rec.autos.simulators

LWFF, Force RS and Framerate in GPL

Phil Le

LWFF, Force RS and Framerate in GPL

by Phil Le » Thu, 22 Jun 2000 04:00:00

I bought a Force RS and Shifter last Thursday and received it yesterday.  I
have been using it in GPL and whilst I really like the wheel and shifter
combination, I have noticed one significant difference between the Force RS
and my old LWFF in GPL.

With my LWFF I get a rock solid framerate of 36 at 1024x768 with the detail
bias set level with the B of bias, mirrors set to cars and track, and with
drivers arms, driver texture, clouds, smoke, dirt, dynamic lighting and
specular highlights all switched off.  This only dropped at the start of a
race to about 27 fps and once the initial melee had been cleared there was
no change at all at any track.

My system is as follows:  P2 400, 128Mb Ram, V3 2000 (not O/Ced), SB Live!
1024.

With the Force RS, if I use exactly the same graphics settings, I get a very
rapidly changing framerate of between 35 and 37 fps.  I know 37 is out of
the range of GPL normally but that's what it says.  In areas of higher
detail such as Woodcote at Silverstone and the back stretch at Zandy, the
framerate falls away to 30 - 32 fps.  I never had these framerate changes
with the LWFF.  At the start of a race it can drop down to 18-20 at the back
of a 20 car field.  These framerate changes really bug me as I have become
accustomed to smooth graphics in GPL in the 6 months that I have had it.

When I drop the resolution down to 800x600 I still get a jittery framerate
but don't get quite the drops that I do at the higher resolution.

Both the LWFF and Force RS were connected via USB, though not at the same
time.  I have no shared IRQ's and no conflicts reported in the Device
Manager.

I have downloaded the latest drivers for the Force RS (v1.23) and used the
clear all settings utility to tidy the drivers as well.  BTW, I never
installed the drivers from the Force RS CD.

Getting to the point of this post, I was wondering if anyone who has
experience of a Force RS gets the same sort of jittery framerate in GPL and
similar drops in framerate?  Does anyone have any suggestions about how I
can sort this out and enjoy the same graphical performance in GPL with the
Force RS as the LWFF?

Cheers

Phil

--
GPL Rank: +66.44 secs

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

--
GPL Rank: +69.00 secs

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Vintoo

LWFF, Force RS and Framerate in GPL

by Vintoo » Thu, 22 Jun 2000 04:00:00

This is because the LWFF had the least impact on CPU usage out of all the FF
wheels on the market. This gave better framerates. I think the Microsoft
wheel was the CPU hog of the bunch.

Vintook


Zipp

LWFF, Force RS and Framerate in GPL

by Zipp » Fri, 23 Jun 2000 04:00:00

Phil,

I have the same exact setup except for the video card (I have a V2 Banshee).
I run GPL at 1024x768, detail high and get a solid 34-36 fps.  I had
framerate problems when I first started playing a few months ago but since I
started running Enditall, I haven't had any of these issue.

Bruno



rec.autos.simulators is a usenet newsgroup formed in December, 1993. As this group was always unmoderated there may be some spam or off topic articles included. Some links do point back to racesimcentral.net as we could not validate the original address. Please report any pages that you believe warrant deletion from this archive (include the link in your email). RaceSimCentral.net is in no way responsible and does not endorse any of the content herein.