rec.autos.simulators

Hi,

I have a Pentium2-333mhz with a Voodoo1 3dfx card.
At the moment I drive in 640*480 with 19 opponents, all details on - and I
get about 12 fps on the grid and app. 28 during the race.
I would like to drive in 800*600 but when I try, I'm down to about 20/21 in
the race.
Can somebody please tell me if I will be woth it for me to upgrade to a
Voodoo2 card ?

Thanx in advance.

Simon
(Who still thinks Beltoise has a contract on my head... He keeps crashing
into me.)

With my 8MB Voodoo 2, P2-300, 64MB, with 19 opponents, all details on except
for mirror, cars only with  no textures, 1/4 detail bias, 4 sounds, I get at
800*600:

- 18-19 on grid (drops to minimum of 15 on start), and 30-36 racing

You should do better with the 333.

BTW, I got about a 6 fps gain going to a PCI sound card (using the gameport
on the soundcard.  This is with a Diamond Monster Sound M80 (cheap card,
poor sound, but helps fps).  Running W98 and dx6.

Norm

Simon, when I upgraded from a Voodoo 1 to a Banshee on my Celeron
450A <g> I saw a roughly 50% increase in GPL FPS.  I recall
someone else posting that they got about a 66% increase when
upgrading from a V1 to a V2 on a mid-level system.

BTW, car control _seems_ to be better if you notch down the
graphics until you get a steady 36FPS everywhere but on the grid
(tough to get 36FPS there).  Also if you knock the sounds down to
3 that seems to pick up about 1 FPS when in a crowd.

For reference, I've got _most_ graphics on, no textures in
mirror, 3 sounds, and with the Celeron 450A/Banshee combo I get
30.5 FPS at the back of a 10-car grid at 800x600, then solid
36FPS about 5 seconds after the start.

I think it would be a safe bet that the V2 would allow you to run
at 800x600 with at least the FPS you're getting in 640x480 now...
and probably a bit more.

Rgds, Mark R.

On Fri, 4 Dec 1998 15:00:41 +0100, "Simon"

How do you get 800x600 in 3dfx-mode on a Voo1???? No can do!

Simon schrieb in Nachricht ...

Yes you can, but no Z-buffer.

KSB

Yes you can, at least if you have one of the 6MB cards from
Canopus/Miro, I have and I can, but the framerate suck though, not sure
about the 4MB cards like Diamond

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

Hi Simon,

I was in your situation: P2/333 Voodoo1 (Monster1).

After upgrading to a Monster2 12mb, I get 36fps most (80%) of
the time in 800x600.  The framerate drops at starts and when there
is a lot of traffic up front and behind.
It still does over 25-26+ fps :)

I drive with all options checked, mirrors to car/track detail to <10%
15 computer opponents.  Sounds at 4 (or less?).

Overall, it was worth the upgrade!  I can see farther down the track
which helps at the Zandvort bridge-turn -- I don't crash there anymore :)
The tunnel at Monaco doesn't reduce my frame-rate anymore either.

Jason.

--
--------
Jason Monds
(Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

Hmmm, I'd always prefer playability to resolution. They say that the
difference between 640 and 800 ain't too noticeable anyway (havn't really
seen it though). Hell, are you guys there to enjoy the scenery and look at
the flowers, or to drive a racecar? Especially in a sim where framerate is
SO important for proper car-control...

Thanks for the infos,

Mea***er

Jason described it exactly in his post... you can see farther
(and with more detail) down the track.  This applies to braking
points and other cars.  I'd run in 1024x768 online if I could but
the framerate takes a bit too much of a hit for me to do so as
host (dips below 36).  I'm not looking at the trees, I'm looking
ahead <g>.

Rgds,
Mark R.

On Fri, 4 Dec 1998 22:12:16 +0100, "Mea***er"

I get 800 X 600 w/ a Monster 1--I think someone explained this a few days
ago here.  Something to do with some kind of texturing that the card doesn't
have to address in GPL.

Ah. I see.

Mea***er

I'm not looking at the trees, I'm looking

True for most V1 cards, but the Canopus (6MB V1 card) can do 800x600 with a
Z-buffer.  For the crazies out there, didn't Obsidian produce one helluva V1
(and V2) that wasn't a reference design and produced triple the average FPS
over a normal V1 with 8 or 12 mb of memory?  It was noted as having close to
V2 performance before V2 was out.  It was also noted as being very expensive
(like $700 for the high end model, if I remember correctly).

--
Philip M. D'Amato

"You can observe a lot just by watchin'"
--The Inimitable Yogi Berra

Is that really true?  I'm under the impression that the resolution/z-buffer
issue is all about video ram.  The Canopus Pure3D (which I have) has 2MB of
video RAM and 4MB devoted to textures (at least, that's how I understand it).  
Thus it shouldn't have any greater resolution than the 4MB cards.  Instead, it
should have less texture thrashing due to the increased texture RAM.

For us simmers anyway, generally we *can* go to the higher resolution as most
(but not all) sims don't use the z-buffer.  As far as sims go, I can get
800x600 in GPL, I can't in MGPRS2 (whether that is due to z-buffering, I don't
know).