xenobrain: If you change

cputype=auto
to
cputype=pentium_slow

you can start the game with all the effects such as sky and reflections enabled by default. You still need to hit "r" for high-resolution.

Finally, after a lot of experimentation checking framerate with FRAPS, I found changing

cycles=20000
to
cycles=80000

offers similar performance characteristics as the default GoG settings when running with all effects enabled and in high resolution.

marley: It's standard for flight-sims. That era flight-sims were very popular, and to get simmers to enjoy *flying* the carpet, it's quite reasonable to have reversed mouse which works just like standard joystick motion.

In fact, to this day, I still play all FPS with *reversed* mouse.

frostschutz: High-Res mode was choppy before. But now with cycles=80000 the game runs way too fast.

I'm trying with 40000 now, it seems like it will take some time to find the optimal value.