rec.autos.simulators

Have u tried those Van diemens ,hehe they are great fun to drive totally
outshines the touring cars for me. After racing in gpl for ages they
make a welcome change although it all seems too easy to control and
lacking in something in the reality stakes IM not quite sure what it is.
Gear changing is perhaps far to easy, there doesn't seem to be any
worries about blowing the engine etc. and although u can see damage on
the cars it doesn't seem to effect anything in handling.
The graphics are pretty good a cross between gpl and mgprs2 still a bit
too cartoonish and bright, some parts are excellent but there are still
a few minor niggles.
Running in 1024*768 on a pII450 with 2 12mb r3d2's with everything at
its highest it runs at an incredible speed, we are talking serious
arcade speed. Which really conveys the feeling of speed well on the
track.
I can imagine there would be a lot of fun racing this online, lot of
bumping and barging, maybe a bit too much, but u have to be careful with
the van diemens because if u ride over someone's back wheel with your
front u can expect to do some cartwheels :-)
Took a while to set my wheel up the way I wanted it, and where I have my
pedals on split axis it means it recognises another axis that I don't
really have, and until I realised that I could set the dead zones for
all axis ,all I had to do was set a 100% dead zone for that axis to stop
it assigning that axis to the accelerator.
I had to set the axis to non linear and use all the full movement so
that the wheel wasn't over sensitive, there is an option to change the
sensitivity but I couldn't change it in the demo.
I would really of loved  to try the Van Diemens on a track with some
elevation changes.
U can change a couple of things on the setup of the car like gear
ratios, suspension and ,cant remember the other right now.
U will want to bump the gear ratios up because u can drive around croft
pretty much all in 5th gear, In the VD's anyway ,not sure I like them
initials :-)
So overall great fun ,very nice visuals although the inside***pits I
think could of looked a lot better and a few little artefacts appearing
at times. Fun game play not serious enough maybe for the real serious
sim racers out there .
Oh yeah and the replays are great and u can save them for later.
The demo remembers all your settings.
U can race in 3 laps, I thought the demo was supposed to be limited to 5
minutes but maybe that's if u don't get round the 3 laps in 5 minutes
,that really shouldn't be a problem for any1, and then u can go straight
to another race time and time again :-)
I think I'll be buying it when it comes out.
only problem is I've now missed a whole evening of my GPL practice and I
still need lots of that.
--
Vince Fisher

mdenesse wrote

Here mine now ;-)

Mixed feelings.

It's an upgrade over Toca2. But it's still similar to Toca.  Still the
495876th menus.  Just make it point and click, no need for all those menus.
"oops" I forgot something, you need to completly go back to the first menu
just for graphics or controller options.  I feel they targeted the PSX for
that and didn't cared for the PC platform.

There is nice additions. They FINALLY understood that a good game controller
menu is essential. Kudos to Codemaster for understanding finally that. Great
options there, I was very surprised to have different options for each axis.
Also nice overall options. I wish they were less in a pyramidal scheme (heh)
to access, but there is tons of graphical options to tweaks. Only thing is
"Why a Advanced menu in the advanced menu section?" lol ;)

The track shipped with the demo is quite fun, but a little boring because of
no elevation (as many tracks in England, but Brands Hatch would had been
cooler hehe).

Toca2 has the same game engine as the previous one, and you clearly see some
little problems with turning the corners. The same "canned over-turn"
routines when entering medium-speed corners.  I drove Touring cars, so I
know how they act on a track.. The weight shiftting in Toca makes the car
almost on 2wheels in those type of corners.  The grass is quite accurate,
and I always loved the grints and rumbles of the 3d***pit in Toca1/2.
Another thing, is it me or the graphics look quite grainy ? Just look at the
background trees and people, it's very Ubisoft'esque ;-)

Oh and another thing, please make us be able to get a higher last gear with
the Formula Fords. It's quite boring to be at constant speed for all the
backstrech...  And tweak the FF starts for the AI ;-)   . Overall the game
engine is pretty good, not the best, not the worst.  Just go at full speed
and shift down from 6 to 1. Nothing happens.  Or brake hard... the car never
wants to swerve like it does in real life. Remember I raced those types of
cars ;-)

There's many little options here and there that adds to the realism.  More
eye-candy than anything else but it's very nice.

We can classify this now as more than a sim than an arcade game, so I give
it a 7 out of 10, and if they tweak the game engine a little more a 8 ;)

Good work Codemaster

-= Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank>
-= NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-= SimRacing Online http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-= Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
-= May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

John Wallace wrote

lol I was surprised when it happened at the start (why is there always a
mess there ? :)  ).

Ah... maybe 0.5 also more for licensing Nigel Mansell into the title ;-)

It's always fun to your ego to punt him

-= Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank>
-= NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-= SimRacing Online http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-= Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
-= May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Nice graphics. Same problem that I had with Viper racing: those ***
transparent triangles on the cars and on the track when I use my Monster
3D II. When I use my other card, a Diamond Stealth G460 (i740 chip),
graphics are better but fps drop a lot. Some of you will tell me it has
to do with my drivers. I'll answer you by saying this: why my other
games work well with my Monster 3D II? There's transparent triangles in
GPL, Nascar 99, Half-Life. Come on!

Handling: come on, I drove my dad's Accord, and it's not that loose even
at high speed. The end of the car snaps faster than a Rice Crispy...

In car mirror are not clear enough... you get better graphics when you
use the outside views...

Question: as anybody been able to finish better than 10th? The cars are
almost impossible to catch once you make the smallest mistake.

Philster

The game looks better than Toca 1. There is a mirrorview  in this version,
and you can look to the right and to the left in the virtual***pit mode.

Although it is by far not as realistic as Grandprix Legends, which is i.m.o.
the only real  racing sim available,
it is great fun. I would recommend to download it.

In the demo, you can not race in the 'expert' mode. It took me only 4 races
in the formule ford class, to win my first race. I hope that the expert mode
will be more realistic and more difficult. And i really hope that there will
be real car damage in the expert mode.

Remco

I give it more arcade than sim, but I'd give it an extra point just
for the shaking***- I love that :-)

Cheers!
John

So you did download the 20Mb file then, John :-)
Cheers,
Paul

It's not modelling the same car at all as your Dad's. About the only thing
that is the same is the shell.

Yeah, GPL has better mirrors.

I've got a 4th with the Honda but someone else said he got a 3rd and someone
else again said he won in the Formula Ford. I can get off to a decent start
in the Formula Ford so the best I've done in that is 7th.
Cheers,
Paul

Get the 207 drivers from Diamond.  Then use the glide2x.dll from what u have
now in GPL dir.  It ill be ok then.  Colin McRae has a problem that I
couldn't fix with the same GPL technique...so I deleted it (which means no
problems with new drivers :-).

My fps in Viper went from 39 to 52 with new drivers.  33% improvement.

Hmmm...is a race car the same as a street car?  Does your dad have slicks
on?  Are the seats ripped out so you don't have extra wieght.  These
machines are very different... think they are 400hp (I seem to recall a
NATCC race at Long Beach where they said that).
I don't think it's fair to compare a race car to a street car.  I'm not sure
how a touring car handles, but it certainly is different than the one you
pick up at the dealer.

Well think about it.  They need to conserve fps and at once they are showing
2 mirrors in the incar of the 3 total.  This means quality needs to drop for
the mirror in in-car because outside there is only 1 mirror.  Also you have
moving arms inside with is more power using.

I find them easy to catch back up to...at least 1-2seconds faster for each
of the 3 timed sections of the course.
And in the Formula Fords they are just slow moving road blocks that make
good ramps. :-P

--

Jon   Van Ginneken

"...come on man...that's not ordinary, that's extrodinary."

                                       --"Iron" Mike Tyson

where is the 20mb file?

 sorry i didn't make it that far down the ng before i started to look for
it.

I had the same graphics problems with M3D 2 , Viper and CMR was bad  but
Direct X 6.1 and the 207 driver fixed it .
Lutrell

5 speed Formula Ford? In the US FF's are 4 speed with the "Kent" 1600
engines. This engine sounds a bit different.
Lutrell

The British F Ford Championship runs to avon slicks/Zetec 1800cc/Van
Diemen or Mygale Chassis. (and..er.. Tattus i think from this year, too).

Never the less, the shifter is on the wrong side in the game ;)

Z.

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999 00:18:49 +0000, Paul Jones

You're jumping to conclusions Paul.... :-)

Cheers!
John