rec.autos.simulators

I got my Reactor yesterday, but have had little time to use it.  I have the
following comments/questions,

- ICR2 was very fast, but Grand Prix 2 is now much slower.  If I set
details to 'auto' in GP2, the detail level is set to minimum.  This is on a
Pentium 133.  Can anything be done about this?  My solution was to go to
manual configuration for graphics.

- Will MicroProse/Rendition work on a patch to make GP2 Rendition Ready?

- How do we paint the 8-bit carsets in IndyCar 2 (Rendition Ready)?  Do we
lose by installing carsets from the net, eg - cars96?

- I understand that Creative Labs is shipping Flight Unlimited with their
Rendition card.  Is this the Win95 version?  In other words, I have Flight
Unlimited for Windows 95.  Is it Rendition Ready?

- Is the following correct? --- a Win95 game that uses Direct Draw is
Rendition Ready.  A Dos app must be tweaked to be Rendition Ready.

Thanks,
-Paul

Eric mentioned that the VGA emulation has been Rendition's achille's heel.
There is supposed to be a patch available soon that may help some games run
5x faster, but will break some others. The patch is switchable, so you can
enable for those games it helps and disable it for those it breaks.

WRT "Rendition-ready", Direct Draw apps will work on a Rendition, but the
real gains come with Direct3D apps. The first apps using Direct3D are just
making their way to the market now, but you should see many more appearing
as we get closer to the holiday season.

DOS apps written to Speedy3D or directly for the Rendition will get the
best gains. Also, apps using VESA 2.0 will be faster, though not nearly as
fast as those written for 3D.

Dave (davids) Sparks
Late Night League
http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

No word on this yet.

Are you kidding me!  Play the damn game,***the paint kit.  (I don't
know)

The Windows95 version doesn't support hardware acceleration so I would
suspect this is a special Rentition version or a CGL version.  I'm still
not sure if you can use CGL games on Reactor, but I don't see why you
wouldn't be able to.

Maybe.  Yes.

CGL games will only work on the 3D Blaster.  Creative Labs controls this
through their BIOS.  Doesn't really matter though, as CGL is practically
dead and I wouldn't expect to find many new releases supporting it over
Rendition's Speedy3D.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

VGA is quite slow on the Rendition cards.  VESA 2.0 SVGA modes however are
quite fast.  There is a 'patch' that Mike Boich is trying to get Rendition
to approve for unsupported release that will allow regular VGA games to
instead use the 320x240 VESA mode.  He said that in 3DBench tests (an old
VGA benchmarking utility) scores went from 30 to 140 using it.

I have no idea, but most future games will either be supporting a 3D card
natively (most likely Rendition or Voodoo) or use Win95's Direct3D.

The 8-bit carset is the same as the sets available on the Internet.  The
4-bit set was a special set made specifically for slower machines.  It
can't be modified with the included paintkit.  I've downloaded a cars96 set
and it works fine with Rendition ICR2.

I think the version that is shipping is the DOS version, but I could be
wrong.  No, your Win95 version is not Rendition Ready.  See below for
details.

No.  The only way a program can be Rendition Ready is if it is written
specifically for the card as Indycar2 is or Nascar2 will be (there is a
whole list of titles on the Reactor homepage
http://www.intergraph.com/ics/reactor).  The Rendition cards will be able
to accelerate any Win95 game that uses Direct3D (not DirectDraw which is
for 2D graphics) as will other 3D cards.  Direct3D is a new standard API
that many games will utilize so that a direct port for each 3D card is not
required.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Don Chapman    

Carved In a Rock Productions

Some clarifications on my original questions,

I am running GP2 in SVGA mode with graphics level sert to 'automatic'.
Previous to installing the Reactor (I had a Matrox Millenium) when I run a
race, my detail level was automatically set to the maximum.  With the
Reactor, my detail level is automatically set to minimum.  I had to go into
the Graphics menu and change from 'automatic' to 'manual'.

Also, I suffered brainfade when typing Direct Draw.  I should have typed
Direct3D.

-Paul

lose by installing carsets from the net, eg - cars96?

Paul,

I had no problem moving in new PPG96 car set into INDYCAR2 and selecting
the car set for new INDY2(3D).   The paintshop I havent played with yet
so I cant answer that question. Older tracks can move over and work
also.

Grand Prix 2 is weird for me also.  I am running a Pentium 150 and the
estamated frame rate drops drastically from 18 to 10-11. Yet when I set
my actual frame rate to 14-16, the occupancy is less than 90% on most
tracks except for Monooco. There is no hope for that track. I have
everything turned on but sky and track( front view) and all turned on
for rear view,set to manual SVGA. With these settings I see no slow
down by myself racing, and normal slowdown at start of races. This was
on Japan, Spain, Austrailia, and Canada.

I hope this helps a little, I dont quite understand the frame rate
numbers now with this new card. I thought they would go up, not down.

Massayard web site news indicated that Microprose is coming out with
new updates in 97, but no indication on graphics speed enhanncments or
what updates are at this time.

Bye for now,

Dave Thayer

Just a quick question, did you remove your old video card from Display
Adapters section of the Device Manager?

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Would anyone mind telling me how much the card goes for?  I've been
unsuccessful in tracking it down up here.

TIA

Right now it's only available through direct order from Intergraph.  Mine
was $216 including tax and shipping.  See
http://www.intergraph.com/ics/reactor for details.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

This fixed mine.  Hope it helps.

The very first time I installed the card I did not, after Having the
video problem I went to Display Adpaters and removed the S3( I had a
#9GxePro card originally) driver entirely. I then removed the
Rendition as well and reinstalled from the drivers from disk but sill
had the same problem. I actually bout two Reactors and in my other
machine it is woking perfectly in Win95. Here are the two
configurations of my machines:

Non-working machine:
Intel P166 Triton II motherboard
Award Bios version (2A59CPAO)
Sound Blaster 16 with CDROM interface and Roland daughtercard
3COM network card
US Robotics DSVD Modem
Win 95 with service pack one installed
Old graphics card was #9GxePro(S3 chip)

Working Machine:
Intel P100 Triton motherboard
Award Bios version (2A59CF2N)
Sound Blaster 16 with CDROM interface
3COM network card
Win95 (no service pack installed)
Old graphics card was Diamond Stelath(S3 chip)

I have since removed all cards from the P166 machine and still have
the same problem. Win95 has never shown any device conflicts. The
IRQ's for the 3Com and SoundBlaster cards are set the same for both
machines. I have also now removed the Win95 service pack from the
non-working machine. Still same problem. I have aslo re-installed 95
on that machine, although I did just overwrite what was in the
existing directory. I am saving a full re-install as a last resort.

Have you noticed the "morphing helmets" in the carsets you've
installed into ICR2 Rendition? I have seen this on both my working and
non-working machine.

Don Chapman

Carved In a Rock Productions

Don Chapman

Carved In a Rock Productions