together. Seems to fix *most* of the major flaws from gp3, and some
nice subtle improvements to the game all round. Pity that you had so
as well. But it's amazing how much they could learn from Papy with
this stuff.
- Menu system - Good in its day, but a pain now. Fixed in GP4 I think
as well.
- Physics - Mostly there now, but it could still be improved upon IMO.
But a definite improvement over the original, the feel for the car is
there and the wet weather driving is pretty cool.
One good thing I forgot about was the annoying gear changes in GP3.
Many times I wanted to short shift exiting a corner, but the game
wouldn't let me until I had more revs up. Well, that seems to have
been fixed now, so manual actually means a manual gearbox.
All in all, not too shabby.
<a.warrin...@chello.nl> wrote:
>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
...
