VOGONS


First post, by lafoxxx

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Hi.
GA-6VTXE
P3-1133 (Tualatin)
256MB RAM
GeForce2 Ti

Windows 98 SE

Graphics set to Ultra.

Runs fine in Garage.
When I choose 'Take a Ride' and select Miami, the game speed is really slow, like 'slow motion' in movies.

If I set Graphics Preset to Low -- game speed is normal.
But it 'slows down' gradually as I select more demanding preset. On 'Ultra' game speed is about 40% of normal.

The sound and framerate are OK -- I just thought the car was slow at first.

Strangely, 'Car chases' (demos) don't have this issue and run normally.

What GPU should I install (at least) so there's no slowdown on Ultra preset?

Reply 2 of 15, by lafoxxx

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Davros wrote:

It should be fine on that system

I'm sure I ran it on a voodoo2 back in the day

Thanks.
I know it should, but it runs poorly -- in "slow motion" mode, on GF2 Ti (my original post is kinda long, sorry)
Do you really think I should get Voodoo2? But it's much, much older card.

Reply 3 of 15, by Davros

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I cant remember what graphics options are in driver but try changing them one at a time
see if its a particular setting thats causing the problem

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 4 of 15, by lafoxxx

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New "result" -- after inspecting FSB-CPU Ratio switches (for some reason, they were set incorrectly -- previous owner didn't bother reading the motherboard manual) and setting them to correct values (133 MHz FSB * 8.5 Ratio = 1133 MHz CPU)

Garage: ultra-fast speed, like 2x fast forward
Miami: Same situaton (Low: normal speed, Ultra: slow speed)

Car chase - San Francisco -- Low: Faster speed, Ultra: Slow speed
Driving Games: Ultra-fast speed

Even the Timer runs faster, like "321go" in less than a second

The only thing which seems to affect the slowdown amount is the amount of objects on screen

Reply 5 of 15, by lost77

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I just tried it on my Pentium III system and didn't experience any slowdown with different graphics settings. If there was some it was too little for me to notice. Using Fraps to check the framerate, it seems to be locked to 50 FPS. I tried 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200, 16 and 32 bit color.

The game does seems to run at a weird pace, if I switch into ongoing traffic its like they are standing still, making it very easy to zig-zag between them. Pedestrians also walk "funny" but move very fast if I almost hit them. But the game always acts like that no matter the graphics settings.

My system:
BX motherboard
Pentium III 1Ghz (7.5x133)
256MB Ram
Geforce 2 Ti

Windows 98 SE, DirectX 7.0a, Detonator 23.11

Reply 7 of 15, by Davros

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I dont know if this is usefull but it ran fine for me under win 7 with a q6600 nv6800gt
just tested windows 10 i5-2400 gtx970 runs great no problem
havnt tried the 2.1 patch

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 9 of 15, by lost77

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I have DirectX 8 installed (came with some other game, probably Max Payne), should I expect any issues?

Sometimes it breaks things but I´m not sure how big a problem it is. I think it's mostly a problem with very old windows games.

BTW, what version of VIA 4in1 drivers are you using and did you check if they installed correctly?

Also what Nvidia driver are you running?

Reply 11 of 15, by lost77

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You might try with an older display driver. 45.23 is the latest I would use for Windows 98 and even that is much newer than necessary for a Geforce 2.

Also, if you haven't tried it yet there is a version 2.1 patch.

Reply 12 of 15, by lafoxxx

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lost77 wrote:

You might try with an older display driver. 45.23 is the latest I would use for Windows 98 and even that is much newer than necessary for a Geforce 2.

Also, if you haven't tried it yet there is a version 2.1 patch.

Using Driver 2.1.

nVidia installer 45.23 (launched Setup.exe instead of Updating device driver -- it keeps asking for a CD) -- installed successfully.

Problem persists

MDK looks worse -- all sprites (even the player) are just plain white rectangles.

Also tried ASUS package ver. 44.03 (oldest I could find, install thru Device, "path to cd" = unzipped folder -- same as 56.55) -- problem persists.

In nVidia 23.11 (installed using setup.exe) everything is worse -- same but with artifacts (transparent parts of sprites are now semi-opaque). MDK issue also persists.

Guess I'll give up and use my Win10 system to play this game. Cars without wheels are better than this. EAX also works through ALchemy.
I can also use PlayStation1 version.

Reply 13 of 15, by shamino

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Make sure the "Max FPS" setting is set to Auto or some value. Don't turn it off. This setting might be on the main menu or it might be in the game.

If you turn it off, the game renders at a constant number of frames per sim-second. I think it's using the video refresh rate.
This has the effect of making the game run in slow motion when your framerate drops and faster when your framerate gets faster.
I think this setting acts like a "timedemo" in the Quake games.

Benchmarking is what led me to notice how the "Max FPS" setting affected the game. You want it enabled when playing the game, the only time it might make sense to turn it off is for benchmarking.

====

I've benchmarked Driver on a K6-3+ 450MHz with a Geforce2 MX. In a repeatable scene, I was getting 17-18fps on the Ultra preset with max traffic density. This was with NVidia drivers 5.32 and 8.05. I also have tests logged with v45.32 where it was a bit slower at 16fps.
It was basically the same framerate for any resolution so it was apparently CPU limited.
Side note about benchmarking - I noticed that the behavior of the cars in this game is deterministic. If you follow the same steps each time you run the game, you'll get the same stackup of traffic every time. In my spreadsheet I recorded what traffic pattern should be seen so my tests are comparable.

Your Tualatin + Geforce2 Ti should have no problem giving a good experience, but based on what you've said, maybe it's dropping below 60fps.

Reply 14 of 15, by lafoxxx

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shamino wrote:

maybe it's dropping below 60fps.

Thanks. It's not -- just slow motion, but with good FPS.
I'll try the suggested workaround.

Also the game runs exactly the same on GF4 Ti. So the GPU itself has no effect on the issue.