I read a tech paper regarding the power hog that the
18 year old technology of the standard games port has on the
CPU. Theory says that a 300 mhz CPU wastes 24% of
it time running the std games port.
Apparently the PDPI L4 card with it's own processor and memory
buffer, eliminates the drag on the host CPU, leaving it to
work on other things like graphics and sound etc.
My question is, has anybody noticed a resonable overall
performance increase using the PDPI card? If so what CPU are
you using?
Many Thanks
Nigel
--
Redline Race Controls
http://www.wave.co.nz/pages/lakewood/Redline2.htm
Nigel of Lakewood Motorsports
Hamilton
New Zealand
Not really in practice for GPL. Using a PII-400Mhz, 128Mb RAM.
But the controls got smoother.
I use an MSFF wheel now; not compatible (no MIDI support on the PDPI);
its latency is the MIDI output.
Ruud van Gaal
MarketGraph / MachTech: http://www.marketgraph.nl
Art: http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery
I have a Pentium MMX 200 MHz processor-equipped PC (overclocked
to 225 MHz) running a Voodoo3 PCI graphics card. I've got 64 Mb
of RAM and Win95 operating system.
PDPI has given me two great benefits:
1) I run Grand Prix Legends off-line (I have a lousy ISP phone connection)
at 1024x768 resolution with fields of 13 cars. All display options are
ON except the mirrors which I run with Cars only, no details. Typically
during a race my frame rates stay in the mid-to-high 20's. Very
satisfactory in my view for such an outdated system running such a
compute intensive sim. Without the PDPI, I had to run with lower
frame rates (high ***s) and at the lowest supported resolution.
2) PDPI provides four game port connections, and a utility which allows
me to map to any of them to any of my games. Now I'm able to leave
both my controllers permanently connected instead of having to get
behind the PC and rewire everything before I play. It's really nice being
able to use my joystick for a flight combat sim, then effortlessly switch
to GPL without leaving my chair.
Richard Worden
Sterling Heights, MI, USA
