rec.autos.simulators

After reading everyone elses post about how great it is, I'm left wondering
what the heck's up.

I'll take just one track as an example. Milwaukee. I've run thousands of laps
in the original ICR over the past year at Milwaukee, laps speeds around
170mph with no problem.

Now I come to ICR2. I've dropped the boost down to the first setting,
effectivly giving me about 37 inches of boost at speed. I've put both wings
at 18.00 degrees, the max. Yet I STILL can't manage even a single lap full
throttle without excessive tire scrub, and even then just barely holding
myself off the walls. I feel like I'm dirt trackin my car around in the
International Ice Racing Assoc. Is this just me, or what?

At every track I feel like there's nowhere near any realistic amount of grip
that there was in ICR1.

Just thought I'd get this off my chest and see what others say. My initial
impression is that this version leans more towards an arcade game and not a
serious simulation. Back to ICR1 for now..bugs and all..
--

: After reading everyone elses post about how great it is, I'm left wondering
: what the heck's up.

: I'll take just one track as an example. Milwaukee. I've run thousands of laps
: in the original ICR over the past year at Milwaukee, laps speeds around
: 170mph with no problem.

: Now I come to ICR2. I've dropped the boost down to the first setting,
: effectivly giving me about 37 inches of boost at speed. I've put both wings
: at 18.00 degrees, the max. Yet I STILL can't manage even a single lap full
: throttle without excessive tire scrub, and even then just barely holding
: myself off the walls. I feel like I'm dirt trackin my car around in the
: International Ice Racing Assoc. Is this just me, or what?

: At every track I feel like there's nowhere near any realistic amount of grip
: that there was in ICR1.

: Just thought I'd get this off my chest and see what others say. My initial
: impression is that this version leans more towards an arcade game and not a
: serious simulation. Back to ICR1 for now..bugs and all..

You should try driving around the Long Beach track, with the
ACE setup. It is hilarious. Going along Shoreline Drive flat out
in 6th and the car suddenly starts oversteering. What the hell
is that all about?

Then in the slow corners, the car turns in like it is on
rails, you head towards the apex and then wham; instant understeer,
straight into the wall. How can a car turn in so well and then
become an understeering shopping cart?

The "snap-understeer" effect affects all the chassi(s) and is a
major pain on road course. I think there is something badly wrong
with the car's driving model.

Oh, the ***y over-rev light doesn't work, so if you actually
manage to get the car 'round a few corners you will probably blow
the engine later.

If this is a more realistic simulation than ICR1 then great,
but I think ICR2 is destined to become shelfware pretty soon
for me. It is just too frustrating.

Oh well, I'll wait for the first patches to appear and hope
they improve things, otherwise...

Robh.

It's probably your driving. The setup may also be ***to make it even
worse.
Also notice that the brake bias must be right and that if you brake
too hard you lock up the tires... The steering lock you be set as
low as possible to make the steering less sensitive. At Long Beach
I guess setting the lock at 12 degrees may be a good idea.
Experiment.

ICR II is harder to learn than ICR1.x, so if you didn't master ICR1.x
you will have a hard time mastering ICR II. Practice is the only way.

You have got to listen to the engine. It may be hard in the a close
battle with cars buzzing all around you, but then you must shift a
little earlier. Btw I raced at Laguna in the demo at least 15 times
and I have blown the enigine only once. I don't haven't bought ICR II
yet.

Some bugs have already been reported. What do the beta testers do
at Payrus anyway, eat french fries? :)

-- Terje Wold Johansen   "I am your inferior superior."  Speaking --

-- Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway       myself! --

Adam
Papyrus

Now, what about the ridiculously slow pace car. I am thinking of
setting the pace lap to off to get rid of the almost inevitable black
flag on start for passing the pace car??? (I'm still racing with the
bad guys set at 90% so I get the pole alot - so I'm not good enough
yet for 100%, what's your point?? :)

Thanks

Bill Castello
**********************************************************************
Home Page:  http://www.indirect.com/www/billcas/index.html          
Call Sign:  Tasty12 - 505th EFS/DO                                  
Go Thrustmaster or go in a plastic zipper suit, it's just that easy

I agree, what the hell is up. I tried Long Beach last night and couldn't
get down shoreline without hhuuggee oversteer, so I dialed in a ton of
understeer. This worked (albeit with slow lap times - 58's - for about 4
laps, then BANG completely undriveable oversteer again. What is going on ?
I know I am not very good yet, but come on this is ridiculous....
--

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What kills it for me is the control selections - I tried the demo
last night, and:

(a) Many keys cannot be selected (e.g. 'A' for accelerate, '<' & '>' steering)

(b) This really pisses me off, as it seems like a novice programming error
but many games suffer from it (_not_ F1GP, note:-): interrupts are not
disabled when reading the joystick.  On my laptop, clock interrupts seems
to take varying amounts of time (regardless of power management settings),
thus the joystick value jumps around all over the place.  In some games, this
is not too bad a problem in the game itself, as the "spikes" are of very
short duration, but with ICR2 the cursor races around the menus making it
unusable, _and_ there is no way to turn off joystick control in menus
(unlike F1GP).

I spent a lot of money on Indycar, the track pack and the paint kit,
for a game which I don't play, and I'm not going to spend money on Indycar 2
until the above problems are fixed.  What I wonder, though, is how will I
know when they're fixed?  I don't suppose another version of the demo will
be released alongside new patches...

--

Brian Wong                              Systems Engineering Group (Servers)

When the cursor races about madly like that press the J key.

p.s. your reply to address is bogus -- If I try to mail a response it
bounces back.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

: What kills it for me is the control selections - I tried the demo
: last night, and:

: (a) Many keys cannot be selected (e.g. 'A' for accelerate, '<' & '>' steering)

Craig, some keys in the game are hard coded. 'A' brings up the accelerate time
option and '<' & '>' adjust the setup changes that are radioed to the pit crew.
This is *not* due to a programming error.  Papyrus could have made all these
keys configurable, but judging from the number of people that have trouble
simply setting up thier joysticks they made the right choice in hard coding it.

: (b) This really pisses me off, as it seems like a novice programming error
: but many games suffer from it (_not_ F1GP, note:-): interrupts are not
: disabled when reading the joystick.  On my laptop, clock interrupts seems
: to take varying amounts of time (regardless of power management settings),
: thus the joystick value jumps around all over the place.  In some games, this
: is not too bad a problem in the game itself, as the "spikes" are of very
: short duration, but with ICR2 the cursor races around the menus making it
: unusable, _and_ there is no way to turn off joystick control in menus
: (unlike F1GP).

The 'J' key at the main menu turns off the joystick control in the menu.  This
is mentioned several times in the manual as well as in the readme.txt and in
the trouble shooting section of the installation manual.

: I spent a lot of money on Indycar, the track pack and the paint kit,
: for a game which I don't play, and I'm not going to spend money on Indycar 2
: until the above problems are fixed.  What I wonder, though, is how will I
: know when they're fixed?  I don't suppose another version of the demo will
: be released alongside new patches...

Perhaps spending some time reading the manual might enlighten you to some of
the aspects of the game that you may be missing.  

Mike

P.S.- I'd love to see you crack Wilsh's code

I have been in the software products business for over 10 years now, and
if I've learned one thing in all that time, it is *never* assume you are
doing people a favour by hard-coding things that with a bit more effort
can be made configurable - someone in Outer Mongolia will always try to
use your product on an adm3a with a broken return key, and be upset
because they can't (and then post to comp.unix.i386 rubbishing you!) :-)

But seriously, it doesn't have to be easy to redefine all the keys, as
I'm quite happy that *most* users won't want to, but if you're going to
let me redefine any of them, you really ought to let me redefine all of
them somehow (edit a text file, or even hex-edit the .cfg file if I have
to).  (Oh, and if it said "that key is already used for something" when
I try picking 'A' for accelerate, I would at least understand, and not
think "this is crap, it can't even see the 'A' key on my keyboard").

: The 'J' key at the main menu turns off the joystick control in the menu.
  This
: is mentioned several times in the manual as well as in the readme.txt and in
: the trouble shooting section of the installation manual.

Thanks to Michael Carver for also pointing this out - my copy of Indycar
was the very first version, and he suggests that this may not have been
in the early versions - I haven't checked my manual yet as it's in the
Cretaceous layer of my home filing system :-)

Anyway, I do have 1.05 now (thanks to the track-pack or paintkit, I forget
which), and I tried this last night.  It does indeed turn off joystick
control in the menus, which allows me to calibrate the joystick and get to
the track.  Unfortunately, even when at rest, you can sit there and watch
the wheels flick from side to side due to the joystick read problem, and
it is completely undrivable.

I also tried it in the Indycar 2 demo, and 'J' does _not_ turn off joystick
control in the menus, so I am unable to even get as far as the track to see
if it drives OK.

So, my problem remains - unless the Indycar 2 game reads the joystick
properly (i.e. turns off interrupts) I can't play with the joystick,
and I can't use a key layout I'm comfortable with.  The game _looks_
great, and there's every indication that it would be more fun than
Indycar, but I'm not buying it just on the offchance that these problems
get fixed in a patch, and how will I know if and when they are?

In the game, when the game is in the main menu, you can hit 'J' to disable the
joystick, then go into the controls menu and calibrate the joystick.  Works like
a charm.

Have fun.

Scott

In the game, when the game is in the main menu, you can hit 'J' to disable the
joystick, then go into the controls menu and calibrate the joystick.  Works like
a charm.

Have fun.

Scott

In the game, when the game is in the main menu, you can hit 'J' to disable the
joystick, then go into the controls menu and calibrate the joystick.  Works like
a charm.

Have fun.

Scott