Opinions on sims for 486/66, Playstation? and Indycar crack?

I'm new to this group and have some questions: 1) What are the best simulators that run decently on a 486/66? As a benchmark, IndyCar (1) runs great on my machine. "Whiplash" only runs well in a small-screen mode. I have VESA local video, 8MB RAM, an NO Win95. 2) How do simulators for the Playstation compare to PC simluators? Seeing as how my PC is a dinosaur, and a Playstation costs less than most 3D accelerator cards for a PC (assuming I even had a PC that would benefit from one), I'm thinking of going that route. 3) Is there a "crack" for IndyCar that gets rid of the manual look up? I bought game (when it was full price and came on floppies! :) ) and I'm sick of the stupid lookup everytime I start it. Thanks. Please e-mail (see below) if you can. Our news server has stopped receiving new messages for who knows how long. -- Visit the Classic Home Games Museum at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brownde/museum

Your just about out of luck. I originally ran ICR2 on a 486/100-4 with 8 MB of ram,and had to turn off most of the graphics to get decent frame rate. My old machine also was Vesa Local Bus,nothing really is made for this anymore,everything is PCI. I run ICR2 and Nascar2 in MS-DOS,but just about everything else is Windows based. Simulators for Playstation are pretty good. My son has Playstation,and we just go him a wheel combo. But there not in the same league with the PC versions,especially in setups and options. I really don't ;understand your question I would save up and buy a decent P166 setup with a min of 32 MB of RAM. You should shop around. With all the super new computers coming out for christmas,P200 and up,many stores have great deals on older units just to clear them out. You could most likely get a P166 system complete for under $1000. Good luck Joel Willstein >-- >Visit the Classic Home Games Museum at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brownde/museum

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> >1) What are the best simulators that run decently on a 486/66? > > As a benchmark, IndyCar (1) runs great on my machine. "Whiplash" > > only runs well in a small-screen mode. I have VESA local video, > > 8MB RAM, an NO Win95. > Your just about out of luck. I originally ran ICR2 on a 486/100-4 > with 8 MB of ram,and had to turn off most of the graphics to get > decent frame rate. My old machine also was Vesa Local Bus,nothing > really is made for this anymore,everything is PCI. I run ICR2 and > Nascar2 in MS-DOS,but just about everything else is Windows based. > >3) Is there a "crack" for IndyCar that gets rid of the manual look up? > > I bought game (when it was full price and came on floppies! :) ) > > and I'm sick of the stupid lookup everytime I start it. > I really don't ;understand your question

Are you talking about IndyCar Racing (from Papyrus) or the original Indianapolis 500 simulation? I think, in light of your second question, that it's the old Indianapolis 500 sim. That game would run ok on just about anything - I originally played it on an 8088 (pre-286, for those who don't remember). So using it as a "benchmark" probably doesn't say much. To answer your second question first, I've seen several programs that claimed to be able to crack the manual lookup for Indy 500, but none of them seem to do anything. You're right, the manual lookup was annoying, but it's a common (older) method of copy protection... For those who aren't familiar with the game, when started it asked you a question from the manual and you had to type in the correct answer. (i.e. Last name of the 1923 Indy 500 winner?) For your first question, Joel's right. You're running on a machine that's at least 3- or 4-year-old technology, relatively little RAM, and an older operating system. Most of the Papyrus games (Nascar1/2 and ICR1/2) should run, though you'll probably have to greatly reduce the detail, particularly on version 2 of both games. My father-in-law has a 486/66 with 16MB, and he runs Nascar1 with about half of the detail options turned off. There are a few other older games that might run, but you probably won't be real happy with them or their performance. (i.e. NFS, Power F1, etc.) -- ============ Kurtis Miller

Without upgrading at all, try the ORIGINAL Indy Car Racing (available almost everwhere for $10-$15. Also try the original Need For Speed SE, available everwhere for $15 (old 'puter = old software = bargain prices!) You can rent a Playstation at BlockBuster and try it out for yourself. Try Formula 1 CE, CART World Series and NFS V-Rally. IMHO, adding a 3dfx card to a 486 won't let you play much more. Most games require Pentium these days even with 3dfx. The above games are, again IMHO, the best driving SIMS on the PSX (though certainly less "sim-like" than a computer sim) and are a blast to play. There are also tons of driving GAMES, but I prefer the sims.

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> To answer your second question first, I've seen several programs that > claimed to be able to crack the manual lookup for Indy 500, but none of > them seem to do anything. You're right, the manual lookup was annoying, > but it's a common (older) method of copy protection... For those who > aren't familiar with the game, when started it asked you a question from > the manual and you had to type in the correct answer. (i.e. Last name of > the 1923 Indy 500 winner?)

<rant> There are crack programs out there, and this is one case where I'm all for this type of "crack". In fact, I thought that the official patch to 1.0.5 got rid of this requirement altogether. (It may have still put up the question, but you could just hit enter and go on.) This is the single-most annoying form of copy-protection since non-standard floppy tracks from the old 8-bit days... </rant> There, an anti-Papyrus post to quell the rumors that I'm their stoolie... :-) --Jim