rec.autos.simulators

AI
The AI cars no longer wreck all the time, but they still aren't
competitive. At Milwaukee I set the game to the Pro (highest) level,
used the default setup (adjusted the wings only), started in the year of
a 12 lap race and won, after starting in the rear. The funny thing is
that to make it competitive I didn't even use 6th gear. Other than the
start, I stayed in 5th the entire race and still smoked the AI cars.
Believe me, I am not THAT good! More competitive AI please.
Graphics
With my STB Riva 128 Velocity card, I get really bad screen image
flashing. Before there was some minor clipping in the distance. Now it
is very bad(this new flashing). With the Canopus Pure 3dfx card, it runs
great. About 30% faster than before.
Grass
There is supposed to be friction, but it just seems real slippery to me.
Like very wet grass!
Steering
It is better. There is a null zone and I like the control much better
Sound
I don't know if they changed it, but the turbo sound when changing gears
now seems much weaker. I liked it better before!

Again these are just my initial impressions. The AI is much improved,
but still needs alot of work so that it can be competitive. I guess we
could handicap ourselves in 4th gear for now? Anyway, I'm gonna try some
road courses and submit my findings to the game developers, then I'm
back to F1RS,  while TR hopefully works on the CPR AI some more!! Once
the final patch is released we will re-review this game at the Game Pad.

                                                   Ken
The Game Pad
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

competitive.

Agreed.

setup (adjusted the wings only), started in the year of a 12 lap race and won,
after starting in the rear. The funny thing is
that to make it competitive I didn't even use 6th gear. Other than the start, I
stayed in 5th the entire race and still smoked the AI cars.

Yup.  I personally want to see the way you set the AI difficulty re-done in a
more pioneering way.  My idea is as follows.  Let me set the lap TIMES for
polesitter, backmarker and midpacker.  I also want to have the ability to do
test drive and then click a button that says: "Make me a front
runner/mid-packer/backmarker" based upon my times and have it set the AI skill
accordingly so I can run the kind of race I want to run based upon how I'm
doing.  The whole concept of  trial & error to find the right opponent
difficulty is just a Papyrus relic at this point.  Its time to move forward and
let the game be a little smarter.  Its not like your best laps aren't put into
the Hall of Fame when you hit them, after all.  I'd love to see it have you do
a practice session of several laps and then let you decide where [generally] on
the grid you want to be.

This will continue until STB gets their act together and ships the fix that
nVidia released in their latest reference drivers.  Diamond fixed it already
for the V330.  Some people say that the alpha OpenGL drivers for the Riva will
fix this problem, but I couldn't get them to even boot on my Dell OEM STB V128,
so I'm stuck with the flicker.  I don't know what hole TR exploited, but
considering that this problem occurs on drivers that are WHQL certified, I
wouldn't mind at all if Microsoft figured out what thing they are doing in D3D
to cause flicker and put an .INI file setting in there to work around it, at
least until the newer drivers come out.  Its obvious that this is something
that doesn't HAVE to happen since other D3D games, including FS98, don't suffer
from this problem with this board.

Randy
Randy Magruder
Staff Writer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com/

Hey, I was starting to wonder whatever happened to you. Must have taken a break
from racing for the holidays, huh? Anyway, welcome back.
                                  Lets go racing,
                                           Ken
The Game Pad
http://gamepad.org/

Randy

Randy Magruder
Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com

<snip>

<snip>

Randy I very much like your ideas :) its about time for some sim
publisher to figure out how to do this, the old BLAP, RELs, endless
numbers in drivers2.txt should be dumped in favor of what you suggest.

Trev

Top idea, I second this as heartily as I can - I too have often wanted
this feature. In Papyrus games you can do this yourself, but only by
adjusting several text files and options menus. In the majority of
other games you get only three difficulty levels, and after you have
whipped the CCs on the top level you have to wait for someone to start
hacking the game. This way is far more challenging.

Cheers!
John