Requirements for GPL?

I don't remember this being asked before.... I have the GPL demo, 266K6-2, Voodoo1, it runs as fast as I need it to, with all the detail available turned on. To those of you that have tried the full game, will I see much difference? Does the final game need more horsepower for the other cars etc? What's a starting bid for a reasonable machine to do the game justice? TIA, Greg.

Greg Sutton wrote That is normal... I should, I say _should_ be able to get GPL with every graphic and 19 AI at more than 20fps, in 640x400 or even more !! I would think that the AI and racing physics where tweaked so much that even between the alpha demo and the final product you will see a big difference in the same situations. The good thing with GPL is that if your framerate is too slow at XYZ time you just will be able to go in the option menu and choose a lower resolution (800x600 to 640x480 per example) or lower sound quality, and it will make it gain at least more than 5fps. - Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard, (-o-) - Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. - Member of the r.a.s. Ego-maniac club - Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) - Excuse me for being provocative (I'm dumb speaking) - "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

The sim should quite well on your system. Mine is a P200 o/c to 225 (75x3) w/ a Rendition v1000 and Voodoo-1, and the sim runs fantastic! At Rouen I managed 20-24 fps jumped to 26-28 (approx) when I installed a PDPI card (digital game-port)...This w/ all detail on and minimum mirrors (objects, effects, but few textures). The PDPI takes some of the load off your CPU, and improves the control of the car 100%. BTW, full mirror textures dropped the overall fps about 4-frames. No sense in looking in the mirrors when your busy setting-up for the next turn! Although I prefer the *look* of the Rendition version, the 3Dfx is also very nice. Adding 10 AI cars (w/ same detail above) knocked the overall fps down somewhere between 18-20 (3Dfx), but this only happened when I was coming out of the pits. Other times it leveled out quite nicely to about 20-22 (approx). Not bad considering GPL is pulling *at least* twice the amount of graphics that GP2 had. I'll probably upgrade the chip to a P233 and o/c that as well (the price is right!), and then grab a Hercules Thriller (Rendition) card...I'll keep my V-1 for a while, at least 'til the prices of the V-2's drop a bit. In short - stick with what you have for now. You appear to have plenty of horsepower IMHO. Cheers! Marc

Quoted text (13 lines)

> I don't remember this being asked before.... > I have the GPL demo, 266K6-2, Voodoo1, it runs as fast as I need > it to, with all the detail available turned on. > To those of you that have tried the full game, will I see > much difference? Does the final game need more horsepower > for the other cars etc? > What's a starting bid for a reasonable machine to do the game > justice? > TIA, Greg.

-- Marc J. Nelson The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com * No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail *

Tell me more about the digital gameport. How much is it? Where can I get one, and can I still use all my old joysticks with it? Thanks, Chris

The PDPI comes with 4-ports (two on the card, and two that can be added if needed), and can even be doubled-up (8-ports!) for you crazy fly-boys. I installed only the basic card, leaving the extra in the box. I have my VV-wheel attached to one port, and an MS Sidewinder Pro to the other...The ports are switched via a batch file (accessed by shortcuts on the desktop)...At any time, I can switch between controllers without hassle. Works in either DOS or Win95. The more I use this card with sims I'm familiar with, the more impressed I am. I see improvements with all sims, even GP2 got a slight boost, but because GPL is so sensitive to control input, I noticed more improvement in this sim than any other...I've only had the card in for a few days, so I'll need to go back and have a closer look at other titles (current and past). The card is flawless, but apparently won't run in digital mode with N2...This is due to N2's coding, and not to a problem with the card. The card works fine for NROS, as Papyrus has already written the drivers for the online client...Out of all the games/sims out there, N2 is the only one with this glitch. Word has it that a fix for the offline version is in the works. A switch is provided (on the back of the card) that allows you to disable the digital feature, basically turning it into an analog port - N2 then works fine. PDPI is at the following address: http://www.pdpi.net/ ...They're not cheap (about $100 bucks), but with everyone scrambling for the best performance_for_the_buck, the PDPI is the next best investment to a Voodoo-2 or V-2200-based card. Cheers! Marc > Tell me more about the digital gameport. How much is it? Where can I get > one, and can I still use all my old joysticks with it? -- Marc J. Nelson The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com * No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail *

[snip] Did I miss something (like a release...) or how comes you talk about Rouen in GPL? Is there another demo than the one-car-demo of the Glen? If it is that way, where do I get it? Thank you, Rince.

> Did I miss something (like a release...) Still in beta...Rumored release sometime next month. -- Marc J. Nelson The Sim Project - http://www.simproject.com * No animals were harmed in the making of this e-mail *