rec.autos.simulators

by **David Schi** » Sun, 22 Mar 1998 04:00:00

My ISP is really spotty sometimes, I can see your posts, but not those
that you are responding to, even though I see them in dejanews. Could
be because of the different international areas. So I'll respond to
ttammi via your post :)

>> Ok, could you tell me which racing sims/games have these "different
>> harmonic content over different rpm ranges" well implemented as you
>> are racing, so that I can try them out? So far I've tried for example
>> CPR demo, TOCA, Psygnosis F1 demo, Ultimate Race Pro, Nascar 2, does
>> any of these have it? I can't say any of them have made me say "Gee
>> this is exactly how F1RS should sound". I agree the engine sound in
>> Ultimate Race Pro is more manly than in F1RS, but I'm not sure F1 cars
>> should sound like that anyway. ;-)

While its irrelevant what other sims do, GP2 does provide different
sound samples for acceleration and de-acceleration. It also has the
sound modulated when the car travels over bumps or a wheel goes over a
curb. If I recall correctly, CPR also caused the engine sound to
reflect the bounces over bumps as well as having much different
hamonics at low rpm versus high rpm. But its been quite a while since
I ran the CPR demo, and need to download it again.

There is such a thing as a graduated scale between "this is pathetic"
and "this is perfect". I certainly don't expect perfection or an
exact reproduction (imagine having a real F1 car in your livingroom),
but it is possible to make a more realistic sound than provided by a
single sound sample. Apparently you and others don't notice such
minute detail, so it doesn't matter to you. That's fine, but you (and
others) should realize that everyone has different opinions, that they
aren't necessarily complaining, and that calling their discussion a
derogatory term such as whinning is uncalled for. Thats all I will
say to you about this.

Yes, I agree with the volume issue. But I am not dissatisfied about
what is lacking, just expressing my concern that more could and should
be added in future releases. If GP3 arrives first, then that is
great, I'll get it also.

DS

by **ttam** » Sun, 22 Mar 1998 04:00:00

>>Ok, could you tell me which racing sims/games have these "different
>>harmonic content over different rpm ranges" well implemented as you
>>are racing, so that I can try them out?

>He said "a real engine" not that another sim already did it better.
>Just because no-one has done it properly so far doesn't mean that it
>shouldn't be set forth as a target.

Err, I thought that is the whole point. It isn't like F1RS is the
first driving sim people have played, yet many seem to say it has the
worst sounds of any driving game. I'm just interested to know which
F1 or Cart game has done the best ie. is the very closest to the real
thing. Some people have mentioned F1GP2, but on the other hand I have
also read its motor sounds are completely artificial. Go figure,
artificial motor sounds sound better than those recorded from a real
F1 car?

***

http://www.netlife.fi/users/ttammi/

by **Jeffrey Spruie** » Mon, 23 Mar 1998 04:00:00

My Dollars worth.
I have MS Cart PR. I think it's sounds much better than Psygnosis F1 (twingy
like a bunch of sine waves).
In Cart, I notice gear shifts with a nice strong pop, you can hear the shits
pop HARD. Up shifts and downshifts reverberate good as you can hear the
harmonics and the gears. Don't get me wrong it can be muched improved.
Besides the sounds and
fairly good 3D, it steering can be somewhat whacky. I found some good and
extremely bad settings.

My comments:

Need for Speed2 ____
totally crappy, the car levetate from the ground and look cheezy.
The sound is not realistic.

Psygnosis _____
I thought the control on the track was pretty good.
Sound is a decent simulation effort.

Test Drive 4 ______
A Joke. I really expect some nice clean rendering of the cars. Not.
The sound is a step backwards from what I can remember from the Amiga
version.
I remember hearing Turbo chargers kicking in and out with the Amiga version.
The early PC versions
used beeps to simulate engines sounds (he he he). Today's version is not
good. But for those how don'y
understand the hollow sound of a Mustang with FlowMaster, cats removed and
an H-Pipe won't understand tuned exhaust
music.

UbitSoft's ____
I don't know. But I think I will be dissappointed if the sound isn't better
or equal to MS Cart PR.

Developer's, please do something with the engine sounds! Improving that,
won't take away from the experience of those,
who don't care.

Please, one more comment: In MS Cart, there is a slamming engine sounds. It
has to be sampled. It is the PACER car. To hear it best, do an instant
replay of a race. Then view the replay in Blimb View, you will hear that
sucker pumping as if someone stuck a mic into the exhaust of a 351 or 440
V8.

Jeff Spruiel

>> Err, I thought that is the whole point. It isn't like F1RS is the
>> first driving sim people have played, yet many seem to say it has the
>> worst sounds of any driving game. I'm just interested to know which
>> F1 or Cart game has done the best ie. is the very closest to the real
>> thing. Some people have mentioned F1GP2, but on the other hand I have
>> also read its motor sounds are completely artificial. Go figure,
>> artificial motor sounds sound better than those recorded from a real
>> F1 car?

> To bad Ubi forgot to record the different volumes at different
>throttle applications though. What a joke to go to all that trouble and
>not even do that! Or at least "sim" it :)

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

> I don't mind at all that Ubisoft is working on a new version of the
> game as I can understand the need to define a cutoff point after which
> any more work is considered a new product. And I don't mind at all
> paying $50 per year for a constantly improving and up-to-date F1 sim.

I disagree here. I think once every 2 years would be fair enough.
Also, it's been my experience with other products that major overhauls,
when needed, cannot be done in a 12 month period. This leads to a
product being flogged to death and just having selling points added and
the product gets old fast. In any case, if once/year I would expect good
discounts for owners of the previous version.
The most disappointing thing to me about F1RS is how good a sim it
is until you get off track. It then transforms from sim to kiddy arcade
thing in the blink of an eye. I just don't understand why they cut this
corner :) And added to this is the volume unmodulated engine sounds
which is also arcadey and this is even an insult to arcade titles. Also,
the failure to fix the D3D version is a disgrace. I conceed that I think
MS chose a bad API, but still, it's the std for 3D and should have been
properly supported. So far I have spent $300AUS for a Viper and never
use it thanks to F1RS and CPR.

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

> Err, I thought that is the whole point. It isn't like F1RS is the
> first driving sim people have played, yet many seem to say it has the
> worst sounds of any driving game. I'm just interested to know which
> F1 or Cart game has done the best ie. is the very closest to the real
> thing. Some people have mentioned F1GP2, but on the other hand I have
> also read its motor sounds are completely artificial. Go figure,
> artificial motor sounds sound better than those recorded from a real
> F1 car?

To bad Ubi forgot to record the different volumes at different
throttle applications though. What a joke to go to all that trouble and
not even do that! Or at least "sim" it :)

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

> My Dollars worth.
> I have MS Cart PR. I think it's sounds much better than Psygnosis F1 (twingy
> like a bunch of sine waves).
> In Cart, I notice gear shifts with a nice strong pop, you can hear the shits
> pop HARD. Up shifts and downshifts reverberate good as you can hear the
> harmonics and the gears. Don't get me wrong it can be muched improved.
> Besides the sounds and
> fairly good 3D, it steering can be somewhat whacky. I found some good and
> extremely bad settings.

Jeff, good post, and I especially enjoyed this;

"In Cart, I notice gear shifts with a nice strong pop, you can hear the
shits
pop HARD." ^^^^^

Now that's realism :)

by **Simo** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

>If you don`t like the engine sound , then go to http://www.f1racingsim.com
>there are plenty of new ones to chose from.

>>>Ok, could you tell me which racing sims/games have these "different
>>>harmonic content over different rpm ranges" well implemented as you
>>>are racing, so that I can try them out?

>>He said "a real engine" not that another sim already did it better.
>>Just because no-one has done it properly so far doesn't mean that it
>>shouldn't be set forth as a target.

>>Quite apart from all that, the engine sound in F1RS really is weedy
>>and unconvincing in the extreme, and realy lets down all of it's other
>>excellent qualities.

>>Cheers!
>>John

by **David Schi** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

>> I don't mind at all that Ubisoft is working on a new version of the
>> game as I can understand the need to define a cutoff point after which
>> any more work is considered a new product. And I don't mind at all
>> paying $50 per year for a constantly improving and up-to-date F1 sim.

> I disagree here. I think once every 2 years would be fair enough.

Well, if they do come out with a new version every year, then you can
just skip a version and buy one the next year, and everyone will be
satisfied :)

Valid point, but it does depend a lot on the resources that a company
has as to how often they can come out with a new version. And after
all, as long as it is still a F1 sim, its not like its going to be a
totally new setting. Of course a discount would always be appreciated
but some people spend $50 on a evening's entertainment, so for a piece
of software that I'd probably spend a 100 hours or more on, it seems
acceptable to me.

Agreed, but maybe they thought that it wasn't supposed to be an
off-road racing sim :)

The finite nature of resources would seem to explain all of the
deficiencies mentioned. Its evident from the reports of many
developers that D3D requires a considerable amount of extra work in
order to make it run acceptably on even the best 3d hardware
platforms.

D3D will probably be okay eventually, maybe DX7 or 8 :) Seems to be
quite adequate for alot of arcade shooter games (Forsaken, etc.) but
flight and auto sims seem to really stretch the limitations of even
the most powerful hardware on it. The primary goal of D3D is to
target the widest amount of hardware, which it does well, but at the
expense of not achieving as high performance as a native port. But
that is another topic and I really don't want to go there.

DS

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 24 Mar 1998 04:00:00

> D3D will probably be okay eventually, maybe DX7 or 8 :) Seems to be
> quite adequate for alot of arcade shooter games (Forsaken, etc.) but
> flight and auto sims seem to really stretch the limitations of even
> the most powerful hardware on it. The primary goal of D3D is to
> target the widest amount of hardware, which it does well, but at the
> expense of not achieving as high performance as a native port. But
> that is another topic and I really don't want to go there.

> DS

Actually, let me take you there :) Well, not really. But I did read
somewhere the other day that MS is looking at backing down on the D3D
API and basing it on Open GL or Glide. Sorry, can't remember which - too
many ***y API's :)

by **John Walla** » Wed, 25 Mar 1998 04:00:00

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998 13:17:01 -0800, "Jeffrey Spruiel"

>In Cart, I notice gear shifts with a nice strong pop, you can hear the shits
>pop HARD.

I'd recommend a few less beans and go see your family doctor
immediately.

Cheers!
John

by **Tony R** » Wed, 25 Mar 1998 04:00:00

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998 13:41:41 -0600, "Greg Cisko"

>>Quite apart from all that, the engine sound in F1RS really is weedy
>>and unconvincing in the extreme, and realy lets down all of it's other0.bnm.
>>excellent qualities.

>Not surprisingly I disagree. I like the F1RS sounds (except for that
>grating downshift sound you sometimes get). But I guess that is
>the result of me not being a real racecar driver or something.

That downshift sound is easily removed using a util such as Cool Edit
by editing the file in f1datab/resson/ called bnk_0.bnm.
Just replace the downshift sound with silence and you wont hear it
anymore. I think there's even any easier way but I've yet to test it.
The sound can even be replaced with that from GP2, if you prefer it.
In fact, someone has made the GP2 engine and downshift sound available
at http://www.f1racingsim.com/

Tony

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