rec.autos.simulators

I love racing sims, and have been involved in this group for many
years. Yet when did I finally buy CPR? Well, I downloaded the demo
within a day of it's release. But I bought it last week! And why?
Because it was $17 ! What did I buy with it? World Circuit (GP1) for
$6.50, because I never did have a copy of that one either. I basically
wanted both for my "archive"- in there with Indy500 The Simulation,
ICR1, and other odd gems from the past.

Fact is, CPR surprised me- it was a lot better than I expected from an
MS product. And in terms of it's flaws- I think a lot of it has to do
with it coming from a background that didn't make racing sims as it's
bread and butter. Unusual for this day, and deeply to CPR's credit, I
don't think it was an out-and-out attempt at rip-off- I think the
programmers must have been pretty proud of what they achieved with
this piece of software. All may disagree, but I rank the car physics
above GP2. I hate the fact that the race difficulty is so difficult to
calibrate, though.

But I do respect that the sim is so damn hard- this wasn't a
"Playstation" sort of thing, they really went for the Sim. I've never
used a sim where it was so difficult to keep on the edge before; it is
hard to do more that 2 laps at qualifying speed without making a
tremendous blunder in braking somewhere.

Funny, I hadn't read this part- but I guess I've already agreed with
you!

<snip>

I think  you are right in saying MS didn't know what they were getting
in to, and discovered that there really is no satisfying people with a
"give me your opinions" approach in the Racing Sim arena. This isn't a
flying simulation- something about a racing sim really gets under
people's skin in a peculiar way, and leaves people viciously angry
with it's flaws. And people get ***! Again, I hark back to Rick
Genter and the ICR2 days- I couldn't read this groups sometimes; it
was painful, and you wondered how a programmer feels about working on
his sim after reading nothing but this vitreol crap, and even having
(as in N2 history) people faking e-mails and putting words in your
mouth, or doing *** personal (and illegal) things.

One reason I love racing sims: it is the only action sport I know of
that can be almost perfectly experienced (visually speaking) on a
screen. Where esle can you be watching TV of a race after basically
learning every nuance of a track before hand? Or have the sense of
battling spedific opponents on that course? I think it draws people in
to it deeper than most other sorts of sports simulations, and people
get a lot more intense about them.

But then, maybe I just love racing.

<...>

Here- I'll give one major rant:

I have one major, major problem with it: Papy wrote it so it requires
a game card to run, and yet they wrote it for use with only two chips!
Well, one common one and one obscure one. What were they thinking?

In terms of sheer video *** performance, Quake2 can run circles
around GPL. Yet it will run just fine and useably in software mode.
Most importantly, Id used a standard graphics library to access
people's video cards- granted, people scream that Id used OpenGL
instead of the more common D3D... but compared to Papy, at least they
wrote for a set of instructions all card manufacturers would
eventually support.

Papy should have tried OpenGL or D3D. Or they should include a
Rendition card in the box- because that is what I'll need to do with
this brand new little CD if I choose to keep it. Because 9 FPS on a
P2-300 is... terrible! And 200x320 at 19 FPS is even worse- worse than
ICR2 on my old 486-33. Might as well go back to Indy500 The
Simulation.

You've taken my words out of context. Please see my full post.

God, prejudice is a wonderful thing. Some poor innocent comes and asks a
question along the lines of "Is it just me or does CPR actually have some
good things going for it?" Well it wasn't a good product but it did have a
couple of strong points. He's not going to get a well-balanced answer in
this NG, which I point out. The hysterical reaction - in at least one case
from someone who was so articulate and inventive with his list of "handling"
deficiencies that I had to go and check for myself, makes the point.  When
you grow up, you'll discover that life isn't black or white, good or bad.

Actually the fact that even with the aid of written instructions you
apparently found none is what makes the point.

Cheers!
John