WOW. Lots going on. Yo certainly shed some light on what might be going on and raised some questions.
Are both IL-2 installations installed at C:\? I mean not in C:\Program files\IL-2. Right? I mean I realize you have them installed in two seperate directories. As long as niether of them are in Program files on WIndows Vista and higher. It's also better if you have no spaces in the path. Like c:\il2dbw.
It's a bit of a concern that you are unable to run the il2setup utility.
You may want to try this little utility and select cores 2, 3, and 4 and no virtual cores.
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=32520.0If that utility gives an error, then you need to click Start >> and type regedit and open registry editor and find the following key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ubi Soft\IL-2 Sturmovik 1946
Look at the REG_Z value "Directory" on the right and please report back what it says.
for your CPU, ProcessAffinityMask=12 will run on core 2 and 3 which is physically core 3 and 4 or ProcessAffinityMask=14 for core 1, 2, and 3, which is physically core 2, 3, and 4.
From the spiking your getting on your video card, it sounds like it might not be coming out of power saving mode correctly. That card should have no trouble with DBW. If IL-2 keeps resetting the resolution, it's probably because it thinks you have a very low end card. It kept doing that to me when I was running an onboard graphics card. Thats why I think your card might not be coming out of low power mode.
I don't know which chipset you have but by chance do you have Crossfire enabled?
Are you dissabling your anti virus software before you run IL-2?
When I install IL2, I install them to c:\IL2 then I patched it up to 4.10.1
Then I copied it to c:\IL2_4101
So now I have two folders. C:\IL2 and C:\IL2_4101
Then I patched the C:\IL2 folder up to 4.11.1
Then I copied it to C:\IL2_4111
Then I installed HSFX into C:\IL2
Then I made a copy of that to C:\IL2_HSFX_Clean
Then I renamed C:\IL2 to C:\IL2_HSFX_Using and copied C:\IL2_4101 to C:\IL2
Then I installed UP3\DBW to C:\IL2
Then I copied that to C:\IL2_UP3-DBW_Clean
Now, if I want to use the HSFX version, I rename C:\IL2 to C:\IL2_UP3-DBW_Using and rename C:\IL2_HSFX_Using to C:\IL2
I know this is a lot to swallow but when IL2 is installed, it makes system registry entries that look to the installation folder. If you do a second installation the registry entries change and the first installation is no longer valid in the registry. If you make a copy and run it from the new folder the registry entries are no valid for that version. In most cases, this is ok but in some cases like joystick profiles and graphics card profiles, it is not. This is one of reasons Bravo worked so hard to make everything run out of one folder without having to do what I do.
One of these days I'll get Modact on here and use the Bravo method but I spent too much time fiddling and not enough time playing but with all that crap on my 1TB hard drive with loads of room to spare, I play any version I want error free on a low end system with acceptable frame rates.
When I use the UP3\DBW version with Plutonium, I get the same frame rates you do.
When I play the HSFX version with Gurner FX 4.3, I average about 36 FPS with everything set to max and resolution set to 1400x1050 which is plenty for my 22" screen.
My System Specs
Windows XP Home SP3
P4 3.8 Ghz Hyper Threading
2 Gig DDR 400 Ram
Nvidia 7600GT
My 9800 GT will be here in a few days. I can't wait to see the frame rates for the UP3\DBW installation when It comes.
Hope this leads you in some helpful direction. Please keep us up to date on your progress.
Bob