rec.autos.simulators

Play-ability... I miss the good-old days of the original World Circut.

I haven't found a racing simulator yet that has the play-ability. All the
software companies are worried about is stunning graphics. Yet, they continue to
write programs that are out of reach of todays top computers and before the
machines are released that can run their current game, a new version of the game
is released. What gives?

I spent alot of dough on a 'big-time' machine (PII 266 w/64 meg SDRAM w/all the
extras) and I still can't run GP2 at full frame-rate with all the graphics
turned on!! I wish that instead of just telling you what the MINIMUM machine
requirements are (on the little sticker on the box) they should also be nice
enough to tell you what the hardware requirements are to run the game at its
MAXIMUM. They leave us guessing when the Pentium 2000 532 will be released in a
machine that the average user can afford.

Case-and-point: I have just bought CART PR. I kinda like it. I am also a long
time owner of GP2 and ICR2. They all are stunning models of racing simulation
but they really suck. It's one thing to be able to run the game, play the game,
and run around the track a few times, but it is quite another to be able to
REALLY race for the championship and know that your next move could cost you
valuable points that could end the chances for a title. World Circut has that!
It also had the support of alot of plug-ins.

Some major improvements were made to things like the AI, but what good is it
when you ride up on a car's gearbox and your $2500 computer gets bogged down in
a graphics overload. Not to mention that you have to completely reset all of
your graphics options just to run the game at tracks like Monaco or Germany.  

Trevor wrote some of the best telematry(sp?) patch programs that I ever could
imagine. With no insult intended... all we got from them for GP2 was a bunch of
.jam editors. I would give it all up for a real-time timing and scoring program
for GP2. My friend and I used to spend months and months racing World Circut
every Monday night. We had a laptop that was our timing and scoring computer and
would run the race through his 27" TV and REALLY RACE. Now all we have is a
bunch of really good looking cars running circles around us. (Note: His computer
wasn't the fastest around but still could run the game to it's highest level)

Now the mighty Microsoft has released their attempt at racing. Does anyone even
bother to ask what they like and dislike about the current sims on the market
before they release a new one? It seems not. How the *** are we suppose to
setup a car when we don't even know what the tires are doing!!!! I don't see any
tire temps/wear in the garage screens and they still give us parameters to
adjust like camber and tire pressure. They have given the cars "Cruise Control"
in and out of the pits and don't even give you the ability to sit and prepare
mentally to race before throwing you into first gear and down the ***ing pit
lane. Not knowing how many cars are out and who they would be.

I seem to have a problem getting my T2 to get the car going straight down the
straights. The goddamn thing wants to jump all over the place. I have limited
myself to testing on an empty track for fear of just ramming into someone while
trying to race wheel-to-wheel. This seems to be from the 'non-linear' and 'speed
sensitivity' setting in the Options Menu. I've tried at least twenty different
settings and still the thing drifts. I should be able to point the car straight
and it go straight! (Take my hand off the wheel if I want to.) ICR2 and GP2 does
this. Why not CART PR?

There are alot of thing that I don't like about CART PR. I will not go into
detail about them all, but here are a few that I haven't mentioned: I don't like
being thrown out of the game and into a menu just to pause the damn game if I
need to take a drink. I don't like not being able to turn on and off individual
graphics options like grass and walls etc. Where are all the correct cars and
drivers? Carl Haas? Where is Michael Andretti? Sure you can change the names,
but is Bob V. going to announce them if you change them? Microsoft wanted the
game to be cool by having all the drivers let them put their picture in the game
but didn't get them all so they should have just left them all out. ICR2 and GP2
gave us the ability to change the names and not worry about seeing everyone
pretty mug-shot or hear their name when they cross the finish line. Microsoft is
trying to hard. Make the game play-able and realistic before you make it look
good.

I have lurked around this group for a while but really haven't said much. I felt
it was time. Thank you for your patience (if you made it this far).

GonzoF1-

    Sure fancy graphics are nice, but I find their appeal wears off
quickly.  IMO, I find this is especially true in racing sims because
you are running on the same tracksr, after a while you pay less
attention to the graphics because you see them lap after lap. I end up
usually turning off most graphics to get a better frame rate.  After
all, I dion't play racing games to sight see, I want to race!  I think
gameplay (good AI, etc), out lasts fancy graphics.

Just my view,
John

I thibk this guy hit it right on the head ! What is the point of having
a car with jazzy graphics , just to run a sim that you can only enjoy
if you were using a computer that costs out of the average persons
reach ?

Do I buy your sim , turn off damm near every option just to run it ? What
is the point of having it in the first place, if you can not enjoy it ?
all these wiz bang computer programmers do not keep us in mind when they
write all this shit. Why do they waste the time making it , if the
average Joe can't even run the damm thing ! ! If they spend soooo much
time programmig the damm new sims , then why in the hell to we get all
the bugs & problems when we try to run it. Is that not what beta testing
is for ? work out ALL THE***UPS BEFORE you market the game ?

I never but anything any more when it firsts come out , I sit back and
see how much and if any problems there are going to be BEFORE I spend
my hard earned money.

This is my view on this , it should be right and user friendly , not
complicated & damm near impossible to run.

Dave Reuille
Woof Motorsports

Not to start a flame war or Anything....  but this wouldnt be an issue
if the games were being run in DOS !!!!   There wouldnt be as many
framerate problems as there are in Winblowz95 based games.

I was cleaning up our computer room and I came across my old flight sim
Falcon 3.0   Flight Sim of the Year in 1992 !!!  286 min processor, 386
recommended,  WILL FLY WITH 486!!! *laugh* 4mb ram minimum, 8
recommended!!!    

Scott B. Husted
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~sbhusted

   EXACTLY THE POINT!!!!

Tmo
--
Tom Cosgrave
Guinness Grand Prix :-  
http://www.rtc-carlow.ie/student/downeys/ggp.html
The F1 Test Site :-
http://www.rtc-carlow.ie/student/downeys/f1test.html
E-mail :-    

Support Sarah Kavanagh and the RASF1 car in Formula
Nippon
http://www.sarah.org/sarah/rasf1
Username : rasf1 Password : gogirl

"Ralf's not very happy, Fisichella's been blowing him off
all weekend."
  ITV's Martin Brundle :-)

Give me a break.   Grand Prix 2 was a DOS game and you seriously don't
remember the shellacking it got online for the fact that maybe 1% of
the machines out there could run it with everything turned on?!  Even
ICR2 was ahead of its time.  Even a decent P133 couldn't turn
everything on and have a smooth frame rate on it.  It wasn't until the
Rendtion version and P200's that people could really turn on a bunch
of cars ahead and behind and turn on all the graphical goodies.
NASCAR?  You had people as recently as a few months ago racing Hawaii
with the most of the textures (most importantly the asphalt) off
because it was the only way to get a decent frame rate.  So you drove
around on polygonal flat colored gray squares.  I'd love to have some
sympathy for your "Winblowz95" based games comment, but if you think
we've just left some romantic era where everything ran at a nice frame
rate in DOS and mid-range computer users were happy, THINK AGAIN.
Lord how quickly people forget.

I spent a LOT of hours on Falcon 3.0, including in online combat.  I
also remember that at the time I bought it I was using a 386/33, which
was about midrange at the time -- couldn't NEARLY run with enough
details on.  Wasn't until I got a 486/33 that the thing ran decently.
If you think *** nirvana is running Falcon 3.0 on your Pentium, go
right ahead.

Randy

live with it, they are not going to start a game based on DOS. You will be
lucky to be able to run it in DOS

Good God, you're thick. I've spent eons trying to get games like X-Wing and
Tie-fighter to run with all their Himem and EMM requests and when to load
the mouse and soundcard drivers.

Bwahahaha. GP-2 DOS based program runs 10.6 frames per sec on my P-166 with
32 MB of Edoram. And still it stutters when you spin, or start a race from
behind.

Ubisoft F-1 Racing Simulation, a pure Windows 95 DirectX 5 based sim,
installed with no glitch, ran first time I clicked the icon, has a framerate
one can only dream of, doesn't stutter or pause anywhere and beats the ***
out of GP-2's graphics.

Oh good, play DOOM then while the whole world plays GL-Quake. I only play
GL-Quake under Win95 anymore because it runs BETTER than the DOS-only
version.

Whiner.

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First off... Im guessing you dont know how to setup up a DOS environment
to play games.  I had a 133 with 32 megs of RAM and could run NASCAR2 in
DOS with ALL graphics on and Full field draw!!  Not in rendition mode, I
dont have a rendition card.  Some tracks like Martinsville required you
to turn off grass texture or building details... but most did not.

Secondly... My point wasnt that my NIRVANA was playing Falcon 3.0 on a
pentium machine....  My POINT was that I came across the game and was
stating the RECOMMENDED requirements to play the game at the time as
little as 3 or 4 years ago compared with today !!!!!!!!!!!!
I havent played that game in nearly 2 years.  It hasnt even been loaded
on my last 2 PCs...  

Next time you decide to get in a little "tizzy" about a post which was
based on DOS fact and humor... try re-reading it. OK ?

Scott B. Husted
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~sbhusted

What... dont people understand Sarcasm about the Falcon 3.0 IM NOT
PLAYING THE GAME... IT WAS MEANT AS A COMPARISON TO REQUIREMENTS FOR A
GAME JUST A FEW YEARS AGO TO TODAY!!   386 with 2megs of ram ?!?!?!

As far as GP2 in DOS..  I cant say. Never owned the game and dont own F1
by ubisoft either.  I can say the games for Windows95 i have owned
installed flawlessly... but the framerate was not nearly as strong as in
DOS.  SODA framrate was absolutely terrible.  NASCAR2 in Windows takes a
very good video card to support it.

DOS is dying a slow painful death.  No doubt about it.  BUT part of my
point was a simple boot disk for a *** environment worked wonders.  I
NEVER had a problem with settings for DOS when it came to X-WING or
Nascar1 etc..
Windows95 GENERALLY takes a more powerful processor, more ram, and a
very good video card.  That was my point.  

Damn... Im starting to think some of you guys are sleeping with Bill
Gates or something and You say one word about DOS versus Windows95 and
its like I kicked your dog or something.

As far as being thick....  Im not the one who couldnt get a simple DOS
environment to work for X-Wing when the one provided in the manual was
simple enough.  Hell... it made a boot disk for you!!!!

Scott B. Husted
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~sbhusted

Actually, I doubt DOS would solve the problem.  I think the bigger problem
is developers learning the intricacies of Win95/NT, and how to take
advantage of them.  We've been able to get Win95 to perform within 1fps from
our DOS builds, so the "gains" are really pretty small, and probably not
enough to justify the end-user nightmares of installation and configuration
(face it, LucasArts had to stuff 4 page inserts into their X-Wing product
just to help users troubleshoot their DOS installation).

Also, remember that most of the titles that ran well under DOS (you
mentioned 286/386) were only 320x200.  Today, you take the immediate hit of
blitting over 4 times the data per frame before you even think about texture
mapping.  And, it doesn't help that just about every other computer
architecture (read: non-Intel) has been 64-bit or better for at least 2
years -- we're still having to deal with cramming megs of data down a small
32-bit bus.

Maybe the answer is to focus on the scalability of the software, so that
those without heavy duty hardware can scale the product down to their
hardware.  Note, this doesn't necessarily mean turning off features, but
maybe choosing flat shaded vs. textured, etc.

Rich

I agree.  I am not involved in the computer industry other than an end
user who uses his computer for business and obviously racing sims =)

Im sure that there are learning curves for all platform envirnments and
limitations as well because of it.  I too hated that there were tons of
setup problems in dos... however, once you became familiar with YOUR own
system... you cold pretty much tweek for each game an optimum
performance for your machine.  Such is true im sure for Windows95.  Is
there a true 64 bit system on the way ???? (I havent a clue).  My
gateway came configured with a MS-DOS window setup for "optimum"
performance for ***.  I must say...  it works great for N2 !!  The
only problem I have is when I do finally get around to joining TEN and
NROS... N2 must be run from a windows95 environment.  I cannot enjoy N2
from windows95 as I can in DOS.  Performance is much worse with the
delays and hesitations. This would probably be solved with more RAM (64
from my current 32, and a decent video card. (ATI 3D RageII sucks pretty
much).  In dos, I can have everything on with full car draw with no
hesitations.  On some tracks the texture draws a little slow up ahead,
but barely noticeable. Mostly at Martinsville and the new GN expanions
pack tracks which have great graphics.  I guess my point is that current
border line systems seem to run better in DOS (IMHO of course).  With
better systems, Im sure it is not as important an issue. (say 266mhz and
above with good ram and accelerator cards.)

My previous posts were taken WAY out of context.  I am not a MICROSOFT
hater...  I purchase MANY products.  I couldnt get by without Office
97!!
However... I do not have any "serious" games that must be run in
Windows95 environment (not including NROS for N2).  My experience with
SODA was absolutely frightening.  Framerate totally sucked no matter
what I did.  Playable with no eye candy... but thats not MY personal
goal.  I love playability, but I also love the great graphics and
surrounding environment.  The best we can do is try and strike a balance
until the hardware/software worlds start to better cohere to eachother.

I hope someday these arguments over playability in Windows environment,
whether it be NT or 98 or whatever, will become a mute point.  I would
love just to argue over a game based on its features and gameplay
without taking into consideration framerate and if it works on one
system and not another.  I dont see that happening anytime soon... but,
we can all hope =)

Richard, a request. Could you send me the info on how you got Windows95
to perform within 1fps of a DOS environment ???  I suggested earlier to
Dean from the CART team about a FAQ about how to optimize performance in
Windows95.  Im sure there are MANY of us non-technical individuals who
would benefit from such a FAQ greatly!!

Thanks,

Scott B. Husted
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~sbhusted

Checking some system requirements; the original IndyCar Racing required a
386/25 (486dx/33 recommended) and DOOM wanted a 386/33 and recommended 8
megs of RAM when released.  The technology had to mature before these games
were fully enjoyable, so today seems no different to me.  In a year a P2/450
with AGP should handle any game out today.

I remember trying to free up enough memory on a 486/25 to run DOOM with PC
Speaker support.  No sound card or cd-rom drive.

The only thing I've seen change is the OS and games.

Oh yeah, right.  Make a martyr out of yourself.  You came on and made
it sound like DOS was *** nirvana.  Most of the people in the REAL
world well remember having to fight with memory managers, juggle
drivers, fight with UniVBE and VESA stuff, and configure IRQ's by hand
to get games to work decently, and STILL suffer from horrendous frame
rates.  Windows has its problems, no one is denying that.  But you
make it sound like poor frame rates and high hardware requirements
magically appeared when Windows was released. What a joke.

Most people think boot disks are a royal pain in the ass.  No one
wants to wait all day for a floppy and have to keep separate floppies
for various games.  This is lunacy.  I can't believe you have the gall
to defend it!

Randy

Here's a hot tip for you.  Don't guess.  You don't know squat about my
background.  And yes, I DO know how to set up a DOS environment to
play games.  I did it for years, and I had to talk friends and
relatives through config.sys edits on the phone when they bought the
latest software and were pulling their hair out because it didn't run.
Now my relatives have Playstations and I no longer have to get on the
phone and debug config.sys and autoexec.bat on the phone!

Sure...as long as you don't mind 20 fps or less.  I *did* have a
Rendition v1000 board on a similar config as you, and while I could
turn all that stuff on (without Rendition that is) I know longer had a
game that was smooth enough to run bumper to bumper races with.

DOS fact?!  good one.

Randy