rec.autos.simulators

by **Slic** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 09:47:39

A part of the interview saying :

WR: Most of these screenshots are from a Pentium II 450MHz with a Voodoo3
2000. The full-scene anti-aliased shots were taken on the same system, but
with a Voodoo5 5500. The game runs at about 45 frames per second on that
system, but no real optimizing has been done yet, so there's room for
improvement.

So is this only one car at the time or optimized for the Glide or just plain
bull, coz if it isn't I'll have around 200 fps on my current system...

--

Oliver

by **Dave Henri** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 12:41:00

From what I remember(shaddup youse guys!!!) the West team started
coding in glide, but last summer they were gonna completely swap over
the video to D3d and or opengl... I can't quite recall if they were going
to
keep glide support in or not. HOWEVER. Anyone who thinks they'll get
super speedy framerates with a PII 450 is drinking motor oil. One only has
to take a look at how N4 gobbles cpus to imagine how much horsepower
WSC will need.
dave henrie

by **Jagg** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 13:12:55

Well, I'm sure it will be demanding, but I've seen some games where
the graphics are astounding, but are also very efficient so it may not
be as demanding as N4 and still look far better.

by **Juha Kallioin** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 19:05:57

>So is this only one car at the time or optimized for the Glide or just plain
>bull, coz if it isn't I'll have around 200 fps on my current system...

I think I read somewhere that some or all of the shots we have seen
this far have been taken without the actual physics engine code
implemented. Once they get that monster working, I'm sure you can
forget framerates like that on a P2-450 or anything on the market
at the moment.

Might be possible with a single car, but with many AI cars around
using the same sophisticated physics engine, you are just going to
need lots of CPU power.

-Juha

--

by **Andre Warrin** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 19:53:32

That doesn't say much, F1RC is graphically imo so much better looking
than N4 (and any other sim for that matter), and while I still am
struggling to keep a decent fps in N4 (I have to run in 800res, not
more than 20 AI cars, and quite some details turned down) while F1RC,
with -all- options at max, in 1024 res, runs superb, even at the start
with 22 cars. On my PIII500 GFII.
I suspect that the physics model of N4 is much more advanced than
F1RC's, but I do think Papy's graphic engine could use a little
improvement here and there.

Andre

"Michael feels the same way about safety in auto racing as I do. Great minds
think alike." - David G Fisher

by **Douglas Elliso** » Wed, 28 Feb 2001 21:06:07

> > From what I remember(shaddup youse guys!!!) the West team started
> >coding in glide, but last summer they were gonna completely swap over
> >the video to D3d and or opengl... I can't quite recall if they were
going
> >to
> >keep glide support in or not. HOWEVER. Anyone who thinks they'll get
> >super speedy framerates with a PII 450 is drinking motor oil. One only
has
> >to take a look at how N4 gobbles cpus to imagine how much horsepower
> >WSC will need.

> Well, I'm sure it will be demanding, but I've seen some games where
> the graphics are astounding, but are also very efficient so it may not
> be as demanding as N4 and still look far better.

Exactly - GPL looks fantastic - and will run on VERY modest hardware, TOCA 2
looks nice, similar hardware req. Err...Pity about GP3

Doug

by **ymenar** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 05:54:32

> I think that PC programmers are a bit "sloppy" and do NOT try at all
> to optimize the code

Let's remember that PC programmers aren't helped by MS's poor DirectX
Hardware integration. They go as fast as MS makes it possible, which is
quite low compared to proprietary console hardware. Just watch for the
X-box, you'll see many buggy software.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.ymenard.com/
-- People think it must be fun to be a genius, but they don't realise how
hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

by **Andre Warring** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 05:58:20

>>F1RC -is- a good example, this game is graphically so much more
>>advanced than any other racing sim, yet with a full field it runs
>>better than -any- other racing sim I own.. and that includes 2-year
>>old GPL..

>True. But, does it also have a sophisticated physics model? I think
>not.

Perhaps you missed my previous post in this thread:

That doesn't say much, F1RC is graphically imo so much better looking
than N4 (and any other sim for that matter), and while I still am
struggling to keep a decent fps in N4 (I have to run in 800res, not
more than 20 AI cars, and quite some details turned down) while F1RC,
with -all- options at max, in 1024 res, runs superb, even at the start
with 22 cars. On my PIII500 GFII.
I suspect that the physics model of N4 is much more advanced than
F1RC's, but I do think Papy's graphic engine could use a little
improvement here and there.

by **ymenar** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 05:51:30

> HOWEVER. Anyone who thinks they'll get
> super speedy framerates with a PII 450 is drinking motor oil. One only
has
> to take a look at how N4 gobbles cpus to imagine how much horsepower
> WSC will need.

Papyrus has never been known to be great code optimisers. Most of their
titles are aimed to run well on future PCs. Just do something, load the
original Nascar Racing. Bet you will struggle even on a Pentium 3 in SVGA
with every graphic in heavy traffic. I'm not kidding.

The only title by Papyrus who could stand very well on current PC when
released was Nascar Racing 2, imho.

Check out F1RC to see a current software who looks great and runs quite fast
on normal PC's. Same for NFS:PU. It's all a matter of how they optimise
the code. Of course I expect the WSC standards to change quite a bit before
it's release, but I don't expect that it won't run well unless you have a
5GHZ PC and a GeForce5 ;-)

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.ymenard.com/
-- People think it must be fun to be a genius, but they don't realise how
hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

by **Txl** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 07:28:43

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In a computer the physics model means nothing in terms of computing
power, think that your system can do 1,000,000,000 cycles per second,
so to compute a mere 256 operations per second which is what the
physic model of GPL is like (and we know it's very advanced you have
about 1G/256 cycles of computer power to do 1 GPL "frame"....

that's a lot, besides that the physics model of GP1on my trusted
AtariST with a 6800 8 bits processor running at a fantastic 2.8 Mhz
was quite okay, the gfx were ***by today's standards but the
physics were okay at the time...

Botom line is physics is a piece of cake for computer, gfx is more
complicated.

> >F1RC -is- a good example, this game is graphically so much more
> >advanced than any other racing sim, yet with a full field it runs
> >better than -any- other racing sim I own.. and that includes
> >2-year old GPL..

> True. But, does it also have a sophisticated physics model? I think

not.

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by **Rob Adam** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 08:04:26

Be careful in how you define "cycles". We've all heard of the mythical "188
Hz" GPL physics engine which does these 188 (I think that's the number)
separate calculations per second in its physics engine. That does NOT
translate into 188 CPU cycles per second. Each of those 188 calculations is
potentially hundreds of lines of code, corresponding to thousands of CPU
cycles each. So each second's worth of physics could require (say) 150,000
CPU cycles.

I have seen articles proposing PPU's, or Physics Processing Units, which
could actually do an "angular momentum" or "rigid body rotation" calculation
in one cycle. If those every see the light of day then a 188Hz physics
engine really could translate to 188 cycles.

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1

> In a computer the physics model means nothing in terms of computing
> power, think that your system can do 1,000,000,000 cycles per second,
> so to compute a mere 256 operations per second which is what the
> physic model of GPL is like (and we know it's very advanced you have
> about 1G/256 cycles of computer power to do 1 GPL "frame"....

> that's a lot, besides that the physics model of GP1on my trusted
> AtariST with a 6800 8 bits processor running at a fantastic 2.8 Mhz
> was quite okay, the gfx were ***by today's standards but the
> physics were okay at the time...

> Botom line is physics is a piece of cake for computer, gfx is more
> complicated.

> > >F1RC -is- a good example, this game is graphically so much more
> > >advanced than any other racing sim, yet with a full field it runs
> > >better than -any- other racing sim I own.. and that includes
> > >2-year old GPL..

> > True. But, does it also have a sophisticated physics model? I think
> not.

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by **Ed Solhei** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 09:28:22

Afaik, GPL's physics are running at 288 Hz.

ed_

> Be careful in how you define "cycles". We've all heard of the mythical
"188
> Hz" GPL physics engine which does these 188 (I think that's the number)
> separate calculations per second in its physics engine. That does NOT
> translate into 188 CPU cycles per second. Each of those 188 calculations
is
> potentially hundreds of lines of code, corresponding to thousands of CPU
> cycles each. So each second's worth of physics could require (say) 150,000
> CPU cycles.

> I have seen articles proposing PPU's, or Physics Processing Units, which
> could actually do an "angular momentum" or "rigid body rotation"
calculation
> in one cycle. If those every see the light of day then a 188Hz physics
> engine really could translate to 188 cycles.

> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1

> > In a computer the physics model means nothing in terms of computing
> > power, think that your system can do 1,000,000,000 cycles per second,
> > so to compute a mere 256 operations per second which is what the
> > physic model of GPL is like (and we know it's very advanced you have
> > about 1G/256 cycles of computer power to do 1 GPL "frame"....

> > that's a lot, besides that the physics model of GP1on my trusted
> > AtariST with a 6800 8 bits processor running at a fantastic 2.8 Mhz
> > was quite okay, the gfx were ***by today's standards but the
> > physics were okay at the time...

> > Botom line is physics is a piece of cake for computer, gfx is more
> > complicated.

> > > >F1RC -is- a good example, this game is graphically so much more
> > > >advanced than any other racing sim, yet with a full field it runs
> > > >better than -any- other racing sim I own.. and that includes
> > > >2-year old GPL..

> > > True. But, does it also have a sophisticated physics model? I think
> > not.

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by **~Jah_Warrior86** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 09:34:10

As far as I know, the physics engine wasn't implemented at the time those
screen shots were taken. I have the feeling that once they incorporate those
calculations, the frame rates will begin to drop. Again, I don't really know
anything for sure but, that has been the speculation that I've heard on some
newsgroups.

Jah_Warrior86

by **Rob Adam** » Thu, 01 Mar 2001 09:36:53

Thanks, I knew there was an "88" in there somewhere :)

> Afaik, GPL's physics are running at 288 Hz.

> ed_

> > Be careful in how you define "cycles". We've all heard of the mythical
> "188
> > Hz" GPL physics engine which does these 188 (I think that's the number)
> > separate calculations per second in its physics engine. That does NOT
> > translate into 188 CPU cycles per second. Each of those 188 calculations
> is
> > potentially hundreds of lines of code, corresponding to thousands of CPU
> > cycles each. So each second's worth of physics could require (say)
150,000
> > CPU cycles.

> > I have seen articles proposing PPU's, or Physics Processing Units, which
> > could actually do an "angular momentum" or "rigid body rotation"
> calculation
> > in one cycle. If those every see the light of day then a 188Hz physics
> > engine really could translate to 188 cycles.

> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA1

> > > In a computer the physics model means nothing in terms of computing
> > > power, think that your system can do 1,000,000,000 cycles per second,
> > > so to compute a mere 256 operations per second which is what the
> > > physic model of GPL is like (and we know it's very advanced you have
> > > about 1G/256 cycles of computer power to do 1 GPL "frame"....

> > > that's a lot, besides that the physics model of GP1on my trusted
> > > AtariST with a 6800 8 bits processor running at a fantastic 2.8 Mhz
> > > was quite okay, the gfx were ***by today's standards but the
> > > physics were okay at the time...

> > > Botom line is physics is a piece of cake for computer, gfx is more
> > > complicated.

> > > > >F1RC -is- a good example, this game is graphically so much more
> > > > >advanced than any other racing sim, yet with a full field it runs
> > > > >better than -any- other racing sim I own.. and that includes
> > > > >2-year old GPL..

> > > > True. But, does it also have a sophisticated physics model? I think
> > > not.

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