rec.autos.simulators

I did some extrapolating with the numbers provided by Rick Genter to come up
with some very scary, and very inaccurate, ballpark numbers for WC2.  Taking
Rick's numbers of 18.2 FPS at 150% processor occupancy in VGA ONLY on a P90, I
come up with the following wild numbers

   FPS     Occupancy    Video      Pentim MHZ

   18.2    140-150  VGA(320*240)          90
   12      100      VGA                   90
    3      100     SVGA(640*480)          90
    6      100     SVGA                  166
   30      100     SVGA                  830
   60      100     xVGA(1280*1024)     6,640

While the above is just some dumb arithmatic, it does show the amount of game
tuning, or processor speed, or graphic accelleration required, before the
"ideal" game graphic is obtain.

Roman Tschoban

So, what do you think?  Will Geoff ever be able to give us what we so
desperately need and want?

Bye for now, Rainer

The P120 system runs great in SVGA, however, on the short tracks,
running a full field, I have to turn off the object textures...    

There are alot of factors to consider, not just processor speed or
chip.  The pentium motherboards have a chipset that frees up most of
the I/O.  Make sure you get one with the Intel Triton chipset.

Also, get a GREAT video card or suffer the consequences!  Diamond
Stealth 64 series with VRAM helps!  16 Megs of Ram is a must (minimum
in my opinion!)  Also, the settings within the software make a
difference as well!

adjust the maximum and minimum frame rates (if you're using any AUTO
modes), check the number of cars heard, drawn forward and behind.
These play a MAJOR part!  And of course, the graphics options...

again... the DX4-100 is NOT faster than the Pentium 75.  Unless you
have a really BAD Pentium 75 setup, I can't even see that happening.

Go #6 Mark Martin and #16 Ted Musgrave - Jack Roush Racing!!
NASCAR Racing!!

http://innet.com/~sean/nascar/nascar.html <--NASCAR Racing Sim page

I think that if the game requires a Cray to function, no one will buy it.
This has been an ongoing trend that is going to have to end someplace.

=p=

Taras, Rick Genter is a very well respected guy at Papyrus that developed
IndyCar I and II and Nascar.  Even though you may not like the games, this guy
is level headed, knows what he is talking about and is well respected in the
computer auto racing simulators newsgroups.

I have extracted part of his response from a message dealing with Pentium
upgrades and include it in this message to you, as it is the first occurance of
someone outside of microprose quoting on frame rates.

It is is true, that in is current form, WC2 needs a P90 to run 18.2 FPS, with
140-150% for VGA ONLY, I have extrapolated that with a P166 I will get 21 FPS
with 100% processor occupancy, and that I need six (6) P166's to get 30 FPS in
SVGA (640*480),  if technicaly possible (which it is not).

My point is that to get good frame rate (30 FPS) in SVGA (640*480) currently
requires more hardware than is available next week.  If we want to run at 60
FPS in 1024 * 768 we still need crays.

I guess my real point is that Geoff Crammond still has a LOT of tuning to due
before even really fast, never mind slow machines (the sidewinder and the
Philly Flyer) will ever be able to run it at all.  I thought Geoff was just
tuning it for slow machines, but apparently he needs to tune it for ANY
machine.  Lets just wait and wait.

On another note, someone is Lisbon, Spain says Microprose told a distributor to
tell a dealer to tell its customers that WC2 is to be available Feb 24. 1996.
Less than two months from now.  Now you know how rumors get started.

All for now, Rainer

: I think that if the game requires a Cray to function, no one will buy it.
: This has been an ongoing trend that is going to have to end someplace.

Especially since Cray is no longer!

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

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

So, although GP II may need some beefy processing power to run today,
in a few years time, we'll all look back unable to believe how fast
computer hardware developments have moved forward.  

The same used to be true of Microsoft Flight Sim 5.  No-one had a
machine that could run it properly, but today it runs quite happily on
a 486DX2.

Steve.

If your knowledge of geography is so accuratte, how can we be sure of
your extrapolations ?

Jorge Loureiro

Tom

Sorry Rainer but your statement is a bit shorted-minded.  I have been
following the discussion on GP2 for some time now and I resent your
last paragraf.  

The nature of my post (which was titled : "GP2 Release Date: Feb 24
(maybe!!)"), was the telling of a mere fact. As you can see, I even
had the care to put a "maybe!!" in the subject line, so that when
people pulls the body of the article they would know in advance that
the information they are going to read is not any sort of official or
confirmed release date of the game.

As for the body, which I present it to refresh your memory:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(Note: When I said game dealers I meant distributors)

As you can see, I am only telling a fact, I also comment that "I dont
know nothing about the veracity of that release date".

Anyway, I am sorry that you didnt like my post, I dont know why you
didnt but I supose it is because you are so F*CK UP with the delay
that you cant stand anybody saying more about release dates.  Well,
maybe if you cant, it is better that you dont pull the articles you
see are about it.

As for me, I feel free to give my contribute to this newsgroup and I
do it always with the care of adding information that I think is
reliable and helpful so that people who reads it can respect me for
that.

And as for the rest of your post, all I can say its that at leats I
dont post the sort of information you do:

...
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^            

at least I dont extrapolate.  I only tell a FACT  !!!!!!!!!!

Heres more ...

Gee, I dont know if Rainer is the same person than Roman Tschoban but
if they are, You sure know how to multiply!

The Pentium-90_in_VGA_18.2_frame_rate demo in that you were basing
your EXTRAPOLATIONS was presented in early September (in the time it
runned on a P75), which makes it and old one, and by this time the
graphics engine should have been improved and have higher frame rates,
though leaving your calculations a bit out of the present state of
affairs.

Here well and for once :

GP2 IS NOT OUT YET.  
DONT SAY IT NEEDS A CRAY OR *** MHZ TO RUN IT, UNTIL YOUVE SEEN IT

BTW, Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, it is NOT in Spain. Despite of
NOT RESPECTING others people right of contributing to this newsgroup
you also are an IGNORANT !!!  (Sorry, I normally wouldt say this to
anyone but youve asked for it)

And finally, if you want some rumors (which I have all the right to
post), here they go:

<START OF RUMOR>
Ive heard there is some RUMORS (see the Zonkers GP page - there is a
link to it in the Dave "Gizmo"Gymer page)  that Geoff Crammond said
that he wanted to release it in January and that there will be the1995
season data disk and 1996s (when available).  Also in the Silverstone
British Motorracing fair some people said they played a SVGA release
of GP2 that looked pretty finished and although "Frame rate was not
grease lightening"  "it was no slower than ICR2 with reasonably high
detail on my machine (P75).", with SVGA, etc  (see posts below).
<END OF RUMOR>

Everything is a rumor, inst it ?

And here is an opinion (mine):

<START OF OPINION>
As far as playing GP2, althoug it is not out, I think we will have to
make some trade, I BELIEVE that even with a Pentium 133 we will not be
able to play it the way we played F1GP (25fps) with all detail and
SVGA. Nevertheless, we can always switch from admiring the graphics
with all detail in SVGA (at a lesser FPS) or alternatively, run our
races with less detailed graphics but in a smoother way.
<END OF OPINION>

Bye for now,

     Miguel

P.S. - Sorry about the meanless discussion, but I couldnt leave it
unresponded.

**********************************************
Carlos Miguel Santos Cordeiro

**********************************************

Rick, since the VGA demo of GP2 is a several months old non-public beta quickly cobbled together
for the several European shows, I would be very wary about making assumptions based upon it. A
much more recent demo was shown recently at the Autosport show in London (SVGA) and all people
who saw it _unanimously_ comment that it is (quote) "Miles better" than ICR2. Frame rate looking
much better and still a couple of months to improve it. I fear you may be eating those words....

Cheers ;-)
John

PS - LOVE Indycar 2 by the way!

Oh, comeon, those calculations someone has made do not state ANYTHING
about performance of GP 2.
If someone at Papyrus says something about GP 2, I wouldn't trust him a
bit, Microprose/Holobyte and Papyrus are rivals for god's sakes! And even
better, if the Papurys guy was one of the developers of ICR/ICR 2, he is
definately trying to push GP 2 down, since ICR 2 is something he made!
AND, the Papyrus guy had tried out the DEMO version of GP 2, who knows
how old version was that (last summer? October?) so the actual game might
be different and better.

Those guys at Papyrus should be quiet about rival products anyway, since they
are just trying to turn people against GP 2. That's what I think.

Antti

--
--
Antti Rauhala              

Cheers,

Harald

: Well, I have a AMD DX4-120, it runs Indycar 2 in SVGA mode just great!
: AMD claims it is supposed to be about equal to a P-83 if they made one,
: it benchmarks out at 13% faster than a P75, so, if that's all you were
: going to get, I would say the DX4-120 is faster, but if I had it to do
: all over agian I wouldn't buy anything less than a P-120, they just get
: faster and faster, and cheaper, so don't try to save a buck now and
: then wish you had a faster system later!

: Tom

Which brings up something that needs to be brought up when comparing 486
and Pentiums.  You need to Specify who made your computer.  I don't know
much about the video stuff and maybe someone who does could extend this,
but I have found that in general, math apps depend heavily on
manufacturer.  Case in point, I recently went to the nieghborhood comp
store and talked the saleguy into letting me try out a program I wrote that
checks the time to do various math and read/write tasks.  Results were
that Compaq (P75) was 35%(!) faster than an 'identicle' Acer(P75) machine in
doing just *** integer/floating point math and array read/writes.  
I'd advise anyone that's shopping to try the same thing, it's really an
eye opener.  Anyways the video parts I assume are probaly just as
different in quality & sys. compatibility.  *And* by the way, my 486/33
(by Northgate) was just 5% slower than that Acer P75.  Just goes to show
ya...

Matt