rrevved wrote:
> Hey Mr rrewed. I liked the game! So does this mean i'm a mordot? Who cares if
> your clock doesnt stay in sync with the games clock. Big deal!! Just be
> thankful you're not playing Atari 2600 right now. I find it hard to believe
> that someone would actually sit down and figure this out. If its slow down your
> so miffed about, run the game in D3D. Imho, it looks better/brighter when ran
> in this mode. And I didn't experience any "slow motion" crud. Btw my pc is
> PII300mhz 96mram Monster Fusion AGP. And it runs awsome in D3D mode. I enjoyed
> the presentation(animated pit crews, National Anthem, etc.). If there is one
> thing that I agree with is that the commentary is a bit annoying. But at least
> it's there. EA didn't rip off anyone. If anyone is guilty of this, it's Sierra.
> WHOA, WHAT?!? NR1999 is nothing more than NR2 with 3dfx support. And the
> visuals are lacking anyway.
> So there you have it. A different opinion than the majority. Why is it a
> Majorty? Maybe it isn't. Maybe the rest of us are having too much fun w/Nascar
> Rev and we're spending our time playing it. Rather than coming in here and
> whining about how the game clock isn't in sync with the clock on my wall.
> "If it bleeds, it can be fixed!"
> >rrevved wrote in message <36cd5de7.187...@news.mindspring.com>...
> >>Nascar Revolution - Heres what's wrong with it:
> >>First:
> >>My system: PII-333 overclocked 375 / Monster2 / 128MB.
> >>I REALLY wanted to like the game. I bought it one hour after the
> >>first copy hit town. I have been trying to make it run and drive
> >>well enough to keep it,
> >>BUT,I couldn't understand why Nascar Revolution was in slow
> >>motion while in the dashboard view, yet gave a good sense of
> >>speed in the external views.
> >>I also couldn't understand why adding more opponents would put
> >>the game into slow motion. It wouldn't stutter, just go into slo-mo.
> >>Also, the speed of the game would randomly *vary* from normal
> >>to slow. At one point I thought it must have a memory leak to
> >>behave as it does.
> >>I couldn't understand why replays would speed up and slow down
> >>randomly.
> >>*** THEN, I found out why. ***
> >>(Old timers hang on to your seats).
> >>Electronic Arts is slowing down / speeding up the game to
> >>give accurate lap times when the system is under a heavy load!
> >>NOTE: Old timers: Can you say Grand Prix II?
> >>I thought you could.. :)
> >>I ran a few tests with Nascar Revolution tonight:
> >>1) I turned the graphics to the absolute minimum, set the field of
> >>opponents to 10 or so, and ran laps in the external or bumper cam
> >>views. When I did that, 30 seconds on the lap timer displayed on
> >>the screen was equivalent to approx. 30 seconds on the sweep second
> >>hand of my clock.
> >>2) When I turned the graphics to maximum, the field to 43, 30 secs.
> >>on the lap time display was equivalent to 50-80 seconds of real
> >>clock time.
> >>SLOW MOTION.
> >>When you are in dashboard view, the same thing occurs since it
> >>apparently is a graphics HOG, in that mode. A 30 second lap time
> >>on the screen, might take 45 secs. to 1 minute of wall clock time.
> >>SLOW MOTION.
> >>Also, the time varies *all over the place*. If you run laps with a
> >>full field and then watch a replay, you can see the cars speed up and
> >>slow down abnormally. What is happening is that the replay load is
> >>different from the load that the system was under when the lap was
> >>recorded and it has trouble synchronizing.
> >>It sucks..
> >>For those of you that don't understand this phenomenon, here is how
> >>it works:
> >>- Let us assume that I am a simulation programmer and I have a
> >>program that wants to display 2 seconds of a racecar traveling from
> >>the far left to the far right of the screen, and that the 2 seconds
> >>require 100 frames of animation. (50 frames per second.). Think of
> >>the 2 seconds as being recorded on a strip of movie film 100 frames
> >>long.
> >>In the corner of the imaginary screen will be a timer displayed by
> >>the program that displays how long the operation is taking. The timer
> >>should start at 0 seconds at frame 1 and when the car reaches the
> >>right side of the screen, frame 100, the timer should indicate 2 secs.
> >>In order to accomplish this at normal speed, my program and the
> >>computer running it will have to be capable of displaying
> >>50 FRAMES PER SECOND for 2 seconds.
> >>O.K.?
> >>- Now, let's assume that either my program is slow, or the computer
> >>I am wanting to display the 100 frames on, is slow. For example,
> >>let us assume that it can only display 25 FRAMES PER SECOND.
> >>- So, I have a choice:
> >> I can let the program *skip every other frame* (STUTTER) and
> >> complete the 2 second trip of the car in 2 seconds of real clock
> >> time, and my timer in the corner of the screen will simply be a
> >> real clock so it will show that it took 2 seconds. The car would
> >> jerkily move from left side to right side in 2 seconds, since every
> >> other frame was dropped.
> >> OR
> >> I can display ALL the 100 frames in 4 seconds of real time
> >> (SLOW MOTION, NO STUTTER). My timer in the corner would
> >> have to be a *fake* clock that showed that only 2 seconds had
> >> passed, when actually it had required 4 seconds of real time.
> >> The car would smoothly traverse the screen, but in (REALLY)
> >> slow motion....
> >>Are you getting my drift here? If you watch the lap timer in a sim
> >>like Grand Prix Legends or N2/1999, you will notice it is just a
> >>simple clock ticking off your time. Nothing you do can alter its
> >>steady ticking.. :) If your system is incapable of producing the
> >>speed necessary, it will simply skip frames and stutter, but the
> >>timer will keep on ticking normally. The good news is that your
> >>overall sense of speed won't suffer unless the stuttering
> >>becomes ridiculous.
> >>You may say that you don't like stutter, so why isn't the method
> >>used in GP2 and now, Nascar Revolution a good method? There are
> >>several reasons. One is that a game or sim that speeds up and slows
> >>down is extremely difficult to control. It is changing all the time.
> >>It has NO consistency. Also, there is the problem with replays.
> >>Nascar Revolution has the jerky replay problem in *spades*.
> >>Multiplay with Nascar Revolution ought to be VERY interesting as the
> >>systems try to get their facts (clocks) straight. LOL!!!
> >>Stutter sucks, but intermittently varying the *speed* of a game
> >>sucks MUCH, MUCH more.
> >>In Nascar Revolution and Grand Prix II, a second on the timer ain't
> >>necessarily a second in the real world since those programmers have
> >>chosen to eliminate stuttering by displaying each an every frame of
> >>animation, no matter how long it takes. They simply slow down and
> >>speed up the animation, but they *never* stutter. They feel like
> >>you are driving in JELLO when the load gets heavy.
> >>In the case of Grand Prix II, this technique was carried to an
> >>extreme with system load controls you could adjust to attempt to make
> >>1 second of game time equivalent to 1 second of real world time.
> >>Replays of GPII lap records had to be carefully scrutinized to be
> >>sure that the user had not loaded his system to the max, easily, and
> >>perfectly cruised around the track in slo-mo and recorded a replay
> >>which when played back on a faster system would whiz around the
> >>track at a record pace, with a perfect line, etc..
> >>That's enough of this. Nascar Revolution is pure and utter technical
> >>crap. They HAD to do it, or the returns for stutter on this HOG of
> >>a program would have been enormous. As we say down here in Tennessee,
> >>they have '10 pounds in a 5 pound sack'.
> >>Maybe, like GP2, when faster systems arrive, there will be no
> >>problems with speed variations in Nascar Revolution, but until then,
> >>you are warned... :)
> >>--
> >>// rrevved posts from mindspring dot com
> --
> // rrevved posts from mindspring dot com