out of interest have you guys tried 2.13 on these machines?
Only because I hear people saying "AH used to be playable on my PC and now it isnt, so I need a new PC" or similar, and I'm sceptical that this is the case.
Just because you asked I went and installed the newest patch on the old Dell outlined earlier in this thread. Frame rates seem about the same but the terrain looks a little better, the minor stuttering is greatly reduced, and texture loading is not perfect but improved.
I didn't actuall fly but took a couple of shots from the towers.
In this one I tried to find a place with a lot going on. There were a ton of planes in this sector, a CV on fire, AA guns firing, a small furball in view, planes taking off, etc. All in all I was quite pleased with the machines performance (that's 36 fps BTW).
In this one I wanted to get a look at the new ground terrain. Again we have some fires, a plane fying overhead, a flack firing, etc. 24fps but you'll notice that there's supposed to be a river there and with the lower graphics setting it goes away turning entirely into beach sand. I didn't try but I now wonder if the water appears as you get closer or not. If it doesn't can you roll over it or do you get stuck? I guess I'll have to test that another time.

I would think this would be totally playable and an improvement over the initial releases.
Compare these screenshots to the earlier ones and there's no comparison. This looks
much better.