rec.autos.simulators

I am planning to buy a new notebook by the end of the year. The best 3D
video boards on notebooks that I found so far are:

a) Trident ***9225 with 2.5 Mb
b) S3 ViRGE MX 3D with 2 Mb
c) ATI Rage LT Pro with 8 Mb

The processor can be Celeron 400, PII 366 and AMD K6-2 366.

Can someone say if any combination will be OK to play N3? f not, are there
any other configurations?

Regards,

Brian

--
* rrevved at mindspring dot com
* unit.26 s.p.u.t.u.m.
* http://www.cabal.net

Be sure the notebook has a joystick or wheel. No keyboard
control in N3.

--
* rrevved at mindspring dot com
* unit.26 s.p.u.t.u.m.
* http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Reads like the choice of the lesser of the three evils. Ram might be the
biggest consideration. More memory built in = more textures brought up
fast. And there are certainly more in N3.

I can recomend the Interact Ultraracer PC if this notebook is going to be
actually used as a portable. It's small and works decently for travel.
Going from a Wheel and pedals to it is a little jump, but not too hard.
Plugs into a joystick port with no problems. Best Buy carries them
in stock. For a wheel, I dunno, I've had a modified T1 forever now.
Later. -Mark Gums

--
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Digital Camera and Video Camera tidbit

Trident and S3 are OLD, and I mean OLD, chipsets.  If you plan to play ANY
3D game or heck any game on a notebook, be sure to get the ATI Rage LT Pro
onboard.  The Rage is approx. about the same in performance as the original
Riva TNT.

And yes, more onboard video memory is better for a number of reasons
including the mentioned texture budget, resolution, etc. :)

Ben...who suspects that certain people are revealing lack of a life

There is keyboard control in N3.  Im absolutely, 100% sure well hmm.. ;-)

The review that made mention of that simply wanted to say that keyboard
driving is much more difficult than in previous version of Papyrus Stock-car
simulators.  And yes it's true.  It's not "GPL-hard" in terms of keyboard
driving, but you can't really expect to be near competitive using keyboard
controls.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"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."

: I am planning to buy a new notebook by the end of the year. The best 3D
: video boards on notebooks that I found so far are:

: a) Trident ***9225 with 2.5 Mb
: b) S3 ViRGE MX 3D with 2 Mb
: c) ATI Rage LT Pro with 8 Mb

Forget it.  The first two are no hopers for hardware 3D.  The ATI is
marginal in Direct3D, but runs some programs like Need for Speed 3
reasonably well, so it might be alright for N3.  On the horizon is the
Savage/Mobile  (not the old Virge MX) based on the Savage 4.  It has
texture compression and bump mapping, and a real OpenGL implementation,
unlike ATIs flaky one, so perhaps (cross your fingers) you could even play
GPL.  The performance is in the same league as a current Voodoo2 in terms
of Quake timedemos.  If you need a notebook, maybe wait for this one,
although its release keeps getting pushed back (I imagine they have heat
problems).

Stephen

: Trident and S3 are OLD, and I mean OLD, chipsets.  If you plan to play ANY
: 3D game or heck any game on a notebook, be sure to get the ATI Rage LT Pro
: onboard.  The Rage is approx. about the same in performance as the original
: Riva TNT.

: And yes, more onboard video memory is better for a number of reasons
: including the mentioned texture budget, resolution, etc. :)

Also, the new Savage/Mobile will have 16Mb or 32Mb of memory, plus AGP.  I
have been searching for this "holy grail" of notebook 3D.  It looks like
it is coming, but you can bet it will be in the high end (over $4000)
notebooks for the first year.  I've decided to forget about it, be happy
playing GP2 on my old notebook while travelling, and pile much less cash
into a killer desktop for home.  If you have the cash for the next
generation notebook, go for it, but it will still never quite match a
desktop (but then again, other simmers will drool with envy if the OpenGL
on the Savage works out and you can have GPL wherever you go)

Stephen

LCD's tend to have very slow decay rates.  This causes 'bluring' with fast
moving objects.

If you are really serious about doing this with a Laptop, I would make sure
that along with the appropriate 3D hardware, it has proper video-out so you
can connect an external monitor.

FWIW...

-Larry