rec.autos.simulators

by **Richard S Becket** » Tue, 14 Sep 2004 19:24:47

Guys,

I'm probably a bit late, here, but I just read about Richard Burns Rally in
the sunday supplement, and it sounds good.

Can anyone tell me how well it will run with:

AMD 2400+, 512 RAM, Win98SE, NVidia Ti4200, MSFF gameport wheel.

Does it have force feedback?

Will I like it ;-)

R.

by **Steve Simpso** » Tue, 14 Sep 2004 22:06:06

I've played it on a 2600+ with a GF3 ti200 and it was playable in 800x600
getting roughly 30fps with a bit of slowdown on some of the more detailed
stages. Should be slightly better with a ti4200 I'd imagine. The odd
person has had issues with Win98 but I'm sure if you've got a reasonably
'clean' installation of Windows you shouldn't have any problems.

I'm not sure how well the force feedback works with MSFF wheels but it's
absolutely sensational on the Logitech Momos that I've played it on. I'm
struggling to think of a game which has better FF...

If you like realistic physics and handling then you'll be extremely
impressed. The game's more about quality than quantity - not many cars or
tracks but those that are there are excellent.

by **Uwe Schürkam** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 04:56:06

> Guys,

> I'm probably a bit late, here, but I just read about Richard Burns Rally in
> the sunday supplement, and it sounds good.

> Can anyone tell me how well it will run with:

> AMD 2400+, 512 RAM, Win98SE, NVidia Ti4200, MSFF gameport wheel.

> Does it have force feedback?

Hi Richard, make sure you don't have a SiS 735 based mobo (like the
ECS K7S5A series). It looks like RBR crashes and BURNS on those
components.

cheers,

uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

by **Malc** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 05:19:36

One of my PCs has an ECS K7S5A mobo in it (cheap but still not good
value imo) running Win2k. I'll give it a go & see how it gets on. These
mobos don't like having more than one DIMM installed, with SDRAM at any
rate.

Malc.

by **Malc** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 07:22:50

> > Hi Richard, make sure you don't have a SiS 735 based mobo (like the
> > ECS K7S5A series). It looks like RBR crashes and BURNS on those
> > components.

> One of my PCs has an ECS K7S5A mobo in it (cheap but still not good
> value imo) running Win2k. I'll give it a go & see how it gets on.
These
> mobos don't like having more than one DIMM installed, with SDRAM at
any
> rate.

Just tried it & it works fine, although the framerate was pretty poor on
an XP2000 & GF4200 at 1024x768 with full details. I didn't bother to try
different settings to improve the framerate, but it worked fine. This PC
has a SBlive value in it too btw.

Grab yourself a copy of Win2k & dual boot Uwe ;-)

Malc.

by **Richard S Becket** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:37:30

That's the thing, the MSFF gameport ties me to W98SE. The thing's so damned
reliable!

Also there's nothing else out there with optics on the wheel, which is a
huge plus.

R.

by **Uwe Schürkam** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:35:57

> Grab yourself a copy of Win2k & dual boot Uwe ;-)

Hi Malc, that won't help because even if should get RBR to run on my
rig, it won't recognize the TSW2 pedals (brake reversed, throttle at
half-on all the time). I tested that yesterday on my son's machine
which runs RBR just fine. I had a similar problem with RT early on
until some kind soul mentioned an ini file to hack in order to get RT
to work with TSW pedals.

Also, for some strange reason the idea of giving MS even more money than
they already have does not seem appealing to me *at all* ;-)

Cheers & thanks for testing RBR on your machine!

Uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

by **Malc** » Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:54:01

> > Grab yourself a copy of Win2k & dual boot Uwe ;-)

> Hi Malc, that won't help because even if should get RBR to run on my
> rig, it won't recognize the TSW2 pedals (brake reversed, throttle at
> half-on all the time). I tested that yesterday on my son's machine
> which runs RBR just fine. I had a similar problem with RT early on
> until some kind soul mentioned an ini file to hack in order to get RT
> to work with TSW pedals.

Bit of an extreme solution for one sim but you could try reversing the
polarity of your pedal pots (swap the wires round). The other sims
/should/ be able to handle the change, although of course that won't
help your combined axis problem. Have you cleared the 'accellerate and
brake' setting in rbr by pressing delete, and just assigning the
'accellerate' and 'brake' controls separately?

Unlike XP, Win2k does not need to be activated, which is the main reason
I've not got XP on any of my PC's, but it will do pretty well anything
XP will do but without the baby talk. PM me if decide to go that way,
although win98 /should/ work ;-)

np, Malc.

by **Uwe Schürkam** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 01:31:15

> Bit of an extreme solution for one sim but you could try reversing the
> polarity of your pedal pots (swap the wires round). The other sims
> /should/ be able to handle the change, although of course that won't
> help your combined axis problem.

I already rewired them back in the f12k days when I was having problems
with *that* sim as you may recall. ;-) Even if I should rewire the
brake axis, that would most likely not solve the "gas is half on"
problem at the slightest touch of the pedal. It's not so bad that it's
half on when I touch the throttle, but it *stays* at half on even if I
take my foot off the pedal. Then again, I did not spend much time with
it at my son's machine last night because I just wanted to check
wether the wheel would work at all.

Yep, I did, because I'd read that here before.

Thanks for your support! While I might get a "valid" win2k license
from work at no cost at all, I am a bit hesitant to "upgrade" my
machine just to be able to start RBR, and with the axis problem left I
think I'll shelve the game for now and wait for the patch (any news if
there's even going to be one?), unless Amazon.de agree to take it back
for a refund (haven't from them yet).

Does w2k have gameport support or will I need to upgrade the TSW2 with
a usb converter and new pots?

cheers & all the best,

uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

by **Plowboy** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 03:54:05

Well UWE,

I read your above, (where you patched the bios and game now runs in 98,
& assumed you would keep it) so I am trying sendit.com

PS (sting32) & Plowboy is same person (me) just different locations, :P

I went to sendit.com

>> Bit of an extreme solution for one sim but you could try reversing
>> the polarity of your pedal pots (swap the wires round). The other
>> sims /should/ be able to handle the change, although of course that
>> won't help your combined axis problem.

> I already rewired them back in the f12k days when I was having
> problems with *that* sim as you may recall. ;-) Even if I should
> rewire the brake axis, that would most likely not solve the "gas is
> half on" problem at the slightest touch of the pedal. It's not so bad
> that it's half on when I touch the throttle, but it *stays* at half
> on even if I take my foot off the pedal. Then again, I did not spend
> much time with it at my son's machine last night because I just
> wanted to check wether the wheel would work at all.

>> Have you cleared the 'accellerate and
>> brake' setting in rbr by pressing delete, and just assigning the
>> 'accellerate' and 'brake' controls separately?

> Yep, I did, because I'd read that here before.

>> Unlike XP, Win2k does not need to be activated, which is the main
>> reason I've not got XP on any of my PC's, but it will do pretty well
>> anything XP will do but without the baby talk. PM me if decide to go
>> that way, although win98 /should/ work ;-)

> Thanks for your support! While I might get a "valid" win2k license
> from work at no cost at all, I am a bit hesitant to "upgrade" my
> machine just to be able to start RBR, and with the axis problem left I
> think I'll shelve the game for now and wait for the patch (any news if
> there's even going to be one?), unless Amazon.de agree to take it back
> for a refund (haven't from them yet).

> Does w2k have gameport support or will I need to upgrade the TSW2 with
> a usb converter and new pots?

> cheers & all the best,

> uwe

by **Tony Rickar** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:03:06

> I already rewired them back in the f12k days when I was having problems
> with *that* sim as you may recall. ;-) Even if I should rewire the
> brake axis, that would most likely not solve the "gas is half on"
> problem at the slightest touch of the pedal. It's not so bad that it's
> half on when I touch the throttle, but it *stays* at half on even if I
> take my foot off the pedal. Then again, I did not spend much time with
> it at my son's machine last night because I just wanted to check
> wether the wheel would work at all.

The answer for me was to calibrate the wheel in control panel with half gas
on as the centre point. This resolved RBR going to half gas at the slightest
touch.

Seems a bit bizarre but the pedals calibrate perfectly this way.

GPL just works perfectly whatever I do...

Cheers
Tony

by **Johannes Climacu** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:16:52

You'll be running at 1024x768x16 with shadow disabled. Mind you 1024x768
in RBR looks much better than LFS or F1C at the same resolution. I think
the GF4 has finally met it's match for sim-racing.

by **Uwe Schürkam** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:46:56

> Well UWE,

> I read your above, (where you patched the bios and game now runs in 98,
> & assumed you would keep it) so I am trying sendit.com

> PS (sting32) & Plowboy is same person (me) just different locations, :P

Yes, this one is a definite keeper, and I hope it'll run out of the
box on your rig. A more than worthy sucessor to RT plus the added
"mod-a-bility", I think we can expect many fun things to appear for
this one in the future (once I get my brake pedal to work, will try
Tony's suggestion when I get the chance ;-)

Cheers & enjoy RBR,

uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

by **Uwe Schürkam** » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:47:44

> PS what bios did you install on the K7S5A? Would be good to know if RBR is ever
> released over here.

Hi Ken,

version 030811 worked just fine. Cheers, uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

by Jo » Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:27:11

> Well UWE,

> I read your above, (where you patched the bios and game now runs in 98,
> & assumed you would keep it) so I am trying sendit.com

> PS (sting32) & Plowboy is same person (me) just different locations, :P

> I went to sendit.com

> >> Bit of an extreme solution for one sim but you could try reversing
> >> the polarity of your pedal pots (swap the wires round). The other
> >> sims /should/ be able to handle the change, although of course that
> >> won't help your combined axis problem.

> > I already rewired them back in the f12k days when I was having
> > problems with *that* sim as you may recall. ;-) Even if I should
> > rewire the brake axis, that would most likely not solve the "gas is
> > half on" problem at the slightest touch of the pedal. It's not so bad
> > that it's half on when I touch the throttle, but it *stays* at half
> > on even if I take my foot off the pedal. Then again, I did not spend
> > much time with it at my son's machine last night because I just
> > wanted to check wether the wheel would work at all.

> >> Have you cleared the 'accellerate and
> >> brake' setting in rbr by pressing delete, and just assigning the
> >> 'accellerate' and 'brake' controls separately?

> > Yep, I did, because I'd read that here before.

> >> Unlike XP, Win2k does not need to be activated, which is the main
> >> reason I've not got XP on any of my PC's, but it will do pretty well
> >> anything XP will do but without the baby talk. PM me if decide to go
> >> that way, although win98 /should/ work ;-)

> > Thanks for your support! While I might get a "valid" win2k license
> > from work at no cost at all, I am a bit hesitant to "upgrade" my
> > machine just to be able to start RBR, and with the axis problem left I
> > think I'll shelve the game for now and wait for the patch (any news if
> > there's even going to be one?), unless Amazon.de agree to take it back
> > for a refund (haven't from them yet).

> > Does w2k have gameport support or will I need to upgrade the TSW2 with
> > a usb converter and new pots?

> > cheers & all the best,

> > uwe

Win 2000 sees the game port just fine here on my TSW . I have the
rockfire thingy and its a pile of poop IMO . Good Pots are a must with
Win 2k and I would use 100K pots . WinXP ?? Why bother ? its just 2000
with more garbage to slow ya down . I would run 98 before I would run
XP