rec.autos.simulators

Has anybody tried or currently using the upgrade chip by AMD and another
by Evergreen (I think) to boost a AMD DX4 100 to a pentium 133?  I've seen
these chips for around $100 and was wondering if it's a fair upgrade or a
total waste if they even work at all... Any suggestion/ comments would sure
be appreciated.

Current system:
AMD DX4
16 Meg RAM
Diamond Stealth 64 VLB 1Meg
USR 33.6
SB 16 Pro
Win 95 (have to be in DOS mode to run NASCAR)
ect. ect.

I am able to run NASCAR1 in DOS mode with:
Grandstands on (no crowd)
Car texture on
Track Lines/ Skid marks on
25 cars (7ahead 3behind)
3 cars heard

My Goal/Dream/wet my pants desire is to run NAS2 with at least the above
options on but would really love to be up there with the rendition group.
Ah- life is but a dream... Anyhow, I can (weasle out) afford $250-$300.
Without to many laughs at me what are my best options.

Thanks,
Roger F.

R. Faust
aka Xducer

for a new pentium 166 without tha monitor it is 400 dollars up here
....thats the way 2 go!!!

says...

Also, have you considered a used Pentium system?  Perhaps you wouldn't
be able to reach for a "top of the line"... but could you perhaps find a
good value that way?  I hope to have a used "partial" P75 system to sell
soon, but that wouldn't help... you're wanting to go faster than that,
and I can't blame you!  As for N2 on the possible upgraded machine you
stated.  I race N2 on my current machine (the above mentioned P75), but
as a rule, to keep "chop" to a minimum, I can only run:

draw 8 cars ahead, 2 behind, hear 3
Draw stripes and skid marks (these help me to establish turn/brake
points, etc)
Car textures on.
As for the rest of the "eye candy"... notta. Zip. Nothing. If I try for
stands, no crowd... here comes the slide show.

So, as you can see, if you get to that P133 benchmark... you should be
able to do what you're hoping for.

As for worrying about getting "too many laughs"...anybody on this r.a.s.
that does do so... well... that person just showed their ignorance.
Hey, making our $$ stretch and getting more bang for the buck? That's
nothing to laugh at, that's smart.

God Bless,

Andre

Oh my, donn't even think of going that route.  New motherboard and chip is the
only way to go.  But, what is hurting you most at the moment is the video
card.  1M of video ram is definitely below standard.  Suggestions?  First buy a
new MB and chip (~$250 for a P133, I can give you the URL if you wish) and
second grab a rendition video card.  The V1000 chip is pretty cheap these days
with the upcoming V2000 series.  I personally own a P200 w/ Sierra Screamin' 3D
card and enjoy all textures + all cars with 20+fps at ALL times.  ICR2-3D
(which comes bundled w/ S-3D) rarely drops below 30fps with all the goodies.
Man, you don't know what you are missing.  As I said, though, first step is to
get rid of that AMD (a decent chip for the price, BTW) and get up to Pentium
level performance.  You can always overclock that 133 if it isn't good enough
for ya ;)

ER

Summary... New MB+P133 chip ~$250  New Rendition card ~$100 = $350 for a
difference you won't believe!!!

   If I'm not mistaken, the upgrade you're talking about upgrades you
to a 133MHz 486 (not a Pentium), comparable to a Pentium 75.  Kingston
sells it as the Turbo 133, right?  Not much of an upgrade from where
you are now.

   To use Rendition, you need a PCI motherboard.  The Rendition V1000
cards are going for around $100 now (and will probably disappear when
the the V2200 cards come out).  A PCI/Pentium motherboard is probably
$100+.  A Pentium 133 is going for about $120.  Assuming you can use
the rest of your current components (memory might be a problem, but at
least its cheap), you could have a pretty hot system somewhere close
to your budget.  Good luck.

Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking...  Did he complain
to five or six postmasters last month?  Now, you must ask yourself one
question: "Do I feel lucky?"  Well, do you, punk?

At work my company upgraded one pc using the Evergreen solution, and
swapped another pc for a 100mhz pentium. Both were loaded with the
same company software and similar memory size, so to test the speed
and compare them both we booted them up the same and executed Word
from the toolbar. The 100mhz pentium was far faster than the
evergreen, which is supposedly faster. I guess it's also down to the
other components too, but I'd reccommend going the pucker pentium and
new board.

--
To reply, remove NOSMEG from e-mail address.

As someone else said the first thing you really need is a better video
card... most likely your local computer shop will give you some trade-in
value for your 486 MB and CPU, and your old Video card... maybe $100 or so.
Then you can have them put in a Pentium motherboard (PCI) and a new PCI
video card with at least 2 megs of video ram.  Chances are with your trade
in of your old equipment, you can get away with upgrading for about
$150-200 cash.

I am in Canada, but here at my local computer shop I upgraded around 9
months ago, from my 486/100 to my Cyrix 150+ (and I have very good
performance, and never had any problems with it for all you "Cyrix you get
what you pay for" folks) for about $150 with trade-in of my old 486 board.
Prices have dropped since then.... also, you can now get 3d video cards
here for $60-99 Canadian, so I can only assume in the US the prices are
going to be the same or correspondingly lower (allowing for the 35%
exchange rate).

If you are independently wealthy as many in this newsgroup seem to be you
can get one of the more expensive video cards that has all the bells and
whistles but there seems to be little point considering the different video
standards around... you may get one that runs your favourite game now but
you will need to buy another one in 6 months to optimize your favourite
game then!

So basically, finding a chip to plug into your 486 motherboard is pretty
much a waste of money... replace the motherboard and the CPU, it will not
cost you that much more cash than the plug-in chip, and get you will get
much better performance.

BTW, when I had my AMD 486DX4, I had an ATI Mach 64 2 meg video card... in
NASCAR 1, I ran full fields, max cars ahead seen and 5 behind, car texures,
skids and paint, smoke and dirt, objects on... set most everything else to
auto (rarely had any of the auto textures switching off except during
starts/restarts) and a very smooth frame rate... basically the only
difference between your system and mine at the time was the video card..
makes a big difference!