rec.autos.simulators

by **Richard Mil** » Wed, 19 Jul 1995 04:00:00

I have a few questions about thefast.com...

How can increasing bios video speed effect the nascar frame rate? Surely
nascar does not use bios for its video? I don't know - comments?

I installed thefast.com and noticed no difference in framerate. Comptest
reported a significant increase in bios video speed though.

The best ways I have found of getting greater fps with detail is by clean
booting the machine (very effective), using FM sound and decreasing the
number of opponents.

BTW. I get 10-11 fps on my dx4/100 with 8MB and VLB ET4000/w32p video in
SVGA with FM sound and up to about 25 opponents. The only detail loss is
the road texture. Getting a higher frame rate than this involves cutting
back lots more on the graphics details.

Richard Miles

by **Tom Webe** » Wed, 19 Jul 1995 04:00:00

>I have a few questions about thefast.com...

>How can increasing bios video speed effect the nascar frame rate? Surely
>nascar does not use bios for its video? I don't know - comments?

>I installed thefast.com and noticed no difference in framerate. Comptest
>reported a significant increase in bios video speed though.

>The best ways I have found of getting greater fps with detail is by clean
>booting the machine (very effective), using FM sound and decreasing the
>number of opponents.

>BTW. I get 10-11 fps on my dx4/100 with 8MB and VLB ET4000/w32p video in
>SVGA with FM sound and up to about 25 opponents. The only detail loss is
>the road texture. Getting a higher frame rate than this involves cutting
>back lots more on the graphics details.

I don't kow the technical answer to your question, but I just set up
thefast on my DX4-100 w/ 16 mgs RAM, Cirrus 1mg VLB card. I noticed that
the gradstands now appear in replays where I used to lose that detail
before.

I also found a very substantial improvement when I started using QEMM and
increased my available conventional memory to 630 k.

Tom

--

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by **David G. Marti** » Wed, 19 Jul 1995 04:00:00

I have seen the notion of using FM sound mentioned several times in
association with better performance of Papyrus NASCAR. How exactly do
you change to FM from digital. I have a Pro Audio Spectrum Sound card
and NASCAR uses it as a SoundBlaster. No drivers are actually loaded.
It uses the environment variables (or auto-detect) to find the card.

David G. Martin BBB EEE EEE N N CC OO U U N N TTT RRR Y Y
354 Burnette-Womack B B E E NN N C C O O U U NN N T R R Y Y
CB# 7075 UNC-CH BBB EEE EEE N NN C O O U U N NN T RRR Y
Chapel Hill B B E E N N C C O O U U N N T R R Y
NC 27599-7075 B B E E N N C C O O U U N N T R R Y
919-966-5203 BBB EEE EEE N N CC OO UU N N T R R Y

by **Mark Tierne** » Thu, 20 Jul 1995 04:00:00

David,

I asked just that same question a couple of days ago. To run NASCAR in FM mode
type 'nascar -f' when executing the program. This will use FM sounds instead
of digital. I found that it really helped speed things up on my poor old
386/40.

You'll notice that the sounds are quite different (i.e. engine noise, skids,
etc.).

Hope that helps.

Mark

>I have seen the notion of using FM sound mentioned several times in
>association with better performance of Papyrus NASCAR. How exactly do
>you change to FM from digital. I have a Pro Audio Spectrum Sound card
>and NASCAR uses it as a SoundBlaster. No drivers are actually loaded.
>It uses the environment variables (or auto-detect) to find the card.

>> >The best ways I have found of getting greater fps with detail is by clean
>> >booting the machine (very effective), using FM sound and decreasing the
>> >number of opponents.

>> >BTW. I get 10-11 fps on my dx4/100 with 8MB and VLB ET4000/w32p video in
>> >SVGA with FM sound and up to about 25 opponents. The only detail loss is

>David G. Martin BBB EEE EEE N N CC OO U U N N TTT RRR Y Y
>354 Burnette-Womack B B E E NN N C C O O U U NN N T R R Y Y
>CB# 7075 UNC-CH BBB EEE EEE N NN C O O U U N NN T RRR Y
>Chapel Hill B B E E N N C C O O U U N N T R R Y
> NC 27599-7075 B B E E N N C C O O U U N N T R R Y
>919-966-5203 BBB EEE EEE N N CC OO UU N N T R R Y

by **David Bride** » Thu, 20 Jul 1995 04:00:00

Hi,
I run nascar on a 486/33 with only 8 meg of RAM.
So I was wondering will thefast.com improve even
my setup? Its pretty choppy there now! But still playable
with some detail left out.

I'm waitng to upgrade.

Thanks in Advance :-)
David Brideau

by **gle..** » Fri, 21 Jul 1995 04:00:00

>> BTW. I get 10-11 fps on my dx4/100 with 8MB and VLB ET4000/w32p video in
>> SVGA with FM sound and up to about 25 opponents.
>Can you actually play the game with the frame rate that slow. For me, 16 FPS is minimal, anything less and
>I consider it waaay tooo jerrrky (way to jerky at 10fps). : )

How do you get your number for FPS?

by **Christopher M. Mei** » Fri, 21 Jul 1995 04:00:00

Whenever I try this, I only hear shrill whining from the speakers during
the announcement, and while racing. Any help? P590, ATI Mach64/2M,
whatever the latest drivers were as of early June. Is there a more recent
driver? Is my Ensoniq at fault? Thanks for any help.

Chris
--
Christopher M. Meier Software Engineer PPT Vision
Voice: (612) 942-5747 Fax: -5752 10321 West 70th Street

by **mhat..** » Fri, 21 Jul 1995 04:00:00

Can you actually play the game with the frame rate that slow. For me, 16 FPS is minimal, anything less and
I consider it waaay tooo jerrrky (way to jerky at 10fps). : )