rec.autos.simulators

I've enjoyed N1 now for over a year, though it's not perfect, man it's
so far above anything else then on the market that is was/is in a league
all it's own.  Great job Papy.  Now, the time is come to consider N2.
Well, after reading all the pros and cons of this news group, I have
decided that I would like to go ahead and purchase N2... PROVIDED...
I've got the horsepower to run it.  I'm running a Puckard Smell
"Legend" equipped with: P75, 1.2G HD, 16 Meg RAM, SVGA Mon, 4xCD.  As
for what kind of graphics/sound cards are PB installed... well,N1 runs on it,
but N2? (i.e. I have no idea what kinds of cards PB uses.)

Those of you that have N2, could you give me an educated guess as to
whether my machine can handle the game?  I realize that I can't expect
to have all the neat graphic features built into N2, but can I at
least get a smooth frame rate (by reducing graphic choices) as well as
the "spotter" feature?  Hey, any input would be greatly appreciated
before I lay out $50 for the game, only to find I can't run it.

One last thing: Hey Jim... overlook the flames.  Even listening to all
the sniveling about N2's "bugs", I've decided to support Papyrus with
the $$ for N2 now (if my machine can handle it)... and trust you guys
for the needed patches when you get to them.  After all, if us Nascar
sim freaks don't support Papyrus NOW... how can you be there THEN? (It
does take money to bring us these sims, right?)    Andre

You could probably run SVGA with almost no details, but I think VGA
would be the better option for you.  There shouldn't be a significant
difference between the performance of N1 and N2 with the same level of
detail (N2 does have some added details that N1 doesn't).  Back when I
ran N1 on my old P133 I always ran in VGA because of the framerate.

--

The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html-ssi
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

I'm also running a p75 with 16meg ram, and n2 runs fairly well.  With car
texture, and smoke on, and everything else set to auto, I get a smooth
framerate in svga.  Min is set to 11, and max at 22.

--
Brian Fox

Geocities' MotorCity Community Leader
Get your own free homepage at http://www.geocities.com

The Fox Den:  Nascar 1 and 2, ICR2, GP2 and my Streetrod.
http://www.4w.com/pages/fox AND/OR
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/1238

If N1 runs well (enough for you) in SVGA mode, N2 should run
approximately the same, but look somewhat better. (The graphics engine
is more efficient on Pentiums now, but we've compensated by adding
more objects and polygons... :-) )

Be sure to load the VESA 2.0 drivers (UniVBE is included, which works
with many, but presumably not all video cards)

If you are really concerned, buy from a retailer with a return policy.
(For the record, Sierra has a company-wide 30 day policy, but since it
involves mailing to Sierra, and waiting for a refund, you're still
better off using a local retailer that will accept an open-box return
within a few days.)

The game should run on your machine, though 16MB is definitely on the
tight side, particularly when run from a Win95 DOS box...

---Jim Sokoloff, Papyrus

<snippage>

       If you are a stickler for frame rate, you are going to be
dissapointed.  I had a PB P100 w/24 meg ram.  Packard Bell
uses the cirrus logic onboard video.  Mine had 1 meg of memory.  
To get a framerate that was even close to smooth.  I had to shut
off _all_ graphics, and I still had some choppyness around groups
of traffic.  I know of a couple of people that upgraded the video
card to the Intergraph 3d card, and saw some pretty good increase
in N2, however I couldn't get my onboard video to disable.  Now,
I'm glad I couldn't.  It made me upgrade to a system that runs
N2 very nicely.

Shawn Wise  

I've a a PB P75 that I keep around in case of emergencys and it runs the
game fine. I took the liberty of overclocking it to 100mhz so its a
little faster. I also put in a 2 meg STB powergraph and that made it
even better. A good 4 meg card would probably work even better. I tried
a Reactor card but it kept locking up the machine . Good luck!!!

According to PB, on most models the video will disable itself. It will
show a conflict in the control panel but just ignore it.

I guess that was a pretty lame machine Eric! I used to run N1 on a p100
laptop with all detail on except grass and track in SVGA with a very smooth
framerate.

 "Back when I ran N1 on my old P133 I always ran in VGA because of the
framerate."

I did have a slow ATI card, but it's more so because I have very high
standards.  I find anything under 20fps to be virtually unplayable.

--

The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html-ssi
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Mick in Tampa
--

Mike Schreiner
http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL      #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                        mickster

Mickster,

     I went even further than you,I traded in my HP 5010 system with a 486
dx4 cpu that only got 14-17 fpm with most of the graphics turned off,for a
custom built computer sytstem that has a P166,quad CD-ROM,and a Diamond
Stealth 3000-D. My frame rates with all graphics turned on is always around
30fpm.

Joel Willstein

I'll presume that your frame rates are actually 60 times higher than
you reported... :-)

fps vs. fpm

---Jim Sokoloff