I really wondering if we are all looking at the same thing. Through my monitor with it's brightness, contrast and sharpness settings with my gtx460 and 285drivers it looks like dog shit. Really garish like the cockpit is drawn in 16bit colour.
But those screen shots posted by "Flying Blind" look fine to me. Believe me the cockpits don't look like that on my monitor.
I lost 30fps with the second beta patch. From 60fps to 30fps. Performance is halved and it crashes for the first time ever. And it looks like shit!
I wonder if they have spent too much time and money redoing all the colours and lighting and it going into the game weather we like it or not!
I'm glad I saved a copy of the first beta patch.