rec.autos.simulators

Nascar2----WIN95??

Randy Magrud

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Randy Magrud » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00


>I hope the decision to have the front-end Win 95 based
>isn't set in stone yet. I love hawaii, but being a 3.11 user
>WILL NOT upgrade to windows95 just to use NRL. I hope you
>rethink this. I think you'll have alot of disappointed people
>if you make WIN95 the only way to get in.

You don't have any intentions of upgrading to Win95....ever?

Randy

Tony Joh

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Tony Joh » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00


sent shooting through ***space:

You may be pretty disappointed then, especially if NRL will use
Win95's networking interface for connections...
--

IWCCCARS Project Coordinator
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~iwcc/project.htm
Hawaii Racer ID: IWCCCARS

Ed Pickar

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Ed Pickar » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00





> >>You will, however, need Win 95 to run on the NASCAR Racing League.
> >>Although Hawaii is a DOS prototype, the front end to NRL will be Win
> >>95.
> >>Ed Martin
> >>Producer, Series Director
> >>NASCAR Racing League
> >>Papyrus / Sierra On-Line, Inc.
> Actually, Ralph, it has everything to do with TCP/IP communications,
> and nothing to do with Bill Gates & the boys at Microsoft.  We are
> going to use Win 95's built in TCP/IP capabilities to make the
> connection to NRL.

> Of course, when you look at the current scheduler & chat, it's pretty
> easy to realize that it would be a lot better in a GUI environment.
> That's a nice bonus.

> That's why the NRL front end will be Win 95.

> Ed Martin
> Producer, Series Director
> NASCAR Racing League
> Papyrus / Sierra On-Line, Inc.

This makes a lot of sense, if any one here has followed the MechWarrior2/DOS NetMech
debacle.  Activision was able to release the Win95 version very quickly.  
The DOS version of NetMech was almost two years late -- according to them,
because of DOS networking/programming issues.

Ed Pickart
--
============================================================

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is
 knowing which ones to keep."  --Scott Adams

Fayette Crap

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Fayette Crap » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00

I do not understand the stubornness of some people! I can see that even in
win 95 dos mode things run faster. every bench and game i've play runs faster
in win95. I too was reluctant to upgrade, but now, even through all ther
trial and tribulations of 95, will not could not ever go back.

Nothing last for ever BTW these same people who say they will not upgrade
cause win 3.1x is so much..... mostlikely didn't want windows originally I
admit I loved dos long into 3.11

Fayette
every dog has his day,,,,
but what about me? I live at nite!

Fayette Crap

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Fayette Crap » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00

I currently run all cars drawn ahead, all detail on some times the asphalt
texture toggles on/off at 19fps in svga and digital sound 4 cars behind and 7
heard. all with a cyrix p150+ and a genaric s3 trio64 w/ 60ns dram (2 megs)
when i over clock too 166+ then the asphalt is simply on more than off. It is
soooo coool to start at the end of the line and watch the whole feild
race!!!!!
Fayette
every dog has his day,,,,
but what about me? I live at nite!

RickGent

Nascar2----WIN95??

by RickGent » Wed, 19 Jun 1996 04:00:00


To clarify Ed's point: To get a game to perform well on Windows 95, you
MUST have up to date DirectX drivers. We have found configurations that
perform better under Windows 95 than under DOS; we have also found
configurations that perform not as well.

In terms of graphics they are roughly equal at 640x480. (Some DirectDraw
drivers use Mode X to do 320x200; we detect this and use a regular
in-memory offscreen buffer in this case but there is still a double-blit
hit that isn't there for DOS.) It's actually the sound that can make all
the difference; on some cards the DirectSound drivers emulate everything
so that we take a big CPU hit, while on other cards the DirectSound
drivers can offload all or nearly all of the sound processing to the sound
card and we take virtually no hit (and in fact do better than the HMI
drivers do on DOS).

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Sierra On-Line, Inc.

Randy Magrud

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Randy Magrud » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00


>That's not good.  Some of us either can't run Win95, or just don't TRUST it.

Get with the program.  Hardware companies such as Matrox, Rendition,
Creatlive Labs, etc are building Win95 compatibility into their
hardware, and finally we'll be able to kiss 256 color, low-frame-rate
software goodbye.  Whether you like or trust Win95, the fact of the
matter is that virtually every *** company is transitioning there,
and there is good reason to.  You have a very simple choice: stand on
the sidelines while everyone else is enjoying the benefits that come
with DirectX with ample SW and HW vendor support, or join in the fun.
In any event, don't blame game companies from moving with the
industry.  They simply cannot and will not continue to write DOS
games.  It is just too much hassle to deal with extenders, writing
custom drivers for everything, testing the myriad hardware
configurations etc.  Win95, while not perfect, at least promotes
hardware and driver standards that will allow *** companies to
spend more time writing cutting edge games and not worrying about
hardware configurations.

So your choice is simple.  Upgrade and play, or stay behind and whine.

Randy

Don Turcott

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Don Turcott » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00

I suppose I'll have to bite the bullet sooner or later! I think I'm speaking
from lack of knowledge about dos/windows platform, rather than being stubborn.
Being a unix system administrator, I know enough to make Pc's interact, etc...
with Sun workstations. But lack the experience to administer a PC. Although, I
know enough to be dangerous at home. <g> Without getting into a big discussion,
this isn't the right newsgroup for it, has anyone experienced major problems
migrating to win95? As far as the *** side of things. Not with software
applications. Working for MIT, I don't think I'll have trouble finding Win95
installation help.

thanks for the feedback,

Don Turcotte
hawaii: DonT

Dana Baile

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Dana Baile » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00



> Martin) writes:

> >Well actually... We learned a lot from the ICR 2 for Win 95 project.
> >Win 95, even with DirectX causes a pretty big hit on frame rate when
> >compared to a native DOS app on the same system.

> To clarify Ed's point: To get a game to perform well on Windows 95, you
> MUST have up to date DirectX drivers. We have found configurations that
> perform better under Windows 95 than under DOS; we have also found
> configurations that perform not as well.

> In terms of graphics they are roughly equal at 640x480. (Some DirectDraw
> drivers use Mode X to do 320x200; we detect this and use a regular
> in-memory offscreen buffer in this case but there is still a double-blit
> hit that isn't there for DOS.) It's actually the sound that can make all
> the difference; on some cards the DirectSound drivers emulate everything
> so that we take a big CPU hit, while on other cards the DirectSound
> drivers can offload all or nearly all of the sound processing to the sound
> card and we take virtually no hit (and in fact do better than the HMI
> drivers do on DOS).

> Rick Genter
> Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
> Sierra On-Line, Inc.


I don't supposed you can tell us which hardware to stay away from, could
you?  Always nice to hear of unbiased hardware test results.

Dana Bailes

Jeff Haa

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Jeff Haa » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00


> on some cards the DirectSound drivers emulate everything
> so that we take a big CPU hit, while on other cards the DirectSound
> drivers can offload all or nearly all of the sound processing to the sound
> card and we take virtually no hit (and in fact do better than the HMI
> drivers do on DOS).

Would you tell us which are good and which aren't, please?

Jeff

Randy Magrud

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Randy Magrud » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00


>It's actually the sound that can make all
>the difference; on some cards the DirectSound drivers emulate everything
>so that we take a big CPU hit, while on other cards the DirectSound
>drivers can offload all or nearly all of the sound processing to the sound
>card and we take virtually no hit (and in fact do better than the HMI
>drivers do on DOS).

How is it on the SB AWE 32 & SB16?  These are probably the most common
sound boards out there.

Randy

TOBY BRANFO

Nascar2----WIN95??

by TOBY BRANFO » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00

EM> Actually, Ralph, it has everything to do with TCP/IP communications,
EM> and nothing to do with Bill Gates & the boys at Microsoft.  We are
EM> going to use Win 95's built in TCP/IP capabilities to make the
EM> connection to NRL.

EM> That's why the NRL front end will be Win 95.

And the OS/2 version please.....using its TCP/IP stack???

Cheers!

---
 * RM 1.3 U0414 * I've tried being grown up, it was overrated.

Eric T. Busc

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Eric T. Busc » Thu, 20 Jun 1996 04:00:00


> Well, after getting "flamed" by a few people out here, I decided it
> was time to upgrade. Went to the local Computer City, bought Win95
> and went for it. Install went very smooth. And the best part, Nascar
> Racing still works!! That negative feedback convinced me.

Here's a quick suggestion that may save you some frustration down the
road.  If you don't have alot of Win3.1 software you want to keep (most
should be replaced with 32-bit versions anyway), I would suggest you try
a clean re-install of Win95.  Because you still have all the old dlls
and other system files left from 3.1, Win95 will not run optimally.  The
clean install helps to get rid of all these, maximizing Window's
performance.  The easiest way I found was to install to a new directory
instead of over top of your origional c:\windows folder.  

You could also format your hard drive, and do a fresh install of Win95
that way as well.  Note that if you choose the second route, you will
need Disk 1 of Win3.1 to verify the upgrade.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

Don Turcot

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Don Turcot » Fri, 21 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Well, after getting "flamed" by a few people out here, I decided it
was time to upgrade. Went to the local Computer City, bought Win95
and went for it. Install went very smooth. And the best part, Nascar
Racing still works!! That negative feedback convinced me.

Don Turcotte
hawaii: DonT

Jo

Nascar2----WIN95??

by Jo » Fri, 21 Jun 1996 04:00:00


>To clarify Ed's point: To get a game to perform well on Windows 95, you
>MUST have up to date DirectX drivers. We have found configurations that
>perform better under Windows 95 than under DOS; we have also found
>configurations that perform not as well.

Rick,

I'd be more worried about consistency of speed myself. Given Windows
infamous "lumpy multitasking" (even with nothing mush running, every
once in a while it will decide to grind the disk drive for a whole).
Isn't this s nightmare for programs like ICR2, where reaction-time is
everything? Or have you found some way of stabilizing the frame-rate?

Joe


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