NASCAR Tracks and Roster...?

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Saiyavenger

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Saiyavenger
Has one been unveiled yet? I know it doesn't matter to alot of you, but for NASCAR lovers like myself, it's a huge deal to finally be recognized on one of the grandest stages of em all as a legit racing series, and not just some hick thing.

Of course, the thing that worries me is that we haven't seen any other drivers or tracks than the ones from the E3/PSP trailers. Are they just going with that small amount? Or are there going to be more, like say, tracks like Martinsville and Talladega, and drivers like Kevin Harvick and Reed Sorenson? (Yes. I'm a Sorenson fanboy.)

It would be a shame to finally see NASCAR legitimately in a GT game (Hi there, Mark Martin Taurus in GT2), but only have a handful of the popular drivers and tracks.

And finally, one more related question. Can we take the NASCAR cars out on tracks like Tokyo and Laguna Seca? Or are they just confined to the ovals and Infineon?
 
they are actually implementing an advanced AI for Nascar, so dont worry it won't be 'small amount' of nascar. The only question worth asking would be the number of Nascars on track imo.
 
I'm hoping they get more than 16 cars on the track- it'd be kind of boring- 40 cars on the tracks, now that would be nuts.
 
They arn't going to get more tha 16 cars on track. They can't suddenly magic more power from the PS3 just for NASCAR races. 16 cars is fine if they drive in groups, I know it's not as many as NASCAR but there's not much you can do about a hardware limitation other than lower the quality of the game as a whole and that's not an option. at this point.
 
Dave A
They arn't going to get more tha 16 cars on track. They can't suddenly magic more power from the PS3 just for NASCAR races. 16 cars is fine if they drive in groups, I know it's not as many as NASCAR but there's not much you can do about a hardware limitation other than lower the quality of the game as a whole and that's not an option. at this point.
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But, they're basically 2 or 3 models with different liveries, all using (almost) identical sounds and physics wouldnt it be less cpu intensive to run "copies' instead of different cars?
 
Dave A
They arn't going to get more tha 16 cars on track. They can't suddenly magic more power from the PS3 just for NASCAR races.
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yes they can :)

@Saiyavenger: no they are probaly not going to all the tracks cars etc. rumors suggest that only 20+ tracks will be in the game and if that's true i doubt they will all be from nascar. and alot of the cars from the E3 trailer were the same (I think) so it's probably just the top cars that will make it into the game
 
chepe371
But, they're basically 2 or 3 models with different liveries, all using (almost) identical sounds and physics wouldnt it be less cpu intensive to run "copies' instead of different cars?
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It doesn't work that way. Regardless of if the models are all the same excepting textures, it still has to render all of those models. And it still has to calculate the physics for all of those models, besides.
 
Toronado
It doesn't work that way. Regardless of if the models are all the same excepting textures, it still has to render all of those models. And it still has to calculate the physics for all of those models, besides.
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Well I dunno if it's quite that simple... using all the same model cars does let you save on resources... this is how games like 24 hour lemans on the dreamcast had such huge races and The Toca series had a lot of cars on track I would think in some part due to limiting to the models on track at once.

I don't know if 40 cars is doable, but that would be pretty sweet...
 
It really doesn't. You are thinking about the wrong thing. If we were talking about something like duplicate lines of code being eliminated because they could instead refer to the one instance where it pops up, it would apply.
Having multiple instances of the car model doesn't allow that, because the game still needs to render all of those assets individually (in essence, as far as the game engine works, the cars are not the same model), so there are no performance benefits to loading just one model and pasting it around unless the model itself is lower detail than a different car would be (for example, if a NASCAR is less detailed than a Corvette by itself, two NASCARS would be less taxing than a NASCAR and a Corvette only because the total poly count is less).

Just about the only difference it would make resource-wise is that it wouldn't have to load the models individually at the start of the race, and PD could implement a way of loading the single model and duplicating it to the number/textures needed instead of loading the model multiple times so race load times would be faster; but even then I doubt the benefit would be that great.
 
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Devedander
Well I dunno if it's quite that simple... using all the same model cars does let you save on resources... this is how games like 24 hour lemans on the dreamcast had such huge races and The Toca series had a lot of cars on track I would think in some part due to limiting to the models on track at once.

I don't know if 40 cars is doable, but that would be pretty sweet...
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Nope, this isn't the case at all. As far as the GPU is concerned a 300k polygon car is a 300k polygon car, if it's rendering 16 300k polygon cars then it's rendering 4.8 million polygons regardless of if they're all making up the same shapes ie cars. The same goes for sounds, the audio engine can only play so many sounds at the same time, it doesn't matter is it's playing the same engine note 16 times, it's still playing 16 sounds. ToCA and LeMans games didn't use that many resources per car model.
 
Toronado
if a NASCAR is less detailed than a Corvette by itself, two NASCARS would be less taxing than a NASCAR and a Corvette only because the total poly count is less
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If that is true, then we will get more than 16 cup cars on track at once.
 
Hmmm... well the number crunching from the GPU side makes sense, but I was thinking memory resources in terms of models and textures, but then again if the cars all have different textures that kind of eats that savings up. I was thinking also of some FPS's of days gone by where I think you could opt to have only one model bad guy and this brought FPS up.
 
IsmokeGT
If that is true, then we will get more than 16 cup cars on track at once.
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That is assuming that the NASCARs are significantly less detailed in geometry than anything else in the game. Which I doubt will be the case.

Devedander
Hmmm... well the number crunching from the GPU side makes sense, but I was thinking memory resources in terms of models and textures, but then again if the cars all have different textures that kind of eats that savings up. I was thinking also of some FPS's of days gone by where I think you could opt to have only one model bad guy and this brought FPS up.
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You were merely looking at the wrong thing. You can map a single texture to multiple models till the cows come home, and doing that does save considerably on resources. Games do that all the time with stuff like road and ground textures. If all of the NASCARS in GT5 had the same texture, I'm sure that PD could make those races so you could have twice as many cars on screen. But you cannot do the same with models.
 
NASCAR vs GT by Citroen... NASCAR cars are signifigantly less detailed (inside an out) fact.

So, from this, what have we learned? GT5P can fit 16 GT by Citroens on track, thus there will be more than 16 NASCAR cars on track (in NASCAR specific races) right?
 
No, read the recent comments.

daveander, I do beleive that in thoes FPS's of days gone by you are reffering to games that featured sprites and not polygons, is that correct?
 
Do you have poly numbers for both? Because otherwise it doesn't prove anything.
Furthermore, by significantly less detailed, I meant that each NASCAR would have to be made up of just 2/3 of the polys and textures as the most detailed car in the game just to add 8 cars on track (there is more to it than that, of course, but you get my point).
 
The NASCARS and race cars may not need as many polygons to model the interiors but they also feature modelled underbody parts. It's the race cars like the NASCARS that feature body parts coming off etc, so that's more details and polygons right there.

Also less detailed interior doesn't equal less polygons, it can and probably does in most cases but it's not a certainty.
 
Toronado
That is assuming that the NASCARs are significantly less detailed in geometry than anything else in the game. Which I doubt will be the case.
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They should be because they have less curves and angles than other cars. the most detailed part of the car in terms of the modeling would be the front with the splitter and all that. other than that the sides are flat and the back is one curve and one angle.

nascar-car-of-tomorrow-2.jpg


they will also have to factor in if they want to put the Nationwide COTs in GT5
 
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ok this is really bothering me lol. Its a stock car not a "NASCAR". NASCAR is the organization or league they race in.

Sorry for being a smartass. :D
 
xKingOfDa910x
ok this is really bothering me lol. Its a stock car not a "NASCAR". NASCAR is the organization or league they race in.

Sorry for being a smartass. :D
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Haha, I was just about to say the exact thing. 👍

EDIT: Just for the information, NASCAR stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.
 
Strittan
No they aren't, so what? I can't believe people keep going on about this... and I can't believe it's a swede saying this to an american.
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I cant believe you quoted my sarcastic joke, and responded in an angry manner. What is your problem? Anyways, I have never said anything about them not being stock before. And I can believe an American has to hold a swede's hand in understanding a simple joke.

When I, not people, use a :lol: it usually indicates something funny.
 
IsmokeGT
I cant believe you quoted my sarcastic joke, and responded in an angry manner. What is your problem? Anyways, I have never said anything about them not being stock before. And I can believe an American has to hold a swede's hand in understanding a simple joke.

When I, not people, use a :lol: it usually indicates something funny.
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Ok, no offence to you then, but a lot of people are actually complaining about the fact they're called stock cars.
 
From looking at the list. Only the four Chevy Imps of Hendrick Motorsports' (Hardcore Ford Guy but also drive Toyotas, so anything but Chevy) Sprint Cup Team is listed. I'd like to see Gibbs Racing and even Red Bull Racing's Toyota Camrys, Roush Fenway's Fusions, Penske Racing LLC's Chargers also added.
 

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