F1GP2 : Absolute Minimum Requirements?

I suppose nobody can give a clear, accurate guess on when GP2 will be released, but that aside, can anybody tell me what the absolute minimum requirements will be for playing this game? According to the postings I have read so far, it seems that a slowish Pentium (say 90 or 75) would deliver acceptable performance and a 486 DX ( 50? 66?) would be the absolute rock bottom limit? Anybody know anything more?

How do you want to run, SVGA or VGA? According to the lead tester of Microprose, one of their testers has been playing it exclusively on a 486-66 and he was very happy (of course VGA and reduced detail) - until he saw the P-166 version! :) With SVGA, P-90 is supposed ideal minimum platform with a P-75 being absolute minimum (which means also a 486-120 or 486-150 unless the code is Pentium optimised). A P-133 will be fine (and is also the most cost- effective chip to buy at the moment fortunately!). P-166 gives excellent performance but is stil a waste of money - far too high a price. Cheers! John PS - For more info check out the GP2 review and the sim-racing hardware guide in Sim Racing News (on-line magazine on WWW). Address (URL) is below.... _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

Besides a really fast computer you also need A LOT OF PATIENCE! Marco -- Looking for .sig, please hold.

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>>I suppose nobody can give a clear, accurate guess on when GP2 will be >>released, but that aside, can anybody tell me what the absolute minimum >>requirements will be for playing this game? >>According to the postings I have read so far, it seems that a slowish >>Pentium (say 90 or 75) would deliver acceptable performance and a 486 DX ( >>50? 66?) would be the absolute rock bottom limit? Anybody know anything >>more? >How do you want to run, SVGA or VGA? >According to the lead tester of Microprose, one of their testers has >been playing it exclusively on a 486-66 and he was very happy (of course >VGA and reduced detail) - until he saw the P-166 version! :) >With SVGA, P-90 is supposed ideal minimum platform with a P-75 being >absolute minimum (which means also a 486-120 or 486-150 unless the code >is Pentium optimised). A P-133 will be fine (and is also the most cost- >effective chip to buy at the moment fortunately!). P-166 gives excellent >performance but is stil a waste of money - far too high a price. >Cheers! >John

By the way, just a small comment, from the VGA screen pictures that are out, the graphics look GREAT even at 320x200, so I think that even VGA mode on my DX2/66 might satisfy me for a while, if it can run F1GP2 with those great graphics. Keeping my fingers crossed until I can afford that P166. Only a few more weeks (hopefully). --John -- ------------------- John (Joao) Silva http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jsilva Seattle, Washington USA.

I dunno. The screen shots looks great when I view them as part of a web page, but when I expand them to full-screen, they look just as blocky as IndyCar2. When I first loaded up IndyCar I thought the graphics looked reasonably good. Then I loaded it up in SVGA, just to see what I was missing (as I only have a 486). Suffice to say I had instant processor envy, and I'm sure that will be the case when GP2 comes out. -- Stephen Ferguson

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>>By the way, just a small comment, from the VGA screen pictures that are >>out, the graphics look GREAT even at 320x200, so I think that even >>VGA mode on my DX2/66 might satisfy me for a while, if it can run F1GP2 >>with those great graphics. >I dunno. The screen shots looks great when I view them as part of a web >page, but when I expand them to full-screen, they look just as blocky >as IndyCar2. When I first loaded up IndyCar I thought the graphics looked >reasonably good. Then I loaded it up in SVGA, just to see what I was >missing (as I only have a 486). Suffice to say I had instant processor >envy, and I'm sure that will be the case when GP2 comes out. >Stephen Ferguson

Hmm good point, I haven't looked at them full screen yet myself, forgot about that <G>. Most of the time though, I race in ICR2 and Nascar with most of the gfx off anyhow. I am more into a realistic racing experience than eyecandy, so I suspect that if F1GP2 does have many of the features it is rumoured to have, that I will be able to enjoy it with not so great gfx until I make the big plunge into a Pentium system. I will load up those screen pics fullsecreen tonight and see. Thanks for the suggestion. --John -- ------------------- John (Joao) Silva http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jsilva Seattle, Washington USA.

lab.queensu.ca> writes If you took them from my page, please note I chopped them a little to save bandwidth so they probably will look ***when expanded - a lot of info is already lost. The ones at the correct 320x200 look fine as full screen. Cheers! John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

As long as you're running OS/2, I'm not surprised that adding more memory made a huge difference in speed! As far as games are concerned and running them from DOS, if you have 8Mb, you won't see an enormous improvement in going to 16Mb or 32Mb. Some, but not much. The speed is defined primarily by your processor, and secondly be your graphics card. Everything else is pretty much redundant in this equation. Motherboard, pipe-cache, EDO-RAM etc, these things make a difference, but nothing like dropping a P-133 into your case. A P-66 is the first of the Pentiums (with the P-60) and isn't much of a step up from 486s, indeed many of the newer 486 chips are faster than it. Have a look at the hardware section of Sim Racing News at the URL below to get an idea of the hardware required and recommended for Sim Racing. It's one man's opinion (mine!), and while holes could be picked in it even by myself, it's pretty comprehensive. Cheers! John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

> Me-thinks that processor speed >isn't always that important - or at least not the limiting/deciding >factor. But it's an easy one for the adverts to hang on to sell kit. It just takes a slow graphics card, for instance, to bottleneck whatever your CPU's doing for you. All components; motherboard, cache, RAM, graphics, PCI/ISA/VLB bus have to work in some sort of harmony. I recall one chap saying on some newsgroup once, that a quality collection of benchmarking tools is a vital part of a top quality computer system. This is so that you can identify where you have a problem, if at all, or whatever may need improving first. Still haven't got myself a collection of good benchmarking s/w mind you, but the sentiment is there! Stuart