rec.autos.simulators

I am a retired Police Officer.

I am used to wrestling HUGE FORD GALAXIES (in my day --- thats what
they called them) at speeds approaching one hundred mikes per hour.

If you watch the movie GRAND PRIX ----- available on video Disk
somewhere -------- in letterbox form -------- I also have MY COPY in
BOTH FORMS!!!!   :-) -------- you will see that NO ONE in their RIGHT
MINDS wants to FIGHT the WHEEL like the GPL simulation wants you to
believe.

Jim Clark, Graham Hill and all the others were brave men ------- but
not stupid.  They valued their life as much as anyone -------- and I
think this simulation has everyone thinking these were nothing more
than barely guided missles ------ which they were not.

A FORD GALAXIE or DODGE CORONET at one hundred and twenty miles per
hour has more control than the simulation has  -------- and I am
beginning to think this is a bit laughable to say the least.

I think it is time to go back to the drawing board and make it real
for a change ------- rather than trying to convince us these cars were
really like this -------- when they were not.  

Watching GRAND PRIX will give you FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE of what it was
like then (it was filmed just a year before) and was filmed over the
same tracks esentially ------ that will be in the sim --------- I
GUARANTEE YOU you don't see these guys countersteering powerslides and
all that other bullshit PAPYRUS is saying went on then.

THAT kind of stuff SLOWS YOU DOWN --------- not make you faster!!   HA

I have also had the enjoyment of "hog wrestling" ICR2 as well
---------- interestingly enough ------------- the sim behaves much the
same way as GPL does now.

ARE THEY GOING TO SAY THAT IS THE WAY THE INDY CARS BEHAVE??

Of course not ------------- they couldn't get away with THAT
---------- but maybe they can blow enough smoke up out asses with GPL
to make us believe them .

If you repeat the same thing enough times------- you can convince
yourself of anything!!!!!

I think that I agree with you. I have a book with quite a few pictures of GP
racing from the late 50's and early 60's -- none of them show cars as
crossed up as GPL would have you believe was normal. The cars couldn't have
been quite this difficult to get around the track in. Of course, they also
regularly killed one or two drivers a year (or more) back then!

--
Doug Gordon
(Remove "nospam." from e-mail address)

You're exactly right.  It's pretty much agreed that GPL is in the "TOCA
category".....with many, many people considering it an arcade game and NOT a
true simulation.  Still looks like fun to me and can't wait to get this Best
Arcade Racing Game Ever!!!!!

    Why? are any race cars at that level in control? and if they are , lighten it and give me some more hp, becouse I can win if everyone else I'm racing is worried about stability. I'll fight an overpowered car just for the slight advantage over the others.

    and it should, it wasn't designed to win races in F1!! -------- and I am
    and you know this by looking watching a movie
    Correct, and in the game as in real life, the faster laps are completed without locking up the wheels and driving out of control.

--
Kevin Anderson



ICQ # 6769389
Oscar FB Div. 10

I would race these cars in the sim if given the chance in real life. Yes they are dangerous, but it's all how you drive them. I can run consistant and safe laps in the 1m13s range , and I know guys can go faster , but that may be fast enough to win if they can't keep it on the road.
I believe it is possible to become consistant at faster speeds then I am going.
and You don't have to be stupid to race a dangerous vehicle. I have raced 750cc sportbikes and the pro's that race the world gp, and world superbikes are doing close to 200mph with only leathers to protect them. So you see no matter how dangerous the sport there will always be someone to drive them.  
Remeber the Group B rally cars also.
--
Kevin Anderson



ICQ # 6769389
Oscar FB Div. 10

    And how do you explain the people that race 200mph motorcycles, and those that raced the Group B rally cars?

Correct, no-one should want to fight the wheel. There is no need to do so
in GPL and if you are doing so, you're losing time all round the track
;-)

If you are having trouble controlling the wheel, try altering the
linearity. A fully linear setting makes it the easiest to turn into the
corners accurately and apply minor corrections, but some may find this
too twitchy on the straights without a very good wheel.

No offence, but just maybe Clark and Hill were better drivers than you.
Just because you cannot match their smoothness and speed does not mean
that the sim is automatically wrong.

It could equally be considered laughable to compare to control of a
relatively lowly powered street car to a F1 race car. How many Gs did
your cars pull either longitudinally or laterally? Were these anywhere
near those possible in a Lotus 49?

Grand Prix is a film. There's some real life footage from the 66 season
but all the close up work is with much lower powered F2 cars and usually
they're being towed behind the camera car.... Not really the best example
of driving a 67 car....

Watching Grand Prix will give you a good idea of what a film maker thinks
it is like. If you *really* want to see what it's like then watch footage
of the 67 season.

Correct. Driving GPL smoothly is faster than throwing the car around!

And this is what you're trying to prove? <g>

Look guys, just because you *can* throw the car around in powerslides
does not mean that it is the correct thing to do. The key is to be smooth
and not unsettle the car - that is the way to be consistently fast like
the real guys needed to be to win races.

Powerslides are fun - just look at how much Jimmy Clark enjoyed himself
when racing Lotus Cortinas in the British Saloon Car championships - but
they are neither necessary nor sensible in a Lotus 49. Stop doing them
and learn to *drive* the car ;-)

Let me quote from no less an expert as Jackie Stewart:
"Good racing drivers are smooth, clean and unspectacular. Those drivers
are the ones that people notice least on the track, although they tend to
emerge as the quickest because they are not wasting thei energy sliping
and sliding all over the place..... If you get the car sideways, its
tyres are scrubbing againt the road surface, you're slowing yourself
down."

Bottom line - if you're powersliding in GPL you're wasting time. Don't
judge a sim based on a less than optimal driving technique.

Cheers,
Richard

also
dont forget that you cannot modify the setup of the cars as of yet.

one more thing
if you ever play nascar 2 ICR 2 and the rest , amd you set the realism
to full for damage . I find I drive a LOT less spectacularly
and a lot smoother, no feeling like running the Indianapolis 499!
and wadding it on the backstretch of the last lap

just my 10 cents

With respect, Mark, that statement is incorrect.
The bulk of the "long shots" in the movie are actually race footage.  There is no
"toning down" in that area.
If you take a little time to study the movie then you will understand why the
drivers' names were similar to the real drivers.......viz:-
Pete Aaron = Chris Amon.
Jean-Paul Sarti = John Surtees.
and so on.
The helmet colours worn by the actors were the same as those real-life drivers.
This made it easy for the producers to switch between reality and pretend and,
therefore, why the bulk of the external racing shots are genuine........with
particular emphasis on the Monaco race.

One little fact that you are all overlooking:-
If Messrs. Clark, Hill, Brabham, Gurney, etc. drove their cars in the same
manner as most of you seem to be "driving" in the mini-demo, then you could bet
your left testicle that Messrs. Clark, Hill, Brabham, Gurney etc. would be
either (a) very dead or (b) very injured.

What do you think they all did.......roared out of the pits and kept the
accelerator floored for the complete lap?  Of course their cars would go
tail-happy if they tried to drive flat-out everywhere! But then, they didn't
have the advantage of being able to hit [Shift + R] if they screamed off the
black stuff and into the boondocks.

The balance and setup of the cars may be non-adjustable in the demo but
believe-you-me, it is still the most accurate representation of car dynamics
that we have ever seen in a computer simulation. And this is from somebody who
*HAS* driven open-wheelers in the 1960s and who *IS* an old fart and who *DOES*
have some personal knowledge of the subject.

Stop basing your judgement on a pre-release appetiser: wait until the release of
the sim and *THEN* rip it to shreds if you think something is incorrectly
represented.