rec.autos.simulators

Tuffe Wahlstrom

On Tue, 23 Dec 1997 12:33:46 +0200, Torbjorn Wahlstrom

Do I give a damn about your opinion, no, because it doesn't seem to be
worth much.

Using Norton Utilities benchmark, well I think enough said
there........ Using this so called 'benchmark' my old Pentium 120Mhz
with 32Mb EDO RAM gave a figure of 34. Just out of interest I've run
it using my present system (K6-200) and got a figure of 78.6. It's
running at a bus speed of 68.4Mhz so it's nearer to a K6-206. Perhaps
your 166 setup isn't quite as fast as you like to think.

How can I possibly compete with someone who's brain is so fast he can
actually tell me he's getting 21fps. I wonder are you actually able to
count them or is it perhaps  just a wild guess?

Finally I have never put a figure on how fast the game is running. ALL
I said was that it's own estimate says >25.6 fps. I know this is not
true, but that's what it says. ALL I have said about speed is that I
am satisfied with the speed it is running on my system.

However using you own figures, benchmark 64, frame rate 21fps. So
according to Norton my machine is 22 percent faster and so should give
me a frame rate of 25.6!!!!! Spooky or what....................

But I don't care, I'll say it for the last time for the hard of
thinking. I am satisfied with whatever the frame rate is, the game
runs very well on my system. END OF STORY.

JohnGP

(guess what remove .no.spam)

I think you are getting confused with VGA. When I look at VGA it says
25.6 and it can run below 100%. When I use SVGA with everything I get
an estimate of 21.3. In Monaco with no other cars I get occupancies of
between 80% and 160% at this level. This makes it unplayable in my
book. My system is a Pentium2-300 with Millenium2 4meg board, 64 megs
SDRAM, and UW SCSI subsystem. I think we are up against a software
ceiling at this point because this is one sim that didnt improve much
with my upgrade. Longbow2 went from near slideshow to silky smooth and
CPR jumped to nearly 30fps (from 11-14). Either the engine running GP2
is maxed out well below P2 levels or we are going to have to wait for
the Merced to see this albatross fly.

Oh dear, now I'm being told I don't know the difference between VGA
and SVGA.

Well I guess if the box next to SVGA is ticked then it's running in
that mode. VGA tends to be rather blocky and horrible, and even at my
advanced years if I sit close enough to the screen I can just about
make that out................

If anyone would like to pop around sometime and have a look at the
settings, what the estimate actually says and how the game plays then
I'd be very pleased to see you.

There are 2 things I'd like the answer to:

1. Why should I lie?

2. How are any of you able to give, what you think are accurate frame
rates when the game doesn't have it's own counter? Is there a
shareware frame counter that I've never heard of or are you just
making it up, having a stab in the dark, or just plain guessing?

JohnGP

(guess what remove .no.spam)

Hi John,
I think the whole confusion over this thread is that people think you're
saying that
you're getting 25fps with all detail when you can't on your system. (They
haven't
been very nice about saying this though...)

Your misunderstanding is that you can set the fps to whatever you want, but
the
game won't necesserily run at that speed. What you need to do is while
racing,
press "o" (for Occupancy) to see how the game is performing. If it is over
100 percent, then you aren't getting the fps you thought you were. The game
actually slows down a second so that you get that many frames in its "new
definition of a second". For example, if you had 200 percent processor
occupancy,
you are really only getting 17.5 fps and the game has slowed down by half
so that
you are getting 25 fp "it's s" (if you see what I mean). A one minute lap
time would
actually take 2 mins real time on your watch at a constant 200 percent.

The game is less accurate at >100 percent occupancy because it's not real
time
and your inputs are not being read quickly enough by the game.
Try it and see what you get. (Hope I haven't misunderstood you too...BTW).
Cheers, Gwyn.

I havent seen anybody give any info except the frame estimate that the
graphics option page provides and processor occupancy. I think
everybody s finding it a little hard to believe that a K6-200 can
outperform a P2-300. I seriously doubt that that processor can
outperform a p2-233. Dont take it to personally. I think some others
corroborating your findings would change opinions but one person
claiming a seemingly impossible figure is bound to raise some
eyebrows. All benchmarks that I have seen of that processor leave a
lot to be desired so that makes me skeptical. That doesnt necessarily
carry over to the game but I think the numbers will be similar. Either
way if you enjoy the game and are happy with your system then that is
what counts.

BTW, as for wondering how people know what frame rate they are getting,
it's simple. Provided the processor occupancy never gets above 100% you
will get exactly the fps set in the graphics screen (NB: this is NOT,
repeat NOT, the estimate).

Please bring this thread to a conclusion by stating exactly what settings
you have in your graphics option dialog and what PO you get when sitting
at the back of the grid at Monaco.

Cheers,
Richard

Oh it must be Christmas, at last a couple of people who can
read........

Exactly I have never claimed to be getting any particular frame rate,
all along I have just said I'm happy with what I'm getting.

The GP2 estimate does say >25.6 but of course I'm not getting that and
I would never claim to, because I have no way of knowing, because I
don't claim to be able to count frame rates.  Perhaps the high
estimate figure is a funny between GP2 and the K6, I have no way of
knowing.

I have just tried the 'o' key and found I'm averaging around 120 - 130
percent. At least I've learnt something, I didn't know about this key!

I'm not going to get dragged into a debate about one cpu against
another, and I'm not a great fan of benchmarks. In fact the only semi
useful brenchmark program I have is Wintune97. Having compared my
setup with the Pentium 200MMX in it's database I'm quite happy.

Happy Christmas.

JohnGP

(guess what remove .no.spam)

Now I have to decide whether to actually tell you what figures I have,
because looking back through this posting some are going to start
saying I'm lying again.

However, if I set it to 19.6, with everything on, using SVGA at Monaco
I get an around 100%, every now and then going to a max of 107%

So now I'll sit back and wait for the first posting telling me this is
bullshit.

I am rather confused though about this estimated fugure. This whole
thing was started by Nathan,  who is using the same cpu as me but gets
an 'estimate' of 16fps. Why should mine be so much higher, at 25.6?
How does GP2 arrive at this estimated figure?

JohnGP

(guess what remove .no.spam)

You only get the stated actual fps if PO os kept below 100% (and for the
pedantic, even then it doesn't run in quite real time :( )

Cheers,
Richard

Check out any of the good gp2 websites for comaprisons of gp2
performance on different machines.

With your set-up you should get *max* frame rates (25 fps) in svga
with *all* details on, but you will suffer greater than 100% cpu
occupancy on some tracks, especially Monaco. Turn off the sky, and
some mirror details and you will get near perfect results on every
track?

If you are not getting this, then you do not have your pc set-up
right? or you have a problem with your pc?

8?)

* Peter *  8-)   Please remove asterix from address to email.

If PO is below 100% then you are getting exactly the selected FPS - the CPU
has enough time to generate and display the selected amount of frames within
a second.

You are right about ICR2 - it uses a model where a "game second" is equal to
a "real world second". When the framerate drops, the car travels a greater
distance between the two frames which avoids slowmotion.

--
Aegis