Well I got to play it a little longer this time around.. it crashes when I am getting attacked by a bunch of planes while trying to switch to different screens, or if there are a lot of ships around.. and im moving around with the external cam.
I tried to find the stuff you were talking about in " my computer's" advanced tab.. but I don't see any of the options you were talking about

I have xp with SP2.. I am prob just looking in the wrong spot.
I had the crash with IL2 1946 (another ubi title), and it stopped when I turned the graphics down a bit.
I am pretty sure it is the graphics card.. i have had tons of trouble with it. The drivers never really seemed to work right (even when the computer was new), it over heats (which is why i elevated my computer to get air flow under it), and it has 128 megs of ram.
Within 3 mths of me having this computer, the mother board died on me!! With the desktop I had, with in a month, the main hd died in it. I don't think i'll buy an alienware again ehhe.
thanks for all the help fellas! I really appreciate it!!