rec.autos.simulators

by **madd..** » Fri, 28 Jul 2000 04:00:00

As you said, they didn't NEED to model tire wear, so what's the problem
with NOT modeling tire wear???

> As an example, GPL has no tire wear implemented at all. Tire heat is,
but
> not actual wear. Papy was able to get away with this due to the
actual tires
> lasting for numerous races (They were street tires) back in 1967. Can
you
> imagine if a modern sim had no tire wear in it?

> > Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
> > 4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
> > rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
> > How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
> > developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
> > wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
> > 3D accel, because the cards were crap. And FF only got
> > into the picture around that time too.

> > Developing software (games) in such an unstable environment
> > can be disasterous if the design team makes the wrong
> > descisions (like the input module, or the render module, look
> > at Unreal), so sometimes whole portions have to be rewritten
> > to accomodate recent developments on input and 3D devices.

> > That's not to say GP3 wasn't late, it took it's time, but now it's
> > here I must say, I like it. Sure there are some problems and
> > the physics engine has (too) many shortcuts, but basically
> > it's an ok simulation. There's just so much you can model in
> > the physics departement with the current CPUs, maybe in
> > another 4 years time, we'll all be driving *real* simulations.
> > (I assume GPL also uses some shortcuts and/or simplyfications
> > in the physics module).

> > Dennis.

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Before you buy.

by **Duff** » Fri, 28 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>> Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
>> 4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
>> rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
>> How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>> developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
>> wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
>> 3D accel, because the cards were crap. And FF only got
>> into the picture around that time too.

>You're pretty much right. Geoff is a family man and took a couple of
>years off after GP2. After all, he made a ton of money and didn't have to
>do much. He's not a 24/7 coder like Carmack, he has other interests.

Months, not years. And given the # of people behind this project, it
is pretty sad how little improvement was made between GP2 and GP3.
Great game, but given say 2-3yrs development time I do expect better.
Two years ago people did care about 3d accel and 3d sound was emerging
as well. It doesn't take 2 years to adopt to either unless your code
is a mass of spaghetti.

by **Ed Solhei** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> > Imho, he should probably had taken a much, much longer vacation
tho...(and
> I
> > cant blame you for thinking that he did) by the looks of his so called
> > "masterpiece".

> But then, we wouldn't have GP3 right now, don't you think?

And we have a winner!!! :-D

--
All the best,
Ed Solheim
** Proud member of the GPLEA **
(Remove SPAM-GUARD in address to reply)

by **Jan Verschuere** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

As far as I'm concerned, we still don't. ;-(

Jan.
=---

by **Jeff Vince** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Dennis,

Ummm, four years ago (and change - early '96), Rendition had made
its V1000 chips and manufacturers were prototyping cards for it.
Papyrus had ported ICR2 to Rendition 3D (640x480x16-bit color) four
years ago. 3 3/4 years ago (late '96), the cards were sold and most
of them had ICR2-3D as bundled software (many would say that ICR2-3D
was *the* ultimate demonstrator for abilities of these cards). Maybe
they were crap, but they gave 16-bit color at 30fps on my P133.

Two years ago (two and a half?), the Voodoo2 (y'know, the one after
the Voodoo1) was the big thing. If it was crap, it sure sold a lot of
hardware...

Almost two years ago, GPL was released. I think 3D hardware was
"cared about" for that release (or at least every one that *didn't*
have a Voodoo or Rendition card sure was crying pretty loud).

Do you have *any* idea what you're talking about? ;)

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

by **Joe6** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago...

I think it's more like he's a do-it-yourself kind of person. Which was
great in the DOS days, but leaves you seriously undermanned in the
modern era. A typical game team has have 5-10 programmers. Four years
= 20-40 person years of programming. So when a title's in development
for that long, people expect a LOT.

I don't know this for a fact but that's how it seems to me. It would
explain the pieces of old legacy code still*** around, and might
even explain the inexcusably bad user interface (i.e., he didn't have
the time or skill to fix it, and wasn't willing to trust someone else
to do it?).

Joe McGinn
_____________________
Radical Entertainment

by **Denn** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>>> Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
>>> 4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
>>> rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
>>> How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>>> developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
>>> wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
>>> 3D accel, because the cards were crap. And FF only got
>>> into the picture around that time too.

>>You're pretty much right. Geoff is a family man and took a couple of
>>years off after GP2. After all, he made a ton of money and didn't have to
>>do much. He's not a 24/7 coder like Carmack, he has other interests.

> Months, not years. And given the # of people behind this project, it
> is pretty sad how little improvement was made between GP2 and GP3.
> Great game, but given say 2-3yrs development time I do expect better.
> Two years ago people did care about 3d accel and 3d sound was emerging
> as well. It doesn't take 2 years to adopt to either unless your code
> is a mass of spaghetti.

But exectly how many people were involved, and that right from the
start (say, 3.5 years ago)? I guess it will only have been GC himself,
and maybe one more. No way were there anywhere near as much
workers involved as say, with Quake3.

Dennis.

by **Denn** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>>Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
>>4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
>>rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
>>How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>>developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
>>wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
>>3D accel, because the cards were crap.

> Dennis,

> Ummm, four years ago (and change - early '96), Rendition had made
> its V1000 chips and manufacturers were prototyping cards for it.
> Papyrus had ported ICR2 to Rendition 3D (640x480x16-bit color) four
> years ago. 3 3/4 years ago (late '96), the cards were sold and most
> of them had ICR2-3D as bundled software (many would say that ICR2-3D
> was *the* ultimate demonstrator for abilities of these cards). Maybe
> they were crap, but they gave 16-bit color at 30fps on my P133.

> Two years ago (two and a half?), the Voodoo2 (y'know, the one after
> the Voodoo1) was the big thing. If it was crap, it sure sold a lot of
> hardware...

> Almost two years ago, GPL was released. I think 3D hardware was
> "cared about" for that release (or at least every one that *didn't*
> have a Voodoo or Rendition card sure was crying pretty loud).

> Do you have *any* idea what you're talking about? ;)

Well, maybe I had the timeframe a bit wrong. When remembering back,
I forgot to multiply by 2 (which seems to be in the ballpark for the
actual years it has been since an event. Like when this Concorde crashed
and they said it was in service since 1975 or something, I would have
guessed it started flying around 1985).

Maybe I should have said 3 years ago? The voodoo 1 was a pretty useless
card for anything other than Quake (after the patch, even Quake needed
an OpenGL patch).

Dennis.

by **SomeOn** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
> 4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
> rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
> How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
> developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
> wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
> 3D accel, because the cards were crap. And FF only got
> into the picture around that time too.

Are you f------ kidding me? Two years ago we already had excellent
3D-cards. MGPRS2 is from that time and looks *much* better than GP3. If
Crammond has been coding GP3 for the past 4 years, he's a much worse
coder than I thought he was. My guess is that he has been working no
more than a year on it. And if it's true he has coded everything in
Assembler instead of using a high-level OOP language (which is the way
to go for programming sims), the guy is a dinosaur and I will *not* be
looking forward to GP4 or GP5.

GP3 would have been cool 2-3 years ago. GP3 now is an insult to us
F1-simmers.

by **Duff** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>>>> Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
>>>> 4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
>>>> rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
>>>> How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>>>> developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
>>>> wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
>>>> 3D accel, because the cards were crap. And FF only got
>>>> into the picture around that time too.

>>>You're pretty much right. Geoff is a family man and took a couple of
>>>years off after GP2. After all, he made a ton of money and didn't have to
>>>do much. He's not a 24/7 coder like Carmack, he has other interests.

>> Months, not years. And given the # of people behind this project, it
>> is pretty sad how little improvement was made between GP2 and GP3.
>> Great game, but given say 2-3yrs development time I do expect better.
>> Two years ago people did care about 3d accel and 3d sound was emerging
>> as well. It doesn't take 2 years to adopt to either unless your code
>> is a mass of spaghetti.

>But exectly how many people were involved, and that right from the
>start (say, 3.5 years ago)? I guess it will only have been GC himself,
>and maybe one more. No way were there anywhere near as much
>workers involved as say, with Quake3.

I'm judging from the credits in the game. Seems like a lot to me.
What's the point of paying these people if they can't add anything
significant to gp3 (other than the weather, which in itself isn't
sufficient after 3 years)?

And if it is just Crammond, then it still isn't an excuse. No one
with a conscious should put out a "new" game that is simply Gp2 with a
marginal face lift.

- Show quoted text -

by **Denn** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>>But exactly how many people were involved, and that right from the
>>start (say, 3.5 years ago)? I guess it will only have been GC himself,
>>and maybe one more. No way were there anywhere near as much
>>workers involved as say, with Quake3.

> I'm judging from the credits in the game. Seems like a lot to me.
> What's the point of paying these people if they can't add anything
> significant to gp3 (other than the weather, which in itself isn't
> sufficient after 3 years)?

I assume not all of these people have worked on the game for 3.5
years, otherwise they will have to sell a lot of copies.

I disapprove of 'marginal facelift', but other than that, you're right,
it took way too long.

Dennis.

by **Michael E. Carve** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

% > Months, not years. And given the # of people behind this project, it
% > is pretty sad how little improvement was made between GP2 and GP3.
% > Great game, but given say 2-3yrs development time I do expect better.
% > Two years ago people did care about 3d accel and 3d sound was emerging
% > as well. It doesn't take 2 years to adopt to either unless your code
% > is a mass of spaghetti.

% But exectly how many people were involved, and that right from the
% start (say, 3.5 years ago)? I guess it will only have been GC himself,
% and maybe one more. No way were there anywhere near as much
% workers involved as say, with Quake3.

And whose fault is that? I also know that both Microprose and Hasbro
provided a quite a number of "teams" for the development of GP3....

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

by **Jeff Vince** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>>>Yep, you guessed it, GP3 again. It is true that it was
>>>4 years ago when GP2 was released an I see many posts
>>>rambling on about the 4 years it took to develop GP3.
>>>How about GC taking a *big* vacation and actually started
>>>developing GP3 1 or 2 years ago, that would seem ok,
>>>wouldn't it. Besides, 2 years ago, nobody cared about
>>>3D accel, because the cards were crap.

>> Dennis,

>> Ummm, four years ago (and change - early '96), Rendition had made
>> its V1000 chips and manufacturers were prototyping cards for it.
>> Papyrus had ported ICR2 to Rendition 3D (640x480x16-bit color) four
>> years ago. 3 3/4 years ago (late '96), the cards were sold and most
>> of them had ICR2-3D as bundled software (many would say that ICR2-3D
>> was *the* ultimate demonstrator for abilities of these cards). Maybe
>> they were crap, but they gave 16-bit color at 30fps on my P133.

>> Two years ago (two and a half?), the Voodoo2 (y'know, the one after
>> the Voodoo1) was the big thing. If it was crap, it sure sold a lot of
>> hardware...

>> Almost two years ago, GPL was released. I think 3D hardware was
>> "cared about" for that release (or at least every one that *didn't*
>> have a Voodoo or Rendition card sure was crying pretty loud).

>> Do you have *any* idea what you're talking about? ;)

>Well, maybe I had the timeframe a bit wrong. When remembering back,
>I forgot to multiply by 2 (which seems to be in the ballpark for the
>actual years it has been since an event. Like when this Concorde crashed
>and they said it was in service since 1975 or something, I would have
>guessed it started flying around 1985).

>Maybe I should have said 3 years ago? The voodoo 1 was a pretty useless
>card for anything other than Quake (after the patch, even Quake needed
>an OpenGL patch).

Dennis,

Aside from debating 3D video card chronology, my point was:

Papyrus released a contemporary sim to GP2, ICR2. One year after
its release (and the delay was more the manufacturers getting the
cards ready for production, not porting the software to 3D, that only
took a few months), a 3D version was available and was essentially
given away (bundled) with the video cards.

How does that compare with four years and another $50 for a 3D
patch? (Yes, GP3 is more than a 3D patch, but not that much more,
certainly not 2 or 3 or 4 years worth more.)

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

by **Jeff Vince** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Just one more point here to clarify and amplify the chronology...

ICR2 was released in fall '95. The ICR2 3D patch was working,
in-house at Papyrus, in the spring of '96. GP2 was released in the
summer of '96. So Papyrus actually had a working 3D-enhanced
simulation *even before GP2 was released*.

And you wonder why some of us think Crammond is behind the times,
with no 3D patch to GP2, taking four years to come up with GP3 (which
is substanially JLGP2), having poor internet play in GP3... :(

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

by **G.Aitke** » Sat, 29 Jul 2000 04:00:00

> >If GPL is the jewel in the crown, then GP3 is the turd in the drinking
> >water...IMHO.

> Bullshit... IMHO.

Nah, it's one off Geoff's...smelly c&%t :0)