rec.autos.simulators

Same way as usual. If you're going too fast you crash ;-)

How do you drive your car in RL? If the posted speed limit was 50mph, would
you take a sharp corner at 50mph, or would you use your experience & slow
down a bit?

I tend to drive using the***pit view when racing, but in practice,
particularly at a new track, I'll switch to the outside view periodically to
check how close I can get to a kerb, or to check the speed in, through or at
the exit of corners to see if a setup change has helped.

But when I'm racing, I just go as fast as I can until I've caught the car in
front (if I can), and if there's a big gap (or I'm in the lead), I run just
fast enough to stay there. The speedo doesn't come into it.

Malc.

 Through trial and error in the game, I have been using the engine
sounds to figure out how fast I'm going.  Using the manual
transmission over the automatic seems to give more hints, too.

  How do you know when a race is over?  What happens exactly?  I found
a good website on tweaking the game, it suggested racing with a
training car instead of the default cars.  I got into a race and
actually passed a few cars, ran several laps (it seemed like 7-8)
until I never saw any more cars on the track, then exited the game to
the menu, saw a "Clark wins Monza" screen.  Is it suppossed to give a
message or something?  And if you don't place in the top 6, how do you
know your position?  I guess I don't see how an arcade counter could
have ruined this game, if you could turn it off.

To use a different analogy then, how do you know how fast to take a corner
(the first few times you do it) in any other driving game?
The speedo will tell you how fast you are going, not how fast you should go.

This is how alot of people probably do it, but you can change the gearing,
so it only works if you stick to one car & one setup at a particular track.
Practice is the main answer. It's a steep learning curve as you say, but
you'll work it out if you keep at it. Some drivers are better at judging the
'limit' than others, which is why some are faster, and some are slower.
I've been racing gpl for 4 years & I'm still learning ;-)

The race is over when you see the man with the chequered flag at the
start/finish line. Your pitboard will also tell you how many laps are left
to go.
The "Clark wins Monza" message comes up when the race has finished.
If you had won, it would say "e f wins Monza" etc.
If you want to know your finishing position, use the left part of the menu
screen (where the track map is) to see. There are left/right toggle buttons
& page markers there to show about 4 or 5 different pages of detail, like a
book.

The training cars have less power & less grip, so if you make a mistake,
it'll all happen a bit more slowly, & it should be easier to control.
They're alot of fun, but you can't race them against the ai (who use GP
cars) unless you do some tweaking.

Try a few practice laps round Monza in a trainer car until you can do 3 or 4
consistent laps without spinning off, then try a gain in the GP car. The
braking points & so on will be similar.

Malc.

  I notice the pitboard, but I can't decipher it.  It's all gibberish
to me, and the manual seems to be blank on it.

  BTW, I got DQ at the end of a race in the event list.  What does
that mean? Disqualified?  I must have drove 8-10 laps on a 6 lap race,
and the game didn't seem to end until I pressed <Esc> then <return>
(I'm expecting something like an end you get in Need For Speed, the
camera pans away from the car or something?).  I kept seeing a DO
(might have been DQ, my eyesight is bad) on the pitboard.

  Yes, I figured out how to enable racing the trainers, but it's
annoying to have to mess with all those files and patches.

  I can drive the trainer car OK on monza, I get consistent lap
speeds, but the GP cars have too much power and I***up all the
time.

You probably drove backward (i.e. the wrong direction) on the track and got
disqualified. It's easy to do after a crash if you don't know the track
layout well. I'm not sure exactly how far you have to drive against traffic
to get DQ'd.

The game will kick you out of your car end eventually after a race but it
takes a few minutes (maybe as long as 5 or 10, not sure). This allows you to
drive a "cool down" lap and go back to your pits. You should have seen "Pit
In" on your pitboard each time you went by the pits after the race was over.

It's not vital to read it, but the top right will tell you eg "L4 " if you
have 4 laps to go. Top left says eg "P2" meaning you're in 2nd place.
The lower bit is the gap to the car in front & behind. You can ignore that
if you want & just use your forward view & mirrors.
I usually only get chance to read one thing per lap.

Nice one. Keep practicing.

Malc.

That's a good point.  When I'm tuning gearing for my league races
(www.ukdirt.co.uk) Nascar Heat short track UK racing mod, I'll use the
speedometer to guage my top speed before turn in n brake for the next turn-
this way I can tell if I've carried enough speed through the previous turn,
and if my acceleration is optimal for the length of the straight.  So I
guess I'm making use of the "extra telemetry".  For GPL, you can watch your
replays using the F10 chase view which will show you entry/exit speeds of
corners, you could even go the whole hog and download GPL Replay Analyser,
which tells you a shed load about your lap, and can map your replay lap
against another replay lap (eg from a faster driver) so you can see where
your lines etc should be.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way of getting speed readouts in
***pit view for GPL- just about everything else has been hacked onto it
over the years :-)

cheers
John

 I probably saw it, but couldn't read it.  I remember something about
"Pit" on the board.  Next couple of times I passed, I saw what looked
like two double zeros- must have been DQ.  That's where I think an
arcade racing display would have been helpful.

  Contrary to your above statement, I can drive GPL much better with a
gamepad.  With a wheel, it's a real chore, I end up driving off the
track far too much- there's a big delay for braking too.  Need for
Speed, is, at the moment, sub par.  I can't make the fast ***
turns around corners I can with the gamepad.  The wheel seems to work
good in only two games- Nascar Heat and Hard Truck 3, and I think it
comes down to the slower, more precise turning. Maybe the force
feedback drive is also affecting the speed.

  A wheel is fun, more realistic, but better than a gsamepad?  That's
a tough call.