rec.autos.simulators

Unfortunately, I  ignored the bad reviews on the newsgroups as I thought
they were dealing with beta code for the game and the final product would be
far better.

Lets start with my system spec - I run an AMD 1400 with 512 ram and a
Geforce 3 TI 500 card. Not exactly a slow system. (BTW, F12002 flys on this
system and at  higher resolutions).

The game auto detects the optimum resolution at only  1024 X 768 , (which is
***y low compared to other F1 games), and it looks very pixelated and
worse still very slow. There are some very bad refections visible in the
***pit which dont look very realistic either.

At the start of a race, I am running 300% processor occupancy and the
slowdown is total pants. It is a ***y slideshow. I would 'geusstimate'
that I am getting 10 fps at the start of the game and I dont have all the
detail turned on either. It is unplayable at this stage and reminds me of
playing GP2 years ago with the sky turned on at Monaco.

By the way, I am playing the European GP on GP4 which is not as graphically
intense as Monaco so I assume it gets worse for more complicated tracks.

I have had to play the game using the keys because after an hour of
fiddling, I couldnt get the Cyborg joystick throttle/brake to work at all.
(It works first time in other games).

Also, the menus, as well as being clunky and akward to use play have this
really annoying music which I had to turn off after 3 mintues.

I hate to say it but F12002 is light years ahead and I will be returning my
GP4 to EB later today.

GP4 is a real backward step for the GP series and to be honest, GP32000 is
better to play and less pixelated because you can run it at higher
resolutions.

It is such a let down!

(Sorry if this message appeared twice)

1600x1200 on the same track (starting last on the grid) - this with a PO of
110 %, dropping to approx. 90 % PO as soon as the field gets going. I find
the game looks very (!) good and plays really well too.

I've been playing around with the graphics options and suspect the
auto-calibration feature is somewhat broken. At least, regardless of what
features and resolution i select, i always suggest 20-22 fps on my box.

Anyway, the game should perform substantially better on your box.

Jan.
=---

I'm unable to attain 32 fps with a PO lower then 100 % on my system, even if
i set everything to "lowest", and i can see why people with higher "steering
resolution tolerance" wouldn't like it.

- Thomas

I also thought GP4 was ***the first time I played it because of the low
framerates. I then read the readme file which mentioned something about
sound cards and drivers having a detremental
effect on the performance of the game that could reduce the speed of the
game considerably. This happened when you had no hardware acceleration
available or selected in the audio menu, then the sound would be mixed in
software instead of hardware. First I tried the solution that was mentioned
in the readme file, which was to adjust the windows audio system settings in
the windows control panel. This can be done by :

In windows 98/Me look at Control Panel->Multimedia->Advenced
Properties->Performance

In windows 2000/XP look at Control Panel->Sounds and Audio Devices->(Speaker
Settings) Advanced->Performance.

Check the bottom slider which adjusts the sound reproduction quality, and
set it to minimum quality. The defauly value for this in XP is best which
will give a huge performance hit
if the game uses no sound hardware acceleration.
The graphics was now very smooth after doing this, but as I knew my
soundcard had hardware acceleration the real solution was of course to
upgrade my sound card drivers from the ones that came with the XP
installation, and this solved the problem.

<snip>

The reason this is in the readme is because of shoddy programming on the
part of Geoff Crammond et al. GP4 should be able to run with the same
hardware settings as an modern game or sim.

I for one am not prepared to change my sound card settings to suit GC when
it works fine for GPL, N4, N2002, F1 2001, F1 2002, Rally Trophy, MBTR,
GP500, SBK 2001, IL2, OpF and Medal of Honor. Who is right, GC or all other
sim/game developers?

There are only two sims which I would change my hardware settings for, GPL
and N2002.

Phil
---
Racesim Central Administrator
http://www.racesimcentral.com

Changing the mirrors to "No Objects" changed the framerate from a
suggested 25 to 36. I also turn off "advanced lighting".

My system is an AMD 1800+ with a GF3 200. I'm running the game at
1024*768 at a suggested 25 FPS. This is plenty smooth for me and it
gives me a buffer for when a lot of stuff is on the screen. For the
most part, the PO is between 50 and 70 and only gets close to 100
during starts.

I kinda subscribe to the theory that anything over 25 is a waste to
the eye.  Yes... 35 fps is smoother than 25 as is 50 better than 35.
But I have no problem with smoothness at 25. Thats me. Others I'm sure
will disagree.

Not to get into an argument about dropping frames vs. slowing time
(like GP4 does)... I think they both suck. One is not better than
other.  Either way... it makes the car undriveable.

Wouldn't it be great if every sim we played ran great on all
platforms? Well they don't. You can get  all pissy about it or you can
educate  yourself and tweak your system so it runs as well as
possible. If you don't want to tweak... I guess a *** console is
always an option too.

I love this game.... flaws and all. I hope they patch several of
things... such as the sound problem I described above. I also can't
wait for the  GPx patch works on it and the 2002 carsets to come out.
But until then... I do what I can to my PC  because I want to play
this game.

I fiddled a lot with the settings the other day. They don't seem to really
do a whole lot though. With mirrors set to "no objects" I would expect to
see very little in them. Especially since there's a separate option for
"cars only". With "no objects" I not only get the track, grass and other
cars, I also get every little trackside detail, including advertising
billboards..  I only tried this for playback of a hotlap, so I guess in
theory it could use the same details as the hotlap was recorded in by
default (for no good reason I can figure), but I really doubt that's the
case.

Am I the only one having this "problem", or is it a general issue?

--
Frode

The only reason I can think of for that is that you already have sound
quality set to minimum value in Control panel, and that GP4 has some
problems with the hardware accelaration from the SB Live card.

2001

--
Frode

good lord
this MUST BE hell of a ***ly bad programming !!

(BTW, F12002 flys on this
1024 X 768 , (which is
refections visible in the
stage and reminds me of
is not as graphically
throttle/brake to work at all.
to use play have this
I will be returning my
be honest, GP32000 is