rec.autos.simulators

by **dokt** » Sat, 04 May 2002 20:51:47

On the site they claim that the demo for Pro Race driver is unofficial
and should have never been released. It's an old version from a couple
of months ago.

so they say

by **Douglas Elliso** » Sat, 04 May 2002 22:03:43

I dont buy it - why would the package it up to install itself as a demo
saying 60% complete if no one was supposed to see it?

Doug

by **Andreas Nystro** » Sun, 05 May 2002 01:23:00

Demo of damage-engine, pheraps?

> > On the site they claim that the demo for Pro Race driver is unofficial
> > and should have never been released. It's an old version from a couple
> > of months ago.

> > so they say

> I dont buy it - why would the package it up to install itself as a demo
> saying 60% complete if no one was supposed to see it?

> Doug

by **Joe6** » Sun, 05 May 2002 02:56:02

Or a demo for their publisher.

by **Ed Solhei** » Sun, 05 May 2002 03:28:11

Well... then I say, let them proofe us wrong..

I for one expect...

- Good Physics
- Support for multiple controllers
- Support for shifters.
- Support for clutch.
- Online multiplayer racing.

by **Rob Adam** » Sun, 05 May 2002 03:38:36

All the other items are nice and all, but it still bugs that some developers
haven't got this one right. If Windows can find the controller, the game
should too. It ain't rocket science.

by **Ed Solhei** » Sun, 05 May 2002 04:00:58

IMHO, Papyrus rules in this area - too.
No ones even close to Papy when it comes to "simplicity", ease in
configurations and support of various controllers like Papy do.. Everyone
seem to try and make it all soo super advanced - only to fuble bigtime -
failing to get it working in an understandable manner or without having us
goto great lenghts trying to "fix" ro minimize their bugs.
Like you said, it ain't rocket science.

--
ed_

by **Caerul** » Sun, 05 May 2002 08:09:20

monsterhut.com, eh? I suspect that address is no longer working, as of today.

by **Douglas Elliso** » Sun, 05 May 2002 08:38:50

> >Demo of damage-engine, pheraps?

> Or a demo for their publisher.

1) - Codemasters are both publisher and 'author' for most of their titles.
( had the pleasure of seing 2 lectures from c'masters employee's a 18 months
back)

and why would a demo of a damage engine be packaged in such a way as an
installer etc? - It was meant for the outside world - I'm convinced

Doug

by **Ed Solhei** » Sun, 05 May 2002 09:00:31

Any particulare reason?

--
ed_

today.

by **Haqsa** » Sun, 05 May 2002 09:12:42

It was indeed meant for the public, but the official announcement said
that the reason it is several months old is due to the long lead time of
US magazine publishers. That's no bull, in the auto industry we have
often had to give magazines 6 months or more lead time on new products
in order to get timely coverage. Personally I think the only mistake
Codemasters made was in calling it a demo - they should have called it
"test code" or something, and had a big disclaimer on it. Then I think
people would have been a little more understanding.

> > On Fri, 03 May 2002 16:23:00 GMT, "Andreas Nystrom"

> > >Demo of damage-engine, pheraps?

> > Or a demo for their publisher.

> 1) - Codemasters are both publisher and 'author' for most of their
titles.
> ( had the pleasure of seing 2 lectures from c'masters employee's a 18
months
> back)

> and why would a demo of a damage engine be packaged in such a way as
an
> installer etc? - It was meant for the outside world - I'm convinced

> Doug

by **Venn** » Sun, 05 May 2002 10:22:06

You just hit the nail on the head!

When I suggested that codies PR had made mistakes over this, that is exactly
what I meant, they've known for as long as however long the lead time is
that it was going public, and should have pre-emptively protected themselves
from criticism by HEAVY disclaimers, and if they thought it would be low
exposure in this 'Wired' age then they were just plain removed from reality.
There are going to be alot of people that never saw that later 'old code'
disclaimer, and they are unlikely to even give the box a second glance when
they see it on shelves, IMO.

A right, royal, shot-in-the-foot.

Vennt.

by **Damien Smit** » Sun, 05 May 2002 12:22:30

That demo runs better on my machine than the initial release of F1 2001 did!
I'm not about to write it off - I can see plenty of potential there...

by **Caerul** » Sun, 05 May 2002 22:59:34

> > monsterhut.com, eh? I suspect that address is no longer working, as of
> today.

> Any particulare reason?

Perhaps because that domain was terminated yesterday?

by **jason moy** » Mon, 06 May 2002 06:23:43

> IMHO, Papyrus rules in this area - too.
> No ones even close to Papy when it comes to "simplicity", ease in
> configurations and support of various controllers like Papy do.. Everyone
> seem to try and make it all soo super advanced - only to fuble bigtime -
> failing to get it working in an understandable manner or without having us
> goto great lenghts trying to "fix" ro minimize their bugs.
> Like you said, it ain't rocket science.

I love Papy's controller setup, but I wish they would make one change
if you're using the DirectInput driver. It would be nice if you could
select the device and the axes on the device that you would like to
use. I've run into controller combinations on my pc that simply
didn't work because the axis I wanted to use for, say, braking, wasn't
one of the axes listed in the calibration screen for some reason. It
would be awesome if every game had a simple dropdown menu where it
showed the installed game controllers and allowed you to select which
axis from each you wanted the game to use. Mig Alley and Battle of
Britain were perfect in this respect (you could enable/disable
individual axes on each controller via a dropdown menu). So, for
instance, I could select my sidewinder joystick, calibrate it, assign
left/right to steering. Then I could select my sidewinder wheel,
calibrate it, and assign the pedals to accelerating/braking. Then I
could select my gravis gamepad and assign the buttons to shifting.
I've never fully understood why games don't take advantage of
DirectInput in a way that is consistent with the way Windows handles
it. I actually stopped playing IL-2 because it required me to have my
3 axis joystick set as Device 1 (there's no in-game device selection)
and when I do that my Papy games all stop recognizing the third axis
on my wheel (instead opting to notice one of the axes on my gamepad,
which is Device 3), which is set as device 2 (Rally Trophy and F1 2001
recognize it, altho, of course, I have to run dxtweak everytime I play
F1 2001 - which thankfully is almost never).

I also hate how Papy games will randomly uncalibrate all of your
controllers (from the perspctive of the game) every 10 times you start
the game. I've had this happen with every Papy title since GPL.
Basically, for some reason the device-type changes from DirectInput to
Generic without my changing anything. It's easily fixed by setting
the type back to DI and recalibrating, but it's annoying.

That said, if F1 2001 had the same calibration process as every Papy
sim has for years, I'd actually play the game sometimes. I can't
believe the ridiculous amount of time I've spent trying to get my
controller setup properly in that, and I've never gotten it right.
Whereas, in a Papy game, I just calibrate the controller, set the
steering to full-linear, and off I go.

Jason

rec.autos.simulators

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it

codemasters has got nothing to do with it