Hi Folks,
I'm just really getting into this race sim stuff and have some
questions.
My System is a Gateway G6-266 PII with 64 megs of ram
a nVidia 128 4MB AGP card, Esoniq Soundblaster PCI Card, this all
running well under Win 98.
I also have a brand new out of the box Microsoft FF Wheel.
I have two problems right now. Nascar 2 won't run using the FF Wheel,
and the framerate are only running at the max of 15 FPS on the GPL Demo.
I know I need to get some sort of joystick port adapter so that I can
run the FF Joystick and the FF Wheel with out having to physically
change the connectors all the time.
So knowing all of this.... what would be my first upgrade. Video card,
or processor. I don't think I can go too far with the current
motherboard.
Chris
Get a Voodoo2 immediately! I've currently got a Voodoo1 running on a
32RAM, 200MMX system - depending on the track I can get between 18 and
30 fps, however the Nurburgring won't always load (can't load up replay
system - then crashes) but i presume this is due to a lack of
memory/resources.
Voodoo2 arrives tomorrow - yay! and judging by the new 400 AMD/Celeron
prices (~100 ukp) I'll be getting one of those soon as well :)
Whats the MS FF like for GPL? My Thrustmaster Sprint has lasted about 10
days before the steering has become 'jumpy' so its going back :(
--
Mike Buckley
WWW: www.toastyhamster.freeserve.co.uk
If you have the extra bucks, definitely go with a Voodoo2. Some
people feel that a Riva TNT or Screamin 3D will give you better
results in GPL, but the TNT isn't supported in N2 and the Voodoo2 will
be supported natively in NR99 and N3.
The MS FF wheel is AWESOME for GPL! Even though there is no force feedback
in GPL, you can set the wheel to use resistance so that you really get a
good "feel" for the track. I think you'll like it...
-/- Walk Walker
Get a Voodoo2 and NR1999 (to work with your MSFF wheel). If you want, you
might be able to change the clock multiplier on your motherboard (probably
through jumpers) to run your PII 266 at 300. If you can find documentation
on your motherboard, you'll need to change the clock multiplier from 4 to
4.5.
If it works, there shouldn't be any problems with overheating, since the PII
233, 266 and 300 are essentially same chip with the same transistor spacing.
The earlier chips in this family did not have their clocked multipliers
locked. It worked with my older PC, a Dell XPS H266 - got about a 10%
framerate increase with GPL.
Brian
Definitely upgrade your video card. If all you run is Papyrus sims such
as GPL and Nascar 2, then get yourself a board with the Rendition V2200
chip. A good buy is the Hercules Thriller AGP card with 8MB of SGRAM.
You can buy the "white box" version of this card for only $90. It's the
same as the full retail version, just no games included. You get the
full manual, warranty card, and a CD with drivers & utilities.
If you run a lot of other games besides the Papy sims, then get a 3Dfx
Voodoo2 (or two of them, for SLI mode) or Voodoo Banshee instead. With
a Voodoo based card you have compatibility with _every_ major API used
for games - DirectX, OpenGL, and 3Dfx' Glide. There is no other chipset
that can run all of these API's, only 3Dfx.
If you're really in to all types of games, but demand the best
performance in the Papyrus sims too, then you'll go crazy like I did and
get both a Thriller (with the Rendition chip) and a Voodoo2. I use the
Thriller for my 2D and for 3D in the Papy sims, and the Voodoo2 for
everything else that is 3D. Got both cards for under $200 total (after
$50 rebate on the V2 card), which isn't bad considering that just a
coupla years ago I remember paying over $350 for a Diamond Stealth card
(with the S3 968 chip on board) which had a measly 2MB of VRAM on it.
Talk about price erosion.
One last thought, if you decide to go with the 3Dfx, you might want to
wait as Voodoo3 will be out in a couple more months.
