rec.autos.simulators

bryon
--
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It is still amazing how many people think that the year 2000 is the start of
the next century.
Bryon Lape

writes:

Since it is not one of our target platforms, we aren't going to spend any
time investigating it. (Can you tell that we're two weeks from shipping?)

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

I'm curious. Do the Win95 game APIs allow you to take "exclusive"
control of the CPU for a game? i.e., Can you disable Win95
multitasking while the game is running?

Joe

--

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

No, you can not.

(I once heard a rumor about Microsoft extending DirectX to include
DirectCPU and DirectMemory, which would give us even more DOS-like
capabilities for locking down the cycles and memory we want, but that's
all it's been so far, a rumor.)

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

Dave "davids" Sparks
Sequoia Motorsports

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

     Will the Win95 version of ICR2 be playable on NT?
  Nick

_________________________________________________________________

#6 & #94 in the *real* quest for the Cup!!!
My home away from home... http://users.aol.com/ntotoro/122895.htm
_________________________________________________________________

Stuart

--
Stuart Booth
Somewhere in Godalming, England, UK

The test I read in PC Magazine said that a PPro runs Win95 at about the same
speed as an equivalent speed Pentium. It was a test of a 150mhz PPro and a
150mhz Pentium.  I don't recall which issue it was, I read it at the library.

I sort of agree with you. :)

It makes sense to buy the most computing power you can afford when you DO make
a purchase. MMX is a band-aid fix at best for the PC platform. It adds
instructions to the processor to do some of the work of the video card, which
speeds up some video functions. BUT it also uses processor time, so your
occupancy rates will rise. Apparently the performance gain is enough to make up
for that, we won't really know the facts until systems with MMX come on the
market. Why not raise the PCI bus speed up from 66mhz (at the highest) to
something more appropriate for today's powerful systems? I don't know if this
is a function of the Pentium, or the chipset manufacturers, or whoever. But it
would allow faster data throughput from the system's main memory and the video
card. Sort of like upgrading to a faster modem.

I recently bought a Pentium Pro system, it should show up at my door in about a
week (i'm going nuts waiting for it!) I thought about waiting for the Pentium
200 introduction later this year, or MMX even later, but it came down to two
things. The first is that I am not going to play the waiting game for the next
latest thing, a person could go ga-ga doing that and never buy a machine.
Second, my PPro200 system cost $3500 with all the goodies (check out Quantex's
ads, the sm2 P6 200.) When the Pentium 200 comes out, i'm betting it will be
priced somewhere close to that. So I figure I bought about equal 16-bit
processing power, and vastly superior 32-bit power for graphics and other
'serious' apps. If i'm wrong, hell i'll just put Unix on it and start a small
ISP or something. ;)

:  (Can you tell that we're two weeks from shipping?)

Thank you.  It sounds like you will make your projected release date.
This will be a wonderful birthday present.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Chris

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Having seen ICR2 running on both a 200Mhz Pentium Pro and an early 200Mhz
Pentium, I can assure you that the Pro is still faster on ICR2.  (Same video,
but different disk - but disk shouldn't matter.)

At this time, suitably equipped 200Mhz Pros are the fastest ICR2 boxes
around.  (Suitably equipped means "with a fast enough video board" - I have
a #9 imagine and I've sesen Matrox Milleniums too.)
--

Brian Wong                              Systems Engineering Group (Servers)

Consider the data requirements of a framebuffer.  A 1024x1024x24-bit display
refreshed at 30 fps would consume 3 MB * 30 fps = 90 MB/sec if you refreshed
every single pixel in every single frame.  Geometric modelling framebuffers
consume even less bandwidth, and bear in mind that this is a pretty severe
test in and of itself.  

ICR2 in SVGA runs the display at 640x480x8 (I think) - 30fps is therefore
about 9 MB/sec.

--

Brian Wong                              Systems Engineering Group (Servers)

Firstly PCI in today's systems runs at 33Mhz, not 66Mhz.

Secondly, if PCI makes no difference, why is there such a marked
performance difference in terms of graphics throughput between systems
based upon 60Mhz boards and those with 66Mhz?

Thirdly, BURST transfer rate is a poor indicator of performance.
Graphics data is not transferred intermitently, it is a sustained
transfer rate which is important. It's like hi-fi companies quoting
"peak" power to make ridiculous power claims.

Finally, the shift to 3D accelerator cards is partly to limit the amount
of data moving through the PCI bus bottleneck. If you need only move
basic graphics data and instructions for the on-board chipset, it cuts
down all the massive data transfer overhead. Why do that if it can all
be shifted through the bus quickly?

A faster PCI bus would give more benefit than upgrading to YET another
Pentium, at least in games terms. The problem is that the motherboards
would be difficult (costly) to make, the peripherals too (and we would
have to upgrade to take advantage of it, and the current DRAM is too
slow to operate on motherboards faster than 66Mhz. Newer S-DRAM will
allow increases up to 75Mhz, although this in itself could cause
problems since PCI bus speed is almost invariably inextricably tied in
to the motherboard speed (only one exception I know of).

Cheers!
John

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