rec.autos.simulators

Dana Bailes

<snip>
: I know if I called Nascar and said that my car would only do certain
: speeds and would like them to slow the competition down so I can be
: competative they would laugh at me. Just my opinion.

Well, if your car was a Ford, they might change the rules a little.
Then again if your car was Pontiac, they might change the rules a
little.  Then again if your car was the newly re-introduced Monte Carlo,
they might change the rules a little.  This is the game that all
manufacturers play every day and hour with the NASCAR rules boys.  And
sometimes it works! <g>

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

: Actually, I do run a p90 with a Diamond Stealth w 2megs, and get a very
: good frame rate. Speed of the processor has little to do with frame rate.
: It is available ram on the video card that has more to do with the frame
: rate. My card is not a rendition card, but is still fast enough to get 25
: or better fps with just a few of the details off. I cannot use the
: texture/grass setting, but other than a few exceptions(night race at
: Bristol) I can run very acceptable rates with most details on. A 486/66
: will run good frame rates with a decent video card. I plan on getting a
: rendition card, but to upgrade my processor would be overkill, because it
: really won't help frame rates at all.

A couple of points to hopefully correct some mis-conceptions here:

1)  Speed of CPU can have something to do with frame rate.  The faster
the CPU can calculate the the sooner it will be able to get around to
sending the data to the video card.  Another side effect of CPU speed is
bus-speed (not talking about over-clocking here).  Higher bus speeds can
allow the needed data to get to your video card.

2)  Amount of RAM available on the video card has everything to do with
the amount of colors one can display and next to nothing to do with the
frame rate.

3)  For NASCAR2 a 486 will only give decent frame rates if run in
low-res mode.  But then for me a decent frame rate is a bare minimum of
22 fps.  That's barely decent.  It's not because it "looks" better, but
because the sim handles and reacts better.  This mis-conception of
"smooth as silk" we hear about all the time is an illusion.  Just
because the screen doesn't jerk, doesn't mean that too much time isn't
being spent calculating graphics instead of AI reactions and steering
input.  But, to each his own....

One of the reasons a Rendition card can speed up the frame rates of
NASCAR2 (and other games programmed to take advantage of the Verite
chips), is because it will take away some of the calculation done by the
CPU.  In a sense it's kinda like running two computers side-by-side in
parallel (one calculates all of the 3-D graphics data while they other
deals with sound, input and the sim).  You will get a bigger jump in
frame rate with the Rendtion card than you would by upgrading a P90 to a
P166 (and at a lot less cost).  If all you want is to up the frame rate
of NASCAR2, then you are right about a new CPU being "overkill".  As
long as you are happy with the performance of everything else you may
use your computer for, a Rendition card is your better upgrade path.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Nope.  You can't run the DMA version of ICR2 in Win95, but with N2 it's not
a problem.

--

com>...

I have no problem running the rendition version from Win95.All I did was
ask a question if we are going to be able to use our rendition card on Ten
and got this big debate .Still didn't get my question answered

: I have no problem running the rendition version from Win95.All I did was
: ask a question if we are going to be able to use our rendition card on Ten
: and got this big debate .Still didn't get my question answered

I can think of no reason why one could/would not be able to run in NRO
using a Rendition card.  The same goes for someone with a 486 vs the new
PII.

The only advantage is eye-candy and frame rate.  Well those without the
horsepower can get the frame-rate by not eating the eye-candy.  The
"server" won't even care about the frame rate as long is there is no tie
to the latency timing.

Of course, this is only my "educated" opinion.  It could be wrong, but
it had better not be!

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

com>...

No,  both nasrend.exe and renddma ( nasrend.exe  with the -dma switch )
work fine from Windows 95. But the point is still moot.  :-)

Robert

Eric,

We can't even get a start date / price list, and you want to know what
hardware we can use??  :-)

I don't think it will be a question of having rules against using a
Rendition card, that would be absurd.  The question is wether the TEN
software will allow it.  As it is now, you can not play an accelerated
version of Quake on TEN, because their program looks for Quake.exe, so
I would assume if it then looks for nascar.exe, and not renddma.bat,
then it would be impossible.

<Berg brandonb states
...Quake on TEN, because their program looks for Quake.exe, so
I would assume if it then looks for nascar.exe, and not renddma.bat,
then it would be impossible.

---- if that's the case, then I would simply rename my nasrend.exe to
nascar.exe and make a backup of nascar.exe.  

Andrew

t>...

So, rename NASREND.EXE to NASCAR2.EXE, and let if try to tell em' apart.
Or not......

Ahha! good idea.

Hey you know, that works.  I was thinking renddma.bat used nascar.exe
and not nasrend.exe for some reason.  Silly me.  It works for Quake
too!  And to think all these months I've been playing non-accelerated
Quake.  I am such a dolt sometimes!

You must have one kick-ass p120 to get 30fps with only asphault and
grass turned off.  As long as you are getting 30fps you are not at a
disadvantage.  But when you are getting less you are at a disadvantage.
All system slow down some, but keeping frame rate as high as possible as
much as possible is the optimum setup.  If you have to reduce detail to
do this then do it.  I prefer to not deal with it if I don't have to.

Dana Bailes

Here you are talking about video cards and frame-rates and you don't
even know how to get the frame-rate in Nascar2.  What a joke.  Stick to
something you know about.  

DLB