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Installation and Setup of Game

Full Canvas Jacket installed easily with not difficulties. I started with a totally clean RB3D install followed by FCJ. Since my system runs with a GF4 Ti 4600 video card I needed the glide wrapper. A decent one that seems to work well for most people can be found here. Most features found on older Glide based cards seemed to work well with this wrapper. Overall installing the game was rather easy and I had it up and running in little or no time.

The only major problem I had with FCJ was an early sound problem. I think this was due more to the age of the original game over the upgrade. I was able to get sound up and running by simply changing my volume in the FCJ control panel but unfortunately others have not had such an easy time getting sound to work in the game. When RBII was introduced Windows 95 was king, the Voodoo2 was the king of graphics cards (imagine, 24 full megs of video RAM if you bought two of em!), and the sound card of choice was still the venerable Sound Blaster. Today using WinXP, 128 meg video cards and Audigys or Fortissimo IIIs means that compatibility issues with the old game come to light.

If you are a WinXP user and have a USB joystick and want to play RB3D then you should consider this add on. I had absolutely no problem getting either a MS Sidewinder 2 or my HOTAS Cougar to work with FCJ. Probably the only complaint I do have is the inability to remap the keystrokes in the game. I noted that when I hit the trigger key on the Cougar (remember, this is a double key on the HOTAS, all the way in triggers button 6) I would hit the padlock key. It was frustrating but overall a minor gripe. I know that a lot of older RBII fliers have had a very difficult time getting the game to work with modern joysticks and this is probably your best bet if you have this problem.

Bringing up the Full Canvas Jacket control panel gives you the ability to modify just about every aspect of the game, from graphic fidelity to the aggressiveness of enemy AI. The latest patch also includes multiplayer graphic and sound options for your online enjoyment. In fact, just about everything from the weather to the type of aircraft you fly in instant action battles can be configured before you even start up the main game.

Control Panel	Graphic Settings
Gameplay Settings	...and more Settings

You have the option of limiting the terrain textures and the graphics fidelity of the game, something some may find important based upon the demands the update makes on less than cutting edge computers. I will discuss this later.

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