rec.autos.simulators

Before the game hit the streets, I was hoping that the graphics performance
would be just as good or better than ICR2 and NASCAR on my P6 (200MHz,
Millenium, fastvid, etc...). I was greatly disappointed!

Well, I've played the game for about 30-32 hours (in intervals, of course).
And my definition of smooth is no less than 18fps. I don't care for 25fps
in super slow motion, however smooth it maybe. You don't have any sense of
speed under those conditions. In trying to setup my graphics options to
accommodate my PC under worst case conditions (Race start and into 1st
corner at Monaco in SVGA), I came up the following settings:

ALL track side objects shown
Textures ON: Curbs, Fences, and nothing else :(
Plot in Mirrors: Curbs, Fences, Verges, Track, Smoke
Instead of Est. Avg. FPS of >25.6fps, I use 18.2fps manually.

At the start of the race Processor Occupancy (PO) is about 85%. Going into
the first corner on the first lap, the OP is about 160% because of the
traffic jam. After the first corner, the OP will stay below 100% which
means that the game is giving me 18.2fps in real time, not simulated time.

I tried VGA and was able to turn on all textures except sky and all plotted
in mirrors w/ no textures and maintain 21fps. This gave me a beautiful
sense of speed. However, it was difficult to tell when to turn in on
corners. The point where the inside fence and the outside fence meet
visually was hard to distinguish from a 100 meters out(game wise). Needless
to say, I rather have no textures and better visibility than all textures
and poor visibility.

IMHO, the biggest technical tragedy of this game is the fact that it
doesn't make use of VESA 2.0 extensions and Linear Frame Buffer.
Just about every graphics intensive SVGA game out uses LFB. I suspect that
the use of banked vga mode is causing a hit on the P6.

It's a big shame to have artist spend hundreds of hours on those beautiful
textures and not have them seen under race conditions in SVGA. I sure hope
that Geoff and team plan on revising their graphics code and possibly
include support for the Matrox, Virge, Rendition Verite, or Voodoo chip
sets. Judging by the rabidness for GP2 from the folks on this list, it
seems that most would spend another $275 for a new card that was supported
by GP2 and could run at 28-30fps (in real time) in full glory (all textures
on). Am I wrong? How about a survey? Instead of wasting bandwidth on the
newgroup, just send me email with your vote.

Later,

===========================================================
Alex Fernandez
MTS
Lucent Technologies
No. Andover, MA
email:

tel: (508)960-6510
===========================================================

I couldn't agree more with your comments. Very well said.  I would surely
pay $200 - $300 on a graphics card that could run this game at 28 fps with
70% graphics on in svga!!!  I wish Micropose would just give us some word
on what their plans are for this great sim. Obviously everyone is spending
some $$$$ on it :)

Brent

I have a question for you all?  What platform did Microprose use to
test racing with ALL textures on?  VGA & SVGA?

I wonder if Microprose is listening to this forum about GP2?  If so,
do they intend to release patches for some problems?

Perhaps an avid hacker out there could go through the code and perhaps
cut out some choice routines that are eating time and speed?

        -Kevin

But Im happy with my matrox and wouldt change my video card for
gp2...although I said I liked it alot(hey theres gotta be a limit
somewhere :-) ).

PS: U said U have p6...R U using FASTVID?...I heard it improves your
system and all p6s HUGELY in 16-bit programs...although gp2 uses
dos4gw(which is supposed to be a 32-bit extender for dos)...so go
figure. But check JEBs posts...he admitted that fastvid improved
things significantly....dunno the URL though...anyone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<Ville Kopu>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ViK at IRC, #f1 & #gp2        http://koti.kolumbus.fi/~vkopu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<Second is first of loserS>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~