rec.autos.simulators

We also have to remember that GPL did not come with, nor do most drivers
use to this day, realistic chassis & esp. differential settings.  As
anyone who has driven GPL for any length of time can tell you, setup can
make a drastic difference in a car's temperament.

--

Fester

| I think David actually made that one up, actually!
<snipped>

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| Of course I haven't driven a real '67 legend car so I probably have no
idea
| what I'm talking about.

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It leaves lots of question unanswered though, for instance-

- Was his grandson playing GPL on the keys, a joystick or a wheel?
- Were the driving aids turned on?
- Did he have a 3d card and decent PC, or was the game running really slow,
which affects the perception of the physics model.
- Maybe his grandson was just a lousy driver :)
- Does a game model a driving style anyway?

--

Mark Jeangerard

Which I started learning long ago. GPL falls short of condensing all those sensations to
the audio/visual restrictions of the PC simworld. Other titles, do not. So, there are
'things' that could be better.

A friend of mine worked at a place where they make those giant six legged flight simulator
mounts for the Air Force. If it had been a few tons less in weight I would have stolen
one.  lol

I can watch a video of Graham Hill going round Monaco and then get in GPL and drive the
car in identical fashion. But on VROC I'll get creamed trying to use realistic driving
styles.

Because you are learning it's ways. Not the ways of balancing a car. Just as by learning
to type you are learning how to write the language. Speaking it is a whole other matter.

Absolutely. I prefer the ones where I can use real driving skills and instincts.

GPL's two biggest problems. No sense of speed or position due to incorrect perspective and
rendering and the tires don't slide right. A bad mixture.

Me too. It just messes with my ability to play other games. Then after that, I can't play
GPL. Then, after that, I can't play other games... etc.

That being said: GPL is without question, the finest piece of software I've ever
purchased. It did what it said it would do, right out of the box. It's easy to use and
complete in it's approach. Everybody make great stuff for it. What more can you ask for? I
wouldn't go so far as to call it a driving sim, but it's racing software without a rival.
If you want to race a car, against the most fearless racers in simland, on the most
awesome race courses in the world and from the minds of weirdoes without leaving your
study, then GPL is the only answer.

I'm just ready for a driving sim with online ability. Getting antsy over here. You know?
:-)

--
Mark Jeangerard

I really can't say whether GPL is realistic or not, as I've never driven a
racing car.

However, there are certainly others who have, and I've heard several of them
say that they thought GPL was right on the button.

Personally I've learned to drive using GPL, so I may be in for a bit of
shock if I stepped into a real racing car!  ;-)

The guy to talk to is Maxx (Malcolm Edeson) - he's a real-life race
instructor who has driven GPL a lot, and he says that it *is* possible (in
fact desirable) to use real-world driving methods to go fast.

I certainly feel that the techniques I use to drive GPL all make sense from
a physical perspective: the challenge has been to develop my perception of
what's going on, so that I can make sense of where I am on the track, and
what the car is doing.

That said, the real fun is the sheer complexity of the driving model: I just
find that if a game's physics are too simplistic I get bored.  With GPL I'm
constantly having to feel for the limit, trying to get in tune with the car.

I think I'd agree with you that it is much more difficult to sense the speed
and position of the car within the game than it is in real life: it may or
may not be worse in GPL than in other games, but the real problem is that
you need to have a much more accurate idea of where you are in GPL if you
are to keep control of the car!

As for whether Jackie Stewart was able to judge whether GPL was true-to-life
or not by watching his grandson play: I heard somewhere that Sir Jackie had
maintained that he didn't use trail-braking, until his pit crew used
telemetry to prove that he did!  The point is that many racing drivers drive
by instinct, and aren't always aware of how they do it.

Well, you know it's also not entirely impossible that he didn't use trail
braking.  Have you ever read Mark Donohue's book, _The Unfair Advantage_?
(Incidentally, I recommend it heartily to anyone interested in racing, but
particularly if you're interested in racing in the late-60s, early-70s.
It's a treasure-trove of engineering and setup information, among many
other things.)  He participated in several "meeting of two worlds"
types of races, where American teams in their Formula A/5000 cars raced
against European Grand Prix teams with F1 cars.  And he described two
different driving styles, which he called the "American style" and the
"European style".  According to his description, the European style was
to do all braking in a straight line, drive around the corner, then do
all acceleration again in a straight line.  By contrast, his American
style was to continue braking while turning, then begin re-accelerating
while still turning.  Stewart being a European would presumably have
fallen into that "European style" category, implying no trail-braking,
if Donohue's assessment was correct.

Now, of course, anyone who has played much GPL recognizes that the
style Donohue called "American" is the fastest way around the track.
But that doesn't necessarily make GPL unrealistic, as Donohue said
the same thing himself.  We have the benefit of hindsight and other's
experience to know that, however, which Stewart didn't at the time.

        Marc

Well, in my experience you most certainly do in GPL.  Check your replays
and watch what happens to your speed reading at the top when you have
understeer in a sweeping corner.

        Marc

Hahaha. You've driven a 67 grand prix car? LMAO! Yeah I bet those tires were
hard as a rock not to mention cracking and old from being 34 years old!

Anyway........most of the people that really know are either dead or could
care less about comparing a sim to real life racing. I know if I was a GP
veteran and had been through all they have seen, I could care less about
sims. I sometimes wonder how Dale Jr. can even play N4 when he can drive the
real thing every week!

Best.......

See my other post on this topic, but basically, the way we drive GPL,
with trail-braking, and accelerating out of the turns, may well not be the
way Stewart himself drove at the time.  And perhaps none of the other F1
drivers did either.  But they *could* have, which is the key, at least
as far as realism of the physics model is concerned.  And according
to Mark Donohue, drivers in the US *did* drive their cars that way.
So we as players of GPL have just benefitted from 30+ years of other
people's experience that Stewart didn't have to draw on back then.

So yes, I am in fact saying that perhaps we are driving these cars better
than the real F1 drivers did back then.  Which is not a knock on them.
How's that quote go?  "If I see further than others have seen, it is
only because I stand on the shoulders of giants".  Or something like that.

Here's another way of looking at it.  I'm also interested in military
history, and computer simulations thereof.  Because I live when I do,
if I play a simulation of a battle that happened in the past, I may
know to avoid certain mistakes that were made at the time, because I've
studied and read about them.  I might then win a battle that the original
general lost.  Does this mean that I'm better than he was?  Does this
mean that the simulation is automatically unrealistic?  No to both.
I just have more information, because knowledge advances over time.
And it's potentially the same with GPL and driving styles.

In summary: the technique we use may be something of an anachronism,
but that GPL's physics model allows it is not a flaw, but a feature.
It would be worse if the game was written in such a way that only the
style that was actually in use at the time could work, rather than being
open-ended so that anything physically possible would work, even things
not necessarily anticipated by the designers.  This latter is the sign
of greatness in a simulation.

        Marc

| "I have been in these chassis-s & they slide
| like hell on the asphalt. Plus those old *** bias tyres were hard
| as a rock!... Thom_j."
|
| Hahaha. You've driven a 67 grand prix car? LMAO! Yeah I bet those tires
were
| hard as a rock not to mention cracking and old from being 34 years old!
|
| Anyway........most of the people that really know are either dead or could
| care less about comparing a sim to real life racing. I know if I was a GP
| veteran and had been through all they have seen, I could care less about
| sims. I sometimes wonder how Dale Jr. can even play N4 when he can drive
the
| real thing every week!
| Best.......

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This requires trail-braking, ie. you start braking in a straight line, then
at the correct turn-in point, start to turn in and gradually trade off
braking for turning, so that a graph of turning against braking would follow
a circle (or ellipse, depending on the scale of the axes!).

The point was that, although Jackie professed that he finished his braking
in a straight line, the graph actually showed that he was following a
perfect circle!

He also made a quote somewhere about the fact that the hardest thing to
master with those cars was the way to _release_ the brake pedal, which
implies that this has to be done gradually (which in turn implies some form
of trail-braking, even if he didn't call it that).

Certainly you have to do a lot of your braking in a straight line on most
corners, but I think it was Jim Clark who said that he liked to enter the
corner a bit early to get the car into a four-wheel drift, which again is
done with trail-braking (having a bit of brake on at the beginning will
cause some intentional oversteer, which you can then control with the gas
and brake).

This is pretty much what I do with GPL - whether or not I could do it with a
real car I really don't know!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" -
Isaac Newton.

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.racesimcentral.net/~epickett
F1 hcp. +16.36...Monster +366.59...

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
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