Well, a friend of mine bought himself ICR2 for Windows95 for his birthday so I
just had to go over and have a look. Here are some specifics about the
hardware:
Matrox MGA Millenium w/4MBWRAM; BIOS 2.0
SoundBlaster16 Value
Thrustmaster Formula T2
I have mixed feelings about the Windows 95 version. Driving around on the
Cleveland track, I noticed that at some places the frame rate was reaching
69fps. An UNBELIEVABLE number--I say unbelievable because it looked much
slower than the 30fps reported by the new DOS version. I'm not sure what the
problem is exactly, but the graphics are very choppy--it will run fine for 2-3
seconds and then start messing up again. It is possibly a driver problem, but
there are some other strange things as well.
For one, the sound the engine makes as it revs is very notchy. It reminds me
of a video game from the early '80s as it almost sounds like a musical scale.
In addition, when you shift up, the sound seems to bog down, almost like the
car sprouted a CVT or something. Then the controls seem slow to respond,
although I think this is probably a byproduct of the slow graphics.
On the plus side, the new menus, car setting editor, paint shop, and replay
viewer are vast improvements over the DOS version. You can now set up your
entire car from one screen with no drilling down through menus to find the
right choice. A huge improvement is also made by letting you prioritize all
of the graphic options which are set to auto. This is a great feature!
Now on to the DOS version; this is, I assume, the same version that we will be
getting with THE PATCH. The first thing I noticed is that as the DOS version
starts up, it still claims that it is version 1.0.0. Hmmm. Not to worry,
there are several differences, but, unfortunately, they are not all good. The
first thing you notice is a snappy new intro screen. Then it's on to the
demo, where the cars now run around the circuit on Belle Isle.
There seems to be some problem with having a mouse driver loaded in DOS when
you try to set the ICR2 controls. All other devices are ignored in favor
of the mouse. This is a new bug, which, personally, I'm very surprised to
see. It is blatantly obvious. So much so, that it is listed in the readme
file on the CD-ROM. You must first comment out the line in your autoexec.bat
which loads the mouse driver and then set the controls.
Another change is a mandatory frame rate counter in the lower left corner of
the screen. It is very informative, but once you have your graphics options
cofigured to a comfortable setting, it would be nice to turn it off.
The master warning light on the dash now lights up every time you rev the
engine to 13,000rpm or higher. This implies that all three engines have
redlines at 13,000rpm, although Rick Genter said that the Ford and Mercedes
redline at 13,200rpm and the Honda at 13,500rpm. Also, when you have less
than 5 gallons of fuel, the light stays on all the time anyway, so it doesn't
really matter.
A few things about the replay have changed, too. The color of all the text
superimposed on the replay has been changed. The camera angle indicator is
now a light blue or light gray color. The driver information and timing have
been changed to a difficult to read dark blue. One of the craziest things is
that some of the camera angles have been renamed: nose is now front wing,
gearbox is now rearwing, and the forward-looking view previously known as
rearwing has been humorously renamed 'roof'. The last time I checked,
IndyCars didn't have roofs.
The driving model: I couldn't really tell much difference. I couldn't
get within 1.5 seconds of my best time at Cleveland, but I also didn't have my
setting file, so I don't know if it was the driving model or the setup.
However, the new qualifying setups seem pretty competitive. I did manage to
best my fastest lap at Milwaukee by 2mph, so maybe something has changed. Or
maybe the new QualAce setup is just 2mph better than mine.
Well, I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I'm willing to answer any
questions you might have.
Clark Archer Speed Tribe
IVGA #3920 1996 Lola Honda Firestone