rec.autos.simulators

In case anyone is thinking about upgrading from a 486DX280 for the
express purpose of running NASCAR Racing, here is some unbiased
information.

I test drove NASCAR Racing in a Pentium 120 with only a 1MB DRAM PCI
video card and I got 25 fps with no textures on except car textures.  I
was drawing 20 cars ahead.  I usually get only 14 fps on my 486DX280.

I bought a Pentium 133 with a Tyan Titan III 512K Pipe Burst Cache
Motherboard.  I suspect I'll be pleased with it.   This fall I'll
upgrade my video card to something of the 64bit and/or 3D variety once I
determine which one is best.

We'll have to see if the increased CPU power improves my lap speeds.

David Martin
IVL Series Director
hawaii dgm26sam
IVGA 3838

Eric Giles

Two things David...

Firstly a P-100 or P-133 would give better performance than the P-120.
NASCAR is trying to shovel a heck of a lot of graphics info through the
PCI bus, and the P-120 is 10% slower than the P-100 and P-133 (30Mhz
instead of 33).

Secondly, a fast video card will make the difference of several fps over
a "vanilla" 1Mb PCI. Try a Hercules Stingray PCI (2Mb EDO-DRAM), or even
the new Hercules 128 - either of these will seriously improve your frame
rate, and aren't too expensive.

Cheers!
John

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I got my P133 on a Tyan Titan III 512K Pipe Burst Cache home and I get
30 fps with a full field.  All graphics on, but only car textures.  This
is sufficient for me.  I don't care to see the grandstands full yet.
That is good news about the Rendition 3D chip.  I'm looking forward to
that.

One problem though with mine that I wonder if anyone else has
experienced.  This never happened before I upgraded my CPU.  I qualified
36th at Pocono and when the race started, my car was placed in the field
right on top of another car.  It instantly causes a wreck.  I tried
again and the same thing happened.  I requalified 17th and something
else happened.  The race started fine, but one car in the outside row
wouldn't move and noone behind them could pass.  They were still sitting
there when the inside line took the green flag.  I've never seen this
happen before.  Has anyone else experienced this?

David Martin

Some are 30 Mhz bus and some are 33 Mhz bus?
30 = 60,  90, 120, 150
33 = 66, 100, 133, 166, 200
Is it that simple?  Upgrade paths follow bus speeds?

Games like NASCAR are more sensitive to bus speed than processor
speed?

You said a P100 is better than a P120.  
What about a P150 -vs- P100?

Is this a science or just practical experience?
--
Best Wishes!!!
Robert Huggins
Raleigh, NC

Eric Giles

:)

Correct. Actually the BEST upgrade path is to buy the 60Mhz part, and
overclock it to the 66Mhz part (buy a P-120 and and run it at 133). that
way you get the cheaper price AND the faster speed :)

Well, that's a tricky one. Obviously having a P180 (60mhz) will be far
better than having a P-66 (66Mhz), but generally it's not a good idea to
target a 60Mhz bus. It also depends what video card you have, some are
very sensitive to a 60Mhz bus and give lower performance (Matrox), and
others still give a linear performance improvement (Herc Stingray for
example).

The 150 will be better, in the order of 30% although I haven't actually
got any figures on it (you'll notice that it SHOULD be 50% faster, but
actually it will be a lot less than that because you're losing out on
the bus and PCI speeds.

Cheers!
John
                      _________________________________
          __    _____|                                 |_____    __
_________|  |__|    :|          John Wallace           |     |__|  |_________

  \     :|  |::|    :|       Team WW Racing TSW        |     |::|  |      /
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  /     :|__|::|____:/         Sim Racing News         \.____|::|__|      \
/_______:/  \::/ http://sneezy.dcn.ed.ac.uk/simnews/index.htm\::/  \._______\

Thanks for any info.

Ron

At Talladega, I have seen zilch for increases.  The Pentium has not
helped at all, just as I suspected.  Most tracks where my speeds went up
are tracks where the frame rate was lower.  Talladega just eludes me to
no end.  My best is 194.6xx.  Good enough to make the field 90% of the
time I'm sure but I hate looking at secondary sponsor plates. :-)

David Martin