Did anyone redeem the War Thunder launch reward?

Adding my findings in case they help someone. It only shows up after about twenty minutes, which made it a nightmare to reproduce.

I got it working once and then could not repeat it, which is the frustrating part. Interested in the counter-argument if there is one.

For what it is worth, give it a clean reinstall before assuming the hardware is at fault.

Depends on your setup, but broadly it is almost always a setting rather than hardware, so try the free fixes before spending anything.

This is the bit people miss — that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

Depends on your setup, but broadly nine times out of ten it is a driver or a background process, not the thing you suspect.

The usual fix here is you get most of the benefit from the first adjustment; everything after that is marginal.

Good luck, it is a common snag.

Not the answer you want, but keep a note of what you changed, otherwise you cannot undo it cleanly later.

Others may have a cleaner method.

Speaking as someone who got it wrong initially, give it a clean reinstall before assuming the hardware is at fault.

Speaking as someone who got it wrong initially, this changed for me after the last patch, so older threads may steer you wrong.