rec.autos.simulators

by **Archer, HogPil** » Mon, 01 Sep 1997 04:00:00

says...

I would be happy with Direct3D or OpenGL support. Writing to a
specific proprietary API is what got them into the "verite only"
mindset to begin with.

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by Jo » Mon, 01 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>business sense. I'd rather see Papyrus concentrate on their new products
>than their old ones anyway. I'm sure that all of their new games (SODA
>isn't really a Papyrus product AFAIK) will support 3Dfx (at least as D3D).

But SODA does NOT support 3dfx. Niether does Red Baron 2, another
upcoming Sierra release. Face it, Sierra is way behind the curve for
3d card support. Only EA is as bad as Sierra, these too are tied for
last place. Utterly pathetic and inexcusable when you consider the
kinds of resources they have.

Joe

by **pundit** » Mon, 01 Sep 1997 04:00:00

> >business sense. I'd rather see Papyrus concentrate on their new products
> >than their old ones anyway. I'm sure that all of their new games (SODA
> >isn't really a Papyrus product AFAIK) will support 3Dfx (at least as D3D).

> But SODA does NOT support 3dfx. Niether does Red Baron 2, another
> upcoming Sierra release. Face it, Sierra is way behind the curve for
> 3d card support. Only EA is as bad as Sierra, these too are tied for
> last place. Utterly pathetic and inexcusable when you consider the
> kinds of resources they have.

> Joe

Actually, EA is going whole hog into 3dfx accleration with their upcoming
sports games. They even have a sizeable investment in 3dfx Corp.(not long
before the IPO), though you're right that they were very cautious in
approaching 3D acceleration (not a suprise since their titles reach a very
broad base). I believe their Win 95 Andretti Racing and NHL 98 will
support 3dfx, at least that's what I heard around the time of E3.

by **Rich Sco** » Tue, 02 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>says...
>> What I dont understand is how Sierra can support 3DFX in some of its other
>> titles, racing included, and not in Nascar2? I have read they will support
>> 3DFX in the upcoming Grand Prix Legends. WHY NOT in Nascar2?????? By the
>> way I do own a Rendition card . I just dont want it as my 2D card. All I
>> use it for is Nascar2.

>I would be happy with Direct3D or OpenGL support. Writing to a
>specific proprietary API is what got them into the "verite only"
>mindset to begin with.

I'd prefer OpenGL, vs MS crappy Proprietary 3D garbage. If you see
what ID has been able to do in Quake with OpenGL, it's obviously the
way to go.

Richard

by **Dirtb** » Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>"If you see what - *ack* those French blokes - have been able to do in
>MotoRacer with Direct3D, it's obviously the way to go"

I think MotoRacer is great, just bought the full version this weekend,
*but* I don't think it's a great tester of the merits of D3D.
It's a "walled" driver, just like Need For Speed. It isn't acutally
doing much rendering. It ought to be fast.
As a counterpoint, look at the Mercenaries D3D patch.
It gets dog-slow when there is a lot of action on screen, even on
Pentium 200's.
I have a 166, and my frame rate drops from 45 to below 10 with 3 enemy
mechs on screen. It's pathetic.

My point is, that there is just too wide a performance disparity in
the D3D titles right now. Are MotoRacer and Mercs the "exceptions to
the rule", the best and worst we'll see? Dunno... Who can say?
It also remains to be seen if the DX5 D3D performance increase
(Draw Primitive, or whatever) will be for real.

I will say that I haven't seen any D3D title except MotoRacer that
impressed me with its performance.
Monster Truck Madness and Hellbender both ran much slower than I
expected. Flying Corps is pretty good, but not great.
Lots of goofy twitches and pauses.
In my experience, the D3D games are allowing me to run at the same
frame rate with nicer graphics, while the direct ports have both the
nice graphics and a 50% increase in speed.

I was hoping SODA was going to be D3D, since it would give us a good
idea about D3D for racing games/sims.
Framerate is very important in driving sims, and I've only seen D3D
deliver the goods once in about 6 games, and in that one case, it
wasn't a very demanding game.

--

by **Richard Bingl** » Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:00:00

> doesn't like it, therefore it must be crap". Also, OpenGL is SGI's
> proprietary API. There is definitely an issue regarding MS's refusal
> to support OpenGL properly, but that doesn't make one API better than
> any other.

According to www.opengl.org, Microsoft is a member of the
Architectural Review Board for OpenGL. In fact, Microsoft is one of
the five permanent members of the ARB (the ARB currently has seven
member companies). IRIS GL was SGI's proprietary API, but OpenGL
(which isn't even fully compatible with IRIS GL) is a licensed open
technology.

Dept. of Computer Sciences http://www.cs.purdue.edu/people/bingle
Purdue University (765) 494-0893
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1398

by Jo » Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>Actually, EA is going whole hog into 3dfx accleration with their upcoming
>sports games. They even have a sizeable investment in 3dfx Corp.(not long
>before the IPO), though you're right that they were very cautious in
>approaching 3D acceleration (not a suprise since their titles reach a very
>broad base). I believe their Win 95 Andretti Racing and NHL 98 will
>support 3dfx, at least that's what I heard around the time of E3.

You're right, EA is slowly getting with the program. Sierra, though,
there the slowest, most backwards ... it's very annoying.

Joe

by **Ken Nicols** » Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>I'd prefer OpenGL, vs MS crappy Proprietary 3D garbage.

Have you programmed to either API? If not, how can you draw a
comparison other than by the second-hand comment of "John Romero
doesn't like it, therefore it must be crap". Also, OpenGL is SGI's
proprietary API. There is definitely an issue regarding MS's refusal
to support OpenGL properly, but that doesn't make one API better than
any other.

"If you see what - *ack* those French blokes - have been able to do in
MotoRacer with Direct3D, it's obviously the way to go"

Both these statements have equal merit, IMO.

Ken
--

#include <disclaim>

by **Ken Nicols** » Wed, 03 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>>"If you see what - *ack* those French blokes - have been able to do in
>>MotoRacer with Direct3D, it's obviously the way to go"

>I think MotoRacer is great, just bought the full version this weekend,
>*but* I don't think it's a great tester of the merits of D3D.
>It's a "walled" driver, just like Need For Speed. It isn't acutally
>doing much rendering. It ought to be fast.
>As a counterpoint, look at the Mercenaries D3D patch.
>It gets dog-slow when there is a lot of action on screen, even on
>Pentium 200's.
>I have a 166, and my frame rate drops from 45 to below 10 with 3 enemy
>mechs on screen. It's pathetic.

Yes, I've heard it's terrible.

However, it all depends on how much effort people put in to rewriting
the code for 3D support. It speaks volumes for the design of Quake
that the OpenGL version works so well, except for large open areas. It
would be interesting to see a D3DQuake just to see how different the
performance is.

I think we have to wait for titles that were *designed* for hardware
3D, rather than having 3D tacked on the end. Ubisoft's F1 looks
promising, and Wipeout 20xx also looked great, although I've never
played it to comment on speed.

I think all these had software 3D with D3D tacked on at the end. Just
like any bit of hardware, every year sees better exploitation of the
APIs, and more tricks learnt for eeking out a few extra FPS.

There's probably also a lot of scope for improving the D3D and OpenGL
drivers. Wasn't there a guy doing a 3DFX-specific full GL driver for
Quake, reporting huge frame rate speed-ups until he got squashed by
someone's legal department?

I've not played enough D3D/3DFX games to comment. From a software
developer point of view, a common API, D3D or OpenGL, is going to sell
a whole lot more than a chipset-targeted port.

Maybe Rendition have a deal with Papy, where they pay Papy $x to write
for their chips only? With things like Nascar being huge sellers,
Rendition must be picking up a good number of sales on the back of it.

Agreed, Motoracer is an excellent blast, but it's hardly tasking on my
brain or the computer's! I want to see all games adopting a
hardware-independant API, whether D3D or OGL, so that if I decide to
upgrade to a different 3D chipset, all my games don't stop working. I
just get a bit annoyed when people say D3D sucks because John Romero
said so.

Ken
--

#include <disclaim>

by **Jim Sokolof** » Thu, 04 Sep 1997 04:00:00

> >business sense. I'd rather see Papyrus concentrate on their new products
> >than their old ones anyway. I'm sure that all of their new games (SODA
> >isn't really a Papyrus product AFAIK) will support 3Dfx (at least as D3D).
> But SODA does NOT support 3dfx. Niether does Red Baron 2, another
> upcoming Sierra release. Face it, Sierra is way behind the curve for
> 3d card support. Only EA is as bad as Sierra, these too are tied for
> last place. Utterly pathetic and inexcusable when you consider the
> kinds of resources they have.

You make a very interesting point, in a somewhat backwards way... How
did the two biggest (and probably most profitable) computer game
companies get to be so big and profitable? By continually making sound
business decisions? Probably...

---Jim

by **papa..** » Fri, 05 Sep 1997 04:00:00

Well also because they are big they move slow....consider that EA is
going to be supporting the 3dfx chip with almost all new games...

I have not purchased Nascar2 because of its lack of support of the
3dfx...they dont want to support it and want to have an exclusive
Rendition deal fine...just dont expect my money, small thing I know
but sure are alot of 3dfx owners out there....

Pierre

by **Greg Cisk** » Sat, 06 Sep 1997 04:00:00

Actually Nascar2 has a great framerate even on a P5-166. 3D is not
really needed. Believe it or not.

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by Jo » Sat, 06 Sep 1997 04:00:00

>> I have not purchased Nascar2 because of its lack of support of the
>> 3dfx...they dont want to support it and want to have an exclusive
>Actually Nascar2 has a great framerate even on a P5-166. 3D is not
>really needed. Believe it or not.

Not. I have a P200, and while N2 is better than most unaccelerated
software, it would benefit greatly from 3dfx support. I could turn
many mroe graphic details on, and the increased frame-rate would make
the game that much better.

Joe

by **Greg Cisk** » Sat, 06 Sep 1997 04:00:00

> >> I have not purchased Nascar2 because of its lack of support of the
> >> 3dfx...they dont want to support it and want to have an exclusive

> >Actually Nascar2 has a great framerate even on a P5-166. 3D is not
> >really needed. Believe it or not.

> Not. I have a P200, and while N2 is better than most unaccelerated
> software, it would benefit greatly from 3dfx support. I could turn
> many mroe graphic details on, and the increased frame-rate would make
> the game that much better.

Well maybe my P5-166 is setup better than your P5-200? Or maybe you
are running in Win95? I am re-booting to DOS. I have all the graphics details
maxed, draw 12 cars infront, 4 behind and it is just fine in 640x480. Very
smooth in fact (not just tolerable). I agree 3D may give a better framerate
but it will not make or break N2 if you have a P5-166 (or even P5-133).
Plus the current 3D implementation of N2 leaves something to be desired
in the eyecandy department. It does not kick ass in the eyecandy department
like IndyCar 2 does. Right? What was it that they left out, bi-linear filtering
or perspective correction or something?

BTW, I agree 100% with the 3DFX support. I certainly will not purchase
a Rendition card just for Papyrus games. 3DFX is much more supported.
I am hoping it becomes the type of standard that SoundBlaster is.

3D 101:

If Papyrus starts producing games which require 3D support, it had better
be 3DFX. I have found that just because a 3D card has Direct3D drivers
does not mean a game will work with your 3D card. Flying Corps has
Direct3D support now. I have a Diamond Stealth 3D 3000 which has
Direct3D properly installed. Flying Corps would not work in 3D mode.
I found out from the game programmer and Diamond that my card is
not really a 3D card. Close but not quite. Diamond says it is 3D in
name only. Luckily I have no intention of using this card for a serious
3D card. I have it because of superior 2D performance. But since I
haven't gotten a 3DFX card yet, and my Stealth 3D had Direct3D
drivers I thought I would try that Direct3D game. Apparently if the
card will support certain Direct3D calls, it will work. Just because
you have a so-called 3D card with Direct3D drivers, does not mean
it will work with Direct3D games.
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by **Tiitus Tammin** » Tue, 09 Sep 1997 04:00:00

:>I would be happy with Direct3D or OpenGL support. Writing to a
:>specific proprietary API is what got them into the "verite only"
:>mindset to begin with.

:I'd prefer OpenGL, vs MS crappy Proprietary 3D garbage. If you see
:what ID has been able to do in Quake with OpenGL, it's obviously the
:way to go.

There are great looking and moving Direct3D games (demos) as well,
for instance G-Police. Also, it is said at the moment Direct3D 5.0
may actually be faster than OpenGL on Wintel machines, because
the D3D drivers different 3D accelerators have are closer to the
metal than existing OpenGL drivers (including 3Dfx's mini-GL driver),
which are merely some "wrappers" around 3D cards' proprietary APIs,
like 3Dfx's WinGlide.

Anyways, it seems we will be getting great looking Direct3D and
OpenGL games, so I don't care which API the games use, as long as
most 3D cards have working drivers for both APIs.