Ok, here's my opinion if F1.
Oh dear.
I have a P200MMX 32MbEDO Orchid Rghteous 3dfx.
F1 runs at about 25-30fps BUT...
It STUTTERS like mad - not like the GP2 slowdown where time slows
but rather it just skips frames which makes it much much worse (Geoff Cramond
got it right after all guys). It's very very noticeable even on the graphically
light tracks (eg Silverstone). It has nothing to do with drawing depth, it has
nothing to do with how many trees it has to draw. It even stutters when you are
sideways on and can only see the grandstands. It don't think its 3dfx texture
caching (as with GLQauke) because you can spin on the spot, going round and
and it's like spin-stutter-spun-stutter :(
The track texture is awefull. At low speeds you do get a sense of moving but
driving about 90mpg the track textures start to slowdown, stop and even crawl
backwards - you lose all sense of forward motion!
The track design is fantastic, the trackside objects are great. The trees look
worse than in GP2 and the cars, well the cras look like they were designed by
Salvador Dali - all stretchout ond warped.
I run GP2 immediately after playing F1 for a couple of hours - I was so glad
to be back! No texture crawling, no stutter, proper handling, a***pit (which
I though I could do without).
If you assume F1 is an arcade racer (which B.C and Psygnosis have been saying
all along and not to compare it with GP2) then we can ignore car handling,
setup, control options (the suck BAD in F1), driving aids etc etc and just
look at the graphics side. Even here F1 fails terribly.
Apart from the track texture sliding backwards, the graphics are fair. It's
the sort of game which looks fantastic in screenshots but doesn't work when
it's all moving. Pop-ups never hit me in the face in GP2 like they do in F1.
Take Monaca - you will drive round a corner and see a tall building slowly
appear from the top down - the upper part suspended in the air as the lower
polygons are drawn in - yuk. That doesn't happen in GP2.
The sound, whilst being based on in-car samples, just doesn't work. GP2
is lightyears ahead i this area as well.
The menu system if crap. If you go into a single race it takes 20 keystrokes
to get out of it! No per-track setup. Options aren't saved when you quit. Car
AI is terrible. No lockups, no wheel spin, no cars leaving track - curbs make
very little difference.
All in all it looks like a two year old console game which has been hacked to
run on a PC. Oh it is.
If BC/Psygnosis fix the stuttering, the track texture and the stetchy bend cars
the this would be a find arcade racing game. Even then the pretty graphics
will still look good in screenshot but make the game look worst than GP2 when
running.
Rob.