Newbie!!

[AerosportsRacing]

I am new to this Video side of the computer racing .I have a Compaq 5834 that has the video trap door at the bottom but have never used it.My nephew gave me his EA Sports F1 2000 I have sound but do not have video??I have 500MHz Pentium 2.
Do I need to upgrade My 3D graphics?What do I need to come race with you guys?? Help!!
Lee
Ps.I have Windows 98 5. but going to upgrade it to 6. this weekend.

[Keith Carter]

Hi Lee,
F1 2000 is an older F1 game that should work on your PC, but you'll most likely need a graphics card upgrade to one that supports 3d modeling better. Can you give me better system specs to your PC like the amount of RAM and current graphics card type? I would think that there's a good possibility that you're using an on-board graphics card which most likely isn't a good 3D gaming card with that vintage PC. In order to run with the f2000.com league, you'll need to get your hands on Nascar HEAT and download the mod. Some of us have also been racing EA's F1 Challenge 1999-2002 which is their latest F1 release. Great game!

[AerosportsRacing]

I have a Celeron 500MHz. 64 Mg.ram(I need to be at?? 128RAM ??)i KNOW i NEED A 3D GRAPHICS Acclerator any ideas?? I have checked a few at dirtcheapdrives.com??
Lee

[rickb99]

Right now, there are 42 road racing tracks available for Heat racing and more on the way. The newer tracks (and some older ones) put quite a load on the video card and CPU's. Keith can certainly give more serious insight into how to bring your computer up to 'speed', but here are some thoughts to ponder.

Most people have at least 256Meg of RAM. A 64Meg video card is a huge improvement over the 32Meg in terms of minimizing screen lag. Keeping the frame rate above 25 or so is super important to be able to race on line. The 500Mhz CPU is really on the lower edge of what would give you acceptable performance in Heat (especially on line).

A quick way to evaluate your system performance for Heat racing is to use FRAPS for HEAT. You can find a link to it here. Simple little program. DL and run it while playing the game. If your frame rate drops below about 25 (really 30) you're going to have a tough time racing on line.

http://home.earthlink.net/~cruise_ctrl/id63.html

[Keith Carter]

This can get tough seeing that your PC is borderline on whether or not the games will function (at all). By the time you add a new video card and more RAM, you're going to be at half the cost of what you can get a new Dell with one of those deals that they have going on all the time with free shipping and rebates. Your processor is a Celeron which is suitable for e-mail, Internet surfing, and word processing. For 3D games, out of the box there isn't enough oomph with the lower range Celerons. If you were to upgrade your existing PC, you would be able to play HEAT and F1 with all of the graphic quality options turned down low. Your bottleneck would be the processor. If you're stuck on upgrading, you can get a lot of deals at www.pricewatch.com. You just need to make sure that the vendor you are buying from has a good rating (some can be a little shady). Any of the ATI Radeon 8500 or higher series or NVidia Geforce series would work with HEAT pretty well.

[AerosportsRacing]

Thanks Everyone for your help!! I am still trying to get my game going (not online for now)
I see I will have to build a new computer for the online racing.I am getting a datalogger for my real racecar first!!I do have my priorities strait!!! I think I just need to do a little video settings and maybe a cheap 3D graphics card($50)will get it going at home.Have to get my Tigaswitenstien finished and on the track first!!
Once again THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR IDEAS !!
Lee

[AerosportsRacing]

Hi Again Guy's
I finnaly found my specs on my computer.I have an integrated 64-bit hardware accelerated 3D graphics built in !!Integrated 2X APG 3D graphics
MPEG full motion video playback.I just purchased for a total of 256 MB of RAM for $36 after rebates!!I will install today!!
I know my CPU is on the lower end of the spectrum but maybe I can at least practice on my computer off line!!!!!!I will give it a shot anyway and see what happens!!
THANKS !!!!!!!!!!IF anyone has any more Ideas feel free!!
Lee [img]graemlins/santa.gif[/img]

[rickb99]

If you've got a cable connection come and try tomorrow night (tonight really).

IF you are a dial-up, any ISP that gives you a DIRECT Internet connection will work such as Earthlink.

But NOT AOL Fer Sher. It's not a direct connecion.