rec.autos.simulators

Hi All

It's time to let my trusty old T2 rest in peace afer many modifications
and a long, distinguished career.

I've read that the MSFF is a cpu hog, but aside from that issue it seems
to be a reasonable buy here in Australia.

Can anyone provide some hard figures as to how the MSFF affects cpu
and/or fps in GPL?

I'm running a PIII-550 w/ 128mb & V3-2000. The wheel is to be used almost
exclusively for GPL and hopefully, GP3.

Cheers

-Nick

I have the serial port version and running a PIII550E at 814 MHz.  Don't notice any CPU
resource problem.  Others report the USB version is the CPU hog.

The USB MSFF is a CPU hog. On my P450, I lose 4-5 fps with FF on. without
FF, there is no loss. I don't like running < 30 fps at all, so I've turned
FF off for now.

Regards,
Gordon

If you are worried about that, you should just get the ACT LABS Wheel.
I don't get any frame drops with mine

I use the MSFF wheel and find no frame rate drop--(maybe a little with FF
on)

  Dan Leach

I've had the non-USB MSFF wheel for about a year now, and even with a
celeron 300A at 450mhz, I didnt notice an appreciable fps loss. Personally I
think its under-rated - the pedals are quite good (c/f Logtiech) and its
very precise - doesnt use pots so doesnt lose calibration. I have a PIII 667
now, and I would say with a PIII 550 fps wont be an issue. As for the Act
Labs - dunno havent tried it -  but I suspect it wont have the same long
term durability.

As far as I know there's only a gameport version and a USB version.
The gameport version does give a slight framerate hit on slower PC's but is
hardly noticable on anything above a P2 400 in GPL. The USB version however
is reported to be a real CPU hog and maybe should be avoided.
On my P2 333 it ran at 36fps all the time without FF, with FF when there
were a few cars close and in certain locations (ie hairpin at Rouen) the fps
would drop to about 30. When I overclocked to 411 the problem went. It
causes no problems at all on Athlon 750.

--
Ian Parker
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."

<email invalid due to spam>

OK here is the deal. Many moons ago Randy Cassidy was working on
the FF patch for GPL. He posted some results in testing the 3 different
available FF wheels at the time.

The old TM FF USB wheel used 3,500,000 cpu cycles per FF event.
The MSFF and Saitek FF used 1,500,000 and the LogitechFF used
a miniscule 50,000 per FF event.

This along with my purchase and return of a MSFF wheel (which
my wife actually liked) was a big part of my decision to go with
the LWFF. The other overwhelming reason is that it was the only
USB wheel freely available at the time.

If I were to buy today though I would give the Guillemot Ferrarri
wheel a good look. But there are no equivelant numbers for
that wheel.

--

OK on my Celeron 450 / V3 2000 / 128MB PC100 machine