rec.autos.simulators

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Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://www.racesimcentral.net/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

What is better? A Pentium 200 or a Pentium PRO 200 for indycar 2 or
nascar ? I would be greatful if anybody could give me some answers.

Thanks
Joost

 >
 >What is better? A Pentium 200 or a Pentium PRO 200 for indycar 2 or
 >nascar ? I would be greatful if anybody could give me some answers.
 >
 >Thanks
 >Joost
 >

I believe that Rick Genter has pointed out that ICR2 is a 32-bit program, so
you should see about 2x performance when running ICR2.  Don't know about
NCR, but I would imagine it is similar.

Clark

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Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

Joe

 >
 >> I believe that Rick Genter has pointed out that ICR2 is a 32-bit program, so
 >> you should see about 2x performance when running ICR2.  Don't know about
 >> NCR, but I would imagine it is similar.
 >
 >Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be true only if you were
 >running the upcoming Windows versions through WinNT 4.0, a true 32-bit
 > operating
 >system?  
 >

Well, I don't think the processor cares what OS is running, just which
instructions are used.  I run ICR2 from a DOS prompt which starts up DOS4GW,
which is as I understand, a 32-bit protected mode OS in and of itself. So as
long as ICR2 is using 32-bit instructions, you will get the full P6
performance.

Check out some of the benchmarks such as Chris' 3D Bench when running on a P6
as compared to a P5 with the same clock speed and graphics adapter.

For example, even though I run NT4.0b1, if I choose to run a 16-bit program,
it will still be slower on a P6 than on a P5 of equal clock speed.

One thing to remember is that when the P5 w/MMX arrives (along with software
to take advantage of the new instructions), that the issue will be further
clouded.

Clark

 Would you mind explaning why that is (only faster in NT 4)? I have never
heard that before. My understanding is that the interger portion of the
ppro is quite a bit faster than it's pentuim brother. You will pay a price
for running 16 bit apps on a ppro but so what.....how many 16 bit apps do
you still have that depend on state of the art performance? Also at least
some of the ppros come with L2 cache on the CPU that runs at CPU speed as
oppsed to external speed.

 The price of the pentium and ppro 200 CPU are pretty close actually. The
motherboards however are not $175 vs. $900. So it's really a price thing.
If I was gonna dump close to 2K on a motherboard I'd wait for Intel to
start putting that MMV on their CPU's, might come in handy for gamers. But
if money is not really an issue I'd go for the ppro. I'm waitng for the
ppro 300 and for the price to drop big time =].

Adam

Right now I don't think the upgrade to a P6 is worth it just to play ICR2 and Nascar,
as the origional poster inquired about.  Unless he was planing on going to switch to
WinNT, which by thw way will not be getting all of DirectX making Win95 the ***
platform of choice (the only reason I haven't switched to WinNT 4.0).  Without taking
full advantage of the chip with the OS as well as applications, the performance just
doesn't justify the cost.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://www.racesimcentral.net/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

Joe

Many computer magazines have run tests showing that a Pentium Pro running Win95 is
only slightly (and I mean very slightly) faster than a regular Pentium.  However
when the OS is switched to NT the speed in some cases doubles.

It's MMX by the way, but you're right.  I really can't justify spending the that
much money on an upgrade knowing full well that within a year it will need to be
replaced.  What I would do (and incidently it's what I'm probably going to do), is
just wait until spring and upgrade to an MMX P6, switch over to WinNT 4.0, and add
a 3D video card.  With the MMX, you basically get 24-bit color at 8-bit speeds as
well as numerous other advantages.  MMX will become the new standard for Windows
games and multimedia.  Come companies (like EPIC with their upcoming title UNREAL)
are already coding for MMX for the added color depth alone.

If someone really can't wait that long, the best option would be to just upgrade
to the P5-200 for now.  Then in the spring upgrade again to the P6.  If you've got
the money to burn, you might as well have the fastest computer avaliable at all
times right? =)

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Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

writes:

We do no operating system calls during driving in the DOS version, and
very little in the Windows 95 version. For the Windows 95 version,
however, you'll need to make sure that you have the latest DirectDraw
drivers for your video card.

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Sierra On-Line, Inc.

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Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick

=> If someone really can't wait that long, the best option would be to just
=>  upgrade
=> to the P5-200 for now.  Then in the spring upgrade again to the P6.  If
=>  you've got
=> the money to burn, you might as well have the fastest computer avaliable at
=>  all
=> times right? =)

No, I will buy either a P5 200 or Cyrix's P200+, then upgrade to Cyrix's M2
next year. This will cost me a lot of Ks

Chris

writes:

Windows NT is not one of the target platforms for IndyCar Racing II.

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Sierra On-Line, Inc.

You had said earlier that you used few operating system calls in 95 and that you
will need DirectDraw drivers.  WinNT 4.0 will be shipping with DirectDraw and
DirectSound.  Because of this, I had just assumed that the Win95 versions would
indeed run in the NT environment.  

I would really appreciate if you could find this out for me.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Hawaii Network UserName: Buschwick