rec.autos.simulators

by **Kraku** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:06:59

I'm running Nascar Season 2002 on a Voodoo4 card (latest official driver) in
Direct3D (not TnL) mode at 1024x768x16 resolution, with DirectX 8 installed,
and I'm seeing some artifacts which are spoiling it for me. Specifically,
there are dark marks on the yellow apron line, and also close to the outer
walls. Also, the shading on the outer wall from white to black is done
poorly, in a very non-gradual manner. It's a bit difficult to describe, so
here's a screenshot:

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

I assume that the same thing would appear on Voodoo5's. The readme.txt
mentions the following for Voodoo4/5, which seems to match what I'm seeing:
"Black or multi-colored bands can be seen in the lower mips of narrow
textures (walls, painted lines, etc.)." I haven't seen this in any other
game. Any plans to fix this?

Also, when running in OpenGL mode, I only get about a third of the framerate
as in Direct3D.

by **Dave Henri** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:11:19

Actually that looks like an improvement from the demo. The black on the
walls also covered the track at about the same distance, the white curb
paint would smear inside the infield and also tracks with yellow curbs would
have a two-three foot smudge inside the curb line.
One guy had no such problems, but I don't know what he did different.
try...these steps
set your desktop color to match your game resolution and depth..try both 16
bit color and or 32 bit. Try running N2002 inside a window....I'm not
certain this can be fixed. Good luck.
dave henrie

by **Eric Busc** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:27:15

With the demise of 3dfx, the subsequent lack of driver updates, and the
closing of www.3dfx.com later today, it's HIGHLY unlikely that a fix
will occur. Unless you absolutely must have Glide support, my honest
suggestion would be to replace the card with a current 3D accelerator
that is actively being supported by an non-defunct company.

- Eric

by **ymenar** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:36:02

> With the demise of 3dfx, the subsequent lack of driver updates, and the
> closing of www.3dfx.com later today, it's HIGHLY unlikely that a fix
> will occur.

What about other modern video cards that have such same problems with black
bends, like the Kyro II boards ???

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **Eric Busc** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:50:15

It's possible that it could be addressed in a driver update, something
that 3dfx owners really no longer have an opportunity to receive.

- Eric

by **Kraku** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:11:28

So in other words, you're saying that it's a bug in the video card driver,
and there's nothing that can be done to fix this in the game itself? I
realize that the Voodoo cards can no longer be regarded as modern, but I'm
sure that a large percentage of users still rely on them, so that's why I'm
asking. I'm certainly not expecting any miracles in terms of performance,
but I was at least hoping for a clean display. Anyway, thanks for the quick
response.

by **bertr** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:52:40

I haven't really noticed that on a Voodoo5. Although in the demo it looked
similar to your sample JPG, I feel that it is much improved in the retail
version.

I have also noticed that the graphics really improve (at 1024x768) using 2X
FSAA. Much more so than in other games, IMHO. Unfortunately, using FSAA also
cuts the framerate right about in half.......

Bert

> I'm running Nascar Season 2002 on a Voodoo4 card (latest official driver) in
> Direct3D (not TnL) mode at 1024x768x16 resolution, with DirectX 8 installed,
> and I'm seeing some artifacts which are spoiling it for me. Specifically,
> there are dark marks on the yellow apron line, and also close to the outer
> walls. Also, the shading on the outer wall from white to black is done
> poorly, in a very non-gradual manner. It's a bit difficult to describe, so
> here's a screenshot:

> http://members.rogers.com/krakus/NR2002ss001.jpg

> I assume that the same thing would appear on Voodoo5's. The readme.txt
> mentions the following for Voodoo4/5, which seems to match what I'm seeing:
> "Black or multi-colored bands can be seen in the lower mips of narrow
> textures (walls, painted lines, etc.)." I haven't seen this in any other
> game. Any plans to fix this?

> Also, when running in OpenGL mode, I only get about a third of the framerate
> as in Direct3D.

by **Eric Busc** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:47:19

I personally don't know just what the issue is. It could be in the
game, or it could be due to a bug in the drivers. Unfortunately with
3dfx no longer around there aren't going to be any additional driver
updates, and there's also no longer any type of dev support team to work
with to track down issues such as this.

- Eric

by **Kraku** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:04:06

True, I can appreciate how it can be difficult to track these problems down
without support from the manufacturer. Maybe I'll be lucky and there'll be
some workaround in a future patch. Although the glitch is a little annoying,
I can live with it until I can buy a new card. Thanks anyways.

by **Joe Ree** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:37:35

I have the same problem with my Voodoo5, but I've gotten used to it more or
less. If you aren't experiencing the same problem with your V5, may I ask
what driver you're using and where you got it? :)

Thanks,
Joe

BTW, for what it's worth, to the original poster, I think you'd be better
off running 800x600 with 2XFSAA, it looks much cleaner than the screenshot
you posted.

> I haven't really noticed that on a Voodoo5. Although in the demo it
looked
> similar to your sample JPG, I feel that it is much improved in the retail
> version.

> I have also noticed that the graphics really improve (at 1024x768) using
2X
> FSAA. Much more so than in other games, IMHO. Unfortunately, using FSAA
also
> cuts the framerate right about in half.......

> Bert

> > I'm running Nascar Season 2002 on a Voodoo4 card (latest official
driver) in
> > Direct3D (not TnL) mode at 1024x768x16 resolution, with DirectX 8
installed,
> > and I'm seeing some artifacts which are spoiling it for me.
Specifically,
> > there are dark marks on the yellow apron line, and also close to the
outer
> > walls. Also, the shading on the outer wall from white to black is done
> > poorly, in a very non-gradual manner. It's a bit difficult to describe,
so
> > here's a screenshot:

> > http://members.rogers.com/krakus/NR2002ss001.jpg

> > I assume that the same thing would appear on Voodoo5's. The readme.txt
> > mentions the following for Voodoo4/5, which seems to match what I'm
seeing:
> > "Black or multi-colored bands can be seen in the lower mips of narrow
> > textures (walls, painted lines, etc.)." I haven't seen this in any other
> > game. Any plans to fix this?

> > Also, when running in OpenGL mode, I only get about a third of the
framerate
> > as in Direct3D.

by **Tim Mise** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:08:06

Rubbish. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. There are new
Voodoo drivers released more often than Nvidia drivers. Not by 3dfx but by
the 3dfx community and fixes for current games are being done with these new
drivers. I currently run Voodoo 5 Amigamerlin 2.0 Windows XP drivers. Full
support of DirectX 8.0a, OpenGL, and Glide.

I think the original poster was referring to Papyrus fixing their problems.
While they're at it, they should also fix the issues with the Geforce cards
and Soundblaster cards.

-Tim

> With the demise of 3dfx, the subsequent lack of driver updates, and the
> closing of www.3dfx.com later today, it's HIGHLY unlikely that a fix
> will occur. Unless you absolutely must have Glide support, my honest
> suggestion would be to replace the card with a current 3D accelerator
> that is actively being supported by an non-defunct company.

> - Eric

> > I assume that the same thing would appear on Voodoo5's. The readme.txt
> > mentions the following for Voodoo4/5, which seems to match what I'm
> seeing:
> > "Black or multi-colored bands can be seen in the lower mips of narrow
> > textures (walls, painted lines, etc.)." I haven't seen this in any
> other
> > game. Any plans to fix this?

by **Dave Henri** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:35:17

I too would hope the issues with the various pieces of hardware can be
resolved. But the 3dfx issue is more than just drivers being released...(I
too use Amigamerlins for win98) But without 3dfx support, companies like
Papyrus would have to reverse engineer the drivers and I don't think any
Publisher these days will spring for the $$ that type of effort would
require.
Once upon a time, 3dfx had reps that would provide all the info a company
needed. Heck the first Papyrus 3d title(ICR23d) was actually converted by
Rendition employees not Papyrus. Now that 3dfx is toast, the info pipeline
is closed. So even with new drivers, the company doesn't have the access to
the people who wrote the drivers. While I'm sure there are plenty of 3dfx
users still buying software, I would think a company would be insane to
spend $$ trying to keep an abandoned product current.
We as 3dfx users would be better served contacting the Amigamerlin team
and informing them of the problems with nr 2002. Let companies like Papyrus
worry about getting current hardware issues like the Soundblaster/Nvidia
conflicts resolved.
dave henrie

by **ymenar** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 16:11:10

> It's possible that it could be addressed in a driver update, something
> that 3dfx owners really no longer have an opportunity to receive.

Thank you very much. I'm unsure of the situation considering the business
problems of the whole Kyro whizbang.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **lane** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:10:56

There are people providing hacked drivers, even ones that work in XP. One
can also buy new Voodoo drivers for $8.00 from Wicked that are supposed to
be very good. I don't use a Voodoo myself anymore, but even these new Nvidia
and Radeon cards still have driver issues. The company that makes a train
sim called Trainz says in their FAQ that they only support Nvidia cards,
even the box only lists Nvidia as recommended. After instaling the game I
see why they said that because on my R8500 the D3D is a no go and under
OpenGL I have to tun off T&L or else I get geometry distortion. No other
game I own has a problem with D3D on this card. It's just BS, if I wanted to
use a computer that only supported one brand then I would have bought a Mac.
Not ragging on you, just a bit fed up having to buy new hardware and search
for compatible drivers every time I buy a new game (which is often). Maybe
I'll just stop buying the games and actually play what I have, won't need to
upgrade for a long time if I do that and will save a nice bundle, probabl
enough to buy a Mac. :-)

by **lane** » Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:18:12

Read my other post in this thread. A company called Auran won't even support
Radeon cards. They say to get a Nvidia card if you want their Trainz game to
work correctly. Geez, we only have two real contenders left in the video
card market (Nvidia and ATI) and they can't even support both of them. I
forsee the near future where our PC's become as rigid in hardware choice as
a Mac. At least Mac's have a better OS.

rec.autos.simulators

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo

Problem with Nascar 2002 & Voodoo