DSP TW 2004 (PC) Tour Event 4 starts today.

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 8:57 am

[from our home page]
 
 For the first time in its brief tournament tour hosting history, Digital Sportspage will hold a tournament at a custom course. In the interest of trying to seek winter climate friendly regions, Dammpa & Damma´s Cactus Mirage will be the venue for this one. We´re aware of what a resource hog this course can be with high grass detail levels enabled, but I´ve found that medium, or even low grass detail levels look more natural for this desert environment. My frame rates go from 24 fps with high grass detail levels enabled on the first tee, to 33 fps with medium selected. You´ll need those extra frames on this course, by-and-large. Click Read More for more details.
 
 There is no signup required to enter the tournament. Players can join by simply entering the tournament password "mars" when prompted. The ability level is set to "advanced", but players of all skill levels are welcome. The tournament can be found on EASO under the tournament name "Digital Sports 4".

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 3:42 am

Boy this course does strange things to my PC. I´m seeing lags of 30-45 seconds in between some holes!? I´ve cut the grass detail off because I find it actually looks more natural without it, this being a desert course. The long rough Dammpa chose looks out of place here, IMO. The course would play too slow with the grass on High, and in some places - medium.
 
 Anyone else seeing the long pauses in between holes? I thought my PC had crashed the first time it happened.
 
 I´ll take my -4 total, which included two bogies. I had to sink a 25 footer for one of those bogies! It´s a good golf course in terms of play challenge. I think it´s a bit too object heavy and suffers some odd performance issues as a result. [ This message was edited by: J_Cauthen on 29-01-2004 23:43 ]

DivotMaker · Post by **DivotMaker** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 12:47 pm

Could not agree more John. That is why I "winced" when you stated you were using this course for a DSP event. I had to bump back down to 1280x1024x32 and Medium grass and it was still dog slow. On my machine, the initial loading of the course took 45 seconds when most courses take 5-10 seconds.
 
 I told the designer about the use of the heavy rough everywhere being a resource hog and how designers should keep an eye on how much of this they choose to populate their courses with. With the new LC, I guess we will find out how designers will address this.
 
 -Tim

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 1:05 pm

Tim,
 
 I cut the rough off altogether at Cactus Ridge soon after I started playing it because the rough chosen looked unnatural for that particular course. That doesn´t keep the program from loading the rough and processing it even if you turn it off, I guess. I´ll just have to tough this course out, and play it when I´m not in a hurry. It breaks of the flow of my normal pace though.
 
 I played version 2 of Rostraver last night, and it looks like Joe Wells has created custom rough. It didn´t hit the performance too bad, IMO. However, the rough he´s using looks like a bad hair transplant at certain angles, with the shortest rough type. It looks good from lower viewing angles though. Overall I like it, but I think there´s room for improvement.

btmmayor · Post by **btmmayor** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 1:35 pm

I´m just enjoying playing the tourney at a custom course. I usually won´t bother to check out new courses unless it is a famous course or I´m playing a tourney there. I turned off the grass effects completely and had a really enjoyable first round just checking out the course (and all of its bunkers <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_confused.gif"> )
 
 I´m sure it won´t last long, but we have a hell of a nice leaderboard after the first round as well (as of my round last night). Very cool to see such a tight group of scores.

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 1:40 pm

Yeah Bob... I totally forgot to mention that - we do have the tightest leaderboard we´ve ever had in the history of the DSP Tour so far!
 
 BTW, we´ve had three great TW 2004 courses released in the last week, IMO. I plan to use each of them in this year´s tour. Bannockburn, Rostraver Public G. C. (version 2), and Northern Hills 2004 (once the rev. 2 of the course is released today with the annoying bird "bug" removed).

DivotMaker · Post by **DivotMaker** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:37 pm

Well, no offense whatsoever to the designer who created Cactus Mirage, but as soon as this tournament is over, I am going to be removing it from my TW collection. I love everything about it, but cannot accept that I get framerates in the teens and low 20´s with a 256 MB 9800XT and some of the detail dialed down.
 
 In contrast, Northern Hills 2004 has a great deal of trees and elevation changes and runs more than twice as fast as Cactus Mirage.
 
 Before choosing more user-created courses, please give me some lead time and I can let you know what kind of performance users can expect.
 
 -Tim

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:47 pm

I agree Tim... I didn´t scout this course out thorougly enough. I selected it it because I thought a desert course would fit this point in the season well, but I only played it once prior to choosing it. It´s a cool course, but it has to be dialed back to be playable, and that still doesn´t get you out of the long load times. Now that I think about it, a lot of the custom desert courses I´ve played since the advent of TW 2003 have been plagued by this object density problem.
 
 I´ve got Rostraver Public G.C. 2004, and Bannockburn in mind for later on; what´s your take on these two? Northern Hills will also be included, but it´s going to be treated as a major.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 12:35 am

Is it too late to start playing on the tour???
 
 I was getting pretty decent than I stop playing because of other games and now I want to get back into Tiger. Probably too late for this weeks tourney but what about future tournies. Also John would it be impossible to have a tourney at Augusta?

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 12:46 am

You can join in at any time JRod. Only thing is we´re already in round 2 on this one. There will be another one next week.

DivotMaker · Post by **DivotMaker** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 2:00 am

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD>Quote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><BLOCKQUOTE>
 I´ve got Rostraver Public G.C. 2004, and Bannockburn in mind for later on; what´s your take on these two? Northern Hills will also be included, but it´s going to be treated as a major.
 </BLOCKQUOTE></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>
 
 Have not tried the first two yet, but I did try Rostraver V1 and it is a fine course. Northern Hills is easily one of the best TW courses or ANY course I have seen for any Golf game. Version 2 should be out any day and I think that course should be used for a major.
 
 Another group of courses I can HIGHLY recommend are:
 
 Blackhawk Ridge
 Daulouth 2003
 Dorie´s Vineyards
 Pinebrook 2004
 TPC Blue Ridge
 The Lakes at Moody Cove
 TPC at Hunter´s Run
 
 Augusta 2004 when it is released and I know Alan Toft has a new course or two coming soon.