rec.autos.simulators

Just got N2002 up and running last night.  I missed half the Daytona 500
today because I couldn't get off my computer and watch it. N2002 may be the
best "patch" I've ever seen.......and in my opinion.....the entire $50 bucks
is worth it just for the new WC car engines!  Bravo Papy.....the "sounds" in
N2002 are awesome....breathtakingly awesome!  I'm going to spend some time
tonight trying to "tweak" my system settings, graphic settings and so
forth.......but just couldn't stop running laps at Sears or Watkins
today.....listening to those engines going up and down through the gears.
Wow!

What's the status with N2002 "hacking" for dat file unpacking and graphic
changes?  Do the N4 utilities work in N2002?

My reasons for asking are the following:

Sears was done very well.....the new track config is perfectly represented.
Of course, Papy has the hillside/trackside grass colors wrong again, as are
many of the signs/trees....and the Goodyear Foot Bridge over the esses has
been gone for about 4 months....as well as the hillsides on track-left along
the esses moved back off the track about 100 yards further than N2002
depicts them.  Also the building in the main straight area....called the
"Media Center" is not there.  Papy....that building was torn down 4 years
ago!  You correctly removed it in N3....but you put it back in N4...and left
it in for N2002...even though you clearly changed most of the trackside
graphics and objects in N2002.  You make the mistake of putting a building
"back into the game" in N4 that is not there for two years......and then you
left it there for N2002?  What is up with that?  Also, if you would have
gone to the Sears website....there's live cams that change hourly of the new
construction.  The new main straight grandstands are clear and easy to view
from the Sears website...for more than four months now........but you didn't
include them?  Nice job on the new WC garages, however.  You did not paint
the "Media Center" (the correct one) the same colors/trim as the new WC
garages....that was done for last year's WC race....somebody goof that too?

I hope we can do TSO and track graphics for N2002 as easily as N3 and N4
(and GPL).  I'll see to it this stuff is fixed and distributed via the web.
Sorry....I'm picky...this is my home track and my business partner is Bob
Davis.....Sears Point's Chief Architect.......he's even more picky than me!
He's not too pleased with you guys......nor is Steve Page (Sears Point
president) and the SMI track/facilities management.  If you guys want to
make these changes for inclusion in the first "patch"....contact Bob or
myself...and we'll give you all the details of what to change...and how.

I know most of the people who visit RAS probably don't care about these
graphic issues at Sears.  But, the 100's of people who work at Sears...and
also are sim racers....do care.

Regards,

Tom Pabst

     I'm happy for you.  What was the verdict for those of us who get much
crappier sound than in N4?  (the usual ticks, pops, and static along with a flat

tinny sound).  I have a GeForce 3 (someone said it might interfere with the
sounds), with a SB Live! sound card.

    JD

Well I'm not to impressed with the sounds when compared to what I had in N4.
Granted I had redone sounds, but the biggest problem in NR2002 is the damn
snap crackle pop. I know this was an issue in N4 for creative cards, but my
Philips AE card was great. Must be they attempted to fix the SoundBlaster
problem and broke it for the rest of us :( . I know what type of sound card
makes a world of differeance because I was using the NR2002 sounds post at
BHMS by Kevin King and they rocked! Sound is deffintly as important ans
video and these addon sounds got me back into N4 in a big way. I suck at
Sears, but the Glen was a rush.

As far as GF3 and sound goes, yes the drivers can play havoc with your
sound. I don't know if its just the GF3, which I have, or just Geforce in
genral. I was running the 27.20 drivers at first and in D3D I got a sound
loping problem. what ever sound got played first stuck and repeated over the
top of all the other sounds. So I tried OpenGL. At first I got rid of the
looping problem, but somehow I think this is tied into memory because after
making changes to driver settings like turning off FSAA the problem came
back. One more thing with the 27.20 drivers was that when ever I would try
and exit the game I would get a sound lop on the credits screen as well and
then a BSOD when I would escape off the credits page. Since the readme says
the 23.11 drivers are bad news I dropped back to the 21.81 drivers and the
sound looping went away, but now I had the "can't hear my car" problem that
seems to happen alot. Well since I can't ever leave well enouff alone I
tried the 27.42 drivers after read on different fourms about positive
results. Well all is good now except for the snap crackle pop which was
there all along. I have yet to try the tip in the read me file for Sound
Blaster cards, but what the hell had to save something for tonight didn't I?
Oh yeah I did try updated drivers for my sound card as well but after about
a minute all the sound would just quit and the S<C<P was still there.

MadDAWG

Does anyone know a way to get the AI sounds louder?  I have them set to 100%
in the sim, and have played around with some sound options in the app & core
ini's.  Nothing I've tried seems to make much of a difference.

In N4 I can really hear the AI approaching from the rear with the sound
increasing as they go by.  Not hearing too much of that in N2K2.
TIA,
Bob

They also wrongly mistaken the colour of the door handles on the port-o-let
WC.  They are slightly grey-brownish, when actually they are a little more
towards a dark tone of grey.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

LMAO, Frank.
  The " Legend in his own mind" is at it again. I like the   " and how"
part. That I'd like to see, in code, his own. :)
   Btw, there aren't 'hundreds" of sim racing Sears Point employees. You'd
be hard pressed to find a hundred sim racers in Northern California, period.
LOL.
  As for the name dropping, it's par for the course and quite arguably the
reason for the post in the first place. It's good humor, reminds me of Ted
Knight in that old 70's sitcom.

Glad you pointed that out, Francois.....I totally missed that one.

TP

Follow Up To Main Post Above:

I have not had problems with the N2K2 sounds of any kind....although its
been reported here to have happened on the same basic set up as I'm
using.....I haven't had any "popping-cracking" sounds at all (at normal FPS
rates).  However, when playing around with some of the anti-aliasing and
anistropic filtering settings....when ever I would press the sound card into
low frame rates (below 30 fps)....the sound would pop badly...along with the
choppy screens associated with frame rates in the ***s and low 20's.

My guess is the sound popping problems reported here are motherboard and
power supply related problems...not sound card and video card related
problems....but that's only an educated guess.

Tom

Agreed, can't stand name droppers either! I was only saying the same to
Michael Schumacher the other day.....

Same here, playing with the different volume settings in N2002 doesn't
seem to make any difference. I can't hear the damn spotter, set all
the other sounds to 25% and the spotter to 100%, but I can't notice
any difference, and still can't hear the spotter.
I now set the spotter to 'voice and text' but it's a bit clumsy to
have to read what he's saying while going three-wide on Bristol :-/

Andre

It's okay, I'm glad I can help ;-D

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

Hi Tom,

thanks for the interesting info on inaccuracies in the representation of
Sears in N2002.

Achim

Its not really a big deal Joachim......it shouldn't even be noticed by
anyone except those who live around Sears Point and race there all the time.
Of course, we'd like "the likeness of our home track" to be accurate....or
close to it at least....you know?

Have fun....the track surface and configuration is very well done....bravo
Papy.

Tom

Nah ;)

<Frank nitpicks the Montral Gilles Villeneuve circuit each time somebody
releases a modern F1 sim>

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...