rec.autos.simulators

Hi Ralf, and others:

   I develop X window and MS windows software.  I was thinking about an
ATI Mach 64 because this is a popular card with reasonable performance
that has support in lots of platforms.  

   I am under the impression, correct me if I am wrong, that "DOS based
games" is a code word for an application that expects a VGA card, and
cards that do this well have an efficient access the frame buffer.  

   And I understand that "good under windows" means the card has some
processing power that offloads much of the work for tasks like line
drawing and area fills.  I would think that this processing power should
be of use to flight and racing sims.  These cards use proprietary
techniques that require drivers that will take advantage of these
features.  

   Are these assumptions correct?  

   Here is my question.  Is the ATI Mach 64 a slow card in games that
use a driver like Univbe?  Is this because no one has done a proper job
of implementing a driver for the Mach 64, or because the card has a
design flaw that prevents it from performing the tasks required by a
video game?  

   If it's the ATI card that sucks, what do you recommend?  Any others
beside the Millennium?  Don't worry about window compatibility, I'll sort
that out after I get a list.  

                                                         Thanks
                                                         Larry

Nascar runs very well without road and grass texture. That's with full
opponents and drawing about 25 ahead. Occasionally I take crowd detail
off during the start of a race when everybody is bunched, but
otherwise everything is always on.

ICR2 works even better with full graphic detail and the same opponent
settings!

In *NONE* of these do I use UNIVBE. I did download a version and tried
it with Nascar but I noticed absolutely no difference. It's since
timed out (21 days), and frankly it can keep itself.

I can't compare the ATI directly to, say, a Diamond Stealth. All I
know is that I am very pleased, haven't had a single driver problem,
and support out of the box in all my OS'!

I wish I was able to test various cards side by side, but ... I can't!

Stuart.
--
From the bedroom of Stuart Booth,  
Somewhere in Guildford, England...  

On my P133 (16 meg, 256kb burst, etc) with a 2 meg Millenium, I can run ICR2 with ALL
graphics options on (except grass...why waste CPU cycles on grass?) with all opponents
showing in front (2 in back...the mirrors are small), and 2 heard.  It's still smoother
than Nascar with 12 cars in front....

And the Millenium is also VERY fast under Windows...and no, I'm not going to post any bench
scores...they're in the PC magazines... :)

: Hi Ralf, and others:

: > While the ATI cards with the Mach chipset are good under windows, they
: > sadly are one of the worst cards you can get for dos-based games.
:          [snip]
: > Only the Millenium has overcome this problem.

Sorry for the above bullshit, the ATI cards are good under Dos. I mixed up
the names Mach and Matrox. But it's no secret, that the MATROX cards (only
exception so far the Millenium) are very slow under DOS. The ATI's are ok.

:    I have ordered a new new computer for my work, 133Mhz.  I haven't
: selected a video card yet.  After a hard day's work my computers like to
: relax with racing and flight sims.  

:    I develop X window and MS windows software.  I was thinking about an
: ATI Mach 64 because this is a popular card with reasonable performance
: that has support in lots of platforms.  

:    I am under the impression, correct me if I am wrong, that "DOS based
: games" is a code word for an application that expects a VGA card, and
: cards that do this well have an efficient access the frame buffer.  

When talking about DOS-based games i mean games, that don't use any special
hardware assisted drawing functions, but simply transfer an image to the
card's memory (window or linear framebuffered) by movs-instructions.

:    And I understand that "good under windows" means the card has some
: processing power that offloads much of the work for tasks like line
: drawing and area fills.  I would think that this processing power should
: be of use to flight and racing sims.  These cards use proprietary
: techniques that require drivers that will take advantage of these
: features.  

:    Are these assumptions correct?  

Correct :-)

:    Here is my question.  Is the ATI Mach 64 a slow card in games that
: use a driver like Univbe?  Is this because no one has done a proper job
: of implementing a driver for the Mach 64, or because the card has a
: design flaw that prevents it from performing the tasks required by a
: video game?  

As i said above, the ATI card's are ok. The only cards i would definitely not
recommend are card's based on the older Matrox chips and the Weitek P9000 series.
They both only emulate VGA.

:    If it's the ATI card that sucks, what do you recommend?  Any others
: beside the Millennium?  Don't worry about window compatibility, I'll sort
: that out after I get a list.  

The fastest chips for games i am aware of are still the ET4000W32P (i.e.
Hercules, Diamond) and the ARK2000 ? series (i.e. Hercules Stingray 64).

IMO if you want cheap and fast dos performance, the Diamond Stealth 32
(with 60ns drams) is IMO still the best bet, but i haven't observed the
market for graphics boards for quite some time.

BTW this isn't the group to discuss hardware issues.

Hope i haven't started too much confusion,

Ralf