Midtown Madness is Maddening!!!

I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web reviews and r.a.s posts. 3D Racing Mania(99/100) - http://www.3dracing.net/reviews/midtown_madness.html Digital Sports(99/100) - http://www.digitalsports.com/dsports/pc4/midtown_madness/review.html Avault(5/5 stars) - http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=midmad&page=1 Operation Sports - (95/100) - http://www.operationsports.com/ReviewVault/reviews.asp?game=midtownmadpc I usually stick to sims such as GPL, Indycar 2, GP2, Nascar 2/1999, MGPRS2, etc., but I also play some arcade racers with my non-sim oriented friends, and one of these friends recommended Midtown Madness as well. I'm normally pretty skeptical when it comes to game reviews, but after finding this many near-perfect reviews of the game, I figured I couldn't go wrong. Besides, one of my favorite PC racing games was Vette(where you could race around San Francisco), and Midtown Madness sounded like it could be very similar. Anyway, I have a Windows 95 , PII Celeron 300a overclocked to 450, 64mb 100mhz Ram, 2 12mb Pure 3D II Voodoo 2 cards in SLI, Intergraph Intense 3D, Diamond MX300 A3D 2.0 Sound Card, and a Logitech Formula Force Steering controller(connected to serial port). In GPL at 800x600 I get a very consistent 36fps. In other arcade racers such as Powerslide, Need for Speed III, and Motocross Madness, I can run at 1024x768 with pretty detailed settings, and get a very smooth frame rate. First person shooters like Quake II, Unreal, and Half-Life also run on my machine at 1024x768 with benchmarks well above 50fps(depending on the timedemo). HOWEVER, Midtown Madness just crawls at 640x480!! With a couple cars ahead it will completely come to a standstill, and then start again half-way down the street. I have reduced the detail settings down to where the game is downright ugly, but it still chops along, starting, stopping, hiccuping all the way. I tried in-car views, out of car views, and dasboard views, but had similarly poor results. I tried it at 1024x768 and it would hardly budge. The Pure 3D II is selected in the Graphics options, so I know its not trying to run on the Intergraph Intense 3D(only used for Indycar II and SODA these days). Polling is turned off in the game controller settings, although I don't know if this would matter since the Wingman Formula Force runs through the serial port. Again, TOCA 2, MGPRS2, Sportscar GT, and Viper Racing all run very smooth at higher resolutions. Any ideas, or is this game just another poor example of D3D coding? Microsoft's own Monster Truck Madness 2 and Motocross Madness run very smooth on my current setup. Anyone with a similar setup have better results? Please don't respond with "buy a TNT2 card or a Voodoo 3 card, then you will get better results". My setup was about the best money could buy for 3d graphics speed just a few months ago, so I am not ready to call it obsolete yet. The system requirements on the box state Pentium 200 or Pentium 166 with 3d accelerator and 16mb ram for pete's sake!! I can't imagine how horribly it would play on such a machine. I would have to say on my setup it is nearly unplayable and definitely not enjoyable. However, there must be something wrong with my setup because a quote from the Digital Sports review states the following: "GRAPHICS: 100 - One hundred you say? Dead on correct! Played at the maximum resolution of 1024x768 on my SLI'd PII 450, the visuals have never been better. With all the doodads turned on, the frame rate was as smooth as silk, making the feeling of acceleration as convincing as I've yet to experience in any kind of racer." "Frame rate smooth as silk"?? "Acceleration as convincing as I've yet to experience in ANY kind of racer"?? Maybe I picked up the wrong game because my experience has been anything but that. I went back and played some GPL, Viper and SCGT just to make sure that those games were not performing poorly as well, but fortunately they were humming along as usual!! The PC setup described in the Digital Sports review sounds like my exact setup, yet I run the game at 640x480 with no detail, and it is a slide show at best!!What am I doing wrong? I have all the lastest drivers for Direct X, Pure 3D II, Diamond Mx300, and Wingman Formula Force. The Operation Sports reveiw also states: "Running on a PII 350 with 2 Voodoo II cards in SLI mode, I was able to max all the graphic settings out and still have a great framerate." Again, I have the minimum graphics set at 640x480 and it chugs. What could be up??? Just for kicks, I decided to change my clock settings back to normal for my Celeron 300a. I have an Abit BX6 so it is easy to change the settings through the Bios. I booted up and tried the game again. Same results!! Honestly, the demo for Nascar Revolution ran faster and smoother on my machine than Midtown Madness. I also have a Pentium 233mmx, 64mb, with the original Canopus Pure 3D(Voodoo 1 6mb card), so I installed Midtown Madness on that machine as well. Unfortunately, the performance on this machine was even worse! What PC setup can actually run this game smoothly and at full detail like these reviews state? I asked my friend who recommended the game if he had similar problems. He has a P233mmx, 32mb, Voodoo 1, and he said that it does not run very smoothly, but that none of his games do so he is used to it. Is this what happens to the general game buying public? They get these games home, install them, they either run poorly or don't run at all, and they just chalk it up to having a slow system or they just accept buggy, lackluster games as is. There's got to be something wrong with the setups on my machines. I have also already tried all the tweaks recommended on the Midtown Madness Tweak Guide site - http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/mm/ Only thing I have't tried is running it in 320x200 software renderer, and if I have to do that to get a decent frame rate on my machine, then this game will go back to the store. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am about to go crazy trying to figure this out. Is there a way to frame rate benchmark in this game? Don Chapman

<snipped a lot> It seems to be heavily dependant on RAM, with 64 being the minimum. I didn't read your whole post because it was too long, but did you try and reinstall the game? It runs perfectly on my system which is a P2/450 sometimes o/c sometimes not. I have a V3/3000 and 256 MEG of ram. It ran perfectly on my ATI all-in-wonder 8MB AGP and monsterII 12 meg, too. I have to think it's the memory issue. daxe

Yeah, I've re-installed it twice on both machines. Each of my computers(PII 450 and P233mmx) have 64mb of ram. I know you can't trust them, but the minimum specs on the box says 16mb. I've never had a problem running any other games on my setup. When I say Midtown Madness runs slow and choppy, I mean unplayable. I would have to estimate less than 10 frames per second. I can't believe that a PII 450, 64mb, Voodoo 2 SLI setup cannot run faster than that. The reviews I mentioned in my previous post have similar setups to mine, and they claim that they can run 1024x768 with full detail settings and get a smooth frame rate. However, they do not mention the amount of memory they have. 256mb of ram to get a game to run smooth seems extreme to me. Thanks for the info and sorry about the length of my previous post. Don Chapman >> I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web reviews and >> r.a.s posts ><snipped a lot> >It seems to be heavily dependant on RAM, with 64 being the minimum. I didn't >read your whole post because it was too long, but did you try and reinstall the >game? It runs perfectly on my system which is a P2/450 sometimes o/c sometimes >not. I have a V3/3000 and 256 MEG of ram. It ran perfectly on my ATI >all-in-wonder 8MB AGP and monsterII 12 meg, too. I have to think it's the >memory issue. >daxe

The prob really seems to be the RAM. I got 128 MB on a PII 300 with a TNT1 graphic card and it runs smooth at 800x600, even with FF, while SCGT just sucks in term of framerates (so my prob is the CPU). CU, Zolli >> I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web reviews and >> r.a.s posts ><snipped a lot> >It seems to be heavily dependant on RAM, with 64 being the minimum. I didn't >read your whole post because it was too long, but did you try and reinstall the >game? It runs perfectly on my system which is a P2/450 sometimes o/c sometimes >not. I have a V3/3000 and 256 MEG of ram. It ran perfectly on my ATI >all-in-wonder 8MB AGP and monsterII 12 meg, too. I have to think it's the >memory issue. >daxe

>Anyway, I have a Windows 95 , PII Celeron 300a overclocked to 450, 64mb >100mhz Ram, 2 12mb Pure 3D II Voodoo 2 cards in SLI, Intergraph Intense 3D, >Diamond MX300 A3D 2.0 Sound Card, and a Logitech Formula Force Steering >controller(connected to serial port). >HOWEVER, Midtown Madness just crawls at 640x480!! There is definitely something wrong here. I have a slower system than you - P2 300, 12MB Voodoo2, 128MB RAM, the same wheel. And here the game runs very very well at 800x600, with all graphical details turned on. I'd say it averages aroun 25-30 fps depending on traffic and so on. Good frame-rate, great sense of speed. So don't despair, there is something weird going on. Could it be SLI? Is it easy for you to disable one of your V2 cards and run it on the other one? That's all I can think of off the top of my head, other than that we have ver similar configs (except that mine is a slower machine!). Joe McGinn ========================================== Staff Writer for the Sports *** Network [link lost in import: /***.com/] ==========================================

I have a P2 350,128MB PC100 RAM, V2 12MB SLI and all the graphics on at max with 1024 x 768 res and it runs very smooth. I would think that not enough RAM would cause it to pause while the hard drive read more for the Virtual memory, but slow frame rate sounds like CPU or 3D card problems. I mostly play realistic driving simulators, but this is a lot of fun if you just go along with its arcade style. I hope someone can make some hacks to modify the cars or make new ones. I think most of the cars should hit the curbs like the Panos GTR-1 unless its a high 4X4, and the grass should be more difficult to drive on. Lutrell >>When I say Midtown Madness runs slow and choppy, I mean unplayable. I would >have to estimate less than 10 frames per second. I can't believe that a PII >450, 64mb, Voodoo 2 SLI setup cannot run faster than that.

It's your RAM. Some systems load enough in the background with drivers, etc that cause this game to have virtual memory problems with 64 meg (especially if you have an AGP card). I heard there is a bug with 64 meg that allows the game to run fine with 32. Weird. Anyways, there are sveral games that push VM even at 64 megs. You'll be better off with 96. > Yeah, I've re-installed it twice on both machines. Each of my computers(PII > 450 and P233mmx) have 64mb of ram. I know you can't trust them, but the > minimum specs on the box says 16mb. I've never had a problem running any > other games on my setup. > When I say Midtown Madness runs slow and choppy, I mean unplayable. I would > have to estimate less than 10 frames per second. I can't believe that a PII > 450, 64mb, Voodoo 2 SLI setup cannot run faster than that. The reviews I > mentioned in my previous post have similar setups to mine, and they claim > that they can run 1024x768 with full detail settings and get a smooth frame > rate. However, they do not mention the amount of memory they have. 256mb of

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> ram to get a game to run smooth seems extreme to me. > Thanks for the info and sorry about the length of my previous post. > Don Chapman > >> I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web

reviews

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> and > >> r.a.s posts > ><snipped a lot> > >It seems to be heavily dependant on RAM, with 64 being the minimum. I > didn't > >read your whole post because it was too long, but did you try and

reinstall > the > >game? It runs perfectly on my system which is a P2/450 sometimes o/c > sometimes > >not. I have a V3/3000 and 256 MEG of ram. It ran perfectly on my ATI > >all-in-wonder 8MB AGP and monsterII 12 meg, too. I have to think it's the > >memory issue. > >daxe

I dont know what your problem could be, because I have a Celery 333, 64MBRAM, PCI Voodoo Banshee 16MB, and an AGP ATI Rage 3D Pro 4MB,(second monitor) running Win98. I have no problems with this game at all. Maybe it could be Windows95? I have talked to a few ppl online after reading your post, and the 2 who had been having problems,(one was P3 500, V3, 64MB, other was P233MMX, 64MB, V2 12MB) were both running Win95, the others were running W98 and had no problems. I'm not sure, but I think your press SHIFT-CRTL-F to get the frame rate display. Oh yeah, it's slow on the ATI too, but its because ATI cards suck. Ben Markert Give me Drag Racing, or give me death!

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>Anyway, I have a Windows 95 , PII Celeron 300a overclocked to 450, 64mb >100mhz Ram, 2 12mb Pure 3D II Voodoo 2 cards in SLI, Intergraph Intense 3D, >Diamond MX300 A3D 2.0 Sound Card, and a Logitech Formula Force Steering >controller(connected to serial port). In GPL at 800x600 I get a very >consistent 36fps. In other arcade >racers such as Powerslide, Need for Speed III, and Motocross Madness, I can >run at 1024x768 with pretty detailed settings, and get a very smooth frame >rate. First person shooters like Quake II, Unreal, and Half-Life also run

on >my machine at 1024x768 with benchmarks well above 50fps(depending on the >timedemo). >HOWEVER, Midtown Madness just crawls at 640x480!! With a couple cars ahead >it >will completely come to a standstill, and then start again half-way down the >street. I have reduced the detail settings down to where the game is >downright ugly, but it still chops along, starting, stopping, hiccuping all >the way. I tried in-car views, out of car views, and dasboard views, but had >similarly poor results. I tried it at 1024x768 and it would hardly budge. >The Pure 3D II is selected in the Graphics options, so I know its not trying >to run on the Intergraph Intense 3D(only used for Indycar II and SODA these >days). Polling is turned off in the game controller settings, although I >don't know if this would matter since the Wingman Formula Force runs through >the serial port. Again, TOCA 2, MGPRS2, Sportscar GT, and Viper Racing all >run very smooth at higher resolutions. >Don Chapman

>It's your RAM. Some systems load enough in the background with drivers, etc >that cause this game to have virtual memory problems with 64 meg (especially >if you have an AGP card). I heard there is a bug with 64 meg that allows >the game to run fine with 32. Weird. This isn't true for me. I only recently upgraded from 32 to 64 MB and have found Midtown Madness to run tremendously better with 64. Playing the game with 32MB is playable in cruise mode but intolerably slow (horrendous hard drive access times) during races. Martin Nigel Mansell RIP!

Midtown Madness runs just fine on my homebuilt P233 o/c'd to 266 w/ only 48MB RAM and a Diamond Monster (old) 3D card. Here are a couple of things you can try: 1) Download and install Cacheman. It seems to improve speed a great deal. 2) Go to MM graphics options and uncheck "Speed Loading" and also check "Hide Pedestrians". I'm not sure why, but speed loading actually works slower with alot of graphics cards and you can't kill the pedestrians so why bother. 3) Make sure you have the absolute latest drivers for your graphics card. Those little things are what made my system work with MM. Regards, David > I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web reviews and

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> r.a.s posts. > 3D Racing Mania(99/100) - > http://www.3dracing.net/reviews/midtown_madness.html > Digital Sports(99/100) - > http://www.digitalsports.com/dsports/pc4/midtown_madness/review.html > Avault(5/5 stars) - > http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=midmad&page=1 > Operation Sports - (95/100) - > http://www.operationsports.com/ReviewVault/reviews.asp?game=midtownmadpc > I usually stick to sims such as GPL, Indycar 2, GP2, Nascar 2/1999,

MGPRS2, > etc., but I also play some arcade racers with my non-sim oriented friends, > and one of these friends recommended Midtown Madness as well. I'm normally > pretty skeptical when it comes to game reviews, but after finding this many > near-perfect reviews of the game, I figured I couldn't go wrong. Besides, > one of my favorite PC racing games was Vette(where you could race around San > Francisco), and Midtown Madness sounded like it could be very similar. > Anyway, I have a Windows 95 , PII Celeron 300a overclocked to 450, 64mb > 100mhz Ram, 2 12mb Pure 3D II Voodoo 2 cards in SLI, Intergraph Intense 3D, > Diamond MX300 A3D 2.0 Sound Card, and a Logitech Formula Force Steering > controller(connected to serial port). In GPL at 800x600 I get a very > consistent 36fps. In other arcade > racers such as Powerslide, Need for Speed III, and Motocross Madness, I can > run at 1024x768 with pretty detailed settings, and get a very smooth frame > rate. First person shooters like Quake II, Unreal, and Half-Life also run on > my machine at 1024x768 with benchmarks well above 50fps(depending on the > timedemo). > HOWEVER, Midtown Madness just crawls at 640x480!! With a couple cars ahead > it > will completely come to a standstill, and then start again half-way down the > street. I have reduced the detail settings down to where the game is > downright ugly, but it still chops along, starting, stopping, hiccuping all > the way. I tried in-car views, out of car views, and dasboard views, but had > similarly poor results. I tried it at 1024x768 and it would hardly budge. > The Pure 3D II is selected in the Graphics options, so I know its not trying > to run on the Intergraph Intense 3D(only used for Indycar II and SODA these > days). Polling is turned off in the game controller settings, although I > don't know if this would matter since the Wingman Formula Force runs through > the serial port. Again, TOCA 2, MGPRS2, Sportscar GT, and Viper Racing all > run very smooth at higher resolutions. > Any ideas, or is this game just another poor example of D3D coding? > Microsoft's own Monster Truck Madness 2 and Motocross Madness run very > smooth on my current setup. Anyone with a similar setup have better results? > Please don't respond with "buy a TNT2 card or a Voodoo 3 card, then you will > get better results". My setup was about the best money could buy for 3d > graphics speed just a few months ago, so I am not ready to call it obsolete > yet. The system requirements on the box state Pentium 200 or Pentium 166 > with 3d accelerator and 16mb ram for pete's sake!! I can't imagine how > horribly it would play on such a machine. I would have to say on my setup it > is nearly unplayable and definitely not enjoyable. However, there must be > something wrong with my setup because a quote from the Digital Sports review > states the following: > "GRAPHICS: 100 - One hundred you say? Dead on correct! Played at the maximum

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> resolution of 1024x768 on my SLI'd PII 450, the visuals have never been > better. With all the doodads turned on, the frame rate was as smooth as > silk, making the feeling of acceleration as convincing as I've yet to > experience in any kind of racer." > "Frame rate smooth as silk"?? "Acceleration as convincing as I've yet to > experience in ANY kind of racer"?? Maybe I picked up the wrong game

because > my experience has been anything but that. I went back and played some GPL, > Viper and SCGT just to make sure that those games were not performing poorly > as well, but fortunately they were humming along as usual!! The PC setup > described in the Digital Sports review sounds like my exact setup, yet I run > the game at 640x480 with no detail, and it is a slide show at best!!What am > I > doing wrong? I have all the lastest drivers for Direct X, Pure 3D II, > Diamond Mx300, and Wingman Formula Force. > The Operation Sports reveiw also states: > "Running on a PII 350 with 2 Voodoo II cards in SLI mode, I was able to max

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> all the graphic settings out and still have a great framerate." > Again, I have the minimum graphics set at 640x480 and it chugs. What could > be up??? Just for kicks, I decided to change my clock settings back to > normal for my Celeron 300a. I have an Abit BX6 so it is easy to change the > settings through the Bios. I booted up and tried the game again. Same > results!! Honestly, the demo for Nascar Revolution ran faster and smoother > on my machine than Midtown Madness. > I also have a Pentium 233mmx, 64mb, with the original Canopus Pure

3D(Voodoo > 1 6mb card), so I installed Midtown Madness on that machine as well. > Unfortunately, the performance on this machine was even worse! > What PC setup can actually run this game smoothly and at full detail like > these reviews state? I asked my friend who recommended the game if he had > similar problems. He has a P233mmx, 32mb, Voodoo 1, and he said that it does > not run very smoothly, but that none of his games do so he is used to it. Is

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> this what happens to the general game buying public? They get these games > home, install them, they either run poorly or don't run at all, and they > just chalk it up to having a slow system or they just accept buggy, > lackluster games as is. > There's got to be something wrong with the setups on my machines. I have > also already tried all the tweaks recommended on the Midtown Madness Tweak > Guide site - http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/mm/ > Only thing I have't tried is running it in 320x200 software renderer, and

if > I have to do that to get a decent frame rate on my machine, then this game > will go back to the store. > Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am about to go crazy trying to > figure this out. Is there a way to frame rate benchmark in this game? > Don Chapman

I had a PII-400 w/64 MB and Voodoo2 SLI running at 1024x768 and it was smooth except when you would turn a corner and it would stutter. I was not getting 10 FPS though. Probably between 25 - 30. I have since upgraded to a PIII-450 and Voodoo3 and still get a "little" stutter turning corners but not as pronounced. Remove "spammers.die!" from address to send email. Webmaster - Racers Point.com http://www.racerspoint.com

Don my system is very similar to yours & I have no idea what your problem is? I run MM for fun but I have all my graphics, sound etc maxed out & I don't have a***ch, hic'cup or spudder! So it seems you should either re-install or check it on another machine! <below is snipped. a book is too much space for any newsgroup> ----- Original Message ----- Newsgroups: rec.autos.simulators Sent: Friday, June 25, 1999 4:03 PM Subject: Midtown Madness is Maddening!!! > I just purchased Midtown Madness after reading many positive web reviews and > r.a.s posts.

Turn off the cd music. MM was a slide show until I disabled the cd music. Runs fantastic now. p2 333 viper 550 mx 300 196MB ram Prophet <snip> <snip>

>So don't despair, there is something weird going on. Could it be SLI? >[...] Nah, I have a SLI setup, but with 96M RAM, and my Midtown runs fine in 800x600. I'm putting my money on RAM-- get more, it's cheap. If that's not the problem, at least now you have more RAM! Heh, heh. --mountain K