A couple of salient points and quotes from the Falcon 4.0 update 1.03 U.S. version

DirectX6 is required!

Swap File
"Because Falcon 4.0 is an extremely complex and realistic simulation, we recommend a swap file space on your hard drive of at least 200MB. Otherwise, the game may simply quit back to the Windows desktop when you try to run it. Even if you have the required amount of RAM (32MB) or more, you still need a large swap file. We recommend making sure that you have at least 200MB free on your hard drive and that you let Windows manage the swap file."

U   The MPRTest
If Falcon 4.0 crashes with a black screen, please use the supplied utility MPRTest to check your video cards. Running MPRtest.exe displays a list of all available video cards drivers, devices and resolutions. Run "MPRtest.exe -help" for more information on how to use this utility to test your graphics capabilities. To run MPRTest, select "Run" from the Start menu and type "C:\MicroProse\Falcon4\MPRtest.exe" in the dialog box.

If you see an error message "Invalid page fault," you may have the Glide driver for a Voodoo card without having a Voodoo card installed in your computer. For example, if you had a Voodoo card but then switched to a non-Voodoo card (such as a Riva TNT), Falcon 4.0 will not run if it detects a Glide driver on your computer. If Falcon 4.0 finds the GLIDE2X.DLL on your computer, it assumes that you have a Voodoo card. If you don't, then the game will not run and display the "Invalid page fault" error message. To solve this problem, rename the GR3DFX.MPR file from your Falcon 4.0 directory to OLDGR3DFX.MPDR. If you add a Voodoo card to your computer, we recommend reinstalling Falcon 4.0 again. 

Ctrl-F9
Do not press Ctrl-F9 if you have a Voodoo card. On some computer systems, this will cause the game to switch to a black screen or crash. In addition, do not remap any key command to Ctrl-F9.

3Dfx Voodoo 2
If you see an error message that says "Mutual exclusion prevents this," you need to update your Glide reference driver for the Voodoo 2 card to at least version 2.53 or later.

If you have installed version 2.54 of the Voodoo 2 reference drivers, your installed copy of DirectX must be version 6. Otherwise, the simulation graphics will not function correctly in Direct3D mode.

Video Cards
The following video cards require at least these driver versions:

Video Card Utilities
We have included two utilities in the default Falcon 4.0 directory. F4info.exe will give you information about Falcon 4.0, your video cards and DirectX. Run MPRtest.exe to display a list of all available video cards drivers, devices and resolutions. Run "MPRtest.exe -help" for more information on how to use this utility to test your graphics capabilities. To run either utility, select "Run" from the Start menu and type either "C:\MicroProse\Falcon4\F4info.exe" or "C:\MicroProse\Falcon4\MPRtest.exe" in the dialog box. We recommend running both of these utilities and printing out the information displayed onscreen before calling Customer Support with a problem.

Direct3D
The auto-detection for Direct3D graphics cards may not always work. In this case, your video card will appear available in the Graphics setup screen if you choose "Software" for the Video Driver but not if you choose "Direct3D." To force all Direct3D video cards to appear, you will have to edit your registry. Do not edit your registry unless you are an experienced computer user. You need to change "False" to "True" for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MicroProse\Falcon\4.0\MPR\MPRRAIID3DDevices.