GP2: which video card

I have been trying a few video cards in order to boost the frame rate in GP2 but had very little succes. I tried the Sierra Screaming 3D and the Stealth II but GP2 would not respond to it (in fact the frame rate decreases to an unacceptable and unplayable level). I know that GP2 does not support 3D but I thought it would take advantage of the 4 MB. I currently have a S3 Trio 64 v+ card (from Trident I think) with 2 MB of video ram on my Pentium 133 (32 MB of ram). Would anyone have a card type or brand name to suggest that GP2 would recognize and that would increase the frame rate? Would a standard card with more ram produce a better result. I welcome any suggestions. Thanks in advance. Guy Vincent

The ideal card seems to be the matrox millenium with as much memory as you can afford!

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> I have been trying a few video cards in order to boost the frame rate in > GP2 but had very little succes. I tried the Sierra Screaming 3D and the > Stealth II but GP2 would not respond to it (in fact the frame rate > decreases to an unacceptable and unplayable level). I know that GP2 > does not support 3D but I thought it would take advantage of the 4 MB. > I currently have a S3 Trio 64 v+ card (from Trident I think) with 2 MB > of video ram on my Pentium 133 (32 MB of ram). > Would anyone have a card type or brand name to suggest that GP2 would > recognize and that would increase the frame rate? Would a standard card > with more ram produce a better result. I welcome any suggestions. > Thanks in advance. > Guy Vincent

An inexpensive and fast 2d card is a Hercules 128 (PCI) vid-card, with Tseng ET-6000 chipset, and 2mb of ram (about $70.00 or less?). More ram on the vid-card won't help in GP2. I have this card for GP2, and it works very well for the price (works well in W95 too). ...>>>Would anyone have a card type or brand name to suggest that GP2

You don't need more video card, you need more processor.

Like another user answered, the best money is spent on more processor. However, I also tried various cards in GP2. The best I found was the Hercules Dynamite 128, 2MB, with the ET600 chip. There are other cards out there using the ET6000 chip. It produced the most acceptable frame rate, and was also very good in win95. I say "was", because I removed it to use a Rendition based card, mainly for ICR2 and Nascar2. My Hercules 128 is for sale if your interested. Guy Brosseau

gp2 takes a massive amount of proccessor, my 266 wont run it with everything on, there is a patch however that takes advantage of the Virge chipset(I think that is the same).

Absoloutly true, GP2 is all about raw CPU-power. Don't pay any attention to the suggested framerate in GP2 when you have a Rendition. GP2 is testing in VGA-mode wich is not handled well at all by Rendition boards like the Sierra Screaming 3D. I guess you are runing in SVGA mode which is handled quite well by the Sierra Screaming 3D. Just crank it up to 15-20 fps, or what ever your CPU can handle. Myself I have a Sierra Screaming 3D and a PII-300 and GP2 is runing very well. ........Koran

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> >I have been trying a few video cards in order to boost the frame rate in<BR> > >GP2 but had very little succes. I tried the Sierra Screaming 3D and the<BR> > >Stealth II but GP2 would not respond to it (in fact the frame rate<BR> > >decreases to an unacceptable and unplayable level). I know that GP2<BR> > >does not support 3D but I thought it would take advantage of the 4 MB.<BR> > ><BR> > >I currently have a S3 Trio 64 v+ card (from Trident I think) with 2 MB<BR> > >of video ram on my Pentium 133 (32 MB of ram).<BR> > ><BR> > >Would anyone have a card type or brand name to suggest that GP2 would<BR> > >recognize and that would increase the frame rate? Would a standard card<BR> > >with more ram produce a better result. I welcome any suggestions. <BR> > >Thanks in advance.<BR> > ><BR> > ><BR> > >Guy Vincent<BR> > ></HTML> > You don't need more video card, you need more processor.

>Absoloutly true, GP2 is all about raw CPU-power. Concur. Yes, I experienced similar with a Stealth II. It is quite possible that a lot of reports of slowness of the chipset are based on such erroneous readings (though it is slow in DOS VGA). >> > I know that GP2<BR> >> >does not support 3D but I thought it would take advantage of the 4 MB.<BR> I may be wrong, but I suspect the amount of memory has very little, if not nothing, to do with *** framerates. Against this statement, I have read that 64-bit cards are hampered if only 1MB, and larger texture RAM area can reduce pauses. But otherwise? One thing to beware of with some of the old S3's is that there was some feature not enabled (linear frame buffering?). Make sure to use univbe or Disk Doctor (or s3spdup?) and you may see a 10-20% improvement in framerate in SVGA. No, and No. Agreed. That is the only answer.

Actually, I have very good frame rates with my 166MMX, 32 MB RAM, and an old 2MB S3 ViRGE video card.... It ran like ***on my old 6x86 150+..so I agree the CPU is the biggest factor. >Absoloutly true, GP2 is all about raw CPU-power.

> Actually, I have very good frame rates with my 166MMX, 32 MB RAM, and an old > 2MB S3 ViRGE video card.... > It ran like ***on my old 6x86 150+..so I agree the CPU is the biggest > factor. > What do you consider to be a very good frame rate? I get about 23.2 fps in DOS but I turn off lots of graphics- it looks fairly choppy also. RC

I just wanted to mention a couple of things about GP2 performance which I have found to be true: 1. CPU integer performance is the most important factor in GP2. AFAIK, it does not use any floating point operations which means AMD and Cyrix CPUs give a superior price/performance ratio compared with Intel. For instance, I have tried a Cyrix 6x86 P166+ (133MHz) and a Pentium 166 on my system and the Cyrix is clearly faster (about 20%). Although I have no personal experience with the AMD, the K6 is supposedly the fastest chip for GP2 according to some benchmarks I have seen. (I have seen results where the K6-233 apparently scores over 800 in the "GP2 log:on" benchmark! K6 users, could you confirm this?) 2. Video cards do make a difference! A PentiumII 266 with a 4MB S3 virge DX card was not much faster than the Cyrix 166 w/ Matrox Millennium 2MB. From benchmarks posted on Sim Racing News some years ago it was shown that the Hercules Dynamite 128 and the Matrox Millennium (~480 in the "GP2 log:on" test's Video performance) were the fastest cards for GP2 at the time. 3. Video memory above 2MB makes little or no difference. Having said that I would not recommend Cyrix or AMD for other race sims as most are very FP intensive. Also, if you're on a tight budget, get something like a Riva128 if you need good GP2 performance along with good Windows and Direct3D performance. Hope this helps! Tomo.....

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>2. Video cards do make a difference! A PentiumII 266 with a 4MB S3 virge DX > card was not >much faster than the Cyrix 166 w/ Matrox Millennium 2MB. From benchmarks posted > on Sim >Racing News some years ago it was shown that the Hercules Dynamite 128 and the > Matrox >Millennium (~480 in the "GP2 log:on" test's Video performance) were the fastest > cards for >GP2 at the time.

Well, only if the "GP2 log:on" results correlate to actual framerate. And my own observation is: they do NOT. At one time, I tested 3 different video cards in a P133 with GP2. The SVGA log:on scores were 233, 469, 495 for a Stealth64, Millenium, and STB LS128 respectively. The "processor occupancies"? (which are obviously a much better indication of actual game framerate): The STB was one quanta better than the Stealth (for that case 175% vs 181%), the Millenium oscillated between those two values. That is, essentially equal performance of all three. Conclusion: video cards, at least half decent ones thru the most heralded ones, have very little impact on GP2 framerate. That is, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME/MONEY ON VIDEO CARD "UPGRADES" IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IMPROVED GP2 PERFORMANCE!!!!!.

Absolutely true! Waste your money on a P5-200MMX and 3dfx and get F1RS. :-) Sorry I couldn't resist.... -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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>Absoloutly true, GP2 is all about raw CPU-power. Don't pay any attention to the >suggested framerate in GP2 when you have a Rendition. GP2 is testing in VGA-mode >wich is not handled well at all by Rendition boards like the Sierra Screaming >3D. I guess you are runing in SVGA mode which is handled quite well by the >Sierra Screaming 3D. Just crank it up to 15-20 fps, or what ever your CPU can >handle. Myself I have a Sierra Screaming 3D and a PII-300 and GP2 is runing very >well.

I`ve only got a 1 meg Trio64V+ graphics card, and a P166 processor. (Well, the processor is respectable.) With the road and sky textures turned off, and ALL objects mapped in the mirrors, I get a consistent 15FPS. The game says it can manage 18, so I dropped it for timing reasons. That`s more than enough for me. I`m not a serious simhead (kudos to those who are) and don`t have 3DFX or any other such overhyped graphical entity. i`m quite happy. Hell, I was playing the original Gp until October last year. Seeyall --- The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny

Well, you're one lucky bastard... :-) It's true that 15 fps looks satisfying as long as you didn't taste higher framerates. Hell, even something like 10-12 fps was sufficient in the Amiga F1GP days... But once you run with something like 20fps for some time, 15 fps becomes totally unacceptable. And I reckon the same happens when you have to go down from 25 to 20.... My advise: stay with 15 as long as you don't upgrade!!! JoH Please remove *anti-spam* from the email when replying. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When everything else failed, we can still become im- mortal by making an enormous blunder.... John Kenneth Galbraith =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Funny, I can get less than 100% processor usage and 25fps in svga with my Cyrix 233 and a Diamond Stealth 3D (***graphics card), with absolutely everything on. ------------------------------------------------------------- "Signatures cost the internet 50 terrabytes bandwidth a day." Dave Ellis, Imperial College, London. 0181 758 2260

Bear in mind before you slam my system that it is a pentium 2, and thus will not run 16 bit code or ms dos games as well as a first generation pentium (or cyrix) will. I have been told that the jump from 233 to 266 is hardly noticeable anyway.

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>>gp2 takes a massive amount of proccessor, my 266 wont run it with >>everything on, there is a patch however that takes advantage of the Virge >>chipset(I think that is the same). >Funny, I can get less than 100% processor usage and 25fps in svga with my >Cyrix 233 and a Diamond Stealth 3D (***graphics card), with absolutely >everything on. >------------------------------------------------------------- >"Signatures cost the internet 50 terrabytes bandwidth a day." >Dave Ellis, >Imperial College, London. >0181 758 2260

Have you tried comparing results with the TSR Vidspeed that pentium pro users needed to get decent 16bit preformance? I've seen some benchmarks that show it does improve the PII's as well. dave henrie

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> Bear in mind before you slam my system that it is a pentium 2, and thus will > not run 16 bit code or ms dos games as well as a first generation pentium > (or cyrix) will. I have been told that the jump from 233 to 266 is hardly > noticeable anyway. > >>gp2 takes a massive amount of proccessor, my 266 wont run it with > >>everything on, there is a patch however that takes advantage of the Virge > >>chipset(I think that is the same). > >Funny, I can get less than 100% processor usage and 25fps in svga with my > >Cyrix 233 and a Diamond Stealth 3D (***graphics card), with absolutely > >everything on. > >------------------------------------------------------------- > >"Signatures cost the internet 50 terrabytes bandwidth a day." > >Dave Ellis, > >Imperial College, London. > >0181 758 2260

No, I can't say that I have. Really, in my situation, it runs fast enough, and I am satisfied. My system runs almost every racing sim that I have with all details on, and GP2 is only one of a small few that won't run with everything. It is still a good sim, and my favorite f1 sim(until f1rs is available here) and I am satisfied having most of the details. I just adjust them until I can get about 85-90% occupancy with over 25 frames per second. It is not worth it to me to purchase a new card until the madness calms down a little. > Have you tried comparing results with the TSR Vidspeed that pentium pro users >needed to get decent 16bit preformance? I've seen some benchmarks that show it

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>does improve the PII's as well. >dave henrie >> Bear in mind before you slam my system that it is a pentium 2, and thus

will >> not run 16 bit code or ms dos games as well as a first generation pentium >> (or cyrix) will. I have been told that the jump from 233 to 266 is hardly >> noticeable anyway. >> >>gp2 takes a massive amount of proccessor, my 266 wont run it with >> >>everything on, there is a patch however that takes advantage of the Virge >> >>chipset(I think that is the same). >> >Funny, I can get less than 100% processor usage and 25fps in svga with my

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>> >Cyrix 233 and a Diamond Stealth 3D (***graphics card), with absolutely >> >everything on. >> >------------------------------------------------------------- >> >"Signatures cost the internet 50 terrabytes bandwidth a day." >> >Dave Ellis, >> >Imperial College, London. >> >0181 758 2260

If you want to increase the GP2 speed try to select fully detailed Svga mode and decrease the frame rate to about 9.x fps. I put it on my 166 MMX, 32 RAM, and a Winfast 3D S600 (s3 Virge based) with 4 mb.