GP2 Modem play BLOWS...

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> Modem play in GP2 blows. > Real nice chat system there Microprose - did you rip that from one of > your mid 80's flight sims? Totally useless. > Oh and I love the ability to sit and STARE at my screen while the other > player makes changes to his car settings. I guess Indycar and Nascar > were well ahead of their time in that respect. Another major failure. > And why does the game play in s l o w motion on my P100 when I'm linked > up with a fellow racer? Fantastic. I really like the one second pause > before any steering or button inputs are reacted too. And that's with an > "estimated" 18 fps. > GP2 is adequate as a stand alone game. > It blows as a modem game. > Jayce

PLEASE FIX THE AWFUL HORRIBLE MODEM ROUTINES.... NEW PATCH NOW.!!! Jason.

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> > Modem play in GP2 blows. > > Real nice chat system there Microprose - did you rip that from one of > > your mid 80's flight sims? Totally useless. > > Oh and I love the ability to sit and STARE at my screen while the other > > player makes changes to his car settings. I guess Indycar and Nascar > > were well ahead of their time in that respect. Another major failure. > > And why does the game play in s l o w motion on my P100 when I'm linked > > up with a fellow racer? Fantastic. I really like the one second pause > > before any steering or button inputs are reacted too. And that's with an > > "estimated" 18 fps. > > GP2 is adequate as a stand alone game. > > It blows as a modem game. > > Jayce > PLEASE FIX THE AWFUL HORRIBLE MODEM ROUTINES.... NEW PATCH NOW.!!! > Jason.

My brother and I have identical P100s with 28.8 modems (the brands are no-name, but they are both V42bis Hayes compatible). Standalone, we can play GP2 in SVGA with all details on in forward view (except sky) and still maintain 15fps. When we do a modem link though, the game is so slow that it is unplayable (seems to be about 10fps). We have tried SVGA no graphics on, and VGA no graphics on, but both are equally unplayable (it is strange that VGA is virtually no faster than SVGA). The processor occupancy of the calling machine hovers around 200 in SVGA and 120 in VGA (the answering macine is at 150 and 60). We have tried connections and 19200, 38400 and 57600. We both have data compression turned off in our init. strings (%C0 for our modems). We have tried connections using Direct Mode (no error correction - \N1 on our modems) and V42bis with error correction(\N3 or \N6 on our modems). The best result we had was with V42bis and error correction on (I know that error correction should be turned off) at 38400 - but even that was virtually unplayable with SVGA (no detail). Is this game unplayable via modem? Do you need P166 / P200 or something to play it by modem? We both successfully play Indycar 2 and Nascar via modem (at 9600) with all details on except grass and no degradation. Why does this not seem possible with GP2? We have tried various init strings that perform well with Indycar 2 and Nascar - none give us playable performance in GP2. A question - what do the 9600 / 19200 / 38400 / 57600 buttons in the game control (is it data transfer rate between modem and PC?). If these are for PC - modem data rates, what data rate should you use for modem to modem connection (ie - what rate should you force your modem to in the init string - we have tried 9600, 19200 and 28800)? If anyone can help, please e-mail me or post a reply here. This game is so good, that it seems a crime not to be able to play it against real live people!

to modem. To get the best possible connection, you have to experimente with the forced baud-rate (needs special commands like %K4 or what ever, refer to the manual). If you ex. get a connection at 28800, it might not be the best solution, because of many drop-outs, 9600 may still work better. Try connecting the computers with ex. HyperTerminal, and see how fast the two computers can transfer a file at a given baudrate, without compression. Notice the re-tries. Try it a couple of times, and then decide what baud-rate to use. LB

>> > Oh and I love the ability to sit and STARE at my screen while the other >> > player makes changes to his car settings. I guess Indycar and Nascar >> > were well ahead of their time in that respect. Another major failure. When the "Waiting for pause" (or something like it) sign appears, don't press "P" immediately, but return to your box first. Then, both players can change their setups simultaneously. In the graphics menu, select a target fps rate that is two fps below the one suggested by the game. This helps a lot, but the game slows down sometimes anyhow. See above: reduce the target fps rate. I play it with my brother using two P90s and a null modem link. Works o.k. in SVGA with no details (except road texture.) The game slows down during the start and when one of us spins off. In both cases, one or both computers have too much graphics to calculate, I believe. Otherwise, it's quite playable. The Papyrus modem routines really seem superior to those in GP2. The settings directly affect speed in null modem play. Since data compression should be turned off in modem play, I think 19200 might be the best choice in your case. Oh, one more thing: GP2 does not support 16550 UARTs (FIFOs) unless specified in the SET GP2 environment or as switch during startup. Add "use16550" as a command line parameter. This might also help. [Posted and mailed] -- We're in a road movie to Berlin Can't drive out the way we drove in