rec.autos.simulators

All the online stuff :-)

No dislikes, but I would have liked a couple of very minor things, such
as the ability to run on the pits loop at the 'Ring, thereby eliminating
the need for an 8-minute out-lap... Also it would be cool to sort out
the AI so that they can't turn around on a sixpence :-)

That aside - gimme it now!

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

http://www.racesimcentral.net/
ICQ# 11257824
________________________________________________________________________________
           "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"

                             (Calvin & Hobbes)

-zAmboni

And of course official OpenGL support would be nice.

Bart Westra

And you know what happens to wabbits. We wam them, wun them off the woad and watch as they woll over into the bawwiers hehe

Mawk

    > But can you block F3's when running F1 race? I would like that...
    Yes.

      hmm, F3's running in an F1 race?  would they be considered to be "stibbaw"?  We call F1's in an F3 race "Wabbits"<g>
  --
  =========================================
  Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing?
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  Member of R.O.R. 1999
  http://www.pivot.net/~marknjess/ror.html
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  Racing online with the help of......

  Sim Racing Mag
  http://www.simracingmag.com/

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How come the body of the car is never damaged in a wreck? only the wheels,
suspension, engine, etc.  

Mawk

I know you are already aware of the many instances that the collision
detection seems utterly wacky.  The damage model can also return some pretty
strange results...although most of the problems in that regard seem to stem
from the inability of the tub to take damage.  If you ram a wall at 100
km/h, you could possibly build in a fudge factor of a few other parts
breaking to make up for the indestructible tub.  You shouldn't be able to
drive away unscathed.

The most important flaw in the simulation modelling of GPL is the lack of
pit stops.  It completely destroys the authenticity of the 1967 F1 racing
experience...too bad when the rest of the sim. is awesomely detailed and
caringly constructed.  Personally, I could care less if pit crew are
animated (or even visible!!), but if I have grazed an Armco at 90% of a
hard-fought race and caused myself a pretty minor problem, AND, I can make
it back to my pit stall, I want a new tire and an appropriate delay for it
to be changed.  That's what happened in real life and it couldn't be that
hard to program in a damage repair facility when returning to your pit
stall.  You don't even have to ask what to fix--if you go back to the pits,
it can only be for one reason!!!!!!!!  Even static time delay values could
be used for various types of damage.  Save the pit crew mistake modelling
and all the other bells and whistles for Nascar 3.

Lastly, the ability of the AI cars to be immune (or almost immune) from
driving off course (not to mention their speed advantage in a lot of
scenarios) is a real single-player problem.

GPL is the best racing simulator on the market today, as it was when it was
released last year.  It isn't perfect though, and it even has a few glaring
problems.  (Far, far fewer than Nascar Racing 1999, though, which is a huge
credit to the GPL development team since they weren't just updating an
existing product).

Marc.

 You can eliminate this by yourself: just place the pit stalls in the
track.ini behind (or before) the S/F line (like it is eg. in Watkins
Glen or Monza). Maybe even put them on the long straight or somewhere
else on the track.
Then you can do a timed lap out of the pits, with slightly warmed
tyres .

Yes, that is a strange thing. :-/

--
Matthias Flatt

Don McCorkle
Libertarian Motorsports

As regards pit stops, if you do want to recreate the experience then
limp back to the pits, sit in the stall for 10 seconds and press
Shift-R to get the damage fixed. I agree it would be "nice" to have
proper pit stops but it would be a lot nicer to see other things
incorporated. At the end of it all it comes down to priorities versus
time available.

Cheers!
John

I've thrashed this sim since it was released and to be perfectly honest I
find absolutely nothing to complain about insofar as the execution of the
game is concerned.

(I also have added too many third-party "graphics and audio enhancements" to
even consider blowing all that work away and having to start again.)

The only items that I would like to see addressed are really minor
"historical" things, such as having the ability to "select and drop" the
correct drivers onto the  correct grid positions for each race.  A few minor
adjustments to some inaccuracies in the shape of the cars would be nice
(Lotus, Honda and Eagle come to mind).

And of course, for all those out there who, like me, have a lifestyle in
which computer *** forms a minor part, the ability to save a race in
progress.

I think I've said it before (about a year ago!) but I'll say it again:-  it
is going to take a super effort by a super team to knock GPL off its perch.

--
Best regards,
Bruce.
======
The Stunned Mullet........seriously satirical stuff!
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
===============================================

Not that I couldn't live with the laggy mirrors but at least the
random crashes need to be fixed.

So, in the readme it is written:

"GPL would sometimes shut down improperly, causing some files to not
be saved, and some system settings to not be restored.  This seemed
to happen more often on slower systems.  This has been fixed.  These
changes also improved game performance by one or two percent."

Is this referring to the "This program has performed an illegal operation and
will be shut down" message that I occasionally get on my P166, usually in
high-speed crashes or spins? If so, can I have the patch yesterday?

J. P. Hovercraft

-----------------------------

This passage refers only to a problem that could arise when you exited
the program normally from the main menu.  GPL is a multi-threaded
program, and sometimes the threads would argue over the order in which
they would exit.  They would eventually become disgusted with each
other, and one would ExitProcess before yet another thread had a chance
to save some data.

Randy