User Reviews (1 - 11 of 66)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Don't buy it unless you have a powerful PC!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 68 / 73
Date: November 13, 1999
Author: Amazon User

This may be a great product but Microsoft marketing was inaccurate about it working on a PC as low as a Pentium 166. While FS98 works on "older" PCs, FS2000 needs CPU power and lots of it, probably at least a Pentium II 400. See Microsoft's own FlightSim message board on how angry deceived purchasers are. So be sure you have a more powerful PC to make this work efficiently. Thanks to MS's 30-day back guarantee (on the box) I was able to return it.

Think hard about staying with FS98

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: January 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The Pro version promised enhanced scenery for my hometown, Boston. That scenery's there but not very good. No Beacon or Bunker Hills, for example; the State House and the Bunker Hill monument, when you fly low enough to find them, just sit on flat terrain. Pluses: having the worldwide airport scenery is fun. I lived for a period in Sicily, and the local Palermo airports are there butting up against mountains resembling the real terrain rather satisfyingly. Being able to pan smoothly around your airplane in Spot view is fun too. Minuses: Pushes your computer to the max. I had to take my new PIII/450, 128 MB RAM, 16MB 3D card 'puter back to the shop for a video card driver upgrade and some other tweaks before the program would run without freezing. The program still burps and balks at times. My setup is the MINIMUM I would recommend to run this program. The San Francisco scenery is very disappointing. No Coit Hill, the Coit Tower sits on flat ground. The Marin Headlands just NW of the Golden Gate are rendered as flat terrain, which is inexplicable, since in FS98 the rendering is much more accurate. And lastly, even with a standard or full install you have to have the CD in the drive to run the program. A security measure, sure, but still a nuisance (shared by MS Combat Flight Simulator but not by FS98). Bottom line: by comparison, FS98 ain't so bad!

A Note for those who have an MMX computer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: December 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

On the back of the box, Microsoft says it needs a Pentium 166 with 500mb free disk space and a quad speed CD rom drive. I have a pretty good system: Pentium 233MMX, 2 gig hard drive, fast CDROM and a 3d banshee card. It was terrible! The typical install took over 700 megabytes and there was blood running out of the hard drive. It took about 40 minutes to install the game and another 10 while it was building the scenery database. It also took the hard drive 7 minutes to load the game and much more to change aircraft. Because I had a 3d card, the actual perfomance was not too bad, although the SLIGHTEST change made the hard drive go crazy!

I was very disappointed. For those of you that may be considering buying this product and have a 166 or a 233, STAY with FS98! I went back and I am pleased with its performance! It may not have all the fancy features and scenery that 2000 has, but it is worth the tradeoff in performance.

I am very happy using FS98. The third party utilities I downloaded made it almost as good as FS2000, so if you're in my position..DON'T BUY IT! Buy FS98 instead, or keep it if you have it.

You will spare yourself time, patience and money!

slide show

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: January 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

i wish i knew how these people with 266 machines are getting this hog to run well....i have a 300 with all the bells and whistles and FS2000 doesn't even get off the ground. the frame rate is a freakin' slide show. it takes minutes at a time to load or change scenarios. putting a 166 as the minimum requirement is blatant false advertising. but i'm sure it's a great sim. someday i'll buy a 500 and check it out.until then i'll be satisfied with 98 and some of the excellent add ons available for it, or pro pilot 99 which has better atc than either game....

A PRODUCT OF A PARASITIC COMPANY

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 23
Date: July 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Inherent to mainstream parasitic businesses/companies (e.g., Microsoft) is the greed for super-profits. They usually over-hype their products through parasitic individuals and advertisers. And this product is one of the examples of that greed, FLAWED!

A PRODUCT BY A PARASITIC COMPANY

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 36
Date: July 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Inherent to mainstream businesses/companies is the greed for super-profits, and be parasitic. That means, over-hyping, hire parasitic indiduals and advertisers to endorse their products, just like this FS2000! This is what happens when you have a system ran by money and only serves/benefits the few (big businesses/companies).

Not worthy of the Microsoft name.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 13
Date: January 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As with most of us ,I have used Microsoft software for years. Some of which I liked and some I didn't. This flight simulator is about the worst product I have seen. Definately the worst I have seen from Microsoft. If Microsoft continues to ship "garbage" such as this, there will be no need for the Justice Department to break them up as there will be no Microsoft to break up.

Why can't they get it right?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 40 / 48
Date: June 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I've played almost every flight sim available today, and some that are so old that they haven't been available in years. I have hoped and waited for Microsoft to release a Flight Simulator program that not only gets the flight dynamics of a real plane correct, but also gets the graphics up to par with some of the other less realistic simulators (combat sims mostly). Flight Simulator 2000 disappoints again. I am running a very high end system with a very powerful video card and the graphics on this game still are bad. When you look out of the sides of the airplane (left, right, back, etc) the program requires 'loading time' in order to render the cockpit art. Totally unacceptable in my book. No amount of settings adjusting could correct this on my computer.

If the largest software company in the world is going to release a program, and charge 50 bucks a pop for it, I think that the graphics should not only be adequate but should absolutely kick some behind! Flight Simulator is a serious disappointment in that department.

The dynamics are interesting. I guess if all you want to do is look straight ahead and instrument fly you are in luck here because the dynamics seem to be fairly realistic. The adjustable difficulty settings are nice and the variety of airports to take off and land on are a nice feature as well (though there isn't much difference between runways as far as particular problems in approach are concerned, because the MS flight sim world is COMPLETELY FLAT).

Poor showing Microsoft. Hire some coders who can make the artwork something other than ameturish and you may just have something. Look to some of your competitors work for an example, or take a ride in a real plane and make an attempt to recreate not only the way it handles, but how the world really looks and what it is like to turn your head around in a cockpit. I guarantee it is nothing like FS 2000.

The highs and very low lows of Flight Sim 2000 Professional

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 27 / 28
Date: June 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

A year and a half ago I bought a Compaq 450mhz, PII with 128mb sdram and a 4mb Rage Lt Pro board (which at the time was like flying at Mach 2). The first title I picked up was Flight Sim 98, and Combat Flight Sim, after experiencing the brilliant graphics of the later, 98 was a visual disappointment, so I took it back. When Flight Sim 2000 came out I thought, "now we're cooking with gas!" read the requirements on the box which assured me I could easily run it, loaded it and... and... turns out our family slide shows were more exciting, 166mhz, HA! The graphics were amazing, even with a 4mb video board but the only time I could get a high frame rate (over 20 per second) was when I was flying straight up into the clear blue sky. Needless to say it quickly found its way back into the box. Recently I upgraded to an ATI 128, 32mb board, everything came to life! My jaw dropped when I saw the stunning images of Midtown Madness, Indiana Jones; Infernal Machine, Need for Speed High Stakes, I could read every sign, and see every crack in the pavement. Even when I've got the screen resolution set to the max and am running at 32 bit colour the performance is flawless! So... I thought I would give 2000 another shot, I picked up a copy of the Professional version this time, thinking lets go for it, took it home, loaded it, and... and... SLIDE SHOW! (about 14-18 fps, if all the planets are in alignment). Even when I'm just sitting on the runway at a very low screen setting and 16 bit colour it runs at about 14 fps, and my system is running nothing in the background, ouch! There are moments when you're landing at O'Hare and the runway lights are flashing and you feel the rush of trying to get your 777 through a severe thunderstorm and on the ground in one piece, but most of the time you just sit scratching your head wondering why Microsoft would produce such a flawed product. When they designed it, they surely knew you'd need to have the Godzilla of all machines to run it (smoothly), and PIII 800mhz machines were still something right out of science fiction. It really begs the question, why can't somebody build a great looking Flight Sim, that runs like WWII Fighters or Combat Flight Sim in a commercial aircraft version, one that runs like a Corvette C5 rather than a Yugo. Bottom line, I love the flight models, controls and the rush of slipping into the cockpit of some great commercial airliners but (and this is a big but) it's hardly worth the hefty price of admission, unless you're a fan of still aerial photography.

Microsoft has TOTALLY misrepresented this product!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 25
Date: March 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As a seasoned veteran of Flight Simulator 98 and a licensed FAA rated commercial pilot, I am no stranger to Microsoft flight simulations.

Initially when I loaded FS2000Pro I was very excited due mostly to the hype surrounding this product... This of course was short lived.

I am currently running a AMD-K62 400Mhz CPU, 128Mb RAM and an ATI Expert 2000 32Mb video card.

If I turn the overall display quality down to 1 (the lowest setting), I get marginally acceptable framerates at 800X600. (800X600 is the lowest you can go and still have clear, readable rendering of your cockpit intrumentation)

Even Microsoft's recomended system requirements are not enough to run this simulation, much less the minimal requirements of a Pendium 166Mhz! I can now see myself returning to FS98 if not totally abandoning the MS platform all together. (I am currently looking into X-Plane which operates on an OpenGL platform)

On a more positive note, my two stars are given for the great job in the graphics detail. It would be nice to enjoy them in their full glory (as soon as I spend $500.00+ in system upgrades).

In the end the number one quality that will impress real pilots and home users in a flight simulation is INTEGRITY. "Are you listening Microsoft?"

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next 

Actions