In follow-up, I just defraged my disk and enabled "Poll Interrupts Enabled"
in my Joystick dialogue box. All the sudden I have very good control and the
careem through the pace car off the pitwall at "Go" has disappeared.
I know MS is getting a bunch of heat here over the demo. I wanted to add
some pro and con remarks about the issues brought up after having more time
running the demo. Not looking for flame wars.
FPS - I am running 22-28 FPS in practice with detail at "best"; all details
on except "trackside objects"; mirrors "cars only"; hardware acceleration
and smoothing "on"; draw distance 15; tire effects "track and particles; all
driving aids off. This on a P200MMX with M3D enabled for D3D. Most people's
eyesight can't distinguish above 20-22 FPS. You have to 20/20 to notice
30FPS.
TRACK COLOR - Parts of the track are brown to black and some greyish. Last
time I was at a track, the track was black. I expect a dark track.
VISIBILITY - I can see other cars well in advance. The annoying thing is to
get good FPS, draw distance has to be 15. Landmarks don't draw fast enough.
GRAPHICS - I run ICR2 (WIN95 - Non Rendition) and GP2. The graphics seem
just fine to me. Edges could be crisper. Is this Z-Buffering or for
performance reasons?
CONTROL SENSITIVITY - Using a MS Sidewinder 3D Pro (which you would think
CART would be optimized for), steering is vague until I really getting on
it. Then it seems better. I toyed with the Speed Sensitivity, Non-Linear
Steering and Steering Radius settings with no success.
SKY BORING- Sky details on. Looks like a sky to me.
GRAVEL PITS - They should call them "ice rinks". Definitely need to look at
the gravel. I seriously doubt I could get away with my off-road adventures
in real-life.
WHEEL SPIN (1st Gear) - Can't seem to do it either. Traction control off.
All driving aids off.
PITS - I'll say it again. Go to get rid of the auto-pilot thing! All the
sudden, for some reason, the car careems off the wall through the pace car
when I start in the demo. Didn't happen when I first installed.
DRIVING MODEL - At times it seems great...at times not. Depends on how
aggressive I am driving. The more aggressive..the better. This may have
something to do with the Control Input problem.
LAP TIMES - I have been toying with game setup and just running warm-up type
laps and have made no car setup changes outside of the Laguna Setup and I am
turning better times than I would expect. This coming from the Hall of Fame
stats which I understand are not accurate?
AI - Can't say yet.
CONCLUSION - For a first release, I feel MS has done a pretty good job. Many
people are comparing second generation products (ICR2, N2 and GP2) to a
first generation product. Not exactly fair. Why don't we compare it to ICR1,
N1 and World Circuit Racing?
Would I like to see shortcomings fixed before the release? Yes. Will they
be? Doesn't sound like it. It does sound like - "wait for the patch" with a
release date just two weeks away.
John
(snip)
CONCLUSION - For a first release, I feel MS has done a pretty good job.
Many
people are comparing second generation products (ICR2, N2 and GP2) to a
first generation product. Not exactly fair. Why don't we compare it to
ICR1,
N1 and World Circuit Racing?
(unsnip)
Why don't we compare it with......?!!!
Because Microsoft's contractors have had several years to test GP1,
ICR1, GP2, ICR2, NASCAR1, NASCAR2. If one comes out with a product
designed to be "cutting edge" one does not evaluate it against a product
that was developed several years ago!! It should be compared with what
is available at the time of releasem, not with what was available if it
had been released 6 years back!!
Bruce.
