rec.autos.simulators

I don't know which info is important so here it all is:

Settings are:
  Quality-is set for "quality" at opposite end of slider from "performance"
  Anitliasing is set to "application" oposite end of slider from "4x"
  Anistropic filter is off
  Text Sharpening box is not checked
  Monitor at 60 hz
  Mipmap at "best performance"
  Texel value is 3

Question is-are these the best settings?  EA games (F1) and NR2003 will not run
on this machine.  Both will run for a while then CTD.  I am NOT a hardware
savvy person, so before I start messin' with it I would appreciate any
advice...TIA

Kevin (aka tlgtr)
****
"A GOOD friend will come bail you out of jail...  but, a TRUE friend will be
sitting next to you saying, "Damn we screwed up!!!!."

That graphic card is horrendous,but just about matches the rest of your
system lol.

Not being funny,but you get what you pay for in *** and you will get low
low fps if any at all.

Best of luck but its not luck you need its an upgrade.

AD

Which NVidia drivers are you using? Maybe try different ones. They
won't speed up that slow video card, but may help with the CTD's. If
you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard, do you have the VIA
drivers loaded?

Andrew.

You may also want to check that you have the Win2k / AMD AGP bug
fixed.  The bug is explained on:

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

and you can download a pre-made registry fix on:

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Ian

--
Ian Riches
Bedford, UK

Keep your monitor refresh rate as high as possible (72 up from 60 Hz if you
can).

And good luck!

J.R.

Enable FSAA on an old GeForce???? Are you mad? Also, disabling V-Sync
is pointless as his framerate won't be anywhere near his refresh rate.

Andrew.

J.R.

Where do I look for the VIA chipset?

Using the newest nvidia drivers (44.05?)

I have looked at upgrades to the newer GForce w/128mg...the "TI" something or
other...but which one?
Kevin (aka tlgtr)
****
"A GOOD friend will come bail you out of jail...  but, a TRUE friend will be
sitting next to you saying, "Damn we screwed up!!!!."

The chipset driver that you (may) need will depend on which
motherboard you have.  Do you know?

*IF* you have a Via chipset, then you can download the so-called 4-
in-1 Via Hyperion drivers from:

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

The newest official drivers are now 45.23.

Depends on your pocket / likely future upgrade path etc.

For an 850MHz machine, something like a secondhand Geforce 3 Ti500
would be a good match, IMHO.  Look on e-bay.

Ian

--
Ian Riches
Bedford, UK

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand
alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and
the....." - Ash

Go find that geforce Tweak util... dang forget the 2 I have tried...  there
is the newer one found on 3dgamers, what a hassle to get to (dialup anyway)
Guru3d I think you can find one, it is older, but so is your card/system.
HTH..  the default fast thing seems to be good.

if not there used to be a post, might find it with google, back when the
gf2's were "newish and NR03 was too?" that described optimal settings
(controlpanel & in game for NR200x).  You may not be playing NR, but the
settings would be a good starting point for performance.

crashes, 2 things scream at me.  Heat and bad Power supply.  heat is easy to
prove take side case off, take living room fan and point...  :P

With the P/S, about have to do trial and error, AFAIK.

old GF2MX cards.....in

Actually getting a little better FPS with new drivers and 9.0b directx... very
playable.

Would one of the newer GF cards work with my machine or would I be overloading
it?
Kevin (aka tlgtr)
****
"A GOOD friend will come bail you out of jail...  but, a TRUE friend will be
sitting next to you saying, "Damn we screwed up!!!!."

Will my machine run one of the newer GF cards?  Aside from cost is there any
specific reason I should go for the older card over a newer one?  

(Don't get me wrong, I don't want to overpay for a card, but if one of the
newer ones will safely do the job I like the idea of being able to return it if
something goes wrong..)..
Kevin (aka tlgtr)
****
"A GOOD friend will come bail you out of jail...  but, a TRUE friend will be
sitting next to you saying, "Damn we screwed up!!!!."

does it happen to happen at any specific "thing" happening on the track?
there were lost of guys fighting sound problems...  You could try this...
take max sounds (in game setting "options>sound) down to 8, OR even better
turn off the sounds in game altogether, then see if it quits crashing...  I
think that I was getting a shudder in 03 when I had my max sounds turned up
on my older system, that I hadn't gotten in 02.  usually if I hit or
backfired while spotter talk and screeching sounds all at once, I would get
a shudder...  so I used to use max sounds of 10.

One caveat!! ...---> that was my POS vortex 2 cards though...  they were
unsupported since n4 anyway  LOL...  never really tested much with my audigy
gamer I bought to replace it.  I upgraded the whole PC about then...  I have
that Audigy gamer still in box, a waste of 90 bucks as I ended up with
onboard sound anyway, and you know...  when it aint broke, don't go fixin on
it.

Good luck
--Sting32

    Oh heck man, I overlooked _that_ question,  *ONLY* because I was only
thinking your problem could easily follow you to the new card.  if it heat,
or driver, irq or sound card problem, or hell - what if it a corrupt NR03
file?  IIRC, a lot people fought the soundcard IRQ sharing problem.

FWIW...
My bud has just bought (within a 1.5 months ago) a Wal-Mart closeout -plain
Jane HP pavilion with 1.4 or 1.6 AMD - onboard sound - onboard Intel vid
card - 128 meg ram - and XP home - Cheap!   NR2003 ran fine with everything
turned down or off,  **Except**  if he tried Dega or Tona.  Well  it crashed
to desktop every time loading dega or tona.  He could run any other track,
but those 2. (& we did a lot online, until next payday BTW)  2 weeks of us
racing other tracks, he went back out to Wal-Mart, & grabbed a gf fx 5200
($61 on Price watch Cost 100 at Wal-Mart  LOL).

--NOTE-- Not really anything better than you got now vid card wise, by the
specs.  But he can run dega-tona now.  ran anything but dega tona without it
though?   Makes a person go Hmmmm.

He added 256 meg stick of mem later, says it made one hell of a difference
in the load time, and helped the frames...  I haven't seen it since I helped
install the vid card.

So, I still I doubt your problem is the vid card, but hell It could be.

I was running a p2 1000 with GF2 mx 32meg,  ran perfectly...
So good luck.

--sting32