First of all I just want to tell you a few words about my simbackground.
Through the last decade I have gone through my time as a GP1, GP2 and now
GPL racing fan. And I have really loved those games above anything else. I
also partisipated in 97/98 in LFRS ( Little Formula Racing Series World
Championship ) where I came out in 8th spot overall among 370 drivers while
finishing 13 of 16 races. I really enjoyed GP2 and put in quite a lot of
laps to improve my performance. Nowadays I don't drive that often, but put
in some effort now and then and send laps to Schubi's Hotlap Competition
just for fun.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that times have changed and the graphics
have gotten very good the last couple of years, but I have had problems
finding a good modern F1 sim on the market.
So what I have done is to buy three new sims to see if they where any good
in my opinion.
First I bought Superbike 2000 which I just deleted from my HD after one day
as the overall product was just terrible. Then I bought GP500 which I just
instantly loved. It was just great in both driveability, framerate and
graphics. I will for sure play this sim quite often. A month ago I also
grabbed F1 2000 from the shelves on my way home from work and I have been
struggling quite a lot to get something out of this game. The default
installation gave me a sense of wasted money.but here comes the real
intention with this post. The game can be patched with a lot of different
addons, but if you choose the right addons you can make the game VERY good
indeed. I have struggled with cars getting out of sync after 10-15 laps in
multiplayer over LAN and I haven't managed to research more on this lately,
but in singleplay mode I have managed to get the game both look a lot better
than the original and also really feel great to drive. So this is my small
guide to make the game a lot better.
First the few addons I have included in my installation:
1. The superb new Mclaren 98 sound package from Gerard Reitsma. The sound
just takes the game to a totally new higher level and I have been looking
through most sound addons to GPL without finding a single sound which I like
better than the original. So still searching there.
2. This is a***pit addon compiled by various guys and I think it makes the
in general dark looking***pit a lot better. The main improvement for me
lies in the new wheelrims which is also part of this package. The filename
was "f12kcockpitpack.zip" when I downloaded it a few days ago. In general
highly recommended.
3. I also like the "slicks" (Slicks.zip) addon from a guy with the
nickname "F1Racer". It looks good with the new wheelrims. And now with the
new unofficial 1.06 patch for F1 2000 the tires doesn't have those
transparent holes in them anymore. This was a problem with my Nvidia based
Geforce card.
4. I also patched the sim with the above mentioned unofficial 1.06 patch
which have improved the game with better framerate at least on my system and
also added some important new options into the main menues. Some of these
have been accessable by editing the *.PLR files before. The AI behavior is
also considerable better.
Below I have included the settings I use on my CL TNT card and CL Geforce
card. I have tested this well on my TNT card and the playability and
83/500 MHz. It may seem that I have turned of most of the graphics options,
but what matters is how it looks in the game. I think it looks great with
these settings.
Here are my "in game" settings:
Display:
Cockpit Detail = High
Moving Steeringwheel = On
Mirrors = Off
Miscellaneous Mirrors = Off
Threes (mirrors) = Off
Billboards (mirrors) = Off
Buildings (mirrors) = Off
Bridges (mirrors) = Off
Grandstands (mirrors) = Off
Pitlane Objects (mirrors) = Off
Special Effects:
Bilinear Filtering = On (Best on my TNT)
Spectacular Highlightning = Off
Environment Mapping = Off
Shadows = Off
Race Groove = On
Skid Marks = Off
Smoke = Off
Dust = Off
Particles = Off
Skybox = Off
Miscellaneous:
Movies = Off
Tooltips = 1.3
Measurement Units = Metric
Page Transitions = Off
Plcement Map = Off
Messagecenter Detail = Off
Default View =***pit
World:
Resolution = 800 x 600 (on my old 15 inch monitor)
Viewing Distance = Medium
Level of Detail Distance = Medium
Fog Distance = Low
Texture Mapping Distance = Medium
Player Vehicle Detail = Maximum
Other Drivers Vehicle Detail = Medium
Max No. Visible Vehicles = 4
Miscellaneous = Off
Trees = Off
Billboards = Off
Buildings = Off
Bridges = Off
Grandstands = Off
Pit Lane Objects = Off (important in start of race)
Audio:
Speech Content = Off
Speech Buffer = 1s
Audio Quality = Medium
Replays:
Off
Unsupported features of F1 2000:
0 - 8 drivers
Apart from the settings above I think it is important that you patch F1 2000
so that you don't need the CD. This combined with enough memory (at least
128 Mb) and a optimal setting for disk cache will make sure you get little
or no frame stuttering while driving. Also you can get rid of that
annoying "EA SPORTS IT'S IN THE GAME" message by putting a semicolon in
front of the "MoveDir." and "MusicDir." params in the Config.ini file. If
you do this I think you have to patch the game first to not use the CD.
These are just the settings I found to function very well on my two computer
systems and they have made the game go from almost unplayable to the game I
play most of the time these days. I hope you get it right too while we wait
for GP3.
Cya,
Hans-Otto Lund
http://www.racesimcentral.net/