rec.autos.simulators

I'd often like to take a little wing in or out- the car handles
differently in the race. I think I've even found that some sets of
tires wear/act differently  than others, but that is hard to prove.
(Sony- is this true!?! That certainly would be true to life...). Also,
there are times (like when I go out on a half-tank) I'd like to put
soft tires on instead of hard, but I don't even know if that is
possible, since I haven't had time to study the pit menu in the brief
time alotted.

I'm surprised if you wouldn't agree that it should be possible to
pause the game to set up the pit stop- I think it is a fair proposal,
given that normally a driver would have done this all through the race
on the radio with the crew chief.

At Michigan, I've lost a couple of races because on the third pit
stop, for some reason, the pit defaulted to a "no fuel" pit, and in
the rush in, I failed to notice it or change it in time. SO I left the
pits without fuel!!! That sucked.

BTW- anybody else notice some *very wierd* scoring going on at
Michigan and... Cleveland (I think)? I have witnessed on a few
occasions that my final listing shows me different from what I know I
came in- like, I came in 4th and it shows me in 11th, or 8th. What is
that about? If I am being penalized for restarting or some sort of
"imaginary black flagging", that's OK with me... but I'd like to know
why!

ALso- I love this sim, without a doubt... but another gripe: can any
of you finish any given race without getting ***ly discharged from
the race by another car at Mid-Ohio? The level of aggressiveness of
the other cars there is... outrageous. It is fun if I'm doing  a
single race... but it is unnerving in a season race. I find myself
deliberately zipping off early over the grass to avoid the ***
ramming by cars behind me. Anybody else notice this?

Yes, I have had a scoring error, but it occurred when I crossed finish line
(checkered flag) and promptly hit start-went from 1st place finish to 10th
in the results screen.  I now wait for program to bring up results or at
least wait 5-10 secs before hitting start at conclusion of race.  No other
scoring probs noted.  Yeah, Mid-Ohio has too much AI aggressiveness.  I can
qual on pole, but have to drive way over my head just to keep out of last
place in a race.  No way can I brake as hard as AI (for now anyway).  I'll
look at car setup and see if I can pick up some race performance.  What a
pretty track-accuracy of the layout much better than papyrus version.  I
really like this sim for the playstation, only wish it could be patched to
remove some of the annoying things.

I'm sure the timing is off a little. I had come in 9th at Cleveland because
thats what the screen said before it went into the replay. When I saw the
standings. It said I was 10th. Also I've seen by qualify time get 3 tens of
a second added to it from what the leader board had said.

Mark

        Soft tires wear out faster but have better traction, and ***es
take longer to wear out and have crappier traction (as would be expected).

Jim Buck

Sony Interactive Studios America

*Note: any opinions expressed here are purely my own and
 not that of SISA, SCEA, or any other Sony affiliation*

Jim Buck

Sony Interactive Studios America

*Note: any opinions expressed here are purely my own and
 not that of SISA, SCEA, or any other Sony affiliation*

On Tue, 21 Oct 1997 10:14:14 -0500, "Mark Baron"

                                            ben

CART WS might be a Great Sim Racer on the PSX, But it comes No where near
the
Simulation of PC games like CART 2 (Formally Indy Racing 2) Nascar 2, and
Grand Prix 2. You can Creat your own Cars, and Each games has Tons a of
Setup options. to setup your car. For Exmple its has all the same Setup of
Cart or F1:CE and it goes way past that you can Change  you cars wieght,
Brand of tire you want, and other so many other things it hard to list them
all. Until the PlayStation has a great Simulation Game these then you can
say. "I think it is one of the best simulators on the market at this time,
for any platform (console or PC)"

 the Simulation of PC games like CART 2 (Formally Indy Racing 2) Nascar 2, and
 Grand Prix 2.  <<

That depends upon your evaluation criteria.  I own both and enjoy both.  I've
 logged thousands of hours against the three sims you mention and love them,
 but obviously a Playstation isn't going to allow some of the customizability
 of a PC game, no matter how well its programmed.

 setup your car. For Exmple its has all the same Setup of Cart or F1:CE and it
 goes way past that you can Change  you cars wieght, Brand of tire you want,
 and other so many other things it hard to list them all. >>

Well, does IndyCar II have:

a) Brake lockups?
b) 3D physics model (i.e. cars can leave the track)
c) usable curbs?
d) tire barriers instead of just walls?
e) runoff areas?
f) split screen play for 2 players?
g) Rio?
h) Fontana?
i) Homestead?

These are all in CART World Series.  Given a choice to take one and not the
 other, I'd still take IndyCar II, but to dismiss CART World Series that
 lightly is, in my opinion, misinformed.

 think it is one of the best simulators on the market at this time,  for any
 platform (console or PC) <<

Actually, last year, there WAS a real port of NASCAR to the Playstation.
 Graphically it wasn't cutting edge, but all the sim stuff we love so much was
 ported over in terms of saving and loading setups, complete NASCAR setup
 options, full length races, all the tracks, etc.  

Ultimately, what you're doing is slamming the Playstation based upon whether or
 not you can customize the games, and obviously because of the inherent nature
 of the platform, the answer is always going to be no.  However, CART World
 Series and Formula One Championship Edition do have the virtue of being plug
 'n play (no futzing around with configurations), very fast, up to date with
 all the latest drivers and tracks.  CART World Series even models internal
 engine friction!

Randy
Randy Magruder
Staff Writer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com/

With the exception of the repackage of ICR2 in to CART2, I own all of
those. And many more. Racing sims have been big part of my life for
several years now, and I have spent... and *** amount of time with
ICR2 and GP2 and N2. Gone through a lot of joysticks, flight-yokes,
wheels, and pedals...

PC sims always have the edge in configurability. But at present  all
of them are basically outdated, hence aren't up to the visual quality
of the top console racers. F1CE, for all the faults I've percieved and
have ranted about here, nevertheless has a shocking precision to
visual detail that simply isn't there in my beloved (but outdated)
GP2. One hell of a lot harder to drive than GP2, though.  And CART-WS,
for me, easily has far-and-away the best detail of a CART sim out
there now, and has a drive model that is, IMO, superior to ICR2, for a
lot of reasons.

Let's see what CART-PR will be like... sure sounds like it will make
everything else obsolete.

Leave it to Randy- well thought out. But... no Rio. Unless that is one
of the "Bonus tracks" I've been unable to access! ;-)

What I miss most in all my fav PSX sims: Mirrors. The NASCAR mirror is
not useable for me. I definitely miss warring with cars behind me...
rear-view shot just doesn't do it.

CART-WS has a clutch option, doesn't it? I'm not using it!

Got it, like it.  But there, I definitely give N2 a higher grade. It
is clear that Papy wasn't taking (or didn't know how to take)
advantage of the PSX platform in particular, it was just making a
straight port, with some new bugs- and in that sense, N2 of course
would be better. But the PSX version even does a few things better
than the standard version of N2, and I am glad I own it.

Sims are now a serious thing for console's; that is exciting. Why? For
one thing, not only do they cost $150 instead of $3000, but they don't
go antique in 6 months! And the "Plug and Play" aspect you speak of
has a surprise programmer's plus to it: even though the console is the
same for everybody, the sims and games are *getting faster*, i.e.,
this years crop do a lot more than last years. How can that be? It
seems that being stuck with one singular platform has made designers
figure out how to get the most out of the design, and Sony apparently
tries to keep designers a*** of the new techniques, which still
seem to be improving as I write. PC programmers, OTOH, still need to
leave a lot of baggage in their programs to deal with the sea of
accelerator cards and operating system variations out there; nobody
can optimize for everything (or anything) to the same degree. Frankly,
DOS is still the best, and most figured-out... but nobody wants to
deal with it anymore, programmers nor gamers.

I think that given the current generation of PC race sims and the
associated hardware that seems necessary to go along with them, we ought
to just separate console games from their ever-more-distant PC
counterparts. End discussion.

-- Nhat-Viet Phi, alias "Toto"

-- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
-- Piano accompanist, Amiga user, Hot Wheels junkie.