Midtown Madness questions

I downloaded the demo last night and have a few questions for those who own the game: - Is the framerate in the retail version as bad as in the demo? I have a machine that runs GPL at steady 36 fps (with the few usual exceptions), but MM runs with an apparently pretty bad framerate, even if I turn off a lot of detail and use a low resolution. (K6-2 400, V3 2000 AGP). - The usable map in the full version is a lot bigger, right? I sincerely hope so. Is the lower wacker drive included? - Are the AI opponents a bit faster than in the demo? My personal best for the "race" is 38:80 in the Mustang - the opposition takes about twice as long... Other than that, I find the demo is fun. When GPL made me miss a clutch pedal, MM makes me search for a turn signal stick on my wheel. :) The physics are *VERY* relaxed, but driving is fun anyway. I wish the damage model was a bit more sophisticated. BTW, I found a hidden shortcut: in the last block on the right of the main street, there is a shopping mall with a glass front. You can go through there. Are there other goodies like that in the demo / the full game? And is it possible to speed up the AI cars in the demo? My 3-year old nephew beat them in the race... -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

It runs the same as the full version, which is glass smooth (+40 FPS would be a estimate) on my machine with all details to the max on 1024x768 on a TNT, PII 400, 128 MB RAM. Yes, the ENTIRE map of Chicago is loaded when you play any of the modes in the full version. The white barriers are exclusive to the demo only, and no part of the map is grayed out on the full version. You can go anywhere at anytime, no matter what the race is, you'll just lose if you stray off of course. It's the first race in the full game. Of course it's easy. It gets a lot harder later on when the courses requires more skill to maneuver. Yes, there is more. Whatever you find within the restricted perimeter of Chicago that is provided in the demo applies to the full version as well, when you get unlimited access to the entire city. There's Amateur and Proffesional difficulty setting. But don't worry, the races are quite difficult even on Amatuer when you're in the later races with snow/rain/fog, denser traffic, and driving at night/evening. Again, the races provided in the demo are quite elementary and the course is almost a simple straight line (i.e. dead simple), you don't have to backtrack or travel loooooong distances to the next checkpoint. > -- > Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome. cancellation warned.

First of all, thanks for the comprehensive answer. Further comments below.

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>> I downloaded the demo last night and have a few questions for those >> who own the game: >> - Is the framerate in the retail version as bad as in the demo? I have >> a machine that runs GPL at steady 36 fps (with the few usual >> exceptions), but MM runs with an apparently pretty bad framerate, even >> if I turn off a lot of detail and use a low resolution. (K6-2 400, V3 >> 2000 AGP). >It runs the same as the full version, which is glass smooth (+40 FPS would >be a estimate) on my machine with all details to the max on 1024x768 on a >TNT, PII 400, 128 MB RAM.

Hmm. I wonder how this happens. I have 96MB of RAM, so that should suffice. Maybe the combination of an AMD chip and a 3dfx card is not as suited for this game? I found that the rearview mirror eats a lot of fps (known 3dfx problem). If I turn it off, things get better. Is there a way to measure the actual fps rate? That's great. Do I get to drive an old police car to the Cook county tax office? Pretty please? :) This sounds good. Now I only have to wait until the game is released here. Actually, I went out to buy it this afternoon, only to find that it's not yet available... Always the same problem with reading international newsgroups and living in old Europe - feels like living three months in the past. Phantom Menace opens three weeks from now, could you believe it? ;) PS, ere I forget it: is there a replay option? I just managed to lose all the Panoz' wheels at once in mid air and would have loved to see this from different camera angles. -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

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> First of all, thanks for the comprehensive answer. Further comments > below. > >> I downloaded the demo last night and have a few questions for those > >> who own the game: > >> - Is the framerate in the retail version as bad as in the demo? I have > >> a machine that runs GPL at steady 36 fps (with the few usual > >> exceptions), but MM runs with an apparently pretty bad framerate, even > >> if I turn off a lot of detail and use a low resolution. (K6-2 400, V3 > >> 2000 AGP). > >It runs the same as the full version, which is glass smooth (+40 FPS

would

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> >be a estimate) on my machine with all details to the max on 1024x768 on a > >TNT, PII 400, 128 MB RAM. > Hmm. I wonder how this happens. I have 96MB of RAM, so that should > suffice. Maybe the combination of an AMD chip and a 3dfx card is not > as suited for this game? I found that the rearview mirror eats a lot > of fps (known 3dfx problem). If I turn it off, things get better. Is > there a way to measure the actual fps rate?

Well, it may be the AMD chip that's slowing it down. The 3DFX card (I have SLI Voodoo2s) isn't that great for this game. It runs kinda choppier than my TNT. It's either the latest TNT driver is really sped up on the Direct3D end, or you should choose a lower texture quality to compensate for the Voodoo2's lmited texture memory. Ahh, but Midotwn Madness DID run really choppy on my system, so I know what you're feeling, but when the newer TNT drivers came out, it solved that problem. Also, make sure nothing is running in the background, and if you really need to, press 'W' to go to wide screen mode and it may speed the game up. And if you're in driver seat mode, bring up the dashboard by pressing 'D' and it may speed up the game. Well, you can drive a police car (a souped up Mustang I think) in the full game and elude police chases (they won't chase you), but nope, there is no tax office in this game. Wow, PM is so old, that the theater near where I am stopped showing it, he. As a reference point, MM came out in early May to some parts of the U.S., officially released in June everywhere else. Cost about $40 US, though places started selling for $38 US, etc. No replay options. The system is bogged down enough already just running the game as is and you want to eat up CPU cycles to track 100 different entities at any moment (traafic car movement, prop movement, pedestrian movements, traffic light signals, etc.) for an exact replay? The repaly files would be HUGE! > -- > Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome. cancellation warned.

>Well, it may be the AMD chip that's slowing it down. The 3DFX card (I have >SLI Voodoo2s) isn't that great for this game. It runs kinda choppier than my >TNT. It's either the latest TNT driver is really sped up on the Direct3D >end, or you should choose a lower texture quality to compensate for the >Voodoo2's lmited texture memory. I use a Voodoo3 2000 (16MB on card, don't know how much of it is texture memory). Maybe I will try overclocking it a bit, but not until I got a fan for the card. Not so, in my experience. The wide screen mode is the choppiest of them all. Actually, I get the best results in chase mode without mirrors. That was an obscure reference to the old movie Blues Brothers. They never managed to elude the chase, though. :) I can see that MM uses up a lot of resouces. Anyway, a limited replay including maybe six cars in the direct vicinity of the player's car might have been feasible. -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

Firstly, keep going on the demo beating the AI, they LEARN, they will get much faster, and in the full game they get faster race by race too, i'm ***ed. As for the graphics, i've got pII333 64MB and 2xV2's and mine runs great at high detail.

Off question, but, did you find the billboards that we are supposedly able to knock over? <snip> > Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome. cancellation warned.

>Off question, but, did you find the billboards that we are supposedly able >to knock over? Nope. Parking meters, traffic lights, trashcans, newspaper vending machines, mail boxes, glass fronts, park benches, flower pots, but no billboards. BTW, I'm glad the pedestrians have such great vehicle evasion skills. I hate killing innocent bystanders, and it would hamper my times if I had to drive around them. But they jump in a way that makes Lara Croft look a bit stiff-jointed. I just wonder why they are so timid - they hide in nooks even if I'm just cruising around like and law-abiding citizen. :) -- Wolfgang Preiss \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

Cause they remember you driving on the sidewalk the last pass you made at them ;)

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