rec.autos.simulators

Hi,
I have just changed my processor (PII 266 for Celeron 300A at 374 MHz),
motherboard (Intel's LX 440 for ABit's BH6) and bought additional 64 MB
of RAM.
I've had Voodoo2 and PDPI L4 before. Also the previous motherboard had
an on-board Yamaha's OPL-SA2 soundcard.

The performance I was getting with the old system was satisfying, but a
horror when tryin to race more then 5 cars in GPL (I can't drive with
less then 30fps, at least not fast).

Now with this configuration, I can run full details at 800x600 at 36fps
(Mexico race with 19 opponents at the grid showed 24-25fps, when the
field spread, I got normal 36fps back).

Now here goes the problem I have :
When I go racing online (with 28800 modem) I get very bad frame rates -
which I didn't experience with my previous configuration (I've turned to
640x480 resolution, decreased the detail level and still no success). I
find it very annoying, since I can't run fast neither consistent at
these frame rates I'm not used to....  :o(

Anyone knows if maybe the old sound card that I'm using (SB 16 PnP-32)
could be the cause for it ?
I've tried to reinstall the Voodoo drivers, PDPI drivers and nothing
seems to help.

Would SB Live! make a difference ? Any other ideas ?

It just seems redicilus to me that I didn't have such problems before on
much slower
system...

Thanks for every suggestion.... :o)

Cheers,
Tadej Krevh

What do you mean with bad framerate 2 fps ? 5 fps ?
or does the frame ratecounter still say 36fps ? ok you can
pull out the soundcart and see if the problem is still there
it could also be a problem because youre using a 83 MHz
busspeed (didnt the celery make it to 450?)
and maybe your modem (internal or external on serial port?)
cant handle the higher busspeeds i dont know if the serial port
is also overclocked when u use 75/83 bus
but you can try to set it back to 66 or 75

actually i think none of these are the problem maybe you just
catched a bad host which caused frame stuttering?

MzzL
Jarno

Yes, 2 to 5 fps, although it seems as I'd loose 20fps :o)
I completely loose the sense of speed and often crash before
I get used to that frame decrease (2fps wouldn't make such a
difference). The funniest part is that I can drive at 800x600 at
almost full details, without dynamic lightning and skid marks
at the same frame rate as on 640x480 on low details. So I
guessed it should be something worng with my config.
Celeron ? It did 450MHz (even booted on 2.0V) then only
last for few minutes and hanged. When I boosted it's voltage
to 2.20V it was working longer. As a matter a fact, it was
working near damn perfectly, it's just that sometimes GPL
terminated, and Win95 saying that it performed illegal operation
(could that be the RAM?). Well, I haven't had any problems
with illegal operations on 83MHz bus speed. I also tried
running Celeron online at 450MHz and got the same strange
effect. My modem is external 28800 USR. The thing is that
I have never experienced that with my previous spec (PII 266).
And the only things different to previous spec are new processor,
new motherboard, and 96MB PC100 RAM. And that old
Creative Sound Blaster 16 PnP-32.

Yes, maybe I should try to run on 66 or 75MHz, but I don't think that is
the problem.

It was not the host, I had this on every host I joined.

I really hope someone could help me out on this.... :o)

Cheers,
Tadej

Hi, there are two things I can think of that may help
Firstly in game controllers try poll with interrupts in the other position
to what it is now (apparently it can affect the polling of the modem port
too).
Second thing is in your core.ini file add these lines

[ Communications ]

clock_adj_delay = 10

the default is 12, if that doesn't work try 14.
this is supposed to deal with clock smashing, but going too far one way can
cause framerate problems.

I dont know if this will work for you, but is probably worth a try.

Have you installed Direct x6 ?. When I installed MGPRS2 it automatically
installed DX6 and seemed to adversely affect the framerate in GPL.

Oh, an after thought is try turning down the sound quality in app.ini in the
GPL folder, try it at 0.
--
Ian Parker

ICQ   21772592

Hi,
well, PDPI uses polling by default, so I can't turn it off.

I have clock_adj_delay at 6 now I think. I'll try higher settings.
I'll also reinstall win95 (or install win98 instead) since I didn't do
it when I upgraded my compo (well..except for some drivers needed for SB).

So...DX 5.0 is better ?
I'll have to check that one out...

I'll also try to sound quality, but I doubt it has got to do something with it,
since
I'm going off real fine offline (36fps, full details, 19opponents, Mexico in
race, 24-25fps on grid).

Thanks.

Tadej