rec.autos.simulators

http://www.racesimcentral.net/
--
David G Fisher

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EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
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DAMAGES RESULTING FROM POSSESSION, USE, OR MALFUNCTION OF THIS ELECTRONIC
ARTS SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

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THE SOFTWARE AT ANY TIME AND WITHOUT NOTICE. THIS FILE AND THE SOFTWARE
HEREWITH IS COPYRIGHTED. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS FILE OR
THE SOFTWARE MAY BE COPIED, REPRODUCED, TRANSLATED, OR REDUCED TO ANY
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OF ELECTRONIC ARTS, P.O. BOX 9025, REDWOOD CITY, CALIFORNIA 94063-9025,
ATTN: CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

Copyright 2005 Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

MINIMUM SPECIFICATION
=====================
In the event of any problems, ensure that your PC meets the minimum
specification as stated below.

Operating System Microsoft Windows 98 SE, ME, 2000 or XP Pro/Home
Processor  1 GHZ Intel Pentium III or 100% Compatible
Memory   256 Megabytes
Hard Drive  3 Gigabytes free space
CD/DVD Drive  8x
3D Accelerator  DirectX 9.0c compliant 32 MB NVIDIA GeForce 2 or better, ATI
Radeon 7500 or better AGP video card.
Sound Card  DirectX 9.0c compliant PCI
Game Controllers DirectX 9.0c compliant

RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATION
=========================
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Pro/Home
Processor  2 GHZ or better Intel Pentium 4 or 100% Compatible
Memory   256 MB or better
Hard Drive  3 Gigabyte free space.
CD/DVD Drive  12x or better
3D Accelerator  ATI RADEON 9000 or better
   NVIDIA GeForce FX or better
Sound Card  Creative Labs SoundBlaster Series
Game Controllers Logitech Momo Force (Wheel/Pedals) & Wingman Series
(Gamepads, Joysticks and Wheels/Pedals)
   Microsoft Sidewinder Series (Gamepads, Joysticks and Wheels/Pedals)
   Thrustmaster NASCAR Pro Digital 2 & NASCAR Pro Force Feedback
(Wheel/Pedals)

INSTALLATION
============
NASCAR SimRacing Demo will only install and run on machines running Windows
98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. If using Microsoft Windows 2000,
XP
Pro/Home, you must have administrator rights in order to install.

1. Run NASCAR SimRacing Demo.exe and follow the on-screen prompts. Note the
folder to which you extracted the installation files.

2. Once you have completed the above step, go the directory to which you
extracted the install files to and run setup.exe. Follow the on screen
prompts.

3. When the installation is finished, the installation program adds a
program group called EA SPORTS\NASCAR SimRacing Demo to your Start\Programs
menu, and a shortcut to your desktop. Click on this shortcut or
alternatively click on the start button on your Windows task bar. Under
Programs\EA SPORTS\NASCAR SimRacing Demo select NASCAR SimRacing Demo to
play.

DIRECTX
=======
NASCAR SimRacing Demo requires DirectX version 9.0c or higher to be
installed on your personal computer in order to run.

If your sound card or video card does not support DirectX 9.0c or higher,
please contact your hardware vendor.

UNINSTALL
=========
To uninstall NASCAR SimRacing Demo:

1. Go to Programs\EA SPORTS\NASCAR SimRacing Demo in the Start menu.
2. Click on Uninstall NASCAR SimRacing Demo to proceed.

Alternatively:

1. Click on the Start menu, select Settings and then Control Panel.
2. Now find Add/Remove Programs and click to run.
3. Scroll down the list until you see NASCAR SimRacing Demo, select it and
click on Add/Remove to uninstall.

3D SETUP
========
A configuration utility called 3D Setup is installed with NASCAR SimRacing
Demo. When you install and play the game for the first time, 3D Setup
automatically asks you to confirm the default selection, and normally users
will find this selection satisfactory.

Whenever you install or remove video devices, do not run NASCAR SimRacing
Demo again without first running 3D Setup from the Start Menu. The 3D Setup
shortcut is located in the Programs\EA SPORTS\NASCAR SimRacing Demo start
menu. 3D Setup will test your system for the presence of supported video
devices
(this may be accompanied by a black screen flash on your monitor). When 3D
Setup appears, click the OK button to select the default video device, or
choose
an alternative 3D accelerator and/or rendering resolution by clicking on it
and then clicking OK. If an unsupported video device or other problem is
detected by the 3D Setup program, you will be informed that this is the
case.

TROUBLE SHOOTING
================
If you increase the settings of your display options and experience
graphical problems and/or decreased performance and have the latest drivers,
we recommend setting your Display options back to their defaults.

Users of L.C.D. displays, especially laptop displays, may experience
noticeably decreased performance when running the game at any resolution
other than the
native resolution of the L.C.D. display which is usually 1280x1024.

Users with Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) enabled on video cards that
support this feature may notice occasional minor graphical issues - we
recommend that
FSAA is disabled when playing NASCAR SimRacing Demo. 3D Setup will analyze
your video systems ability to render with Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
enabled and in some cases disallow the option based upon the detected
hardware and drivers.

Users of NVIDIA video cards utilizing the NVIDIA Forceware 66.93 or 66.94
drivers and AMD processors without SSE support may experience various
graphical problems. These problems can be avoided by using an older version
of the NVIDIA Forceware drivers.

SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions) support is included in all Intel Pentium III
and Pentium IV processors as well as on AMD CPUs that support AMD's 3Dnow!T
Professional technology, which is supported in all Model 8 and Model 6 AMD
AthlonT processors (AMD Athlon XP, AMD Athlon MP, mobile AMD Athlon 4) and
Model 7 AMD DuronT processors.

NASCAR SimRacing Demo is not compatible with Video cards that use the SIS
PV-SO5A-C.

Users of the Matrox Parhelia video card may experience graphical problems
and their vehicle rendered incorrectly at times within the user interface.

Users of the Matrox Parhelia 128 MB video card may occasionally experience
flickering horizontal lines if the Refresh Rate for the card is set lower
than 75
HZ.

Users of video cards incorporating the NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 chipset and
version 66.93 of the NVIDIA Forceware may experience problems such as the
player
car not being displayed on the main menu.

Users of Windows 98, a video card incorporating any of the NVIDIA GeForce
chipsets and version 61.76 of the NVIDIA Forceware may experience problems
with the
rendering of the driver arms/hands.

Users of Windows 98 and ME, a video card incorporating any of the NVIDIA
GeForce chipsets and version 66.94 of the NVIDIA Forceware may experience
problems
with graphical corruption if the 3D Setup program is run consecutively
without restarting your machine in between.  Restarting your machine will
fix any
graphical corruption.

Under Windows 98 and ME, certain tasks such as the Dial Up Networking
interface may be deemed the active task whilst being displayed in front of,
behind or
underneath the game. In order to return active control to the game, use the
windows task switching hot key (Alt Tab) to toggle through the active tasks
and
return priority to the game.

On some video cards, you may encounter problems using Windows multi-task
keys (Alt-Tab etc.) to switch between NASCAR SimRacing Demo and other active
applications. We recommend avoiding any form of Windows multi-tasking during
play at all times possible.

Fast user switching within Windows XP on machines with less than 512 MB RAM
and/or low virtual memory settings may cause the game to be terminated
during the
switch. We do not recommend the use of fast user switching during play.

With V-Sync enabled the introductory and subsequent movies may slow down
and/or stutter occasionally. This does not affect game play and can be
bypassed by
pressing <Escape> while the movie is playing.

When playing the game with limited user rights, game files are saved in the
My Documents directory for the limited user account. These files will not be
removed automatically by the uninstall process.

Users of the Diamond Multimedia Monster Sound MX400 and Windows 98 may
experience stuttering sound in the event that sound acceleration is enabled.

Users of the ESS Maestro, Philips Acoustic Edge and integrated VIA Audio
sound devices may experience occasional audio inconsistencies.

ISA sound cards are not supported.

Users that may have manually reduced their virtual memory or are running low
on hard drive space may experience problems running the game. We strongly
recommend that Windows is set to automatically manage virtual memory and
that a minimum of 256 MB virtual memory is always allowed.

If you have problems with saving and recording replays, it's possible that
you will need to free up some hard drive space to accommodate the data saved
as
you play the game. For best performance, we recommended that you have at
least 1 Gigabyte of free hard drive space available at all times.

If you run out of hard drive space as a result of saving a large replay
file, upon reloading this file and playing it, the game may exit to desktop
upon
reaching the point in time that you ran out of drive space.

Certain game controllers ...

read more »

1. Jaggy graphics

2. Spectator - no***pit view

3. Show stopper - only 2 joysticks so my Speed7s aren't recognised :(

4. Menu and general interface much better than anything EA before.

If I feel like reassigning my pedals O'll do some laps tomorrow.

Regards

--
Richard "ZZ" Busch

Member:
Screamers Racing League
oAo
AoA
MARA GTR
GT Rank  +41.931
NGT Rank +84.383
GT Rank Monster  +1341.080
GPL Rank + 14.768
MoGPL Rank + 308.654
N2003 Rank -18.8060
----------------
Remember racecar is racecar spelled backward
-----------------

P4 3.02
1gig Ram
6800GT 256 meg card
Logitech Driving Force Pro
Act Labs Pedals

I have been following two EA sim discussions at OLR. The first is one by Bob
Stanley regarding the physics from the full game
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
regarding the demo
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

I will wait and see what Stanley and Lomas have to say about the demo and
how it compares to the full version before I start drawing any conclusions.
They certainly will know the differences. I also want to try some different
setups with the demo. Others in the demo discussion at OLR have had the same
exact experience with the Indy setup as I did.

It may be that, for the ten thousandth time, a subpar demo has been released
for a PC auto sim.

--
David G Fisher

  Haven't had a chance to try it yet.

I'm not impressed. Bad graphics, I could not find a way to turn on the
spotter, can't see shit in the mirror, sounds ok, but could be better, dead
pit crew. I'll leave the setups and driveability to more experinced simmers,
but the race setup seemed too loose to me. It has a long way to go to beat
N2003 IMO.

bluestringer