rec.autos.simulators

Or maybe I don't *need* to decide which is best as long as I'm having
fun.

This morning I reinstalled F12002 & the GTR2002 mod, and I must confess
it left me rather unmoved in a week in which I've driven so many decent
sims. *Beautiful* sounds, an inspiration all in themselves, but
something not quite right for me, a feeling carried over from the main
F2002 heart of the sim. So I ended up in N2003 at the Ring, then GPL at
IoM, then LFS, where I stumbled across a combination of car and track
which, here and now, has hit a sweet spot.

No doubt by the time I've had some sleep it will all have changed (it
seems to have done every other day this week!) But the RB4 at the
classic South City track feels very good indeed at the moment,
especially as you push hard through that underpass at the end of the
first straight. With a couple of laps in the tyres I can feel all sorts
of things happening to the car as I struggle to maintain speed and
control. It's really rather good, but racing the same car at Blackwood I
get far less of a sense of involvement... which I guess means I'm the
problem not LFS :-) Anyway, it's a combination I recommend.

It's been a crazy sort of week. I don't think I've ever tried to like so
many sims in such a short space of time. I guess we should be very
grateful there's this kind of choice... it's certainly not a problem we
have over in the flight-sim group!

Andrew "wasn't I supposed to be doing some work today?" McP

Willem

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:41 +0100 (BST),

I installed NetKar, LFS & reinstalled Rally Trophy after stumbling on some
patches.

The "problem" is that my history of sims started 13 years ago and the rate
of improvement was staggering in all areas (physics, graphics, sound etc.)
right up until the GPL demo in '98.

I would love a sim and then a new one would come out with better everything
and the year old sim would be ditched for the new one. I yearned for a
situation where there were several sims of different genres (rally, open
wheel & touring cars) but there was always one great sim. Even Nascar1 was
the sim for a year because of the improvements in all areas (I ended up
turning it into a 2 track touring car series).

The wow factor has not reappeared since the GPL demo, the first race
against the AI in the full release, first online race and finally first
league race.

There has been some interesting stuff, maybe some as good as GPL in some
areas. Listening to Nascar2003 coming down the gears into the slow corners
at Watkins is cool - but the school bus experience doesn't wash.

It is *not* a case of resistance to change from GPL - every now and then I
go through a week like this and want to find something new and better - and
it is not through lack of commitment.

Maybe there are some settings in one of the new sims that will get that
feel right, yet GPL managed that out of the box - even with a pig of a
setup in the demo.

Having achieved my desire for a number of decent titles to spread my race
time I now yearn for that wow feeling when I fire up a new sim for the
first time :)

Cheers
Tony

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I may well find a similar combination in GTR2002. I tried several cars
this morning, remembered what a handful the Lister & Marcos are, but was
quite surprised at how manageable the Ferrari seemed to be. Maybe I
should concentrate on that car for a while and try to give the mod a
real chance. I suspect I need to work on my car & controller setup as
well.

It may just be that LFS's RB4 has a default setup which just suits my
driving style... or lack of it :-)

Andrew McP

The trouble with that is that those '67 cars were pretty exciting
rides... far too much power, far too little grip. Anything else is going
to feel tame in comparison unless it's very well done indeed. Which
means we're looking for something quite subtle... something that
immediately matches the "this is so right" feeling many of us got from
those first few minutes in the GPL demo, yet has all the subtleties
which GPL lacks... and those subtleties are, by their very nature, er...
subtle :-)

So, er... what? I've no idea. I should've gone to bed 2.5 hours ago,
it's 2:30am by local bodyclock time and I'm well into talking bollox
territory. Not that I generally have to stay up late to talk bollox ;-)

Andrew McP

Imagine a driver type game but with GPL like physics. Imagine an online
version of the Bullit car chase. Imagine a GPL engined ice racing sim - but
with enhance collision detection! Imagine... (isn't there a song about
this!)

Maybe not a head & shoulders improvement but at least an evolution of GPL
for open wheeled, touring car or rally would be better than trying and
failing to see if something new matches it.

Cheers
Tony

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Damn, i almost got a tear in my eye... sigh... I couldnt agree more...

Peter

From my vast experience of about one week, I have really mixed feelings over
the "F1-2002 family". Actually I've never tried F1-2002, only the mods for
it, but some mods feel great, or even cars within mods, whereas others feel
very strange.

For example trying some of the cars at Silverstone in the last while the
Zonda feels hideous - maybe I can't get a setup , or maybe I got the SLF
version of it, but whatever I do it's pogo-ing it's way around the Luffield
section in an awful manner - very unrealistic feeling. Then I try the 360 an
it feels fine - still a bit strange in those sections, the bumps induce far
more energy in the car than I would have imagined, but it's a lot better.

Sugo is a similar feeling - Lister Storm felt hideous, but the M3 was a
riot, and behaving as I would imagine.

Not enough experience at present of the mods, cars, engine or even
sim-racing to draw any conclusion from these observations, but any love
affair is on-hold for now!

Can't help but agree that a wide range is good, but for me the downside is
that it diffuses people effort. Not only in terms of add-ons, since track
converters, painters etc work on a huge variety of items thus reducing what
is available for each sim, but also for drivers - there aren't yet that many
online racers, fewer yet that you'd want to race regularly, and with those
small-ish numbers spread over a larger number of sims it's difficult to find
good races (or to practice sufficient games/mods to be competitive enough in
each to get a good level).

One thing I liked about GPL was that so many people used the same game
engine and rapidly downloaded any new tracks etc, so there was a very large
community of talented racers, experienced in the same cars at the same
tracks, as well as an equally talented community developing for a great sim.
Choice is also good, but that is nice too!

Cheers!
John

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:)

Gerry

:)

Regards,

Mark

Andrew McP

But the more I poke about, the less I can decide. I want bits of this
sim, bits from that, this car on that track with this view and... And it
makes me appreciate the early days of GPL even more, because GPL did a
great job of pooling talent and enthusiasm (and criticism!)

I've got great respect for everyone who puts time and effort into the
many excellent sims & mods out there, but a big part of me still hopes
the N2003 codebase really is hiding something special that'll simplify
my sim-life considerably :-)

Andrew McP

So true!  Sometimes I think, 'Screw it, I'll just go back and play GPL'
Then I fire it up and the 36fps frame rate destroys the sense of reality
after playing GTR2002 at a liquid smooth 70fps+  Then the slipping and
sliding of the cars tyres (which feels like nothing I've ever driven in real
life) puts me off and I end up going back in search of some other sim....

Don't fret about it though, seeing Isle of Man in GPL is plenty of
reason to get back in. Not to mention Buenos Aires, Interlagos, the new
Brabham etc etc etc...

Regards, Rudy
(GPLRank -1.6)