GPL AND TNT...

I was just wondering if anyone has used GPL with a TNT card. If so, fill us in, whats the performance like? How high can you push the resolution and still get >24 FPS? thanks -YUBS

>I was just wondering if anyone has used GPL with a TNT card. If so, fill >us in, whats the performance like? How high can you push the resolution >and still get >24 FPS? Sorry, only by purchasing either a 3dfx or Rendition based accelerator. GPL supports only those two. No D3D support.

YUBS wrote Probably 320x200... and Im serious.. GPL was optimized for Rendition and 3dfx cards, with is not the case for the TNT cards. You won't be able to reach more then 20fps without taking off many if not every graphics. - Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard! - Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. - Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) - Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ on the NROS - "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."--

ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why they don't support OpenGL? And why rendition? I can see not supporting D3D but I here that they even dislike Glide. Not supporting glide would be shooting yourself in the foot, I guess there are just too many 3dFX cards out there to omit support. All I know about the support for rendition is that papy likes renditions' rendering process better. Funny, if its so good, why aren't other people using it? ***.... I think so! (jokes people... jokes:) thanks for the response, -YUBS

Quoted text (17 lines)

> YUBS wrote > >I was just wondering if anyone has used GPL with a TNT card. If so, fill > >us in, whats the performance like? How high can you push the resolution > >and still get >24 FPS? > Probably 320x200... and Im serious.. > GPL was optimized for Rendition and 3dfx cards, with is not the case for the > TNT cards. You won't be able to reach more then 20fps without taking off > many if not every graphics. > - Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard! > - Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. > - Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) > - Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ > - "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."--

YUBS wrote Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You won't find any. Papyrus supports Rendition way back since the start of 3d acceleration. Back around 3years ago 3dfx chipset were about non-existing, they started to work on a Rendition port for Icr2. They after ported it to Nascar Racing2 at the end of 1996. It was around that (6months after) that 3d Acceleration (Direct3D and Glide really boomed) made a really big jump. So they decided to make GPL in Glide also (= requires a 3dfx card) but since they also had ported Rendition since soo many years they also made it into GPL, and probably also Nascar Racing 3. I don't see what's so alarming in that. At least we can easily see the differences between the 3dfx support of N2 and GPL. support. ?? it supports Glide. I don't know where you saw that it didn't. - Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard! - Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. - Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) - Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ on the NROS - "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."--

Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL. I finally broke down and bought GPL yesterday; and in 320*200 resolution (running alone) I can get... about 23 FPS with most of the detail turned off. I got used to Quake2, 800*600 at just under 40 FPS, and even CPR runs nicely at about 30 on my STP Velocity128 card with D3D... So why exactly did Papy not decide to write their sim for, uh, everyone's video card? I really don't get it. In the manual, they act like this is some sort of "stand"- "We support two and only two chips." I really don't know what to do with it; I can't afford a new graphics card, and I know I won't race at 200*320 after what I am used to... any advice? I guess I didn't believe that a current sim would run *this* appalingly slow on a P2 300mhz machine- big mistake.

> >Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You > >won't find any. > Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that > graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL. So Quake2 is a sim now? Trips

3dfx with it's Glide is the most supported 3d chip, Rendition is married to Sierra, TNT is ( so they say ) a voodoo2 killer and it can't run GPL with more than 3 fps, shit!! TNT is for Direct3D and OpenGL games!!! Face it! There will probably a chance ( in next year or two ) that there will be games without support for D3D, small chance, but still a chance. And there will be a great chance that games will come out with both Glide and D3D support. Voodoo2 with glide will always!!!! run games better than TNT with D3D. At least that's what I think. Borut >>YUBS wrote >>>ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why >>they >>>don't support OpenGL? >>Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You

Quoted text (21 lines)

>>won't find any. >Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that >graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL. >I finally broke down and bought GPL yesterday; and in 320*200 >resolution (running alone) I can get... about 23 FPS with most of the >detail turned off. >I got used to Quake2, 800*600 at just under 40 FPS, and even CPR runs >nicely at about 30 on my STP Velocity128 card with D3D... >So why exactly did Papy not decide to write their sim for, uh, >everyone's video card? I really don't get it. In the manual, they act >like this is some sort of "stand"- "We support two and only two >chips." >I really don't know what to do with it; I can't afford a new graphics >card, and I know I won't race at 200*320 after what I am used to... >any advice? I guess I didn't believe that a current sim would run >*this* appalingly slow on a P2 300mhz machine- big mistake.

>I don't see why a sim is so special that it must absolutely use 3dfx. >I mean, if a sim can be played on a single 3dfx 1 which is a LOT >slower than a TNT, I don't see why it could'nt run in D3D or OpenGL It's probably because Glide has been able to do a lot of things that DirectX (D3D) hasn't until just recently. Glide has always been known to be very developer-friendly. I am sure that if they started engineering GPL today they could do it in D3D. I am sure that if they get enough 'requests', a D3D patch will come out. The developers probably have been working on GPL for quite some time and have also been using Glide for quite some time. I know that D3D isn't as good and OpenGL. I am not sure if GPL could have been done in OpenGL (it probably could have, but I am not a 3D programmer). I am sure Redline (I think that is the other driver that is supported in GPL is better than D3D as well). Tom

Quoted text (10 lines)

>>YUBS wrote >>>ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why >>they >>>don't support OpenGL? >>Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You >>won't find any. >Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that >graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL.

Quake2 runs about twice the frames on my V2 (~50) as it does on my TNT (~26). With the 3DNow! patch from AMD, the V2 simply kicks the TNT's ***in Quake2. Quake2 definitely seems to be doing more graphics than GPL, but GPL is actually simulating race car physics 288Hz. What else does Quake2 really have to do besides draw graphics? Clark A.

Quoted text (7 lines)

>>YUBS wrote >>>ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why >>they >>>don't support OpenGL? >>Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You >>won't find any.

X-Plane. Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain stupid. Z.

% Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain % stupid. Stupid for whom? Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well aware of this as an issue before they released the product. Unfortunately (or fortunately), GPL is a "bleeding edge" masterpiece and I honestly believe not supporting 2 of the top of the 3D chipsets directly would have bled some of the "bleeding" out of GPL. GPL only really shines when you can wrestle top fps performance out of it. GPL wasn't designed to be another anybody can race simulation. There are plenty of other products out there that do that just fine. My advice, if GPL's standards are too high for your machine: Upgrade -- or -- Buy a product that performs on your hardware -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Gee, that's funny, it kinda sounds like you're saying "Well if your not rich enough to upgrade your system every 8 months then you DESERVE crappy performance!" and well that is plain Bull SH!T. It is nobody's fault that GPL doesn't run flawlessly on everyone's HW. Papy could've made it run at 30fps on a K6-200... if they used 3 triangles per object and yes perhaps GPL is a little( a lot) ahead of its time, but I find it down right insulting that I have to turn the number of opponents down to run the game. I can understand reducing the number of sounds, quality of textures, or even reducing graphical detail and resolution, but reducing the number of opponents effects the game play aspect of the game and that appalls me. I have a PII266, 128mb, 9gig hd, and an 8mb V2. This is not a top of the line system by any means but it is still above average. Not to mention that the GPL box gives my system as the RECOMMENDED system which SHOULD be the system to play this game on in which to get the most out of it. This is the only time I will point the finger at papy and say "BAD PAPY, BAD PAPY, NOW GO TO YOUR CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!' The box is VERY deceiving/misleading and that is just plain WRONG. However, in the end it is papy's decision (since it is their game) and people can beg and plea and bargain to add D3D or OpenGL support but the only way they will respond is if the lack of that support results in lower sales. I ain't saying that papy is a big bad money hoarding corporation (*cough* Microsoft *cough*), but everyone is affected by money. That's the unfortunate part. GPL is doing great (and it should since its a great game... if you've got the system) so in one corner we have the amazing sim, but in the other, only the people with enough green can play it the way its meant to be played. I like to look at it this way : I'm never going to become a Dave Mansell, so chances are I'll still be putzing around Watkins Glen a year from now. Someday I will upgrade my system, and then I'll be able to pull out GPL (which won't be very hard since I never put it away) and putz around Watkins Glen some more but this time in all of its 1024x768 full detail glory.... ahh it gives me goose bumps. -YUBS

Quoted text (25 lines)

> % Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain > % stupid. > Stupid for whom? Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well > aware of this as an issue before they released the product. > Unfortunately (or fortunately), GPL is a "bleeding edge" masterpiece and > I honestly believe not supporting 2 of the top of the 3D chipsets > directly would have bled some of the "bleeding" out of GPL. GPL only > really shines when you can wrestle top fps performance out of it. GPL > wasn't designed to be another anybody can race simulation. There are > plenty of other products out there that do that just fine. > My advice, if GPL's standards are too high for your machine: > Upgrade > -- or -- > Buy a product that performs on your hardware > -- > **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* > Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

>% Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain >% stupid. >Stupid for whom? Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well >aware of this as an issue before they released the product. Well, this topic was inevitable. In fact, we've seen it before, even over a year back. But I think it is worthy of more and more merit as time (and the *** of 3dfx) passes by. Why? For sure it would have taken more time to get it out the door. Or resources applied to D3D would perhaps have meant something else being left out (if the release date was non-negotiable). The verite chips are nowhere near the top 2 anymore, at least by performance. If you meant sales, I don't have any numbers to support or refute. Perhaps. But there are a lot of players who are enjoying it with less than top-of-the-line hardware, me included (225MMX, v1). Further, the 3dfx is arguably no longer numero-uno, at least if not SLI'd. Given the demonstrated performance of D3D cards like the TNT's, and to a lesser extent S3 Savage, I don't think your argument holds anymore. For sure, the existing database of these bleeding edge cards is small right now, but it is only going to grow. The relevance? That, I'll agree with. No use pissing against the wind. Though I think if the urea content gets high enough, Papyrus will consider a D3D patch. My bet is this is the last sim they'll make without D3D support (you can save that quote to taunt me if it proves wrong :-)) My bottom line? I think a 3dfx card is still a requirement for the "serious" simmer, but my next card might very well be a TNT. I think this sentiment will grow. My predicition: developers will heed it.

Quoted text (7 lines)

>I have a PII266, 128mb, 9gig hd, and an 8mb V2. This is not a top of the line >system by any means but it is still above average. Not to mention that the GPL >box gives my system as the RECOMMENDED system which SHOULD be the system to >play this game on in which to get the most out of it. This is the only time I >will point the finger at papy and say "BAD PAPY, BAD PAPY, NOW GO TO YOUR >CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!' The box is VERY deceiving/misleading >and that is just plain WRONG.

This post is very deceiving - is that just plain wrong? I'm not much interested in hotlapping and therefore all through development I pretty much raced the AI - on my P225MMX with V1000, 64Mb RAM I could happily race 20 AI. It wasn't pretty, the detail levels were way down but I could easily manage it and enjoy it. I don't see that a P2-266 should have any problem at all given that my Celeron 300 works flawlessly. Cheers! John

Well... what I think is stupid is the fact that I have a Pentium II 504MHz... 128 MB 100MHz RAM. 8.4 gig WD drive.. and a 16MB TNT AGP card. And... let's see.. is that above the recommended specs for GPL?? yeah.. I think so.. yet.. for some amazing reason. I STILL can't get over 11 FPS on my little Monster 3D card when I have everything turned on and I am pulling out of the pit lane with all cars during a qualifying lap. That is what ticks me off... and not only that but... gee, let's see... I have a video card that can reach 1600x1200 resolutions with its 3D settings on full... no other 3D card can do that. So why isn't there more support for this card??? You think if Oil companies could find a way to imitate *** companies.. we'd start seeing that any gas with a 93 octane rating would only work on Dodge Neons. Wouldn't that be a hoot. Thank GOD that no one follows in Sierra's footsteps. (I personally think it is the head cheese in Sierra, not Papyrus that decided to NOT support OpenGL/DirectX 6)

Quoted text (7 lines)

>> >Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You >> >won't find any. >> Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that >> graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL. >So Quake2 is a sim now?

Oh god, not this debate here. let's just leave it at "it sure ain't a scroller." The only reason to bring Q2 up is that it is the best example of an extremely (much more than GPL) graphics intensive application that chose to use a standard library (OpenGL) rather than some video manufacturer's proprietary instruction set. It was good enough for it's graphics- why was it not good enough for Papy? Why didn't Papy use D3D or OpenGL? If this thing is like Indy500, ICR or ICR2 or NASCAR, people are going to be using it for the next 5 years... do you think the "Rendition instruction set" is still going to be popular then? I think there is a good possibility that you won't even be able to find a video card with either of the supported the chips GPL was written for in 5 years. Meanwhile, OpenGL is already about 15 years old! So eager am I to use this sim and not take it back that I went to the store today to buy a freakin' Diamond board. But given that there is no way with Win95 to support two video cards, and that I'd be stepping down from the 128-bit card I have to a 64-bit card... I spent an hour agonizing over the decision. Left the store without it, came home and tried GPL at 19 FPS in 320*200 again. I mean, what do I do with GPL? And please, no grotesque answers.

Quoted text (9 lines)

>>I don't see why a sim is so special that it must absolutely use 3dfx. >>I mean, if a sim can be played on a single 3dfx 1 which is a LOT >>slower than a TNT, I don't see why it could'nt run in D3D or OpenGL >It's probably because Glide has been able to do a lot of things that DirectX >(D3D) hasn't until just recently. Glide has always been known to be very >developer-friendly. I am sure that if they started engineering GPL today >they could do it in D3D. I am sure that if they get enough 'requests', a >D3D patch will come out.

... or an OpenGL patch. The point in brining up Q2 is that it is about as graphics intensive as anything gets. And having read a lot of the vast amount the Id guys write (in ther finger commentaries) about the future of graphics libraries, it is clear *these guys did their homework* before deciding on OpenGL. They pissed a lot of people off, because a lot of board drivers didn't support OpenGL yet. But besides just wanting to***MS off, it was clear that OpenGL was going to arrive (since it was already over a decade old, and not dying)- nowadays, 3D boards basically universally come OpenGL ready. Oh... except for the Stealth II I almost bit the bullet to buy today becaue Papy recommended it! Box says it only has NT OpenGL drivers presently. That was the last straw on it for me. Even the Id guys say that D3D is not so bad anymore- their main complaint now was that Microsoft was, for no good reason, intent on re-inventing the 3D graphics world because they knew they could force it down the world's throat for a profit- meanwhile, back then, *it definitely wasn't* as good as OpenGL, nor even as organized and logical. Now it isn't so bad. But D3D should have been good enough. And certainly OpenGL should have been. What were they thinking?

On Sun, 18 Oct 1998 16:30:48 GMT, "Michael E. Carver"

Quoted text (11 lines)

>% Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain >% stupid. >Stupid for whom? Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well >aware of this as an issue before they released the product. >Unfortunately (or fortunately), GPL is a "bleeding edge" masterpiece and >I honestly believe not supporting 2 of the top of the 3D chipsets >directly would have bled some of the "bleeding" out of GPL. GPL only >really shines when you can wrestle top fps performance out of it. GPL >wasn't designed to be another anybody can race simulation. There are >plenty of other products out there that do that just fine.

I just plain disagree. I think it is always a mistake to write for a proprietary piece of hardware, especially when there are already 2 perfectly good standardized libraries in use generally. And in terms of cutting edge FPS performance- I am sure the thing would run better in OpenGL that the *9* FPS I get in 800*600 rez using software mode- and god knows that in one year, 500 megahertz machines with 128-bit AGP graphics boards running at astonishing speeds are going to be the norm- and more than making up for any sort of temporary (and minor) lack of FPS that people might see now. This time last year I brought up a 300Mhz machine with 64meg ram in this group, and people laughed because it sounded preposterous. Now people consider this an already old machine! The fact is, Papy wrote the graphics for a 3D card, not for a CPU, and I hear people with 450Mhz machines complaining about getting nothing out of GPL because of the FPS. And the last difference I have with your argument is that *they could have written an OpenGL version anyway*. That is, they can keep their proprietary versions as-is, and simply added another entry ofr D3D or OpenGL in that menu of theirs with the two chipsets. Please- anyone have a reason why they didn't? Sierra breathing down their necks? I am not sure this is profitable enough for a real hardware-payoff ***. I pray they do come out with an OpenGL port; because now that I have bought this thing, I'd like to hold on to it. But let's face it, I can't really race at 9 FPS, or even at 19FPS in 320x200 rez (because I can't see anything- too chunky). And after an hour in CompUSA agonizing over whether or not to *downgrade* to the 64-bit Stealth II Papy recommends... I'm even that much more stubborn about it. I can only figure that Papy ran out of time with Sierra. But the authority with which the manual says "for two chipsets, and ONLY two" really wigs me out. I mean, don't paint yourselves in a corner, Papy! Patches are why your sims are great. Or, if you already happen to own a $250, 128-bit AGP 3D card, downgrade, as mentioned above... Papy should have made owning a Rendition a minimum requirement then. it is not even mentioned in their minimums. I read the minimums and said to myself "hey- I have better than double their minimums!" To me, that meant if they considered 11 FPS a minimum, I would at least get 22- which would have been acceptable to me. I get 9FPS- and sorry, I just can't play this thing at 320x200- too chunky, too many memories of Indy500: The Simulation. Hard to do when I have graphic powerhouses like CPR a double-click away. People flame CPR like mad- yet the more I use it, the less I see why- it's flaws are no worse than what we lived with for years with Papy sims. And, thanks to the dreaded D3D, *I am getting about 30FPS in it, all detail on!*

<...> I would agree if they mentioned the hardware they required in their minumum requirements. I have double their minimum requirements, and I am at 9 FPS. They consider 4.5 FPS acceptable play? I don't consider 320x200 rex acceptable period in a modern sim- but even at that level, I am getting sub-20 FPS at double their minimum hardware requirements. I mean, I am not a law-suit-minded guy... but let's face it, their minimum requirements on the box are bull- and their advertising of minimum requirements did indeed give me the confidence to buy it. Many people seeing this box in the checkout aisle at CompUSA will get this thing home to put on the 166Mhz P, and really flip. Papy makes great sims, probably the greatest; but often I can't put my finger on quite why they are great. Because detail for detail, there is always so much that they should have, with just a minimum of thought, done slightly differently. Going all the way back to the beginning, and probably accounts for some of the aggravation factor that has always beset them from their users. But for some reason, I get bored with all other sims eventually. N2 and ICR2 always came back out of the closet when the e***ment over this and that new sim came out. I expect GPL to eventually meet this criteria too- but for now, I honestly can't use it! You mean the chipset, or just the generic idea of a "3D graphics card." I definitely agree with the latter. My prediction: there is no doubt that a universal 3D standard, like D3D and OpenGL, will be the way of the future. Papy coming out with this "two chipsets and two only" stand is very weird. Probably time demands from Sierra mixed with some "in bed with" relations with some hardware manufacturer by someone in Sierra, I'd assume.

Well.. I am a stockholder of Cendant.. but even that doesn't affect Sierra changing their mind about choosing D3D or OpenGL support. I'm about ready to sell my stock just because the company makes some stupid business decisions. People are saying "It would have taken longer, and taken away some of the great things that make this game.. GPL runs great, why make it take longer?" That's alot of BS... if you are going to sell a product where its customers have so many different devices... why only allow 2?? I mean.. so what if they worked on it longer?? At least then it would a better product for all of us.. not just some of us. I wouldn't care if their DirectX version wasn't all that cool looking, as long as it gave me good framerates. To be honest, the people at Papyrus/Sierra spend too much time listening to the 'men in suits' rather than the people like us who make it possible for them to go home and afford groceries and rent.. etc.. If I didn't buy GPL.. it probably wouldn't affect their paycheck, but if some 150,000 potential customers didn't buy GPL (but could have it they supported Direct3D) it would affect their paycheck.

I don't see what was so deceiving about the post, care to elaborate?

>can't see anything- too chunky). And after an hour in CompUSA >agonizing over whether or not to *downgrade* to the 64-bit Stealth II >Papy recommends... I'm even that much more stubborn about it. I agree 100%. Let's see some support for the TNT! I am no way going te downgrade to that Rendition piece. They got me once with the V1000 but the 2D performance was just dismal, especially since I was running NT at the time for everything except ***. I need the 16MB the TNT offers so that I can run 1600x1200 TrueColor in 2D, never mind how much faster it is on OpenGL stuff than Rendition. Hey, I have not tried CPR with the TNT yet, but I was getting way better than 30fps with the V2/12MB even with the view distance slider maxed. Clark A.

Quoted text (17 lines)

>On Sun, 18 Oct 1998 16:30:48 GMT, "Michael E. Carver" >>% Anyway you cut it, shipping with no D3D or OpenGl support was just plain >>% stupid. >>Stupid for whom? Not for me, and I am sure Papyrus/Sierra were well >>aware of this as an issue before they released the product. >>Unfortunately (or fortunately), GPL is a "bleeding edge" masterpiece and >>I honestly believe not supporting 2 of the top of the 3D chipsets >>directly would have bled some of the "bleeding" out of GPL. GPL only >>really shines when you can wrestle top fps performance out of it. GPL >>wasn't designed to be another anybody can race simulation. There are >>plenty of other products out there that do that just fine.

GPl might be "leading edge" as far as physics go, but as far as support, it's about a year or so behind the times. No open gl or D3D support is the biggest miss. Rendition? Laughable. I mean, aside from papy thmeselves, who has actually written native for it? :) Native Glide- well it's nice, i guess.... but again, it's going for a (bigger) but still, exclusive section of the potential market. No Glide wrappers, after all. No 3D Sound hardware support. No Force Feedback. Biggest miss remain the lack of a cross-hardware 3D API. Every PC these days is shipping with 3D hardware- be it TNT, G200, or Riva128 ro Rage II (admitally dodgy;), i740. All of these (except G200 which uses a OpenGL->D3D wrapper) have opengl support, and D3D support are effectively excluded. Banshee or V2 are avaliable in a few select manchines now- but Rendtition? :) This is probably not going to bother people who own thew game- i dare say you own a 3Dfx card or rendition. But Cendant sllowing this out have shot themselves in the foot. If i was a shareholder, i'd be very annoyed. A pretty good sim is not going to ship it potential, simply becuase it's not runnable in software, and the hardware support is so limited. And in the case of the Rendition clan.... why should people want to downgrade their excellent TNT's or G200 to a rendition card, for one game? or buy a 3Dfx card? they won't. Simple as that. GPL might be the work of genius, but it's been built with cardboard, not bricks. Z.

Frankly, I'm stunned that this has continued as long as it has. What is stopping all of you whiners from buying a Voodoo2 board (they're getting cheaper by the day)? I realize that the TNT is a hot chip, and you'd love to run GPL with it, but it's not happening for the foreseeable future - GET OVER IT! Are you all blind to the reality of the market when development started on the game, probably two years ago? At that time, D3D was a joke, OpenGL was for high-end workstations, and 3dfx ruled the world (Rendition support was a given because of Sierra). Yes, they could have changed the specs down the road, but for what? The first TNT boards didn't start shipping until about a month or two before GPL, and they are the first boards to give GLide a real competitor - how was Papyrus supposed to write a game for a chip that simply didn't exist for the vast majority of GPL's development. Business reality says one thing - ship the product. Yeah, maybe a D3D or OpenGL version is possible, but if a company continually changes product specs to suit the current market, rather than the market as it existed at product conception, you know what you end up with? A four year development cycle and a cancelled game, like MicroProse's super heroes title (name escapes me right now). If GPL began development 6 months ago, the story would be different, but it didn't. Quit whinging - either pick up a supported accelerator or decide that you don't need to play GPL. Crimminy, I bought a Monster3D just to play the demo....................... Rick

Quoted text (18 lines)

>>>YUBS wrote >>>>ya, I just realized this about one minute after posting. Anyone know why >>>they >>>>don't support OpenGL? >>>Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You >>>won't find any. >>Quake2 certainly has no problem with OpenGL- and I'd think that >>graphically it is doing a hell of a lot more than GPL. >Quake2 runs about twice the frames on my V2 (~50) as it does on my TNT >(~26). With the 3DNow! patch from AMD, the V2 simply kicks the TNT's >***in Quake2. >Quake2 definitely seems to be doing more graphics than GPL, but GPL is >actually simulating race car physics 288Hz. What else does Quake2 >really have to do besides draw graphics?

OK, if we must pursue the Q2 line... I think Q2 does a lot more. Q2 is a VR simulator in it's own right- it has it's own gravity, friction, medium densities, acoustic properties, and certainly very sophisticated (and very processor expensive) AI. Their AI is probably the best there is at working (and learning) in fully 3 dimensions- and the fact that they write such open code, facilitating users to write their own add ons, is astonishing. Seeing some of the Bots (like Eraser Bot) that users have written for Q2 to simulate human players, learning from experience (being bumbling idiots for the first 2 hours in a new level to eventually becoming unbeatable), or the mods that people have created which take the program to a whole new universe... it is just incredible. SOme genius could probably write an F1 mod. Id writes things the way I wish all software manufacturers would. Id writes things with longevity, machine independence, and modular upgradeability (both for their own patches and for add-ons that users write) in mind at every step. And they would never think of doing a major release for "one or two video chipsets"- they write BIG, with eventually porting to most major OS' in mind- Linux, Solaris, Mac, WinNT, etc. Meanwhile, while obviously highly portable, I am hard-pressed to name more efficent code. Actually, I think the guys at NovaLogic are high up there too for efficency- but not in all the other aspects mentioned above. The guys at Id are superstars. Unfortunately for us, they have no interest in racing, it appears, and certainly would not be people I'd want writing racing sims.. Warts and all, I love Papyrus sims- and I end up using them more than anything Id ever made. Wouldn't it be amazing if Papy wrote their stuff with the same Id degree of open-ness, portability, and user configurability. But hey, I'd settle with a D3D or OpenGL patch.

>>>Tell me a simulator that supports OpenGL ? (I mean.. air AND racing...). You >>>won't find any. Don't tell the military that; I think they've been using Silcon Graphics (creators of OpenGL) sims for two decades. Yep.

>> This post is very deceiving - is that just plain wrong? >I don't see what was so deceiving about the post, care to elaborate? I did.... Cheers! John

> first TNT boards didn't start shipping until about a month or two before > GPL, and they are the first boards to give GLide a real competitor - how was > Papyrus supposed to write a game for a chip that simply didn't exist for the > vast majority of GPL's development. _exactly_. or Unreal... or Falcon 4... heh. i agree. i have a TNT card, and while it makes things like Forsaken look exceptionally nice, i still use my Voodoo 2 board more than the AGP TNT card. it's just plain _faster_. deal with it. if you are "stubborn", don't want to upgrade, or are short a little cash, then as much as i hate to say it, you need to find another hobby. you can pick up a Voodoo 2 addon board for a little under $149 at some places now. (i paid $323 when they came out. |: ) -jch

>Path: >Frankly, I'm stunned that this has continued as long as it has. What is >stopping all of you whiners from buying a Voodoo2 board (they're getting >cheaper by the day)? I realize that the TNT is a hot chip, and you'd love >to run GPL with it, but it's not happening for the foreseeable future - GET >OVER IT! <snip> Rick, i do wonder if you know the difference between Glide and OpenGl and D3D as Api's. While D3D is more chipset dependant in it's current form, to support all these cars in OpenGl woudl require just one version of code, not 5 or 6 to support all the major chipsets, including rendtion (do they have opengl drivers?) and 3Dfx. And your suggestion for people to buy hardware to make for Papy/Cendant only programming and commercial stupidity, is frankly, laughable. Z.

Direct3D. There've been games out for almost a year with D3D support, so the 'two year dev. cycle' is no real excuse. All I've got to go on is what's in the manual, and the team definately comes across as "hardware snobs". My way or the highway. Not great business sense. OTOH, I grabbed a Voodoo1 (monster) for little more than the cost of the game, so I can run it. I'm just lucky I had a free PCI slot. -moggy -- gary cooper (not the dead one) Kesmai Studios Air Warrior Product Support [link lost in import: /~cooper]

>And in the case of the Rendition clan.... why should people want to downgrade >their excellent TNT's or G200 to a rendition card, for one game? or buy a 3Dfx >card? they won't. Simple as that. Then again, people COULD have used proper hardware-purchasing logic in the first place and chosen a card compatible with the software they want to run: Joe's GOLDEN rule of hardware purchasing: Obvious as this point may seem, it's necessary to point out that the purpose of computer hardware is to run software. NEVER buy any computer hardware unless it enables you to run SPECIFIC software that you want to run. Period. Joe

>> Papyrus supposed to write a game for a chip that simply didn't exist for the >> vast majority of GPL's development. >Direct3D. >There've been games out for almost a year with D3D support, so the >'two year dev. cycle' is no real excuse. Yes it is, you are ignoring important factors: 1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more development money. 2) It would have provided no benefit, since until very recently there were no D3D-only cards that could provide anything close to 3Dfx power. Joe

Quoted text (9 lines)

>... or an OpenGL patch. The point in brining up Q2 is that it is about >as graphics intensive as anything gets. And having read a lot of the >vast amount the Id guys write (in ther finger commentaries) about the >future of graphics libraries, it is clear *these guys did their >homework* before deciding on OpenGL. They pissed a lot of people off, >because a lot of board drivers didn't support OpenGL yet. But besides >just wanting to***MS off, it was clear that OpenGL was going to >arrive (since it was already over a decade old, and not dying)- >nowadays, 3D boards basically universally come OpenGL ready.

I don't want to start a heated debate, but I don't really admire id Software as much as I did before. Quake2 was very good, but Unreal just kicks it's ass. I understand that Unreal has been worked on for a long time, but so has Quake/Quake2. The engine in Unreal is far superior. It was released 6 months after Quake2, but I hardly think that given 6 months, id could have done the same. Promptly after id Software saw Unreal, they announced that Trinity (their new project) would be Quake3 and focus on multiplayer rather than amazing graphics. While this could be great for them, I wonder why the 180? Anyways, I guess this is off topic, I just wanted to voice my $0.02 about id and OpenGL. Tom

>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more >development money. Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. D3D only, maybe, but how many supported it? Anyway, certainly more than there are Rendition cards out there. -gary -- gary cooper (not the dead one) Kesmai Studios Air Warrior Product Support http://www.cris.com/~cooper

hmmmm I see... and why exactly does that make it wrong? Oh yeah, because you said so... How silly of me... Sorry, I don't mean to be so hostile, and I know things can get slightly out of hand when you can't really understand the persons intentions over a newsgroup, but I just would like to understand your point of view... -YUBS

Quoted text (8 lines)

> >> This post is very deceiving - is that just plain wrong? > >I don't see what was so deceiving about the post, care to elaborate? > I did.... > Cheers! > John

>hmmmm I see... and why exactly does that make it wrong? Oh yeah, because >you said so... How silly of me... That's as good a reason as any, and a marvellous philosophy on life :-) I know, but I did explain my POV just below the part you quoted. If you let me know what I should elaborate on I'll do so. Cheers! John

Hey Rick! I have a M3D2, I still want to check it out on my TNT. Might be faster, you never know! Money for upgrades is not really the issue here. If I decide I want to go buy a P2 Xeon 1024K and on Obsidian X-24 whatever tomorrow I can, it is largely an issue of principles. Clark A. On Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:57:20 -0400, "Rick Baumhauer" >Frankly, I'm stunned that this has continued as long as it has. What is >stopping all of you whiners from buying a Voodoo2 board (they're getting >cheaper by the day)? I realize that the TNT is a hot chip, and you'd love >to run GPL with it, but it's not happening for the foreseeable future - GET >OVER IT!

I was not trying to put down Q2, it has survived the GPL install and still resides on my machine, unlike several other "sims" and "games". Clark A.

Quoted text (8 lines)

>>Quake2 definitely seems to be doing more graphics than GPL, but GPL is >>actually simulating race car physics 288Hz. What else does Quake2 >>really have to do besides draw graphics? >OK, if we must pursue the Q2 line... I think Q2 does a lot more. Q2 is >a VR simulator in it's own right- it has it's own gravity, friction, >medium densities, acoustic properties, and certainly very >sophisticated (and very processor expensive) AI. Their AI is probably

> yes, they are cheap- a lot cheaper than the board I have. I considered > it yesterday- for about an hour in CompUSA. In the end, I didn't buy- > because to use it I'd have to remove my already superior board. unless > one of you hackers out there knows how to get Win95 to handle two > boards... The Voodoo2 is designed to work alongside your existing video card. No hacking needed, that's how it is supposed to work, and it does. Trips

Sounds like a hell of a machine....too bad my K6-2 64mb Voodoo2 is faster...so sad. <VBG> Buy a Voodoo2 and then you will have all the bases covered. 135.00 dollars to run GPL like I do....at 1024x768 25+ field of 18+ PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Pink Flamingo Pilot... http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

There it is....buy the hardware for the software. Simple stuff. Yea that TNT is sure fast....great specs.....awesome card....doesnt run GPL...ooops. Voodoo 2's are selling for the cost of 3 games... PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Pink Flamingo Pilot... http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

Quoted text (9 lines)

>>I have a PII266, 128mb, 9gig hd, and an 8mb V2. This is not a top of the line >>system by any means but it is still above average. Not to mention that the GPL >>box gives my system as the RECOMMENDED system which SHOULD be the system to >>play this game on in which to get the most out of it. This is the only time I >>will point the finger at papy and say "BAD PAPY, BAD PAPY, NOW GO TO YOUR >>CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!' The box is VERY deceiving/misleading >>and that is just plain WRONG. >This post is very deceiving - is that just plain wrong?

The box is decieving. It says minimum requirements are (from the box in my hand) Win95, 166MHz Pentium, 32meg Ram, "Windows95/98 compatible video card with 2 MB memory", and a 2x CD-ROM drive. It should have been forthright about the video card- without a Papyrus compatible video card, this program is totally useless on the system described above. I don't see how anybody can argue otherwise; it is very simple: nobody can race at 4.5 FPS, or 8 if you live-it-up in the blockiest 320x200 I've ever seen since Indy500 The Simulation. Come on, Papy- let's have OpenGl or D3D support so this sort of thread doesn't have to roll on for a year... it ain't helping sell product. I've got your system (well, 300MHz), but I don't have that particular graphics card (Mine is a 128-bit STB). And I get 9 FPS with 5 AI cars. And, of course, none of the schmancy graphics processing my very powerful card was made to do- so it is 9FPS without any smoothing or lighting effects, etc. I am glad so many are pleased with the performance of GPL on their systems... but I am not sure why many appear to be arguing that Papy's minimum requirements are in any way realistic, or even that Papy did well not to put out a D3D or OpenGL version. First off, OpenGL or D3D support wouldn't hurt your performance; it would have nothing to do with it. Secondly, Papy is basically leaning on people to buy proprietary hardware- that isn't good. I mean, with all the people who hate Microsoft because they take away people's decision on what to buy... well, what is this? Buy a Renditon card? 3 years ago, when graphics cards were still extreme game-enthusiast toys, maybe that was OK to stick with some proprietary standard, hoping it "would win." But today, computers come standard with 3D cards, and well designed software needs to write for standard graphics libraries/APIs. It is an astonishing oversight on Papy's part.

>On Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:57:20 -0400, "Rick Baumhauer" >>Frankly, I'm stunned that this has continued as long as it has. What is >>stopping all of you whiners from buying a Voodoo2 board (they're getting >>cheaper by the day)? yes, they are cheap- a lot cheaper than the board I have. I considered it yesterday- for about an hour in CompUSA. In the end, I didn't buy- because to use it I'd have to remove my already superior board. unless one of you hackers out there knows how to get Win95 to handle two boards... I don't know about TNT, but Papy will eventually have to write an OpenGL or a D3D patch at some point (unless this program is not destined to last over a year). And threads like this hopefully help motivate them to do it sooner than later.

>>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more >>development money. >Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. Why is D3D "a bear" to program? it is a hell of a lot easier than writing non-accelerated graphics routines- and we know Papy can do that. We without Rendition or 3Dfx chips are living with them. the future for 3D graphics simply is not the 3Dfx API. D3D is just fine now, although personally I prefer OpenGL.

>There it is....buy the hardware for the software. Simple stuff. Yea >that TNT is sure fast....great specs.....awesome card....doesnt run >GPL...ooops. >Voodoo 2's are selling for the cost of 3 games... Yes... but what do I do with my superior video card that cost... 6 times the cost of games, and that works amazingly well with other things I like to do... Hey- I've got double the minimum specs on Papy's box (including my video card)- so then why, accoring to your rule, can't I run at over 9 FPS in 600*800 with 5 cars?

hmmmm.... some people never learn do they rrevved?... he he he.... I think the thing that topped it off was the Oh man that was great, I love it... :) -YUBS

Quoted text (30 lines)

> On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 00:59:23 GMT, > >>There it is....buy the hardware for the software. Simple stuff. Yea > >>that TNT is sure fast....great specs.....awesome card....doesnt run > >>GPL...ooops. > >>Voodoo 2's are selling for the cost of 3 games... > >Yes... but what do I do with my superior video card that cost... 6 > >times the cost of games, and that works amazingly well with other > >things I like to do... > You leave the ***er in your system alongside the VoodooII, just like > ALL of us do. A VoodooII card is an add-on card, not a replacement. > Get a clue. > >Hey- I've got double the minimum specs on Papy's box (including my > >video card)- so then why, accoring to your rule, can't I run at over 9 > >FPS in 600*800 with 5 cars? > Because you don't understand how 3DFX works. I have tried to educate > you in other posts here. > -- > // rrevved at some ISP which calls itself mindspring dot com //

What didn't make sense? What was wrong? -YUBS

Quoted text (15 lines)

> >hmmmm I see... and why exactly does that make it wrong? Oh yeah, because > >you said so... How silly of me... > That's as good a reason as any, and a marvellous philosophy on life > :-) > >Sorry, I don't mean to be so hostile, and I know things can get slightly > >out of hand when you can't really understand the persons intentions over > >a newsgroup, but I just would like to understand your point of view... > I know, but I did explain my POV just below the part you quoted. If > you let me know what I should elaborate on I'll do so. > Cheers! > John

I think your missing the big TIME element, N2 had many features that were either disabled(AA) or left out(race saves) due to the lack of time to completely rework the code. Papyrus is not a fast turnaround code group like the Id boys. They take a good deal of time patching their products. So now your asking them to include more 3d support, that is all well and good, but heck, how long did it take them to just get a beta going for 3dfx support in N2?? They could have probably added D3D, and open GL etc but then GPL would be a 1999 Xmas product. As far as your other comment about Win95 not running two vid. cards...I guess you mean 2d/3d cards. Currently I have two Vid cards and two sound cards under win95. You can easily keep your TNT and add a Voodoo2 or two for any glide supported games. Sure it would be nice if everybody all played with the same codecs, but then we'd all be stuck with Ad Lib or Soundblaster 8 bit sound cards, and EGA graphics. 3dfx was the first push the 3d envelope and create a large installed base. As such they will get plenty of products that support only that item but wit the maturation of DX6 and beyond the glide only products probably will dwindle. But, if you keep to your 1 card, you'll be limiting the choice of software you can use. Should the programers be held accountable for your CHOICE in system hardware?? naw..... dave henrie

Quoted text (23 lines)

><...> >>>My advice, if GPL's standards are too high for your machine: >>> Upgrade >>> -- or -- >>> Buy a product that performs on your hardware >>That, I'll agree with. No use pissing against the wind. >I would agree if they mentioned the hardware they required in their >minumum requirements. I have double their minimum requirements, and I >am at 9 FPS. They consider 4.5 FPS acceptable play? I don't consider >320x200 rex acceptable period in a modern sim- but even at that level, >I am getting sub-20 FPS at double their minimum hardware requirements. > I mean, I am not a law-suit-minded guy... but let's face it, their >minimum requirements on the box are bull- and their advertising of >minimum requirements did indeed give me the confidence to buy it. Many >people seeing this box in the checkout aisle at CompUSA will get this >thing home to put on the 166Mhz P, and really flip. >> Though I think if >>the urea content gets high enough, Papyrus will consider a D3D patch. My

bet >>is this is the last sim they'll make without D3D support (you can save that

Quoted text (17 lines)

>>quote to taunt me if it proves wrong :-)) >Papy makes great sims, probably the greatest; but often I can't put my >finger on quite why they are great. Because detail for detail, there >is always so much that they should have, with just a minimum of >thought, done slightly differently. Going all the way back to the >beginning, and probably accounts for some of the aggravation factor >that has always beset them from their users. >But for some reason, I get bored with all other sims eventually. N2 >and ICR2 always came back out of the closet when the e***ment over >this and that new sim came out. >I expect GPL to eventually meet this criteria too- but for now, I >honestly can't use it! >>My bottom line? I think a 3dfx card is still a requirement for the

"serious"

Quoted text (13 lines)

>>simmer, >You mean the chipset, or just the generic idea of a "3D graphics >card." I definitely agree with the latter. >> but my next card might very well be a TNT. I think this sentiment >>will grow. My predicition: developers will heed it. >My prediction: there is no doubt that a universal 3D standard, like >D3D and OpenGL, will be the way of the future. Papy coming out with >this "two chipsets and two only" stand is very weird. Probably time >demands from Sierra mixed with some "in bed with" relations with some >hardware manufacturer by someone in Sierra, I'd assume.

>Why is D3D "a bear" to program? Because it is not, in actual fact, what is was supposed to be: a generic 3d api that freed the developer from having to implement all sorts of little hacks and changes for every 3d card out there (which is precisely what D3D programming involves). Gee, and I thought only wizards could tell the future. Joe

>I just plain disagree. I think it is always a mistake to write for a >proprietary piece of hardware, especially when there are already 2 >perfectly good standardized libraries in use generally. Everyone looks a genius with hindsight. This time last year the satanic hordes were slaying goats on the altar of Rendition, 3dFX, NVidia and a host of others, and GPL started life years before even that. As Joe so rightly pointed out, you buy your hardware for your software, not the other way around. It was well known over a year ago that GPL would use 3dFX and Rendition, so it's hardly a surprise now. Massive investment in time for little possible return? Remember that N2 and ICR2 were Rendition only, and Papyrus were pilloried for not supporting 3dFX - the usual *** theories abounded. Now 3dFX support is added not only for GPL but retrospectively for N2 and NROS as well, and the TNT/D3D/OpenGL/Whatever fans feel neglected. Any company would like to support and address their entire market but it is impossible. You do what you can with the time and resources you have and that's it. Therein lies the grey area software companies need to weigh up. Guys on this newsgroup are investing thousands in whole new systems just for GPL and you're undecided about whether to buy a card that's about the same price as the game. Such a diverse reaction. Cheers! John

Who cares? It's cheap, it gives damn fine results and supports racing sims. With an ultra-cheap combo of Rendition V2200 and Voodoo1 you can run everything and still save money over the "hot" D3D cards. On top of that you get native support for most software. It doesn't work for everyone but for anyone interested in auto-sims there's nothing better. Be serious - a sim which will run on Voodoo1, Voodoo2 or any Rendition board is "limited"? That is a massive slice of the potential market covered already, and given that many sim fans will have followed Papyrus' lead along the Rendition road by buying N2, there was already a large installed user base of Rendition owning sim fans. Read this newsgroup - they will, they are, they have. People buy whole new systems for their favourite sim - a $40 graphic card is nothing. Shhh, you're letting your research material be known.... ;-) Cheers! John

Quoted text (7 lines)

> > Papyrus supposed to write a game for a chip that simply didn't exist for the > > vast majority of GPL's development. > Direct3D. > There've been games out for almost a year with D3D support, so the > 'two year dev. cycle' is no real excuse.

Yepp, and most of the guys that did it are still pissed off about it... ;^) Snobs, I want more of those snobs! They make sure I get the best *** experience. l8er ronny -- Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure, kiddo?" |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

> On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 00:45:34 GMT, snip > >yes, they are cheap- a lot cheaper than the board I have. I considered > >it yesterday- for about an hour in CompUSA. In the end, I didn't buy- > >because to use it I'd have to remove my already superior board. unless > >one of you hackers out there knows how to get Win95 to handle two > >boards... snip > ALL current VoodooI and VoodooII cards plug into a slot on your motherboard. > They DO NOT replace your current video card. They are add-on cards. > ALL people that have VoodooI and VoodooII cards have another card for their > normal video card. That's TWO cards in EVERY Voodoo* user's systems. It works > FINE. Let's confuse him even more! Some Voodoo users have THREE video cards in their system... ;^) l8er ronny -- Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure, kiddo?" |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

<snip> >>And in the case of the Rendition clan.... why should people want to downgrade >>their excellent TNT's or G200 to a rendition card, for one game? or buy a 3Dfx >>card? they won't. Simple as that. >Read this newsgroup - they will, they are, they have. People buy whole >new systems for their favourite sim - a $40 graphic card is nothing. Exactly. I bought a VLB 3dblaster for my 486 to play Nascar1, a PCI 3db for N2, a Voodoo1 for F1RS, and i just ordered my 8mb Thriller today for gpl. The TNT might run 1600x1200 D3D games, but if it can't get gpl up to speed, it's of little use to me....BTW, i had some trouble finding the Thriller here in Oz, but managed to track down the Distributor in Melbourne. (OEM ver - no video out - $270aud) If any Aussie simmers are after one, email me and i'll pass on the details. Cheers Phil

What, he worked for nothing?! :-) Cheers! John

>What didn't make sense? What was wrong? You've got me - I was asking you that. Looks like we're both all messed up now :-) Cheers! John

> First off, OpenGL or D3D > support wouldn't hurt your performance; it would have nothing to do > with it. Secondly, Papy is basically leaning on people to buy > proprietary hardware- that isn't good. I mean, with all the people who > hate Microsoft because they take away people's decision on what to > buy... well, what is this? Buy a Renditon card? or a 3Dfx card. i seem to _never_ drop below 30fps with a 333 and a voodoo 2 card. why are you making this sound like rendition is the only solution. last i checked, very nearly _every_ game on the market is supporting 3Dfx hardware in some form or shape. and for the amount of speed one of these cards produced (especially over any Riva 128 card) for the price it's now listed at, i don't see the justification for your argument. put a crowbar in your wallet and buy one. you'll be amazed. -jch

Quoted text (23 lines)

>Path: >> First off, OpenGL or D3D >> support wouldn't hurt your performance; it would have nothing to do >> with it. Secondly, Papy is basically leaning on people to buy >> proprietary hardware- that isn't good. I mean, with all the people who >> hate Microsoft because they take away people's decision on what to >> buy... well, what is this? Buy a Renditon card? >or a 3Dfx card. i seem to _never_ drop below 30fps with a 333 and a voodoo 2 >card. why are you making this sound like rendition is the only solution. >last i checked, very nearly _every_ game on the market is supporting 3Dfx >hardware in some form or shape. >and for the amount of speed one of these cards produced (especially over any >Riva 128 card) for the price it's now listed at, i don't see the >justification for your argument. >put a crowbar in your wallet and buy one. you'll be amazed. >-jch

I have SLI V2's, and since buying a TNT, i really wouldn't touch 'em. They just can't compete anymore in image quality, and the TNT is only a bit slower. Z.

Quoted text (18 lines)

>>or a 3Dfx card. i seem to _never_ drop below 30fps with a 333 and a voodoo 2 >>card. why are you making this sound like rendition is the only solution. >>last i checked, very nearly _every_ game on the market is supporting 3Dfx >>hardware in some form or shape. >>and for the amount of speed one of these cards produced (especially over any >>Riva 128 card) for the price it's now listed at, i don't see the >>justification for your argument. >>put a crowbar in your wallet and buy one. you'll be amazed. >>-jch >I have SLI V2's, and since buying a TNT, i really wouldn't touch 'em. They >just can't compete anymore in image quality, and the TNT is only a bit slower. >Z.

I should add that the TNT is cheaper than one V2, let alone SLI, too. Z.

>What a bunch of shit. GP2/ICR2/Nascar2 have survived very nicely with no D3D >support. Different timeframe... C:PR ? * Duck * Remco

>>What a bunch of shit. GP2/ICR2/Nascar2 have survived very nicely with no D3D >>support. >Different timeframe... And can you imagine them being released now, fresh, with no 3D hardware support from the box? Z. P.S: are Self-styled "hard-core" Race Sims drivers that entrenched in their own world that they know so apprently little of the 3D *** revolution of the last 2 years? :)

% There it is....buy the hardware for the software. Simple stuff. Yea % that TNT is sure fast....great specs.....awesome card....doesnt run % GPL...ooops. % Voodoo 2's are selling for the cost of 3 games... Damn, you mean I'll have to upgrade my ZX-81! Shit, just as soon as I brought the memory to 16k. -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

>>>or a 3Dfx card. i seem to _never_ drop below 30fps with a 333 and a voodoo 2 >>>card. why are you making this sound like rendition is the only solution. >>>last i checked, very nearly _every_ game on the market is supporting 3Dfx >>>hardware in some form or shape. >>>and for the amount of speed one of these cards produced (especially over any

Quoted text (9 lines)

>>>Riva 128 card) for the price it's now listed at, i don't see the >>>justification for your argument. >>>put a crowbar in your wallet and buy one. you'll be amazed. >>>-jch >>I have SLI V2's, and since buying a TNT, i really wouldn't touch 'em. They >>just can't compete anymore in image quality, and the TNT is only a bit

slower. >>Z. >I should add that the TNT is cheaper than one V2, let alone SLI, too. >Z. And it'll stay cheaper, as long as nobody writes software with native TNT support......you bought it, you live with it.

Quoted text (12 lines)

>>>I have SLI V2's, and since buying a TNT, i really wouldn't touch 'em. They >>>just can't compete anymore in image quality, and the TNT is only a bit >slower. >>>Z. >>I should add that the TNT is cheaper than one V2, let alone SLI, too. >>Z. >And it'll stay cheaper, as long as nobody writes software with native TNT >support......you bought it, you live with it.

Er? there is no *native support* actually. And i think you'll ifnd that GPL is certainly the only new release which isn't supported. Why? because developers moved on, papy didn't. :) Their loss, not mine. Z.

>there is no *native support* actually. er, for native support, read native API. Z.

>>Why is D3D "a bear" to program? it is a hell of a lot easier than >>writing non-accelerated graphics routines- >BULLSHIT. Since the release of DX5, that is entirely NOT bullshit... ;-) -moggy -- gary cooper (not the dead one) Kesmai Studios Air Warrior Product Support http://www.cris.com/~cooper

>>>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more >>>development money. >>Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. >What, he worked for nothing?! :-) No - he worked. Did his job, Figured out the API and used it. Now we have a 3D sim that supports the vast majority of 3D cards out there. Didn't take him long and it certainly wasn't a "bear" ;-) -moggy -- gary cooper (not the dead one) Kesmai Studios Air Warrior Product Support http://www.cris.com/~cooper

> And i think you'll ifnd that GPL is certainly the only new release which isn't > supported. Why? because developers moved on, papy didn't. :) > Their loss, not mine. Meanwhile, you're the one complaining, not them. Trips

>>Come on, Papy- let's have OpenGl or D3D support so this sort of thread >>doesn't have to roll on for a year... it ain't helping sell product. >When you bought your Riva, you knew that you would be restricted to >Microsoft's D3D API. >Remember? No, you mean it wouldn't support 3Dfx's API. Why should it support a proprietary instruction set? It already supports the two top API standards. I am not sure where you are going here- Microsoft supports at least two sims with D3D- it's flying simulation and it's CART simulation. Maybe it's golf sim too... I don't know. Fortunately, I'm not selling anything to you. If you love the performance of your sim so dearly, why are you complaining in to this thread, which basically regards stuff Papy *doesn't* support? SOunds like you have some racing to do. CPR is performance challenged?! You may not like it, but it's D3D gives me over 30 FPS, full detail! ANd with double the default horizon distance. The AI is not marvelous, but the car model is superior to anything out there that I am able to run (GP2, ICR2, N2). ANd that is mostly what matters to me. Not Papyrus' "stuck-in-last-year" mentality. <...> You mean sales? Microsoft. Now why did you make me have to say that? That is distasteful. You are basically saying you are pleased that Papy neglected to add D3D or OpenGL support? I don't get it- if your sim is working fine, what are you complaining about other people's complaints for? You should be racing. ... that's ironic! Hey, I almost broke down under Sierra's pressure. But in the end, I could figure out no way to keep my current (and better for most purposes) card and a new one on my system at the same time. Know a way? Win98 lets you.

On 20 Oct 1998 04:49:33 GMT, "Dave Henrie" <...> Actually, I am a Riva128... So how do you do it? How do you switch, without completely reloading all drivers? are there IRQ conflics? OpenGL is nearly 15 years old, if memory serves. Silicon Graphics was using it for real graphics projects back when home PCs only had monochrome. Only for what they write on the outside of their box. Papy wrote a game not specifically for PC, but for a video card. They should have put that in their minimum requirements.

Quoted text (12 lines)

>>>>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more >>>>development money. >>>Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. >>What, he worked for nothing?! :-) >No - he worked. Did his job, Figured out the API and used it. >Now we have a 3D sim that supports the vast majority of 3D cards >out there. >Didn't take him long and it certainly wasn't a "bear" ;-)

In my experience, The "bear" was coming to terms with the Windows API in the first place- after you've spent 6 months doing that, the DirectX API looks like the most well organized thing MS ever did! Which isn't saying much. But unlike proprietary card APIs, and unlike OpenGL, DirectX combines sound, networking, graphics, and 3D capabilities within one API, so in many ways it is a lot easier to do game programming in general. I'd say it is "a bear" to learn any given proprietary card API knowing that it may not last another year.

>> Their loss, not mine. >Meanwhile, you're the one complaining, not them. >Trips Hehehe..

Quoted text (10 lines)

> >>>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more > >>>development money. > >>Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. > >What, he worked for nothing?! :-) > No - he worked. Did his job, Figured out the API and used it. > Now we have a 3D sim that supports the vast majority of 3D cards > out there.

Yepp, and has quite mediocre graphics, too! Of course, that's only because it's a big multiplayer flight sim... ;^) l8er ronny -- How to get rid of censorship in German game releases <http://www.gamesmania.com/german/maniac/freedom/freedom.htm> |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

[snip] My guess is that they didn't have the experience/Manpower to make a proper port to one of those APIs within the given timeframe until release. They have experience with coding Rendition/RRedline and 3DFX, but not with D3D or OpenGL, AFAIK. Just a guess, as I said. I must say that I was surprised about the decision to ship GPL without support for most of the newer 3D chips, however. In hindsight, it would surely have been a better decision to srcap the "software acceleration" mode and do a Direct X port. [snip] I don't know if this isn't a grotesque answer, but I would try and get a cheap (used?) VooDoo 1 card if I were you. You won't get top notch performance, but solid 36fps at 640x480 with 15 or so opponents and a few options turned off should be possible on your system (PII 300, IIRC). -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

ahhhhh.... it all falls into place! Okay, okay, enough of this already. I was just saying that the box description of the min and rec. systems was deceiving, and I thought you were accusing me of be deceiving and wrong so I was like "what the hell? That doesn't make any sense?" anyway I gotta go back to my GPL... I'm have withdrawal :) -YUBS

Quoted text (7 lines)

> >What didn't make sense? What was wrong? > You've got me - I was asking you that. Looks like we're both all > messed up now :-) > Cheers! > John

> And i think you'll ifnd that GPL is certainly the only new release which isn't > supported. Why? because developers moved on, papy didn't. :) > Their loss, not mine. > Z. you seem to be the one with a beef against Papyrus. also, i do have a TNT paired with my Voodoo 2 card. yes, the image quality is nice. a little on the dark side, but nice, nonetheless. however, screenshots mean absolutely nothing to me. performance does. you get 9 fps. i get 30+ in GPL. Quake? i deathmatch at 60 fps. the v4400 have accomplishes an admirable 50 in any timedemo. deathmatch makes the card choke. oh... but the colors are absolutely gorgeous when it bogs slow enough to really pick out the detail! ;) -jch

Quoted text (10 lines)

>>>>1) D3D is a bear to program, and would have cost Papyrus more >>>>development money. >>>Well, our programmer didn't have much trouble. >>What, he worked for nothing?! :-) >No - he worked. Did his job, Figured out the API and used it. >Now we have a 3D sim that supports the vast majority of 3D cards >out there.

Yeeees, that's as maybe, but the point was "would have cost Papy development money". You said....oh never mind :-) Cheers! John

Quoted text (12 lines)

>Path: >> And i think you'll ifnd that GPL is certainly the only new release which > isn't >> supported. Why? because developers moved on, papy didn't. :) >> Their loss, not mine. >Meanwhile, you're the one complaining, not them. >Trips

heh, they shipped 200,000 units in europe first week, and they are 4th place in the charts? Who do you think is more worried? Z.

Quoted text (12 lines)

>> And i think you'll ifnd that GPL is certainly the only new release which > isn't >> supported. Why? because developers moved on, papy didn't. :) >> Their loss, not mine. >> Z. >you seem to be the one with a beef against Papyrus. >also, i do have a TNT paired with my Voodoo 2 card. yes, the image >quality is nice. a little on the dark side, but nice, nonetheless.

Play with the Gamma corection sliders. Is that all? What system spec are you using? Sounds like you need to upgrade your cpu. Z.

snip

Quoted text (7 lines)

> In my experience, The "bear" was coming to terms with the Windows API > in the first place- after you've spent 6 months doing that, the > DirectX API looks like the most well organized thing MS ever did! > Which isn't saying much. But unlike proprietary card APIs, and unlike > OpenGL, DirectX combines sound, networking, graphics, and 3D > capabilities within one API, so in many ways it is a lot easier to do > game programming in general.

Yepp, and even iD uses parts of DX (sound,input) because their was not much to gain regarding quality and effort, but the 3D part was just too limiting and time consuming. l8er ronny -- Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure, kiddo?" |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Quoted text (8 lines)

>>>Joe's GOLDEN rule of hardware purchasing: Obvious as this point may >>>seem, it's necessary to point out that the purpose of computer >>>hardware is to run software. NEVER buy any computer hardware unless it >>>enables you to run SPECIFIC software that you want to run. Period. >Hey- I've got double the minimum specs on Papy's box (including my >video card)- so then why, accoring to your rule, can't I run at over 9 >FPS in 600*800 with 5 cars?

Because you didn't follow the rule? You bought hardware knowing that it didn't support a piece of software you were likely to want. I would guess that you bought the card long before you saw the GPL box, so your hardware buying decision wasn't based upon that - from my memory GPL's hardware support has been common knowledge for many, many months. It's really a shame if you can't enjoy it, and no sim is fun at 9fps. Cheers! John

Quoted text (7 lines)

>>>What a bunch of shit. GP2/ICR2/Nascar2 have survived very nicely with no D3D >>>support. >>Different timeframe... >And can you imagine them being released now, fresh, with no 3D hardware >support from the box?

You talkin' to me? :-) Someone (Rrevved)said that GP2/ICR2/N2 survived without D3D, and I responded that that was a different time, i.e. no fullgrown D3D support available at the time, if any. IMHO, D3D is very misleading ATM. If a game supports D3D, it is not certain your D3D card will run that game, i.e. F1RS. The card must contain atleast 4MB mem. Nah, that's not possible. Remco

Quoted text (17 lines)

>Path: >>>>What a bunch of shit. GP2/ICR2/Nascar2 have survived very nicely with no D3D >>>>support. >>>Different timeframe... >>And can you imagine them being released now, fresh, with no 3D hardware >>support from the box? >You talkin' to me? :-) >Someone (Rrevved)said that GP2/ICR2/N2 survived without D3D, and I >responded that that was a different time, i.e. no fullgrown D3D >support available at the time, if any.

Actually Rrevved. True, but i almost guarantee you'll probably not able to run Nascar 2 on a 512k VGA card? What you are talking about is video memory requirements, not D3D limitations. (i.e) try running Incoming by Rage. It'll run on any D3D card, but will have models untextured, if you slip below minimum memory on board (4mb). Quite comical on a 2mb S3 virge, btw ;) I assume that F1RS does a memory check and just prevents the above happening. That is not to say you can't run F1RS on *any* D3D card with 4MB or more, but the limitation is memory orientated, not chipset. Z.

>>also, i do have a TNT paired with my Voodoo 2 card. yes, the image >>quality is nice. a little on the dark side, but nice, nonetheless. > Play with the Gamma corection sliders. that would be the obvious selection, wouldn't it. darkness is a known problem especially for OpenGL games. the gamma sliders correct nothing for this situation. maybe i should specify Quake 2 next time. Quake 1 has been uninstalled for quite some time now, and i'm sure that's what is misleading you. i run a pII333 overclocked to 400mhz on an Asus P2B board, btw. -jch

>>>also, i do have a TNT paired with my Voodoo 2 card. yes, the image >>>quality is nice. a little on the dark side, but nice, nonetheless. >> Play with the Gamma corection sliders. >that would be the obvious selection, wouldn't it. darkness is a known >problem especially for OpenGL games. the gamma sliders correct nothing for >this situation. And the in game options in gamma correction? :) And i shoudl have asked if that's V-synched speed or not. I'm running a P2-350, and i've read that a 300 is about the bottom limit for a TNT, but i any case, it's faster than a single V2, slower than SLI, cheaper than a single V2, and better image quality than V2 or V2-SLI. Z.

Actually, there have been a number of games that claim to support "D3D", but in reality only supported certain graphics chips, because many D3D cards didn't actually support all of the features that the game required. Rick

snip > I'm running a P2-350, and i've read that a 300 is about the bottom limit for a > TNT, but i any case, it's faster than a single V2, slower than SLI, cheaper > than a single V2, and better image quality than V2 or V2-SLI. ...and you can't play the sims, you want to play! Hmm, good choice! l8er ronny -- Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure, kiddo?" |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Quoted text (10 lines)

>snip >> I'm running a P2-350, and i've read that a 300 is about the bottom limit for > a >> TNT, but i any case, it's faster than a single V2, slower than SLI, cheaper >> than a single V2, and better image quality than V2 or V2-SLI. >....and you can't play the sims, you want to play! Hmm, good choice! >l8er >ronny

er? I have Sli'd V2's and my comment on the whole D3D is: (1)the TNT provides better quality images (2) The APi's used are excluding a huge userbase (3) This will impact sales (4) This will effect the quality and number of future simulations. Z.

Quoted text (8 lines)

>> yes, they are cheap- a lot cheaper than the board I have. I considered >> it yesterday- for about an hour in CompUSA. In the end, I didn't buy- >> because to use it I'd have to remove my already superior board. unless >> one of you hackers out there knows how to get Win95 to handle two >> boards... >The Voodoo2 is designed to work alongside your existing video card. No >hacking needed, that's how it is supposed to work, and it does.

Actually, I was looking at the Diamond rendition card (Stealth2 or something)- because it is so damn cheap (with discount, well under $100), and GPL is all I wanted it for. I'm happy with all my other *** needs- the D3D support and OpenGL support for stuff like Quake2 and CPR works fine. Perhaps Papy should consider giving away free rendition cards in their boxes. The 3Dfx cards all were too much money- particularly since it isn't clear they'll be in the lead in the next 6 months. I think read someone saying the cheapos are in the $149 range- which card? I didn't see anything down there... I saw a Creative Labs for considerably more.

>Therein lies the grey area software companies need to weigh up. Guys >on this newsgroup are investing thousands in whole new systems just >for GPL and you're undecided about whether to buy a card that's about >the same price as the game. Such a diverse reaction. This is a good point. My life is not GPL (or ICR2 or N2 or GP2 or CPR), and certainly the card I have has been a joy up until this point when there was a new piece of software I wanted. (Papy doesn't put stuff out often). Now for the *** theory, just for everyone's amu***t. Racing simmers are a peculiar breed of gamer. They tend to be a little older and have a little more cash than the average 15 year old Unreal or Q2 player. Many have the means to consider a single sim to be a reason to buy a certain kind of hardware. In a way, this gives the software guys a liberty to hold on to certain hardware constraints that other game designers are not allowed by the market to do. That is, for CPR to sell well (and not just build ill will for MS, which is already seen as the devil), it can't ask the average Joes and Janes to buy a special or obscure card to run their software on- they must design the software such that it is available to everybody with an average machine. Pisses the simmers off, but hey- simmers are a definite minority int he grand scheme. The future is not writing for specific video card APIs, any more than the future of programming isn't an eventual return to assembly language. Eventually you have compilers that are smarter than any assembly language guru, and likewise, eventually you have graphics standards that cant talk to 20 different types of hardware and operating systems better than any but the most narrow-focused programmers could talk to any one card through some OS they know intimately. The thing that bugs me about Papyrus' release here is not that they released a rendition and a 3dfx version, but that they did this without the "generic" graphics API version. People here blame it on "lack of time" or "lack of performance"- but I think both are bull. First off, if you want to see a lack of performance, pick the "none" category for graphics cards, and *look at the non-accelerated version*. That's no performance. And that is what the minimum specs on the box are selling- and I daresay that the average joe or Jane seeing the glossy box, reading the minimum requirements, and splurging will get this home and never, ever see anything other than this (at 9FPS, and blocky). A D3D version would work orders of magnitude better. I mean, it isn't just speed the prprietary card gives- Papy's graphics just plain look incomplete without the graphics card doing it's tricks. They wrote this for a card- too bad the min. req. didn't say that. (simmers all knew this, but that is because they spend a lot of time around here. The average consumer doesn't). Secondly, too much time to build in the universal API version... ? Logically, that should be the one you start with! Later, in the optimization stage, you make some hot-rodded version. But granted that Papy was working on this years ago, when D3D was not so hot and nobody but wizards really considered OpenGL on a PC, I guess we can let them off the hook a bit on that one. But regardless- what is this "native support for rendition"- why rendition? I know there is a Papy history of being in bed with rendition... and that helps put this whole thing in perspective. The whole "proprietary card only" thing is fishy. I've wondered why exactly there has been so much fuss and emotion over my and other complaints that Papy provided no standardized support for this sim- until I realized that people that bought proprietary gear to run this sim or some other game have a vested stake that the industry stick with keeping the proprietary standards they paid for as a priority. They are glad there is still special support for "just them", and many seem to hope that standardized support doesn't come, it seems. SO basically, you have the software company in bed with the hardware guys, and the users that paid for the hardware and the software devoted passionately to the two because of their own investment. Pretty nice situation for Papy, I'd say. Far cry from Id, who consistently used its clout in the industry to *put standards in place.* OpenGL was not what many people considered a wise direction 3 or 4 years ago... but Id, understanding the shortsightedness of proprietary hardware APIs, and forever aware of Microsoft trying to push a mediocre standard in place of an already better existant one, pushed OpenGL. Now OpenGL it is a standard that must be obeyed by all video card manufacturers- why? Because so many millions of people play Q2. They knew they could force people to buy hardware- they sort of did once already (Doom was itself apparently a major motivation for hundreds of thousands of people to buy PCs instead of Macs). Hard to think of the guys at Id as saints! But in the end, they did more than force OpenGL down the industry's throats- they helped pressure Microsoft to develop a much better 3D API than they propably ever would have with no competition and the ability to force their standard on the world. OK- end of amusing *** theory.

I keep getting the feeling that we're arguing when we don't have to be. You do know that a Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 card DOES NOT replace your existing graphics card, don't you? It works with your existing card - it comes with a "pass-through" cable that goes from your existing card to the Voodoo card, then you plug your monitor into the Voodoo. As long as you have an open PCI slot, you can just pop the Voodoo card in, install the pass-through, and any game that supports 3dfx will work with it, and anything that doesn't will be ignored and use your existing card. So, you can keep your Riva128 for D3D, and have the Voodoo card for Glide - best of both worlds. If you need any more info, just reply to this message. Rick

>>that would be the obvious selection, wouldn't it. darkness is a known >>problem especially for OpenGL games. the gamma sliders correct nothing for >>this situation. > And the in game options in gamma correction? ... do absolutely nothing about the situation. vsynch enabled == about 57 in 800x600 with the voodoo 2. if this were the case, i'd use it more games. even Shogo is faster and smoother using a Voodoo 2 card.... and this game seems to be based on D3D. SLI is getting cheaper every day... definitely an option ... debateable. a voodoo 2 can be had for $145 now. right. and again, screenshots matter about as much to me as the cardboard packaging material in the games i buy. pretty graphics are usless if they don't move in a playable/smooth fashion during the game. if i want screenshot, i'll buy a five dollar *** magazine. -jch

>The thing that bugs me about Papyrus' release here is not that they >released a rendition and a 3dfx version, but that they did this >without the "generic" graphics API version. People here blame it on >"lack of time" or "lack of performance"- but I think both are bull. Doing a "generic" graphics API version is not trivial, looking at the game Unreal. It's been out for 5 months now and all they have to show for the "generic" API version is a gl beta version for rendition, which needs to be hacked to work on the riva cards. Even then, some people still can't get it to work or have graphic anomalies. Or the D3d beta version that works on the G200, and again needs to be hacked to work on other cards, with the same inconsistent results. And these gl and D3d version are being worked on by outside firms for Epic. If Epic had waited for their gl or D3d version to ship with the final product, their game would have been delayed another half year or more. Imagine if Epic had chose to do those ports in house, the game would have probably been delayed another year.

Quoted text (19 lines)

>>>that would be the obvious selection, wouldn't it. darkness is a known >>>problem especially for OpenGL games. the gamma sliders correct nothing for >>>this situation. >> And the in game options in gamma correction? >.... do absolutely nothing about the situation. >>>> Is that all? >>>> What system spec are you using? >> :) And i shoudl have asked if that's V-synched speed or not. >vsynch enabled == about 57 in 800x600 with the voodoo 2. >> I'm running a P2-350, and i've read that a 300 is about the bottom limit for > a >> TNT, but i any case, it's faster than a single V2, >if this were the case, i'd use it more games. even Shogo is faster and >smoother using a Voodoo 2 card.... and this game seems to be based on D3D.

Fraid not. Shogo is at it's best on a TNT with all the DX6 treats. Z.

>>if this were the case, i'd use it more games. even Shogo is faster and >>smoother using a Voodoo 2 card.... and this game seems to be based on D3D. > Fraid not. Shogo is at it's best on a TNT with all the DX6 treats. i'll say once again, i have an STB v4400 paired with a Creative Voodoo 2 12mb card. Shogo fails miserably on the TNT card after level 4 unless you disable certain options. not to mention it chokes with high detail settings when debris starts flying everywhere. The Creative card plows through it as if nothing were happening. i have nothing against personal opinions, except when people adamanatly believe their's is the only "correct" opinion. then again, you could be sitting at my house right now evaluating my system while i'm at work. doubtful. -jch

Quoted text (25 lines)

>>>if this were the case, i'd use it more games. even Shogo is faster and >>>smoother using a Voodoo 2 card.... and this game seems to be based on D3D. >> Fraid not. Shogo is at it's best on a TNT with all the DX6 treats. >i'll say once again, i have an STB v4400 paired with a Creative Voodoo 2 >12mb card. >Shogo fails miserably on the TNT card after level 4 unless you disable >certain options. >not to mention it chokes with high detail settings when debris starts flying >everywhere. >The Creative card plows through it as if nothing were happening. >i have nothing against personal opinions, except when people adamanatly >believe their's is the only "correct" opinion. >then again, you could be sitting at my house right now evaluating my system >while i'm at work. >doubtful. >-jch

On the other hand i could have been working with Shogo for a long time at work, and have spent many hour using it at work. Actually at home i'm on my 4th time through, and i've had absolutely no problems with my Diamond TNT. If it's *** on your system, well sorry, but that only happens at 1600x1200 on mine. Z.

% Because you didn't follow the rule? You bought hardware knowing that % it didn't support a piece of software you were likely to want. I would % guess that you bought the card long before you saw the GPL box, so % your hardware buying decision wasn't based upon that - from my memory % GPL's hardware support has been common knowledge for many, many % months. While people following this and a few other NG's know what hardware is really needed to run GPL, the "minimum" requirements stated by Sierra are total bullshit, and the poor bloke buying the program off the shelf after reading the box has a "right" to feel "used and abused". Sierra's minimum requirements are blantantly deceiving. Misleading the public like this will only cause ill feelings toward the company and their current/future products. I will defend Papyrus' decision to only support the video chipsets they did, but I cannot defend them or Sierra for blantantly misleading the general purchasing public. -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

> On the other hand i could have been working with Shogo for a long time at > work, and have spent many hour using it at work. Actually at home i'm on my > 4th time through, and i've had absolutely no problems with my Diamond TNT. i see. so you're the only one that seems to have no problem with Shogo while _every other TNT owner on this planet_ has run into this bug, found by "Here's a bug people have found. In the Dock 17 mission on the TNT (maybe the 128), the level shows up all blue. There will be a fix for this in the first Shogo patch" [snip] going through the game 4 times, surely you would notice that at least once of the levels is _completely_ blue when using the TNT, having no textures at all. it's blatantly obvious. hell, i almost went blind the first time i saw it. seeing it 4 times, as you _must_ have, would probably cause recurring nightmares. other than this, i've had no problems with my card, wither. i don't recall saying there was an actual problem. i said the performance was close to Voodoo 2, but not better. get your facts straight. -jch

Quoted text (26 lines)

>> On the other hand i could have been working with Shogo for a long time at >> work, and have spent many hour using it at work. Actually at home i'm on my >> 4th time through, and i've had absolutely no problems with my Diamond TNT. >i see. so you're the only one that seems to have no problem with Shogo while >_every other TNT owner on this planet_ has run into this bug, found by >"Here's a bug people have found. In the Dock 17 mission on the TNT (maybe the >128), the level shows up all blue. There will be a fix for this in the first >Shogo patch" >[snip] >going through the game 4 times, surely you would notice that at least once of >the levels is _completely_ blue when using the TNT, having no textures at >all. it's blatantly obvious. hell, i almost went blind the first time i saw >it. seeing it 4 times, as you _must_ have, would probably cause recurring >nightmares. >other than this, i've had no problems with my card, wither. i don't recall >saying there was an actual problem. >i said the performance was close to Voodoo 2, but not better. >get your facts straight. >-jch

A bug which is actually confined to the Release, not all versions of shogo. (which you're also aware of, i'm sure.) Z.

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:36:08 GMT, "Michael E. Carver"

Quoted text (7 lines)

>While people following this and a few other NG's know what hardware is >really needed to run GPL, the "minimum" requirements stated by Sierra >are total bullshit, and the poor bloke buying the program off the shelf >after reading the box has a "right" to feel "used and abused". Sierra's >minimum requirements are blantantly deceiving. Misleading the public >like this will only cause ill feelings toward the company and their >current/future products.

I agree (that wasn't what my post was about though). I've yet to see a box so I don't know what was said, but it certainly sounds like some people are hacked off. Cheers! John

As Jeremy Paxman would say "Answer the question!". Anyway, are you suggesting that the pre-release(?) version you have is/was fine and the programmers decided to slip in a totally blue level for TNT owners just before release? Cheers! John

Quoted text (8 lines)

>> yes, they are cheap- a lot cheaper than the board I have. I considered >> it yesterday- for about an hour in CompUSA. In the end, I didn't buy- >> because to use it I'd have to remove my already superior board. unless >> one of you hackers out there knows how to get Win95 to handle two >> boards... >The Voodoo2 is designed to work alongside your existing video card. No >hacking needed, that's how it is supposed to work, and it does. >Trips

I never knew that. Actually, shouldn't the salespeople at CompUSA been able to tell the guy that? Don't THEY know??? ________ Eldred Pickett e-mail address altered to deter spammers - remove the '*' to reply Put your message in a modem - and throw it into the ***-sea...

Let's see.. Epic releases Unreal.. it sells for millions. Epic releases the engine.. it sells for multimillions. If you received a few million dollars in less than 5 months.. you think you'd care about some patch for us TNT owners? Sadly... I'd be out there driving my ferrari and living it up and taking a break from programming all together. I'll let some kid work on the patch.. I'm too big for that trivial stuff now.. look at me.. I'm in a ferrari. (whatya know.. now I sound like that silly kid in CGW who plays too much Quake)

I also read that the bug is caused from TNT processing the fog layer too fast... and therefore it comes out a *** blue color. Apparently it looks for the closest match to display and 'passes up' the transparency effect. I have that bug with my TNT problem. I look at it this way... at least it can be patched. I've played a few voodoo games and that damn tearing in textures can't be fixed because of the hardware. I am using a voodoo 1 card.. but then.. hey.. I'm using a TNT 1 card too. ;-)

Quoted text (7 lines)

> >The Voodoo2 is designed to work alongside your existing video card. No > >hacking needed, that's how it is supposed to work, and it does. > >Trips > I never knew that. Actually, shouldn't the salespeople at CompUSA been able > to tell the guy that? Don't THEY know???

CompUSA's sales staff range in knowledge and smarts. There are some very helpful sales folks working for them, but there are also some who know next to nothing about the products they're selling. Trips

Quoted text (8 lines)

> >A bug which is actually confined to the Release, not all versions of shogo. > >(which you're also aware of, i'm sure.) > As Jeremy Paxman would say "Answer the question!". > Anyway, are you suggesting that the pre-release(?) version you have > is/was fine and the programmers decided to slip in a totally blue > level for TNT owners just before release?

While I don't believe much in Zonker's posts, if one knows Software dev., one knows that things like that ARE possible... ;^) l8er ronny -- Toys'R'Us '99: "So, would you like a hand gun with that action figure, kiddo?" |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Quoted text (22 lines)

>Path: >> >A bug which is actually confined to the Release, not all versions of shogo. >> >(which you're also aware of, i'm sure.) >> As Jeremy Paxman would say "Answer the question!". >> Anyway, are you suggesting that the pre-release(?) version you have >> is/was fine and the programmers decided to slip in a totally blue >> level for TNT owners just before release? >While I don't believe much in Zonker's posts, if one knows Software >dev., one >knows that things like that ARE possible... ;^) >l8er >ronny

And it is what happened. Z.

> A bug which is actually confined to the Release, not all versions of shogo. > (which you're also aware of, i'm sure.) so, aside from the release version, exactly which version are you presently on your 4th time through? we're getting way off topic here, so i'll stop posting on this thread after this. -jch

Quoted text (10 lines)

>> A bug which is actually confined to the Release, not all versions of shogo. >> (which you're also aware of, i'm sure.) >so, aside from the release version, exactly which version are you presently >on your 4th time through? >we're getting way off topic here, so i'll stop posting on this thread after >this. >-jch

Jch, it is gettign waaaaaay of topic, but basically, for work reasons i've been using Shogo for several builds now, and the one currently installed is the 2nd to last RC. Z.

No your actually using the nvidia 3 card if you want to get technical. Though the first 3d Chipset from them was completely porked. PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Pink Flamingo Pilot... http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

Exactly....so I say forget Direct 3D you dont need it if you can sell enough games to make millions and millions from.....<VBG> Thanks for making a great point on why there shouldnt be ANY direct 3d patchs. hehe. PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Pink Flamingo Pilot... http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

Damn.. ya got me eatin my own words PAPA DOC. Are you a lawyer or somethin? ;-) .htm

<...> Go to http://www.papy.com for the beta OpenGL drivers for GPL

Quoted text (8 lines)

>On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 00:45:34 GMT, >>I don't know about TNT, but Papy will eventually have to write an >>OpenGL or a D3D patch at some point (unless this program is not >>destined to last over a year). >What a bunch of shit. GP2/ICR2/Nascar2 have survived very nicely with no D3D >support. Name us a few D3D/OpenGL hard-core racing sims. We're waiting.

Papy has really stepped up to the plate here: they have posted beta OpenGL drivers on their site at: http://www.papy.com Apparently, Papy was listening. After 5 years of enjoying Papy sims, I must say I have never seen them respond this fast... Thank you Papy! Sincerely.

The OpenGL patch didn't get written overnight... - Eric

Yeah, I didn't have any luck on the Permedia2 cards either. No promises, but we'll look into it... - Eric

Go buy a STB TNT card and you won't have to worry about it. ;-) Fire GL isn't that great of a card for GL execution.. it's a low-end CAD card.. not even a high end game graphics card

With my Viper 550 it looks great till i try to go into practice or race and then the screen goes black and everything locks up till i reboot. Any ideas? Should i try the Nvidia reference drivers? Thanks for any ideas.... Jim

Quoted text (9 lines)

>Go buy a STB TNT card and you won't have to worry about it. ;-) >Fire GL isn't that great of a card for GL execution.. it's a low-end CAD >card.. not even a high end game graphics card >>I get a Stack Dump on my Diamond Fire GL upon execution of GPL. Thought >>you'd want to know... >>Devon

Quoted text (12 lines)

> The OpenGL patch didn't get written overnight... > - Eric > >Apparently, Papy was listening. After 5 years of enjoying Papy sims, I > >must say I have never seen them respond this fast... > >Thank you Papy! Sincerely.

I get a Stack Dump on my Diamond Fire GL upon execution of GPL. Thought you'd want to know... Devon

> Go buy a STB TNT card and you won't have to worry about it. ;-) > Fire GL isn't that great of a card for GL execution.. it's a low-end CAD > card.. not even a high end game graphics card I've got a Diamond Monster 3DII 12MB for games. The Fire GL is just my primary video card. Just wanted to check out the difference between OpenGL and 3DFX for GPL. My Voodoo2 does very well. No great loss... Devon

I had the same problem.. but it was the Nvidia reference drivers that caused the problem. but what I did was install the Nvidia drivers... then ran the game.. I got the menus to look good but the screen would go black on me like you are having. I then reinstalled my STB drivers and the menus suck but now I can race. You might want try the Reference drivers and see what happens (when I tried it, I would get an error from Windows 98 about my 'kernel32..'. General Protection Fault and my whole Operating system changed resolution modes on me when I cleared it) Check your resolutions.. try ALL the available resolutions and see what happens... it may just be certain resolutions. >With my Viper 550 it looks great till i try to go >into practice or race and then the screen goes >black and everything locks up till i reboot. >Any ideas? Should i try the Nvidia reference drivers? >Thanks for any ideas.... >Jim

How long did it take to put this marvelous 67k of download together?

>>The OpenGL patch didn't get written overnight... >>- Eric >How long did it take to put this marvelous 67k of download together? 67k's of download can mean hard coding to some people. Just because your average Micro$shaft "app" comes in around 50megs doesn't mean you cannot put quality nor thought in a 60kb download. sheesh, think before you post, idiot. Uwe -- Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de> http://www.telemedia.de/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66 Best of Scottish Folk: http://home.pages.de/~nsg >>> Blue Ribbon Campaign: Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

<...> I am indeed looking forward to that download. In the meantime, this beta hack for TNT users is a good temporary holdover for me. How about just don't flame, Uwe. And go back and read read the relevant thread- esp. what Papy had responded to in the first place. That is, if this is a thread you really want to keep alive! You've got a Voodoo1, so perhaps you should just keep out of the OpenGL issue, particularly if you can't restrain yourself regarding it.