Microsoft sent me a copy of the Beta version in August 2000.

Amazingly to me the sim ran as smooth as silk on my Celeron 466 Mk II, with only 64 MEG of RAM and a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee.

I say amazing, because the sim world's experience with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000's performance had made me wary of the prospects of a smooth ride.

At this stage the landscape is still basic - with generic textures and no elevations but the clouds are coming along nicely.

Gone are the flat cloud layers in Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1998) and in their place are fully volumetric clouds with some amazing weather effects - lightning and rain included.

As in Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1998) and Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 you can elect to have the throttle controls open as a separate window - Combat Flight Sim 2 adds a mixture control if you want to adjust this manually.

The gear retracts correctly and smoothly

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click to see detail of the cockpit at 1024 x 768

Dogfighting was smooth and fun on the test rig - (by the way it ran under Windows 2000 as well) - with my wingman PC getting a kill on the Zero.

The menu screens use comic book styled graphics quite effectively. This also ties in with the cut scenes.

Looking back in the P-38 Lightning

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click to see detail of the cockpit at 1024 x 768

These images were taken in 2002 using a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee.