rec.autos.simulators

by **Paul Ryd** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Hi

I played GP3 yesterday at ECTS with a wheel and pedals in the Hasbro
stand, i didnt actually do the***pit thing they had going thou

Impressions... at the moment its very GP2ish. The only difference i
could see was the***pit design had changed, you can now see the top
of the nose like you can on inboard videos (like the ferrari.. you can
see the white writing on top of the higher nose section)... and the
engine has changed,, it looks cool.

They only had software mode availible, and to me it looks like they
have taken GP2 and are working with that.. because the stuff like
external cams etc looked the same. The engine looked better than gp2
thou even in software mode, so thats promising.. i guess i was
expecting a whole new game in a way engine wise, but at the moment its
very gp2, the sound effects, the external cams, the cars still look
"gp2'ish".

The hasbro guy said they are working with software mode before doing
3d stuff so i guess the 3d part of the game will be the main thing,
the engine itself looked cool thou, its very "bare bones" and i hope
they change alot of things. The menu interface has all changed looks
like they did that first.

by **Paul Hoa** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

All,

I'm sensing a few of the posts I've seen so far that some of you are feeling
a little dissapointed that you didn't see GP3 in a 3D mode? well I admit I'm
keen to see the first screenshots of GP3 too but please remember its much
easier to find developers capable of doing 3D work as this is a better known
area, physics however is a much harder aspect so if you wanted the focus of
GP3 to be on anything it would be on the physics model.

I think Geoff must be being very brave (and clever!) providing a software
rendering
mode espeically as so many of the competitors have gone the 3D route.
However
their are many many GP2 players still on non accelerated machines all of
which will
probably buy GP3 within the first 2-3 months, with sales of GP2 being 1.5
million plus
you can images that even if only 1 in 3 people do not have a 3D card this
could lead to
sales of 500,000 copies at least to non 3D accelerated customers, this would
be a wothy
figure for nearly any game giving Hasbro a cool 1.25 Million pounds uwards
depending
on sale price....and this is only to non accelerated customers... not to
mention that other
2/3's who will also buy copies?

I sometimes think that 3D cards have taken the optimisations out of
development. Geoff's
original code for GP2 is incredibly optimised in terms of track structure,
reusing 3D points.
at every possible opportunity in order to keep the number of calcuatons down
to a minimum.
The thing with Geoffs games is that when they are released they are at full
wellie on the latest
machines but within 2 years they are running like bats out of hell on the
latest spec machines.

I'd rather have a game that improved over time than one that was limited to
the speed at the
time of conception, based on short term view of getting 90% of the profit
within the first
6 months.

Given that hasbro suggested that a 3D accelerated mode will be forthcoming
lets hope this is
built ontop of an incredibly optimised game engine, meaning that you don't
need a Voodoo 4
to get your frame rate above 10 fps.

Waiting with even greater anticipation now!

Dr Paul Hoad

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

by **Meij** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Indeed a physics engine is harder but a physics engine with no hardware
acceleration isn't going to sell.

I think Geoff isn't being clever but I'll agree with brave. The specs for
Gp3 are going to be much higher than GP2 as you can expect from the 2 or
3 years lapsed since each was developed. Most people these days have some
kind of D3D/OpenGL compatible hardware AND will almost definitely have
something like that if they are able to run a new game. This cuts down on
your "software mode will sell line" IMO. The industry "wisdom" is that
the majority of people who are playing *today's* games have 3D hardware
and as such software is becoming redundant.

Looking at coding an engine, making graphical effects work in software is
more of an effort than making it work in hardware as more time must be
spent optimising code and in order to make the thing run well features
must be cut. Look at Half-Life in software and hardware and see the
difference in them. It's not just resolution but Valve had to cut things
from it in order to make it move at a decent pace. Personally I'd prefer
to have them work on software *last* so that they have a working engine
that they don't need to spend as long optimising before they work on
speed tuning the rest of the game.

Do you want to wait 2 years for a game to become usable? I don't and I
suspect 99% of the people here don't either. Yes, games programmers have
become a little more lazy in getting their code the most optimised but
with the length of development, getting the last 5% from the engine is
usally not cost effective any more. However, I fail to see how you can
call programmers lazy because of their unoptimised code then laud Geoff
for making software that takes 2 years to work as intended. Perhaps he's
guilty of putting too much into games but he needs to make things run on
today's hardware, not next years (assuming it's released today ;P )

Nobody wants to see a shitty piece of software but I fail to see how
making a good software renderer does anything for the hardware. If
Geoff's people are doing anything other than writing renderers for the
engine in order to provide support for software, D3D, OpenGL etc I would
be extremely surprised. Thus, the quality of the underlying engine is
very little to do with whether the software renderer is completed first
or last. However in terms of marketing it's better to have the cash-cow
renderers (i.e. 3D) completed first so that any flaws can be found and
fixed. Can you imagine how well it will sell if it ships with the best
software renderer in the world but the worst 3d? Would it sell? No. Would
we see a sequel? No.

So to cut my meandering ramblings short, I am hoping that a lot of effort
isn't being sunk into something that isn't going to be as used (software
mode) as hardware support and the whole product suffer as a consequence.
A good pedigree doesn't guarantee a good new product (see John Romero for
details).

Fearing that we're going to get GP2.5

M

by **Paul Hoa** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Your point is very valid and I agree with you totally on some points

however my opinion remains that their are still a large number of GP2 users
with non accelerated
cards or sub Pentium 266 machines,
(based on my exposure to large number of GP2 users, via the GP2 Track
Editor)

I for one am one of those who still has a Pentium 200 MMX, and even though I
have
a reasonably well paid job cannot justify upgrading to a new 500 MHZ
machine, yet.
I am lucky enough to have brought myself a Voodoo2 but still know that
amougst those
in the GP2 community am probably in the minority (I kid you not!)

I still get email from people who are using GP2 in VGA mode!

I understand all the arguments from *** companies about 3D cards and I
also think
they are an essential part of running the latest games, but I really do like
it when games
companies challenge this though. I still think the speed and quality of
QuakeII could be mapped
to modern games even if that means having to turn off some features (which
GP1 & GP2 where
always excellent at anyway!) Lefts face it even with modern games like
QuakeIII most people
even with a Voodoo2 are really going to need to turn off features or special
effects to get the
frame rate up. If games companies contiune to produce games that require the
very latest
3D card incarnation (lefts face it Voodoo 1 users are really forced to
upgrade their 3D card now!)
then surely they are playing to a very small and limited audience. How many
GPL users fell by
the wayside becuase of FrameRate problems causing lack of feedback.

So its not that I disagree with you its just I think that speed
optimisations within games
via clever software programming (and not necessarily just the graphics
renderer!)
can substantially improve the performance of games, as a professional
developer myself
I am often surprised by what parts of a programme can lead to the greatest
improvement in
speed.

Just my 2p worth

Paul

> >All,

> >I'm sensing a few of the posts I've seen so far that some of you are
> >feeling a little dissapointed that you didn't see GP3 in a 3D mode? well
> >I admit I'm keen to see the first screenshots of GP3 too but please
> >remember its much easier to find developers capable of doing 3D work as
> >this is a better known area, physics however is a much harder aspect so
> >if you wanted the focus of GP3 to be on anything it would be on the
> >physics model.

> Indeed a physics engine is harder but a physics engine with no hardware
> acceleration isn't going to sell.

> >I think Geoff must be being very brave (and clever!) providing a
> >software rendering
> >mode espeically as so many of the competitors have gone the 3D route.
> >However
> >their are many many GP2 players still on non accelerated machines all of
> >which will
> >probably buy GP3 within the first 2-3 months, with sales of GP2 being
> >1.5 million plus
> >you can images that even if only 1 in 3 people do not have a 3D card
> >this could lead to
> >sales of 500,000 copies at least to non 3D accelerated customers, this
> >would be a wothy
> >figure for nearly any game giving Hasbro a cool 1.25 Million pounds
> >uwards depending
> >on sale price....and this is only to non accelerated customers... not to
> >mention that other
> >2/3's who will also buy copies?

> I think Geoff isn't being clever but I'll agree with brave. The specs for
> Gp3 are going to be much higher than GP2 as you can expect from the 2 or
> 3 years lapsed since each was developed. Most people these days have some
> kind of D3D/OpenGL compatible hardware AND will almost definitely have
> something like that if they are able to run a new game. This cuts down on
> your "software mode will sell line" IMO. The industry "wisdom" is that
> the majority of people who are playing *today's* games have 3D hardware
> and as such software is becoming redundant.

> Looking at coding an engine, making graphical effects work in software is
> more of an effort than making it work in hardware as more time must be
> spent optimising code and in order to make the thing run well features
> must be cut. Look at Half-Life in software and hardware and see the
> difference in them. It's not just resolution but Valve had to cut things
> from it in order to make it move at a decent pace. Personally I'd prefer
> to have them work on software *last* so that they have a working engine
> that they don't need to spend as long optimising before they work on
> speed tuning the rest of the game.

> >I sometimes think that 3D cards have taken the optimisations out of
> >development. Geoff's
> >original code for GP2 is incredibly optimised in terms of track
> >structure, reusing 3D points.
> >at every possible opportunity in order to keep the number of calcuatons
> >down to a minimum.
> >The thing with Geoffs games is that when they are released they are at
> >full wellie on the latest
> >machines but within 2 years they are running like bats out of hell on
> >the latest spec machines.

> Do you want to wait 2 years for a game to become usable? I don't and I
> suspect 99% of the people here don't either. Yes, games programmers have
> become a little more lazy in getting their code the most optimised but
> with the length of development, getting the last 5% from the engine is
> usally not cost effective any more. However, I fail to see how you can
> call programmers lazy because of their unoptimised code then laud Geoff
> for making software that takes 2 years to work as intended. Perhaps he's
> guilty of putting too much into games but he needs to make things run on
> today's hardware, not next years (assuming it's released today ;P )

> >I'd rather have a game that improved over time than one that was limited
> >to the speed at the
> >time of conception, based on short term view of getting 90% of the
> >profit within the first
> >6 months.

> >Given that hasbro suggested that a 3D accelerated mode will be
> >forthcoming lets hope this is
> >built ontop of an incredibly optimised game engine, meaning that you
> >don't need a Voodoo 4
> >to get your frame rate above 10 fps.

> Nobody wants to see a shitty piece of software but I fail to see how
> making a good software renderer does anything for the hardware. If
> Geoff's people are doing anything other than writing renderers for the
> engine in order to provide support for software, D3D, OpenGL etc I would
> be extremely surprised. Thus, the quality of the underlying engine is
> very little to do with whether the software renderer is completed first
> or last. However in terms of marketing it's better to have the cash-cow
> renderers (i.e. 3D) completed first so that any flaws can be found and
> fixed. Can you imagine how well it will sell if it ships with the best
> software renderer in the world but the worst 3d? Would it sell? No. Would
> we see a sequel? No.

> So to cut my meandering ramblings short, I am hoping that a lot of effort
> isn't being sunk into something that isn't going to be as used (software
> mode) as hardware support and the whole product suffer as a consequence.
> A good pedigree doesn't guarantee a good new product (see John Romero for
> details).

> >Waiting with even greater anticipation now!

> Fearing that we're going to get GP2.5

> >Dr Paul Hoad

> M

by **David Mast** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

>Your point is very valid and I agree with you totally on some points

>however my opinion remains that their are still a large number of GP2 users
>with non accelerated
>cards or sub Pentium 266 machines,
>(based on my exposure to large number of GP2 users, via the GP2 Track
>Editor)

Well, undoubtedly they (and you :-)) exist, but let's face it, they (and
hopefully not you :-)) are a dying breed. And by the time this title sees the
light of day???

C'mon, a V2 is now $50 (at least here in the US). A year+ from now you may be
able to pick one out of the garbage bin. To come up with a game that
"features" 2D support at that time will have negligible impact on sales
(stated w/o proof). In the world of PC-***, it makes little sense to me to
devote many resources to supporting 4-5 year old technology.

I'd much, much, MUCH (stated enough??) rather see him allocate resources
dumping that HORRID non-real-time PO based system for a real-time / variable
framerate engine. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to buy it if that is still
used (unless it is clear that my PO will always be <100%).

by **Eric Legaul** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

That's exactly what I have, a Pentium MMX at 200 MHz. I'm considering
buying a Voodoo2 card, could you tell me in which racing sims you use it
and what you get in terms of frame rate, playability, etc?

Thanks!
--

by **Joe Marque** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

What is a PO based engine vs. a real-time variable framerate engine? Be
long winded if you like, I'm always ready to learn something new.

--
Joe Marques

> >Your point is very valid and I agree with you totally on some points

> >however my opinion remains that their are still a large number of GP2
users
> >with non accelerated
> >cards or sub Pentium 266 machines,
> >(based on my exposure to large number of GP2 users, via the GP2 Track
> >Editor)

> Well, undoubtedly they (and you :-)) exist, but let's face it, they (and
> hopefully not you :-)) are a dying breed. And by the time this title sees
the
> light of day???

> >I for one am one of those who still has a Pentium 200 MMX, and even
though I
> >have
> >a reasonably well paid job cannot justify upgrading to a new 500 MHZ
> >machine, yet.
> >I am lucky enough to have brought myself a Voodoo2 but still know that
> >amougst those
> >in the GP2 community am probably in the minority (I kid you not!)

> C'mon, a V2 is now $50 (at least here in the US). A year+ from now you
may be
> able to pick one out of the garbage bin. To come up with a game that
> "features" 2D support at that time will have negligible impact on sales
> (stated w/o proof). In the world of PC-***, it makes little sense to
me to
> devote many resources to supporting 4-5 year old technology.

> I'd much, much, MUCH (stated enough??) rather see him allocate resources
> dumping that HORRID non-real-time PO based system for a real-time /
variable
> framerate engine. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to buy it if that is still
> used (unless it is clear that my PO will always be <100%).

by **Jo Helsen (EDP** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

GP2 is "different" from most sims: it always gives you the framerate
that you want.

Of course this isn't as good as it sounds..... It's only good as long
as your processor is fast enough to generate your desired frames in
realtime. If you ask for too much, GP2 will not respond by skipping
certain frames, but by slowing down gametime. What happens is that 1
second in the game will correspond with more than 1 second in reality.
So you get your 25fps in *game*time, but it will slow down in reality!

GP2 had VGA/SVGA mode choice and very fine control over framerate and
detail/texture settings to make it playable in realtime on most
machines.

JoH

========================================
Jo Helsen EDP Operations BF Belgium

========================================

by **Brian Sinclai** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Agree 100%. Just look of the big fiasco that GPL was (number of units sold).

My son has a very powerfull machine with V2 and loves MGPRS2 but, I am
mainly a notebook user. Has someone ever seen a descent 3D video on
notebooks? I have never seen. But, I have a PII-233 and GP2 is great in it.
We do a lot of LAN races (with Gp2LAP) and it is fantastic.

Graphics are important but, I would trade great graphics for:

a) Scalability (run well in different hardware platforms)
b) Physics (in my opinion, this is the most important part in any racing
simulator)
c) LAN (at least 8 simultaneous users) with IPX and TCP/IP
d) Editor (car, graphics and track). Just look at what a 94 game can do (in
with other game can you really do a 99 Championship except for GP2?)
e) Seasons (like Nascar from Papyrus where we can have a very large number
of tracks and different seasons represented in the game).

Brian

Paul Hoad <Paul_H...@autosim.com> wrote in message

news:7r052q$k5m$1@taliesin.netcom.net.uk...

> Your point is very valid and I agree with you totally on some points

> however my opinion remains that their are still a large number of GP2
users
> with non accelerated
> cards or sub Pentium 266 machines,
> (based on my exposure to large number of GP2 users, via the GP2 Track
> Editor)

> I for one am one of those who still has a Pentium 200 MMX, and even though
I
> have
> a reasonably well paid job cannot justify upgrading to a new 500 MHZ
> machine, yet.
> I am lucky enough to have brought myself a Voodoo2 but still know that
> amougst those
> in the GP2 community am probably in the minority (I kid you not!)

> I still get email from people who are using GP2 in VGA mode!

> I understand all the arguments from gaming companies about 3D cards and I
> also think
> they are an essential part of running the latest games, but I really do
like
> it when games
> companies challenge this though. I still think the speed and quality of
> QuakeII could be mapped
> to modern games even if that means having to turn off some features (which
> GP1 & GP2 where
> always excellent at anyway!) Lefts face it even with modern games like
> QuakeIII most people
> even with a Voodoo2 are really going to need to turn off features or
special
> effects to get the
> frame rate up. If games companies contiune to produce games that require
the
> very latest
> 3D card incarnation (lefts face it Voodoo 1 users are really forced to
> upgrade their 3D card now!)
> then surely they are playing to a very small and limited audience. How
many
> GPL users fell by
> the wayside becuase of FrameRate problems causing lack of feedback.

> So its not that I disagree with you its just I think that speed
> optimisations within games
> via clever software programming (and not necessarily just the graphics
> renderer!)
> can substantially improve the performance of games, as a professional
> developer myself
> I am often surprised by what parts of a programme can lead to the greatest
> improvement in
> speed.

> Just my 2p worth

> Paul

> Meiji <me...@nospamdircon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:37d38695_1@newsread3.dircon.co.uk...
> > Paul Hoad <Paul_H...@autosim.com> wrote in
> > <7qvvim$ja...@taliesin.netcom.net.uk>:

> > >All,

> > >I'm sensing a few of the posts I've seen so far that some of you are
> > >feeling a little dissapointed that you didn't see GP3 in a 3D mode?
well
> > >I admit I'm keen to see the first screenshots of GP3 too but please
> > >remember its much easier to find developers capable of doing 3D work as
> > >this is a better known area, physics however is a much harder aspect so
> > >if you wanted the focus of GP3 to be on anything it would be on the
> > >physics model.

> > Indeed a physics engine is harder but a physics engine with no hardware
> > acceleration isn't going to sell.

> > >I think Geoff must be being very brave (and clever!) providing a
> > >software rendering
> > >mode espeically as so many of the competitors have gone the 3D route.
> > >However
> > >their are many many GP2 players still on non accelerated machines all
of
> > >which will
> > >probably buy GP3 within the first 2-3 months, with sales of GP2 being
> > >1.5 million plus
> > >you can images that even if only 1 in 3 people do not have a 3D card
> > >this could lead to
> > >sales of 500,000 copies at least to non 3D accelerated customers, this
> > >would be a wothy
> > >figure for nearly any game giving Hasbro a cool 1.25 Million pounds
> > >uwards depending
> > >on sale price....and this is only to non accelerated customers... not
to
> > >mention that other
> > >2/3's who will also buy copies?

> > I think Geoff isn't being clever but I'll agree with brave. The specs
for
> > Gp3 are going to be much higher than GP2 as you can expect from the 2 or
> > 3 years lapsed since each was developed. Most people these days have
some
> > kind of D3D/OpenGL compatible hardware AND will almost definitely have
> > something like that if they are able to run a new game. This cuts down
on
> > your "software mode will sell line" IMO. The industry "wisdom" is that
> > the majority of people who are playing *today's* games have 3D hardware
> > and as such software is becoming redundant.

> > Looking at coding an engine, making graphical effects work in software
is
> > more of an effort than making it work in hardware as more time must be
> > spent optimising code and in order to make the thing run well features
> > must be cut. Look at Half-Life in software and hardware and see the
> > difference in them. It's not just resolution but Valve had to cut things
> > from it in order to make it move at a decent pace. Personally I'd prefer
> > to have them work on software *last* so that they have a working engine
> > that they don't need to spend as long optimising before they work on
> > speed tuning the rest of the game.

> > >I sometimes think that 3D cards have taken the optimisations out of
> > >development. Geoff's
> > >original code for GP2 is incredibly optimised in terms of track
> > >structure, reusing 3D points.
> > >at every possible opportunity in order to keep the number of calcuatons
> > >down to a minimum.
> > >The thing with Geoffs games is that when they are released they are at
> > >full wellie on the latest
> > >machines but within 2 years they are running like bats out of hell on
> > >the latest spec machines.

> > Do you want to wait 2 years for a game to become usable? I don't and I
> > suspect 99% of the people here don't either. Yes, games programmers have
> > become a little more lazy in getting their code the most optimised but
> > with the length of development, getting the last 5% from the engine is
> > usally not cost effective any more. However, I fail to see how you can
> > call programmers lazy because of their unoptimised code then laud Geoff
> > for making software that takes 2 years to work as intended. Perhaps he's
> > guilty of putting too much into games but he needs to make things run on
> > today's hardware, not next years (assuming it's released today ;P )

> > >I'd rather have a game that improved over time than one that was
limited
> > >to the speed at the
> > >time of conception, based on short term view of getting 90% of the
> > >profit within the first
> > >6 months.

> > >Given that hasbro suggested that a 3D accelerated mode will be
> > >forthcoming lets hope this is
> > >built ontop of an incredibly optimised game engine, meaning that you
> > >don't need a Voodoo 4
> > >to get your frame rate above 10 fps.

> > Nobody wants to see a shitty piece of software but I fail to see how
> > making a good software renderer does anything for the hardware. If
> > Geoff's people are doing anything other than writing renderers for the
> > engine in order to provide support for software, D3D, OpenGL etc I would
> > be extremely surprised. Thus, the quality of the underlying engine is
> > very little to do with whether the software renderer is completed first
> > or last. However in terms of marketing it's better to have the cash-cow
> > renderers (i.e. 3D) completed first so that any flaws can be found and
> > fixed. Can you imagine how well it will sell if it ships with the best
> > software renderer in the world but the worst 3d? Would it sell? No.
Would
> > we see a sequel? No.

> > So to cut my meandering ramblings short, I am hoping that a lot of
effort
> > isn't being sunk into something that isn't going to be as used (software
> > mode) as hardware support and the whole product suffer as a consequence.
> > A good pedigree doesn't guarantee a good new product (see John Romero
for
> > details).

> > >Waiting with even greater anticipation now!

> > Fearing that we're going to get GP2.5

> > >Dr Paul Hoad

> > M

by **Brian Sinclai** » Tue, 07 Sep 1999 04:00:00

Agree 100%. Just look of the big fiasco that GPL was (number of units sold).

My son has a very powerfull machine with V2 and loves MGPRS2 but, I am
mainly a notebook user. Has someone ever seen a descent 3D video on
notebooks? I have never seen. But, I have a PII-233 and GP2 is great in it.
We do a lot of LAN races (with Gp2LAP) and it is fantastic.

Graphics are important but, I would trade great graphics for:

a) Scalability (run well in different hardware platforms)
b) Physics (in my opinion, this is the most important part in any racing
simulator)
c) Weather (it rain in real life). Have settings to say if a driver is good
or not under rain. Do someone remebers Vitorio Brambila? Mid 70's, orange
March, very slow on normal conditions but umbelivable fast on rain.
d) LAN (at least 8 simultaneous users) with IPX and TCP/IP
e) Editor (car, graphics and track). Just look at what a 94 game can do (in
with other game can you really do a 99 Championship except for GP2?)
f) Seasons (like Nascar from Papyrus where we can have a very large number
of tracks and different seasons represented in the game).