rec.autos.simulators

Thanks
J

"Drive around Glen, crash a lot, swear at PC, drive around more, crash
slightly less, eventually get around several laps without crashing at
all, think "hey, I can do this!", go faster, crash again, swear loudly
at PC, get more used to handling, feel comfortable, change car, crash
even more than at the start, swear very loudly, get used to other car,
go round Glen in decent time, have race, get punted off by Surtees,
swear at Hondas in general, have another race, push Surtees off yourself
(revenge is sweet!), finish race though low down field, feel happy, have
a beer, suddenly realise you can't drive straight anymore, go to bed,
get up, play more GPL, change to Monza, crash again, swear yet more, get
hang of Monza, think "I can really do this now!", change to Nrburgring,
crash every 50 yards, swear at Germans, drive round very slowly, still
crash, swear more, download some fast setups, crash all the time, get
used to setups, do a 3:30 at Spa, feel happy with self, look at Schubi's
site, see Spa record is 3:12, watch Greger Huttu's replays, feel really
depressed, have beer to drown sorrows, crash all the time, go to bed,
get up, wait for hangover to go, drive around and around various tracks,
finally get reasonable, go to VROC, crash a lot, swear at all other
drivers, give up, buy TOCA2 instead as you're meant to crash in that."

Seriously, you need to practice a LOT.
Try to find Alison Hine's beginner setups - I think they are still out
on the internet.  The forums at rscnet.org should be a good place to
look.  I think they were even running a GPL 'school' at one point.

Are you using a wheel or joystick?  Don't try to use the keyboard - it's
hopeless....

There is a lot to learn.  If you have any specific questions, please ask!

-Greg

Try this for the original 11 tracks-
http://www.jrpearson.homestead.com/GPLDrivingInstruction.html

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/medeson/GPLEGS.zip

Hehe, nice piece of writing. brought back some memories,
especially the Surtees part, although he was more a pain at Monza
(Parabolica).

The things I can add, drive a couple of laps only on the left side of
the track, then drive a couple of laps on the right side of the track.
Also practice overtaking without other cars, to become familiar with
brakingzones not on the racing line.

Cheers!

Remco

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uwe

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JC, here's a good site:  http://website.lineone.net/~richardn/index.html

-Greg

Thanks again

in-car footage that is.

J

Seriously, you might need to investigate about the wheel just a bit.  I had
a ThrustMaster wheel, actually I had about 9 of them via sending them in
under warranty and all the newer versions I tried back when...

    The output from the wheel needs to be smooth.  now when you calibrate,
if you just go in there willy nilly or without reguard to what is happening,
you may not notice, but the 'computer' and game will...  Not sure how much
you might 'get' about what I am saying, so le me see if I can simplify this.

   When the wheel is at rest (lets agree it is centered) the value being
expressed to the PC, is variable depending on specs, so let say it is
showing the computer that it's reading a 100, as you turn the wheel to the
left, it goes up in good wheels 101, 102, 103... on lesser good it can be
110, 120, 130 etc,  up to 200 maybe.  to the right it goes down accordingly
and equally for each 'degree of movement'.

    But my thrust-crapper wheel inviariably sent this to the pc, as I slowly
turned the wheel to the left for example...  101, 102, 50, 90 105, 110, 120,
190. thus the game thought I was turning left ever so slightly then wildly
hard right, then wildly back to left, even though I was NOT.  Being the good
sim, wanting to give my inputs to the simulated car, that kindof readings...
was causing great spins in anything above arcade games like MTM and ***
like NFS...

Anyway, sometimes this is just dirty or bad POTS (potentiometers).  If you
dont know what I mean by POT, think volume, balance, or tuning knob on older
radios...  as you turn the volume knob the resistance that is read slowly
and linearily increases or decreases, as such the circuits in the radio
respond in kind with volume, balance or tuning is reflected...  if the
volume nob for example is dirty or 'bad' you get that 'static' crackly sound
as you turn the knob, that ***can happen in wheels, your game (& PC) try
to determine what you did, usually wrecking you or sometimes ignoring you
depending on the game or SW & drivers...

Finally, I got a new & different wheel back then, all of a sudden GPL,
nascar, and everything was drivable...  many here like the Logitech's
offerings, the Driving Force Pro wheels, the Momo wheels are ok too i have
read, the driving force's I hear are cool, as they work with PC as well as
PS2 I hear...  I would recomend one like mine, but they arent made anymore
MS-sidewinder FF v2 [red grip version].  plus you add the fact XP doesnt
really do anything but do 'legacy' (meaning limited) support of the good old
gameports..   so that, if XP's your OS, could be another hurdle to get over?

Jiyang Chen enlightened us with:

I think I know what you're talking about.  I have a Thrustmaster Nascar
Charger (non usb) that twitches a lot even if I don't apply steering input.
I'll look into getting something else.  Thanks for the post.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=296053&...

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"Practice, practice, practice" ;-)

I used to be a gpl instructor (briefly), and trying to explain what to do to
someone else helps you understand it more fully yourself, but I could never
get my head round explaining how to drift the car. I can do it, I just can't
explain how. It's just how the car behaves when approaching the limit of
grip, and it's fairly pronounced in gpl thanks to the way it models grip.

Best advice I can suggest is that you throw the car into the corner & learn
to catch it before you run out of road. The effect is the same but obviously
drifting is much more subtle. Ideally once you've caught the slide you
should have the car pointing at the exit & just feed in the gas, but no one
gets it right every time. You just have to learn to let the car do the work
& keep the nose pointing in the direction you want the car to go.

Malc.