WHAT MACHINES IS IT AVAILABLE FOR?
The game was first released on the Amiga and ST with the PC version
following around a year later. The Amiga and ST versions can both be run
of disk and do not need hard drive installation.
GB: As far as I know there are two version of the game for the PC, F1GP
on floppies, which is supplied on 4 high density disks with optional
upgrade disks, and F1GP on CD, which is EXACTLY the same game but on a
silver disk. Do not buy this unless you don't have a floppy drive, since
it costs more and has no extra features. Quite what MicroProse is
playing at is unknown, but the CD version represents bad value for your
money.
The game is now reissued by Digital Integration on the PowerPlus budget
label.
DG: Having played both the Amiga and PC versions, I noticed some
important differences. First, some of the tracks are physically
different, Monaco and Imola at least. Second, perhaps because of the low
frame rate or different control routines, the car is much, much harder
to set up on the Amiga than the PC; it's very hard to feel whether the
car has any under- or oversteer. It's also much harder to time the
turn-in points properly, as Ivanhoe's explanation of frame rates above
predicts.
WHAT SORT OF PERFORMANCE CAN I EXPECT ON MY PC?
Here is a rough table of machine against performance:
CPU MHz Memory Detail Occupancy FPS
-----------------------------------
P5 100 8MB 4d T 33% 25fps (Squirty's w/ D.Stealth 24 2MB VRAM)
P5 90 24MB 4d T 37% 25fps (Gizmo's tower of power w/ PCI K64)
486DX2/66 8MB 4d T 70% 25fps (Gizmo's Linux box w/ VLB CL5428)
486DX2/66 4MB 4d T 60% 25fps
486DX2/66 32MB 4d T 53% 25fps (Pete F's Dan4Win w/ Spea V7 VLB)
486DX2/66 ? 4d T 70% 25fps (MBP's under OS/2)
486DX 33 ? 4d T 90% 25fps (Graham A's)
486DX2/66 16MB 4d NT 35% 25fps (Nigel Bovey's)
486SX 33 4MB 4d NT 66% 25fps
486DX2/50 24MB 4d NT 95% 25fps (Paul Smyth's w/ ISA ET4000-W32)
486SX 25 4MB 4d NT 100% 25fps (a DELL)
486SX 25 ? 4d NT 80% 25fps (Nightshade's oldie)
486SX 25 4MB 4d NT 100% 23fps (Ben Lester's)
486SX 25 2MB 4d NT 100% 21fps
386DX 40 4MB 4d NT 100% 20fps
386DX 40 2MB 4d NT 100% 20fps (possibly optimistic)
486DX2/50 24MB 4d NT 100% 18fps (Paul Smyth's w/ ISA S3-924)
386DX 33 8MB 4d NT 100% 17fps (Gizmo's old faithful w/ T8900CL)
386SX 20 2MB 1d NT 100% 15fps (Max Behara's)
386SX 25 2MB 4d NT 100% 14fps (Stingray's)
386SX 20 2MB 4d NT 100% 8fps (Max Behara's)
It appears that as long as you have at least 2mb of RAM, the actual
amount makes absolutely no difference. The difference between the
DX2/66s above is attributable to graphics card alone; see the difference
between Paul Smyth's machine with two different graphics cards
installed. DG: IMHO if you have a 486SX/25 or better with a VLB or PCI
graphics card you should be able to crank the frame rate right up
without texture; a 486DX2/50 or better will add texture without any
penalty. A 486DX2/66 should be able to do linked play at 25fps, possibly
with detail cranked down a bit, and a Pentium 75 or faster is pure
heaven. (Lots of memory is useful, for logging data to a RAMdrive when
using the GPPerf and GPLap TSRs.)
The details level is shown by the amount of detail around the track, 1d
being the lowest level and 4d the highest, the other detail option is
the track shading, this is shown by T (track shading on), NT (no track
shading). The average processor occupancy is as you go around any track.
This is just a rough estimate, since tracks can vary quite a lot
(Phoenix and Hockenheim are quite stressful, with lots of buildings and
tress), but the occupancy really shouldn't go above 100% very much. The
final column show the speed in frames per pecond that this set-up
allows.
Even on similar machines, several things will affect speed. A machine
with some external cache will outperform one without; the actual amount
of cache is probably not going to make much difference. Graphics card
performance also makes a big difference; a local bus card will run much
faster that an ISA card, and some cards have better DOS performance than
others (Cirrus Logic based cards are good, ET4000 and derivatives are
even better; VLB and PCI cards will be much faster than ISA ones).
The general consensus seem to be that people would rather have it
running smoother, but with less detail, this shows one of the main
advantages of F1GP over IndyCar, in that it runs quickly on a slow
machine and smooth graphics are possible quite easily.
The Amiga version runs at a similar speed regardless of the machine's
capacity, about 3-8 fps, depending on circuit and level of detail, even
in the fastest 68060 system. (The latest F1GP-Ed and also F1GP-Patch can
alter this, at a compatability cost.)
Does the performance vary on an ST? Mail me if it does.
So how does this affect lap times?
Short answer: it doesn't.
Long answer: it doesn't... directly. DG is in the fortunate position of
having both a P90 and a 386DX/33 on his desk (well, okay, the 386 is
under the desk...), and loaded identical copies of the game up on both
machines. The first and most obvious difference was that the game does
not do a good job of matching "real time" (measured on a stopwatch
during laps on qualifying tyres at Monaco). The first tests were done on
the 386. With 100% to 130% occupancy, the game's timer runs slow, being
about three seconds behind reality. With all the detail turned off and
the occupancy down to about 70% to 110%, it was about three seconds
ahead of reality. With the frame rate reduced and occupancy between 45%
and 75%, it was about 4 seconds behind. Then testing moved to the P90.
With maximum detail and about 33% to 44% occupancy, the timer was about
4 seconds fast.
Now, here's the crunch. Despite these differences, the lap times
reported by the game were very close, all in the 1:14.4 range. The game
was noticeably easier to play at higher frame rates and lower
occupancies. However, with very high occupancies (more than 200%, such
as on the 386 with texture turned on), the difference from real time
becomes very noticeable; the whole game runs in slow motion, and is
potentially easier to play as you get much longer to react. Ivanhoe
Vasiljevich came up with the superb (and very lightly edited)
explanation below.
[...] a high frame rate [as opposed to occupancy] may have its
advantages (my opinion, not proven!):
Using a frame rate of 25 fps means that you have 25 possibilities to
perform an action (eg. braking, accelerating) every second, whereas
driving with 16 fps only allows you 16 `slots' per second, to brake,
for example.
Assuming that a typical braking maneuver begins at 300 km/h (188
mph), this equals a speed of 83 m/s, so that at 25 fps you can take
action (brake) every 3.3 m as opposed to every 5.2 m when using 16
fps. (Using an even lower frame rate naturally worsens the
situation. At 8 fps the distance between two points of action is
10.3 m!) During a normal lap including many braking maneuvers, this
may affect the overall performance, not to mention techniques like
pulsing the throttle.
In my opinion it would be best to turn off as much detail as
necessary and increase the frame rate as high as possible. (It may
not look as cool, but honestly, who has got the time to enjoy the
beautiful panorama when chasing a new lap record?)
However, since the game's physics model is imperfect (after all, it's
just a model), playing at different frame rates will reveal slight
differences in certain circumstances. Here's a short test done for the
LFRS championship:
I ran three tests, each consisting of two laps round Mexico City.
Each test was at a different frame rate, and each lap was consistent
with the other. I looked at the entry and exit speeds for the
Peralta (the final, awesome corner). All tests were done using GPLap
5 to remove any randomized BHP or AI grip effects, under version
1.05, on a 90 MHz, 24MB Pentium, with a 1MB DRAM Orchid Kelvin 64
PCI graphics card.
Test 1. Frame rate: 25 FPS. Entry: 189 mph, exit: 190 mph. Gain of 1
mph in corner.
Test 2. Frame rate: 18.7 FPS. Entry: 189 mph, exit: 188 mph. Loss of
1 mph in corner.
Test 3. Frame rate: 13 FPS. Entry: 188 mph, exit: 186 mph. Loss of 2
mph in corner and 1 mph before entry.
Probably one could also find example situations where 13 FPS or 18.7 FPS
were optimal and 25 FPS went slower.
WHY DOES THE INSTALLATION FAIL ON THE PC?
When installing the game unpacks some large files. On a fragmented hard
disk there might not be a large enough free block for them and the
Installation will crash with a very unhelpful message. Just run a
defragmenter on the hard drive, such as Norton Speed Disk or the one
supplied with MS-DOS 6, the game should then install no problem. You can
also try disabling SmartDrive, since it is reported to create problems
too.
Another potential problem pointed out to me is that the game copies all
the Data files onto hard disk before decompressing them, and this
effectively doubles the amount of space it uses at installation time, so
make sure you have plenty of free hard disk space, as this will cure
both this problem and the one above.
WHY DOES THE FADE BETWEEN SCREENS TAKE SO LONG?
We don't know, but it's awful isn't it? DG: On the Amiga I believe there
is a patch to help cure this; on the PC I run from a Windows DOS box
with the Exclusive option selected, which for some reason speeds it up.
I think it must have something to do with timer emulation because under
Windows/NT I have Hardware Timer Emulation turned on and it fades slowly
again. Version 1.03 and earlier on the PC seem to use a different fading
technique to later versions (bitmapped rather than palette) which is
faster on faster machines. The Technical FAQ has some C source to remove
the fading on the PC.
WHY DOES THE GAME SOMETIMES SLOW DOWN?
The graphics for generating the pit-lane are quit complex and so your
occupancy will always rise when in the pits, though this isn't usually
too much of a problem. The only other place where the game seems to slow
is the back straight at Phoenix and the second straight at Hockenheim.
The slow down at Phoenix is probably due to the large buildings it has
to draw, the one at Hockenheim because of the number of trees. Turn down
the detail if you notice a slowdown and don't like it.
WHY DOESN'T IT SAVE MY LAP RECORDS & SETUPS?
Qualifying records are only saved after a complete event; if you aren't
interested in the race, you must still go to it, then immediately press
escape and accelerate time. After a quick race, you must wait wait until
it says "race over" and goes to the post-race menu. In both cases you
will be able to select the "lap records" option and should see
"(Record)" in yellow under any new records. Race records set in races
shorter than 100% distance will not count. To actually save them for
posterity, you must exit to the main menu, go to "load/save game", and
select "save track records". On the Amiga, you must load them by hand
every time you start the game; on the PC, there is an option called
"startup files" which allows you to load names, setups, and records when
the game loads. Sadly, it will not save them automatically; you should
make sure you save any the records and setups if you have changed them
before you exit the game.
WHAT IS THE BEST CONTROLLER METHOD?
On the Amiga, keyboard or digital joystick seems best.
On the PC, keyboard seems to be preferred by many of the top drivers,
with analog joystick coming a close second. DG: The professional wheel
systems (such as the T1 or ACP) don't seem to work wonderfully. I've had
a few success stories but many people go back to the keyboard!
Javier Vizcaino provided the following information about using radio
control units with the game.
It is [...] possible to change a transmitter used in radio control
(R/C) to turn it into a PC joystick, and play F1GP. I've modified a
few, and let me tell you that there is nothing similar to drive with
these devices.
He also provides some information about PC game ports which help a few
folks out. Note that if you're going to play games on a PC with a
joystick, you really should invest in either a decent soundcard with
credible joystick ports [DG: my Gravis UltraSound is pretty good, and my
SoundBlaster 16 also seems reliable a drift-free] or a dedicated game
card.
About the game port, this is what happens. Game ports on the PC can
be full (the initial good ones with a 558, still found on SB cards
at least, four pots and four buttons), or half (cheaper chinese
solution, two pots and two buttons, simple joysticks). F1GP goes
well on a half port. The problem is that there are a lot of multi
I/O boards with Winbond chips including a half game port which
presents the missing buttons pressed. When F1GP starts calibrating
the joystick, it stops till seeing the four buttons released (it
can't know if your game port is full or half); with the above board,
calibration doesn't start, and you have to abort it with the ESC
key. So if calibrating the joystick the game seems to freeze till
you press ESC, may be you have this problem. Check with DEBUG: i201;
if you see bits 7-6 at 0, the game port presents the third and
fourth buttons pressed.
WHAT IS THE SOUND LIKE ON A SOUNDBLASTER ETC?
Not all that much better unfortunately if anything the PC speaker is
more irritating and thus more realistic! The Amiga sound is reported to
be quite good with a good use of stereo, and the ST is as bad as the PC!
The SoundBlaster support was improved considerably in versions later
than 1.01, but is still quite poor.
DG: The Amiga sounds good even through a TV. The PC with 1.05 and a
SoundBlaster is okay if you turn it up real loud, but not a patch on the
Amiga. A PC with MT-32 or other MIDI is pathetic, but the music is
better. *sigh* I don't know about the ST, but I'd guess it's better than
a PC speaker and nowhere near as good as the Amiga.
HOW DO I MAKE THE (PC) GAME MORE CHALLENGING?
Aside from using the editor to speed up the opposition, the easiest ways
to make the game more difficult are to turn of Traction and Steering
Help, both of these options are listed off the Games Control menu, in
the Accelerating and Steering menus respectively. With these off the
game becomes a good deal harder, but it still leaves a lot to be
desired.
Several top Hall Of Fame drivers, both on the PC and Amiga, report that
driving with Traction Help off, whilst harder, also improves lap times
at many circuits.
I AM BORED WITH THE GAME, WHAT NOW?
Well it has to happen eventually, so what now? You could join one of the
championships on the Net and learn to really hate the game or try either
of these two very sad games...
Dodgems
The basic idea behind this one is to make your car indestructible and
then wipe out the opposition as fast as possible. Top tip, go backwards
quickly. This is fun for about 30 minutes whilst you do each of the
tracks and marvel at the difference of the courses when viewed from the
other direction.
Jumping
A particularly rubbish game this, but set your cars up for no down-force
and then drive over the rumble strip and become air borne and see how
far you can get. Remember to save the games as you land so you can show
off to your friends and family...
IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN CAR PERFORMANCE?
With the performance set to Random or 1991 Levels the cars do vary in
speed, except for the car you are driving. For this reason there is no
point in choosing car No 1, just because it should be 10% faster like
real life since the performance of human cars is always the same, modulo
the BHP degredation mentioned previously.
WHY IS THE AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) SO RUBBISH?
Who knows, but it reeks doesn't it? There seems to be no real way to
cope with this, except to learn what the other cars do, and avoid any of
there stupid overtaking maneuvers. This is the main area that the game
falls down in, since everything else has been really well written.
One of the areas in which to pay most attention is the pit lane, since
the computer cars will quite happily pull out in front of you as you do
150 mph down the lane and so cause a collision. Conversely, watch your
mirrors as you pull out since they appear quite quickly if you are in
the last pit.
On the track, they basically follow the ideal line unless slipstreaming.
If you can get your front wheels ahead of theirs they do move over so
perfect your drafting technique!
WHY AREN'T THERE EXTENSION DISKS?
At the moment there are no extension disks available and none are likely
to become available, this is not through any fault of MicroProse, but
due to the strict licensing agreements with FIA, who are in charge of
the licensing of Grand Prix related material. MicroProse only bought the
rights to the 1991 season so that tracks will have to stay at that
level.
WHO ARE THE DRIVERS MEANT TO BE, AND WHY AREN'T THEY?
The game comes supplied with a set of names which bear almost no
relation to the actual drivers names. This is because the drivers would
probably want to be paid for there names, so MicroProse took the cheaper
and more sensible option. The names that are supplied are meant to sound
like names from the same country as the real driver, hence Carlos
Sanchez instead of Ayrton Senna. The correct list of names can be found
at the end of the supplement to the game, and the names for 1993/94
season can be found on the Rec.Autos.Sport.F1 newsgroup.
CIRCUITS
Which circuit does it default to around the world?
Well, on the European version it selects Silverstone as the default GP
if English language is chosen, Magny Cours if French is the language,
and if the language is German it chooses Hockenheim, so it looks like it
depends on what country you live in! Hence World Circuit uses Phoenix
and the Italian version chooses Monza.
What are the best circuits?
This is a scored listing of the tracks as posted by readers of the
amigaf1gp mailing list and rec.autos.simulators. This vote is now
closed; Monte Carlo is the clear winner, not a great surprise!
Race Qualifying Total
1 Monte Carlo 41 1 Monte Carlo 40 1 Monte Carlo 81
2 Magny Cours 34 2 Mexico City 36 2 Mexico City 68
3 Spa 33 3 Hockenhiem 35 3 Imola 64
4 Imola 32 4 Adelaide 34 4 Hockenhiem 51
==Mexico City 32 5 Imola 32 ==Magny Cours 51
6 Monza 31 6 Silverstone 23 6 Spa 50
7 Interlagos 20 7 Suzuka 20 7 Monza 49
8 Suzuka 19 8 Monza 18 8 Adelaide 47
9 Hockenhiem 16 9 Spa 17 9 Suzuka 39
10 Adelaide 13 ==Magny Cours 17 10 Silverstone 35
11 Silverstone 12 11 Montreal 12 11 Interlagos 21
12 Phoenix 10 12 Estoril 7 ==Montreal 21
13 Montreal 9 13 Phoenix 5 13 Phoenix 15
14 Barcelona 3 14 Hungaroring 3 14 Estoril 7
15 Estoril 0 15 Interlagos 1 15 Barcelona 3
==Hungaroring 0 16 Barcelona 0 ==Hungaroring 3
Scoring: the top four tracks score 5, 4, 3, 1 points, with the most
hated getting a 1 point penalty.
Is there a track editor?
No, nor is there ever likely to be one. DG: I did hear rumors that
someone had turned Mexico into an oval, but don't have any more details.
I'M IN LOVE WITH THE AUTHOR, WHO IS HE?
The author of the game is Geoff Crammond, he has been responsible for
most of the innovative games to appear in the auto simulation world, he
previously wrote the original version of Revs for the BBC Micro. It was
based on Formula 3 racing at Silverstone (the old circuit without the
Vale complex and with the chicane at Woodcote) and was developed with
help from David Hunt (James Hunt's brother), who was racing in British
F3 at the time. The track was quite accurately reproduced and the game
played quite quickly. The game had practice, qualifying and race
sessions like F1GP, but it didn't have pits and you started your
practice and qualifying sessions out on the track! There was also an
expansion pack released which contained four other British tracks,
Oulton Park, Snetterton, Donington Park, and Brands Hatch. Revs was also
released on the Commodore 64.
He then wrote Stunt Car Racer for the Amiga/ST (and the PC, although the
conversion is reported to be poor: 4 color EGA only; the port was
apparantly not done by Crammond) which was as it's name suggests was a
stunt car racing game. The main aim of the game was to race another
stunt car around an elevated circuit, trying not to fall off. Getting in
your way were large gaps in the circuit which had to be jumped by
hitting a ramp at the right speed. Too slow and you went down the hole,
too fast and you cracked the chassis. When the chassis was fully
cracked, your race was over. The best part about this game was the two
player serial option which allowed you to push your mates off the track.
The rest of the programming team seems to be members of his close
family! The only other name that jumps out is that of Pete Cook who
wrote some of the best games on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Interestingly
he was involved with the game Grand Prix from CRL, which attempted to
simulate the management of a GP team. It was very simple but great fun.
Outside of auto racing games, Crammond also made an excellent 3D game
called The Sentinel, for Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Atari, etc, and it was a
very nice idea. You were in a landscape, absorbing some objects,
teleporting from one place to the other, always trying to be out of
sight of a sentinel that was guarding the landscape. The goal was to
have enough energy to climb higher then the sentinel (you were able to
build little platforms) and absorb him and take his place. There were
people who didn't like the game, but those who liked it were addicted to
it. It would be nice to see the game in Virtual Reality, it would be
easy to write.
WHAT DO THE REAL DRIVERS THINK?
There have been two drivers who have commented on the game, they are
Oliver Gavin, and Derek Warwick. Gavin is a top F3 driver who, according
to MicroProse, played the game on a friends Amiga before the race at
Spa, and the went on to win it!
"Because part of the circuit is on the public road, Oliver couldn't
practice on the circuit", explains Geoff, "so he used F1GP to learn
the track, took pole position and won the race."
Derek Warwick on the other hand drove for the F1 team Arrows/Footwork
(who helped write the game!) and gave it a glowing write up in Autosport
Magazine, just before the Canadian GP (the 10 June 1993 issue). There
was also an interview with the Footwork engineers. He gave some lap
times but they were very poor, and he had to drive with full help. This
provoked a spate of letters to the magazine from people asking for his
job, including the following, from the 17 June 1993 issue:
GIZAJOB
I read last week's Canadian Grand Prix preview - about Footwork
Formula 1's computer game - with interest.
I have been playing the game for several months now and was
delighted to read how accurate it is. Allen McDonald claimed he
could lap Montreal in 1m19s. Well I can lap in 1m17.627s so does
this mean I can take Derek Warwick's place if ever he feels like
having the weekend off.
J Mosley
Sheffield, Yorkshire
Also, a Canadian driver contacted him to say how accurate the Montreal
course was.
WHAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WC AND F1GP?
There seems to be no difference apart from the name, with the version
numbers staying consistent with each other. The only difference is the
loading screens (see separate question).
What are the WC gif files?
These files are used in the US version of GP, known as World Circuit.
WHY DO I NOT SEEM TO BE ABLE TO GO SO QUICK SOME DAYS?
The game randomly degrades the player's car's horsepower from its
default of 716BHP, presumably to simulate changing track conditions. The
latest GPLap (version 5.0) fixes this.
WHY DOES THE CAR STEER ITSELF SOMETIMES?
This effect is most noticeable in the pits, when the car is pulled into
the correct lane as you drive past, though the computer 'aids' you
steering as you go round every course. The reason for this is the
Steering Help option set in the Game Controls, Steering, menu. This
feature is there to help users who driver using the keyboard or a
standard joystick, since they find it hard to make slight course
adjustments. The only way to disable this feature in a race is to put
the car in the 'turning gear' you can then steer the car anywhere you
want in the pits etc, thought quite why you would want to...
HOW ARE THE PIT BAYS ALLOCATED?
This is more of a general GP question than specific to the game, but the
pits are given out according to the team's position in the previous
years constructors championship. There seems to be a bit of a bug in the
game when you drive for the top team, in that at some courses it is very
hard to get into the pit bay correctly! The corner is too sharp and with
the steering help on, you almost always over shoot. DG: Can't say as
I've noticed this, but then again I slow down on the pit lane like
you're supposed too.
One correspondant reports that he is working on a patch to alter the
pit-bay allocation.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I OVERSHOOT MY PIT?
To put it simply, you cannot over shoot your pit (unless steering help
is turned off) the computer will always try and pull you in. This means
that you can be parked at very strange angles, but this does not seem to
hurt your stop time, though the get-away may become more difficult! (Of
course, some people would consider this cheating!)
One correspondant reports:
I've overshot the pit at Monza. The pit entrance is very straight
and you can build up enough speed so that the game won't actually
stop you.
LINKED PLAY
Why doesn't the modem play work?
If you own the Amiga or Atari ST version then you are out of luck since
the modem support never appeared on either of these versions, the PC
game is the only version with the support.
There is no modem support on the first version (1.01) but this was added
on the updates 1.04 and 1.05, the link option needs two quite fast
machine to work well, on 386SX it is almost unplayable, and the slowest
machine dictates the speed of the other machines; on a 386DX you'll
probably need a 16550 UART to get acceptable performance. If the game
seems to pause a lot or you get regular (but not constant) link data
mismatches, try reducing the frame rate on the slower machine by 30% or
more.
You should also be aware that if one of you has altered your gp.exein
anyway (either by a patch or a TSR), then you must both be running
identical games. This means that:
The AI BHP, grip, peformances levels, and the player BHP, must all
match. The colors of the cars can be different (but of course if
they aren't you may end up confused!).
Both gp.exes must have been patched (or not) in identical ways with such
tools as GPFlags, GPBHP, WCF1GP, and other editors.
You should both run GPLap v5 or not (since this affects player BHP and
grip).
If you use CCPit, make sure you both run with identicalparameters.
If you are also using the timesliced multiplayer feature, be sure to
select the same number of players on both machines. If you cannot or
do not want to, you cannot use CCPit.
If you forget any of these, you will almost certainly get "data link
mismatch" errors. The best policy is to copy the gp.exe from one machine
to the other, and also a batch file which is used to load the TSRs and
start the game.
What are these modem menus?
On the PC, if you hex edit the .EXE file from version 1.00 you will find
some references to modems and COM links, these menus are not enabled and
you will have to upgrade to access the link option.
Can I play across a real network?
No. Neither IPX nor TCP/IP are supported; only the COM ports may be
used.
If you have a dialup connection to the Internet, you may be able to use
the Internet Head-to-Head Daemon (IHHD) to play with someone on the net.
You can find more details in ftp://cactus.org/pub/IHHD/.
In theory, one could use a null-modem cable to loop the COM ports on two
machines together, and write a TSR which would transfer bytes between
the network card and the COM port which isn't selected in the game. So
far, nobody has reported trying this.
We tried to reload a saved game and it went nuts!
It appears that there are a couple of nasty "gotchas" in the linked play
code. Doug Reichley takes up the story (slighted edited; Doug was
unsurprisingly rather annoyed about this)...
There is a bug in the linked code that is a real bitch. It involves
having only one or none drivers (ie human) in the race.
In other words, both human drivers must be actively racing or you
will get a data mismatch error when the game is reloaded. Obviously,
this is only if you reload the game during a race and one or both of
the human drivers have crashed out.
This nasty little [bug] bit my friend and I over the past weekend.
It was Monza and we were both trying to catch Schu who was running
away with the championship (we have the AI turned up quite a bit).
My friend crashed out real early. My car had so much oversteer that
I was run down by the AI and passed for the lead [...]. I got really
frustrated and crashed myself out as well.
Just as I crashed out, the modem link disconnected. I dutifully
saved the game as I exited the screen. When we reloaded this game
later, it gave us a mismatch error. There goes the season. The
latest saved game we had was for Belgium, but we had both crashed
out of that as well (however, the race finished, therefore, the
mismatch bug was eluded).
Well, we tried to reload the bad game with the mismatch from Monza,
but it still had the error. We then selected to restart (the race in
Monza), however, the 2nd bug came about. This time, he was me and I
was he. This was quite interesting because both of our files said we
were selected as ourselves. What was more strange was that,
obviously, I was in his car and he was in mine. In other words, my
joystick controlled his car and his mine. When I hit N on my
computer, it said I was him.
Well, we tried to drive each others cars and ended up crashing out
anyway. Needless to say, we just accelerated the rest of the season,
handing the title over to Schu.
The moral of the story: if one, or both, human drivers crash out,
make sure that you finish the race! Do not save a game with only one
human driver or else when it is reloaded, you will get mismatch
errors.
Is there any way to connect two computers other than null modem cable?
Javier Vizcaino suggested the following alternative method of
connection,
You can play F1GP (and other games) through a direct connection,
informing the game you are connected "Direct", and having a modem at
each end. You establish the connection through a communication package,
or from the DOS prompt, before entering the game. The link is done from
modem to modem, through a direct telephone cable, with RJ-11 connectors
at each end. This has some advantages:
Easier cable than a null modem. You can have it built at a telephone
shop. It can also be much longer than an RS232 cable.
No galvanic isolation to care about.
You can play with your neighbour, and talk with him at the time through
the phone.
With external modems, you can observe F1GP exchanging packets.
Some computer/modem fun, without paying the phone call.
Of couse, there are some disadvantages:
A modem is needed at each end. But if you already have the modems...
A more complex connection (probably some debugging/experimenting
needed).
Procedure:
Have the modems (2400+) connected at each end to COM1-COM4. If you use
COM3-COM4 make sure you use IRQ4-IRQ3: F1GP doesn't recognize other
hardware interrupts there.
Establish the connection: modems on leased line (we won't dial), with
one modem calling and the other answering. This may be done:
With a communication program: set the port, set the baud rate, connect
to the modem, inform leased line, make one answer and the other
call. Exit the program maintaining the connection.
From the DOS prompt. Edit a batch program at each site:
Calling modem:
mode com1:96,n,8,1
echo at&l1d>com1
Answering modem:
mode com1:96,n,8,1
echo at&l1a>com1
(Check if this is correct: I write without the DOS manual). Execute the
programs and listen to the modems. Adapt the batch to your requirements
and to your modems. Disable MNP/V42/V42bis (error
correction/compression).
Enter F1GP and make the program believe you have a "Direct" connection.
Of course, inform of the same COM ports and baud rate than before.
Note that you can change the PC initiating the connection, since the
link was done previously. Connect on both sides. F1GP should
exchange packets and establish the connection.
If you try this, pass on your experiences to jvizc...@colibri.tid.es
(Javier Vizcaino).
WARP SPEED?
John Robert Cole writes concerning edited GP.EXEs with enormous
horsepower settings (most editors can only go up to 999; in fact because
of the way it's stored internally, it's possible to push it up to 1432
BHP). John calls this "warp speed" but I prefer to think of it as "wrap
speed"; read on and you'll understand.
This is the where you can push the computer cars to their limit, and
they literally explode. What I can figure out is the program never
expects the AI cars to go over a limit of 394 km/h, but if this
occurence happens their speed is instantaneously reset to zero. So think
about this scenario your happily pushing Nigel Mansell down the
straights of Hockenheim at around 400 km/h, he hit's WARP SPEED! but
your still doing 400km/h so the logical thing for the program to do is
destroy his car. Funny maybe for the first time but thats about it.
Also it's interesting to go up alonside a driver while doing over
400km/h and clipping their wheels just enough to make them hit warp
speed and make them dissapear into distance.
[DG: I believe the exact speed is 411km/h, which is 256mph, since 255 is
the largest value a single byte can hold, so 256 becomes 0.]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I RESTART FROM A SAVED GAME?
Firstly, you can view a "replay" of the events just before you saved the
game. So, a saved game is actually what is meant when people talk about
"replays" in F1GP.
Next, the game will not let you avoid some things by restarting a race.
For example, if the race is wet, reloading, even before free practice,
will not avoid the rain. (It is possible to do something about this with
some of the Amiga editors, but not yet on the PC.)
Also, one correspondant has reported that pit stop times stay constant
too. If you are in a race, save the game, then pit, and get a bad stop
time, reloading will not help you.