rec.autos.simulators

Car control in GPL is very difficult to start with, but it gets easier the
more you practice.  The trick is to learn the speed/braking thresholds
beyond which the car will spin or under/oversteer off the track.  You will
also need to spend quite a lot of time learning the tracks and the best
racing line through various corners.  Concentrate on one track to start
with.  People's opinions vary re: which is the best track for beginners:
Spa, Watkins Glen and Monza are the most frequently recommended.

It's definitely not a game you can become proficient at in the first few
weeks.  It's going to take a _lot_ of practice.

That said, if you're only getting 6 or 7 fps, there is absolutely no way
you're going to be able to control the car.  I don't know what kind of
system you're running the game on, but it is definitely worth looking into
upgrading your video card.  A 3Dfx or Rendition based card is best, since
GPL was written specifically for these cards.  If your budget is a bit
tight, the Voodoo Banshee is a good, affordable card.

S.

Another thing that I have notice is that it seems that the steering is too
touchy. I have the steering lock set to 20:1 and to max non-linear and have
recalibrated the wheel a few times. (B.T.W. its a homemade wheel, but works
well with all of my other sims. I should be getting my new Force RS soon)

Lastly is the frame rates. I am using software mode as It is my
understanding that my ATI Rage Pro card won't work with GPL. At first I was
seeing frame rate of about 6. I downloaded the 1.2 patch from Pappy and now
I get about 7fps. I tried turning off many of the details and found that
only added about 1fps. So I max out at about 8fps. The weird part is that
the graphics seem very fluid and responsive even with everything turned on.

So what does all the above sound about normal? Is the steering always this
touchy? Is playing with setups at this point going to make much difference?
I am thinking not as probably the best thing that I can do is to learn the
driving line first. Any suggestions about how I can improve the frame rate
until I can get a new video card?

All in all, I can see where this is going to be ***ive. Maybe I can't
keep it on the track too well, but when I can it sure is fun!

Wheels Down!
Ed

Chris

I have an old Hercules Thriller 3D card.
If you have an AGP port and would like
the card, I can send it to you for $20.
I used to get 36 fps in GPL with a PII-300
at 800x600 with all the details on and
no AI cars present.  The AI would slow
down things quite a bit if there was more
than one of them in front of me.

It *IS* a Rendition card, but it's 2D/3D.
I still like the look of the graphics of
that card better than the V3 I bought.

-Chris-

Everybody does this to start with. You must slow down a *lot* more than
you think, especially for slow 1st gear corners like the 90. You'll feel
like you're crawling round, but you won't spin off. Then *gradually*
increase the speed a tiny amount each lap. You'll start to hear the tire
squeal through your speakers, and this gives you an idea of the limit.

Don't try and decrease your lap time in big chunks, just a little bit at
a time.

- Michael

Rik Anthrax
           -
     -
"trust the government?? what are you, some kind of moron?"

Aircraft get bad marks from test pilots when
those lags get over around 150 ms. You are most
of the way to this rule of thumb already just with
the low frame rate. Too much lag makes any
piloted vehicle, sim or real, prone to
Pilot Induced Oscillations (PIO) - possibly
what you describe as steering being too touchy.

You won't get the proper experience from the sim
unless you can get a reasonable frame rate.
If you consider upgrading, aim for 36 frames per sec.
(and get back 97 ms of that lag ;)

Mitch

Welcome to paradise... or hell, depending on your frame of mind :o)

A few things....

1) Hardware: you need high fps, whatever it takes. Sadly the best way's to
get a V3 card, but an old V1 or V2 will sit happily next to your ATI. PITA
to have to spend more money either way, but it's worth it. In the mean
time turn off all the detail and run at the lowest res. It'll look like
something from 1985 but fps are your Best Friend. Use ALT F to show you
what you're actually getting, and use as few AI drivers as possible...
they eat processor power.

2) I have my steering set to 1:20 on all setups, with the linearity slider
almost all the way over to the left. I think that's the linear end, found
things much more controllable like this (with a wheel or a joystick).

3) Dump the trainer! I learned from scratch in the F1 cars. I know many
people like the lower spec cars but I think learning with them can confuse
your reactions and make the learning curve steeper. Use the Coventry if
you want an "easy" start and don't get too bogged down wading through
piles of setups. It can be a "Holy Grail" type experience, with lots of
searching, not a lot of finding, and plenty of Holy Hand Grenades along
the way. Having said that, there are some great, stable setups out there
(eg Alison's Ferrari), I'm just saying that time spent messing about with
them could be time spend slowly building up track time at this stage.

4) Drive slowly at 1st. Very slowly. I learned most tracks in 2nd or 3rd
gear... Mexico, Monaco, and the Ring in 1st or 2nd. It can be a bit
boring, but nowhere near as frustrating as going off on every corner :-)

5) visit VROC.net and get WinVROC installed. You won't be in any condition
to race much for a while, but there's usually someone around there who can
help you with any GPL questions. Evening times in the States and Europe
are best.

Hope this helps a bit.

Andrew McP

I think the bottom line is that the ATI rage pro that came with my Compaq is
a poor idea of a joke. It has a AMD K6-2 at 380Mhz. I just hope that it pays
off if I do drop some money into this machine and buy a new video card.

Thank you for the offer of the card, but I live in PA so the shipping would
probably be a few bucks. I think I'll just wait till the new 3Dfx cards hit
the store shelves and then look for a good bargain.

Thank you for the Ideas.

Ed

If you've read the manuals, I really hope you're American - that
"Four-Wheel Drift" book is practically incomprehensible to us Brits -
who the hell is Alois Ruf? ;-)

First thing - frame rate. Get a Voodoo card right now (Renditions are
great for GPL, but mostly unsupported elsewhere). And turn off some of
the graphics - you don't need everything in your mirrors, for example.
I started off on a P133, getting 12fps max. These days I get 36fps,
and the difference is incredible. I can almost guarantee you'll go a
*lot* faster. And you'll have no reason to use that horrible F10
'arcade' view.

Cars - I ignored all the recommendations, and jumped straight in at
the deep end with the F1 Lotus. It takes time, but once you can drive
that one well, you should be able to learn the others pretty quickly.
Quite a few people recommend the Cooper, but I've never got on it with
at all. Horrible car.
(BTW, everyone tends to refer to 'Cooper' and 'Honda' and 'F2', not
'Coventry' and 'Murasama' and 'Advanced Trainer' - Papy may stick to a
legal fiction, but we generally don't.)

Tracks - the Glen is by no means an easy track. IMHO, Spa is the
place to learn. It's fast, it's challenging, it's hilly, it's
chicane-free, it's exhilarating, it's great. And you can have some
superb races there, too. I also like Silverstone, which is a
*fantastic* place for racing, but I'm something of a voice in the
wilderness there. And you should also learn Monza, if only because
everyone else does.You'll probably end up considerably better at some
tracks than others - for example, I've done a 1:29 at Silverstone, but
can't break 9:10 at the Ring.

Setups - you can get pretty decent times with a low fuel load, the
default setups, and lots of practice. By the time you're good enough
to notice the difference, which setup you choose will be in large part
a matter of personal preference. James Pickup's setups have worked
very well for me.

Racing - don't try 19 AI cars. The frame rate goes through the floor
and you'll almost certainly crash (or, maybe more likely, be crashed
into :-) ). I find about 9 AI cars is reasonable (and, since you're
using v1.2, they'll be a good spread of abilities).
It is practically impossible to catch the front-runners off the
startline, so don't worry about that.
You're a lot closer to the car in front than you think you are. If the
top of your cowling is just touching the bottom of your quarry's
wheels, you're about a car's length behind.
And if you're racing at Spa, remember to hold the clutch at the start!

Online - apparently, this is unbeatable. Go to www.vroc.net for
details - it's all free.
I say "apparently" because I've given up on it myself - over 100
attempts, a new USB modem, countless tweaks to the core.ini file,
three different ISPs and every conceivable connection setting, and
I've *never* got further than a "Reconnect Now?" message (except for
one time when I got a "Race Length:?????" message - then a "Reconnect
Now?"). I've never got myself inside the car! It must be evil British
Telecom... :-(
So I'm sticking to hotlapping and racing against the AI, which is
really not at all bad. And GPL very nearly didn't have an internet
capability at all, so I've still got the core of the game.

Addons - GPL has a load of setups, tweaks, new cars etc that you can
download - all completely unofficial, and none the worse for that. The
best place to look for these is The US Pits, at www.theuspits.com.
Latest from there is a completely new track - the Oesterreichring.
Extremely impressive. I'd advise not installing addons until you know
your way around the GPL folder - I got caught out that way and had to
reinstall it.

Whatever, GPL is a fabulous game, and it'll consume great chunks of
your life. Whether you want it to doesn't matter - it will. Have fun!
--
David.
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll, really."
(Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh)

When I was messing about on a low spec PC I found the skid marks had to be
left on otherwise the lack of textures etc left me fairly disoriented.

Andrew McP

***. What ISP you using? Even with Freeserve (which I don't often use) I
had some acceptable races. You're not on some remote Scottish mountain are
you? 150 miles of 2-strand bell wire linking you to the nearest exchange
manned by an elderly busy-body trying to listen in to your net connection
:-)

Generally if WinVROC reports pings less than 300 I can be fairly sure of a
solid (touch wood (that's a UK wood, not a US willy!)) connection. 200 or
less and I'm generally guaranteed a good race unless the server gets
confused by a million people trying to squeeze on.

Another famous reason for poor connections is phone line extensions... but
you'd see this reflected in low connect speeds (eg 9600 instead of 48000
or more) and generally lousy net performance. If you get good DL speeds
(4+k/s) then the only other thing I can think of is some *** networking
protocol thing. I had some weird probs when I was messing about networking
my 2 PCs... gave up in the end.

Shame to be missing out on the fun though...and the T1 crashes and the
"sorry I shunted you up the arse, came as a complete surprise when you
braked for that hairpin which I couldn't see because I was right up your
arse" type conversations.

Andrew McP

--
         Michael S. Davis      Creative Media-Works
              Computer/Audio/Video Convergence
       "from Creative minds spring Creative solutions."
             http://www.racesimcentral.net/

 Member, International Webmasters Association http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Nope, I'm in Worcestershire - but right at the far end of my estate
from the junction box. The exchange is about a mile and a half away.

This is the thing. A ping of sub 300 is practically unheard of for me.
Sometimes I'm lucky to get 350. I know this is what's causing the
problems, I just don't know what to do about it.

No networking here, and I've used Enditall, so I'm not running some
resource-guzzling app in the background. I practically always get on
at 44k (and yes, I've tried going down to 28k for VROC).
My phone line's not an extension, it's a second line put in just for
internet use (that BT Together thing).

T1 crashes I can get vs the AI - I can always shout at the screen :-)
I've decided that every time I change something on my PC (hw or sw),
I'll have another go. One day it might work... probably when cable or
affordable ADSL (hah!) eventually reaches me :-)
--
David.
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll, really."
(Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh)