rec.autos.simulators

I know this post is a bomb ready to explode...

But since we are talking about the C:PR "semi-crap" title, anyone remember
the hype about the GPS system that they "supposedly" had to model the track
at the inch of details ??

Another marketing act from Microsoft that we all fall in the trap for.
Cleveland is just a riot, there is no right-kink in the last turn at
Surfer's Paradise, what about that Long Beach frontstraight (lol), fake Rio
configuration, Vancouver turn 1 chicane, etc....

Oh and what about the Beta CD that were "maybe" sent to the first 150 people
? Finally it was on about 15websites, and it was everything but not the
first 150 people who got the CD-Rom.

And the list goes on and on and on

(still with the new tracks and fun hotlapping it's a "to-buy"  product, but
Im targeting this post at people who are trying to tell that TRI and
Microsoft did good only good things, etc..) . We all know it was at the
release a flawed product, that the patch helped a little but it is still
flawed, that high-speed cornering is unrealistic, the AI is poor, there is a
limit of speed on oval tracks, and finally they all hide the 3dfx patch
since the beginning before somebody found a way to "turn the option On",
since they all wanted us to use D3D from them instead.

I never said the other SimRacing are better or worse, just saying the
_Facts_.

- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard, (-o-)
- Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
- Member of the r.a.s. Ego-maniac club
- Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking)
- Excuse me for being provocative (I'm dumb speaking)
- "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."--

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "everything but not the first 150 people"
or "maybe". Some people who were signed up for the gold p[rogram were late in
receiving their CD's, but i don't recall any message on the gold cd ng that
people didn't receive their CD's at all.

The pre-patched version was an appaling piece of code, granted.

Z.

It has great graphics, sound, menus, garage options, and better internet
play than any
other free service I've seen except for the improvements that came with MTM2
(extremely inportant to me since I'd prefer to spend 90% of my time racing
on-line). Tremendous sense of speed (a
rush). The most "challenging" sim, for me, to be fast in. Other sims seem
easy to me due to the challenge provided by CPR.

Nothing too controversial yet? Right?

I judge the driving model to be the best (not perfect) of any current open
wheel (remember that),
modern day sim. I DON'T claim to know EXACTLY how a modern day Champ car
feels while driving at 220mph (and no one else here really knows either),
but I do have at least as good a guess as most on r.a.s.

Regarding the driving model. I have an excellent example of why I know for a
fact many here never gave CPR a good test. I must of heard a hundred times
on r.a.s. that the cars were impossible to keep in a straight line because
of the poor steering and drive model. Meanwhile, I worked the setups and
steering settings and my cars could literally sit inches from the wall (at
200+mph) along the entire straightaways of tracks like Miami, Michigan,
Fontana, etc. Either I'm lying or the complainers are just plain wrong
regarding the sims performance. We both can't be right. Since I can supply a
replay to prove I can do this....... If they are wrong about that, then it's
likely they are wrong about other aspects of the drive model.

Also, the track editor is a powerful tool that some people have used to make
excellent new tracks.

What I don't like about it is the AI is poor on ovals, yet decent on road
and street courses, the driving model could of been
improved, (braking is one area) as ANY sims driving model could be improved.
It's too hard for most people to find a good setup.

Nothing new, or ridiculous, or controversial at all  from me in the above,
it just gets lost in the typical r.a.s, high school, arguement style of
debate. All sims I've tried so far have had their good and bad points, and
that's why I divide my sim time among a small group of them (F1RS, CPR,
MTM2, and GPL).

Dave
DmndDave

What kind of system do you run CPR on? In all honesty I think this may also have
something to do with peoples opinions of the game.

Dave
DmndDave

It probably comes down to MS rushing to market and not doing enough
testing.
The fact that people who had steering problems (me included) were
brushed
off by Lester and others provides little motivation to try and get the
thing working.  There are too many other sims out there.

So which revision of CPR has the most accurate driving model?  Different
revisions have behaved quite differently.

--
Pat Dotson
IMPACT Motorsports

In other words, the driving model is the best once we carefully
exclude most of the major competing products?

---Jim

I will too. Please continue reading below!

<SNIP>

Right. Nothing too controversial, except for "great graphics" and
"tremendous sense of speed". Now who is exaggerating? These 2 statements
have been the cause of much of the "controversial" debate regarding CPR from
the get go. What system and 3D card are you running it on, and at what
resolution and detail settings? And most importantly, What are the frame
rates you achieve at those settings? For me personally, and for many other
sim racers, it takes frame rates approaching 30 per second to achieve that
sense of speed. On my CPR recommended P166, 32mb, Voodoo graphics card
setup, I cannot maintain anything above 20fps at 640X480 with***pit on and
any opponents on the track. Depending on the track it sometimes stutters to
10fps or worse. Hardly speedy, and definitely killing any suspension of
belief that I am going 200+mph. This includes turning off sky, smoke, hills,
and off track details, etc, which then takes away from the possibilty of any
great graphics. I can get better performance at 320X200(which of course is
software mode and does not take advantage of my Voodoo card), but why would
I want to do that? The original Papyrus Indycar came out in 1993 at that
resolution, and in my opinion looks better than CPR's 320X200 low res
mode.[Side note: All my drivers for Direct X and my v3DFX card are up to
date and working properly, so its not just my machine and configuration.
Just take a look at The Apex CPR benchmarks
page(http://www.racesimcentral.net/) and you will see similar
configurations running at similarly dissappointing frame rates. Other games
like F1RS, POD, Motoracer, Need for Speed IISE, Quake/Quake2, all run fine
on this same setup]

However, Papyrus Rendition Indycar 2(CART Racing) runs at a consistent 30fps
at 640x480 with full details, and a full field of cars, on all the tracks,
on my same setup(which also includes an Intergraph Intense 3D100 Rendition
card). In fact, Indycar 2 runs above 25fps on my lowly P100, 32mb, Rendition
card machine with the same amount of detail. Now that game provides me a
sense of speed and great graphics.

I know am in getting into personal tastes and preferences here, but I have
seen and played CPR on a PII400 with Canopus Pure 3D II, and it did provide
a smooth experience with full details, BUT I really feel that Rendition
Indycar 2 at full detail looks much better than CPR at full detail - no
matter how high end the machine. I don't know what it is specifically, but
CPR looks more abstract and cartoony to me, and Indycar II seems more crisp
and realistic. That's just me though. I guess I would agree that you can get
some sense of speed with CPR, but only if you have the highest of high end
machines, and that is surely not what is stated on the box.

The internet multiplayer is fun, the sound is good, menus are fine, garage
options are good, BUT remember there are no tire temp readings. AI is still
overall bad. On some ovals I have been able to lap the whole field at
Professional level settings, and this is in a short race. Not very realistic
or challenging, and I am not that good,as those that have played me on the
Zone can attest. And while on road courses the AI is a little better, I have
many replays of ridiculous stuff the computer controlled cars have done that
have either caused the race I was running to be unable to continue, or at
the very least spoiled the fun. Now these are all replays where I as a
driver have had nothing to do with it, no question of "Did I cause this?".
The CPR box states "Compete against CART cars controlled by exacting
artificial intelligence". That's a pretty bold statement for a product so
lacking(even after the patch).

The track editor is a powerful tool in technically knowledgeable, talented,
charitable hands. In fact, it is the only reason I still own and play CPR.
But not because of my own use of the editor. I can't come close, nor do I
have the time. However, we have been given some great tracks by some great
individuals who will never see any part of the $49.99 I spent on CPR. I'm
glad they released it, but that was really a no-brainer on MS/TRI's part,
especially since by the time it was released they were no longer plans for a
2nd version or continued patches, track packs, etc.

Yeah, there is alot of non-factual, biased, rude debate in r.a.s, but r.a.s
is typically one of the more informative, and mature of the newgroups that I
frequent. There are lots of people in r.a.s that can provide intelligent,
fair, fact based information even if they are on one side of the fence or
the other. You just have to weed out the "This Game SUX" type stuff. Its
worse in most of the other *** newsgroups.

Anyway, thanks for the friendly debate. CPR had so much potential, and so
much hype, and so much press, and so many problems, and so many broken
promises - that is why it brings out so much strong opinion.

Don Chapman

Hey guess what buddy, GPL and future sims wont get you 30fps on that system.
Time to upgrade huh? Oh and gamers should know when they say what is the
recommended system they really mean a system twice as fast, jeez anyone
who's been around games knows that. Hey GP2 recommended a P90 LOL! Really go
look at the box. Thing needs like a PII 400 to get 30fps.

"I have seen and played CPR on a PII400 with Canopus Pure 3D II, and it did
provide a smooth experience with full details"

Using the Glide patch I get 35-45fps with no cokcpit with full detail at
640x480 on a P200mmx oc 225Mhz and a voodoo1. So what my system is
compariable to a PII 400? I dont think so. On my friends PII 233 and a
voodoo2 he got almost 100fps.

Arthur
s t e a l t h
r a c i n g
http://www.***sys.com/stealthracing.html

The only real major in the two driving models that I remember was the
lowered grip settings. More control of the steering settings was provided
with the slider controls with the patch. Some people feel the downforce grip
is too low now, but I remember the general consensus here at r.a.s. was that
there was too much grip in the initial release. Blasting around Elkhart, it
feels pretty good too me. I can push up to the limit, and still maintain
control with the feedback I get from the car. Rookie grip is the same as the
pre patch release, so you can judge for yourself.

Dave
DmndDave

Even CPR's worst critics admit that the sense of speed in CPR is one of it's
best features.

Graphics are a matter of personal taste, but it is fairly easy to measure
the power of a graphics engine. The one used for CPR by TRI was, at the
time, leading edge, and the upgrade of it (Photex2) which was used to make
MTM2 is as good as it gets in driving games. Again, it is a matter of taste,
but most game sites, and reviewers,  have rated these two games graphics as
the best around.

For me, internet play is as important as anything else. I love to race
online, and no other open wheeled sim offered anything close to what CPR
did.

I agree on the ovals, the cars are too slow.

The road and street course AI seemed pretty good too me, not great, but
decent. F1RS is supposed to have good AI, but I seem to get slammed from
behind or from the side more often than I care to remember. I have yet to
see a sim where the AI is very impressive, but I suspect that each year this
will be improved in the new sims.

The editor is the exact same tool as TRI used to make CPR. They also
released the editor for MTM2 (Photex2, an upgrade of the CPR graphics
engine). It was always in the plans to be released with both games. TRI
released the editor with their first game for MS (MTM).

Yes, there are a lot of guys who know quite a bit about sims, but you have
to understand that most of the time, believe it or not, I hold my tongue
when I hear the senseless remarks. I hadn't posted much of anything CPR
related for a few months. I also am the last person to be bothered by much
of anything, but when I see new readers, or polite people asking for some
help, and they get the same dumb remarks from the same 10 guys, I feel that
I should try and help the person who requested  it. Then the flames start.
It's an old and tired routine. Emotion gets high in here for some reason,
and it tends to cloud the subject matter. I see it with every sim (F1RS,
CPR, GPL, GP2, etc.).

It also has a lot of fans, maybe not here at r.a.s., but remember r.a.s. is
such a tiny fraction of the auto sim/game community that it really is only
relevant to it's small group of readers and that is good enough. I tend to
find the best in the top sims available, and while I recognize their flaws
and don't forget them, I don't dwell on the negative otherwise I miss out on
some excellent features of a sim. I take sim racing and developement as
seriously as anyone, but I also want to have a little fun too. If every sim
had to measure up to all of my ideal standards for me to buy it,  I wouldn't
own even one.

Thanks to you too.

Dave
DmndDave

Thanks for your reply. I also think part of the problem was that it was another
game in a long list that seemed to require more CPU than it perhaps should have
required. (bloatware that TRI doesn't have an exlusive on)

Beauty is subjective of course, I just happen to agree with some others who
didn't find CPR all that good looking (particularly the gravel traps). But it
also seemed the only way to get a sustainable frame rate was to reduce draw
distance to a very short distance almost like motoracer.

In general I'd tend to agree, but of course there are exceptions.

I used to think CPR was fine but I loaded it back up the other day and
promptly removed it when I remembered just what I didn't like about it.

M