rec.autos.simulators

After spending 10 minutes with a hacked copy of Grand Prix 4, I have
decided not to buy it (and thankful I was able to try the hacked
copy).

Two years ago my computer cost about 1200ukp to build (for Grand Prix
3, oddly enough). It is an Athlon 750, 256Mb RAM, Soundblaster Live,
and Matrox G400 Max graphics card.

My computer ran Grand Prix 3 with everything switched on, at 1024x768,
at 30+fps (with a few little addons).

I just tried GP4 out - with everything on at 1024x768, in a practice
session at Melbourne asking for 30fps, it recorded a pretty constant
rate of nearly 800 percent processor occupancy.

Turning things down enough to get constant 50fps or more (still only
in practice) made the game look pathetic.

I am NOT about to buy a 2Ghz processor, motherboard, fast memory and
expensive graphics card to play a game who's graphics are not that
much of an advance on GP3 (they actually look worse in places).

I was a huge fan of both GP1, GP2 and GP3 - but this is the end of the
road (perhaps I'm getting old!)

It almost shames me to say it, but Gran Turismo 3 makes GP4 look
pathetic. And it's at least a year older, and the hardware to run it
costs less than any of the components to upgrade a 2 year old PC....
and the PS2 itself is older than 2 years...

I really am getting cynical, aren't I...

Jonathan Beckett

(btw I'm a professional software developer who could buy the various
upgrades, not a little kid griping about my Dad's computer).

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Still - do the maths - the cost of upgrading still comes out at more
than the price of a console...

http://www.kafooey.com

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

John

I'd never realised how ***the graphics on GP3 were, even at 1280x1024,
until I'd seen GP4. GP3 now reminds me of GP2 !

I think then answer is to get some decent hardware, GP4 is not really
designed to run on two-year-old technology. It's a sim for today and for the
next couple of years. I'm fortunate in that I have recently upgraded my main
machine, to an Athlon XP2000+, 512Mb DDR, and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. With this
spec GP4 will run at 1280x1024 at max detail and effects, at around 35-40
fps. It looks great, and nothing else I've seen can touch it graphically.

Johnny.

GP4 was a beast to configure graphically - for me at least. I spent about 4
hours straight (yeah, I know. I got nuthin' better to do :>) ) tweaking the
graphics alone.   But I finally ended up with a really good looking game
that has a good frame rate based on the CPU occupancy numbers. And my
machine isn't state-of-the-art (Athlon 1gig cpu and GeForce 3 card).   I
thought this game was shit, but after tweaking the hell out of it, I'm
thinking its only a bit worse than F1 2002.  Well, maybe a little more than
a bit worse, but fairly fun nonetheless.

Todd

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Andre