F1GP2 @ SA Computer Faire - impressions

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>I saw F1GP2 at the South African Computer Faire. The local >distributors had it running on a big screen connected to their PC. >According to the spotty youth working for the local distributors, the >version they had was the version that would be released on 28th June, >barring a few bug-fixes. >Right here are my impressions of the game. >On the positive side first: >1. The sound is amazing. The car I had a go in was Damon Hill's >Williams, and I recognised the car ( I took over in mid-lap from >another chap) from the distinctive Renault V-10 sound. Some of the >other sounds, such as the crashes were not 100% accurate (what does a >crash really sound like?), but close enough. >2. The simulation seems to be very accurate, loads of throttle off the >line will leave you standing in a cloud of your own tyre smoke. >Touching wheels with your opponents will launch one of you into the >air. The kitty litter in the sandtraps will bog the car down unless >you have some speed, but heading through the sandtrap at high speed >will have your view bouncing all over the place (something I did a >couple of times) >3. The car setup (what I saw of it) was extensive. A lot of thought >will have to go into setting your car up correctly. >On the negative side: >You need a serious machine to run F1GP2. Don't let anyone tell you >otherwise. According to the representative, they were running the game >in SVGA (640 x 480) with MOST features enabled. The hardware consisted >of a Packard-Bell P133 with 32Mb RAM. Even with this sort of >horsepower, the passing scenery seemed a bit jerky, especially when >taking a corner. Things got a lot worse when there were a lot of other >cars in view. The first corner at Monza, after the start was confusing >as the picture seems to jump around as the game tried to keep up with >the task of drawing all those cars, and coping with your input. >Would I buy it? Of course, but I don't expect I will be able to run it >with everything turned on in SVGA mode on my P120. I have yet to see a >game that beats The Need for Speed when it comes to smooth graphics in >SVGA mode. >Cliff >------------------------------------------------ >Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa >WWW: http://www.global.co.za/~csmith/default.htm >------------------------------------------------

Yep, good call Clifford. I saw the same setup and you're pretty much spot on. It seems as if some serious processing power will be the order of the day for anyone wanting to run F1GP2 with all the t***s. The gameplay did look somewhat jerky, and I was shocked to find out that they were running a P133. Love the tyre smoke in the mirrors though. Talking about mirrors, they weren't complete yet with the background missing. Nevertheless, the Benneton all over my back looked pretty impressive! Nick Piquito

I saw F1GP2 at the South African Computer Faire. The local distributors had it running on a big screen connected to their PC. According to the spotty youth working for the local distributors, the version they had was the version that would be released on 28th June, barring a few bug-fixes. Right here are my impressions of the game. On the positive side first: 1. The sound is amazing. The car I had a go in was Damon Hill's Williams, and I recognised the car ( I took over in mid-lap from another chap) from the distinctive Renault V-10 sound. Some of the other sounds, such as the crashes were not 100% accurate (what does a crash really sound like?), but close enough. 2. The simulation seems to be very accurate, loads of throttle off the line will leave you standing in a cloud of your own tyre smoke. Touching wheels with your opponents will launch one of you into the air. The kitty litter in the sandtraps will bog the car down unless you have some speed, but heading through the sandtrap at high speed will have your view bouncing all over the place (something I did a couple of times) 3. The car setup (what I saw of it) was extensive. A lot of thought will have to go into setting your car up correctly. On the negative side: You need a serious machine to run F1GP2. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. According to the representative, they were running the game in SVGA (640 x 480) with MOST features enabled. The hardware consisted of a Packard-Bell P133 with 32Mb RAM. Even with this sort of horsepower, the passing scenery seemed a bit jerky, especially when taking a corner. Things got a lot worse when there were a lot of other cars in view. The first corner at Monza, after the start was confusing as the picture seems to jump around as the game tried to keep up with the task of drawing all those cars, and coping with your input. Would I buy it? Of course, but I don't expect I will be able to run it with everything turned on in SVGA mode on my P120. I have yet to see a game that beats The Need for Speed when it comes to smooth graphics in SVGA mode. Cliff ------------------------------------------------ Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa WWW: http://www.global.co.za/~csmith/default.htm ------------------------------------------------

Did you ask MPS about what kind of system one need to run GP2 perfectly? Does P166 with 32MB EDO RAM, stealth 2MB VRAM and pipeline burst cache good enough? If not, I am going to wait a bit longer to replace my P60. On 09 May 1996, Clifford Smith wrote...

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> I saw F1GP2 at the South African Computer Faire. The local > distributors had it running on a big screen connected to their PC. > According to the spotty youth working for the local distributors, the > version they had was the version that would be released on 28th June, > barring a few bug-fixes. > Right here are my impressions of the game. > On the positive side first: > 1. The sound is amazing. The car I had a go in was Damon Hill's > Williams, and I recognised the car ( I took over in mid-lap from > another chap) from the distinctive Renault V-10 sound. Some of the > other sounds, such as the crashes were not 100% accurate (what does a > crash really sound like?), but close enough. > 2. The simulation seems to be very accurate, loads of throttle off the > line will leave you standing in a cloud of your own tyre smoke. > Touching wheels with your opponents will launch one of you into the > air. The kitty litter in the sandtraps will bog the car down unless > you have some speed, but heading through the sandtrap at high speed > will have your view bouncing all over the place (something I did a > couple of times) > 3. The car setup (what I saw of it) was extensive. A lot of thought > will have to go into setting your car up correctly. > On the negative side: > You need a serious machine to run F1GP2. Don't let anyone tell you > otherwise. According to the representative, they were running the game > in SVGA (640 x 480) with MOST features enabled. The hardware consisted > of a Packard-Bell P133 with 32Mb RAM. Even with this sort of > horsepower, the passing scenery seemed a bit jerky, especially when > taking a corner. Things got a lot worse when there were a lot of other > cars in view. The first corner at Monza, after the start was confusing > as the picture seems to jump around as the game tried to keep up with > the task of drawing all those cars, and coping with your input. > Would I buy it? Of course, but I don't expect I will be able to run it > with everything turned on in SVGA mode on my P120. I have yet to see a > game that beats The Need for Speed when it comes to smooth graphics in > SVGA mode. > Cliff > ------------------------------------------------ > Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa > WWW: http://www.global.co.za/~csmith/default.htm > ------------------------------------------------

I was thinking of waiting for the P5-200 mhz to come out before buying a new system. I *hope* that at 200 mhz, GP2 will be able to run with ALL details on in SVGA mode at a smooth frame rate! From what I've heard and read in this newsgroup and elsewhere, a 166 is not going to cut it. -- "Adventure...e***ment...a Jedi craves not these things..." -Yoda

Given that you can't actually get anything better without being utterly ripped off by Intel, I think a P-166 with 32Mb EDO would be the one to buy. Skip the 2Mb VRAM though - remember that although GP2 will work under Win95, it is NOT a Win95 program. It is optimised for DOS, and therefore DRAM cards will work best. Best ones are the Stealth 64 and Hercules, based upon the Ark2000 chipset. Happy shopping ;) John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

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>>Did you ask MPS about what kind of system one need to run GP2 perfectly? >>Does P166 with 32MB EDO RAM, stealth 2MB VRAM and pipeline burst cache >>good enough? If not, I am going to wait a bit longer to replace my P60. > >Given that you can't actually get anything better without being utterly >ripped off by Intel, I think a P-166 with 32Mb EDO would be the one to >buy. Skip the 2Mb VRAM though - remember that although GP2 will work >under Win95, it is NOT a Win95 program. It is optimised for DOS, and >therefore DRAM cards will work best. Best ones are the Stealth 64 and >Hercules, based upon the Ark2000 chipset. > >Happy shopping ;) > >John

The Hercules gets my thumbs up there, too! But the Stealth64 isn't really that great. I just replaced mine and have seen about a 2 fps increase to 30/27 max/min. I turn off track texture (which sucks anyway), and grass and leave everything else set to auto. The only time that anything drops out is when I'm leaving the pits (all those cars to draw) and at some tracks, such as Michigan, I lose the crowd when I have up one of the info windows such as tire temps and there are a few cars in sight. And this from a P-150! Clark

I don't know about you guys, but I don't like the way things are going with the latest games. I bought my P-120 six months ago, and already the processor (the rest of my machine is OK) is obsolete. I don't enjoy having to upgrade my processor to run a $70 (?) game. Where is it going to end? Cliff ----------------------------------------- Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa -----------------------------------------

No, I did'nt ask, but I still have my doubts as to the real merits of the new Pentium Pros (the new Pentiums running above 133Mhz). As to the video card, I have a Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM, and I am VERY impressed by it. Cliff ----------------------------------------- Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa -----------------------------------------

On Sun, 12 May 1996 16:30:18 +0100, John Wallace

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>Given that you can't actually get anything better without being utterly >ripped off by Intel, I think a P-166 with 32Mb EDO would be the one to >buy. > Skip the 2Mb VRAM though - remember that although GP2 will work >under Win95, it is NOT a Win95 program. It is optimised for DOS, and >therefore DRAM cards will work best. Best ones are the Stealth 64 and >Hercules, based upon the Ark2000 chipset.

The Stealth 64 is a VRAM card (?), I have one. I am very impressed with it's performance both on DOS and Windows 95. Cliff ----------------------------------------- Clifford Smith, Johannesburg South Africa -----------------------------------------

>I don't know about you guys, but I don't like the way things are going >with the latest games. I bought my P-120 six months ago, and already >the processor (the rest of my machine is OK) is obsolete. >I don't enjoy having to upgrade my processor to run a $70 (?) game. >Where is it going to end? It WON'T :( I could install a Novell network on a system that won't run a GAME smoothly... ________ Eldred Pickett I am NOT paranoid. And why are you always watching me?!?

The Stealth 64 comes in both DRAM and VRAM flavours. BOTH are good, but for reasons too long and boring to go into here, the DRAM will perform better under DOS and the VRAM under Windows. Since GP2 is a DOS prog, the VRAM will be good, but the DRAM will be better. Cheers! John PS - If you want to know the reason why, it's explained in the hardware section of Sim Racing News at the URL below :) _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

Remember the Stealth 64 only recently adopted the Ark2000 chipset - you may have an older one. Check the chip on your board for confirmation, it IS a really good card with DRAM, the difference from the Herc is measured in 1/10 frames per second - not much! Have you tried overclocking to 166Mhz? A P-150 is not a good chip since it uses 60Mhz bus and 30Mhz PCI bus - P-166 uses 66/33 respectively and is consequently much faster. P-150 is still a helluva processor, just that it is only a little faster than a 133, whereas a 166 is a lot faster than a 150. Cheers! John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

Too right, just wait till Win95 games become the norm..... :(((( P-Pro 200Mhz all round I think. It's all a big ***.... _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

> I *hope* that at 200 mhz, GP2 will be able to run with >ALL details on in SVGA mode at a smooth frame rate! From what I've >heard and read in this newsgroup and elsewhere, a 166 is not going to >cut it. 33Mhz won't get you much. Maybe ground or sky texture at the same rate you'd get on the slower machine I'd *guess*. Why not go for a ppro instead? The interger is much faster (let the flame war begin!) than it's pentium counterpart? If your really attached to your 16 bit windows apps then get a p5-200.

>I don't know about you guys, but I don't like the way things are going >with the latest games. I bought my P-120 six months ago, and already >the processor (the rest of my machine is OK) is obsolete. >I don't enjoy having to upgrade my processor to run a $70 (?) game. >Where is it going to end? It won't ever end (software and hardware will always be improving) but the situation should improve; hopefully by Christmass, next year at the latest. Then you can buy a dedicated 3D processor card that will give your P120 200Mhz+ performance. Over time you can upgrade the graphics card and get more bang for you buck than with general-purpose CPU upgrades. Joe

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>> And this from a P-150! > >Have you tried overclocking to 166Mhz? A P-150 is not a good chip since >it uses 60Mhz bus and 30Mhz PCI bus - P-166 uses 66/33 respectively and >is consequently much faster. P-150 is still a helluva processor, just >that it is only a little faster than a 133, whereas a 166 is a lot >faster than a 150. > >Cheers! >John

I've thought about overclocking (my MB is good for 200Mhz, it claims), but I'm not sure it's worth the risk of melting the processor or getting data errors (I also use my machine as a development workstation). I am looking to get a P-166 chip and drop it in instead thought. :) Clark

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>>Did you ask MPS about what kind of system one need to run GP2 perfectly? >>Does P166 with 32MB EDO RAM, stealth 2MB VRAM and pipeline burst cache >>good enough? If not, I am going to wait a bit longer to replace my P60. >No, I did'nt ask, but I still have my doubts as to the real merits of >the new Pentium Pros (the new Pentiums running above 133Mhz). As to >the video card, I have a Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM, and I am VERY >impressed by it.

A Pentium Pro is NOT, I repeat, NOT a Pentium running above 133 mhz. It is a seperate design and is optimized for 32-bit software. Pentiums (not pro) currently come in speeds up to 166 mhz and will soon include speeds up to 200 mhz. Pentium Pros come in 150MHz, 166MHz, 180MHz and 200MHz speeds, according to Intel's web page. As for the merits or not, I will be quite happy to trade my 133 mhz processor for a 200 mhz one in a few months. Scott

>I've thought about overclocking (my MB is good for 200Mhz, it claims), but I'm >not sure it's worth the risk of melting the processor or getting data errors >(I also use my machine as a development workstation). I am looking to get a >P-166 chip and drop it in instead thought. :) >Clark Why not wait for the 200 mhz processor? Right now the price/performance difference between a 150 and a 166 (or even a 133 for that matter) don't really make it a good deal. If you were buying a new computer because you didn't have one, I'd say go for the 166, but not if you already have a 150... Have fun. Scott

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>>I don't know about you guys, but I don't like the way things are going >>with the latest games. I bought my P-120 six months ago, and already >>the processor (the rest of my machine is OK) is obsolete. >Too right, just wait till Win95 games become the norm..... :(((( P-Pro >200Mhz all round I think. >It's all a big ***....

As Windows 95 is a 16/32 bit system it will not make use of the extra speed of the Pentium Pro chip. It has in fact been slower in tests on the Pentium-Pro than on a ordinary Pentium. You will need a REAL 32 bit system like OS/2, NT, Unix o.l to take advantage of the extra potential in the Pentium-Pro processor. IOW, win95 games will not drive us towards Pentium Pros but the new Pentium processor with new multimedia functions to be released from Intel. Torgeir

>Too right, just wait till Win95 games become the norm..... :(((( P-Pro >200Mhz all round I think. >It's all a big ***.... Too right. Have you seen the price difference between P166+ capable motherboards and PPro200's? Ack! Still waiting... Stuart -- Stuart Booth Somewhere in Godalming, England, UK!!!

=> On Sun, 12 May 1996 16:30:18 +0100, John Wallace => => >Given that you can't actually get anything better without being utterly => >ripped off by Intel, I think a P-166 with 32Mb EDO would be the one to => >buy. => > Skip the 2Mb VRAM though - remember that although GP2 will work => >under Win95, it is NOT a Win95 program. It is optimised for DOS, and => >therefore DRAM cards will work best. Best ones are the Stealth 64 and => >Hercules, based upon the Ark2000 chipset. => => The Stealth 64 is a VRAM card (?), I have one. I am very impressed => with it's performance both on DOS and Windows 95. You get stealth in EDO DRAM and VRAM

Yes, I was being facetious..... ;) John _________________________________ __ _____| |_____ __ _________| |__| :| John Wallace | |__| |_________ \ :| |::| :| Team WW Racing TSW | |::| | / > :| |::| :|_________________________________| |::| | < / :|__|::|____:/ Sim Racing News \.____|::|__| \ /_______:/ \::/ http://www.dcn.ed.ac.uk/pulse/index.htm \::/ \._______\

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>>I was thinking of waiting for the P5-200 mhz to come out before buying >>a new system. I *hope* that at 200 mhz, GP2 will be able to run with >>ALL details on in SVGA mode at a smooth frame rate! From what I've >>heard and read in this newsgroup and elsewhere, a 166 is not going to >>cut it. >I don't know about you guys, but I don't like the way things are going >with the latest games. I bought my P-120 six months ago, and already >the processor (the rest of my machine is OK) is obsolete. >I don't enjoy having to upgrade my processor to run a $70 (?) game. >Where is it going to end?

Hopefully we'll be saved by the likes of Rendition, Lockheed etc and there new 3D cards. Though these wont help for GP2 since I beleive it wont be programmed to use them. Tony