rec.autos.simulators

Hi sim racers:

   Every once in a while someone asks about running sims on P6 machines.  
Here is my impression of siming on my machine.  

   I'll be posting a similar report about EF2000 in the flight-sim
newsgroup.  

   My equipment:
      Supermicro P6DOF, dual P6 motherboard.  Debugged (B step) Orion
      chip set.  I have one P6 installed.  
      32 Meg.
      Fast wide SCSI.  
      Matrox 4 Meg.  Matrox, not Univbe's, VESA driver.  
      SoundBlaster 16.  

   This is a working machine, used for Unix development.  After performing
development all week long it likes to relax with racing and flight sims.  

   Intel has a replacement for my Orion chip set, called the Natoma.  New
motherboards are shipping with them.  Alex Fernandez posted to this group
that He'll be getting one this week.  He said he will be doing some tests
too.  So, before he posts his results, I'll tell you what life is like with
my obsolete piece of junk.  

   I do road racing, almost exclusively.  I usually follow the indycar
series through the season by racing on the next road/street course to be
televised.  However I feel it is easier to standardize a frame rate test
on an oval track.  

   The raw number test:

      Michigan - no damage, ace with 15 gallons, no qualifying, start in
                 back, on right side.  

      Realism - 7% length, no damage, everything else off, constant
                weather.  

      Opponents - Number 31, strength 100%, Drawing 32 forward, 4 back,
                  heard 2.

      Driving Aids - manual everything, no auto spin recovery.  

      Setup - I drive with a T1, analog everything, linear steering, no
              break help, manual shifting.  No pace lap.  

      Graphics - all options on except skidmarks.  max framerate 30.  

      Sound is default.  

   The raw number:
      When the flag drops, and the field is drawn before me, the skidmarks
      are visible between the two rows of cars at min 20 FPS (Frame's Per
      Second).  They seem to start being painted, but are no longer painted
      immediately after the start at 22 FPS.   The longer the race proceeds,
      the more "non-repeatable" things become, so I conclude the test after
      a lap or two.  

      However, if, at 22 FPS, I follow the "train" around the track, the
      skid marks come back by turn 3.  And they stay back.  In order to keep
      this "repeatable", I'm resisting the temptation to pass any cars.  In
      fact I allow the car starting beside me to get ahead, in my view.  But
      I try to be tucked up close behind the next to the last.  You can see
      the track "under construction" in the distance.  

      I don't know what's happening, perhaps as the field spreads out in
      front of me,there is less detail to draw.

      The skid marks wink in and out, it's quite obvious, at min 23 FPS.  
      This happens even while the field continues to spread out.  

   Living with the P6:  
      Setting the skids to auto has some historical precedence, but it's
      not the way I would choose to race.  

      After running the test, I made the following changes to the graphics
      option.  Everything on except grandstand detail and dust, which are
      auto, and 25 FPS min.  Everything else is the same as in the FPS
      test.  

      I then went to Laguna Seca, ace setup, 15 gallons.  

      It's butter, it's like the movies, the crowd blinked out briefly
      after the start, the grand stands are only visible for a second.  
      by the time I got to the stands at turn 4, I had passed a few cars,
      other cars had disappeared down the track, and the crowds sees to be
      solid in the stands.  Coming out of the corkscrew, I could see the
      track "under construction" around turn 6.  ICR1, repeat "1", was
      never this smooth on my 486/66.  

      An un-expected benefit, no marbles.  I used to run ICR2 on my 486/66,
      high rez, most graphics off or auto.  Traction was ridiculous.  There
      is definitely less downforce in ICR2, so there is less traction, but
      it is drivable.  I do miss standing on it through Laguna's turn 4, 6
      and 9.  I'm eagar to try different people's setups.  

      One complaint I remember reading is that the car would spin for no
      reason on that fast right bend in the middle of Long Beach's Shoreline
      Drive.  It feels fine to me.  

Should you buy a P6?  
   This machine works for a living.  I don't think I would buy it for racing.  
Perhaps the owners of some fast Pentiums will duplicate this test, or come up
with better tests, then we will all know.  

   If you have any questions, feel free to post, E mail is OK, but I'd rather
everybody who is interested have a chance to listen in.  

   Am I happy?  I'll let you know after Alex tells us what a REAL computer
will do.  

   Then I tried my home town track, here in Portland, ... OH MY GOD, 131
LINES?  You have suffered enough.  bye.

                                                                      Larry

P.S.
   Need Unix/C development?  I'm free right now.  And I want to get a 21"
monitor.  

===========================================================================
Larry "Dragon" Lindstrom.              Consultant - Unix - X Window - Comms

Three things I don't like about President Clinton:

   1) He's spineless
   2) He's dishonest
   3) He's the most principled and honorable candidate running for President.  

Hey, add a little music, that could be a campaign commercial!  

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

Mike

 >
 >>       The skid marks wink in and out, it's quite obvious, at min 23 FPS.
 >>       This happens even while the field continues to spread out.
 >
 >You're telling me that after a $1,500+ upgrade I can still only expect 23 FPS
 > in
 >IndyCarII?  Is this some kind of cruel joke?
 >

No, I'm pretty sure my P166 will do better than that on the test, I will post
after I try it out.

Clark

Here are my preliminary test results:

Supermicro P6SNF, single P6 motherboard. Natoma (440FX) chip set which supports
concurrent PCI!

ditto

128Meg.

Fast SCSI-2 (Adaptec 2940)

     ditto, Millenium 4MB, BIOS v2.0

 Tropez Plus

My machine, when I'm not screwing around with it, is used for 3D animation.
modeling, and rendering, and of course NASCAR, and ICR2.

That's me. I just got it yesterday!

I wouldn't call it a piece of junk!

ditto!

Same track. Start at back, no qualifying.

ditto

Opponents - Number 32, strength 100%, Drawing 32 forward, 32 back.

ditto.

ditto except I use a TSW (I love it!) and pace lap turned on. I find that it
stresses the frame rate more and it's the way I run the races.

ditto!

Sound is 8-bit stereo. Strange that mono and stereo had the same test results
for my system.

My results:

The numbers in paranthesis are from my Supermicro P55CMS motherboard with 256kB
PBS cache and 100Mhz Pentium.

With all textures ON, in preseason testing, I get 30 fps!!(18fps). with no
flicker on the skid marks!

The following results represent the max frame rate with no flickering of the
skid marks taken from the start of the pace lap to when the green flag drops.
This is where the biggest hit occurs.

Before race on the pace lap with ALL textures on:

ICR2   (P5-100Mhz)                 NASCAR
--------                                   -------------
23fps  (11fps)                           20fps

All textures ON except asphalt and grass:

28fps  (15fps)                          25fps

All textures ON except asphalt, grass, wall, grandstand, and objects

30fps  (18fps)                          30fps

I found Laguna to be slightly smoother than Michigan

I would wait a couple of months or three for them to work out the bugs in the
BIOS (It's an AMI BIOS Rev. 0.1!!!???) I have a couple of problems with it but
nothing major. If anyone has any questions on the motherboard or BIOS, just
email me.

I'm happy. I think that 23-28fps is pretty good improvement but I don't know if
it's worth shelling out that extra dough for games only.

Alex Fernandez           This signature file serves no other purpose
"Don't know nothin'!"    than to try to avoid those unholy NNTP errors
                         I keep getting using Netscape 2.0 Mail when I
                         follow up on articles where there is more
                         included text than new text. Does everyone
have this problem? Is there a better workaround than this stupid, long
and useless signature file? If so, let me know. I hope this is enough
new text.
**********************************************************************
**********************************************************************

        Let's not forget that most of these systems are using a 33 Mhz Bus no
matter how fast the CPU is.  There comes a point of dimishing returns when
the CPU is faster, but everything else is just as slow.

bryon

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is still amazing how many people think that the year 2000 is the start of
the next century.
Bryon Lape

   If you had any follow ups to my original post about ICR2 on Pentium
Pros, questions, comments or flames, please email them to me.  My news
server went down shorty after I posted it.  

                                                                Thanks
                                                                Larry

writes

True enough. The next quantum leaps are going to come from something
like S-DRAM which is expected to allow motherboard speeds up to
75/80Mhz, or else the widespread implementation of PCI2.1 or higher,
which will allow PCI access at 66Mhz instead of the current 33Mhz.

There comes a point when an EVEN faster cpu just doesn't do very much
more.

Cheers!
John

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   Thanks for responding to my report.  I have checked my Motherboard's
manual, the Supermicro has a 33 MHz interface to the PPro.  Are there
faster ones?  

   I posted that report because people were wondering what the machine
would do.  I am hoping someone will duplicate the test, or conceive better
tests, with Pentiums, and other Pentium Pros.  

   I tested at Michigan, under the conditions I stated, because it seems
to be a good repeatable benchmark.  And the banked ovals force the
processor to draw all of the cars.  When I said it is obvious when the skid
marks wink out, that's all I meant.  They are painted, then they aren't
painted, but the sim still seems to drive fine.  

   I race under different conditions than I tested, as I stated.  I am
VERY pleased with the performance at Laguna Seca, Detroit, Vancouver and
every other track I have tried.  I am getting 25 to 30 FPS, if the "auto"
works as we all believe it does.   The grandstand details rarely blink out,
and when they do, it's not like the sim comes slamming to a crawl.  

   Acceptable frame rates are issues of individual taste.  Movies run at
24 FPS and fields are drawn on TVs at 30 FPS.  These have proven to be
the minumum FPS to fool the eye.  Reality has an continuous presentation
so we should never be satisfied with these "minimum" rates.  

   I hope someone will run, and post, tests when F1GP2 comes out, we'll
want to know if we can use our old P7s or if we should pay the big bucks
for the new P8s.  

                                                                    Larry

From what I understand Intel went out ona limb with the PPro chip
because they designeed it for 32bit programs and it from what I
have read in PC magazine it runs 16bit programs (icr2, nascar,
etc.) slower than normal pentiums.  Correct me if I am wrong but
from every thing I have read a PPro at 200Mhz will run icr2
slower than a 166 Pent.

                John Buckley

 >From what I understand Intel went out ona limb with the PPro chip
 >because they designeed it for 32bit programs and it from what I
 >have read in PC magazine it runs 16bit programs (icr2, nascar,
 >etc.) slower than normal pentiums.  Correct me if I am wrong but
 >from every thing I have read a PPro at 200Mhz will run icr2
 >slower than a 166 Pent.
 >
 >                John Buckley

You're wrong on this one.  Alex Fernandez posted his results with P6-200 and
MGA Millenium and using his test methodology, I got about 5 fps slower
performance out of my P5-166 with MGA Millenium on ICR2.  

Clark

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Sierra On-Line, Inc.

Pemtium Pro is afflicted by unstable chipset and is also very sensitive
to the way it is configured. Without a carefully controlled test, it is
impossible to draw any comparative benchmarks.

Bottom line is a PPro is FAR too expensive just now, and NO-ONE should
buy one only for ICR2/GP2/NASCAR. If you want to play sims, fire into a
P166/P200 (although P133 is best value), if you are looking at WinNT and
also enjoy sims, THEN it's worthwhile looking at a PPro.

Cheers!
John

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75 Mhz cpu bus...FAST. Check the Mags for more info.

Mike