rec.autos.simulators

- David Cook

Cheers,

uwe

--
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
PGP Fingerprint:  2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F  67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

The default setups will get you pole and #1 on pro level just fine in GP4.
Depressing but true. I was never much into tweaking the car setup, but when
reaching the limit of my car/driving skills shaving a few tenths from
haphazardly tweaking stuff I had no clue about was still gratifying. Now I
think I just might be able to squeeze enough out of the default setup to not
even have to do it on ace level. :(

--
Frode

That sucks... Stuff that *really* needs fixing (and would be obvious after 1
day of
beta testing):

- AI (especially during qualifying. The AI cars drive flat out on both in
and out lap and don't care if you're on a flier)

- Pit crew not bringing you into the garage while qualifing. That's happened
to be several times. The engine automatically shuts off and I'm stranded out
on the tarmac with noone coming to pick me up.

Annoying stuff that *should* be fixed cause it's annoying and silly:

- The rev lights deciding to skip one. That is the entire row except 1 green
light in the middle lights up.

- The pit crew getting stuck in your mirrors. They just stay there like
statues untill you do something to make them move. Normally they leave the
mirrors after doing their stuff.

These are all from about 30 laps of testing GP4 out. I shudder to think of
all the stuff I'll have seen by the 500th lap.

--
Frode

I recall this happening before with GPx and F1RC.  As it turned out the ISO
release and the retail version were the same and what was thought to be true
about various aspects of these games turned out to be true.

Alanb

Yes. And I have seen enough.

Andre answering :)

Also should you start it up again, try with your 3D glasses on. The
well-filled environment makes for a good 3D effect, and there are no more 2D
graphics to spoil it. I do see distortions on the track texture around other
cars, guess that is a driver compatibility thing, not something fundamental.

Bart retaliating ;-)

Are you bonkers? I spun today and ended up facing the wall. There were some
specators + a camera team on the other side. They were totally 100% flat
cardboard cutouts, blurry and obviously only meant to ever be seen when
passing by at 300kph.

I really wish Geoff had any sense of attention to detail :( Seeing the track
behind you when standing backed into the garage also ruins a lot of the
feel.

--
Frode

Bart, just one question: Have you tried F1 2002, and how do you think
about the physics of F1 2002 compared to those of GP4?

Andre

--
l8er
ronny

Your mouse has moved. Windows must be restarted for the change
to take effect. Reboot now?

Aye, the original poster claimed there was no more 2D though. That's what I
was responding to. Having all that 2D scenery in a game that's so hardware
demanding, seems a joke. It shouldn't require half the machine it needs to
run smoothly when taking into account the lack of graphical flare.

--
Frode

I really like the graphics much better than F12k1: palette, tracks, cars.
It's subjective, so nothing to fight about (except for the tracks, maybe ;).

BTW, when did the last sim get released that ran great on "half the machine"??
AMD 1.4 + GF4 4200 is not the top of the line, not really.
And GP4 runs beautifully on it...

--
l8er
ronny

Your mouse has moved. Windows must be restarted for the change
to take effect. Reboot now?

That's sorta my point. It doesn't look like it was released this year, more
like 1-2 years ago. It runs great on my machine as well, but GP3 ran twice
as fast on higher resolutions. And the graphical improvements aren't
anywhere near great enough to warrant that kind of performance loss.

Everybody's entitled to their opinions, obviously. My opinion is that the
people sitting in this newsgroup stating how totally gorgeous and
cutting-edge GP4 looks could use very strong prescription glasses.

The improvements in gameplay and graphics from GP3 to GP4 are very slim,
imo, and thus nowhere near justifying the increase in hardware demands.

--
Frode

Perhaps it is just me but I always thought GP3 looked ***y awful. I
quite liked the gameplay but always found GPL a revelation after playing
it cos it looked so good!

I have found the GP4 graphics engine a significant improvement, but only
to bring it up to modern day standards - rather than a step ahead of the
others. NR2002 is ahead IMHO.

In that respect it does justify the hardware demands compared with GP3,
just not in comparison with its rivals.

Tony

I played GP3 right up till the release of GP4. I played it in 1280x1024 (the
max it could be set to in the display properties I think). It looked quite
decent. My first impression of GP4 was "errr, is this a joke?". It
autocalibrated to 1024x768 with the other graphics options set to
medium/high. I popped everything to max (which still got me sub 100 PO on an
empty track) and I was still wondering why they bothered releasing something
that improved so marginally on GP3.

--
Frode