I just got GP2 in the mail from SH direct. But I am VERY disapointed.
I've got a P100 with a 2Mb Diamond Stealth and 32Mb RAM so I wasn't
expecting to run in SVGA with all the textures but I was expecting
at least as good performance as NASCAR. And I didn't get it.
The core of the problen is that GP2 has a very strange way of dealing
with processor overload. NASCAR will slow down the display frame rate
(dropping frames) if there is too much load. GP2 will slow down
the sim's world time (put things into slow motion).
To see what I mean, try this. Turn on everything in SVGA mode and put the
frame rate slider up all the way. Then try to do a lap while timing the
lap with an independent clock. I did this at Monza and a lap that was
reported as 1:35 actually took over 4 minutes.
If the solution was to just drop the frame slider down that would be OK. But
there are times when the processor load shoots up well over 100% no matter
what you set the frame rate to. Lots of cars bunched up in front of you having
a first lap accident will do it. When that happens, the display goes into
slow motion.
If anybody else is having this problem, I would love to know about it. If this
is widespread, I think this is a serious design flaw. A simulation should keep
the world time clock constant. Dropping display frames is OK but putting the
world time into slow motion is not.
Bill
--------------------------------------------------------------
Centrimedia web development
http://www.centrimedia.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------
