I haven't seen this posted yet, so let me know if it is a known
problem..
I received my Intergraph Reactor Tuesday, and I must say that I am very
impressed. Since I mostly play ICR2, I figured that it was worth
replacing my Matrox Millenium 2MB to get the added benefits of this 3D
chipset. Installed in my 166MHz Pentium with 32 MB RAM, 512K PB Cache,
it almost always stays at 30 fps, with all cars and textures drawn.
Anyway, tonight my friend that I head-to-head race with came over for
some practice laps. After starting the sim, he selected Portland New. I
was in another room when he came in and said that he couldn't race on
the machine because everything was too fast. I gave him a funny look, an
then just laughed it off since he had been playing it on my 90Mhz
Pentium machine with a Diamond Stealth 2201, which crawls in comparison.
When I went to try it myself, I couldn't believe what had happened. The
sim had honestly kicked in to what can only be described as 2X speed.
The car only took half as much time to cover a given area as it normally
would have, and the lap timer was also running twice as fast. The car
went so fast and responded to steering input so quickly that it was
almost impossible to control. Also, the AI cars would just blow by you
no matter what.
The funny thing is that the PC did not slow down, it EASILY kept up with
the increased speed. In fact, the sim looked so fluid that it made 30
fps look like 10 fps. I pressed Alt-R, and the frame rate counter stayed
at 60 fps at all times. I know that all of this may sound like complete
garbage, but it is very hard for me to put what happened into words. I
guess the best comparison would be likened to running a fast search on
your VCR.
The only change that had occured since the last time I had run ICR2 was
the installation of a new Impression Vienna 15" PnP monitor that I am
evaluating. I really can't see what difference this would make, but I
guess anything is possible.
After playing the sim for a few minutes this way, I exited and then
restarted it without ever rebooting the PC. Since then everything as
been normal. I'll try to duplicate the problem again.
If anybody has any suggestions on what could have happened then please
let me know. Maybe we can find out if Intergraph or Rendition has run
into to this freak occurance also.
Still trying to figure out what happened...
Eric Giles