rec.autos.simulators

Hi Malc,

The persons in GPL chat told me that passing the multiplayer screen and into
the race was automatic. You say not, so I'll work on the mouse problem.

your graphics card drivers .......What graphics card are you using?

Using Voodoo 3-2000 PCI card with last official 3dfx drivers, not o/clocked.
Works well in all games and I have many (100+), so I seldom look there for
problems. Upgrade is pending though, some games like UT2003 are a bit too
slow. Will try software rendering and maybe D3D driver, but I think if I can
just get the mouse operational it may solve everything. I'll first try
reverting back to the windows mouse drivers (using Logitech drivers). Is
there no way of selecting the green button through the keyboard?

Yes but not today (not on this work comp). Thanks for your interest.

When you initially join a race, gpl shows the multiplayer options screen and
a dialogue box that says "Connecting..." then "Connection established,
Welcome!" and so on. This will then automatically take you to the race
selection page, although only the host can change the settings. You then
have to click the green button to go to the race page, that's the one that
shows a video window top right, and your laptimes etc on the left. From
there, another click on the green button takes you to the car as usual.

I don't think there is a keyboard option to press the green button, so your
lack of mouse here may be the only problem. If there is a compatability
problem with your mouse/V3, using software rendering should eliminate it so
you can check that everything else works.

I used to use a V3 3000 (1.07 drivers) and Logitech mouse software too, so
I'd be surprised if that's the problem but you never know ;-)

You could try pressing the windows button on your keyboard, then alt-tab to
get your mouse back. I have to do this when running OpenGL in a window.

Malc.

Actually, I think Ctrl+Enter should work, just as it does offline.

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I didn't know that, thanks!

Malc.

Hallelujah!!! Joined a Silverstone race! It was the Logitech mouse drivers,
worked OK on Windows 98 default drivers. The game seemed stable enough, just
a few momentary glitches once or twice per lap. I guess I'll have to read
the manual and learn about the game now, I bought it years ago but only
tried it out for a few hours, pretty tough game.

After practice I found myself on the front of the grid for the race. I know
it's not my excellent driving, I measure my lap times with a calendar and
get lots of very close up views of the scenery. I guess those in the know
skip qualifying and just take their chances from the back of the grid.

Is the pit board the only in-game info? after I spun and rolled on the 3rd
corner it was a lonely race (I was watching the car in front to see if the
graphics were stable and not concentrating on driving - that's my story and
I'm sticking to it.) and didn't know what was going on elsewhere on the
track. Also, after the race, is there no results screen? How do you activate
in-car chat? I felt I owed the Lotus an apology after he clipped a
struggeling me.

Race setups: If I borrow someones settups off the web, are they
automatically applied at all tracks as in Microprose GP2, if there's one
thing I'm worse at than driving, its setting up my car.

I copied the requested 'core.ini' to disk to bring here and post but forgot
the disc at home. Still necessary?

Looks like online GPL could be fun but the learning curve is daunting.

Nice one! Glitches are usually related to connection quality. Pretty much
everyone gets them from time to time. Keep an eye on your quality meters
(the red bars in the top right corner while you are in-car or alt-L) and try
to pick servers with low ping times. You could also play around with the
graphics settings. Make sure you can get as close as you can to the 36fps
maximum.

Some do, some don't. Personally I always try to get a lap in qually but many
don't with pick-up (green) races. You may find it easier to start from the
back of the grid for your first few races, it can be pretty tough at the
front ;-)

While you are in the car, the pitboard & dashboard are your only clues. At
the top of the pitboard you have your race position (eg P4) and laps
remaining (eg L10) or time remaining in minutes (eg M3) in qually. Then you
have your gap to the car ahead in seconds (eg -1) and your gap to the car
behind (eg +1) with their surnames. If the name is blank, it's because they
only use the forename but most drivers that only use one name put it into
the surname bit so you'll see that on the pitboard.

If you cause an incident, press enter, type sry and press enter again. If
someone hits you & says sry, you usually reply np (no problem). You may also
see ta, thx, po (pit out, commonly used in praccy) pi (pit in) and so on.
It's not unusual for someone not to say sry or np, or chat at all during the
race, simply because they are concentrating on racing & don't have time to
chat. It can also be offputting to the other drivers, so chat is not that
common during the race.

To chat while in the car just press enter, type whatever you want to say and
press enter again.

When the race is over, save the replay if you want, and either wait for the
newspaper, or just exit the race. Most don't wait.

No you need to select the setup for that car & track, but it remembers that
choice for next time. Don't forget to add enough fuel for the number of laps
in the race + 2 gallons more to be on the safe side. This is no different
from racing off-line.

Not really, as long as it works that's the main thing, but there are loads
of tweaks you may want to try. Do a google group search for core.ini for
suggestions.

It's fun, almost always refreshingly polite and very rewarding when you get
it right. Practice is the key.

There's loads of resources for help with gpl, but try www.vroc.com for
starters. Read it ALL ;-)

Malc.

thx
except in mirrors, at 800 x 600 x 16. 640 x 480 is slower 'cause V3 drivers
are optimised for 800x600.

and press enter again.< Got it.

come. Maybe a trans-Atlantic postal delivery service problem.

Race setups: So if you set up for Kyalami and move to Monza, you'll still be
set up for Kyalami?

Maybe poke my head in on the weekend.

Doug

No, but next time you take that car back to Kyalami it'll remember the setup
you chose. Different tracks & different cars require different setups,
although all the car's setups for a given track will usually be broadly
similar. If you find a workable Silverstone setup for your chosen car, it'll
make a good enough starting point for any other fairly flat track, like
Kyalami or Monza.

You will eventually need to make or get setups for each car for each track.
Just counting the standard tracks that's 77 possible combinations if you
race them all. When people talk about having a Monster Rank, that's pretty
much what they mean. See here:

http://gplrank.schuerkamp.de/php-pub/gplrank.php

Just for now, stick to the default setup and just change the amount of fuel.
Once you can drive the car with those, then try different setups or do what
I and many others do, and make your own setups to see what makes you faster
& what makes you slower.

Malc.

GPLRank -39.43
Monster Rank -123.45

I would like to add one simple set up trick if I may.  One set up trick that
hardly requires any thought and is therefore perfect for beginners is to
lower the bump ***s.  The default setups at many tracks have the bump
***s so high that you can hit them during normal handling (particularly
under hard braking), and when that happens you lose a lot of traction and
stability.  If you lower the bump ***s so that they are 1.5 - 2 inches
less than the ride height you probably won't hit them any more and you will
find that a lot of GPL's nastier behavior disappears as a result.

The dead mouse problem returned this weekend and after much trial and error,
I found it wasn't the Logitech mouse drivers, sorry Logitech, but the
resolution. I tried 640x480 to see if the L-meter would come down and for
awhile failed to make the connection with the mouse problem. I can only
connect on 800x600. Maybe there are a few V3 guys out there that can learn
from this.

Joined a 20 player Zan....... race. Never been on this track before and made
a muck of it, can only improve from here. Got hit from behind on the grid
which knocked me out of GPL, out of the internet, out of Winvroc and back to
desktop. On returning, I found the ping had gone from green at the top of
the racelist to orange near the bottom. I guess really busy races are a no
no for my distant connection.

Practiced Monza offline for an hour and then joined a 10 player Monza race.
Q: How could my pitboard tell me at one stage that I was P11 in a 10 player
race? Got hit from behind on the grid (again), damn this clutch thing is a
***, keep falling in the hole. Assigned it now to the brake pedal and put
the brake on the wheel, time will tell. Finished the race without any
connection problems, last, thanks to an extended lapse in concentration on
lap 7/9. I was feeling pleased with myself that I was not running last but
then got lapped by the leader, which set my confidence meter back to 0.
Great potential for fun.

Downers: Joining posted races with only a couple of players and when the
race starts, finding I'm alone and they have all disconnected. Why post a
race if you don't wanna play? GPL chat, what a hostile environment. Like a
bunch of Orcs (as in Lord of the Rings)*** out, smoking something
illegal, with a 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Big exception for the
good-guys who were in there the first night I entered. Is it usually like
this?

I guess I'm getting overly chatty here, but I'm not going to try it in the
Orc room.

If your PC can show 36fps at your chosen resolution, it shouldn't affect
online play. I use the logitech driver included with windows for my pilot
mouse and never saw a mousepointer problem with GPL, even back when I was
running the V3.

The number of players in the race is of little relevance. Getting kicked out
to desktop on a *** accident happens to a lot of people. You're not alone
there. The reason the race went red is that you cannot join a race in
progress, regardless of it's ping, not because your connection went bad.

The server counts as a player too, if you haven't posted a time yet he ranks
ahead of you because he "connected" earlier.

You have to give it enough revs to spin the rear tyres a little when you let
out the clutch, then modulate the throttle to not let it get too bad until
road speed catches up. Don't let getting hit force you into trying something
outlandish like putting the brake on a button. Good, sensible online drivers
don't hit cars that bog down (or blow up) on the grid.

I hosted a pick-up race at Silverstone last night and though the 2nd place
Ferrari just about died when the flag was dropped, I didn't hit it and
neither did any the drivers behind me hit me. In fact, amazingly, there
wasn't even a turn 1 accident. We did lose several positions though (dropped
me to 8th).

There is... South Africa is not the end of the world, time difference is
usually managable and there are several South African drivers regularly
taking part in British and European leagues.

There's no need to feel down about your performance level. The bad news is
you have a big seat time handicap with respect to just about everyone out
there. The good news is, there's an enormous amount of experience and
resources around, so you can learn fast. Get yourself in a newbie friendly
league and ask the more experienced players, or keep posting questions here.

Most pick-up races on VROC are on servers which loop certain tracks, they
aren't hosted specifically. A couple of players will populate such a server
in the hopes of drawing more people in (market stand principle), when the
grid fails to flesh out these people will usually quit and try the same
thing on another server. During the races there's a lot of disconnects as
well as drivers feel they've been dropped out of contention and it isn't
worth their while to continue. This is just the way pick-up races go.

Not a clue, I don't hang out there much nowadays. Judging from the community
as a whole the Orcs should be the minority, though.

Like I said, beg or bluff your way into a league... solves a lot of the
above problems.

This place can be a bit terse at times as well... <g>

Jan.
=---

L is latency. Your speed of connection. Nothing to do with your resolution.

Bad idea to race online on a track you've never been on before. You'll
only cause problems for everyone else. You should only really go online
once you can drive consistent laps at a reasonable speed. We all go off
from time to time but it's much better for everyone if all the drivers
know the track.

  Got hit from behind on the grid

You should only join races where your ping is 300 or less (roughly). If
it's bigger than that you'll flicker on everyone elses screen and you'll
disappear and jump from side to side making it difficult for others to
race against you.

Might have had a late joiner.

  Got hit from behind on the grid (again), damn this clutch thing is a

Don't bother with it. Get the revs up to about 85% max and when the flag
drops just slam it into 1st gear.

  Finished the race without any

Don't worry about getting lapped. If the lead guy is doing 1.28's and
you're at 1.35 or so with a couple of offs he'll catch you in no time.
Just be courteous when you see the blue flags and move off the racing
line at a sensible place, back off a bit and let him though.

indeed

A lot of the servers are unmanned. They just tick over day after day
queueing up races.

  GPL chat, what a hostile environment. Like a

no. It's often very friendly but the chat gets a bit surreal sometimes!

please do. there's always someone there to chat with.

race.

Monza is probably the best place to learn your online skills, with a mix of
fast and slow drivers, plus newbies tend to gravitate towards any Monza race
because it's a simple track to learn. The first 10 or so online races I did
were at Monza, and it taught me how to be polite, and how to race wheel to
wheel.

It's hard work learning to control the car, but you'll learn alot more
quickly online with real opponents that you absolutely do not want to hit,
than racing a bunch of AI cars 'that don't really matter as long as you come
off better'.

I do this, at about 8000 rpm in the Lotus, then squeeze the throttle towards
the floor steadily, keeping the revs up, but avoiding too much wheelspin. Go
for second a little early of the redline to avoid over-revving it.
ime most drivers are not that quick off the line anyway, and unless you are
on pole or have cat-like reactions you'll only hit the car in front anyway.
Starts are the most dangerous part of any race, and practice here really
makes a difference. You'll get lots of practice though. Believe me you'll
start a whole lot more races than you'll finish ;-)

There's alot of experienced gpl'ers there, but a whole lot of lurkers too.
If you just watch the chat, you'll find out alot of stuff you probably
didn't want to know, but if you ask, and be patient, you'll get an answer.

If you see us in there, say hi ;-)

Malc.

it's a simple track to learn. < Now I'm really depressed!!! :-)

P6/10 offline and come last in the race, then I guess I'm not ready to play
with the big boys I suppose?

This I learned in my first lesson.

'I guess I'm getting overly chatty here, but I'm not going to try it in the
Orc room.' >  This place can be a bit terse at times as well... <g> < Shhh,
the Orcs haven't spotted me yet. ;-)

writes:

Why not?  As long as you can keep the car under control(not weaving all over
the place), you're usually welcome in any race.  Racing CLEAN is more respected
than racing FAST...

Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
GPLRank:-0.381
N2002 Rank:+17.59

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
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