rec.autos.simulators

Assume a perfect world where the latest sims N3, Burnout, NHRA, TOCA all
have the major bugs worked out (including adding wheel/pedal
capabilities), AND you're in the market for a new video card.  That
would be me, and I'm sure more than a handful of other readers of this
newsgroup.

I want to make sure (within reason, of course) that whatever video card
I purchase will at least be compatible with whatever chipsets the
manufacturers have chosen for their sim.  Am I naive enough to think one
video card will run with all the sims?  Not hardly.

However, after all the reading I've done, I still have some questions:

- Must be an AGP
- What about nVidia-based graphics cards?
- Is it safe to assume there are only 2 or 3 major video card
maufacturers, and that the sim designers will design for those specs
only?
- 2D/3D Combo boards?
- 3D Accelerator board?

References:

AGP: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Another AGP Article: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
3D Graphic Card Reviews:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Thanks in advance!

Dale

    http://www.tomshardware.com/

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

/Christer, will also go with the K6-2 in case the K6-3 is a killer :o)

Arthur
s t e a l t h
r a c i n g
http://www.***sys.com/stealthracing.html

"I died for you... Now why shouldn't you return the favor?"
-Deathdream

--Horrornews--Horrorchat--Reviews--General filth--
Mortado's Page of Filth http://www.nwlink.com/~mortado/

My recommendation is to get a 3dfx Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 - Voodoo 2 if you're
running or will in the next year run a Pentium II or K6-2 system.

Not an issue if you get a Voodoo 1/2 - Voodoo 2's are still faster than AGP
cards using the PCI bus.

I have one (Riva 128 4 meg) as my 2D Windows card.  Pretty good in that
regard.  On the games I've messed with on it before transferring my Voodoo 2
into my new machine it wasn't as fast or as good visually as the Voodoo 2
was, but not bad for a combo card.

If you get a Rendition, 3dfx, nVidia or newer Matrox boards you should be
pretty well set on Direct 3D titles.  Some however go directly to the
chipset of the card which yields considerably better performance and usually
looks, but the only boards you'll see that have their own interface for this
are Rendition-based or 3dfx-based.  These are your best bets, usually the
best performers in Direct 3D and even better when running a game "natively"

Rendition is good here, although not the fastest at 2D Windows stuff.  If
native support wasn't an issue, I'd probably go for a Matrox G200.

Generally this is your best bet.  Get a good 2D board, a Rendition is a good
companion due to it's native support of Indycar 2 and Nascar 2, and GPL, or
just get a really quick 2D board for Windows.  Add a Voodoo 1/2 and you will
just not find a game on the market that won't run on this, especially with
the Rendition / Voodoo 1/2 combo.  The Voodoo 1/2 is excellently supported,
has a lot of native support and runs Direct 3D stuff as well or better as
competing boards.

Ken

---Jim

Developers: Give me just 4 axis, 4 buttons, and let me use whatever I
want
for ANY function in the game. If you need help, look at ICR2/N2... ;^)

l8er
ronny

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How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
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