rec.autos.simulators

My old system was a PII 350 (running at 392), 128MB, Creative TNT and
Win98SE. This system wasn't great for F1-2000 and other games I play, but it
used to run GPL at an approximately constant 35/36 FPS once on track (using
Direct3D).

I recently upgraded the motherboard to a Gigabyte GA-7ZXR Ver 2.2 and CPU to
a Duron 900 (which is currently running stably at 1008). I also upgraded to
Win2k (and installed SP1) in the hopes of greater software stability, etc. I
have a LWFF and installed the 3.65 Win2k driver. I also installed the
Detonator3 Nvidia drivers (the file was W2K-650.zip). I have installed
DirectX 8.0a.

However, GPL now runs at an apparent maximum FPS of about 30 (also in D3D).
I tried Sports Car GT which also seemed maybe a little choppy (although I
didn't examine it thoroughly).

I know I need a new graphics card soon (should happen in the next month),
but I am rather certain that this system should be capable of a bit more in
GPL. I wouldn't like some underlying problem to be disguised by a faster
graphics card.

Should I try OpenGL, or is there something else I should look at?

Another thing - the monitor refresh rate in GPL is now 60Hz (ugggh!)
regardless of what I do to the Windows desktop. In Win98, I used to go to
the resolution of the game concerned, set it to the correct colour depth and
then adjust the refresh rate. This setting would then be applied to any game
(regardless of the current desktop) that used that particular resolution and
colour depth. This doesn't seem to be happening with Win2k. Any ideas?

Thanks for reading this rather long post, and thanks for any suggestions!

Ryan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faster-than-light travel is indeed possible, though research into economical
methods has been systematically supressed by headlamp manufacturers
and their agents in the Congress.
        --Todd Zwillich

Second, how much memory do you have?  Win2k needs at least 128MB, just for
starters.

Third, do you have the latest OS upgrades (there are many beyond SP1).

Have you installed the two critical hotfixes for AMD CPUs and VIA AGP?
Alternatively... install Service Pack *2*, as this makes other things
better too.

Service Pack 2 *is* available from Microsoft's web site, but it's not
advertised!  :-)

--
Richard.
   (speaking personally)

Hmm, not really. Certainly not in price/performance ratio. They're generally
about 10% slower and 40% cheaper than the Thunderbirds with the same clock
rate. OK, there's some cache missing compared to the Thunderbirds, and the
Durons will miss out on the 266 MHZ FSB, but they're not at all bad,
especially for ***. Ridiculously overclockable, and blow the Celerons out
of the water. Unless you can explain to me why GPL is particularly
cache-intensive, I find it hard to point a finger at the Duron CPU.

Have 128MB, and will be upgrading soon. Anyway, this is a constant FPS
problem. The machine's not thrashing or paging memory around excessively. Do
you want to bet on the FPS increase I'll get with an increase in memory?

I have SP1 plus all of those listed on the Windows Update site. I have yet
to install SP2 mentioned by another poster. Which updates would be likely to
cause a drop in FPS?

I installed the VIA drivers that came with the motherboard, although I've
just downloaded the latest drivers from the VIA site and I'll give them a
try.

These may be what I'm looking for. Thanks again!

Ryan

<snip>

<more snippage>

These two may well be linked!

If your refresh rate is fixed at 60Hz, and you have vsync enabled for your
graphics card, then the only "allowable" frame rates will be 15fps, 30fps,
60fps etc.

So

1) Try downloading the nvreffixsetup program suggested by Arnaud Francois
2) Disable vsnc on the TNT

I doubt that SP2 will help (in this respect at least).

Ian

I see that to access the refresh rate sync in Direct3D, a "CoolBits" key has
to be added to the registry (for the NVIDIA reference drivers).

I'll try this and get back to the group.

Thanks!

Ryan

And where did you get that misinformation from? Please provide proof.
--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

This was exactly the problem. Disabling vsync worked, but I got rather ugly
flashes every now and then. I suppose this was due to frames being dropped
or repeated in the asynchronous system. This happened both at 85Hz and 72Hz
(chosen for obvious reasons).

Setting the vsync to "on" and the refresh rate to 85Hz seems to produce the
best results.

When I upgrade my video card I'll see if I can get better results with the
vsync off.

Thanks to all for the advice (other than Mr Lape who seems to have a calling
to PC sales!).

Ryan

Ash

| First of all, the Duron sucks.
|

Ian

Why?  Do you have any other statements to back up your opinion, or are you just
spewing?  Gawd, I *hate* when people do this...

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +25.37...F2 +151.26...

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

|
| >First of all, the Duron sucks.