rec.autos.simulators

Are you running ICR2 under windows95?  If so, DONT!  Use it under DOS
and you will find it much easier to drive.  The speed of the display
makes a big difference on your ability to control the car.  Try
turnong off some of the deatil until the graphics are smooth.  

Also, the controller you are using makes a big difference.  Steering
wheel and pedals allow you to make fine adjustments while driving.
Joystick control is either on or off, which tends to make you skid and
slip more.  

It is true Indy Car II is much more difficult to drive than GP2, but
if you can spend some time learning it, it is worth it.  I get so into
ICR2 that I can't sleep after racing because I am so wound up.  In
fact I actually beleive the stress is taking some time off my life.  I
even have to remeber to breath while I am racing.

I personally much prefer realism over computer simulation.  This way
you are actually as close to the real thing as posiible, and not just
doing what the computer needs in order to win the race.  

Paul

ICR2 is almost too difficult to drive for a normal person to have fun
without crashing. But then what do you think would happen if you tried to
drive a real Indy car in traffic at 180MPH? Probably crash on the first
lap! Real race drivers have exceptional skills and years of practice
before they drive Indy or F1 cars.

GP2, on the other hand, seems to be either glued down or spinning into
the gravel traps; no middle ground there.  I have seen F1 cars on
television driven much more loosely than that without spinning.  F1 cars
are much lighter than Indycars (roughly 250 lbs., I believe), and
therefore should be a little more "glued down" than Indycars.  Perhaps
if each sim drove a little more like the other, they would both be more
realistic.  
--
Matt & Audrey Lewis

I have both ICR2 and GP2.  The latter drives like the car is on rails.  The
former drives like a big cadillac on ice with summer tires -- very tricky
to control.  Does a real Indycar drive so miserably compared to an F1 car?
I have to be so precise, so delicate with the brakes, throttle and steering
with ICR2, whereas with GP2, I can jab and stab and yank my way around the
track without the car sliding into the barrier.  

If anything, F1 cars should be a lot more sensitive to driver's input than
Indycar due to their aerodynamic difference.

"At the beginning of any project, a high level of e***ment
can be found with a low level of execution." - Trevor Harris

Oh, yes.
Most cars are really not "driven on rails" the way one might think.  In
reality, race cars are actually drifting.  There is what is called slip
angle, the difference between where the car is actually going and where the
tires are pointing as they turn.  If the angle is greater in the back, you
get oversteering.  Greater at the front, and the car "pushes." Even a car
that has been sucessfully set up to handle neutrally is subject to this.
Only that the slip angles on each wheel are more or less equal.

Indy cars are more typical of race cars in general.  Even though
performance is phenomenal, they do not benefit from the hyperbolic
technology available in F1 (even with restrictions).  They are larger and
heavier than F1 cars, and with considerable less available grip.  It
requires a different driving technique.  In fact, one of the things both
Michael Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve have commented on was how they had
to adjust to the incredible grip of F1 cars.  They had to adjust to greatly
reduced braking distances, and cars that were very "twitchy."  The
difference was, apparently, great.

F1 drivers like Nigel Mansell, who made the move to Indy Cars a few years
ago, have expressed feelings almost identical to yours!

I'd say your comments are an indication that the designers did their job, I
suppose, in designing the driving models for their sims.  Maybe this means
they are in the right direction, after all.  Good for us.

BTW, I've never actually driven anything close to either, but I did have
the opportunity to drive a friend's IMSA GTU car a few years ago.  Of
course, I was too busy "hanging on to the tiger's tail" to notice anything
about slip angles!

L.S.

That is great but I don't have hours upon years of time to practice a damn
video game. ICR2 needed to be a bit  more playable for people with less
patients. But as far as N2 is concerned, IT SUCKS. The car still wiggles
all over the track and it is nearly impossible to stay still between two
cars when running 3 a***. As far as GP2, well I was pleased with the way
the controls worked. I though the interface sucked and the joystick set up
was not easy to figure out but that's no big deal. GP2 is a derivable sim
and I have more fun playing it over ICR2 which requires high degrees of
concentration.

Eric

First, have you tried ICR2 with the patch? It really improved the handling
and made the Indycar handling seem much more realistic, no more of those
uncontrollable spins, you can actually swing the back end out a bit without
the whole car going into spin mode.

Second, if you haven't done so, then try driving GP2 with all the help options
off, it is not so easy to drive anymore once you have turned off steering
help, brake help, opposite-lock help etc.

Finally even in real life, there are BIG differences between an Indycar
and a Formula 1 car, Indycars are much heavier and have worse braking,
as well as having turbo engines, so you should expect them to be a bit
more like a Caddilac on ice with summer tires <G>

Not flaming either game here, I am a big fan of both games and both series.

Cheers.

--John
--
 Note: my real e-mail address is below. Delete the asterisks.
------------------------------+--------------------------

  Seattle, Washington USA.    |    http://www.cool.com/~jsilva

no, more like you need to get some skill.

most likely your controler it the problem here.

-J.D. Ellis
--
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http://www.uc.edu/~ellisjn

Take the sign that says NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE.  Does this mean
that as long as I have on a shirt and shoes I can take off my pants and
still get the bacon cheeseburger?
                        -Lewis Grizzard

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<< I find ICR2 more real than GP2.  I sense little "too much game" rather
than
the simulator in GP2.  If you ever drive at the limit of the car, you know

what I mean.

If anything, F1 cars should be a lot more sensitive to driver's input than

Indycar due to their aerodynamic difference. >>

 Well, I won the San Diego SCCA A/Street Prepared autocross title last
year (in a real car), and I think GP2 is the more realistic simulation. If
you aren't sliding your GP2 car around, you aren't going fast enough. The
simulated feedback from the brakes and the way your car reacts on the
limit is more realisic in GP2. The only reason the ICR2 cars slide more is
that the program gives you less warning when the limit is reached.
 Things in ICR2 happen slower than they do in my 3200lb Corvette. ICR2
cars are just too easy to drive.

Robin O. Brigstocke
A/Street Prepared Champion
SCCA San Diego Region
'89 Corvette #351

Let me ask you a small question William.

How many hours did you spend perfecting your driving on these sims. I bet
it is not a small amount. My point here is that I could easily drive good
with these sims if I spent hours upon hours praticing them. However I don't
have the time so don't you think it would be fair to the public if these
game companies offered options to help out the situation. I'm not talking
about steering help, that sucks, I mean making the car stick a little
better to the track etc....At one point I was pretty damn good at ICR2 but
I had to spend hours playing to keep my skills sharp. The steering
interface on GP2 is really playable. Since the rate of steering increases
as you turn, it keeps the chance of over reacting to a minimum. I think
Papyrus could have learned from this but they choose to stick with their
same old driver since ICR1. There have been absolutely no improvements
since the first version.  Thanks for responding but your slight insult was
not called for.

Eric

        ok you're right.  I was not being very mature.  I'm just scared that
all PC sims will be Ridge Racer clones soon as the console/PC lines are
being meshed.  
        Many people have the "twichy" control problem in papy software.  Some
things to try:

1 get a wheel with big lock to lock
2 get a wheel with good restance
3 use non-linear stearing
4 play around with the wheel lock
5 stiffen front shocks (100%)
6 losen reaar shocks (0%)
7 set front anti-roll to the right
8 set rear anti roll to the left
9 raise rear wing more than front (ex. if you have ft 15 deg and rear 10
deg then switch them)

        Hope this helps and hope you can forgive my flames

In GP2, I never got hang of the controls (that joy stick sensitivity thing
which slows down the input at higher speed???).  I also found that once you
start sliding in GP2, I was going around no matter what I did.  I felt
absolutely no sense of controlling the car, rather I felt like I was playing a
cheap Nintendo game.

Just to show you where I come from, I am a member of Texas A&M Sports Car
Club.  Yes bunch of college kids who steal bunch of trophys every year at SCCA
Solo II National (I've never attended due to $$$ reason).  I have won top time
of the day beating some of the nation's best.  With my experience, things
happen a lot slower in SS Corvette (no experience in ASP Corvette) and ICR2
than FP 260Z I was driving at the time.

"At the beginning of any project, a high level of e***ment
can be found with a low level of execution." - Trevor Harris

than the simulator in GP2.  If you ever drive at the limit of the car, you
know what I mean. <<

Yes I agree.  I also get frustrated at the arcade-game dumb routines built
in to GP2.  I drive at ACE 1994 level with no aids at all and use a T2.
The sim seems 95% simulator and 5% dumb arcade routines.  This is
especially noticeably at the edge of adhesion with no driver aids.  The
spin-out response gets very frustrating.

For example you can clip an inside curb at low-ish speeds under little or
not acceleration and the sim will spin you around.  Very very unreal and a
pain when it happens.  The spin out rotation is most often 180d from the
direction you were travelling before the spin commenced, with no regard at
all to the appropriate physics of the situation.  On a less important note,
the menu system is one of the worst in modern day sims of any sort.  Just
count the number of actions required to change something !!

Having said all that I should add that GP2 is still my favourite racing
sim.  Its just a pity they don't get rid of these arcade-game leftovers.
Or do they actually think that people like the sim all the more because of
these sort of things, and therefore are loath to change them ?  I for one
use the sim IN SPITE of these annoying aspects.  They add nothing at all
IMO.

Regards

Phillip McNelley