Some people have been critisizing the Win95 version of IndyCar Racing
II. I had the original DOS version, and bought the multi Win95/DOS/Mac
version when it came out. Personally, I don't see all that much difference
between the Win95 and DOS versions, at least as far as gameplay and frame
rate goes. (P133, Matrox Millenium w/ 4M and latest drivers, latest
DirectX 2.) I think the ease of not having to use the keyboard (which is
shoved off to the side so I can use my T2) makes the Win95 version nicer.
Some people complained about constant or occasional disk access. You
need to go into Options/Graphics/Advanced, and make sure that the Replay
memory size slider is in the GREEN area, otherwise it starts using your
swapfile. On my computer (32M) I have about 19M useable.
I didn't notice any sound problems, either. When comparing them, make
sure that all of the graphics and sound options are IDENTICAL. (I have an
SB AWE 32 PnP.)
I also found out that it isn't easy trying to get both copies to share
the same directory. If you 'patched' your DOS version to the Win95
version, it may not be as hard.
What I ended up doing is this (using the multi-format CD-ROM):
Install the DOS version into C:\SIERRA\ICR2. (WARNING: This may erase
everything in that directory, but not the subdirectories.) Do this in
MS-DOS mode. While you are at it, make sure to install any patches to
update it to 1.0.2.
Remove any Read-Only attributes from any files in any of the ICR2
subdirectories.
Reboot into Win95, and install the Win95 version into the same directory
(C:\SIERRA\ICR2 is the default.) It will complain if it finds a file it
can't replace, and abort the install. Just remove the Read-only attribute,
and re-install. Again, install the Win95 patch to update WINDY.EXE (and a
few other files) to 1.0.1.
Here's a tricky technical part. Both the Win95 and DOS versions use
GAMEOPTS.CFG, but the formats are different!! You have to patch one or the
other (I patched WINDY.EXE) to use a different name. Use a hex editor
(such as Norton's DISKEDIT) and search for gameopts.cfg (it is in there
twice.) Change it to something else (I used gamewins.cfg.) Just keep the
name length the same.
Run each copy, and set them up. They will use the same tracks and
car-setup files. You just need to remember to set them both to the same
carsets, unless you like different ones. I don't think it would affect
anything.
