Better performance with patch?

On my low spec computer, I had a suggested fps of 24. With the same settings, I now get 25 on the patched game. But, I used to get reflections on my car despite having environmental mapping at OFF. Now I don't. To get them back, I put the lighting on Static and the suggested fps went back to 24. This suggests to me that those who think they have improved performance are possibly just being able to turn OFF certain features that the game mistakenly kept ON before the patch.
BTW, the static reflections are worth that single fps.

I always thought "dynamic environment mapping" was better quality than "static" or did I get something wrong?

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

I guess I wasn't clear. You're right, Vader. But what I meant was that by turning OFF environmental mapping, I was enabling neither static nor dynamic reflections yet the game was still giving me static reflections anyway before the patch. After the patch, the game really was giving me no reflections as I specified in the graphics options.

So even though my performance is improved after the patch, it's only because the game is not giving me the reflections that I didn't ask for in the graphics options.

BTW, "dynamic" will give you the real reflections of the surroundings whereas "static" gives you reflections of preset fixed images.

"Dynamic" is obviously more realistic than "static" but significantly raises P.O.

A problem with dynamic enviromental mapping is that your car goes through the car wash with extra wax setting.

Since the amount of reflection is controlled by the alpha channels of the car textures (though not everyone agrees on this), the better car makers like RH will probably be lowering this to more realistic levels in their liveries.

Youre wright no reflections/shinning on the cars anymore after the patch and i did set everything like i had it before. The cars seem much darker then before, it looks like the alpha channels have darkend. Will see what shows up in Photoshop though. Never noticed any difference between static and dynamic setting, even the PO wasn't different when changing this.



Peter Visscher
Driver Team Racebase

Well GP4Master works with the patched game i just extracted the cars.wad with it to check the alpha channels of the cars/helmets, they are still heavenly white, so why no shinning on the cars then? weird.



Peter Visscher
Driver Team Racebase

I think Larrys theory is spot on. The cars look like they used to when Advanced Lighting and Enviroment mapping is enabled. I also experienced the 1 FPS increase in performance with the patch, that dissappeared when I turned on the Car Wax.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

For those who got bigger increases (like 8fps) who knows what other features were affected in the same way!

Just another example of how fixes were made, that are not documented in the readme. For instance, the realistic weather option was broken, and switched over to the custom weather slider, each time a race was started. Thats fixed and not mentioned in the readme.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

I think Larrys theory is spot on. The cars look like they used to when Advanced Lighting and Enviroment mapping is enabled. I also experienced the 1 FPS increase in performance with the patch, that dissappeared when I turned on the Car Wax.

==slightly confused== are you saying that at the moment the cars have a natural reflection on them without turning anything on in the graphics, but when you do it makes them extra waxy?

I can absolutely confirm that the alpha channel modulates the strength of the environment reflections.

Where 255 (white in photoshop) => full reflection and 0 (black in photoshop) => no reflection.

However - this feature is hardware dependent - it requires a ADDCOLORMODULATEALPHA blending operation (with alpha cascaded from 1st stage) that some cards don't do (correctly).

This is probably why some people deny it works!

Certainly Geforce2 - 4s and (I'd hope) Radeon 8500 - 9700 should work just fine.

No, not quite, Neil. Without Advanced Lighting and Enviromental mapping, there are no reflections AT ALL on the cars. Turning them on gives the usual effect. While better than nothing, I think that effect is slightly overdone (Extra Wax), thats all.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

No, not quite, Neil. Without Advanced Lighting and Enviromental mapping, there are no reflections AT ALL on the cars. Turning them on gives the usual effect. While better than nothing, I think that effect is slightly overdone (Extra Wax), thats all

Aha, I understand now Morbid. Thanks a lot!