The thing is, if you even have to bring up GT5 then you're not going to understand any kind of response I could formulate. But now that you got me thinking; I would bet you a pint that iRacing cost more to develop. With the possible exception of licensing costs notwithstanding, the research and technicalities of iRacing would probably make GT5 (or, really, ANYTHING right now) look pretty silly.
And I do agree with you on the demo point, but I think the demo should be time limited and offline only.
Those boars are a menace!
What about the joy of simply having properly sanctioned and penalized racing with unparalleled physics and netcode, in a sim that doesn't have glaring holes or wireframe cockpits? If anything, I'd be much more motivated to play iRacing than WoW for exactly the reasons you describe. The exploration and adventure can be fun in WoW to a point, and large scale PvP is quite fun as well, but racing appeals to me personally more than those things and therefore I have no problem paying for iRacing. (Although I will be trying Age of Conan in a few days :razz
Heh, then I should see you in TDU a lot. It's not a sim, but the Hardcore mode is "sim-like" and actually quite fun. And it'll take you two hours just to make a ring around the island as fast as you can, I have no idea how long it would take to drive every road.
Yes I do agree about the demo thing.
Well, when you're not running a casual "might get it done might not who cares" type of ship, a business is a business. They needed to do research to even see if Kaemmer's vision was financially feasable considering the approach they had in mind, and they need a "marketing guy" unfortunately. When this kind of money is involved, it's more than a hobby and sadly business principles need to make sure that the 40 people making it make a good living too. That even extends to the crap on the shelves like GTR; if the general public didn't "go for it", it wouldn't be there. I'm just glad that in a free market economy where most are creating rubish, that someone had the balls to throw this type of development towards iRacing. It's definitely a "first"
Did I mention that a lot (too many sadly, hehe) of the MMO players are too young to drive but manage to subscribe to WoW and the like? Man, quit saying it's "tons of money" because it's just not tons of money generally speaking. It just happens to be the first racing sim to have the kind of development budget and business model that it has, and the end result will reflect that it's a heck of a lot more than a half baked product that's sort of worked on now & then. Besides, if you really are right and it costs too much then all that will happen is they'll lower their prices. Big deal.
If you have no idea why did you comment on it?
Yeah, it probably will, but maybe it won't. LFS will probably be known as "The sim with the most potential" for quite some time, it's been that way for years already and why think anything different will happen before we pass away? It certainly does have a buffet of improvability though, that's true.
ROFL, ok, we'll have this conversation again in a few weeks time.
That I could understand.
I don't know how they hypothetically do it.
Well, now you're just avoiding the point. You don't have to care to play MMOs to understand the fact that an exhorbitant supply of people are willing to pay those prices, and the cost is identical to WoW, which would also make WoW the most expensive game you've ever heard of as well.
That's the only thing that I agree with the doomsayers in this thread about, a demo and an offline mode (there is no AI) would be reasonable.
But those things are the whole point of MMOs. MMOs are not concerned about recreating real environments accurately, or precisely modelling real world objects or their behaviour. There is no real world research that goes into MMOs (at least not physical things), there is no fancy tire testing equipment involved etc. The point of a sim is it's physics first and foremost.
Of course if you do commit to a longer term you get more content for free, but most of what I read is that lots of it's elements don't appeal to you, which is fine and fair play but has zero to do (inherently) with the business model.
All fine, but when you consider that one pays for things like GTR1,GTR2,RACE07, blah blah blah, you're just paying for rehashed crap anyway. But again, my point isn't that it has to appeal to everyone, it's probably better that it doesn't in many cases (but not all). My point is that it's not cost prohibitive in the context of the gaming market in 2008, and nothing more.
Why is it that? A roll out is really the sensible thing to do, and MMOs of all kinds generally do the same thing, or something very similar.
Balogne. There are free MMORPGs, pay one time MMORPGs, and subscription based MMORPGs. Guess which ones are the best?
And please, point me to all the top-notch racing sims we all have access to at the moment, I've been looking for it for a few years but must've missed it somehow.... You've said yourself many times that LFS is just the least crappy of everything available, so now we're (likley) getting something worth running and you're just going to whine at the nominal fees?
And what service are the MMORPGs providing other than servers and GMs? Right, they're working on the software, which iRacing will be as well.
Of course if someone (hypothetically speaking of course) can play flawlessly with 300 to 400ms pings and it appears as LFS single player lagwise, then that doesn't matter does it? (no, it doesn't)
Mean head!
Please explain why there's that kind of animosity towards iRacing's pricing when there isn't for WoW, LOTRO etc etc. It's not making sense. If anything, it means that they know it's not going to appeal to everyone, and it also means they want to provide ongoing services. It's not a rushed title pushed out the door by a publisher unfinished at pricepoint X in order to rake in Y amount of dollars, never to be revisited or improved.
Ah, so this is all from that BS from the First/NR2003 thing, that sounds about right, I get it now.
That's fine, nobody is forcing you to play it. But you cannot argue that their model is arrogant in the context of modern gaming. I didn't say you had to like it, I'm sure lots of people hate it. It's not unprecedented, and their pricing in and of itself is no indicator at all of it's possible success or failure, that's my point.
LOL, I'm just like that. I could be full of shit anyway, we'll find out soon enough. But if I was full of shit I should know by now anyway according to Shot
edit: and if I am dead wrong, then I'll be the first guy here enjoying my feet with a side of salt and BBQ sauce.
Yeah, comparing the iRacing team to Kunos makes a lot of sense. Afterall, why not put unprecedented amounts of investment into a racing sim. Better yet, spend that money on car/track model accuracy and proprietary tire testing to fool everyone... because we all know that the general public is just dying for the best racing simulation ever made! Yeah, it's all a "marketing gag", good call Kaemmer is a proven scoundrel anyway!
(almost broke my sarcasm generator)
Why don't you get this? A business model like theirs is NOT new and I don't hear any other subscription community bitching about it. For a cutting edge product that far surpasses (oh right, "if it does") anything else for a NICHE MARKET (as in it does NOT cater to the masses, where those same masses ALREADY accept this same business model for other "games"), it's not at ALL unreasonable to approach it this way.
What the hell is the matter with building a community before the launch? Anyone that cares enough about it will be able to get an invite anyway, then when it's "fully" released there will already be a thriving community. Yeah, that sucks.
A) It's NOT freaking expensive, as shown by MMORPGORSORS people, period.
B) It doesn't cater to the masses, nor is it supposed to, and it's better that way IMO. CH4 for the win (although not all human fart has that in it from my understanding).
10 million people don't have a problem doing that for WoW, there is no offline portion to it whatsoever. iRacing is a much more complex product in terms of development, so one could argue that it's a better value - but I'm not talking about the subjective experience. The point is: it's just NOT that expensive in the grand scheme of things.
We're pretty spoiled here, or at least were when things were happening. LFS is a minimalist attitude. 2-3 people that really, at the end of the day, just need us to make sure they don't have to punch a timeclock for Mr. Big every morning. Sorry, but that's the truth, LFS is a business as well. iRacing has forked out lots of money to make something amazing, and if it's as good as everyone playing it (that I know) says then it's worth what they charge.
edit: and I'm not saying anyone's a cheapskate. I'm saying in the general gaming market it's not expensive - in general. It's very simple, and although they are very different products, it's plain and simple: if it's not too much for 10 million WoW players it is NOT too much for anyone who really wants to be involved in iRacing.
I've returned all but the 3870 at this point, I am too pissed off to deal with anymore nVidia cards right now, even though I like them way better. Also, the ATi unit is brutal in FSX, which apparantly is the way it is and even Phil Taylor can't figure out why. But, I can now mess around in TDU at max res and max everything at great FPS so that's a step foward at least. And it was half the cost of the 9800GTX!
If I did anymore swapping I'd probably wear out my PCIe slot anyway.
Thanks to everyone in the thread, what a stupid problem that was/is.
One point is that if people pay the $20 for a minimal subscription; they have a month to decide if they "get it" or not. And, they'll probably play it that whole time instead of trying it once and leaving it because they think "it's too hard", afterall, they'll have paid for it and want to get their money's worth and will have more exposure time to get used to playing a sim and not an arcade game. Don't forget, LFS isn't big this side of the pond so a sim might come as a shock to many who may be inclined to try iRacing
WoW has regular free content releases, but the major content releases (expansion packs) are not free by any stretch - but they only come out every 1.5-2 years, whereas updated and new content on a lesser scale is released every few months. WoW also has double or more the development team size, so I'm not sure if it's that much cheaper to develop in the end or not, as well as a massive (albeit poorly paid, but still overhead) support staff. The capital outlay for iRacing is obviously far greater with their fancy tire testing shit and whatnot but the ongoing costs and staff overhead for developing WoW probably evens that out. So, iRacing is probably not that expensive for what you get considering that it won't have 10 million people playing it.
I won't be upgrading until probably around Christmas at the earliest, so I'm wondering if this card is actually a better match for my mid-level (or is it low now?!?!) than the other cards were anyway.
This card is just as (more than) power hungry as the 8800GT specwise, and it's PCI-E 2 as well so none of the other things are the problem.
Everything helps, thanks for the input. Reconnected, reseated, screwed, wiggled, jiggled and skewed everything possible with 3 cards now to no avail. I've never seen anything like this in all my years of working with PCs. Actually that's not totally true, I had a 3DFX card years ago that only worked if it was NOT seated as far as it would go into the PCI slot. But the system wasn't working in the background with that one hehe.
I used a different adapter than the one that came with the card (didn't notice that until I took it out), would that matter? The one that came with the card has all the pins, my adapter only had the pertinent pins. Maybe if I am feeling masochistic I'll try their adapter later and see what happens.
So, if that didn't work I guess it's not an EDID issue then?
I give up. I am doomed to not be able to upgrade my card. I wish it never worked at all, then I'd just whine that I need a PCIE2 motherboard :P
Something changed somewhere, probably during that Vista install. But I have no idea how that could affect anything that happens before POST even occurs. wow.
Here is the "conformance" results, anything notworthy here?
Also, I can't seem to find where to fix the EDID, is it the option to "restore factory defaults"? There is an "update EDID" command that this version does not let you use..... The thing that catches my eye is that the Timing thing notes "invalid data", not just "unsupported" like all the other unsupported things.... hm...
I don't have a spare PC and am far to lazy to make a remote connection to this one....
I really need to dig up that VGA cable.
edit: ok, got a new 8800GT here, going to slap it in and see what happens. When it doesn't work I will try the VGA cable w/ adapter, which I found (thankfully). Really hoping it works.
Maybe I'll try a regular 8800GT tomorrow, the power specs are definitely in my range. I have a 3850 here but I don't know if I can even bother to install it.
New question: is a Radeon 3850 or 3870 at least an upgrade from my 7900GTX? yes I am lazy, I'll go do some searching now but some informed opinions would be nice too.
I've also heard something about a "power supply timing issue" on 8800 series cards, but I can't find any details about that yet. It would cause no video signal to be output...
Yeah especially my first post was not very clear because I was still not thinking properly about what was happening. All that's happening is that it's not coming out of standby. The stupid thing is that on Friday night I went through multiple reboots while updating drivers and so forth and all along it worked just fine coming out of standby (it goes in & out on each reboot). Until I aborted that Vista install, everything was peachy. One thing I have NOT tried is to actually completely unplug and replug my monitor before powering up the system (just turned it off). Is it remotely possible that that Vista install had the monitor in some odd mode that I could clear by unplugging it or something? (no, that's probably not right... grasping at straws here...)
Yeah, I don't have an extra monitor I gave it to my father literally 9 days ago... would've been handy right now.
I just looked up the specs, the box says it wants 22A. No one seems to know exactly what that means the more I look into it, maybe I can find some info on what that requirement really means on the nVidia site or something - all I can find so far on the web is "it means this" vs "it means that" with no real proof.
That was my understanding as well, but two things:
The 8800 spec was asking for a combined rating. Why? It was only a single 6 pin connector card - without a PSU that bridges rails (apparantly they exist) but the specs specifically state that it's looking for combined 12V amperage. Also, the 9800 DOESN'T say that, however it has two 6 pin connectors. It says it wants 24A, but since it has two 6 pin connectors that should not be an issue? Or is that wrong? Would they not put each 6 pin on a different rail knowing that they're used for power hungry PSUs?
None of the PSUs available at the shop here have better amp ratings than mine, they have big wattage but split it up into more rails. People are running much bigger badder systems than mine with these cards - do all of those people really have a $400 PSU with massive rails? That just CAN'T be right. Can it? The card (the 9800) wants 24A, the 8800 wanted less. I don't even think the rest of my machine could push the 9800 to 92% of it's capacity, and booting in a DOS screen would not draw that from the GPU?
Samsung 940B (don't hurt me Shot). Hm, that's interesting because that's exactly what's happening. There's lots of great ideas in this thread; but I'll be forever wondering why the #$% it worked fine for 8 hours of hard use. I'll dig up a DSub cable tonight, and use an adapter. Hopefully I did not throw it away thinking I'd never need it!
I tend to think this (or some kind of problem) as well. Both cards are supposed to tell you if there's a power issue, neither one did. What I would expect to happen if the PSU just "wasn't powerful enough" is that it should at least show me 2D shit, and then cause problems when it's actually taxed in 3D. The card will not draw 24A when you're in a DOS screen, and probably not until you're using Crysis at max detail trying to beat the card into a pulp. If the PSU was really shot, then I just can't see being able to run the 7900 at max load, since that card asks for 20 or 21A on the box. Clearly that's not a problem at all right now. My rig should not even be able to feed the 9800 enough to get it to draw full current, now that I think about it
That's the thing; I'm convinced that the card is "powering up", I'm wondering if this EDID thing might be worth looking into. The fan on the card(s) come on, there are no low power beeps, and no warning light on the 9800 which it supposedly possesses. BTW I'm not arguing with you, you might just be right. I really appreciate everyone input in this thread, it's really great to have this kind of help from everyone!
Don't forget the machine is running fine - just the vidcard is failing to produce a signal for some reason. Have scrutinzed all connections to death, been running great on this 7900 all day. BIOS was set to defaults when I flashed it, to no avail.
Physical abuse is getting closer to the top of my priority list though.
To be clear; the monitor knows that it's plugged into the card because when I unplug it the monitor tells me "check cable" etc. That message goes away when I plug the monitor into the card (regardless of whether the PC is on or not of course). I wasn't explicit before - the monitor fails to turn ON when the PC turned on. It never gets a signal to switch on from the video card, so it remains in standby mode. Turning the monitor off and on just makes it tell me that it's switching between polling the analog and digital ports, and then it decides there is nothing and goes back into standby. Whereas with the working card of course when it polls the digital port, sees a signal and switches out of standby mode, and lets me see things.
It really seems like slot incompatibility, I just can't fathom that PSU being wrecked; it's not a crappy PSU and has good specs. I REALLY can't beleive the 8800 worked for that whole night and then just didn't anymore... Man, this is the strangest problem I've ever seen working with PCs.
edit for Hyper:
Both are DVI-D, the cable works with this card, etc etc.
Edit 2:
I doubt this is relevant, but I'll mention it anyway:
The ONLY thing that changed from Friday night to Saturday morning was the fact that I had begun a Vista installation on a different partition. Eventually it was taking too long for my liking, and I'd had a few beers and thought it would be prudent to just shut my machine down cold during that since even if something went awry; I would just reformat the partition and start again in the morning. Why not leave it and go to bed? Yeah, I know. Anyway I fail to see how that could affect this but who the heck knows.
Also, out of pure coincidence, Saturday afternoon my DVDROM drive decided it was going to be an ass and act up. When I try to open the tray, it only opens about 20mm and then I have to pull it open manually. It still works though, I just put CD/DVD in the tray, hit the button (very important, nudging the tray no longer works) and in it goes and works great. That did not coincide timewise with the card not working though, so I wouldn't say that the PSU did something funny.