N1 to N2

I've enjoyed N1 now for over a year, though it's not perfect, man it's so far above anything else then on the market that is was/is in a league all it's own. Great job Papy. Now, the time is come to consider N2. Well, after reading all the pros and cons of this news group, I have decided that I would like to go ahead and purchase N2... PROVIDED... I've got the horsepower to run it. I'm running a Puckard Smell "Legend" equipped with: P75, 1.2G HD, 16 Meg RAM, SVGA Mon, 4xCD. As for what kind of graphics/sound cards are PB installed... well,N1 runs on it, but N2? (i.e. I have no idea what kinds of cards PB uses.) Those of you that have N2, could you give me an educated guess as to whether my machine can handle the game? I realize that I can't expect to have all the neat graphic features built into N2, but can I at least get a smooth frame rate (by reducing graphic choices) as well as the "spotter" feature? Hey, any input would be greatly appreciated before I lay out $50 for the game, only to find I can't run it. One last thing: Hey Jim... overlook the flames. Even listening to all the sniveling about N2's "bugs", I've decided to support Papyrus with the $$ for N2 now (if my machine can handle it)... and trust you guys for the needed patches when you get to them. After all, if us Nascar sim freaks don't support Papyrus NOW... how can you be there THEN? (It does take money to bring us these sims, right?) Andre

You could probably run SVGA with almost no details, but I think VGA would be the better option for you. There shouldn't be a significant difference between the performance of N1 and N2 with the same level of detail (N2 does have some added details that N1 doesn't). Back when I ran N1 on my old P133 I always ran in VGA because of the framerate. -- The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html-ssi http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

I'm also running a p75 with 16meg ram, and n2 runs fairly well. With car texture, and smoke on, and everything else set to auto, I get a smooth framerate in svga. Min is set to 11, and max at 22. -- Brian Fox Geocities' MotorCity Community Leader Get your own free homepage at http://www.geocities.com The Fox Den: Nascar 1 and 2, ICR2, GP2 and my Streetrod. http://www.4w.com/pages/fox AND/OR http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/1238

If N1 runs well (enough for you) in SVGA mode, N2 should run approximately the same, but look somewhat better. (The graphics engine is more efficient on Pentiums now, but we've compensated by adding more objects and polygons... :-) ) Be sure to load the VESA 2.0 drivers (UniVBE is included, which works with many, but presumably not all video cards) If you are really concerned, buy from a retailer with a return policy. (For the record, Sierra has a company-wide 30 day policy, but since it involves mailing to Sierra, and waiting for a refund, you're still better off using a local retailer that will accept an open-box return within a few days.) The game should run on your machine, though 16MB is definitely on the tight side, particularly when run from a Win95 DOS box... ---Jim Sokoloff, Papyrus

<snippage> If you are a stickler for frame rate, you are going to be dissapointed. I had a PB P100 w/24 meg ram. Packard Bell uses the cirrus logic onboard video. Mine had 1 meg of memory. To get a framerate that was even close to smooth. I had to shut off _all_ graphics, and I still had some choppyness around groups of traffic. I know of a couple of people that upgraded the video card to the Intergraph 3d card, and saw some pretty good increase in N2, however I couldn't get my onboard video to disable. Now, I'm glad I couldn't. It made me upgrade to a system that runs N2 very nicely. Shawn Wise

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> I've enjoyed N1 now for over a year, though it's not perfect, man it's > so far above anything else then on the market that is was/is in a league > all it's own. Great job Papy. Now, the time is come to consider N2. > Well, after reading all the pros and cons of this news group, I have > decided that I would like to go ahead and purchase N2... PROVIDED... > I've got the horsepower to run it. I'm running a Puckard Smell > "Legend" equipped with: P75, 1.2G HD, 16 Meg RAM, SVGA Mon, 4xCD. As > for what kind of graphics/sound cards are PB installed... well,N1 runs on it, > but N2? (i.e. I have no idea what kinds of cards PB uses.) > Those of you that have N2, could you give me an educated guess as to > whether my machine can handle the game? I realize that I can't expect > to have all the neat graphic features built into N2, but can I at > least get a smooth frame rate (by reducing graphic choices) as well as > the "spotter" feature? Hey, any input would be greatly appreciated > before I lay out $50 for the game, only to find I can't run it. > One last thing: Hey Jim... overlook the flames. Even listening to all > the sniveling about N2's "bugs", I've decided to support Papyrus with > the $$ for N2 now (if my machine can handle it)... and trust you guys > for the needed patches when you get to them. After all, if us Nascar > sim freaks don't support Papyrus NOW... how can you be there THEN? (It > does take money to bring us these sims, right?) Andre

Lonnie, I've a a PB P75 that I keep around in case of emergencys and it runs the game fine. I took the liberty of overclocking it to 100mhz so its a little faster. I also put in a 2 meg STB powergraph and that made it even better. A good 4 meg card would probably work even better. I tried a Reactor card but it kept locking up the machine . Good luck!!!

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> <snippage> > > I'm running a Puckard Smell > >"Legend" equipped with: P75, 1.2G HD, 16 Meg RAM, SVGA Mon, 4xCD. As > >for what kind of graphics/sound cards are PB installed... well,N1 runs on it, > >but N2? (i.e. I have no idea what kinds of cards PB uses.) > If you are a stickler for frame rate, you are going to be > dissapointed. I had a PB P100 w/24 meg ram. Packard Bell > uses the cirrus logic onboard video. Mine had 1 meg of memory. > To get a framerate that was even close to smooth. I had to shut > off _all_ graphics, and I still had some choppyness around groups > of traffic. I know of a couple of people that upgraded the video > card to the Intergraph 3d card, and saw some pretty good increase > in N2, however I couldn't get my onboard video to disable. Now, > I'm glad I couldn't. It made me upgrade to a system that runs > N2 very nicely. > Shawn Wise

Shawn, According to PB, on most models the video will disable itself. It will show a conflict in the control panel but just ignore it.

I guess that was a pretty lame machine Eric! I used to run N1 on a p100 laptop with all detail on except grass and track in SVGA with a very smooth framerate. "Back when I ran N1 on my old P133 I always ran in VGA because of the framerate."

I did have a slow ATI card, but it's more so because I have very high standards. I find anything under 20fps to be virtually unplayable. -- The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html-ssi http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

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> I did have a slow ATI card, but it's more so because I have very high > standards. I find anything under 20fps to be virtually unplayable. > -- > The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative > http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html-ssi > http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/ > > I guess that was a pretty lame machine Eric! I used to run N1 on a > p100 > > laptop with all detail on except grass and track in SVGA with a very > smooth > > framerate.

Like anything under 25fps is unplayable to me, so you're not alone Eric. BTW, thanks again for the help with the 'puter. Runs great! Mick in Tampa -- Mike Schreiner http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!

> couldn't get my onboard video to disable. Now, > I'm glad I couldn't. It made me upgrade to a system that runs > N2 very nicely. > Shawn Wise I have a packard bell, I got a 3d blaster, just plug it in and the VGA automatically is disabled on the motherboard. No big deal. It improved my n2 frame rates drastically. The game runs better on my P100 than it does on my friends P150. If you are a big nascar or Indycar fan, I would recommend one of these cards. its the cheapest upgrade with the highest frame rate increase you can do to your computer. mickster

Mickster, I went even further than you,I traded in my HP 5010 system with a 486 dx4 cpu that only got 14-17 fpm with most of the graphics turned off,for a custom built computer sytstem that has a P166,quad CD-ROM,and a Diamond Stealth 3000-D. My frame rates with all graphics turned on is always around 30fpm. Joel Willstein

I'll presume that your frame rates are actually 60 times higher than you reported... :-) fps vs. fpm ---Jim Sokoloff