GP 3 2000 - Review of a GP3 hater
--- WARNING: This post has the length of an average Tom Pabst post ---
When GP3 was released, it was a HUGE disappointment for me. It felt
like a 2-year old game in every way. Graphics sucked compared to other
F1 sims, sound was poor (no engine sounds of the other cars) and car
behaviour was so unbelievable odd sometimes that I deleted GP3 after a
week or 2.
The only good thing about GP3 was imho the variable weather which was
nothing short of amazing.
Allthough I was affraid it would be a waste of time, I tried the 2000
addon. And now I spend the whole weekend playing GP3 instead of GPL..
That should say enough :)
First of all, I never tried all the addons that were released for GP3,
including the sounds-for-all-cars patch, so the only thing I saw so
far was GP3 as it came out of the box.
Anyway, I installed the addon. I chose automatic sound calibration and
that worked perfect. Automatic graphics calibration, and it
recommended 1280x1024 with all settings on, whoopy.
Now the hard part - wheel and pedals calibration. I never could get my
CH pedals working in GP3. This time it seemed to work, GP3 immediately
reckognized my LWFF and CH pedals on split axis.
Calibrated them, calibration succesfull!
Finally I chose a track and was ready to test the car. The track
loaded, I was in the pits, and.. &%^$, calibration of my pedals
suddenly didn't work, I couldn't even choose 'leave pits'.
Escape, back to control menu, recalibrate, pedals worked again, onto
the track again, pedals didnt work. %&$^ !
After much digging in old RAS posts I finally found a post suggesting
the Joyreg utility.
Installed Joyreg, recalibrated in GP3, and it finally worked! Costed
me about 3 hours in total to figure it out. Thanks Geoff, take a
closer look at Papy's calibration system next time.
Anyway, time for a testdrive. Monaco, dry weather, quick race. First
thing I noticed: THE SOUND!
Full EAX, all the cars made sound now, GREAT!! Into the tunnel was
totally fantastic with the sound reflecting off the walls. Simply the
best use in a car sim of EAX I have ever heard, great great great.
Buuuut there was a slight problem.. the control of my car was total
crap. Wheels locked way too easily and too suddenly, I couldn't feel
where the locking point was. Steering also was very odd.
So: back to the dreadfull control menu.
After an hour of unsuccesful messing with all the settings it was time
to dig up some info on the internet again. I found a control setup
guide on www.bhmotorsports.com. Tried it, and now the control of the
car was muchos better. The biggest difference was setting the steering
lock on the maximum of 20 instead of the default settings of 12, which
helped a lot in getting more feeling in the steering.
Ok, finally I got this thing setup ok. The next thing wanted to do was
to download my hometrack, Zandvoort. I raced there for real a couple
of weeks ago, read that the track was created for GP3, so I was very
curious if it would be any good. Downloaded the track, installation
was a bit of a hassle since none of the trackmanagers worked with the
2000 addon (all of the utilities I tried were looking for the GP3.exe,
GP3 2000 uses another exe) but with a bit of manual file renaming I
got it working quite easily.
Onto the track, and allthough the real life version is a bit
different, the banking in the GP3 was a bit off in most corners, it
was still huge fun to drive the current layout of Zandy on my
computer. After half an hour of practice I did some 1:22 laps (yes I
know the WR is 1:18 in GP3 so I suck :) and it was time for a race. I
chose Pro level, the fastest AI guys were doing qualification laps of
1:22 there so that would be a good level to race them on.
Qualified 6th. The lights went out and there we went. After 2 laps I
had overtaken 2 guys and I was in 4th place. And crap, there I spun on
the track, overdid it in the Nissan corner. With 18 guys close behind
me I was expecting the usual AI pileup, as I was used in GPL. But..
all the AI cars were avoiding me.. most drove around me, a couple of
cars who couldn't drive around me stopped.. this was great! I turned
my car after everyone passed me safely, and was dead last now. But the
backmarkers were doing 1:24-1:25 laps so it was quite easy to get back
to 12 position. From there it got harder and harder (the driving), the
AI was blocking me, weren't giving me an inch.. man this was simply
the best AI I ever encountered in a racing sim, I was having a hell of
a fight with the AI.
After a couple of laps more, back to 10th, I locked my wheels while
braking for Tarzan, hit the wall, and without nose and front wheels
the race was over for me. I watched the replay (you can save up to 90
minutes of replay now) and it was fantastic to see the race.. the AI
was behaving perfect at the start, no crashes, and to see how they
avoided my car when I spun on the middle of the track was amazing.
In the replay you can also hear the crowds cheering, which was another
surprising feature.
Time for another race but now I chose a race in the rain. Well,
errr... after 2 laps with sliding off at every corner I thought I
would try that again later. Much later :) Damn, driving on a wet track
is hard!
So, as you guessed by now, my opinion about GP3 has changed radically
after this 2000 update.
In GP3 I discovered a very stupid physics bug. When I was standing
still on the track, turned my wheel left, and gave gas, the car was
turning around it's middle axis, on and on. After the 2000 addon this
bug has gone and under the same conditions the car turns as I expect
it to do.
Force feedback is nice, not half as good as in GPL, but it's good.
Graphics are still quite sad compared to the beautiful F1RC, but
they're better than in GP3 I think.. it seems less pixelated and there
are much more track objects now, giving the tracks more atmosphere.
Sound is as I mentioned great. EAX implementation is wonderfull, crank
up those 4 speakers and annoy your neighbours! Though the engine
sounds could use some improvement.. theyre not bad, especially while
watching a replay from the TV cam they sound great, but the in-car
sound could sound a bit more powerfull. But this is a matter of taste
I guess, I dont know how it sounds like sitting in an F1 car with a
helmet on.
I read the menu system would be improved in the 2000 addon, well I
still think it's way too clumsy, especially settings up the
controllers was quite annoying to say the least. It hardly changed
compared to GP3.
Too bad the GP3 utilities don't work with the addon, so you can't
import GP3 carsets, carshapes and stuff like that. Not yet anyway, I
don't think it will take long before the tools are made compatible
with the addon. It seems like the structure of GP3 files remained the
same, its just that GP3 2000 uses another exe file to start and most
utilities have to adapt to that. (he said simplistic without any
programming skills).
So far my fave -current- F1 sim was F1RC, but with it's lack of
multiplayer and the baaaad AI there's not much fun of playing it
anymore. The AI in GP3 has the right rythm, when I set the AI to Pro
level where they drive allmost the same laptimes as me, they also have
the same speed as me in the corners and on the straights. Unlike F1RC,
where the AI is way too fast in the corners and way too slow on the
straights. And I think I have the only copy of F1RC where the AI
doesn't learn, because after many races they still suck. In GP3 the AI
doesn't have to learn, they know how to drive right out of the
package.
Whats quite funny: In most sims, while watching a replay, its
totally obvious which driver is human and which drivers are the AI.
While watching a replay of me amongst the AI, I noticed after half a
lap I was watching the wrong Ferarri.. I was watching the AI instead
of my own car. That impressed me quite a lot.
I also read you can collide with debris from other cars. I didnt test
this yet, but I read a report from someone whose front wing got broken
off after colliding with a wheel that was lying on the road after an
accident. If it really works that way.. thats good, thats really
good.
And then.. the physics... here goes...
Ok, right out of the box, the settings for the controllers suck. Read
that guide I was talking about on http://www.bhmotorsports.com and try
those settings. They work like a charm on my system. After that you
get much more control and feeling of the car. Im not a physics
expert, unlike Gregor Veble I cant tell you WHY is feels good, I just
can tell you THAT is feels good :)
Sliding a bit when entering a corner too fast a la Montoya, feeling
the rear braking out and quickly catching the spin, squeezing the
brakes while entering Tarzan, its all there, and it feels good. I
dont know if its the physics that have changed in GP3 2000, that
its because of the year 2000 cars, because of the new setups or
because of my improved controller settings.. but it all feels so much
better than in GP3. Better/worse than F1CS2k/F1RC? No idea. F1CS2k
feels good, F1RC feels good, but they all feel slightly different and
I couldnt tell which one comes closest to reality. If I have to guess
its F1RC, but one thing about the physics of F1RC is that the car
spins without any kind of warning. That may be realistic, what I
seriously doubt since you feel so much more in a real car, and Im
sure you can feel when the car is driving on its limit, but anyway,
its annoying as hell. In GP3 its possible to save a spin, but its
HARD to do so, and thats the way I like it. Possible to save a spin,
but you have to work for it. With its excellent AI, variable weather
and all the user-made tracks the winner is clear to me.
The big thing lacking in GP3 2000 is ofcourse the TCP/IP multiplayer.
What a shame, it would have been so great if this would have been
implemented. But I read some
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