rec.autos.simulators

Dear god, no wonder the world is so screwed up!

Milhouse

Check the posts on F1-2001 - discoveries to modify ini files to allow
windowed mode to get any decent framerates. More tweaks to lod settings
etc. Numerous posts regarding controller problems. Limit to two
controllers.

Then the bizarre ghost images in the mirrors if you had the current
detonator drivers running at the time of release - fixed by EA in timely
fashion it should be said.

Pretty much all of this has been fixed by the sim community. Our thanks
go out to them (and to the work on your own site, Ian)

CMR2 stutterd like hell for many until a fix was found re the sound card
configuration

Nascar 2002 required for many a tweak to get framerates back up after a
patch.

As for the man hours spent trying to fix the (IMHO) way below par AI in
F1-2001, I find it incredible that such experienced RASers should drive
GP4 for 3 laps, dismiss it as ***and delete/return it.

Just as people had F1-2001 running well on mid spec machines whilst
others on higher spec machines had to reduce the details to next to
nothing to get any frame rate in theearly days, the same is true to a
degree with GP4.

It runs fine on my 1.4 Athlon with a GF3 - admittedly not as many FPS as
F1-2002 but still acceptable. I think it looks better than F1-2002 which
has too cartoony a view for me - purely personal preference. I know
users which much more powerful machines are having trouble, suggesting
some tweaking may fix it.

Secondly my dual controller setup (Momo & Thrustmaster Modena/Formula
Pro hybrid) worked first time with split axis. Guess I may just have
been lucky.

The physics are subjective - F1-2002 gives a more involved ride, though
the default GP4 setups have a lot of wing. I haven't yet tried to fiddle
with them to see how reducing grip effects the experience - I am sure
that plenty will. The reason I haven't is because wheel to wheel racing
is so good. The AI are really excellent. The AI performance is
consistent with the human driver throughout a lap - my gripe with EAs
series.

The result is an immersive race. I am sure that a hotlap comparison
would favour F1-2002 for most here.

It may still be novelty time but I do think GP4 has potential as a
single player racing sim. The graphics engine is tardy - but it does
seem to be able to run at acceptable levels on even mid range machines
with
some time. Plus it still has those annoying things like black flag rules
that you really would expect to have gone by now. Mind you I considered
the GP3 graphics engine unplayable in comparison with other modern sims,
so I guess they had a lot to do!

With its poor AI and multiplayer limited to high bandwidth users only,
it would seem easy to argue F1-2001 is the disaster out of the box.
Seeing just how much has been done to it suggests that other new
releases should be given sufficient time before being dismissed after
several laps.

In conclusion I don't believe either GP4 nor F1-2002 will truly satisfy
this group. An F1/Cart sim to the quality of NR2002 is what we really
want - but that is hardly a discovery on my part. I am just not sure
that RAS should write off GP4 in preference to F1-2002 as a single
player racing sim just yet - though I may be alone.

Cheers

Tony

I'm well aware of the difference between the above thankyou, and stand by my
comments. To say that Geoff Crammond is "a very bad programmer" is plainly
stupid.

Johnny.

The GF4 Ti (especially in Ti4600 form) is a quantum leap. The memory
throughput of 20 Gb/sec is actually double that of a Ti500, and nearly 3
times that of a Ti200. A game like GP4 clearly requires as much memory
bandwidth from the card as possible, particularly at high-res. If you play
all your games at 800x600 then yes the difference would not be so marked.

The XPs are only 66Mhz different. One is a 2000+, the other a model 1900+.
It's evident that my cards are having much more of an influence on GP4
performance than the differing CPUs.

Maybe you ought to check your monitor, or your glasses :) The first time I
drove around Monaco on the XP2000+/GF4 Ti4600 system it was jaw-dropping !

I play pretty-much all the racing sims, to the exclusion of almost anything
else. I for one won't be going back to GP3 after trying GP4. Grand Prix 3 is
suddenly looking like a 20th century sim. :)

Johnny.

Again, my point.. What for? If you really insist and feel that it looks
great (which seems to be the case), then we're at a dead end here and will
just have to agree to disagree. However, in my case, I can't figure out what
exactly it needs cutting edge hardware for. Its engine looks dated compared
to games that came out 1+ years ago.

Driving around Monaco with everything set to max offers me very little more
compared to driving around it with calibrated settings. I tried both. The
buildings are still extremely low detail textures. The crowd are still
totally flat 2D cardboard cutouts, with the exception of a few flags
(animated with a total of 5ish frames looks like) totally static. It's not
far from GP2 tbh. They've been smoothed out and a tiny bit of detail added,
but to warrant the extra GPU and CPU needed it would really need to have
people up on the balconies waving and confetti flying.

--
Frode

I just drove the first 25 laps of a Melbourne race in the rain, and I
didn't have that much fun racing in a long time.

--
l8er
ronny

Your mouse has moved. Windows must be restarted for the change
to take effect. Reboot now?

Name one sim that needs the same hardware as GP4 does to achieve the same
visual appearance and framerates.

Not that I've actually tried every sim there is and can say for sure there
isn't such a beast, but based on what others say in this newsgroup it seems
highly unlikely.

My point keeps getting missed here, and it's that apart from minor graphical
tweaks it's just GP3.5. Except you need twice the rig to run it at the same
resolution and fps. If it had been a $15 upgrade meant to address XP
compatability and adding reflections to the car hood, no problem. But it's
not. It's marketed as the next big thing. Which it just ain't.

--
Frode

I was replying to the guy's comment that there was no 2D in the game.
Howcome noone around here bothers reading stuff in context.

One of the first things I noticed was how flat and out of place the
trackside objects looked. I guess it didn't help any that my position on the
Monaco grid placed me right in front of one of the cardboard spectators. If
it's meant to be seen at speed only, don't put them along the grid, I'd say.

didn't have that much fun racing in a long > time.

I have fun playing it too. Countrary to some others I'm not saying the game
is total crap. I'm just saying in graphical looks and performance, it's far
from cutting edge. When it comes to added features it's not worthy of a full
numerical increment.

--
Frode

With a GF4 you can have the speed of a GF3 but with FSAA and hardly a drop
in performance.
Thats what I'm talking about :)

definately worth it.
Plus my system isn't that costly....just buy the right CPU and you'll go a
long way..

--
System:
Asus P4S533


Gainward 128Mb Ti4200 Golden Sample 340/580Mhz
SBLive!
2 x 20GB Seagate Barracudda III's
Creative DVXR2
Aopen 24x CD Writer
Windows XP build 2600
3DMark2001 Default Score 12597

Whoppie. FSAA means so little to me that even in games where I get great FPS
with it enabled, I never do it. It certainly won't make the trackside
objects in GP4 more lifelike no matter how many x'ed FSAA you enable. It
won't make them any more detailed either. Or give the flags more lifelike
animations. In fact, I don't see why you found it relevant enough to make
this post...?

--
Frode

I thought you said you hated Papy-nazis? ; )

I think for most people in this group, realistic car handling and physics
are the No.1 priorities.  This is the reason that GP4 is being burned in
here - it seems to trip over badly at the first hurdle.  This is also the
reason that everyone gave F1 2001 a chance despite (overall) being a pretty
poor quality release.  F1 2002 is head and shoulders above everything else
in this most important department, and that's the main reason GP4 isn't
getting a look in.