rec.autos.simulators

Is it possoible to play GPL on a fast laptop? If yes, what would you get? If
no, why?

Thanks,
Chris G

  Sure some of the latest laptops should play GPL great, but...
Where will you mount the Wheel and pedals on your laptop...?
dave :) henrie
  I guess I should clarify that.   I would guess it depends on the video
subsystem.  Are there Laptops that use 3dfx products?
The laptops are fast enough, but I don't know if they are compatible.

I'm a notebook user and sim racer.  The two are not necessarily
compatible.  At the moment the answer to your GPL question is 99.9%
no.  Your only option is software rendering, and with the absolute
fastest PIII notebooks, you might get a decent framerate, but probably
not.  3D acceleration on notebooks is in its infancy.  The only 3D
chips worth mentioning at the moment are the ATI Rage Mobility and the
S3 Mobile.  The ATI is in Dells, Compaqs, Gateways and many others.
The S3 is so far only in some Toshibas and NEC notebooks.  The current
ATI chip will handle D3D games reasonably well, at lower resolutions,
so you can have fun with Need for Speed, Midtown Madness etc.  However,
there is a bug which prevents Nascar 3 and Nascar Legends from running
in D3D on an ATI chip, so again, software only for that title.  I have
no experience with the S3 chip, so can't comment.  Apparently it can
toss around more polygons than the ATI chip, but I should hope so.

What does this mean for GPL?  Unfortunately, nothing.  With only 3dfx
(which, if it wasn't clear from the preceding, is *not* available in
any notebook, and probably never will) and OpenGL support, you won't
get it running with accelerated graphics on a notebook.  I'm 99.9% sure
of that.  S3 apparently has a decent OpenGL ICD, but I suspect it is
tweaked for Quake games and is not a proper, general OGL.  I have asked
several times about GPL on a Savage 4 desktop card, and no one has ever
seen it run.  OGL on the current Rage Mobility is also mostly a Quake
mini GL, and will not run GPL.  I've tried on several notebooks, with
lots of registry tweaking.  It doesn't work at all.

Is there hope?  Perhaps.  ATI has announced a new chip, the Mobility
128.  It is already shipping in Apple Powerbooks, and has been
benckmarked on the sharkyextreme website.  It is very fast (for a
notebook) and supports up to 16Mb.  Remember, the notebook environment
is very tight for space, power consumption and heat.  The Mobility 128
is based on the Rage 128, or Fury.  I have seen GPL run on a Rage Fury
in OpenGL with good frame rates, provided the mirror settings are
tweaked.  So, this seems to be the only option.  When will it be
available?  Good question. One rumour is that IBM's new Thinkpads will
roll out tomorrow (5/2) with the ATI Mobility, but others say they will
ship with the S3.  Other rumours say ATI is putting all their effort
into pumping out their newest desktop chip, and just trickling out
enough Mobility 128s  for the Apple market, and therefore the Mobility
128 won't show up in Wintel notebooks until Q3/2000.  Time will tell.

So for now, it's a no go (except for perhaps barely playable
performance on a really expensive PIII notebook in ugly software
mode).  Maybe in six months that will change, but by then there will be
some D3D sims, which will run on the S3 and Rage Mobility, that might
make you forget it (GP3, WSC).

That's not to say that notebooks don't make good simming platforms.
The one nice thing is that they are portable.  I run lots of oldies but
goodies like N2, ICR2, GP2 and they look great on current mid-level
notebooks.  For control I use an Interact PC Racer handheld steering
wheel (which packs nicely for travel). I have matched my best steering-
wheel GPL times on a friend's desktop using this little controller, so
it's quite good.  You can also buy a gameport to USB adapter, and all
notebooks have USB.  For a surprisingly good sim in terms of GPL-like
physics and driving feel, pick up a bargain copy of SODA Off-Road
racing.  I've put GPL aside for the past few weeks to have fun with
this one.  It runs fine in software on a mid-level notebook, and
doesn't look tooo bad.

cheers
Stephen

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