rec.autos.simulators

Check the web site - www.instantaccess.com - just downloaded it - trying to
get Paul Ricard track installed.  If someone else has downloaded, please
advise on how to run new track!  I'm probably looking over something stupid
due to my e***ment!!!

Thanks!
Tim

It installs fine for me -- run the DL'd program, which extracts to a
temporary directory. Run SETUP.EXE. That creates a Perfect Publishing
group. Run the program in that group, choose Track Manager, and
install Paul Ricard from there. It will replace Magny Cours on the
calendar.

Two problems I found --- one small, one huge.

The small one is that the graphic on the track selection pages show
Magny Cours even when Paul Ricard is installed.

The huge one is that the uninstaller doesn't work... the option to
restore original tracks changes the name of the track back to Magny
Cours in GP2, but it does *not* change the track back to Paul Ricard.
(There *is* a way to restore the track... if you have a "No CDRom"
utility, run YESCDROM or NOCDROM and it will restore Magny Cours.)

   I would also like to add an additional problem. actually, two more.
First off when you are trying to review the replay, A lot of the track
is ovscurred making it had to see from a distance what exactly you did
to have that crash.

Second, If you don't have a really fast computer and try to run the game
in SVGA mode the picture tends to be a bit choppy almost undrivable.

IMHO, If you want to purchase the product all I have to say is 'caveat
emptor'. Let the buyer beware.

   I would also like to add an additional problem. actually, two more.
First off when you are trying to review the replay, A lot of the track
is ovscurred making it had to see from a distance what exactly you did
to have that crash.

Second, If you don't have a really fast computer and try to run the game
in SVGA mode the picture tends to be a bit choppy almost undrivable.

IMHO, If you want to purchase the product all I have to say is 'caveat
emptor'. Let the buyer beware.

Okay, the demo is released and on the 'net - what does everyone think?
The prospect of a new track interested me enough to dust off my copy
of GP2 and reinstall it, following which I made a few familiarisation
laps and a test race - something I wonder if the Instant Access people
have done, but more of that later.

Thus far the major points I have noticed are....

- The Minardi***pit is pretty dodgy, nowhere near as good as the
examples on the WWW. If I had downloaded this I would have deleted it!
The looks are pretty bland (okay, it IS a Minardi I suppose) but the
artwork on the wheel is poor. The major defect is that numbers for
laptimes appear in the middle of the wheel where there is no display.
Not a big deal, but the attention to detail doesn't bode well.

- The track itself looks good but extremely narrow in the first
sections (much narrower than actual Ricard where the first corner is
quite wide. The Mistral straight has no elevations whereas in real
life it it dips and then climbs slowly back up as you head toward
Signes. It is also much wider. This part seems also to be too short,
although that could be my imagination (200mph could make it feel short
I guess!). This may be an issue with the GP2 engine, but I seem to
recall the PIT road at Paul Ricard is noticably higher than the
circuit, with the cars dropping done a significant incline as they
blend back into the circuit. The laptimes themselves are quite good,
close to what you would expect with 3.0l and grippy tires.

- The AI are quite good when racing, but what the hell happens when
they try to pit? They whack straight into the wall, sometimes getting
into the pit lane but more often that not bouncing back out onto the
track. At that point they rev their little engines and try to drive
through the barrier into the pits! It's so comical and so obvious I
wonder how it could be missed?!

- Once into the pits the AI exhibit much the same "intelligence". In
the race I did most of them ran a two stop strategy, stopping on lap
12 then again on lap 24....leaving 56 laps to the finish! Also, when
they stopped most of them still had around 10 laps of fuel in the car.

- Various other small gripes. Graphical glitches with tree textures
appearing to the left of the track (on the tarmac) at Mistral, cars
being visible through spectator filled randstands, occasional
flickering armcos (esp. at last corner before S/F line.

My copy of GP2 is ***al except for a copy of a 1997 carset, so I
don't think this could have caused the problems (although it is not
beyond the bounds of possibility!). Hopefully these are issues which
Instant Access have already addressed, since while I'd be happy to
download this free, if I'm paying for it I want it to be free of major
defects.

Can anyone else comment if they have seen any problems like this or am
I the only one? Other than that it's great, nice to have a new track
and it is quite a challenging circuit. Mistakes are punished pretty
severely, and some nice curved braking areas to catch out those
driving with heavily front-biased cars/brakes. Looking forward to the
final release, but all the more so if it is problem free :)

Cheers!
John

Install the Demo - follow the on screen instructions.

The run Perfect Grand Prix Demo and install Paul Ricard.

Fire up GP2 and go to the practice or race any circuit menu. You will
notice in the bottom right corner of every track screen the name of the
track is displayed. When you choose France, Paul Ricard is displayed. You
can now run this track. To re install Magny Cours just run Perfect Grand
Prix Demo again and re-install original tracks (you will need the CD in the
CD ROM drive)

Took me some time to work this out as ther are no instructions.

BTW first impressions of the track are good.

Steve

Try setting up a non champ race and de-select your car so you only watch
the practice and race. During timed practice the cc's will try to pit
only to hit the inner pit wall, then jump as if by magic to the wall on
the main straight along side the pits banging against it still trying to
enter the pits through the armco! Then they will give up and do another
lap only to run out of fuel before completing it and end up littering
the circuit. So mostly they only get 5 laps to set their grid position.
Some manage to enter the pits and get another go dragging themselves
allong the wall.

In the race only about 6 cars will be left on the lead lap after 50+
laps as they still cant find the pit lane entrance.

Not much good for anything more than hotlaping and short (no pitstops)
racing as it is, certainly not "perfect grand prix".

Perhaps its the way the pits building is drawn in front of your eyes as
you approach it that confuses them<G> they dont seem to see it till the
very last moment even then they seem to think its actualy much further
over to the right than it is.

If this is the best they can manage with only a week or so to release
day i think they are in trouble.

Mike.

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   22:41  on  10/11/97
   From sunny Herne Bay, Kent.UK.
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Other than those technical glitches  (of which I have experienced every
single one-  less the Johnny Carwash-type pit strategy ) , I think it's
a nice little fun circuit to drive (and it'll give mere mortals a chance
to get World Records before the hot-lappers get to work!)  with a really
fun back-section. Certainly kudos to IA for doing what no one else has
been able to do and doing admirably well. I hope all those glitches
which John has pointed out may be still rectifiable or have already been
fixed for the release version. I just hope that the Nurburing isn;t so
Spa-ish or Beunos-Aires isn't too Jerez-esque.

I have enjoyed this demo track, however Monza-fied it seems and I'll be
looking forward to getting my copy in Singapore soon.

Cheers,

Stanley Chan

Hi John,

I haven't downloaded many***pits so I don't know if others have
achieved this or not, but the positions of the rev lights, gear indicator
etc were in different to normal positions. I agree though that the
general artwork isn't that hot.

One thing I did notice whilst hotlapping was that the gear indicator
stopped displaying whenever I passed a split time point!

I suspect that this is a limitation of the engine. GP2 doesn't really
support banked sections of track so having the pits higher than the track
may be impossible.

I'm pretty ignorant of Paul Ricard (although I'm sure it shouldn't be
_that_ flat). What should real life times be like?

Oh dear :( Yes, I can confirm this. Hadn't noticed it previously as I
hadn't tried an actual race. Bit of a major faux pas by IA.

Also whereas with most of the original tracks it takes more like 1.1
"laps" of fuel to complete a lap, here it only seems to take around 0.7 -
I wonder if it is still using the Magny Cours values??

The scenary is only drawn when you are quite close to it. For instance
the grandstand at the start of the pit straight should be visible well
before you make that last left hander.

Since there is nothing else available, I think it is probably worth the
money. But I don't expect any of the problems to have been sorted out. IA
are advertising an Oct 17th release date so it must have gone gold
already. The question is, "is Paul Ricard typical, better or worse than
the other tracks?"

Cheers,
Richard

Hiya Richard,

Now why doesn't it surprise me that you were hotlapping and didn't
notice the flaws in "race" mode...? :)

It's a bit difficult due to all the different reg changes. I recall
Senna/Prost running 1:09s there, Mansell was doing 1:11s in the Willy
Honda Turbo a couple of years earlier. The teams still used to test
there sometimes (until the new regs stopping this) so I'm sure a
fairly recent test time will be archived somewhere. Anyway, we're
already faster than real-life.

I think it may be, or perhaps this is coded into the .EXE somewhere
rather than being part of the circuit file. All the same, I noticed
the pit flaw and fuel consumption within 15 minutes of installing the
track so it doesn't say much for the beta-testing which has been done.

Yep, exactly. IMO it still isn't worth the money. Because "nothing
else is available" people will pay the money, but it's not worth it. I
personally feel that if these tracks had been designed by BB&B or some
of the internet groups they would be _better_ than these commercial
ones. The reason being that we do this sort of thing because we enjoy
it and because we want it to be correct. Essentially the Paul Ricard
track is fine for hotlapping, but it's useless for racing which is
primarily what I enjoy. Perhaps Instant Access did notice these flaws
and were just unable to find how to solve them - who knows.

Out of interest, has anyone tried recording a hotlap on Paul Ricard
and replaying it on Magny Cours? I'm just curious as to what might
happen :)

Cheers!
John

 p> Second, If you don't have a really fast computer and try to run
 p> the game in SVGA mode the picture tends to be a bit choppy almost
 p> undrivable.

Not for me it's not. Runs like every other track in Gp2.

Must say i'm impressed at how well they got the computer cards to run around
the track.

IMO, Paul Ricard is as good as the Gp2 team could have programmed it.
    ________ _________________
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The Paul Ricard track is definitely fast. I drove in practice in 18 frames
per sec. and the whole thing was whizzing by! Luckily, I had drove 4 to 5
laps slow, just in case. The car is doing fine on the track but they could
do better. The track is something like a bonus track, I raced on it and felt
no glory winning what so ever. Perhaps, the other tracks may do better. Paul
Ricard is certainly one track I don't think I would find fun in...

Hi John,

Can't think <g>

It's nice to know just _how_ much faster <vbg>

"Worth" is always a subjective opinion. Is it worth more than one the new
Dylan & Wyatt CDs? Is it worth 2/3 of the price of SODA? Or the price of
the N2 Track Pack? IMHO it isn't going to be worth any of those. To me it
is probably "worth" it because I am lucky enough to be able to afford all
of the above. If I had to choose between it and one of the above then IA
wouldn't get my money.

(I'm not going to rush out on Friday & get a copy though - I want some
assurance from others that they have worked out how to include gradients
and that the other tracks are OK for racing on)

I have to say that I can only come to the conclusion that no-one who is
actually experienced at either GP2 or sims in general beta tested the
Paul Ricard track. Yes I spend most of my time hotlapping or, more so
these days, just driving for fun without other cars on the track (the GP2
AI is good for AI, but it's still artifical) but I would never have given
my personal go ahead without completing at least one full length race on
each track.

There's enough guys out here who would have willingly beta tested the
tracks that IA have really shot themselves in the foot if Paul Ricard is
the best that their in house testing can come up with.

Possible I suppose. But in that case they shouldn't put out the pack
without spelling out the limitations. If it does turn out that the other
tracks suffer from the problems we have found with Paul Ricard then maybe
a phone call to the local Trading Standards office might be in order?

I've tried it the other way round (MC hotlap replayed at PR). It starts
you off in the middle of a field and doesn't get any better <g>

Cheers,
Richard

Mike.

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   06:49  on  10/14/97
   From sunny Herne Bay, Kent.UK.
   mailable also at

   remove NO-SPAM to mail me.