rec.autos.simulators

I have noticed a huge difference in performance between the two.
--
      John Hope        |  City and Regional Planning
                       |  Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

I got this card, followed installation instructions, and it runs quake at
15-19fps. I heard guys running at 40fps.  Yes I'm using vquake and copied
the two files from the cd.  I am NOT impressed with it's poor performance
in N2.  My number nine 771 was just about the same, with much better
color than the reactor.  If anyone has any suggestions please help
me!!!!!!! :)

Sean Higgins

:>I got this card, followed installation instructions, and it runs quake at
:>15-19fps. I heard guys running at 40fps.  Yes I'm using vquake and copied
:>the two files from the cd.  I am NOT impressed with it's poor performance
:>in N2.  My number nine 771 was just about the same, with much better
:>color than the reactor.  If anyone has any suggestions please help
:>me!!!!!!! :)

First, you haven't mentioned your motherboard/bios/memory/cpu configuration.  
If you're running these games from Win95, you need at least 24mb of memory to
make them run well (this is more true for NCR2 than for Quake).  Whether or
not your motherboard and its BIOS allow you to make good use of DMA is also
essential to good performance.

My systems are Tyan Tomcat motherboards, Award BIOS 4.51PG, P5-166 (32mb RAM)
and P5-200 (64mb RAM), both with Reactor cards.  NCR2, ICR2, and Quake are
smooth as glass on these two systems.

/*===================================================*/
 There are three types of lies...
   lies, damn lies, and press releases.

 John Simmons (Redneck Techno-Biker)              

 http://www2.connectnet.com/~jms/  
/*===================================================*/

I was suspect about that card all along.
When you go to their web sight, they
show you a car with all the graphics turned
off then show you a car with all the graphics
turned on and the lead you to believe that
the car with all the graphics turned on
is the car shown with the reactor card. I did
not see a bit of difference in the actual
graphics of the car. check out their sight
and you will see what i mean. Any company
that tries to insult my intelligence like that
will never get my business.
Wally

What you didn't notice was that both versions are running at 30fps.
With the Rendition cards, you can have many more details on than in the
normal version while keeping the same framerate.  By the car, I assume
you mean the***pit.  If you looked, you would have seen evidence of
anti-aliasing and full details in the rear-view mirrors (both of which
are not available in the regular version).  The Rendition cards make a
HUGE difference in ICR2 both in performance and appearance.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://www.racesimcentral.net/~ebusch/

Well, if you really put some thought into what they were trying to illustrate,
you'll probably come to the conclusion that in order to get the same
performance out of the non-accelerated version as with the accelerated
version, they had to turn almost all details off (in the non-accel version).

If you would put some of your intelligence to work, maybe your IQ ego would
not be so easily bruised.

:>I was suspect about that card all along.
:>When you go to their web sight, they
:>show you a car with all the graphics turned
:>off then show you a car with all the graphics
:>turned on and the lead you to believe that
:>the car with all the graphics turned on
:>is the car shown with the reactor card. I did
:>not see a bit of difference in the actual
:>graphics of the car. check out their sight
:>and you will see what i mean. Any company
:>that tries to insult my intelligence like that
:>will never get my business.
:>Wally

:>> Sean's stuff snipped

/*===================================================*/
 There are three types of lies...
   lies, damn lies, and press releases.

 John Simmons (Redneck Techno-Biker)              

 http://www2.connectnet.com/~jms/  
/*===================================================*/

I have a p-133 with 24MB RAM, not sure of the mother board.  I run
renddma in N2 and don't notice a noteable difference from my number nine
card.  Maybe I just have a crappy system :)

Sean

Listen to Eric here.....I am still running a P-100 and with my old Diamond
Stealth 64, I was pulling about 14-18 fps with ICR2, mind you with no
objects, no asphault or grass textures, no horizon, nothing but car
textures and skid marks!!!!  Now, with the Reactor, I run about 21-30 fps
with Everything on.....I mean everything.....This little card has breathes
new life into that ol' P-100!!!  Best investment I made for my computer so
far.....

   Oh yeah, about the screen shots on Intergraph's page.....They don't do
any justice....They're too small for you to see the amazing 3-D effects
that the Reactor pumps out....Nobody's insulting your intelligence, you're
either ignorant to the fact that the Reactor is a blazing fast video card,
or you've been misled by a couple of screen shots....

I've gone through 3 Intergraph Rendition Cards... I can't say it's the
card itself, but I know it doesn't "jive" with my system.  The first
two were "fried" with the new bios' they had on their web page.  The
3rd was sent to me with a preinstalled bios and new drivers.  It was
the worst functioning of the 3 boards I had.  It also cost me a total
of $ 20+ dollars in shipping back the boards so all-in-all... a bad
experience as far as the functioning of the board goes, but their Tech
Support service, to me anyway, is/was FANTASTIC!  They took the time
and patience to see if we couldn't get things working.  
I may be looking at a 3d Blaster from Creative Labs... I'm not sure
that will work in my system either!

I told you that OVERCLOCKING your system to 400MHZ was a bad idea.
(GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG)

Merry Chritmas

Don

I found that the 8-bit versus 4-bit objects really slows the
Reactor frame rate down. I'm running a Tyan TitanIII MB with a
256K cache, 32MB RAM, Pentium 166, and an Intergraph Reactor card.
My DMA rate using DMADIAG is 13.1. Running RENDDMA worked ok, but I
couldn't run Martinsville without turning off the Objects. As a test I
created a 16MB Ramdisk to make N2 see only 16MB of RAM. Now when the
4-bit images load, I can run Martinsville at a full 30fps with all items
turned on.

If Papyrus sees this post, let me know if this makes sense and if there
is a less cumbersome way to run the 4-bit images or improve the 8-bit
frame rate on my system.

At the full 30fps its just like being there. I'm close on several tracks
to beating the Winston Cup record time listed in the game.

Thanks for bringing the racing world home to us.

********************************************************

* Visit my site at - http://www.skyenet.net/~mridgeway *
********************************************************

Your DMA rate could be the problem.   A good score should be in the 50+
range.  See if Tyan has a BIOS upgrade for your MB.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

What kind of DMA scores are you getting?  If you don't have it, get
DMAtest from my webpage.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

 - Mike Boich
Rendition

I have to agree with the other post. I am running a 166 with 32 meg of RAM
ad I was dissapointed in the performance of NASCAR2. I like a lot of detail
and because of it I am good for about 15-18 FPS. I bought a reactor andd
the machine jumped to 30FPS on Indycar and about 28 on NASCAR. I turn all
graphic to on and it is smooth.

Besides, the itergraph people are excellent to deal with. 800 tech support
if you need it, and very friendly. The card bench marks slightly slower
than my 3400 stealth in 2D.

This is honestly the first time EVER that my hardware could stay ahead of
Papyrus/Sierra.

Best $150.00 you can spend. At least with out getting ***.....

RM

Des Moines, Ia