rec.autos.simulators

Some were good, some were bad. I wonder what it is that makes a great
game? So many games now come lavishly packaged with hours of FMV
sequences, movie actor voice-overs etc, and sod all game underneath.
Others are far more simplistic in their presentation, but are actually
better games.

I agree fully that highly detailed SVGA graphics help in willing the
suspension of disbelief, but they are certainly no substitute for good
gameplay. F1GP is an inherently simple polygon based game, and yet it is
the star in my collection. It may not be much to look at, but it is a
thundering good game. Screamer, on the other hand, with its lavish SVGA
and 'pounding' (their words, not mine) soundtrack, is not fit to be
installed on the same hard-drive. Why? Because its just not a good game.

The problem is exacerbated by the demands that highly complex graphics
place upon computers. Nowadays, you really must have a pentium of one
description or another to get the most out of new games. This I think is
a shame. Many motor racing enthusiasts don't own pentiums, and as such
are denied the delights of some awesome games. An example of this is the
Need for Speed. Although not a heavyweight simulator, I enjoy it
thoroughly as light relief between seasons in ICR2. But have you played
it in VGA mode? This has to be the worst ever VGA mode I have seen. ICR2
is not too bad in VGA, but NFS is virtually unplayable because
everything is so undefined. It seems to me as if the VGA mode was tacked
on as an afterthought to placate 486 owners, without actually putting a
lot of effort into making it _useful_ for 486 owners.

I think there is a disturbing trend amongst software publishers to
produce the most visually stunning games they can, with the buzzwords
'multimedia' and 'full motion video' splashed all over the box, without
giving as much thought as is necessary to the actual mechanics of the
game. A high powered pentium is _not_ necessary to play a detailed
driving simulator, it only becomes necessary due to the graphical
complexity that is dumped on top.

It is my opinion that graphical intricacy should only be an adjunct to a
game. If you can turn all the texture mapping off, run the game in VGA
and still think 'Wow! This is a cool game!' then you really do have a
great game. Anything else is just window dressing.

What say you?

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*             Paul L. Finnemore - Apprentice Veterinarian             *

*    "Being paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you"    *
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I like a game (sim really), that lets me learn and experience something about a
subject. I think Nascar, ICR2, and F1GP do this. no neither is perfect, but I
have to make mostly the same decisions that the real drivers have to do, not
come up with gamey workarounds or cheats.

Well, the graphics have to assist in making the sim function properly as a sim,
but not supplant it's reason for being. It seems that game developers are
always developing for the next platform instead of optimizing for the current
one, which is a shame. You'd think that they could be able to do both. That's
why I do like the customizable graphics of something like ICR2 and Nascar.
While you need a P133 to run everything on, you don't need everything on to
attain the suspension of belief (frame rate), necessary to put your self in the
shoes of the drivers. (A good flight sim does this too)  I do however think
graphics are very important to this process, AS LONG AS THE UNDERLYING PHYSICS
are there to support a proper simulation.

Los

I couldn't have said it better myself. Maybe the pendullem will begin
to swing back in the opposite direction and designers will start to
subscribe to the Keep it simple stupid philosophy aka KISS. By doing
this they will spend there time on making better AI and producing more
efficent and faster gameplay rather than tediously detial graphics that
slow down even the pentiums. When I am flying around the track at
Rockingham I am not concerned with wether i can count the blades of
grass or not. (that wont make me go faster) Hopfully the industry gurus
have their ears on.

J Mark

I say the SVGA graphics adds somthing special to a racing sim.

Lets take Indycar Racing 1 and 2.

I have been playing V1 for a while and I thought this game is
awesome, then i played V2 under SVGA and thought, now this is
and awesome game, even better than the first Version.

I agree that hi-res graphics slows a machine down, but even
playing v2 with nearly all detail turned off meant I had a better
sense of speed than V1, and so it was more exciting, and in
my opinion a better simulator of racing a beast around a race track.

It really sucks when a game crawls on your machine just because it
has some bullshit background that you dont even _look_ at while
you are flying through a chicane at 150kph!

So why bother with the scenery, or objects or rubbish that just slows
the game down.  Like I said before, I played V2 of Indycar with nearly
no detail, but in SVGA mode, so it was more realistic in terms of
the driving characteristics for the cars on the tracks I played, so
it is heaps more fun than playing the game in vga mode with all detail
turned on!

I run Need4SPeed on my DX4-100 and it doesnt go slow at all.  This
is _not_ a Pentium, so I dont see why everyone says you need a pentium
to play the game.

I only use a Trident 1mb video card, so I figure if I had a Diamond
Stealth it might be even better, but I dont have the cash, like every
other computer owner, so I wont be upgrading my machine till the pentium
200mhz machine is the standard. :(

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