rec.autos.simulators

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

john moor

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by john moor » Wed, 19 May 1999 04:00:00

Thats exactly why I keep using a thriller 8 meg. Runs GPL full blast, Great
in Superbike (awesome sim!), and seems to do fine in Mechwarrior 3 (got to
do something other than drive once in a while).
I have learned from many years, many sports and MANY dollars that at times
the cutting edge cuts.
JM

>             Well, I'm only writing this because I am a little frustrated
> with EA and the Voodoo3. Now, I do understand that when new hardware is
> unveiled that there is some time needed for adaptation in the form of
> patches etc. However, such companies like EA, Microsoft etc. have had
> this new hardware long before us consumers have had a chance to even
> even see a screen shot of the new hardware and have had 'ample' amount
> of time to fix these bugs that are occurring with the Voodoo3 and EA
> titles. Now call it coincidental but after getting my new V3 2000, the
> first title I tried was NHL 98 and kept getting kicked back to the
> desktop. Then for weeks I've been reading reviews,articles and so forth
> about Super bike World Championship so I D/L the demo to take a look at
> this gem of a title (not being sarcastic ;) and guess what, no go again!
> As my luck turns out, the first 2 titles I wanted to see running on my
> new card and new system (Gateway Celeron466,128 SDRAM,19" mon.,V3 2000)
> do not work with the Voodoo3. My complaint here is not that they don't
> work with the V3, but knowing the popularity of the V3 and past Voodoo
> boards, why do we have to wait for companies to create patches for
> titles to work on our new boards that should have been ready for
> implementation when the board (V3) was released?

>              Now, I'm not pointing a finger necessarily at EA but to all
> other company's scrambling to create patches to get the V3 boards to
> work with there software. I think it's very safe to say,based on the
> overwhelming popularity of prior Voodoo boards, that the V3 would be
> very popular in the *** community. Why does it seem to me like
> companies are saying ,"Hey, people are buying the V3 boards, we better
> get working on a patch so the V3 boards work with our software!"?

>              I've been along the ride with the release of the original
> Voodoo board,V2 and V3 and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Maybe I'm
> impatient or expecting to much but I simply love EA's accelerated games
> (exc. Nascar) and wish they would have been "ready" for the V3 so we
> could be enjoying all of EA's accelerated games on our new V3 boards.

>              I think it was a massive fluke but after repeatedly trying
> to get SBK to run something happened, the screen flickered and the menu
> looked a little distorted and viola, SBK 'was' running on my V3 board
> and I was very,very blown away by what I was seeing. Incredible rider
> realism,dust, graphics and frame rate were amazing. Well, after the race
> ended, I tried to get it to work again and couldn't get it to work. I
> Kept getting booted back to the desktop after clicking the "Race"
> button. I WISH EA had a patch by now for SBK and V3 because what I saw
> was jaw dropping, even at the default 640x480 setting.

> All views here are just my opinion and there's need to flame me. Put
> that damn flame thrower down!!!

> EA, I hope you get a majority of your titles running on the V3 boards,
> were waiting with baited breath!

> Best Regards,
> Tony Gaylord

Tony Gaylor

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Tony Gaylor » Wed, 19 May 1999 04:00:00

            Well, I'm only writing this because I am a little frustrated
with EA and the Voodoo3. Now, I do understand that when new hardware is
unveiled that there is some time needed for adaptation in the form of
patches etc. However, such companies like EA, Microsoft etc. have had
this new hardware long before us consumers have had a chance to even
even see a screen shot of the new hardware and have had 'ample' amount
of time to fix these bugs that are occurring with the Voodoo3 and EA
titles. Now call it coincidental but after getting my new V3 2000, the
first title I tried was NHL 98 and kept getting kicked back to the
desktop. Then for weeks I've been reading reviews,articles and so forth
about Super bike World Championship so I D/L the demo to take a look at
this gem of a title (not being sarcastic ;) and guess what, no go again!
As my luck turns out, the first 2 titles I wanted to see running on my
new card and new system (Gateway Celeron466,128 SDRAM,19" mon.,V3 2000)
do not work with the Voodoo3. My complaint here is not that they don't
work with the V3, but knowing the popularity of the V3 and past Voodoo
boards, why do we have to wait for companies to create patches for
titles to work on our new boards that should have been ready for
implementation when the board (V3) was released?

             Now, I'm not pointing a finger necessarily at EA but to all
other company's scrambling to create patches to get the V3 boards to
work with there software. I think it's very safe to say,based on the
overwhelming popularity of prior Voodoo boards, that the V3 would be
very popular in the *** community. Why does it seem to me like
companies are saying ,"Hey, people are buying the V3 boards, we better
get working on a patch so the V3 boards work with our software!"?

             I've been along the ride with the release of the original
Voodoo board,V2 and V3 and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Maybe I'm
impatient or expecting to much but I simply love EA's accelerated games
(exc. Nascar) and wish they would have been "ready" for the V3 so we
could be enjoying all of EA's accelerated games on our new V3 boards.

             I think it was a massive fluke but after repeatedly trying
to get SBK to run something happened, the screen flickered and the menu
looked a little distorted and viola, SBK 'was' running on my V3 board
and I was very,very blown away by what I was seeing. Incredible rider
realism,dust, graphics and frame rate were amazing. Well, after the race
ended, I tried to get it to work again and couldn't get it to work. I
Kept getting booted back to the desktop after clicking the "Race"
button. I WISH EA had a patch by now for SBK and V3 because what I saw
was jaw dropping, even at the default 640x480 setting.

All views here are just my opinion and there's need to flame me. Put
that damn flame thrower down!!!

EA, I hope you get a majority of your titles running on the V3 boards,
were waiting with baited breath!

Best Regards,
Tony Gaylord

Matthew V. Jessic

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Matthew V. Jessic » Thu, 20 May 1999 04:00:00

You might make sure you have the newest drivers available
for the card.

If that fails, you could try the new game with the same early driver
versions the game company had available when they made the
game. Strangely enough though, these obsolete drivers might
be hard to find. ;)   Of course, the early card they had (possibly)
wasn't exactly the same as your card either.

- Matt


>             Well, I'm only writing this because I am a little frustrated
> with EA and the Voodoo3. Now, I do understand that when new hardware is
> unveiled that there is some time needed for adaptation in the form of
> patches etc. However, such companies like EA, Microsoft etc. have had
> this new hardware long before us consumers have had a chance to even
> even see a screen shot of the new hardware and have had 'ample' amount
> of time to fix these bugs that are occurring with the Voodoo3 and EA
> titles.

Tony Gaylor

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Tony Gaylor » Thu, 20 May 1999 04:00:00


> You might make sure you have the newest drivers available
> for the card.

> If that fails, you could try the new game with the same early driver
> versions the game company had available when they made the
> game. Strangely enough though, these obsolete drivers might
> be hard to find. ;)   Of course, the early card they had (possibly)
> wasn't exactly the same as your card either.

Matt,
Thanks for the input. The only drivers that are available for the V3 currently
are the ones that come with the card. The same and only drivers can also be
found at 3DFX.

I might try to hunt around for the 'latest' glide drivers for the V2 and give
that a shot. I'm not sure on this but is this problem with lock-ups etc.etc.
happening because the game doesnt recognize this new version of glide (V3)? Or
is it the other way around.

After taking some time thinking about this, I beleive this is entirely 3dfx's
fault not the developers. I read in the FAQ file for the Voodoo3 on 3dfx's
site that the glide drivers are backwards compatible with the Voodoo2
technology (older games). Meaning that older glides titles should work with
the new version of glide (V3).
Yeah right..........

Maybe someday they'll get there shit straightend out. The always seem to but
its just a little funny that 3dfx wont address this on the site or ANYONE from
3dfx will answer these questions on any newsgroups.

Take care,
Tony Gaylord

Jeff Vince

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Jeff Vince » Thu, 20 May 1999 04:00:00



   And best of all, you don't have to worry about those pesky video
driver updates...  :)

<from a fellow Hercules Thriller 8meg AGP owner :>

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

Tony Gaylor

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Tony Gaylor » Thu, 20 May 1999 04:00:00


> On Wed, 19 May 1999 01:15:47 -0700,


> >The only drivers that are available for the V3 currently
> >are the ones that come with the card. The same and only drivers can also be
> >found at 3DFX.

> Not true. There are a couple of different driver versions for V3 at
> www.3dfx.com.

> --
> // rrevved posts from mindspring dot com

Well, OK. If your running Win 95/98 then theres only ONE version...........
Later
Matthew V. Jessic

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Matthew V. Jessic » Fri, 21 May 1999 04:00:00

I presume it's an AGP card,
so rather different than the Voodoo 2.
I'd stick to the latest driver you can get
for the V3.

My post was rather tongue in cheek,
just trying to relate the problems of
getting a game that isn't final to run on
hardware that isn't final using drivers that aren't final. ;)

I also routinely like to run in a window so I can
easily halt and step through code in debugging,
so that add's yet another set of requirements...
--
Matthew V. Jessick         Motorsims

Vehicle Dynamics Engineer  (972)910-8866, Fax: (972)910-8216

Tony Gaylor

EA & V3. Please take a moment here.

by Tony Gaylor » Thu, 27 May 1999 04:00:00


> Tony,

>   The SBK video problem is most likely the same design problem
> affecting some of the other EA / EA Sports games.  Apparently, when an
> EA game (NFS3, for example) loads it looks at the video hardware and
> then enables / disables what EA considers appropriate video modes.
> Only then does the game try to work with a software video driver, so
> either legacy or new Glide drivers won't make any difference.  There
> was a workaround put out independently for NFS3 which involved
> replacing a video access DLL that came from EA with another one
> modified for Banshee.  That worked fine for V3.  Unfortunately, SBK
> does not use a separate DLL for that function.

>   I can get SBK to work at 640x480 D3D only with my V3/3K, and the
> other guys are certainly right when they praise the Herc Thriller with
> this game.  The problem, though, is almost undoubtedly not with 3dfx,
> but is with EA.  Unless somebody can independently come up with a
> patch, we will probably have to wait for EA to release some kind
> of "Superbike Special Edition" and pay another $30 for the patch to
> work with new cards and for 2 or 3 additional enhancements.

>   It probably won't work with TNT2, either, unless the TNT2 has an
> identical hardware appearance to the TNT - probably not.

Hello,
Was it the full version or the demo of SBK that you got to run at 640x480?
After reading everyones posts regarding this thead and others, it does
sound like EA did some things with the glide driver build that 3dfx asked
them not to do. If there going to go there own route, I don't have a
problem with that ONLY if they do something about it to correct it.

Not sure if you caught a portion of my post, but for some own known Godly
reason, SBK did boot (1 time) and it looked awesome. After that, I never
got it to work again. I wonder what caused it to load for that one moment?!

Take care,
Tony.


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