rec.autos.simulators

I want to try it

There is no such thing anymore.  The GP2 demo exists (around Monza), but wow
it must be at least 4years old now.  For the price of GP2 (you should get it
at maximum 15$ US), you won't regret it.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Do yourself a favor and pick up ANY other GP Sim.  That thing needed a
10000Mhz machine to run.  A college course to navigate the menus. Had no
support for Voodoo/D3D.  If you went into a turn with a bunch of AI cars in
view in front OR behind, the system came to an absolute crawl.  It doesn't
drop frames, just time.  So when the system slows down, time stops.

couldn't run it as well as Papyrus Nascar 1.

Try F1RS.  At least it works.  Far nicer graphics. Needs less computer. Etc.

It's just like... still the best F1 sim even after all these years.  And
extremely customisable for anybody's needs.

Obviously not, most of the Pentium 2 on the market can run it incredibly
well in SVGA.  A simple powerfull classic Pentium is well enough for it.

You obviously have no knowledge of a tree-architecture menu.  The GUi is
excellent.

Now that's simple-minded.  Voodoo 1 chipset didn't exist when it was
released.  It would be like putting down Duke Nukem 3d because it doesn't
support D3d or Glide.  LOL nice try.

Etc.

Muahahaha.  Now -that- is a bad title, but everybody knows this ;)

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

:> That thing needed a 10000Mhz machine to run.

: Obviously not, most of the Pentium 2 on the market can run it incredibly
: well in SVGA.  A simple powerfull classic Pentium is well enough for it.

I still run it on a P166 notebook while commuting.  It's the ultimate
"portable" driving game precisely because it *doesn't* require 3D graphics
to run.  I can run it in VGA if I want all the cutesy textures, or I can
run it sans-textures in SVGA at a very respectable framerate.  After a few
laps of solid racing, I don't even notice the lack of textures.  Show me
any other decent F1 sim from the last few years that will run at all on a
low-end notebook.  Maybe I'm a market of one, but it's important to
me.  The huge sales figures for GP2, and it's 3rd party support, tell me
there are a lot of people out there with varying computer specs still
enjoying this one.  It has its flaws, but it's fun.

On a decent computer (PII-300+) and some of the incredibly well made 3rd
party tracks and menu pictures, this old sim takes on new life.  Until GP3
comes along, I still think GP2 has the nicest looking 3D models of any F1
sim, and that's with a fairly low poly count.

:> A college course to navigate the menus.

: You obviously have no knowledge of a tree-architecture menu.  The GUi is
: excellent.

I can zip up and down the menus faster than any other game.  Then again, I
liked the old Papy menu system as well.  I could load up a setup and hit
the tracks with a series of arrow key clicks which were burned into my
muscle memory.

Stephen

Try it? Buy it more like, and for only 4.99 from EB, you really can't go
wrong!

--
AG

Remove removes from address to remove anti-spam measures.
--

Never for me the lowered banner, never the last endeavour!
                                            (Damon Hill - 16th June 1999)

Why? If not from EB he can still buy it on-line for the same price.

--

Best regards,

The Phoenix

The biggest problem and fault of gp2 was/is the real-time problem.
When it gets crowded, the framerate doesn't drop, everything just goes
slower, removing all feeling of speed and driving.
I installed it a couple of months ago on my PII-450, and finally I was
able to run it in SVGA. Still the cpu usage wasn't at a constant 100%,
even with all options on, I sometimes got 100%, sometimes 120%, again
removing all feeling of speed and driving.
Besides, GP2 really shows it age now.

I do have this knowlegde, but I agree that the menu it quite
clumbersome, not very user-friendly. Everytime I wanted to change an
option, it costed me quite some keypresses to find it.

True. A 3dfx patch would have been great for GP2...

I never liked f1rs either, but it gave me more fun than gp2.

GP2 was a real dissappointment for me. I loved GP1, played it lots of
times, and won the championship on the highest level. GP2 had
everything in it, but the slowmo problem spoiled it all for me.
I really hope that GP3 doesn't have this fault.

Andre

Exactly. It's true it is still a hog to run at full detail, but that is the
only compensation for this great piece of art.  Incredible customisation.
What other sim give you the possibility to re-act every F1 year since
20years ?  There is patch everywhere for that.  I can say that racing Gilles
Villeneuve's Ferrari around Long Beach is a blast (especially since you can
edit some power ratio to create old engine performances).

OMG Steve we think the same way.  Icr2 has for me the ultimate GUi (the Dos
version).  I could go anywhere using my keyboard, and darn I was incredibly
fast for that!!!  I miss keyboard-controlled graphical user interface today
that's for sure.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

You are right here.  There isn't one that gives full sensation of what
Formula 1 really is.  But I'll say that Gp2 is the one the closest at the
moment.

Yes, but it aged pretty well.  It was the last of the non-3d batch of games.
The real-time problem could be solved if you could get 25fps everywhere.
Plus, I still say the SVGA graphics are the best I have ever seen.  Very
deep and sharp detail, nice color palette.

But Voodoo cards did not exist/were not popular at all.  Take Duke Nukem 3d
as an analogy.  Boy I agree they both would look great, but that's not a
reason to not play them.  We have to accept them as history softwares which
pushed the limits of non-3d acceleration 8)

My memory fails but didn't F1GP also suffer from the slomo problems, but
nobody remembers because it ran very fast ?  Not 100% here.  I only raced
F1GP with a 386 so it actually ran pretty well.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I can also say that the new Hockenheimring layout is a total disaster. Not
only by looking at the trackmap, but also by driving a few virtual laps
around it after an hour work of trackediting. What sim has those
possibilities? I honestly don't know.

The BAD thing ofcourse, is that it's not very likely that GP3 will have the
same options to customize the game (certainly not out of the box), and
that's what made GP2 so great.

Where can we get the new (ouch I also can't imagine how big the changes
are.. another scrapped track) Hockenheim track for GP2 ? Made some quick
searches and it's impossible to find.  The only one I can find is the short
track, where some Touring Car and Sports Car race.  I loved the old Hocke,
it was a blast to see those cars with absolutely NO wing angle go full
throttle in the woods, at incredible speeds.  I was told that the sounds
reverbs all around the forest, making an incredible feeling of "being at a
F1 track", more than any F1 track on the circuit.

Who knows ? When you develop more than 1 title you simply do not restart
everything from scratch.  You already have a big code base, why start from
zero? The GPL game engine has roots from the old game engine also.  Look at
F1GP, it still has a file architecture the same as Gp2.  And there is 6years
between them.  Geoff is still making most of the work by himself.  From the
look of the GP3 screenshots, you can see the roots from Gp2, so why would it
be different for Gp3 ? ;)

Same for Papyrus.  The file architecture in all their titles (except SODA)
is the same.  Same .dat file with TRK's, 3do's, etc..  I say that it's
normal things will be different, but after a year or so we will be able to
make all we have done for Gp2.  Let's hope so!

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."