rec.autos.simulators

I've seen a reduced Creative Labs 4Mb PCI Video Blaster and was thinking of replacing my
3D 2000 with it but I have many questions first:

How does Creative's product compare with other rendition cards?

It doesn't come with rendition enhanced ICR2.  Is there a patch available?  If so where
from?

I get perfectly acceptable performance with N2 in SVGA with road, grass & sky off, 22
front, 3 behind (don't know the framerate) but I want 39 cars front (because I don't
always qualify on Pole!), 5 behind and all textures.  Is it noticably better with
rendition?  Will I be able to have all this with no loss of speed?

Are the direct3d abilities any good e.g. with Monster Truck Madness?

What is DMA and can I use it? (System spec below)

Shareware Quake is supplied optimised for the card.  I have the full version.  Patches
for the full version anyone?  from where?

I read (in RAS somewhere) that rendition Tomb Raider is available.  Again I have the
full vaersion.  How does it compare with 3Dfx?  Patches & locations?

Sorry about the non Racing Sim references but I do (very occasionally) get the urge to
shoot things.

System:
Intel P200, 430vx chipset, 32Mb EDO, 512K L2, Diamond 3D 2000.

Thanks in advance

Mark

Even with all it's bugs, NASCAR 2 has found a place in my heart.

It is practically identical to the other cards hardware-wise.  The
difference is in support and the bundle (both of which are quite bad).

available?  If so where

No, there is no patch currently available.

grass & sky off, 22

On your system (P200) you'll get quite good performance.  With all the
details and 3D enhancements you probably will get at least the same
performance your getting with your current setup.

DMA (Direct Memory Access) is used by the Verite cards to speed up
performance.  Your system should have no troubles with it, but a BIOS
upgrade may be required.  Direct3D performance currently is slower then
the 3Dfx cards (still faster than any other card though) despite the
fact that currently DMA is not being used properly.  As follows is an
e-mail I received from Robert Mullis of Rendition when I inquired about
Direct3D and DMA:

"Tough questions.  We are continuing to work with MS on a solution to
the DirectDraw asynchronous DMA problem and some related D3D problems.
It is not that the current version of the drivers don't support DMA -
that is easy - but rather that DMA doesn't currently buy the
application any performance advantage since the application cannot tell
if DMA is finished without taking out a lock and waiting for the DMA to
flush (which kind of defeats the goal of parallelism). They are
attempting right now to put together a trial library that will have the
right extensions to support this properly but I don't know whether they
will get it right, it will actually make a difference (we might find
some other problem lurking right behind this one), or they will figure
out a way to distribute the changes soon.

As for the "reference platform" moniker. Both V1000 and D3D were being
developed at the same time. The V1000 was the first device on the
market that could accelerate D3D and it accelerated most, if not all,
of the important D3D functions. That does not mean that it does things
just the way V1000 would like them done however... Being the reference
platform mostly means that if you are a driver developer and you ask MS
how to write a D3D driver for a 3D accelerator they will give you a
copy of the driver source for the V1000.

I am hoping that we will have some trial code in the next couple weeks
but since I have been waiting for many months for this to finally
happen I am not holding my breath. It does look  like things are now
moving but it is still too early to say for sure."

You can get the latest VQuake executable and microcode file from
http://www.rendition.com/quake.html

There is a beta patch available from
http://www.tombraider.com/tombraiderrend.html  Graphically it is very
similar to the 3Dfx version (a lot of people say the underwater scenes
and colors are better on the Verite, but it lacks the 3Dfx's Z-buffer
so you get some polygon clipping and other graphics anomalies), but not
quite as fast.  Still it is a very solid port that should run extremely
well on your P200.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Mark:

I can answer some of your questions:
I've heard that the Creative Labs card is identical to the other cards
except for the drivers.
I found at the Papyrus website that there is no ICR2 patch-rendition
available.  (Screamin3D or Intergraph...)
You will indeed notice a performance increase with rendition.  On a
p200, probably full detail, cars, and 30fps.
DMA is Direct memory access, which can be tweaked in your bios setup to
improve rendition performance.
The shareware version of Quake that came w/ my card (Screamin' 3D) came
with the patch.  Creative Labs' website has the patch posted as well.
I haven't tried the 3dfx version, but the Rendition version of
Tombraider on my p100 is beautiful in SVGA with very fast frame rates
and no slow downs whatsoever.  

p.s.  ICR2 is worth the extra cash.  Try Intergraph.  Good luck!

M Lewis

On Wed, 01 Jan 1997 19:50:48 +0000, Mark Davison

Make SURE the one you get is the "Creative 3D BLASTER PCI".
They also make three other video cards and those are the ones that are
being sold cheap with rebates. They WILL NOT do Rendition games!!
Make sure if you go with a Creative board you get the right one.
The one you want will have a Model "CT6240" printed right on the front
of the box.    

I have both the 3D Blaster and the Reactor. As I have two PCs why buy
the same, this way I got two different software packages and they are
more or less the same board. And for anyone that has the Reactor (or
whatever they call it now) If you want Win 3.1 drivers with a control
panel go to Creatives site and D/L the 3D Blaster drivers for Win 3.1
they work just fine.

JACK

You will get a performance improvement with the Rendition card.  However, I
have noticed that the number of cars drawn is the single most demanding
setting for the Rendition version.  I have settled for less cars drawn and
better overall graphics performance.  99% of the time - seeing 15 cars
ahead is all you have to deal with anyway.  The spotter now warns you of
crashes - so seeing a limited number of cars should not cause you to
barrell into a wreck unexpectedly.

I can enable most of the graphics, 12 cars ahead and 3 behind and run 30fps
on a P200 HX motherboard which scores 75-78 mb with dmadiag.  If your
motherboard supports PCI latency settings, you may get the performance up a
bit higher by increasing this number and reaching over 90 mb dma scores.
This - I understand - is the max that produces an improvement in game play.
 The FPS you will see also varies by track.  I try to find the happy medium
of graphics details and fps at all tracks.  Talladega and some high detail
tracks like Bristol tend to be a bit more demanding - Talladega probably
because you can actually see all 38 cars ahead at one time.  I do notice
that the Rendition version does not get s big fps hit when enabling
graphics - the normal VESA version does.  I could attain near 30fps with my
Stealth 64 VRAM adapter too - but not with nearly the graphics detail
enabled.

Bottom line - don't expect to draw all 39 ahead and decent graphics detail
with the Rendition version - unless you have an overclocked 200 mhz chip
and PCI latencly settings in the BIOS.  If you can overclock to 83mhz x 2.5
(or even 3) and can set a high PCI latency value - you may well get 30 fps
and 39 drawn ahead.  I will probably try this experiment with my next
upgrade to an MMX capable MB - an ASUS I assume.  However, the Rendition
version looks better and drives better since the CPU can spend more time
with the driving model and polling your steering device with the graphics
off loaded to the Rendition cards RISC processor.

/THansen

available?  If so where

The Reactor is ok, but overrated. Many bugs and problems We have had with
them. The software bundle is acceptable. Icr2 Full.   QuakeDemo  and the rest
Demo versions of microsoft games.

The 3D Blaster has "too my suprise" performed very well.
Support is the same as Intergraph if not better.
Software bundle is again acceptable Full Reble moon. ( Blows) Full B.A.T and
flight unlimited and more shareware demos.
Icr2 runs better on the blaster than on any other rendition card as far all
our benchmarks have indicated.

Like MANY Rendition Titles. ICR2 patch is in the making.
These cards will be dead by year end as I see it.

How is it over rated?  It's $50 cheaper than the 3D Blaster, has a
better bundle (Flight Unlimited is no ICR2, and the 3D Blaster's other
games suck), Intergraph's drivers (which are the unoptimized  reference
drivers from Rendition) are faster than Creative's, and Creative's tech
support is laughable at best.  The Intense 3D 100 (the renamed Reactor)
is not a perfect card, but it beats the 3D Blaster in every category
except availability (you have to order it directly).

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

I brought home a spare hub from work, bought a couple of Linksys IPX
cards, and plugged one each into my 2 P-100's. Both machines have
Reactor cards in them, both are triton-ii chipsets.

Running N2 in dos with the ipx drivers invoked, I get a major amount of
screen sparkle when I try to connect, then one or both of the machines
lock.  I am using bios ver 74a.

Where do I start to trouble shoot this one?

Moon

Yes Little eric. Keep preaching. You are the Man.
Student loans still wasted I see.

You have yet to refute any of my claims about these cards.  Instead you
resort to childish insults or your quite intelligent "The Reactor is
junk. Trust me.. Buy the Blaster, it is the best." Cloobie?-type
comments.  You even have to hide behind an alias and fake e-mail
address using different names when posting.  It's Mike sometimes and R
Green others (have I missed anyone?).  To use you're own words, "You
guys are real man. Total Real."  Tell your Mommy to up your medication
until you can play well with others.  Until you actually want to debate
the merits of the cards, stop wasting mine and everyone else's time
with your asinine drivel.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Methinks there was a *** cell and an egg wasted on you;)

Get lost bonehead!

Keep up the good work Eric, et. al.