rec.autos.simulators

Yes, I think GPL deserves an A.

No, I don't find GPL any harder than any the other sims I enjoy. My learning
curve has been the same with GPL. It's not harder for me, just different.

I do have some questions about the driving model and how the cars handle
however. Think about this. How the heck would these GPL cars handle if
Papyrus put weather (rain) into the sim? I've seen film recently of races
from '67 and '68 which were being run in fairly heavy rain and the drivers
were still flying around the tracks and looked to have good control of the
cars. It's pretty easy to imagine what it would be like to drive a car in
the rain in GPL (a mess). This alone makes me question  how accurate the
driving model is.

The word is that the GPL physics model is the most advanced ever. It may go
further than any other but the fact is that what you see on the screen are
the opinions of a programmer(s). It's all about how they write the code and
what they think should happen. There are no mechanical parts. Just pictures
on a screen.

I love the game and will buy it the day it's released, but it sure doesn't
seem realistic at all to have to drive with my finger tips and to make sure
I take soft breaths, or suffer the loss of control of my car. Today's
F1drivers don't even use a soft touch. The drivers in the 60's seemed to
really throw around the wheel of their cars.

There are other areas where the sim deserves criticism but it's only fair to
wait until it's released before saying anything. Saying it is perfect (and
blasing anyone who disagrees) is just going way too far.

Dave
DmndDave

Us Americun's is dummer'n poop.

How'd I do?

Andre

P.S. Haven't tried GPL yet (WHAT????)... but from the all the talk... it
does sound a bit too twitchy. I'll still buy it though...

I suggested in an earlier post that one change that would improve the sim.
for me 100% is to add a slider for speed sensitive steering--a la CART:PR.
Non-linear steering is great if you use a joystick, but it is useless and
unrealistic with a wheel.  However, it is awfully hard to simulate the
"tightening" of steering that occurs at speed in a car...hard with a super
advanced force feedback system and obviously impossible without one.  You
have to have a bit more slack in the wheel when screaming up to a corner at
Monza than you do twisting around a tight corner at lower speeds...any move
to non-linear or dulled steering response should be speed sensitive or else
you wreck the handling at regular and slow speeds.

Marc.

Steve

I could refute the above and describe the mountains of detail and
hours or discussion, research, tweaking and testing that went into
getting everything "right" as well as the knowledge and experience of
the people involved - but I won't (NDA). It's certainly not the
"opinion of programmer(s)" though, although it's one of these issues
where fans of GPL will believe that blindly and sceptics won't. C'est
la vie.

I agree, it doesn't, and what's more I don't. Last night I raced at
Zandvoort with a couple of other testers and spun while following the
leader closely. Trying to make up the lost time I was _hammering_ the
car around the circuit, tossing it into corners and bouncing over
kerbs. Damn good fun and certainly not  delicate. You need to be
smooth to be fast, but it's not driving on top-toes. Once you can
anticipate what the car is going to do AND get a good setup that
feeling disappears and you get more confidence in the car. The demo is
not conducive to that.

Agreed, on all counts.

Cheers!
John

*Peter*    8-)
(NB: remove asterix to e-mail)

 http://members.tripod.com/~HOSHUMUNGUS

    and

 http://www.frontiernet.net/~godsoe/bolt/home.htm

Some people here have invested a lot of time in GPL beta testing, and
at least one of the regulars of this group is working for Papyrus. But
these folks aren't the ones to post angry responses, usually. :)
I tend to skip immature postings, be they pro or against GPL.

[snip]

Others already commented on this: the contact patch of the GPL cars'
tires is pretty small to begin with, the tires are hard and they're
threaded. This means little grip in the dry, but it also means that
the difference between dry and wet grip is smaller than with modern F1
cars.

Well, this is debatable. :) GPL goes much further into *simulating*
car physics than any previous sim. Right, there aren't any "real"
mechanical parts, but those parts are simulated and the "pictures on
the screen" we get are a result of this simulation. Take one example:
When you rev up a car in neutral in GPL, the chassis is going to lean
to the side. This could be implemented as a "special effect", i.e. the
programmer's opinion is "I know a car with a longitudinally mounted
engine does this, so our car will do this too." But it isn't (unless
Mike Lescault and Dave Kaemmer were telling blatant lies in various
interviews.) Instead, GPL simulates the rotating masses of the engine
and drivetrain and the spring rate of the suspension. The leaning of
the chassis, then, is a result of a calculation, of a simulation. It's
math and physics, not opinion. Maybe there are some kludges hidden in
GPL, but if there are, I'm sure they're much smaller than GP2's canned
spins.

You certainly have a valid point here. There is a discrepancy between
the forces one would need to steer a real car of that era and the
forces needed for steering a GPL car. The GPL cars remind me of my
late Olds delta 88 - extreme power steering without any feedback. The
reason for this is obvious: there is no force feedback. In reality,
the rotational inertia of the front wheels would align them pretty
neatly when going at 200mph towards Parabolica. Steering five degrees
to the side would have the same effect as in GPL, but you would have
to use much more muscle power to achieve it.

Saying this is unrealistic is correct, but it isn't less realistic
than being able to zoom down the Hockenheim straights with one hand at
the wheel, as you can do with the current F1 sims. Judging from
footage, real drivers are compensating for bumps etc. all the time.
GPL is unrealistic in a different way. :) I'm afraid this will be so
at least until we get proper force feedback hard- and software.

AOL me. Unfortunately, Usenet seems to encourage religious wars. ;)

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Wolfgang Preiss   \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

 http://members.tripod.com/~HOSHUMUNGUS

    and

 http://www.frontiernet.net/~godsoe/bolt/home.htm

Marc.

    Today's F1 drivers have well over a ton of downforce to glue their cars to
the road, in concert with tires so gummy that you need a screwdriver to pry
your hands off if you touch 'em when they're hot.  At straightaway speeds,
they'd actually stick to the track if you turned it upside down.
    Yeah, GPL's like driving on ice, and it might be a little more "fun"
initally if the car were planted a bit better, but would it be as satisfying to
get it truly right?  Besides, while it's not four-wheeled, as any of you out
there with liter-class road-going superbike experience may know, doing 150 with
hard tires and no downforce is..........delicate.  No..........terrifying is a
better word.  It's hard to imagine 1100 lbs. and 400+ hp in concert with a '67
tire/chassis combo.  I'll take wings, thank you; big ones!  Now if I can only
get the sound sorted so I can listen to that Ferrari wail.

Steve B.

[snip]

This sounds reasonable to me. But then, I'm not a programmer and can't
evaluate how difficult it would be to implement this.

Hmmm, a vibrating cushion... This could be interesting for other
branches of the, err, entertainment industry as well. :)

--
Wolfgang Preiss   \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.