Nascar2 problems with Rendition

Have installed N2 and everything works perfect in regular SVGA. However, I have a Reactor card. Things go downhill from there. The program loads up fine and the menus work. When I click on Race it then says:Could not load complete track descripition. Needless to to say I'm dying to see the Rendition version and wonder what's going on. Any ideas? Eric, Papyrus, Intergraph, or anybody? --

If I had the game, I'd be more than happy to help you. I'm waiting patiently for my direct order to arrive (should be here tomorrow). Just a little rant here, am I the only one who thinks there should be some benefit to direct orders? Shouldn't we get the game sooner than stores? I like how id handled Quake. They made the full version available from direct order well before the shareware CD showed up in stores. The way I see it, Sierra should want more direct orders as they make more money of them (cutting out the middle man). Well, I guess I'll get off the soapbox now. -- Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

So, does the Reactor work with N2? Rich

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>If I had the game, I'd be more than happy to help you. I'm waiting >patiently for my direct order to arrive (should be here tomorrow). >Just a little rant here, am I the only one who thinks there should be >some benefit to direct orders? Shouldn't we get the game sooner than >stores? I like how id handled Quake. They made the full version >available from direct order well before the shareware CD showed up in >stores. The way I see it, Sierra should want more direct orders as >they make more money of them (cutting out the middle man). Well, I >guess I'll get off the soapbox now. >-- >Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences >Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/ >> Have installed N2 and everything works perfect in regular SVGA. >> However, I have a Reactor card. Things go downhill from there. The >program >> loads up fine and the menus work. When I click on Race it then >says:Could >> not load complete track descripition. Needless to to say I'm dying to >see >> the Rendition version and wonder what's going on. >> Any ideas? Eric, Papyrus, Intergraph, or anybody?

I have an Intergraph Reactor and it is working fine, although not as fast as I would have hoped. Which batch file are you running? N2REND.BAT or RENDDMA.BAT? Are you running from Win95 or from booting to DOS. I have had best results booting to dos. Also, what bios version of the Reactor card do you have? I still have the default, however, some Reactor owners have updated the bios to 73 with a beta that was available from Intergraph's FTP site, and I have heard of mixed results. I also did a full install(98Mb) on installation of Nascar2. Let me know what you find out. Don Chapman Carved In A Rock Productions, Inc.

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>Have installed N2 and everything works perfect in regular SVGA. >However, I have a Reactor card. Things go downhill from there. The program >loads up fine and the menus work. When I click on Race it then says:Could >not load complete track descripition. Needless to to say I'm dying to see >the Rendition version and wonder what's going on. >Any ideas? Eric, Papyrus, Intergraph, or anybody? >--

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>If I had the game, I'd be more than happy to help you. I'm waiting >patiently for my direct order to arrive (should be here tomorrow). >Just a little rant here, am I the only one who thinks there should be >some benefit to direct orders? Shouldn't we get the game sooner than >stores? I like how id handled Quake. They made the full version >available from direct order well before the shareware CD showed up in >stores. The way I see it, Sierra should want more direct orders as >they make more money of them (cutting out the middle man). Well, I >guess I'll get off the soapbox now. >-- >Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences >Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

I agree, there should be some benefit to direct order. I used to do direct orders all the time, and sometimes pre-purchase at stores like Eletronics Boutique, but have gotten burned recently. GP2 was out in stores for a whole week before I received my direct order. I tried to cancel my order(so I could go buy it in the stores), but Spectrum Holobyte said that it was already on its way so they could not cancel it until I returned the item. I was going to direct order Nascar 2, but when I called Sierra they told me that it would probably not be available until the end of December. This was after I had already read reliable posts about its availability this week, as well as the press release on ALLGAMES.COM. So I decided not to chance it with the direct order. For Nascar 2, (which I finally found available copies of at EBX), I just kept checking around. Best Buy knew nothing, CompUSA had a space on the shelves but did not know when it would be in, Electronics Boutique(which I believe is the same company as EBX) said they had them, then when I arrived at the store they said there were only 5 pre-orders available and they could not sell me one, but they would have more Friday or early next week. While I was still in the store, an apparent friend of said employee walked in inquring about available new games and while I was in earshot, the employee said "We got Nascar 2 if you want to check it out." I will not go back to that store. I also stopped doing direct order because it is so difficult to get your money back if you want to stop the order, or return the product. I purchased 2 Intergraph Reactor cards that I now have working great, but because they are impossible to find in any retail stores, I ordered direct from Intergraph. They arrived promptly which was good, but I struggled for 2 weeks with tecnical support before I got one of them working. I was going to send it back but it was going to be such a hassle, so I kept it and now I'm glad I did. However, I just recently purchased a Diamond Monster 3D over the Orchid Righteous 3D only because I could not get a straight answer from Orchid Direct Order as to when I could expect delivery of the product(they are backordered) and what the return policy was if I had problems getting it working or was not satisfied. The Diamond Monster 3D was available at Computer City which has a 30 day full refund return policy. The Orchid Righteous 3D like the Intergraph Reactor is virtually impossible to find in stores, so direct order is the only option. Fortunately, the Diamond Monster 3D installed easily and is working great as well. Enough ranting, back to Nascar 2! Don Chapman Carved In A Rock Productions, Inc.

The Reactor works very well with NASCAR 2. I did stumble a bit with the Windows 95 installation procedure (perhaps because I aborted an initial complete installation in favor of the minimal installation). I then used the Sierra utility to complete deinstall the game; went into DOS and installed the minimal installation without a problem. Once installed, I ran N2, N2REND, and finally RENDDMA without problems.

Yes it does, and apparently quite nicely. -- Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

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>Have installed N2 and everything works perfect in regular SVGA. >However, I have a Reactor card. Things go downhill from there. The program >loads up fine and the menus work. When I click on Race it then says:Could >not load complete track descripition. Needless to to say I'm dying to see >the Rendition version and wonder what's going on. >Any ideas? Eric, Papyrus, Intergraph, or anybody? >--

The Rendition board requires more memory than the SVGA version, I think the minimum is 16MB. Dave (davids) Sparks Late Night League http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

>So, does the Reactor work with N2? >Rich Absolutely, and it looks great. Dave (davids) Sparks Late Night League http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

>The Rendition board requires more memory than the SVGA version, I think the >minimum is 16MB. For the hi-res textures, the Rendition version requires 24 MB, if you only have 16 MB, it load the lower-res textures (liberally paraphrased from the README.TXT) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This space intentionally left blank

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> >So, does the Reactor work with N2? > >Rich > Absolutely, and it looks great. > Dave (davids) Sparks > Late Night League > http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

I agree that it looks great but it doesn't look as good as ICR2 Rendition for some reason. The cars are not as sharp and the grandstands have some jagged edges to them. Still, it is a great improvement! Kevin

There is a patch planned to add anti-aliasing just like in ICR2. -- Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

You have to have the specific chip set that the N2REND.exe calls for. In this case it is the "verite" chipset found on Creative LABS 3d blaster PCI and a few other cards. IN the near future I hope that is will be a more universal thing than what is at hand currently. ERIC > Have installed N2 and everything works perfect in regular SVGA. > However, I have a Reactor card. Things go downhill from there. The program > loads up fine and the menus work. When I click on Race it then says:Could > not load complete track descripition. Needless to to say I'm dying to see > the Rendition version and wonder what's going on. > Any ideas? Eric, Papyrus, Intergraph, or anybody? > --

Sorry to not give my system info, but I was in a hurry when posting. I have a P150 w/16mb. I have tried n2rend and renddma with the same results. Game starts fine and everything works until I click on Race when a dialog box appears stating: Could not load complete track description. I am running it through DOS only and have not changed any BIOS versions or settings on the card. I did check out the readme file with regard to memory, but it says that it automatically goes to lower res with 16mb and hi-res with 24mb. Mine does neither. I would be happy just to see lower res at this point.<G> Everything works perfect in regular SVGA, but hey after playing Rendition ICR2 who can be satisfied with that.<G> I'm sure it's something that can or will be fixable somehow, but any ideas from the group are appreciated. BTW, I agree with all of you who preordered N2. You folks should have had it at least a month or so before the rest of us. I always thought that was the benefit of direct ordering. --

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>If I had the game, I'd be more than happy to help you. I'm waiting >patiently for my direct order to arrive (should be here tomorrow). >Just a little rant here, am I the only one who thinks there should be >some benefit to direct orders? Shouldn't we get the game sooner than >stores? I like how id handled Quake. They made the full version >available from direct order well before the shareware CD showed up in >stores. The way I see it, Sierra should want more direct orders as >they make more money of them (cutting out the middle man). Well, I >guess I'll get off the soapbox now. >-- >Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences >Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

I totally agree with Eric, this is bull. I consider the act of pre-ordering software, to be an act of loyalty on our part. The least Sierra could do is reward its loyal customers by making sure that they are the first to receive the product, not the stores. --- Frank ---

Berry, do you have Win95? If so, try running it from a DOS box (both n2rend and renddma) and see if it works. I know it sounds funny, but it just might. What track are you trying to load? Does any track load? Do you have any memory hungry programs running while trying to play? Adam Papyrus

Excellent! How about objects (grandstands, trees, etc) in the mirrors like ICR2, any chance they might put that in too? I know it's not a big deal when driving a race, but it is neat for when your just showing off to a friend <g>. Dave ************************************************************* * You're only young once, but you can stay immature forever * *************************************************************

>Sorry to not give my system info, but I was in a hurry when posting. I have >a P150 w/16mb. I have tried n2rend and renddma with the same results. Game >starts fine and everything works until I click on Race when a dialog box >appears stating: Could not load complete track description. I am running it >through DOS only and have not changed any BIOS versions or settings on the I had problems the first time I installed it using the Win95 install. I ended up blowing it away and re-installing using the DOS install program, and now everything works fine, both in DOS and from a Win95 DOS prompt. I don't know if this is your problem or not, but if you haven't tried it, it's worth a try. David ************************************************************* * You're only young once, but you can stay immature forever * *************************************************************

>I had problems the first time I installed it using the Win95 install. >I ended up blowing it away and re-installing using the DOS install >program, and now everything works fine, both in DOS and from a Win95 >DOS prompt. I don't know if this is your problem or not, but if you >haven't tried it, it's worth a try. Only problem I had with the Windows install was that it wanted to stick everything into the C:\SIERRA\NASCAR2 directory. When I tried to take out the "SIERRA" meaningless directory by making a NASCAR2 directory and then trying to install, it wound up trying to stick everything into C:\NASCAR2\NASCAR2. DOS install did not try to stick that annoying extra directory layer in there. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Winston Cup Busch South NCTS Busch North Mod Tour IGN 93 88 43 Busch North & Modified Tour Home Pages at http://www.vgernet.net/aclaffie/ NASCAR in the Northeast - the best racing nobody's seen - Yet

Hey Adam! Shouldn't you be on vacation or something? <g> Dave (davids) Sparks Late Night League http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html

So does this mean if I have an Intergraph Reactor, I am screwed WRT Nascar2????? -Paul

Not at all. The Rendition Verite chip is used on the Intergraph's Reactor, Creative Labs' 3D Blaster PCI, Sierra's Screamin'3D, and Canopus' Total3D. -- Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Would like to thank everyone for their ideas and input, especially Adam for responding so quickly. I got to thinking about the problem and decided to reinstall the drivers for the Reactor card. After that I reinstalled N2 and ran through Win95 as suggested by Adam. Renddma works like a charm now. All the tracks I have tried work fine. All I can say is wow. Outstanding job Papyrus. --

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> Sorry to not give my system info, but I was in a hurry when posting. I have > a P150 w/16mb. I have tried n2rend and renddma with the same results. Game > starts fine and everything works until I click on Race when a dialog box > appears stating: Could not load complete track description. I am running it > through DOS only and have not changed any BIOS versions or settings on the > card. I did check out the readme file with regard to memory, but it says > that it automatically goes to lower res with 16mb and hi-res with 24mb. > Mine does neither. I would be happy just to see lower res at this point.<G> > Everything works perfect in regular SVGA, but hey after playing Rendition > ICR2 who can be satisfied with that.<G> I'm sure it's something that can or > will be fixable somehow, but any ideas from the group are appreciated. > BTW, I agree with all of you who preordered N2. You folks should have had > it at least a month or so before the rest of us. I always thought that was > the benefit of direct ordering. > --

you might want to try with a minimum autoexec.bat and config.sys file. I didn't see your first post so I don't know if you are running win95 or dos. hope it helps