rec.autos.simulators

Lots of people have been complaining that GPL requires far too much effort
to keep the car on the track and is therefore not real. With the qualifying
for the Argentinian Grand Prix yesterday, I decided to watch very closely,
and not one driver could get the car round the track without constantly
playing on the steering, and the faster cars were fishtailing around a lot
under both braking and acceleration. This is in 1998 F1 cars with
absolutely huge amounts of grip, and (if I'm not mistaken - which I very
well maybe) only a similar amount of Horsepower to the '67 3 litre cars.
Imagine taking the wings off them and putting crappy little tires on they
would be far worse to drive. As for the arcadish throwing cars around the
track being slow - Eddie Irvine was doing this on one lap in his Ferrari
and took nearly half a second off Schumacher in the first sector (I think
it was 0.4 seconds faster in a 37 second sector!), before he eventually
locked the wheels and went off - this I feel proves the point that this is
the fast way round the track, but the real drivers don't do it because they
can't afford to trash their race car in qualifying and have to drive the
spare (nor do they want to kill themselves, which is pretty difficult in a
computer simulation :) ).

Anyways, back to some more "arcade" driving with GPL :-)

Steve

With regard to the GP, the track was damp which was why the drivers were
having problems. Only a few completed free practise and qualifying without
at least one spin. Damp track and the new grooved tyres obviously didn't mix
too well.

I agree, and to those that are whining and complaining.....Don't BUY it when
it comes out.

--
Kevin Anderson



ICQ # 6769389
Oscar FB Div. 10

Oops, I did say I wasn't sure :)

Steve

There has been some talk about the steering in GPL needing some sort of reduce
with speed steering ratio, but I think Papyrus has it perfect.  This is the
only sim from Papyrus or any other that I can run with the steering on full
linear.  I have a custom built steering wheel with about 270 degrees of lock
and the pot is set up on gear reduction as well, but I have also played it with
a thrustmaster T2 as well and I have no trouble.  Watching the Argentina GP
Sunday I was amazed at how much the cars seemed to twitch from side to side
down the straights there definitely was a lot of correcting going on by the
drivers.  I think Papyrus has it right, but I will also agree that not
everybody has the best controls and a % slider like GP2 would help some people.
 I aslo would like to use the roll bar camera view as a driving view if Papyrus
is listening.

P.s. Anybody know how much caster modern F1 cars use, I know they use negative
camber, but do they use positve caster for self centering steering?

Jerry