i doesn't work as soon i get to episode 1 mission 1 i defeat some enemies and then all my shots go through the enemies

Tried this game in Vista x64 running on a amd x64 3800 dual core with 2gb of ddr400. The Program does not get past the main menu it will not accept any input. However Vista is saying the reason is because d3drm.dll is not installed (and can't be installed) on this platform. Free games are nice but if they don't work are useless.

OK,

For gamers, there is a widely utility named Fraps that will tell you how many frames are being drawn in your screen every second (FPS). When I run state of the art 3-d shooters I am happy if I can get 20 FPS, but I usually get more. The eye sees 60 frames in a second, so ideally you would want to be near or above that number.

I ran the original COS and the numbers were in the 100's. This is normal for these kind of games. They don't have to deal with polygons and what not, so high frame rates are expected. I ran Open Range and got similar results.

COS2 runs at 12 FPS! The loading screens runs at 12 FPS, the menu pop ups runs at 12 FPS. You can change the speed of the ship all you want, but you can never get more than 12 FPS. I don't know what can make a 2-d side scrolling game run so slow even if it made you coffee while it is running.

This game is broken. People that say that it works fine for them may think so because the ship moves fast and the bullets move slow. I would like to see what kind of frame rates they are getting. Fraps is very easy to use and has been the de facto standard in game rate measuring for a long time. Don't be afraid to download and install it. Millions of people use it and I have never heard a complaint about it.

Like I said before, this game is broken. Something is keeping it at 12 FPS and needs to be fixed. The guy who said that we should only talk about the quality of the game and not technical comments doesn't realize that if a game is unplayable for technical reasons, then there is little else to talk about.


Nobody

ROFL,
Many people are asking themselves, was this program made by Microsoft deeming that it has to be a Beta and we are the testers. In other words, did they leave in all the extra lines of code which is irrelevant that is making this program such a Ram resource hog?
The only fix is to eliminate the blot or upgrade to a Super Computer.
As for graphics and visuals, it’s a great game. As we all know, due to Scotty beaming us up a notch, we can not stand doing anything in slow motion anymore.
My Dual 2.8 processor, high graphics card with 4 gigs of ram is screaming and the 10 grand rpm hard-drive is spinning like it never has before. Half of my ram and process power is being used by Windows Vista and unfortunately the other half is being used by the game, leaving non to spare.
Where was the Systems End to End Software Test Engineers on this gaming project??? Somewhere these guys were no doubt in Space on the hologram deck having an adventurous galactic excursion.
Once the beta has completed, this game will be a hit, until then, well just take a deep breathe and relax.

FlashRiver Out.

Whiterabbit, just so you know, I had the same idea, and downloaded the program demo from Reflexive, and had the exact same problem. I think it simply is a software issue. I did the other stuff you mentioned (and btw, there weren't any files that were not necessary running). Oh well, I _DO_ enjoy this type of genre, and Downloaded Crusaderf Space, and it played fine. When (if) this gets fixed, please reoffer it GGAOTD, and I would love to have it.

Thanks for the offer

I see a lot of inconsistencies in what systems can and can't run this game. Not a good sign; even the best of games inn't going to far so well if it won't run on half the computers it's supposed to.

Whitrabbit, I *think* the upgrades are what gets you to another ship. I got to the blue ship after adding 1 each to Armor, Primary Bullets, Bonus Strength and Secondary Weapons (maybe two to one of the, I don't remember). Although it could be anything from how accurate you are to however many bonuses you manage to pick up.

I'm not even sure what advantages the other ships have, if anything.

I have a 3Ghz P3/HT, 512 ram, GeForce 6200 w/128DDR and man does this game run slow... game makers made a game that took advantage of modern technology but gave ZERO control over how much technology it being used... I have no super gaming machine, but I also don't have a hunk of junk p3 1.6, for the love of god Doom3 on MED doesn't run this bad....

Its certainly better than the original COS however its just as badly written as the first. It ran ok on my system 2000+ GF 4 Ti 4600. Just wasn't very interesting......GGOTD needs to ditch Alawar for another sponser....REALLY.

As I'm running low on HD space and all the problems reported I'm not gonna download this. If anyone wants to try a GREAT shooter (in my opinion the best) check out Tyrian2k (http://www.abandonia.com/games/en/296/Tyrian2000.htm) You'll need Dosbox to run it, but hey, that pretty much guarantees that almost anyone can run it.

Peace my fellow freeloaders ;).

Just played this game for about 10 minutes as an exploratory run to investigate some of the negative comments.

And my findings?

The game ran just fine ...

Took about 10 seconds to load on an E6400 and otherwise I played through about 7 levels with no problems.

I even found it quite fun.

Kept thinking of Galaga and Space Invaders but with better graphics.

Thanks for the free download.

Just wish the game developers had made it more difficult.

Thanks for the warnings. I have the first version giveaway and it worked every time I tried. I guess I'll stay with it. Strange that some got it to work, but so many didn't. Some who didn't had new machines.

The program installed correctly, and runs well on an XP Media Center, Pentium Duo, with 3G DDR2 Dual Channel and a GeForce 7600 GS video card with 256mb DDR2. There is a setting under options to change the speed of the ship. I did enjoy the game until I got killed on level 40, and especially like the ability to upgrade the different attributes according to your own playing strategies. I am not an avid gamer, so perhaps others may be spoiled by the games they play, but while it did take a little time to cycle from level to level, I didn't find it enough to turn me off to the game. I agree with another reviewer that the game would be better off without the storyline. Also, the few simple help comments repeated throughout the entire 40 levels that I played. I could have used a comment on what to aim for on one of the Big Boss levels, because I spent a good amount of time dodging and shooting at the head and apparently not doing any damage until I started attacking the claws.

Anyway, it seems to work fine on my configuration.

May I suggest you try a demo version from elsewhere (Reflexive sell this title too) and see if the same problems occur? I've already compared both games and have not had a problem running either the Alawar giveaway, or other versions, including my bought copy. It really is strange that many are experiencing such problems. I checked back to the Dec 06 giveaway and the same problems occurred there. I seem to have been lucky that it worked on the two systems I mentioned then, and the newer computers I have now.

For those who are having problems running this game, firstly have you checked that the ship speed isn’t set to the slowest setting (by default it should be set around the middle of the slider. Also have you checked your version of direct X? Just go to the start button, click on run and enter dxdiag then OK. You can see which version you have by looking to the bottom of the system information tab, which is the one the tool opens up with by default. If you don't have DX9, then that could be the cause of your problem. It may be that you have the wrong version of DX9, so I’d visit the Microsoft website and download the latest version just to be sure Mine is version Direct X 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) and is ‘probably’ one of the most recent because I play a lot of recently released FPS’s which require the most recent.

The only other thing I could suggest is that you close down as many un-needed background programs, some of which can be shut down via the task bar next to the clock in the bottom left of your screen. (If you’ve installed a lot of the giveaway programs it’s likely that you will have quite a few programs running from here. (Using a decent start up manager can sort this ‘problem’ out. Just right click and shut 'em down. If that doesn't work, try shutting down even more programs by opening up the task manager (Cntl, Alt, Del) and clicking on the process manager. There are quite a few things you can shut down here as well, but be wary of what you choose as you may freeze your system up and will have to restart your computer. Generally I'd leave all system programs running and just shut the user programs down. You may have to try this by trial and error. :)

There's a freeware program called FSAutostart, which was originally designed for flight simulator games, but it can be used for any game. Running it will effectively shut down all the programs that are not needed by your computer. It’s also manually adjustable. It’s less than a quarter of a megabyte and can be downloaded from Softpedia:


http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/FSAutoStart.shtml


It isn’t resident in your start up, so you can use it just when your playing games.

Another alternative is to set up a profile specifically for gaming via your autoexec utility. (Google it for details)


I hope these ideas help for those who really want to play this game.


It could be that your bios isn’t set up properly for your graphics card or onboard chip. You’ll find that there are parameters that can be changed to accommodate the type of graphics card you use, for example PCI (old) AGP (oldish) or PCI-E (new) and even the old ISA cards which are ancient now. However, if you are not familiar with going into the bios set up (by repeatedly clicking on Delete when you first start up the computer) I would strongly advise you to get someone who knows what they are doing.

Bad.

- Crashed on Windows ME.
- Run at 50% speed in Windows Vista.

Brand new computer, 1 gig of ram, 250 gig hard drive, windows vista home pro. This program Downloaded fine, the Graphics came up all fuzzy and the game play was slow and jerky???Did uninstall easily, JUST for your information, Alawar games of different ones in 2 different computers of mine for some reason caused sporadic sponatanious restart after being installed for awhile.?? unusual, oh well i,ll try next time.

reading the poor performance even on good systems is strange indeed.

the game runs perfectly smooth, the load times are about 5 seconds, even with anti aliasing on. maybe some compatibility issues?

p4 3.8ghz
4gb ram
geforce7900 gtx

Hi,

I play mostly 3-d shooters from steam. HF-2, Bioshock, Prey, .... and they are quite tasking. Dual core Pentium @ 3 GHz, 2 GB of fast ram, great graphics card, surround sound, 19'' LCD, 100 GB free HD space.

I am running nothing but the game and there is something definitely wrong with it. The first screens come out very slowly, like 30 secs in between them. After you are allowed to type your name, the Start and Exit buttons take 15 secs to load and off you go.

I can set the speed of my ship and it can move very fast, but the enemies and their lasers seem to go through molasses. Load times are ridiculous high for this new installment. I have the original and Open Range and they don't have that problem.

I read people saying they have no problems with slower computers and less resources, and also people that agree with my opinion. I see only a few explanations. Either the settings of easy, normal and hard change the speed. I have no time to test this. The perception of slowness in a game is different among people. Hard core gamers are used to snappy menus, but those who seldom play games may accept the speed of this game as normal. Finally, there could be some obscure setting in windows that is making the difference. I seriously doubt it, but it is a possibility.

Anyway, I'll keep it installed. I don't play old time games that often. Lately I've been spending too much time on my Wii where I play the best old time games ever made and some of the best new ones.

Peace,

Nobody

I also have problems with this game. It downloaded just fine but I can't get the game to open. I have a smaller system so I am not sure if that is the problem but why is this game taking so much more to run than other games? The minimum System Requirements are PII-600 / 64M RAM / 16M Video 3D, Windows XP, DirectX 9.0 and I have: Celeron 1.7Ghz / 512M RAM / 64M Video 3D, XP, DirectX 9.0. So I have almost 3 times the minimum processor, 8 times the minimum amount of RAM and 4 times the minimum video card. This game should run fine on the system that I have or at the very least open and be playable. Something about that doesn't make sense and apparently it isn't just me.

WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!!!! CRASHED MY 1.4GHZ XP SYSTEM WHEN TRYING TO START UP THE GAME, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE WITH GOTDGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's another discovery. My "GPU" isn't really a 3D graphics GPU. I have the onboard Intel stuff that came with my Latitude D620. It's using Software Rendering for all my 3D games. Those games where I can turn off particles, etc I get substantial speed improvements. On this game, there isn't anything I can turn off.

So, if you don't have a Real 3D card, 1 GB of RAM and a Dual Core processor you could have problems with this game. It seems like it would be enjoyable enough.

Don't attempt to play this game with a multi-monitor setup. I have an AMD FX60 w/4G ram and X1900XTX video card, two 24" dell lcds, and a 30" dell LCD. I ran the game after installing, and the game went to my right LCD instead of the center(main) LCD. After about 20 seconds, I got a repeating error "Access violation at ". The error repeated over 50 times in 10 seconds. The only thing I could do is reset my computer. It's uninstalled. Good thing I didn't have any work files open!!!

It may be free, but it's obviously a worthless game to begin with.

Doh - I meant NOT gold level.

Installed just fine. Game play as to be expected. Animation a bit jerky but very colourful and interesting eye candy. As a number of previous reviewers have pointed out an absolute CPU resource HOG. This may explain the jerky animation as the number of objects on screen increases. Still a nice mind and mouse hand, numbing play experience.
The story boards are horrid and would cause any animation student to be flunked out.
Ah well, it's still a keeper but definitely gold level.

Tripack, what on earth are you doing with only 512mb ram on a 3ghz machine? You need at least another 512mb to support your processor properly. Your memory problem has more to do with the fact that you don't have enough, rather than that COS2 uses too much. Windows itself uses a massive amount of ram (if you have it, if you don't, it creates a gigantic vmem paging file). Windows is a huge ram hog.

I don't like the COS series. There are much much MUCH better space shooters out there such as Astro Fury, Alien Stars, and Star Defender 4. Thumbs down.

Works great on my OC'd Celeron.

I just downloaded this game Crusaders of Space 2 and it works fine for me , downloaded on my laptop and personal computer and also my daughters computer and they all work great.
Great game also, thumbs up!!!

This game is really slow.
Dont know whats wrong with this game.

Thanks GAOTD and Alaware for this cool game. It even works on my Windows Professional x64 computer without problems. The computer has a dual Opteron CPU with 8 GB RAM.

Definitely something wrong with the code--I can't even get into the game; it essentially hangs at the player name entry screen (XP, Athlon 64 3500+, 1 GB, ATI HD 2600 XT).

all other games from Alawr works on my computer but this one the video is broken up I have all the requirments I have 1 gig or ram and 32 bit 3d on video and it just keeps like a bad horizontal circuit that shows the s=cans out of sync with the system it is unplayable and the first one I never opened and it is doing that also .to bad I muust pass on this one because iot is not working right

As there were so many people having problems with this version I checked my bought version against the giveaway version and the only difference apart from the registration codes is the number of files within the games folder. The Alawar folder has nearly twice as many, but these are web links.

I did forget to mention in my review above that the first five levels are the introductory levels that give you an idea as to what you can expect the game to look like. I was mistaken about the end of intro boss. It's a while since I played it, so made an assumption that was wrong. After the introduction comes the story line then the first episode (that I called a campaigne. The first few levels of this will seem very tame compared to the intro. Try the Star Defender 4 demo

http://www.retro64.com/star_defender_4_game.asp

screenshots:

http://www.retro64.com/star_defender_4_screenshots.asp

Which wins over CoS2 for both game play, sound and Graphics (IMO)

I haven't downloaded it yet, but some of the slow downs could be due to single core systems. #18 says one core is at 100% and the other fluctuates. If it didn't peg the cpu it would probably be fine. On the other hand, if the game was designed for a dual core/cpu system it is probably behaving as intended.

and look at this guys,
the system requirement is
PII-600 / 64M RAM / 16M Video 3D, Windows XP, DirectX 9.0

Works fine with me... with quad core desktop-_-

But it takes so long to load at my core 2 duo laptop.
the loading speed is even slower than the battlefield

Not the first game that doesn't work after installing.Why do these things happen,now I can't give a comment because I can't play it

Being a bit of a masochist and in view of all the negatives above I thought I would download this! No problems for me and on crappy Vista as well!! Runs fine, would like to up the resolution a tad, does use a lot of cpu time but so what unless you want to multitask a game. Not slow, graphics and sound okay, this one is staying on my HD.

Works awesome, not slow at all. Some people need to upgrade their pc's! My Dual core 2.4ghz 1gb ram has no problem...

Activated and installed fine.

About the game:

Pro's:
+ Graphics of the game during gameplay are nice.
+ Gameplay is good.
+ Music can be turned off.
+ Enough options to configure the game with (sound & graphics).

Con's:
- Nothing original.
- Story of the game is very, very badly told. If it's meant to be funny; it's not.
If the graphics are meant to have a cult/alternative/artsyfartsy-like feel to it, it failed completely; it's just bad.
- Music is bad. Really.
- What's up with the load times? It's... Stupid. I'm not playing a game that looks like it needs those kind of load times (during startup, during episode changes or that horrible story telling).

It's a mediocre follow-up to COS at best (which on it's own had an Abandonware feeling and value). For me, the story told could've been left out completely. It annoys the h*ll out of me that the game is on hold just because you'll have to watch it (even if you'll skip it with the 'next' button). All the dynamic of the game is gone instantly. The story could be meant as a resting period, but for me it's just annoying because of the way the story is put together. Al through the game it's now like: Fun. Annoying. Fun. Annoying. Etc.

Fun to fool around with every once in a while, I'll guess. That is to say; when it runs smooth on your system (it does run smooth on mine, BTW), otherwise just uninstall it and don't spent any more time on this one.

It gets an thumb up from me, but just barely.

Thanks GGOTD and thank you Alawar Entertainment for the offer.

Won't load up past the splash screen.

WGL_ARB_pbuffer support required

Then freezes until alt-F4.

Fantastic! This is ‘one’ of the best as far as vertical space shooters go; just as Jet’s and Guns is for the side scrolling shooter. (I won’t bother expanding into the 3D, 360, third person and first person space shooters, as I think we’d lose sight of the game being offered today, lol). If you have these two games in your library, most other space shooters pale into insignificance, (apart from the vertical scrolling shooters Star Defender 3 and 4). You can see the previous comments about this giveaway from last year by following the link below:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/crusaders-of-space-2/#comments


Also there are loads of screenshots of the game from the following link:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=crusaders+of+space+2&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

I only took a few screen captures because there seemed to be a conflict with my screen capture device, (Capture Wiz Pro) and this game, however what few I did capture can be seen by following this link:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Crusaders%20of%20Space%202/?action=view&slideshow=true



If you’re not into space shooters much, but would like at least a few in your library of games, then I recommend keeping the Jet’s and Guns giveaway from a few weeks ago and this one. They are both ‘too’ different to compare. Though Crusaders of Space 2 (CoS2) is much better graphically and game play wise than its predecessor’s Crusaders of Space (CoS) and Crusaders of Space: Open Range. That’s a little convoluted, but I’m sure you get my drift, lol. However you can’t fault the latest in the Star Defender Series, (number 4, which has just been released recently) and I would certainly recommend fans of the Space shooter genre to invest in at least the latest Star Defender game as well as CoS2 (once you’ve lost it due to a format) and Jet’s and guns Gold. All three are firm favorites with the males of my family.

The eye candy is more spectacular, the power ups, both permanent upgrades and timed bonuses are better, but so to are the enemies armaments, when you compare this game with its predecessors. There’s a great story line that follows you through the introduction and two long episodes of the game (although some may find this interrupts the flow of the game – it’s easily bypassed quickly by clicking on the next buttons); as well as pit stops every few levels so that you can spend the money you have collected on upgrading your ships armaments and or defenses. These are divided into three categories, 1) defense, 2) bonus’s and 3) attack; for example once you’ve earned points, you can spend them on upgrading your bonus strengths. This basically increases the time the bonus is active in game. Bonuses are very effective at dramatically improving your primary weapons strength as well as your secondary weapons. Your defensive shields when hit will regenerate over time, so it’s not always necessary to go for a health bonus unless your health is at a critical stage, as this may mean you lose a weapons bonus, that IMO are a much better catch; for example auto aim bullets that will hit anything within a specific field of fire as opposed to just in front of the ship. You can upgrade the regeneration time of your shields up to three times, and there are 8 armor improvements. All the attack features apart from your secondary weapons (that can be upgraded 3 times) have four upgrades. These include your primary bullets, mega bullets and auto aim bullets.

There is also a choice of 6 ships, however I’ve never managed to unlock even the second ship yet because the game saves infrequently and I’m always starting from near the beginning because even though I love the game, my attention span is limited because of the morphine unfortunately. If anyone can clarify the save scheme for this particular shooter I would be most grateful. At least then I’ll have an incentive to fight on to a specific level. I’m presuming they will save at the end of each episode, but I can’t be sure. :( There is no read me in the games folder to give you this information or to tell you whether or not each ship has different abilities, so I’m assuming there isn’t apart from the color scheme. There are 120 levels divided into an introduction and two campaigns. Each of the campaigns are divided into 5 episodes, with each episode having 10 levels. You have to fight bosses at the end of each episode, which makes 10 bosses plus one at the end of the introduction. Make sure you have ample stocks of missiles to fight off these monstrosities, although I’d use the ones you gain earlier in the episode to ensure your survival; especially if it looks like you may lose your ship, because missiles are not carried forwards if your ship is destroyed. I’d start accumulating your missile arsenal after about the sixth or seventh levels. :)

As with the original CoS and CoS: Open Range, every time you’re hit, your weapons are downgraded to the previous upgrade until you are at your basic level. Once your shields (health) are depleted, any more shots will destroy your ship and cost you a life, unless you can pick up a health pack, or avoid being hit until your shields have regenerated. You can see the state of your ship and armaments by looking to the top left of the screen. To the top right is shown any timed bonuses you may have collected, with the time it has left to run. Generally, with no upgrades these usually last 10 seconds, which doesn’t seem long, but you can do a lot of damage in 10 seconds, lol.

The options menu enables you to change your screen resolution as well as the music and sound effects which are excellent in my opinion. The music goes well with this action shooter. You can also adjust the speed of your ship from the options menu, and is effectively your difficulty setting. Setting it on the slowest notch for example makes it feel like your ship is moving through thick treacle; whereas on the fastest setting you can zip across the screen as quick as your reflexes will allow.

There is no windowed mode unfortunately, but on the plus side, this game is fully mouse controlled. The ship remains stuck to the bottom of the screen at all times. If you do prefer a game where you can move the ship around like you can with Jets ‘n’ guns there’s a full version of Alien Stars that you can download for free that allows movement of the ship all over the screen. It’s effectively a vertical scrolling shooter like today’s giveaway. The game runs smoothly on all of my systems ranging from a 1.5GHz cpu, 1G RAM and a 128Mb vid card to my latest build, that plays the latest $50 games. The video rewuirements are modest, but if you don't have a graphics card with at least 32Mb memory, or a recent motherboard that should have suitable video chips, you may get problems running the game. Unfortunately theres no video options to downgrade the memory requirements. See the specs in the introduction above the comments section to ensure you meet the requirements. When this was previously given away it was mentioned that it wouldn't run on dual core systems. I now run two computers with AMD dual cores and the game runs as smooth as silk on both of them. The one with a 22" monitor looks really cool compared to my smaller 19" monitors. (I'd love a 32" or larger, but the price is still a little too much yet, lol)

I posted details about it last month when Astro Fury was given away because this game is quite similar to that apart from not being stuck to the bottom of the screen; that is, you can fly anywhere on the screen. Rather than post a link to that particular day I’ve copied the appropriate part below:

……………………………………………………………………………………………

I found a game called Alien Wars (also known commercially as Alien Stars that costs the usual $19.95) for free from Gametop.com. This game has a lot of similarities to Astro Fury and today’s giveaway CoS2; however there is a price to pay for getting it totally free. Whenever you close the game down, it will open a browser page to the sites home page; however I’ve never found anything else untoward such as malware and pop ups etc. I would also highly recommend you check out what other games they have on offer for free; all the genres are represented (just about). When I close the game down I’m taken to the following page that has other shooters available, but unfortunately, this one seems to be no longer available at this address. However it may be worth a try Goggling it and seeing if you can find it elsewhere for free.


http://www.gameteam.com/category/free-online-shooting/?utm_source=AlienWars&utm_medium=downloadabe



Thought I’d just try a few links…….Yeah! I found it :)


http://www.gametop.com/download_free_shooting/play_alien_wars.html


Check out the following screenshots for it. Ignore the fact that it’s actually called Alien Stars:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Alien+Stars&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This is well worth buying in my opinion so I would give it 8 out of 10 (Star Defender 4 is worth a 9 by the way). Thank you again Alawar and the Game Giveaway team for giving and getting some of the best arcade games around. Check out the following decent review of the game:

http://jaguarusf.blogspot.com/2006/06/crusaders-of-space-2-review.html


I only wish that you would drop the price of all arcade games by at lease 30% or more, especially with games more than a year old. It’s always done with the big name games such as the battlefield series, flight, tank and submarine simulators, role playing games (rpg) and real time strategy (rts) games as well as others such as educational games and other children’s games. I’ve picked up games that were retailing at over $50 a couple of years ago for $15 and less over the last few years. For example I picked up Railway Tycoon II for $2 last year.

Have a great day folks…….. :D

To #10 - Yes yes, Alawar is not known for quality...It seems that many people are having problems playing the game. I would advise either getting a better computer, or not downloading the game.....

"I just installed it and my pc (proc intel 4, 3 GhZ and 512 Mb ram)...."


well there's part of the problem right there... 1/2 a gig of ram? get more.. it's cheap. the sweet spot for XP is 1gb, vista is 2gb.

you've got a powerful processor there... but you've hobbled it with too little ram.

Ok game, seems much more polished then the last version, did not have any issues of system slowdown the game ran fine on my machine, however when exiting the game I did receive an access violation.

On my first machine I got an error "Driver components mis-match"
On my second machine everything works fine. Maby one of your problems could be the lak of memory on your graphic cards.

The game runs too slow on my P4 2.8ghz, 1gb ram PC.

Well, I get a error messgae when closing from vista saying its looking for a solution for the problem and then comes back without a answer. I'm running a AMDx2 6000+ 4 gigs of mem and a pretty decent card, still a little slow but playable

It is indeed a incredibly slow shootemup, but there are no problems regarding memory or video. But hey, I like such a time waster, there is no need to shoot /me/ up .

Works fine for me as well.

XP Pro/SP2, Celeron D 356 @ 3.33 GHz, 2 GB DDR2, 256-512 MB 8400 GS. Other than being stuck at the bottom of the screen, this one is fairly good IMO. I can live with the gameplay speed, it's not sluggish and being able to whip around as fast as you can move the mouse doesn't always work well in games.

I installed this just fine but when I tried to play it, I got an access violation that just kept repeating over and over. I finally had to hit the power switch just to be able to move on to something else. I came back here to see what other had to say and happily I find myself not alone. I will return later to see if these issues have been resolved and will attempt another install if warrented. It looks like a great game that my kids would really enjoy.

It's not a memory leak guys - open your task manager, it uses a constant 130 MB.

The problem is CPU usage... on my 3.6 GHz OCed core2duo, I'm getting one of my cores is getting 100% CPU usage constantly, and the other one is getting up to 30% at certain points in time when running it. That is plain ridiculous.