rec.autos.simulators

Hi,

today, after about three months of playing the GPL demo, I finally
went out to our local software store to buy the real thing. It
cost me DM 89, and I thought some of of you might be interested
in my first impressions.

First of all, I was really afraid that the translation hadn't
done justice to what I heard about Mr. Smith's "Four wheel drift",
but from what I have read so far the translation is very well done.
I have not taken a look at the manual itself yet, but if it has
the same quality that the little booklet has it must be very well
done, too. Installation went flawlessly and required 133MB disk space
for a full install.

My system: AMD-k6 200 (o/c'ed to 250Mhz, 83Mhz bus), 96MB,
           DM3D Voodoo I, Diamond Viper V330 AGP, SB AWE 32, T2 wheel,
           Linux/W95a dual boot.

Although I was a bit disappointed of the frame rate (around 16/17 on
most tracks that I have tried so far), GPL plays and feels very fluent
even at this low framerate. The start of a race is a bit sluggish, but
gets better pretty soon (about 3-4 secs into the race with 8 AI
opponents). Graphics look ok, handling feels fantastic, just like the
new demo, absolutely brilliant. Well done to Papy for this kind of
physics engine!

Gameplay: Man, those AI opponents are FAST! I've never been very hot
at the demo (1:15 at the glen, now 1:13 with the full version, 1:35 at
Monza), and still I have no chance whatsoever chasing the AI guys
about. They are all over me after a couple of laps, of course trying
to lap me. ;-)

Conclusion: this game is a must, I have no gripes whatsoever with it
apart from there not being a native Linux version available (which
might change soon if some linux enthusiast at papy decides to port it,
with the OpenGL version now readily available ;-) I have never played
a racing sim so hard and yet so much fun and rewarding to drive.

Uwe

--
 Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de>
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66
    Best of Scottish Folk: http://www.racesimcentral.net/~nsg
  >>> Blue Ribbon Campaign:  Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

I found that there were two editing adjustments ("found" . . . hmm,
well, found them on this newsgroup, anyway!) which really helped my
framerate.

Find the "player.ini" file under your driver name folder
("SieraaGPL/Players/[your driver name]/player.ini") and under "graphic
options" change the "driving view=1" to "driving view=12"

Now you will be driving from the "roll bar" camera view--still gives
you the "seat-of-pants" feeling for the car movement but really ups
the frame rate.  BUT, in this view your mirrors will be empty--maybe
not the best thing for online racing!

Then in the main GPL directory, open the "app.ini" and change sound
quality to "0" instead of 2.  You *may* hear some change, but I
thought the change was negligible, and it also really helped the
framerate.

And you can always move either of these back to the default values if
you don't like the changes.

Best,

David

   < Snip >

   Did I miss a thread on a possable Linux port?  Where did you
hear about this?  

   It only takes a trickle to start a flood.  Imagine, freedom
from Microsoft.  

I posted something on this topic when I bought the game two weeks ago.
The translation itself is bearable, although it sometimes helps to
translate it back into English to understand what is meant. ;) But the
"Four Wheel Drift" book obviously was edited and printed in a hurry.
In my copy, there are some lines missing at the bottom of page 16 (and
elsewhere), some of the captions are untranslated etc. Maybe you have
a "patched" version? If so, I'll be writing to Sierra Deutschland and
bug them until they send me one, too. :)

What bothers me more are the translation glitches in the game itself:
"Steifheit" for "time acceleration" in the replay, (I still wonder
what they were thinking there. Usually, you can see what mistake they
made, but I don't have an idea here...) "H" instead of "R" for reverse
gear (hint to the translator: that gear is called "Rueckwaertsgang" in
German and abbreviated "R" as well) and "Runden" (laps) where it
should say "Rennen" (race) in several menues.

[snip]

You're not going to stop, are you? :)

ditto

--
Wolfgang Preiss   \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

The value was 0 by default, causing the drivers NOT to raise their arm in
case of troubles. Why on earth...