Nascar2, Cyrix, Reactor - poor performance

Howdy! I am very disappointed. I have put together what I thought was a killer system. I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same results. I am looking for some insight, any suggestions would be appreciated. Much thanx.

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>Howdy! >I am very disappointed. I have put together what I thought was a >killer system. I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an >Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO >ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The >game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the >track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same >problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same >results. I am looking for some insight, any suggestions would be >appreciated. Much thanx.

I have a similar system, and I need to take the stands on people off. With them off I get decent frame rates. Nascar 2 is nowhere near the speed or graphics of Quake or many other games I have. I've e-mailed Nascar who've basically shrugged their shoulders. I'm personally disappointed with N2 and the way it was coded. It runs slower then Nascar 1 on my system. Richard

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>I am very disappointed. I have put together what I thought was a >killer system. I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an >Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO >ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The >game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the >track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same >problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same >results. I am looking for some insight, any suggestions would be >appreciated. Much thanx.

Other than the lack of RDTSC instruction on your Cyrix chip, that system should work well in a properly configured system. (Be sure you are running in DMA mode. If you aren't, you have no real hope of getting a super-nice smooth frame rate... If you aren't running in DMA mode, correct that problem first.) Are the sutters related to specific locations on the track, or are they just periodic stutters? Periodic stutters, without connection to specific "scenes" in the 3D world are most likely related to Win-95 going rummaging around your hard drive or network, checking to be sure you don't run out of disk space, or trying to get an IP address via DHCP, or something like that. Disable all of those annoying little things, and give the game as close to 100% of the CPU as you can... If the stutters are related to specific scenes, then you've probably got to turn off some detail... One thing to try here is to run a 16MB smartdrv to fool the game into using the 4-bit car textures, which are faster. (This will probably become a command line option in the first patch release as it is such a big win (speed-wise)...) ---Jim Sokoloff, Papyrus

I'm using a ASUST2P4 MoBo with a I166MMX overclocked to 225 at 75X3. Frame rate still sucks at the smaller tracks. My system yields a 470 on WinBench97 and that approaches a PPro so configuration is not the problem. Around the corners with everything turned on and in alot of traffic slows the game and can make driving tight a problem. KH

Hi Jim; thanx for the prompt reply. I have a really dumb question. What do you mean by running in DMA mode? I didn't see any instructions with the card (I realize you don't work for Intergraph) about forcing it into DMA mode, nor on the motherboard? Can you be a little more specific about what you mean? Regarding the stuttering, at Talledega, it happens exiting the pits initially (all cars in the pits) and coming up to the Tri-Oval. Someone suggested turning the crowd off. Heck, it happens with our without the track textures and sky texture (clouds). I thought track/grass textures were the most processor intensive operations. I didn't see much difference changing these. But I will try crowd. Most sincerely from the desk of BT Nagle "I reckon so..." - Clint

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> Howdy! > I am very disappointed. I have put together what I thought was a > killer system. I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an > Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO > ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The > game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the > track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same > problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same > results. I am looking for some insight, any suggestions would be > appreciated. Much thanx.

I had similar problems with my P120 and Screamin 3d until I ran RENDDMA.BAT. This is the rendition version that uses DMA. I've heard that most motherboards won't use DMA with the CYrix processors, so this might not work.

> I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an > Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO > ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The > game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the > track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same > problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same results. I have a GA586HX MB too (rev 1.54). Mine has a Pentium P166. You should be able to run the RendDma.bat version of N2 which has the best frame rate and graphics quality of the three versions. NOTE: Giga-byte bios ver 1.05 provides the best dma performance for my mother board! It's score is 80MB/s as opposed to the newer bios versions 1.07, 1.11, 2.3. They all get dma scores of 39!!! I forget exactly, but I think the 1.05 bios got me 4+ additional FPS. PCI latency is NOT adjustable with the Award bios. Also, if you got 60ns EDO you should be able to set most of your bios memory settings for maximum performance. According to Jim Sokoloff of Papy, the Cyrix doesn't have an instruction (Pentium does) that aids the controls calibration process when DMA is in use. Something to do with timing...don't want to quote from memory at the risk of misinforming you. I hear that this produces some choppyness when with rendma on a Cyrix. Good luck,

just a followup for all of you nice enough to answer back. I ran the Renddma batch file and everything seemed fine! I saw a radical difference in performance (good, that is). Seems to have solved the problem. Thanx for the tips.

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>Howdy! >I am very disappointed. I have put together what I thought was a >killer system. I have a Gigabyte HX motherboard, a Cyrix P166+, an >Integraph Intense 3D video card, a Quantum Bigfoot drive, 32Mg or EDO >ram. I try running Nascar 2 and I am getting lousy performance. The >game seems to stagger or stutter at 3 or 4 different points around the >track. Same deal in Win or Dos. Both versions of Nascar show the same >problem. I tried yanking the Cyrix and dropping a P-133 in, same >results. I am looking for some insight, any suggestions would be >appreciated. Much thanx.

Most sincerely from the desk of BT Nagle "I reckon so..." - Clint