rec.autos.simulators

I was just wondering if anyone has used GPL with a TNT card. If so, fill
us in, whats the performance like? How high can you push the resolution
and still get >24 FPS?

    thanks
            -YUBS

Sorry, only by purchasing either a 3dfx or Rendition based accelerator.   GPL
supports only those two.  No D3D support.

YUBS wrote

Probably 320x200...  and Im serious..

GPL was optimized for Rendition and 3dfx cards, with is not the case for the
TNT cards.  You won't be able to reach more then 20fps without taking off
many if not every graphics.

- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard!
- Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
- Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking)
- Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ on the NROS
- "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why they
don't support OpenGL? And why rendition? I can see not supporting D3D but I here
that they even dislike Glide. Not supporting glide would be shooting yourself in
the foot, I guess there are just too many 3dFX cards out there to omit support.
All I know about the support for rendition is that papy likes renditions'
rendering process better. Funny, if its so good, why aren't other people using
it? ***.... I think so! (jokes people... jokes:)

    thanks for the response,
        -YUBS

YUBS wrote

Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You
won't find any.

Papyrus supports Rendition way back since the start of 3d acceleration. Back
around 3years ago 3dfx chipset were about non-existing, they started to work
on a Rendition port for Icr2.  They after ported it to Nascar Racing2 at the
end of 1996. It was around that (6months after) that 3d Acceleration
(Direct3D and Glide really boomed) made a really big jump. So they decided
to make GPL in Glide also (= requires a 3dfx card) but since they also had
ported Rendition since soo many years they also made it into GPL, and
probably also Nascar Racing 3.  I don't see what's so alarming in that.  At
least we can easily see the differences between the 3dfx support of N2 and
GPL.

support.

?? it supports Glide. I don't know where you saw that it didn't.

- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard!
- Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
- Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking)
- Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ on the NROS
- "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that
graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL.

I finally broke down and bought GPL yesterday; and in 320*200
resolution (running alone) I can get... about 23 FPS with most of the
detail turned off.

I got used to Quake2, 800*600 at just under 40 FPS, and even CPR runs
nicely at about 30 on my STP Velocity128 card with D3D...

So why exactly did Papy not decide to write their sim for, uh,
everyone's video card? I really don't get it. In the manual, they act
like this is some sort of "stand"- "We support two and only two
chips."

I really don't know what to do with it; I can't afford a new graphics
card, and I know I won't race at 200*320 after what I am used to...
any advice? I guess I didn't believe that a current sim would run
*this* appalingly slow on a P2 300mhz machine- big mistake.

So Quake2 is a sim now?

Trips

3dfx with it's Glide is the most supported 3d chip, Rendition is married to
Sierra, TNT is ( so they say ) a voodoo2 killer and it can't run GPL with
more than 3 fps, shit!! TNT is for Direct3D and OpenGL games!!! Face it!
There will probably a chance ( in next year or two ) that there will be
games without support for D3D, small chance, but still a chance. And there
will be a great chance that games will come out with both Glide and D3D
support. Voodoo2 with glide will always!!!! run games better than TNT with
D3D. At least that's what I think.

Borut

It's probably because Glide has been able to do a lot of things that DirectX
(D3D) hasn't until just recently.  Glide has always been known to be very
developer-friendly.  I am sure that if they started engineering GPL today
they could do it in D3D.  I am sure that if they get enough 'requests', a
D3D patch will come out.

The developers probably have been working on GPL for quite some time and
have also been using Glide for quite some time.  I know that D3D isn't as
good and OpenGL.  I am not sure if GPL could have been done in OpenGL (it
probably could have, but I am not a 3D programmer).

I am sure Redline (I think that is the other driver that is supported in GPL
is better than D3D as well).

Tom

Quake2 runs about twice the frames on my V2 (~50) as it does on my TNT
(~26).  With the 3DNow! patch from AMD, the V2 simply kicks the TNT's
***in Quake2.  

Quake2 definitely seems to be doing more graphics than GPL, but GPL is
actually simulating race car physics 288Hz.  What else does Quake2
really have to do besides draw graphics?

Clark A.

X-Plane.

Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain
stupid.

Z.

% Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain
% stupid.

Stupid for whom?  Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well
aware of this as an issue before they released the product.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), GPL is a "bleeding edge" masterpiece and
I honestly believe not supporting 2 of the top of the 3D chipsets
directly would have bled some of the "bleeding" out of GPL.  GPL only
really shines when you can wrestle top fps performance out of it.  GPL
wasn't designed to be another anybody can race simulation.  There are
plenty of other products out there that do that just fine.

My advice, if GPL's standards are too high for your machine:

        Upgrade

        -- or --

        Buy a product that performs on your hardware

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Gee, that's funny, it kinda sounds like you're saying "Well if your not rich
enough to upgrade your system every 8 months then you DESERVE crappy
performance!" and well that is plain Bull SH!T. It is nobody's fault that GPL
doesn't run flawlessly on everyone's HW. Papy could've made it run at 30fps on
a K6-200... if they used 3 triangles per object and yes perhaps GPL is a
little( a lot)  ahead of  its time, but I find it down right insulting that I
have to turn the number of opponents down to run the game. I can understand
reducing the number of sounds, quality of textures, or even reducing graphical
detail and resolution, but reducing the number of opponents effects the game
play aspect of the game and that appalls me.

I have a PII266, 128mb, 9gig hd, and an 8mb V2. This is not a top of the line
system by any means but it is still above average. Not to mention that the GPL
box gives my system as the RECOMMENDED system which SHOULD be the system to
play this game on in which to get the most out of it. This is the only time I
will point the finger at papy and say "BAD PAPY, BAD PAPY, NOW GO TO YOUR
CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!' The box is VERY deceiving/misleading
and that is just plain WRONG.

However,  in the end it is papy's decision (since it is their game) and people
can beg and plea and bargain to add D3D or OpenGL support but the only way
they will respond is if the lack of that support results in lower sales. I
ain't saying that papy is a big bad money hoarding corporation (*cough*
Microsoft *cough*), but everyone is affected by money. That's the unfortunate
part. GPL is doing great (and it should since its a great game... if you've
got the system) so in one corner we have the amazing sim, but in the other,
only the people with enough green can play it the way its meant to be played.
I like to look at it this way : I'm never going to become a Dave Mansell, so
chances are I'll still be putzing around Watkins Glen a year from now. Someday
I will upgrade my system, and then I'll be able to pull out GPL (which won't
be very hard since I never put it away) and putz around Watkins Glen some more
but this time in all of its 1024x768 full detail glory.... ahh it gives me
goose bumps.

-YUBS

Well, this topic was inevitable.  In fact, we've seen it before, even over a
year back.  But I think it is worthy of more and more merit as time (and the
*** of 3dfx) passes by.

Why?  For sure it would have taken more time to get it out the door.  Or
resources applied to D3D would perhaps have meant something else being left
out (if the release date was non-negotiable).

The verite chips are nowhere near the top 2 anymore, at least by performance.
If you meant sales, I don't have any numbers to support or refute.

Perhaps.  But there are a lot of players who are enjoying it with less than
top-of-the-line hardware, me included (225MMX, v1).  Further, the 3dfx is
arguably no longer numero-uno, at least if not SLI'd.  Given the demonstrated
performance of D3D cards like the TNT's, and to a lesser extent S3 Savage, I
don't think your argument holds anymore.  For sure, the existing database of
these bleeding edge cards is small right now, but it is only going to grow.

The relevance?

That, I'll agree with.  No use pissing against the wind.  Though I think if
the urea content gets high enough, Papyrus will consider a D3D patch.  My bet
is this is the last sim they'll make without D3D support (you can save that
quote to taunt me if it proves wrong :-))

My bottom line?  I think a 3dfx card is still a requirement for the "serious"
simmer, but my next card might very well be a TNT.  I think this sentiment
will grow.  My predicition: developers will heed it.

This post is very deceiving - is that just plain wrong?

I'm not much interested in hotlapping and therefore all through
development I pretty much raced the AI - on my P225MMX with V1000,
64Mb RAM I could happily race 20 AI. It wasn't pretty, the detail
levels were way down but I could easily manage it and enjoy it. I
don't see that a P2-266 should have any problem at all given that my
Celeron 300 works flawlessly.

Cheers!
John