Papyrus knows physics but not 3D

Don't get me wrong. I've have every Papyrus sim and I really like GPL but as far as I'm concerned they need to work on their 3D programming. When Papyrus released the original ICR2 I liked it alot. The problem was that even the fastest PC available at the time couldn't run it at 30fps with all details on. Then along comes Rendition and ICR2 flies on even modest hardware. Now we have GPL and we are in the same boat as we were with the original ICR2 and NASCAR Racing. Even with new 3D cards that have 3 to 4 times the amount of memory, speed and sophistication, you once again need one of the fastest PC's available to run GPL well. It's almost as it they have sucked all the life out of the 3D cards (not to mention the fact that they are only supporting 2). Maybe I would not have noticed it as much if others had not been able to do it. Say what you want about F1RS and MGPRS2, you don't need a Pentium II 400 to run them well. And I don't believe that if they had GPL like physics in their sim engines you would need as much processing power to run them well either. I applaud Papyrus for getting the car physics as close to what I feel they should be (since I never really raced that's just a guess). But I don't applaud for their 3D. From a hardware standpoint GPL is like GP2 even with a 3D card.

Read all the posts on this newsgroup again concerning this topic. Then perhaps you'll be a bit more educated. But to give you a quick hint: ITS NOT THE 3D GRAPHICS THAT REQUIRE ALL THE CPU HORSEPOWER ITS THE PHYSICS. Can we grasp that yet? F1RS and MGPRS2 do NOT have the physics that GPL does, period...so of course you wont need as much machine to run the game. Start adding in the multiple AI cars which acts just as adding another real driver to a game, so you have all the physics (the exact same physics engine that acts on the player's car) acting on more and more AI cars and it takes a fast computer to handle it. But even if those two sims did YES THEY WOULD NEED the same hardware requirements. And as for "sucking the life out of the 3D cards"...um, WHAT? Lets see, yes they supported 2....Rendition they had experience with and previous titles had support for it so their customer base had Rendition cards installed.....and when they started writing the game 3dfx cards were becoming very big. Not to mention that very few games actually use OpenGL...and D3D was really quite a chore to write in back again when they started over a year ago. If you want eyecandy..go drive F1RS or MGPRS2..if you want physics, dont *** about the steep requirements. Take the physics engine out of GPL and your system requirements plunge quite drastically.

Yes, you're right... GPL requires some damn fine hardware (PII 266+) and 3D card. Though, from what I remember, there was no hardware to run GP2 when it came out (some would say there still isn't anything that can run GP2 with everything, without slowdowns at no time). On the other hand, there are a lot of people who can run GLP with evrything all the time and get framerate between 30-36 fps. GPL requires top of the range hardware but unlike GP2, this harware at least exists. Regards, David Mocnay

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>Don't get me wrong. I've have every Papyrus sim and I really like GPL but >as far as I'm concerned they need to work on their 3D programming. > When Papyrus released the original ICR2 I liked it alot. The problem >was that even the fastest PC available at the time couldn't run it at 30fps >with all details on. Then along comes Rendition and ICR2 flies on even >modest hardware. > Now we have GPL and we are in the same boat as we were with the original >ICR2 and NASCAR Racing. Even with new 3D cards that have 3 to 4 times the >amount of memory, speed and sophistication, you once again need one of the >fastest PC's available to run GPL well. It's almost as it they have sucked >all the life out of the 3D cards (not to mention the fact that they are only >supporting 2). Maybe I would not have noticed it as much if others had not >been able to do it. Say what you want about F1RS and MGPRS2, you don't need >a Pentium II 400 to run them well. And I don't believe that if they had >GPL like physics in their sim engines you would need as much processing >power to run them well either. > I applaud Papyrus for getting the car physics as close to what I feel >they should be (since I never really raced that's just a guess). But I >don't applaud for their 3D. From a hardware standpoint GPL is like GP2 even >with a 3D card.

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>Read all the posts on this newsgroup again concerning this topic. >Then perhaps you'll be a bit more educated. But to give you a quick hint: >ITS NOT THE 3D GRAPHICS THAT REQUIRE ALL THE CPU HORSEPOWER ITS THE PHYSICS. >Can we grasp that yet? >F1RS and MGPRS2 do NOT have the physics that GPL does, period...so of course >you wont need as much machine to run the game. Start adding in the multiple >AI cars which acts just as adding another real driver to a game, so you have >all the physics (the exact same physics engine that acts on the player's >car) acting on more and more AI cars and it takes a fast computer to handle >it. But even if those two sims did YES THEY WOULD NEED the same hardware >requirements.

Correct me if i'm worng, but didn't we have some posts 6 months or so ago which detailed physics modelling as account for around 10% of actual CPU usage? I'm not inclinded to believe this is changed, either. Z.

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>On Fri, 23 Oct 1998 08:11:07 GMT, >>Correct me if i'm worng, but didn't we have some posts 6 months or so ago >>which detailed physics modelling as account for around 10% of actual CPU >>usage? >I guess you're VERY wrong as it relates to GPL. >I can also tell you that you are VERY wrong when it relates to *** >combat flight sims. Physics occupy a large part of processing in these types >of sims.

Then what kind of CPU time it taking? Anyone care to speculate? Z.

: Then what kind of CPU time it taking? Anyone care to speculate? : Z. Have Papyrus send you the source, and put a step-through de*** on it.

: Yes, you're right... GPL requires some damn fine hardware (PII 266+) and 3D : card. Though, from what I remember, there was no hardware to run GP2 when it : came out (some would say there still isn't anything that can run GP2 with Just for sake of argument, I run GPL in 640x480 with some details turned off (set to "most") and the sky texture turned off. these aren't big losses, the sun glare is still there, and the stands and stuff just distract. I run a P200MMX with a Voodoo2. I get 33fps, down to about 29 with 5 CPU opponents. This isn't bad, IMO.

: I would guess that the 'physics' take greater than 50% of, say, a : Pentium 133. That would strictly be speculation. The upshot is that in : order to run GPL on a low-end system, the graphics must be scaled back : dramatically from what is possible on a more powerful system. If not, : its a slide show. Why don't you just ask WB's HT or somebody who knows just how much time the CPU spends doing the floating point math functions for aerodynamics? Everyone here is jumping around making wild speculations, and nobody's produced an ounce of code.

Ok, so take the Voodoo2 card out of your box and replace with a Voodoo1 card and you should see no loss of fps if it's all physics, provided the Voodoo1 can handle 36fps. I agree - so much speculation and no evidence. MGP has substantially better physics than F1RS but seems to run at about the same graphics speed. Then again, than proves nothing, they may have just corrected errors in the F1RS physics model without increasing the time spent calculating them. I doubt that either physics calculations per second or graphics calculations per second are linear plots against time. There is almost always memory structure building and loading involved in programming so that only when these structures are build can the plot be linear. Therefore I would expect a doubling of instructions per second to give you more than a doubling in fps from both the physics and graphics standpoint. But MGPRS2 is a much better game on a P400/Voodoo2 than a P200/Voodoo1 - I know I've got both machines. Yeah it runs fine on the 200 but you can't get as good lap times as on the P400 because of the fps. Paul > : Then what kind of CPU time it taking? Anyone care to speculate? > : Z. > Have Papyrus send you the source, and put a step-through de*** on it.

> Again, there is *no* option in GPL (or any *** simulations that I am > aware of) to scale back the physics. Just the graphics,etc. Perhaps not in racing sims, but scaleable physics is a relatively common feature in *** flight sims. Longbow 2, for instance, allows you to turn on or off a number of different physics options. -Ben

First, no one was ***ing. I stated in the very first sentence that I liked the sim. Second, from a hardware standpoint I'm not ***in either since I'm running it on a Pentium II 400, ABIT BH6 motherboard, 64MB SDRAM w/ECC, Hercules Thriller 8MB AGP, Obsidian2 X-24, Yamaha Waveforce 192XG PCI Soundcard , Creative PC-DVD Dxr2 and TSW Steering Wheel. I still say that I shouldn't need all of this to run it at nice framerate (as per "Four Wheel Drift") and that Papyrus could have done a better job in that respect. And as far as the AI cars goes, the fps aren't that great when you're driving alone. And I definitely need some proof on your statement about the AI cars using the same physics engine. As far as I can see, the only one ***ing is you because someone isn't as big a GPL and rec.autos.simulators zealot as you appear to be. I've got a life. As far as your eyecandy crack, I do drive all three :)

not going to bother reading the rest of these msg's this post is RIGHT IF YOU DON'T AGREE.. YOU ARE WRONG >Read all the posts on this newsgroup again concerning this topic. >Then perhaps you'll be a bit more educated. But to give you a quick hint: >ITS NOT THE 3D GRAPHICS THAT REQUIRE ALL THE CPU HORSEPOWER ITS THE PHYSICS. >Can we grasp that yet? >F1RS and MGPRS2 do NOT have the physics that GPL does, period...so of course >you wont need as much machine to run the game. Start adding in the multiple >AI cars which acts just as adding another real driver to a game, so you have >all the physics (the exact same physics engine that acts on the player's >car) acting on more and more AI cars and it takes a fast computer to handle >it. But even if those two sims did YES THEY WOULD NEED the same hardware >requirements. >And as for "sucking the life out of the 3D cards"...um, WHAT? Lets see, yes

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>they supported 2....Rendition they had experience with and previous titles >had support for it so their customer base had Rendition cards >installed.....and when they started writing the game 3dfx cards were >becoming very big. Not to mention that very few games actually use >OpenGL...and D3D was really quite a chore to write in back again when they >started over a year ago. >If you want eyecandy..go drive F1RS or MGPRS2..if you want physics, dont >*** about the steep requirements. Take the physics engine out of GPL and >your system requirements plunge quite drastically.

I was wrong once, but found out later I was mistaken. -- Don Burnette Palmetto Racing Dburn on Ten AOLL Iroc Administrator >not going to bother reading the rest of these msg's >this post is RIGHT >IF YOU DON'T AGREE.. YOU ARE WRONG

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>On 23 Oct 1998 19:53:50 PDT, >Are you an AI and vehicle dynamics simulation programmer? >Oh, and who does vehicle physics better than Papyrus?? >Huh?

No I'm not and I'm positive you aren't either. If bothered to try to see someone elses point of view you would have seen that's not what I feel the problem is. I'm not saying the physics are bad. What I am saying is that their coding of the entire sim leaves something to be desired in terms of hardware requirements. As quite a few software vendors are. I have no problems with my system in fact I'm getting 30+ fps with a full field running at 640 x 480. But you're making my point, you shouldn't need even a P2-333 to run this sim decently. I bet no one's getting 36fps with Papyrus's recommended machine. And you really shouldn't have to have such a machine to drive alone :) To tell the truth, after about 6 sims, some of you guys seem to feel Papyrus can do no wrong. Even though I have all of their sims and enjoy GPL, I might add. I don't look at Papyrus as some infallible gods.

>On 24 Oct 1998 14:26:08 PDT, >>To tell the truth, after about 6 sims, some of you guys seem to feel Papyrus >>can do no wrong. >Who does it better? So, I take that to mean that you think GPL and Papyrus are perfect and cannot be criticised in any way shape or form.

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>On 24 Oct 1998 14:26:08 PDT, >>To tell the truth, after about 6 sims, some of you guys seem to feel Papyrus >>can do no wrong. >Who does it better?

The above "Who does it better?" has absolutely Nothing to do with the the comment above it! The company who does it better is capable of also getting some bits wrong. No matter how great we all do anything, we all have done it better. I've been watching this thread and I believe you need to understand the point Jeff is saying: Whether Papyrus do it better than anyone else is irrelevant. They probably do do it better but they are not perfect. If it was perfect we would all be actually believing we were there in 1967. What Jeff is saying is that a game should be able to run as good as it can on the recommeded hardware listed by the Developer. He states that GPL needs more than the "Recommended" hardware to run at it's best or even close to it. I have another point to ponder on this: GP2 came out requiring a faster than could be bought at the time PC and it has lasted on the top of the Sim list for years. In this respect, as GPL appears to be a better game according to the majority of posts in here, than most others and given that it requires a high end PC to run close to it's best then the game should be on our systems for quite some time. _ ____ _ (_) / __ `/ / / / /_/ / / / \__, / /_/ /____/

Rrevved, you stated: Your not my type... :-) You also said: 1stly you're wrong RAC Rally does. (See below) and I said 'run at it's best or close to it'. 2ndly, don't call me Sir. We are all equal and it makes me sound old. As you wanted ONE SINGLE GAME that runs flat out on it's recommended hardware requirements. Well I thought for all of 2 seconds and came up with RAC Rally Championship. It requires a 486 DX2/66 - 8mb Ram - 1mb SVGA card It RECOMMENDS P100 - 16mb Ram - 2mb SVGA It ran just fine on my then P75 16mb ram 2mb S3 SVGA card It does NOT run any faster on my P200mmx 48mb ram 4mb V2100 SVGA. The game was governed at a specific frame rate (I think 30 fps??) and although is not the best today it WAS the best Rally sim a few years ago. Besides you AGAIN miss the point. The Recommended hardware is supposed to be a guide. I would expect that if my PC was up to the recommended specs then the game will run extremely well. But what IS happening is that software companies are making more and more outrageous claims about the hardware so that people will buy it even though they won't be able to play it like it looks on the box. For example. My friend had a P100 with 16mb ram and 2mb SVGA. Need for speed SE stated that the minimum was P75 and the recommended was P100 and 16mb ram 1mb SVGA. The game ran OK but when upgrading to cyrix 166 this made the game into a completely different game that ran smoother, was more controllable etc etc... As NFS SE was past it's use by date when he put in the 166 and when he had the P100 in, it WAS in fashion and he had the recommended hardware then in theory most people would only get to play the game properly when it was out of date. Where's the sense in that? Now the clincher: I think we all agree that if the game runs faster then we can get better lap times and therefore compete with each other and enjoy the game more. If you don't have the money to upgrade your PC to the "Above the recommended specs" then would it not be more enjoyable to be able to turn down the graphics AND the physics (to what seems a good compromise for each INDIVIDUAL) in GPL (to get back on the topic) and let the FPS be increased and therefore make you competitive in 'friendly' competition etc? You wouldn't have to buy your best lap time because you could afford the hardware. I think that makes it my 0.04 cents worth now... :-)

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>On Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:05:51 GMT, >>What Jeff is saying is that a game should be able to run as good as it can on >>the recommeded hardware listed by the Developer. He states that GPL needs more >>than the "Recommended" hardware to run at it's best or even close to it. >Sir, there is NO GAME ON THE PLANET that 'run as good as it can' >or 'run at its best' on the 'recommended hardware listed by the developer.. >NONE. >Name a single game and its recommended requirements and I can >show you an available PC configuration that will run it faster. >Go ahead, try me, or don't.

_ ____ _ (_) / __ `/ / / / /_/ / / / \__, / /_/ /____/

Its called marketing...and may not be the software developer's fault, but the publishers. :) Rrevved, you stated: Your not my type... :-) You also said: 1stly you're wrong RAC Rally does. (See below) and I said 'run at it's best or close to it'. 2ndly, don't call me Sir. We are all equal and it makes me sound old. As you wanted ONE SINGLE GAME that runs flat out on it's recommended hardware requirements. Well I thought for all of 2 seconds and came up with RAC Rally Championship. It requires a 486 DX2/66 - 8mb Ram - 1mb SVGA card It RECOMMENDS P100 - 16mb Ram - 2mb SVGA It ran just fine on my then P75 16mb ram 2mb S3 SVGA card It does NOT run any faster on my P200mmx 48mb ram 4mb V2100 SVGA. The game was governed at a specific frame rate (I think 30 fps??) and although is not the best today it WAS the best Rally sim a few years ago. Besides you AGAIN miss the point. The Recommended hardware is supposed to be a guide. I would expect that if my PC was up to the recommended specs then the game will run extremely well. But what IS happening is that software companies are making more and more outrageous claims about the hardware so that people will buy it even though they won't be able to play it like it looks on the box. For example. My friend had a P100 with 16mb ram and 2mb SVGA. Need for speed SE stated that the minimum was P75 and the recommended was P100 and 16mb ram 1mb SVGA. The game ran OK but when upgrading to cyrix 166 this made the game into a completely different game that ran smoother, was more controllable etc etc... As NFS SE was past it's use by date when he put in the 166 and when he had the P100 in, it WAS in fashion and he had the recommended hardware then in theory most people would only get to play the game properly when it was out of date. Where's the sense in that? Now the clincher: I think we all agree that if the game runs faster then we can get better lap times and therefore compete with each other and enjoy the game more. If you don't have the money to upgrade your PC to the "Above the recommended specs" then would it not be more enjoyable to be able to turn down the graphics AND the physics (to what seems a good compromise for each INDIVIDUAL) in GPL (to get back on the topic) and let the FPS be increased and therefore make you competitive in 'friendly' competition etc? You wouldn't have to buy your best lap time because you could afford the hardware. I think that makes it my 0.04 cents worth now... :-) >On Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:05:51 GMT, >>What Jeff is saying is that a game should be able to run as good as it can on >>the recommeded hardware listed by the Developer. He states that GPL needs more

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>>than the "Recommended" hardware to run at it's best or even close to it. >Sir, there is NO GAME ON THE PLANET that 'run as good as it can' >or 'run at its best' on the 'recommended hardware listed by the developer.. >NONE. >Name a single game and its recommended requirements and I can >show you an available PC configuration that will run it faster. >Go ahead, try me, or don't.

_ ____ _ (_) / __ `/ / / / /_/ / / / \__, / /_/ /____/

I've been watching this thread and I believe you need to understand the point Jeff is saying: Whether Papyrus do it better than anyone else is irrelevant. They probably do do it better but they are not perfect. If it was perfect we would all be actually believing we were there in 1967. What Jeff is saying is that a game should be able to run as good as it can on the recommeded hardware listed by the Developer. He states that GPL needs more than the "Recommended" hardware to run at it's best or even close to it. I have another point to ponder on this: GP2 came out requiring a faster than could be bought at the time PC and it has lasted on the top of the Sim list for years. In this respect, as GPL appears to be a better game according to the majority of posts in here, than most others and given that it requires a high end PC to run close to it's best then the game should be on our systems for quite some time. Thanks BlackDog. That's all I was trying to say.

>Yes, you're right... GPL requires some damn fine hardware (PII 266+) and 3D >card. Though, from what I remember, there was no hardware to run GP2 when it >came out (some would say there still isn't anything that can run GP2 with >everything, without slowdowns at no time). But at least GP2 had the excuse that no 3d hgardware was available at the time ... no one ELSE was doing 640x480 30fps+ sims then either. Joe

>Read all the posts on this newsgroup again concerning this topic. >Then perhaps you'll be a bit more educated. But to give you a quick hint: >ITS NOT THE 3D GRAPHICS THAT REQUIRE ALL THE CPU HORSEPOWER ITS THE PHYSICS. That's not entirely true. Running a training lap on my old P200 (with a 12MB Voodoo2) I could get around 30-36 fps by turning off most graphics options and running in the arcade view. It was still using the same physics engine, only graphicss were turned down. It seems to me this proves that GPL DOES have a slow 3d graphics engine. Joe

>Are you an AI and vehicle dynamics simulation programmer? Please, this lamer argument is below you. Joe

I'm sort of puzzled. My 200mmz/3dfx1 ran the demo wonderfully. It ran the full game really well in training mode (only *one* set of physics). But add more than a couple of AI and the frame rate started to drop. With 5 it was "ok" but with more it was increasingly poor. Seems to me that this implies the physics is being calculated for each car accurately and the more cars, the more CPU you need. As for the overall requirements for the game... well, no-one's programming's perfect, but I think you have to look at the leap in coding that this sim represents and marvel that it runs on domestic hardware at all! I'm impressed anyway, which makes me either gullible or realistic depending on your point of view :-) Andrew_McP

> But at least GP2 had the excuse that no 3d hgardware was available at > the time ... no one ELSE was doing 640x480 30fps+ sims then either. Yes, they were doing 1024 at 30+ fps ;) WarBirds (2D at that time) 6DOF-ish flight simulator (massively multiplayer online btw, (150+ on the same server)) - Mat WB: =para= WarBirds Training Staff