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Good Sim, But Remember the "Sim" Part! I have been using flight simulators since MS Flight Simulator 4.0, and have more diverse experience than only Microsoft's offering to call upon. While any simulator can be made quite realistic with the latest hardware and enough money, it is important to note that Microsoft's offering is no different - you cannot, as they say, make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. This means that if you're running an underpowered system, you will not be able to run the simulation optimally. Published system requirements: * Pentium 450 or greater processor * 64 MB RAM for 98/Me, 128 MB RAM for 2000/XP * 8 MB/3-D with DirectX 7.0 or later videocard * 1.8 GB hard drive space My recommendation: * P4 2.x GHz processor; the faster, the better * 512MB RAM, with ideally 1GB under the hood * 128MB / 256MB AGP video card that pushes TONS of pixels - the more, the better * At least 5GB free hard drive space - You'll want to do a full install, and that comes in just under 3GB (2.88GB, I think) I run on: * P4 3.0GHz processor * 1GB RAM * Windows XP PRO (SP1) * 256MB 8xAGP GeForce 5700 series NVidia video card * Sidewinder joystick (soon to go, thanks to some pedals and a yoke I ordered!) * On-board surround sound processor The software itself is practically infinitely extendable, with software and hardware add-ons supported. A quick look around in the flightsim community will support my assertion that the software is CHEAP compared to what can be done to augment it. Add-on packages are available to augment FS2004's admitidedly weak "ground mesh" mapping - flying through Norway's waterways and coasts with the default scenery is nothing next to the real thing, and pales in comparison to some of the add-on packages (both for photo-texturing and mesh-building) out there. But of course, these things cost money (sometimes), as does building and maintaining a system that can fully take advantage of the software. This is a SIMULATOR, remember - a dozen years ago something like this with a set of pedals and yoke would have been a BIG deal and far out of the reach of the home consumer. Now, as the bar of admission lowers, it is important to realize just how MANY numbers are being crunched every second (most of those in graphics routines), and spec a system appropriately. It might not be a multi-million dollar prospect to own any longer, but to adaquately run the simulator and get something "real" out of it, it is certainly not unheard of to run multi-head (throwing many monitors onto a machine) for a partial panoramic view - but, of course, realism comes at its price. (same text as is found in my review on the "tin box" version of FS2004)