Glad to hear your results are good. You might want to try moving up to 6x
AA. If your bottleneck is still the cpu then you could put more work on
your graphic card by moving to 6X and it shouldn't cost you any FPS. If
your fps go down significantly, then you are probably already at that sweet
spot.
First person shooters generally are graphic card limited because they have a
large amount of high detailed art/textures on your screen at one time.
Racing games generally are cpu intensive because of the calculations
required for the physic model and the most high detail textures are in the
cars which only gets high when you are in close proximity of a large group
of cars. Most of your screen real estate is your***pit and sky which
isn't a big load on your graphics card anyway.
-Tim
> For all you who are interested, I thought I'd post my results here.
> Well, I installed the game and my new Radeon 9700 card on another
> system:
> P4 2.4 GHz
> 768 MB RAM
> AGP 4x
> Radeon 9700 (non-pro version)
> Catalyst 3.5 drivers
> Catalyst settings: AA: 4x AF: 16x Vsynch:On
> Resolution: 1280x960 32-bit in a window
> Windows XP Pro
> Default in game options except where noted below
> 42 cars visible in front (only 28 in the race though)
> 14 sounds
> Extreme Texture level
> When I play Nascar 2003, I start the race at the back of the pack at
> around 35 fps now (22 with my other 1.8 GHz system). During the race,
> my fps is usually in the 30s, 40s or 50s and has gone as high as 102
> when I'm facing the outside wall in a corner (not a desireable
> position, but great for performance!).
> I am surprised that this game is so CPU intensive. I would have
> thought it would be more like the 3D shooter games I am used to
> playing like Unreal, Quake, Return to Castle Wolfenstien. In those
> games it always appeared to be restricted by my video card, not my
> CPU.
> Well, thanks to this newsgroup, I decided not to return my video card,
> but to upgrade my processor and now I have a great *** environment!
> Thanks a ton to all of you who took the time to respond - damn, I
> love the internet.
> SkykingUSA
> > You are cpu limited. Your cpu can't pump data to the video card fast
enough
> > to slow down the video card. You can either run with the max settings
and
> > be happy with it or get a faster cpu. NR2003 is a very cpu intensive
game.
> > -Tim
> > > I am having problems with Nascar 2003 and my new Radeon 9700 video
> > > card. Anyone, please tell me if this sounds correct to you!
> > > My system is a 1.8 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, AGP 4x, Radeon 9700 (non-pro
> > > version). I have installed the Catalyst 3.5 drivers. When I play
> > > Nascar 2003, I start the race at the back of the pack at around 22
> > > fps. In-game options are all default. During the race, my fps never
> > > drops below 18 and has gone as high as 52, but usually is in the
> > > twenties somewhere.
> > > The kicker (and what I don't understand) is this: I get this same
> > > performance (within 3 fps) when I run at 800x600 or at 1600x1200. I
> > > also get this same performance whether I have my Catalyst driver
> > > settings at the minimum (max performance) or at the maximum (max
> > > quality - which by the was is at 4X AA and 8X Anis. Filtering). This
> > > seems very strange to me.
> > > The only way for me to adjust my fps, is to adjust the in game
> > > options. For example, I can increase framerate by reducing the number
> > > of cars I see ahead.
> > > This is driving me crazy! Why is my framerate not changing when I
> > > change the resolution and driver settings?! Should I return my card?
> > > Do I have a faulty card? HELP!
> > > SkykingUSA
