rec.autos.simulators

by **Tomi Juutilaine** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Ok, help me out here.

I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on the track.

I have tried all available patches (1.1 and 1.2) and so far without any
luck. Last night I fiddled with resolution and details, but those changes did not
really make much of a difference. In 800x600 I get approx. 23 fps with force feedback
on and with FF off I get 32-36 fps. Needless to say that 23 fps can get you in some
serious trouble when rocketing into Eau Rouge or Masta kink. :-)

Any ideas as how to go about this problem?

Hardware:

PII 300
SB Live 1024
Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16 MB
160 MB RAM
MS Sidewinder FF wheel USB (Sidewinder software 4.0)

Thanks.

--Tomi

by **Ace** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Well, FF will always impact the framerate, because of the extra load on the
CPU. You don't say which version of DirectX you're using. Could be a
problem. And turn off some more eye candy, especially driver arms, and some
mirror texture/details. Do you have similar problems with other games as
well, or just GPL?

>Ok, help me out here.

>I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
>exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on
the track.

>I have tried all available patches (1.1 and 1.2) and so far without any
>luck. Last night I fiddled with resolution and details, but those changes
did not
>really make much of a difference. In 800x600 I get approx. 23 fps with
force feedback
>on and with FF off I get 32-36 fps. Needless to say that 23 fps can get you
in some
>serious trouble when rocketing into Eau Rouge or Masta kink. :-)

>Any ideas as how to go about this problem?

>Hardware:

>PII 300
>SB Live 1024
>Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16 MB
>160 MB RAM
>MS Sidewinder FF wheel USB (Sidewinder software 4.0)

>Thanks.

>--Tomi

by **Ashley McConnel** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Tomi.....just a thought, but do you have a BX motherboard. If so I will
nearly guarentee that your chip will run at 450.....at that rate you'll not
have to worry about your fps :). Email me if you have any probs

Ash

|
| Ok, help me out here.
|
| I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
| exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on
the track.
|
| I have tried all available patches (1.1 and 1.2) and so far without any
| luck. Last night I fiddled with resolution and details, but those changes
did not
| really make much of a difference. In 800x600 I get approx. 23 fps with
force feedback
| on and with FF off I get 32-36 fps. Needless to say that 23 fps can get
you in some
| serious trouble when rocketing into Eau Rouge or Masta kink. :-)
|
| Any ideas as how to go about this problem?
|
| Hardware:
|
| PII 300
| SB Live 1024
| Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16 MB
| 160 MB RAM
| MS Sidewinder FF wheel USB (Sidewinder software 4.0)
|
|
| Thanks.
|
| --Tomi

by **Coli** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Unfortunately the Microsoft Wheel is notorious for slowing down games. The
problem is that the FF implementation is very inefficient in CPU cycles.
Apparently every FF instruction uses over one million CPU cycles, where the
LWFF only uses a few thousand. Saying all that, I'm sure that Microsoft
will be addressing the issue. Make sure you are running DirectX 7.0a and
you have downloaded the latest FF drivers from their website.

Good luck,
...Colin

by **BendsMaste** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

On Fri, 7 Apr 2000 11:46:15 -0400, "Colin" <colin AT yourmiata DOT
I have done that Colin and this wheel is worse than the game port
version for cpu cycles/system resources., believe me...

Mauricio.

>Unfortunately the Microsoft Wheel is notorious for slowing down games. The
>problem is that the FF implementation is very inefficient in CPU cycles.
>Apparently every FF instruction uses over one million CPU cycles, where the
>LWFF only uses a few thousand. Saying all that, I'm sure that Microsoft
>will be addressing the issue. Make sure you are running DirectX 7.0a and
>you have downloaded the latest FF drivers from their website.

>Good luck,
>...Colin

>> Ok, help me out here.

>> I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
>> exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on
>the track.

by **BendsMaste** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

The new USB MSFF amazingly enough takes up more resources than the
game port version. I have just bought one and the had significant
framerate loss in GPL. I also have the gameport MSFF and LWFF (the one
I mostly use). Dont ask me how come I've got so many wheels, its a
long story...
But the point here is that the USB MSFF is definitely a no go for GPL,
they have made some minor improvements to the build and the
"notchyness" but overall it performs more or less the same as the
previous version. I am surprised at Micrsoft because the main
complaint about the old MSFF was fps drops in games, now they come up
with something the renders your system to be even slower. I have not
tried other versions of DX with the MSFF but it certainly is very bad
with dx7a. If I take this wheel out and put the LWFF back on than I
can even have higher resolution, whereas with the new MSFF i have to
tweak everything everywhere to get a solid fps. As for online things
get even worse because there is more for your cpu to do.
My advice to anyone is to steer clear of the new MSFF for the time
being until perhaps a better implementation of drivers comes along. To
finalize it, the LWFF is far, far, better for GPL anyway, trust me...

Mauricio.

>Well, FF will always impact the framerate, because of the extra load on the
>CPU. You don't say which version of DirectX you're using. Could be a
>problem. And turn off some more eye candy, especially driver arms, and some
>mirror texture/details. Do you have similar problems with other games as
>well, or just GPL?

>>Ok, help me out here.

>>I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
>>exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on
>the track.

>>I have tried all available patches (1.1 and 1.2) and so far without any
>>luck. Last night I fiddled with resolution and details, but those changes
>did not
>>really make much of a difference. In 800x600 I get approx. 23 fps with
>force feedback
>>on and with FF off I get 32-36 fps. Needless to say that 23 fps can get you
>in some
>>serious trouble when rocketing into Eau Rouge or Masta kink. :-)

>>Any ideas as how to go about this problem?

>>Hardware:

>>PII 300
>>SB Live 1024
>>Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16 MB
>>160 MB RAM
>>MS Sidewinder FF wheel USB (Sidewinder software 4.0)

>>Thanks.

>>--Tomi

by **BendsMaste** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

On Fri, 7 Apr 2000 16:17:16 +0100, "Ashley McConnell"

I use a resolution of 1280x1024 with the LWFF, with the USB MSFF I
have to drop it to 800x600 online so I can race in peace, its just not
good at all.

Mauricio.

>Tomi.....just a thought, but do you have a BX motherboard. If so I will
>nearly guarentee that your chip will run at 450.....at that rate you'll not
>have to worry about your fps :). Email me if you have any probs

>Ash

>|
>| Ok, help me out here.
>|
>| I just bought this new FF wheel and everything is working fine without one
>| exception - GPL became so slow that it's downright impossible to stay on
>the track.
>|
>| I have tried all available patches (1.1 and 1.2) and so far without any
>| luck. Last night I fiddled with resolution and details, but those changes
>did not
>| really make much of a difference. In 800x600 I get approx. 23 fps with
>force feedback
>| on and with FF off I get 32-36 fps. Needless to say that 23 fps can get
>you in some
>| serious trouble when rocketing into Eau Rouge or Masta kink. :-)
>|
>| Any ideas as how to go about this problem?
>|
>| Hardware:
>|
>| PII 300
>| SB Live 1024
>| Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16 MB
>| 160 MB RAM
>| MS Sidewinder FF wheel USB (Sidewinder software 4.0)
>|
>|
>| Thanks.
>|
>| --Tomi

by **Tomi Juutilaine** » Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:00:00

> Tomi.....just a thought, but do you have a BX motherboard. If so I will
> nearly guarentee that your chip will run at 450.....at that rate you'll not
> have to worry about your fps :). Email me if you have any probs

> Ash

Unfortunately I don't have a BX motherboard. I checked the documentation that
came with the computer and according to that documentation my computer can run
at 333 MHz (max). That would not be much of a help.

Oh, well. I guess I need to start saving up for a faster computer. :-)

--Tomi

by **Tomi Juutilaine** » Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:00:00

> Unfortunately the Microsoft Wheel is notorious for slowing down games. The
> problem is that the FF implementation is very inefficient in CPU cycles.
> Apparently every FF instruction uses over one million CPU cycles, where the
> LWFF only uses a few thousand. Saying all that, I'm sure that Microsoft
> will be addressing the issue. Make sure you are running DirectX 7.0a and
> you have downloaded the latest FF drivers from their website.

> Good luck,
> ...Colin

Hmm...Usually the latest model has major improvements and enhanced features.
Apparently Microsoft has a different strategy in their research department.

I checked Microsoft's web site and the latest software for Sidewinder was 3.02.
Since the software that was provided with the wheel was 4.0 I did not download
that update. I believe that the 4.0 is for USB only. Let's hope MS will release
better drivers for all us USB wheel users.

--Tomi

by **Jon Brooke** » Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Just a letter of agreement - a friend with athlon 500 just replaced a broken
ms ff wheel(gameport) with a usb version of the same wheel - his framerate
dropped from a rock steady 36fps to about 25, and even 12fps on some grids.
This is completely reversed if ff is turned off in core.ini.

This has rendered gpl totally unplayable with ff, and I find it very sloppy
of microsoft.

Could anyone tell me if this is just ***microsoft being ***again or are
all USB wheels much slower than gamepor counterparts - all wheels seem to be
USB these days so is it worth him replacing the wheel until he can afford a
faster computer?
TIA for replies..

> > Unfortunately the Microsoft Wheel is notorious for slowing down games.
The
> > problem is that the FF implementation is very inefficient in CPU cycles.
> > Apparently every FF instruction uses over one million CPU cycles, where
the
> > LWFF only uses a few thousand. Saying all that, I'm sure that Microsoft
> > will be addressing the issue. Make sure you are running DirectX 7.0a
and
> > you have downloaded the latest FF drivers from their website.

> > Good luck,
> > ...Colin

> Hmm...Usually the latest model has major improvements and enhanced
features.
> Apparently Microsoft has a different strategy in their research
department.

> I checked Microsoft's web site and the latest software for Sidewinder was
3.02.
> Since the software that was provided with the wheel was 4.0 I did not
download
> that update. I believe that the 4.0 is for USB only. Let's hope MS will
release
> better drivers for all us USB wheel users.

> --Tomi

rec.autos.simulators

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder

GPL: frame rates and Sidewinder