John, who maintains the Apex Web site for CPR enthusiasts, wrote a long
and thoughtful response to my CPR review, and the news of Dean's
leaving, last Wednesday. Unfortunately, he inadvertently mailed it to
me instead of posting it on the newsgroup. With his permission, I'm
posting it now, along with my responses.
John makes the excellent point that, in my frustration with the problems
I had getting CPR to run, I neglected to mention the many good features
in CPR. This is true, and I appreciate his detailed and articulate
comments about this.
Also, John has provided some excellent setups on his Apex web site, as
well as some very good advice about CPR and about sim racing in general.
Thanks, John, for all your thoughts, and for your commitment to making
this sim better!
Note: Since I wrote this response, I have worked around three of the
four major problems I had with CPR, and have learned that Microsoft's
upcoming patch will address the fourth major problem I had. I've also
been able to get onto The Zone and do some network racing. See my
seperate posting for more info.
On Wed, 10 Dec 1997 23:39:44 -0800, John wrote:
>I'm sorry to see you leave Dean. I have never seen as much support as you
>have provided on R.A.S. You presence will be missed.
I agree!
>With regards to Dean's reply to allison you have to remember that Dean does
>this in his spare time, he has a new-born baby ...
Thanks, John. It helps to know what was happening on Dean's end.
>Allison I totally agree with your ideas of the +ACI-ultimate sim+ACI- and have been
>hoping companies would follow many of the ideas you outlined.
>I would like to run down the list of your ideas and if MS CART Precision
>Racing has them.
>(1) 8 Player Multiplayer - YES CART PR has this.
Yes. I tried to get onto the Zone last night, but their signup form was
malfunctioning and wouldn't let me sign in!
Jeeeeez. I just can't get anywhere with this Microsoft crowd! <grin>
>(2) Rendition Support - YES CART PR has this in Direct 3D. No in terms of a
>dedicated Rendition port. Because 3DFX is the current 3D card leader I don't
>think you will see many companies doing dedicated rendition ports anymore.
Yes, I think you are right. I am planning to get a 3Dfx card, but
haven't decided whether to go for a Pure 3D or wait for the new Voodoo 2
based cards due in Jan-March.
>(3) 3D Support - YES CART PR has this in Direct 3D. Runs best on 3DFX which
>many people own now because of it's high performance. If I owned a rendition
>card I would be dissapointed that 3DFX runs CART PR better but I was
>disappointed when Papyrus only released a Rendition port.
Yes. I wish there were some standard, but unless a de facto standard
for 3D native APIs emerges, we will have to rely on D3D. However, if
Voodoo 2 is as good as people are saying (50-80 fps?) then maybe we can
live with the overhead of Win95/D3D.
>(4) Win 95 or DOS. Yes CART PR runs on Win 95. No in DOS. In your
>specifications you say Win95 is ok with no performance hit. I think
>ultimately any DOS game is going to run faster than a Win95 game because the
>OS overhead is not as much (These are my assumptions and not based on great
>technical knowledge of OS's). To ask Win95 to not provide any performance
>hit over DOS is asking allot. Hopefully the performance hit will be minimal.
>It is also the current trend to develop games in Win95 and not DOS so for
>the time being we don't have much choice on this item.
Well said. Win95 also has the advantage of built-in networking so the
game developers can more easily incorporate multiplayer. Also it's nice
to be able to drop out of the game and swap setup and replay files (and
newly minted SODA tracks) across my LAN without having to reboot.
>(5) Comprehensive Garage Settings - YES CART PR has this.
Yes. I wish I'd been a little more specific. Like, brake balance
adjustments that actually *do* something. And tire tempurature
readings. Tire pressure readings when hot. The ability to engineer in
some lift-throttle oversteer.
>(6) Tabs for accessing the many garage settings - YES CART PR has this.
Nice menus they are, too.
>(7) Loads last setup for each track - YES CART PR has this. CART will not
>warn if you change a setup I don't think but it will save it under the
>custom name.
Yes, this is nicely implemented. Except that it doesn't sort the setup
files alphabetically, but reports them in the order in which the files
were created. This is OK at first but can get awfully messy, especially
if you bring over setup files from other computers.
>(8) Telemetry - YES CART PR has this. Since the Replay or PI Analysis file
>is a text file (Go to the APEX http://cart.gamestats.com in the editing
>section to see the file layout) you can easily create a more in depth data
>analysis tool or import the data into a spread sheet.
I saw this at APEX. I really like the fact that a lot of the files,
including the .gar files, are in text. However, apparently there are
some anamolies in the PI Analysis, like low G-force readings for lateral
G's, and erratic MPH readings when the speed was actually consistent. I
need to study this more before I comment in more depth.
>(9) New carsets - YES CART PR has this with the recently released Paint Kit
>that extracts the textures from the game.
Is the Paint Kit out already? I saw something on APEX but got the
impression we are still waiting.
>(10) Add new tracks/ car models - YES+ACEAIQAhACEAIQAhACEAIQAhACEAIQAhACEAIQAhACEAIQAhACE- CART PR has this in
>the soon to be released track editor. This editor allows you to extract many
>different files form the game and gives you the opportunity to edit more
>than just the track. The tools to create a track from scratch are very
>powerful+ACE- The track editor that T.R.I. will be releasing is the exact same
>editor that they used to create the tracks for CART P.R. People will drool
>when this tool is released+ACE-
This sounds awesome! I've found the track editor in SODA to be at least
as entertaining as actually racing in it, and racing in SODA is quite
good. If CPR matures and gets really driveable, then the track editor
will be a fantastic supplement.
>(11) Vehicle Performance Model Editing - NO at present. I'm working on this
>item and it may be possible to to edit some values in the near future
>through hacking. The problem is that many of the performance varaibles are
>hard coded in the program and not available via external input files.
If that's so, it will be hard to change things safely. They may have
done that to prevent cheating in online play, but it's a pain for
keeping the sim up to date or using it to do other types of cars.
>So looking at this list CART P.R. has met many of the items as that you list
>as being in your ultimate sim.
Yes.
>Now that doesn't amount to a hill of beans if
>you are unhappy with the sim.
<grin> Yes again.
>Many of the items that you listed as being
>unhappy with in your review are being addressed in the patch. There was no
>mention of the patch or the editors in your review.
You're right. When I wrote the review, I'd gotten behind on reading the
newsgroup because I was so involved with playing SODA and then CPR.
After I wrote the review, I caught up on the newsgroup and learned about
the patch. I should have caught up before I published the review.
I'm planning to update my review shortly - for sure, as soon as I have a
chance to try the patch - and I will include what I've learned. I'm
really hoping I will be able to be more positive.
>In your review you also
>listed some postings from R.A.S. from people that were also unhappy with
>CART P.R. It would have been nice if you would have posted some of the
>positive messages on R.A.S. to give a balanced view.
Well, yes. Unfortunately, I did not find very many positive messages
that were detailed and well thought out, from people like you who
obviously understand real racing and have some expertise in sims. But I
should have looked harder. And I should have looked at the APEX before
I published my review, because there is a lot of good info there as well
as setups and replays.
>I read your background and learned that you have race experience in SCCA. I
>too have raced in SCCA and set lap records at SEARS POINT and won the
>championship both years I raced.
Cool! What class did you race in?
I was at Sears Point as a crew for a SCCA endurance racing RX-7 in the
early 80's, but never got to drive there in real cars. I was delighted
to get the N1 to ICR2 conversion utility and be able to run an IndyCar
there. It is one of my favorite tracks in ICR2, along with Watkins
Glen, in which I did race real cars, both Formula Vee and a Showroom
Stock Honda CRX Si.
>I also raced 1 year of S.C.C.A. Pro racing
>in the ESCORT Endurance series (World Challenge).
Great! I think the ESCORT World Challenge descended from the Showroom
Stock Endurance series that I raced in.
>In college I got my degree
>in Mechanical Engineering and helped work on a Bob Sled Simulator for the
>U.S. Bob Sled team.
Cool! My brother wrote a vehicle dynamics sim program in college. I
really wish we still had the source code.
>I just like you am searching for the ultimate race car
>simulator. I too have played race simulators from the original World Circuit
>to INDYCAR 1,II and NASCAR I,II. I had very high expectations for CART PR
>before it came out also. When I first played it I too was frustrated by the
>steering and the default setups. After allot of tinkering and messing around
>I was able to resolve the steering and I used many setups that were sent to
>me for The APEX page.
Got em! Actually, I found them the other night after publishing my
review. Thanks! They do help, though they don't absolve MS from
keeping their promise to include "good setups, unlike other sims", to
quote from the FAQ on your site and at TRI's site.
>The game is now very enjoyable to drive and
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