Wow! I've been into flight sims for a few years and had quite a bit of fun
there. But lately they've gotten pretty stale, and for some random reason
last week I decided to fire up GPL (I bought it about a year ago when it
started disappearing off the shelves, knowing it was pretty much the high
point of racing sims, just in case I ever decided to get into racing) and
see how it went. Well, needless to say I'm enjoying it a ton, as it has
many of the things I enjoy in flight sims (feeling of speed, competition,)
but I found that all of that was concentrated to the nth degree.
So anyway, I found out Papy's new sim was coming out soon, so I dl'ed the
demo and had some fun with it, and decided I'd pick up N4 on release,
figuring that between it and GPL I'd have pretty much everything I need to
decide if I want to jump into this genre with both feet.
Well now, after running N4 for about an hour, I'm HOOKED! Framerates on my
system (P3-933, 128 MB, V5) are 18 - 25 in cockpit, 25 - 33 on the nose at
Daytona at 800 X 600 with full graphics and with a full field of cars drawn
ahead, and 10 in the mirrors. This is everything I love about flying
(except for avionics mastery,) but without the boring 30 minutes of flying
for every 1 minute of action.
Incidentally, firing up N4 made me remember what a blessing FSAA on the V5
is, as I initially fired it up in OpenGl (which isn't FSAA'd,) and was
struck by how terribly pixelated everything was. So I switched to D3D at
800* 600 with FSAA, and MY GOD, that looks almost real! Great job to Papy
for giving us such detailed tracks, and to 3dfx (RIP) for giving us FSAA.
Now I've just got to decide on a wheel (I'm using a Wingman RumblePad for
now...don't laugh) and spend some time practicing so I can test out the MP
without ruining someone else's race by spinning all over the track!
Anyway, that turned out to be a bit more of a rave about my newfound hobby
than an informative post about N4, but I'm so ecstatic right now that I just
had to share it with someone. Thanks for listening!
Tex
I was practicing at Indy with GPL and was having heat problems with my
V5 (my computer is close to a heat-vent ...). I set it to fastest mode
and 1280x1024. I could hardly see T3 from half-way down the
backstraight -- it looked horrible. After setting back to 800x600
4xFSAA, I could see the corners, clear as day.
I'm really sad that 3Dfx is out of the picture now. They have made me
see how good graphics can look. Our only hope is that nVidia use the
knowledge they bought from 3Dfx and put it to good use.
If I'm stuck with a AMD 2GHz and no FSAA, or inferior FSAA, it will
certainly be a step backward in graphic technology for me.
Jason.
Tex wrote:
--
Jason Monds
http://www.proracingclub.com - Pro Racing Club! (N3, GPL, Fun Run Sims)
http://www.racersdomain.com - Race hosting.
(Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)
Quoted text (8 lines)
> > Incidentally, firing up N4 made me remember what a blessing FSAA on the V5 > is, as I initially fired it up in OpenGl (which isn't FSAA'd,) and was > struck by how terribly pixelated everything was. So I switched to D3D at > 800* 600 with FSAA, and MY GOD, that looks almost real! Great job to Papy > for giving us such detailed tracks, and to 3dfx (RIP) for giving us FSAA. > > Tex> Incidentally, firing up N4 made me remember what a blessing FSAA on the V5
> is, as I initially fired it up in OpenGl (which isn't FSAA'd,) and was
> struck by how terribly pixelated everything was. So I switched to D3D at
> 800* 600 with FSAA, and MY GOD, that looks almost real! Great job to Papy
> for giving us such detailed tracks, and to 3dfx (RIP) for giving us FSAA.
Hmm, I was thinking I would be buying a Geforce2 card after playing N4
tonight with my V5 as my framerates are not all that great and the graphics
look very washed out and blurry. Also, the car textures seem to "pop-in" as
you get closer to them which is really noticable and distracting. I "only"
have a PIII-650mhz processor, so maybe that is why I am having problems
though.
Still thus far I am extremely impressed by this game to say the least.
If you don't want the 2ghz, then give it to me......
Hehe :) I'll still use the 2GHz but I'll be disappointed if I'm seeing
pixel-popping in my graphics when that time comes.
Jason.
Regular Racer wrote:
>
> If you don't want the 2ghz, then give it to me......
--
Jason Monds
http://www.proracingclub.com - Pro Racing Club! (N3, GPL, Fun Run Sims)
http://www.racersdomain.com - Race hosting.
(Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)
