rec.autos.simulators

Back in 1995 I and several of my friends began pestering Papyrus to
adapt its ICR2 engine to sims covering the golden age of open wheel
racing. The vote was pretty well evenly split between the '67 F1 season
and the contemporary Indy rear engine revolution, with the latter group
holding only the slimmest of margins.
  Well, we got our wish, which only goes to prove that you REALLY should
be very careful when asking for something. Instead of an improved open
wheel sim, what we have here is an overengineered, poorly optimized,
buggy, unrealistic monstrosity that requires a 32 meg 220+ MMX system
with a state of the art graphics card to deliver anything approaching an
acceptable frame rate. Can you say RED BARON II? Sure you can, and so
will the bean counters at the new and improved Sierra when the sales
figures start trickling in.
  People, this shit has got to stop. I've been using computers since the
days when I had to sit on a telephone book to program basic games on a
48k Atari 800, and it seems the PC industry suffers from a chronic
mental defect that causes it to repeat the same old mistakes over and
over again.
  What I'm talking about is the law of diminishing returns, a rock
solid, fundamental principle that applies to everything from hitting a
baseball to global macroeconomics. Simply put, when the time and money
invested in activity escalates without a proportional increase in
returns, you cut bait and run.
  Trip Hawkins learned this lesson the hard way, and so have several
other corporate mainstays over the past few years. How many can you
name? I can think of about thirty once powerful companies that refused
to learn from past mistakes and are now nothing more than footnotes in a
few game fans' obscure histories. And the trend towards self gleeful
extinction among the industry's self proclaimed leaders is getting
worse. If you don't believe me, check out the econonmics. Software sales
of new product are down and will continue to drop, yet PC's in the uder
$1000 market are at an all time high. catch the discrepancy? If not,
maybe you should apply for a job at Sierra or Lucas Arts, at least while
they're still around.
  Over the past five years I've purchased three new computers sytems and
gone through God knows how many upgrades, and it's time to stop. It's
not just a question of staying ahead of the hardware curve any
more--that's clearly impossible--but one of simple common sense. Anyone
who has a copy of MAME or CALLUS on their hard drive knows exactly what
I'm talking about. Good luck to the rest of you. You're going to need
it.

  While it is true, we can only guess what GPL will run like in final
form,   we can look at what they have released.  My gargantuan system is a
P200mmx which cost $135, an old Asus MB $105, and a Diamond Stealth II ,
$99.    On that system, I run the demo at 800x600 with AA and all the
graphics...doesn't seem bad at all.  I don't feel this sim will require very
much more than what we run N2 on.  (but that is a guess)
  I really don't see your comparison to RBII.  After all on the major issue
of graphics,  they waffled back and forth whether RB would be 3d or not.
Strange but GPL is Rendition and 3dfx right out of the box...and possible
D3d as well.  Seems they have that covered as well..
  If your gonna get this bent out of shape over a pre-release "demo"..then I
can only suggest Ridge Racer on a Play Station..
dave henrie

GPL is Alpha...I, for one, hope this excelleration of the technology-
roller-coaster never stops...It's too much damn fun!  =)

Cheers!

Marc

(please remove '_*_' when replying)

Sim Racing News - http://www.simnews.com
The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com

* No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail *

 I hope you feel better. I for one want computers be faster and performance
in all respects to improve as fast as possible. I'm sorry if some people
can't keep up with the onslought of technology. I am reminded of a saying my
father used to use on me while I was growing up-
"You either run with the Big Dogs, or stay on the porch."
    Me, I'm running like to hell to keep up, you gotta admit, it's a helluva
ride <ggg.>
        All the best, Mike

--
Michael S. Davis
Creative Media-Works
Computer/Audio/Video Convergence
"from Creative minds spring Creative solutions."
http://www.creativemedia-works.com

I agree with you 100%. I just bought my last system a Micron P300 II. Just
to add to what you wrote. The guys at id are telling us "WHAT WE WILL NEED"
to run Quake III. This has begun to surpass the reasoning that Computer
Games are an expensive hobby. It's getting to be comical. I'm getting the
remainder of the games that my system will run acceptably and then i'm
packing it in.

I've been an avid gamer since '92 and i've blown alot of money. It's a good
thing i've lost interest in *** over the years. It's just not the same,
expensive computer hardware to run unoriginal, uninteresting, unfinished,
and buggy games. My comments are in general. I still like the Papyrus
stuff, but I know i'll pass on GPL not because of what i'm reading, but
only because it doesn't interest me.

-The Rodster

ps These are just my comments and i'm not interested in a flame war. OTOH I
welcome your opinion.

Ummm, I don't wish to rain on your parade, or even to pour cold water on
your harangue, but it *HAS* been mentioned here, many times, that we are
looking at and playing with a "demo" that has been created from a
developmental tool, and a rather oldish one at that.

 that requires a 32 meg 220+ MMX system

Well, in that case, stop buying new systems.
But don't expect technological development and consumerism to come to a
grinding halt as well.

Since 1991 I have owned the following......
C-64; Amiga; PC386SX; PC386DX; PC486; PC486DX; PC486DX2; P-100; P-166;
P-266.  That's 10 different systems in 8 years....you work out what that
averages to per annum.
In addition to the above, add things like sound cards, video cards, extra
memory, bigger hard drives, more hard drives, CDRs, new software, etcetera
and etecetera.

But I don't mind one little bit........the new technology is fantastic, the
new sims are fantastic and the enjoyment level continues at a high level.

Every person who has a hobby/sport/special interest expects to pay in order
to continue following their particular interest.  Every person who has a
VCR, stereo system, TV etc. expects to want to update every few years.
Those who use their computer equipment more for entertainment rather than
word processing are no different.

-------
Bruce.

What are you talking about? RB2 doesn't even support 3d accelerators
yet, that's a whole different issue.

Get yourself a Playstation, if you don't want upgradeable hardware.
'Cause the rest of the world isn't going to come to a stop just
because you don't feel like upgrading your PC anymore.

Actually, with the introduction of cheap and plentiful 3D
accelerators, that's probably easier to do than it ever has been. Not
saying it's cheap, but 3D graphical processing power is much cheaper
than it use to be. That's a GOOD thing.

Joe

on his pocket calculator.

    Are you saying that cpu etc tech should stall. And we should play
GP2/ICR2 forever? Why post this stuff? You have an obvious case of not
getting a big enough buzz out of computer games/sims anymore to warrant
the monetary outlay. So what? I would expect that when new software hits
the shelves it should be able to be used with state of the art
equiptment with full graphics options at a good? fps. When GPL is
released there will probably be PII500's.
     I will conceed however that intel, etc seem to be asking a bit too
much extra for what amounts to "tiny" 33mhz improvements.

l8er
ronny

--
Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure,
kiddo?"

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Another fundamental rule is that when you can't tell the difference
between Pole Position on a 48k Atari 800 and GPL on a 3dFX equipped
X86 system you are either blind or dead.

There is an even more simple rule - if it upsets you....don't buy it.
Then it becomes Papy's problem to judge whether you are in a minority
ot not, although the answer to that is pretty obvious to anyone on the
group.

Cheers!
John

Hi John,

I'll never understand how you and Rik can waste so much time in this NG. You
could have much better discussions over in Sprtsims, would get attacked
less, would certainly hear more fact-based argument as well...

Achim

I find that these days I'm not interested in "games" as such at all. In
previous years -- when almost everything was new, novel, or just a lot
better/prettier than before -- I played a lot of things I didn't have a
lot of interest in. I mean, I'm sure a sideways scrolling shoot em up is
still good fun, but I can't see myself ever bothering to spend time
getting through a whole game (or even level) again. I still buy magazines
occasionally and look through the latest batch of demos, but my HD tends
to contain the best examples of the driving, flying, and shooting genres.
Quake, Su27, and GPL are the only things I play regularly... though since
GPL the others haven't had much of a look in.

Another important point is that my interest in Quake and Su27 have been
stimulated and kept alive in the long term by multiplayer support. I look
forward to GPL doing the same for my driving, as there's been no decent
multiplayer racing support in the UK so far.

Basically I update my hardware so I can get maximum pleasure (and bang for
buck) out of these titles. When I stop enjoying them, and the experiences
they can offer, I'll stop upgrading. So far though, I've relished every
step of the journey towards getting a realistic experience on this screen
before me. It'll never replace the real thing, but if we all tried this
stuff for real the industry'd collapse in a matter of weeks... we'd all be
dead or in hospital :-)

Andrew McP... who spent a lot of pocket money on Space Invaders

On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:29:24 +0200, Ronald Stoehr

With a  PII-233 and a Voodoo2, the final version of GPL with full AI
and the all graphics options turned "on",  will run in the range of
20-25 fps.  

With this configuration, the demo runs at around 30-40 fps (without
AI).

Marc.

--------
To replay via e-mail, remove "spam." from the beginning
of my e-mail address (Tyring to avoid junk mail)

% My prediction:

% With a  PII-233 and a Voodoo2, the final version of GPL with full AI
% and the all graphics options turned "on",  will run in the range of
% 20-25 fps.  

% With this configuration, the demo runs at around 30-40 fps (without
% AI).

That's odd, because I could swear that GPL isn't even getting close to
30-40 fps in the current demo with VooDoo2 and a PII-300.  I would
guestimate the frame rate to be about half that with all detail turned
on.  While it's smooth, smooth doesn't mean fast.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

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