Ah, so hardware may also be an issue as well.

Ouch. Decent retrogaming CPU, however.

Ah okay. So yeah, you really don't need to worry about not being able to play DX10 games.

I was on a very tight budget, and it only cost me about $300 after shipping. I am DAMN happy with it.

Holy crap, this series looks awesome! Why have I not encountered them before.

So are these games super realistic like Falcon 4.0 or semi-realistic like the old Jane's series of flight sims?

What are the campaigns like? Dynamic, scripited? are they good?

And is First eagles, the WW1 game any good?

Sorry for all the questions. This just got me excited.

Coded by the lead of the team that finished European Air War. Same guy who coded campaign and flight model of Jane's Longbow 2.

Well, you can control any radar with just 4 buttons (mode, range, target select, target lock), but those radars have various modeled quirks, like poor look down capability, or the ability to lock on and fire at 6 targets. You get to roll F-4 with your rudder and enjoy the elevator of early Hunters sticking solid at trans-sonic speeds.

Dynamic. There's a ground war with tank groups bumping into each other which shifts the front lines. You help them, strike against ground targets, or escort bombers and intercept them. Each plane shot down on destroyed on the ground is subtracted from the squadron strength, so it's possible to annihilate a MiG unit by airfield strafing and hangar bombing. No ground war in Nam (but you get to meet the SAM sites of Hanoi) and not much of it in Iceland.

First Eagles2 isn't on Rise of Flight flight modeling level but you get pretty much the same dynamic campaign as above (same game engine). Oh, and the AI can be quite nasty in a gunfight in both jet and WW1 games. I've seen a vertical head to head attack in SF2.

The series is also quite moddable. Most of the stuff is hosted at Combatace
This is the stuff for Strike Fighters 2 lineup http://combatace.com/files/category/388-strike-fighters-2-series-by-thirdwire/
This is the stuff for First Eagles 1&2: http://combatace.com/files/category/358-first-eagles-by-thirdwire/

Thanks for answering all my questions! Will definitely give this a go.

One more question, it looks quite expensive to pick up the whole series. Is there a cheaper bundled way to buy them? If not, which is the best one to start with?

I don't remember any bundle deals since late 2009.

For starters there are 2 main options. 1 - SF2 Israel, as it has the most varied content in a stock game (especially with the expansion). 2 - SF2 Europe, as it has a huge mod called NATO Fighters for it and that's tons of flyable planes.