rec.autos.simulators

I wanted to repost the following because these are issues I'd really like to
get some feedback on (the AI and sense of speed). These issues got lost in a
thread which turned into a CPR vs F1 debate, unfortunately (sim passion).
:)

I've said earlier that I do like F1 a lot, as well as CPR. I don't feel the
AI in CPR is as big an issue as some say, or such a plus in F1, for the
following reasons.
 I don't know about how some of you
compare to the AI in F1, but it's not that hard to beat. Most AI in the sims
I've tried aren't very hard to defeat with just a normal amount of practice.
I don't claim to be the best driver around either. I can name a half dozen
drivers at the Zone who can beat me probably 9 out of 10 times. I'm sure
they can/have easily
beaten the AI in most of the well known sims. Racing sims have a few more
years to go
before ANYONE can claim great AI IMO. It's just not possible, yet. That's
why
the multi-player option is so important for many serious sim drivers.
Car physics, track detail, graphics, sound, setups, and the overall feel of
the game are more important to me than AI. I want to feel like I'm driving a
CART car, and CPR does an excellent job of this.

The main problems I have
with F1 are the lack of an easy, well working multi play option, and the
sense of speed is just not there. It feels like I'm going
slow which makes it seem too easy. CPR definitely has a better, more
realistic sense of
speed. Significantly better. After getting burnt out on the available sims
last year, I tried and got hooked on POD (the base which F1 was built on)
and F1 feels like POD with Formula 1 cars. I've never driven
an F1 or Champ car, but I'd guess that I would  feel a little scared of the
speed and power that comes with these cars, and in F1, that fear is missing.

Dave

I think the lack of a sense of speed in F1RS is there on the really fast
tracks like Monza because there are very few objects close to the edge of
the track to give a visual reference to. For myself, when I am racing at
Monaco I really feel like I am flying at some points on the track, even
though the speeds are nothing compared to what you run at Monza. In
particular, the straightway from *** Square down to the Mirabeau corner
seems very fast and is quite a thrill.

Patrick Gilmore

practice.

Make sure you are running in "expert" mode with all driving aids turned off.
The F1RS AI are faster and more aggressive as you raise the mode.  They are
FAR superior to the CPR AI.  If you get so good that you can beat them in
full races, you can try two other options.  First, the bhp of the various
cars are accurately modeled, so try running one of the cars from a slower
team.  Second, there is a utility which lets you increase the bhp of the AI
cars.  Also, it is tougher to beat the AI when you run a long race and
mistakes on your part begin to take a major toll.

F1RS AI is pretty good.  They don't really seem computer generated to me.  I
agree that you can't beat human competition, but the AI are good to race
against if you want to race against a full field of cars.

I would agree that CPR has a better sense of speed.  I think it has to do
with the textures in the track.  You can really see it go by you better than
in F1RS.  Unfortunately, I had to turn too much detail off in CPR, so the
"track atmosphere" wasn't there.

--
Kevin
(Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email)

On Wed, 1 Apr 1998 13:45:52 -0500, "David G Fisher"

Then again, I think that if you're concentrating HARD, you don't feel
that anyway. I can't tell you how easy it is to 'slow down' a twisty
track when I am karting, but trust me, the more you do it, the more
you get used to it.  It really doesn't seem THAT fast.

I remember when I first played F1RS at Spa, the 'back nine' really
flew (I forget the name of that part, and the $%*^$#*& manual doesn't
have it either!) and the speed-sensation was incredible.

Now it seems dead slow. Trust me, you've probably gotten velocitized,
is all.

Jeff

I too like F1RS a lot and I really wanted to like CPR but the AI were so
terrible, for me anyway, that I removed it from my machine.  I saw in an
earlier post where you said that the primary problems with the AI were found
on the ovals and that on road courses and street courses the AI behaved much
better.  I can't comment on the ovals, don't have any use for them, but on the
one road course that I did try extensively, Laguna Seca, they were
intolerable.  

It's been quite a while since I've played it but my primary gripe as I
remembered it was that they seemed to take the "slow in-fast out" concept to
the extreme, braking way, way, way, too early and entering the corner way too
slow.  In fact, if my memory serves me correctly they were braking in the
middle of that slight left hand bend on the front straight which drove me
absolutely insane and then again in the middle of the short straight before
the first left hander that starts the climb up to the corkscrew.  That, my
friend, is***poor AI.

By comparison the AI in F1RS doesn't do anything amazingly stupid like
in CPR except maybe at a couple of tracks, Nurburgring and Monza come to mind,
where they slow down a bit too much in one section of the track.  But like you
said the perfect AI doesn't exist.  Also, the AI in CPR are terribly slow.  I
remember racing from the rear at Laguna Seca at the highest level and going
from worst to first in very short order.  In F1RS, OTOH, I can also blow away
the AI at the highest level but, and to me this is one of the great features
of F1RS, if I really want a tough race I can drive a Forti and fight to even
finish in the points and rarely win which is way more fun for me than blowing
away the AI, or hotlapping, or racing a one or two player race on Kali or the
zone which is really nothing more than hotlapping with a friend.  When we can
race full human fields across the net then that will be racing until then just
give me decent AI and a method to make it challenging.

BTW, I do agree that as far as "feel", or what I perceive to be proper feel
having never driven a real race car but having driven a performance minded
automobile, goes CPR has them all beat hands down.  But, in my sometimes not
so humble opinion CPR is the greatest racing sim that never was because it's
absolutely useless for racing.

I have to agree with the "velocitized" theory...

I'll probably pickup F1RS tomorrow at long last!, and I'd like to compare
the sensation of timing with GP2.  

but I'd have to agree... when I first took my Honda CBR600F3 out to the
racetrack, I thought things happened so fast.  Once I got experienced,
things seem like they slow down because I have mental reference points on
the track which I use to do my timing.  I stopped paying attention to the
things that overwhelm you with a sense of speed (like road texture!)

Not a race car driver, but the bike is claimed to do 0-60 in 3.6s, quarter
mile in 11.4... not slow.  I don't think I was maxing the bike out on the
track (for sure), but the clock showed 110mph coming over the hill on the
front straight, before you brake and shift down 4 gears for a left
hander... fun fun.

can't wait for f1rs...

Your right in your comparison between the two tracks. Also, the section of
track you described is a thrill. Most of the tracks do not have the roadside
objects right up against the road like Monaco so, unfortunately, I have that
slow feeling in most races.

Dave

Using a different car is a good idea (I love Ferraris),  :)  but I could do
the same in CPR. Running a full race in CPR is a more difficult win too,
especially if I turn "race car performance" on and use a slower car.

I can leave almost all options on in CPR, except full mirrors, I have it set
to "cars only".  Even on large, open, ovals like Michigan, I get the sense
of real speed. I've had CPR since late October and tracks like Elkhart and
Australia are still a blast.

Dave

Everything you say makes sense and is definitely true as far as the ability
to get used to speed. I sometimes ride motocross motorcycles, and I quickly
got used to it too. I have had CPR since October, and the feeling of speed
is still there. It's just F1 that seems slow. Maybe if I had never spent
much time with CPR, I wouldn't feel the same. Other CPR drivers say
virtually the same thing regarding F1. I'll put it this way, if I'm driving
210mph in F1, it feels about the same as going 160mph in CPR. I just
finished beta testing a new racing game from MS, and even though the mph's
are much slower than what you do in F1, the overall feeling of the game
seems much faster. It is the graphics engine that is the cause of this. I
wish a game designer could explain this in detail.

Dave

Dave

That's the funny thing I've noticed about people complaining about
F1RS AI: some complain the computer drivers hit you all the time,
some complain they avoid you like a plague. ;-)

I find the F1RS AI very good. Unless I do something very stupid like
hitting the brakes full from full speed as there is someone close
behind, they seem to be very good at passing you without touching,
even by going off the track a little if necessary. Of course this
cannot happen in Monaco due to the concrete walls, so there I see more
pushing by the computer drivers than on the other tracks. I play in
the expert level of course.

***

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

The default setups have high wing settings, so the cars may seem easy to
drive, but a little slow around the track.

On expert level, the AI don't move out of the way unless you make a solid
pass.  Also, they tend to try to avoid collisions if you do something
stupid.  The only time that I get hit by the AI is when it is my mistake, so
I find it very suprising that you get hit an awful lot by the AI.  I found
the difference between the AI in CPR and F1RS to be HUGE.  Most people agree
with this.

I think the Ferraris, Williams, and Benettons are all fast.  You may want to
try some of the teams that didn't rack up many points.

You must have a very fast system if you have the draw distance at maximum
and trackside objects turned on.

CPR may have the advantage in sense of speed, but what it is truely horrible
at is visibility down the track.  Put someone on the computer that has never
driven a racing sim and they will weave down the track back and forth
slowly.  F1RS has MUCH better visibility down the track.  You can go fairly
fast the first time you race on a track because you can see the turns.

--
Kevin
(Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email)

    A little history first...I'm fairly new to computer ***, about a year or
more. I started out with ICR2( big open wheel fan ), and loved it. I was the
first one to by CPR from my local EB, just based on the hype in the press...can
you say "sucker"!!!.. and as many others, I was rather dissapointed. I worked
with it for a couple of months, until I found this newsgroup and GP2, and then
F1RS, and haven't missed CPR one bit, except that I really like CART and want
to be able to run my home tracks!
    Earlier this week, because of some of the recent postings here, because of
the "new" 3DFX patch and because I'm headed out to Long Beach tomorrow, I
thought I'd load up CPR again, with the latest patch and the glide dll file,
download a couple of setups from the APEX and give it another chance. It still
sucks. I can't really say anything good about it. The graphics at The Beach are
a joke ( I've been to every race at Long Beach as a worker and photographer, I
know it well ), but that doesn't really affect gameplay much And what's with
the all white Penske cars? They look like ghosts. The AI is just as bad as I
recall, the lot of them would be more suited to a destruction derby!  I could
spend an entire day, actually I have, just trying to tweak the steering! I
could go on, but why? Those who like CPR, well, more power to you, I for one
have wasted all the time I can on the game and hope that someone, somewhere is
working on ICR3.

AL JR. number 1 at The Beach!!!

don