rec.autos.simulators

Anyway, I have read some comments in the group and my main concern is
(Gamespot also mentioned this) that the game requires A LOT of juice to
run well.  My system:

PII450
384MB SDRAM
12MB Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo2
16MB Matrox Mill II
25GB of HD space (2 x 12.7GB)

I get the feeling that this game would be useless on my system.  I am VERY
anxious to race Nurburgring and Hockenheim!  Gamespot suggests a PIII650
minimum.

Will this game run okay on my system?  If not, are there any other F1
games that people could recommend?  Keep in mind the above two tracks...
:)

Any suggestions appreciated...

Thanks,

   - Tom N.

==============================================================================

"Ferrari is the epitome of mechanical beauty and Ferraris are acquired by
 men who wish to turn their dreams into reality and inject into their
 lives a long period of youthful passion.  I guess this is why there is
 Ferrari and then there is everything else."

    - Enzo Ferrari, on the Ferrari mystique (Translated from Italian)

==============================================================================

Although both NFS and F12K are published by EA Sports, they have little else
in common as they come from different developers.  EA just pays the
bills, exercises some control, and makes the profits.

I have a C300a oc'd to 450 with a V3-2000.  Yes, it requires a lot of fiddling
to get acceptable framerate sometimes.  Yes, it is frustrating.  Yes, I
think it should be better for the level of graphics detail.  But if you are
willing to toy with it, say by reducing some of the detail levels to medium or
high instead of max, reducing number of drawn vehicles, and most importantly,
disabling mirrors (a big negative to your situational awareness), you'll get
reasonable framerate.  And it'll still look good.  When hot-lapping, you'll
have no problem cranking up the detail when you're the only one on the course.

I'm not sure it'll even be that great with a 650, but again, I think a 450 can
satisfy you, if you play with it.

I'm racing (as probably most are right now), Nurnurgring.  The AI drivers like
to spin out (1/3rd the time?) at Ford.  But there's a patch for that at
bhmotorsports.com.

After the graphics/framerate issue, the AI is my main beef.  Many tracks
feature a turn or turns where the AI just goes brain-dead.  More than
that, I think the AI is just plain bad.  They don't know how to overtake,
weaving wildly.  And their throttle control is all over the place.

Not a rave review I know.  Still, I prefer it to GP2 and the Ubisoft titles
(F1 Racing Sim and the sequel Monaco Grand Prix RS2) that I have.

OTOH, if what you really like is the NFS set, which is much less sim-oriented
than all of these, I'm not sure which you'll prefer.  Hmmm, probably F12K, or
perhaps one of the other more relaxed F1 sims out there.

I don't have F12000, but I don't think I would be happy with the frame
rates at all so I'm going to pass on it myself and try to find Monaco
Grand Prix Racing 2. I used to have a F1RS and really liked it. I know
that the Monaco version comes with fake teams and drivers, but there
are hacks to download that fix this. IMO, if frame rates are important
then this one is probably the one to get for now It also has pretty
good AI from what I have read, which is more important than eye candy.
F12000 has crappy frame rates and poor AI. Pass!

--
Nos

I don't have MGPRS2. I had no problems with F1RS, but I did read a
review of MGPRS2 and he said he had problems loading the game too.
Maybe I won't buy it then if it's ***ed that bad. I'm assuming you
have patched it, using latest drivers etc. What vid card are you
using. Maybe the game needs older drivers of glide if you have a V2 or
V3. You can make anygame compatible with older versions of glide by
extracting the glide.dll and ovl.dll to the game directory. It will
then use that version of glide.
--
Nos

J. P. Hovercraft

Tom,

    I'm running F1 2000 on a AMD K6-2/450, 128 MB of SDRAM, & Voodoo3 3000
AGP. After some tweaking it's very drivable everywhere but at the start of a
race unless your on the front row.

Joel Willstein

I kept wanting to like F12K, but it's just not there.  OK for hot lapping or
fooling around with 3 or 4 other cars on the track during practice sessions,
but that's about it as far as I'm concerned.

Jerry Morelock

No it doesn't. However, it is fine during a race at 800x600 with
a 12MB voodoo2 card on my P3-600E. 25+fps in test and
20 in a full field race. Only a fool would turn everything to the
max, it simply is not necessary.

--

Nicely sums up why F12K is pretty much worthless.

"It's OK, except when you start" just doesn't cut it for me.  Wonder if you
can turn off graphics display for all cars behind AND ahead?  That might
work--have to try it and see. :-)

Jerry Morelock

I consider having mirrors on necessary. Sounds like turning them off
would be a necessity on a P3 500 though.
--
Nos

Does MGPRS2 run fine with no graphics issues on a V3?
--
Nos

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