Have we reached the end of the road with sim racing development ???

Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? I love racing sims, but over the last year or two I dont see much in the way of advancement in racing sims on any front. I no longer wait eagerly for the next great game to arrive, as I once did some years ago. Has the genre matured to a point beyond which there is little possibility to find yourself amazed by a future game ? The graphics are certainly not living up to the potential seen in Geforce 3 or 4 tech demos. I don't even think current graphics really even live up to the potential of even a Geforce 2. We all seem pretty satisfied with just gaining a few dozen frames per second from each new iteration of graphics card, with the same old visuals. Mercedes Benz Truck Racing looks excellent, but couldn't it be even better with some extra programming instructions for those snazzy expensive Geforce 3's and 4's and ATI 8500's. Kind of like the old GLIDE instructions for 3DFX cards. That would make them more worth spending $300 to $400 , than getting 70 frames per second versus 40 frames per second on my last generation card. Yet it seems that a new generation of videocards arrives well before all of the new graphical features of the last two generations of cards has even been implemented in any vidogame, let alone implemented in any racing sim. So yet another card is relegated to obsolescence before fulfilling its promise. Also, as is often pointed out in this newsgroup, GPL is pretty much the high point in sim racing physics, even though it came out years ago. Is there simply no way to significantly improve physics modeling beyond GPL, or has it essentially been perfected in mimicing what happens in the real world to race cars ? Somehow N4 and NR2002 do not seem to be much improved over GPL, and in some respects actually feel inferior to GPL, IMHO. Are the additional real world physical forces that are lacking in GPL's physics model simply too trivial to waste CPU cycles on modeling, providing little or no potential for improving the genre? How about force feedback ? Has everything that you would feel in a real world steering wheel in a given situation been imitated ? While asphalt based sims like GPL seem to have sufficient force feedback effects, off-road sims still seem to lack the upredictable feeling of small ruts and potholes , or the way that deep sand areas can make steering a vehicle rather different from mud or gravel or hard packed dirt. Rally Trophy is a very good off-road sim, but I never had the impression that the road surface irregularities were likely to cause me to crash while negotiating a dirt straightaway at speed, while by comparison GPL sometimes leaves me feeling one twitch away from being out of control even on smooth asphalt straightaways at max speeds, as the car wanders a bit from side to side. Shouldn't an off-road racer be that much more difficult to control at high speeds coming down a bumpy dirt straightaway, putting you that much more on the edge of being out of control ? Having ridden motocross bikes down relatively smooth sand trails, I know from experience that 60 MPH on sand is far more adrenaline inducing than 60 MPH down a freeway. Consequently, I would think that the force feedback effects could be made to more effectively convey that feeling of lack of control. I have noticed that in VIPER RACING the force feedback effects will sometimes be so strong as to cause me to over compensate in trying to control a fish-tailing situation, and actually cause me to make the car fishtail even worse until I lose control entirely. I would like to see that kind of an effect in more sims, under appropriate situations of course, and perhaps even moreso in off-road sims. Finally, each of us knows that there are numerous visual and other sensory cues that are sorely missing from sim racing. Many of them can never truly be incorporated into a home racing sim, for obvious reasons. However, are we at a deadend with respect to possible innovative peripherals that might be supported in a games code ? Rumble seatpads akin to providing the rumble effects of console joysticks, better 3D glasses support, HUD's , force feedback in brake pedals and clutches, seats that tilt slightly in response to G-forces giving you a hint of the forces direction and strength. I am sure that there must be ways to make sims more immersive. Or have PC racing sims pretty much gone the way of the light bulb, with not much room for improvement, beyond maybe a prettier version of GPL. Anybody have any ideas where PC racing Sims are headed over the next few years given the practicalities of the videogame business, or where you would like to see them go ideally if developers actually cared what you wanted or thought, instead of just about mass marketing appeal.

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002 12:26:11 GMT, "Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote: >The graphics are certainly not living up to the potential seen in Geforce 3 >or 4 tech demos. I don't even think current graphics really even live up to It's all a matter of good programming - F1RC looks gorgeous while keeping a high fps even on slower pc's. The demo of GP4 looks very impressive graphically. F1 2001 can look excellent, but in order to keep a decent fps with a full field on my P3 866 gft gts, I need to turn down so much detail that is looks crap again... The same goes for N2002. I -want- to see all the 43 cars in front of me and behind me, but I have to give up on quite a lot of fancy graphics to keep the fps acceptable. >race cars ? Somehow N4 and NR2002 do not seem to be much improved over GPL, >and in some respects actually feel inferior to GPL, IMHO. Are the additional NR2002 is imho way more advanced in the physical department than GPL. I can't say why exactly, it just -feels- much more realistic. I'm sure some people here can tell you exactly what has been improved in N2002 compared to GPL's physics :) I agree with the rest of your excellent post. Andre

Yes, and everything that there is to invent has already been invented, so let's close the patent office too.

While not direct answers to your questions here is my take on the state of sim racing. I feel we are at a high water mark until something revolutionary comes out on the hardware side. Right now the improvements in hardware are not as great as they use to be. Going from 1200 Mhz to 1400 Mhz is not the same as going from 200 to 400 or even 400 to 600. Video cards are basically in the same rut. Yes they can be amazing on paper but if you don't have software to take advantage of it you don't gain a whole lot. I really saw this when I made the change from a GF2 to a GF3. Yeah the GF3 was faster, but that's about it. I'll be skipping the GF4 line because I don't see any great improvements over the GF3 at this point. I think there is currently three major problems in the sim-racing arena. The first is that the market is being over commercialized. We now have companies only worried about the bottom line controlling the development of games. These companies go after the mass markets to maximize profits. In the past we had people making sims that were sim players and they wanted to do they best they could. Now the corporate mentality has taken over. This is why we see the "release it now patch it latter" way of doing things with new titles. This mass market approach is also holding things back from the point that these companies are afraid to put to much into a game for fear of alienating customers by either making the games to hard to play or requiring to much hardware to run. How many posts have we seen like this? "I have a 600 p3 and a V3 how come I can't max out the graphics on this POS game?" GPL is a good example of what happens to a game that is declared too hard. No matter how much we love it there is no denying that it was a finical flop. This is also why we will never see a true damage model. You'd think that people would just use the option to turn down the damage model, but more on that latter. I also think this is why road course racing isn't as popular as oval racing. The second problem is what is there really left to add? The graphic engines can really shine if there is enough hardware to let them. The physics models are pretty darn good too. The two areas that need work IMO are AI and Force feedback. Force feedback is really a subjective thing so I would just like to see it being more open to adjustment. If you look at all the values to edit in F12001 you should be able to really tweak it to your liking. There just isn't anything left for that big leap between titles. How many times have we heard that a new version should have just been a patch? I personally have been a fan of the expansion pack way of doing things. That way you don't have to relearn the physics every new release, but you still get new content like new tracks or chassis. Take NR2002 for example I really hope they do the Craftsman truck series and Busch series add-ons, but why stop there? Why not take it farther to like ASA or ARCA? How many times have we heard the cry for more short tracks? Why do we have to stick with NASCAR? Give the short track crowd what they want with an ASA add-on. They have the physics engine so all it would take is some new track models and a new chassis. I think the fact that the basic game stayed the same from N1-N3 is why the series became so popular. I'd love to see an expansion pack for GPL with some new tracks and an update to OpenGL. I know there is a lot of great stuff on the net. But it would be nice to have it all in one easy to install setup instead of having 50 different add-ons to install in many different ways. The third problem is what I think is the worse one, and that is us. That's right I said us. I truly believe we are our own worse enemy when it comes to the sim vs. arcade titles. We are not a very friendly group to outsiders. When I say outsiders I don't mean newbies as much as people that think differently. Since it's been debated so heavily lately I'll use the camera view as an example. Its clear that anyone who doesn't use the cockpit view is looked down on as being an inferior driver. If someone posts a question about say a Need for Speed title they get laughed at for playing an arcade game. The worst part of it is that most of us can't let it go. We have to start threads trying to blame Lara Croft for why we have chase views. Get over it people. We need to make this a much friendlier place so that our numbers will grow. If we quit chastising people for using arcade views or moderate damage settings maybe they would work their way up to becoming full blown sim racers. Then we could get the things changed in games to what we want. Right now I sure we scare off a lot more people than we invite in. We must remember that we play these games for fun. I don't care how realistic it is there is no fun in running a lap, smacking the wall, and having to go to the pits. When trying to learn a new game. So if they run a roof cam so they don't smack the wall who cares? How does it effect our lives? If any thing I would like to think it makes our sim lives better. If a roof cam helps them control their car and keep from hitting me in an online race I'll hit f10/page down for them, and I'm sure as hell not gonna force them to do something they are not comfortable with. If people were not shamed so much for running in arcade mode maybe we would get a better damage model for the sim side of a game. As it stands the game companies are too afraid to make the damage too realistic because they don't want the "too hard" label tied to their game. Another thing we do is illegal copies. Game software is not really all that expensive. I'm sure most of us piss away $50 bucks all the time with out even thinking about it. If you don't believe me just look at what the price for a copy of Microsoft Office XP is going for these days. Now talk about software that is just a patch! At least with games we usually get more improvements than a typical Office upgrade. Hell taking a date to a movie cost as much or more than most game titles these days. At the price of cigarettes around here just take a few days off from that and you'd save the price of a game. Quit altogether and in a year you could have a few games and a new Geforce video card. Don't get me wrong we all love getting something for nothing, but again we cut our own throats at the same time. We all hate having to swap CDs to play games, but you're a complete idiot if you think everyone that uses a no CD patch actually owns the game just because the readme file says they have to. Like it or not these games are made to make money, and if they don't make money no matter how much we like them there won't be a squeal. It all comes down to priorities. If it's a real priority to improve the sim-racing arena we must all do our part.

For the average Joe, I think the improvements will come in the form of immersion, story line, little extras. the driving models are already good enough to satisfy 99% of the market. And what about us sim-heads? The current physics models are pretty much as sophisticated as engineering rigid body dynamics software. Maybe they can boost the frequency, but not much more. There aren't many more DOFs which need to be modelled, as I doubt you would noticed much difference going from Papyrus's engine DOF model to one which models each piston, for example. Improvements will come in the tire models (as each new SAE conference brings new insight) and the aero models. Non-rigid elements in the model would be useful, but again I doubt most of us would notice the change in the feel. Codemasters' "finite element analysis" damage model sounds a lot cooler than it probably is (considering crash simultations need a supercomputer) but it's still a step in the right direction. Stephen

I am one of the great unwashed when it comes to sim games. I like the PC version of F1 2001 best - mainly because the game has a sense of speed which many games don't. I am not a decent driver but I still enjoy racing games - particularily the sim/arcade variety. My personal wish list is rather different from you 'hardcore sim' drivers : I want more imersion - that means better sound effects/animations. If I am Schumy and I'm racing at Monza and I overtake into first place - I want to see the fans in the stands stand up and cheer. If I take out Irvine - I want him to get out of his cockpit and give me a piece of his mind. F1 games are getting too samey - I want a career mode where you start in a lowly team and you have to help develop the car - basically take out the test car and determine the problems with it. You would gain experience points for determining the correct problems (like rpg games). If you reach a level of performance - you can switch teams towards the top teams. I'd like a team tryout - where you are told of what laptime you need to get to join a team - and you can basically work your guts out getting the car to reach the set laptime. Really there is so much more to F1 games that should be done. I'd also like a real performance update - where you can race a season with the game updating driver performances as the season progresses via the internet - ie for this year Jaguar to be near the back of the pack. I want a historical gameplay update - so perhaps a few days after a real gp - EA could do a replay of the real race in the F1 2001 game and you can take over one of the drivers. So if there was a a big pileup at the start as with the recent gp - you can be Ralf Schumy and experience the crash - and perhaps try things to avoid it. It would be interesting to see the game ai as what would happen if Ralf breaked earlier - would it have caused a bigger crash etc. I want more fun in my F1 games - I like the F1 intro that is at the start of every gp on tv - its in the Sony F1 game - why not the other F1 games. I want a pit lane sim aspect of the game where you can wander in the pit lane with all the sounds/modelled real drivers hanging around. I want a decent podium where you can pour the champagne. I want a highlights mode where the game just shows the best overtaking/crashes. F1 is such a cool life for a F1 driver - lets have a F1 game with a rpg element. Al, the unwashed F1 fan. :) MadDAWG wrote in message ...

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>While not direct answers to your questions here is my take on the state of >sim racing. > >I feel we are at a high water mark until something revolutionary comes out >on the hardware side. Right now the improvements in hardware are not as >great as they use to be. Going from 1200 Mhz to 1400 Mhz is not the same as >going from 200 to 400 or even 400 to 600. Video cards are basically in the >same rut. Yes they can be amazing on paper but if you don't have software

to >take advantage of it you don't gain a whole lot. I really saw this when I >made the change from a GF2 to a GF3. Yeah the GF3 was faster, but that's >about it. I'll be skipping the GF4 line because I don't see any great >improvements over the GF3 at this point.

"Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<Djkm8.570$[email hidden]>... > Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? I love racing sims, but > over the last year or two I dont see much in the way of advancement in > racing sims on any front. I no longer wait eagerly for the next great game > to arrive, as I once did some years ago. Has the genre matured to a point > beyond which there is little possibility to find yourself amazed by a > future game ? I kinda feel your pain, in terms of computer games in general. But maybe I am just getting old and burned out. > The graphics are certainly not living up to the potential seen in Geforce 3 > or 4 tech demos. I don't even think current graphics really even live up to > the potential of even a Geforce 2. I agree. Part of this is the "common denominator" approach to software development, so the game will run on as wide a customer base as possible. Also because at some point designers have to say "we will develop game x to run on system y with these hardware specs". Then 18 months later, when the game finally comes out, there have been 2 new generations of hardware. I think 2 or 3 years down the pipe we will see some pretty amazing stuff. It may or may not happen to be in a racing game though...

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> We all seem pretty satisfied with just > gaining a few dozen frames per second from each new iteration of graphics > card, with the same old visuals. Mercedes Benz Truck Racing looks excellent, > but couldn't it be even better with some extra programming instructions for > those snazzy expensive Geforce 3's and 4's and ATI 8500's. Kind of like the > old GLIDE instructions for 3DFX cards. That would make them more worth > spending $300 to $400 , than getting 70 frames per second versus 40 frames > per second on my last generation card. Yet it seems that a new generation of > videocards arrives well before all of the new graphical features of the last > two generations of cards has even been implemented in any vidogame, let > alone implemented in any racing sim. So yet another card is relegated to > obsolescence before fulfilling its promise.

I think part of the reason we see this so much is because FPS is the only objective measurement of performance. There is no way to quantify eye candy, other than to say that a particular card supports a particular instruction, and 99% of the folks buying cards have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what trilinear filtering really is. Lets say somebody somehow releases GAME A that takes advantage of all the bells and whistles of the top of the line box, but can only muster 30 fps. Somebody else releases GAME B with similar gameplay features that can pull 45 fps on a mid-level box and still look "pretty good". Which one is going to sell more copies that don't get returned by pissed off consumers? How much more is it going to cost to produce A over B? Would you pay $150 for a racing sim? I might, you might, but most people would just laugh at the idea. > How about force feedback? There is much that could be done here, but hardware devices vary so much from manufacturer to manufacturer, I think the best we could hope for is probably for game designers and FF API developers to give us as much customizability (is that a word?) as possible. A natural extension of FF would be tactile transducers for seats, pedals, etc. There was a company that actually was/is/was_going_to make hardware to do this, but I don't thing software support was ever really forthcoming. It's a shame this area hasn't received more attention because this sort of effect would add so much immersion, even moreso than graphical improvements. Again, I am sure this really comes down to ROI on the software development end. > Anybody have any ideas where PC racing Sims are headed over the next few > years given the practicalities of the videogame business, or where you > would like to see them go ideally if developers actually cared what you > wanted or thought, instead of just about mass marketing appeal. This has next to nothing to do with the videogame business, but take a look at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-12/NationalAdvancedDriverSimulator.html and http://www.nads-sc.uiowa.edu/ to check out the most realistic driving simulator in the world. This thing cost about $100 million dollars to build. I don't know if this includes software development costs or not. The most intriguing thing to me is the 360 deg. FOV that is produced from an array of 15 video projectors and a parabolic screen. Suddenly, my home-theater/gaming rig seems so inadequate... I think the best chances we have of getting major improvements in the areas we are talking about here will come from some kind of open-source community or third party development. A commercial venture just can't afford to do be this ambitious and cutting edge. Even if they charged huge sums of money for the finished product. Aside from technological issues, there is still a HUGE way to go in the gameplay department - fodder for another discussion I think. Cheers, Gerald

MadDAWG ([email hidden]) wrote on 21 Mar 2002: <snip> > Going from 1200 Mhz to > 1400 Mhz is not the same as going from 200 to 400 or even 400 to > 600. Video cards are basically in the same rut.<snip> Right. I have a P4-1.5GHz with a GeForce2 MX-400. That's pretty old hat by now, yet I haven't had any trouble with any game yet (I've no idea about NR2002, as I haven't played it). Not so very long ago, by the time so many months had elapsed I'd be starting to struggle. > The first is that the market is being over commercialized.<snip> Mmmm. The problem is that costs are going up and up, which means that only sure-fire hits are getting made in the first place. Geoff Crammond, for all we love to moan about GP2.75, has done some amazing things, and Revs (the BBC Micro game) was one of the greatest - possibly the first real simulator on a home commputer (and how many F3 games have we seen since...?). That game would have had no chance of being made in today's climate. > road course racing isn't as popular as oval racing. <snip> ...in the US. GP3 sold far more than any NASCAR game in the UK, but of course the market isn't so big. (On a similar note, in 10 years time, when far more Indians have PCs, there will be a lot more cricket games around.) > The two areas that need work IMO are AI and Force feedback.<snip> FF I'll pass over, but AI... yes indeed. I think around 1997-8 a lot of game developers got so excited by the net that they neglected the single-player game, and AI suffered (there are of course honourable exceptions like Thief and Half-Life). Even on well-done games, some things could be improved - if only the AI could slipstream in GPL, it would improve offline racing enormously. > Right now I sure we scare off a lot more people than we > invite in. We must remember that we play these games for fun.<snip> You're dead right, and most of us are at fault. I suppose the title of the group doesn't help - if it were something like comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.driving thigns might be different. What we ought to do is move from a sim/arcade split to a good/bad split, so that something like Powerslide, which is a fun blast, would be treated more kindly than Prost GP, which is a disaster. > Another thing we do is illegal copies.<snip> I can be smug here, as I don't do this. At all. All these "try before you buy" excuses don't wash if you'ree living - as most piraters do - close to a shop like EB that has a decent returns policy. (In fact, if the mail-order firms started doing it, the excuse would vanish altogether.) > We all hate having to swap CDs to play games<snip> Actually, I think people make far too much fuss about this. It takes about 15 seconds - who really can't spare that? -- "After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll, really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh. The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

"Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Djkm8.570$[email hidden]... > Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? Can you and your friends join together for an online endurance event where you all share the same car? When we can have 40+ cars with 80 to 160 drivers running around Le Sarthe for 24 hours, THEN....THEN you might say technology is topping out... dave henrie

"Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<Djkm8.570$[email hidden]>... > Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? No. Did it reach it in 1980? 1985? 1990? 1995? 1998? 2000? No. Has every single detail of the handling of a racecar been simulated? No. Has every single environmental detail been implemented? No. Has Artificial Intelligence been perfected? No. So I'd say, overall, no. > I love racing sims, but > over the last year or two I dont see much in the way of advancement in > racing sims on any front. Nascar 2002, Nascar 4, Rally Trophy, Grand Prix 3, F1 2002 are all excellent sims. None are perfect, none are awful. All are much much better than what we had 5 years ago. I call that advancement. > I no longer wait eagerly for the next great game > to arrive, as I once did some years ago. Has the genre matured to a point > beyond which there is little possibility to find yourself amazed by a > future game ? Based on your tone, I'm guessing that you may be burned out on racing sims. There's no shortage of interesting simulations coming out. Maybe it's me, but I remember the days when Nascar 1 and Indycar 2 first came out, and that was it. > The graphics are certainly not living up to the potential seen in Geforce 3 > or 4 tech demos. I don't even think current graphics really even live up to > the potential of even a Geforce 2. Hm. Nascar 2002 takes advantage of high-resolution textures and requires faster texture filling and polygon rendering than a GeForce 2 is capable of handling at 30fps (or a Geforce 3 Ti200 in D3D, which provides much better visual quality). I'm not sure how exactly it isn't living up to the potential of a tech demo. Tech demos are designed to make you go "Wow I need that video card." A racing simulation is designed to make you go "Wow I am driving a race car". Both utilize the cards to their fullest. > We all seem pretty satisfied with just > gaining a few dozen frames per second from each new iteration of graphics > card, with the same old visuals. Mercedes Benz Truck Racing looks excellent, > but couldn't it be even better with some extra programming instructions for > those snazzy expensive Geforce 3's and 4's and ATI 8500's. Kind of like the > old GLIDE instructions for 3DFX cards. What do you want? We have antistropic filtering and NVIDIA's FSAA implementation is finally getting close to where it should be. But really, if you want higher visual quality, you ultimately need faster fill rates and higher polygon counts rather than gimmicky effects, which is what NVIDIA is attempting to provide. I want to be able to run Nascar 2002 at 1600x1200x32 with 4x FSAA and full details using D3D at 100fps with a full field of cars at Watkins Glen. I'm not confident that there is a card capable of doing that yet. > That would make them more worth > spending $300 to $400 , than getting 70 frames per second versus 40 frames > per second on my last generation card. I've owned a Voodoo 4, Geforce 2, and Geforce 3. I have seen a huge jump in quality and frames per second going one card to the next. For starters, I can play every game I own at 1280x1024x32 with no problems. Each card has provided an increase in resolution, texture quality, and framerate. I'm not sure what more there is to want. > Yet it seems that a new generation of > videocards arrives well before all of the new graphical features of the last > two generations of cards has even been implemented in any vidogame, let > alone implemented in any racing sim. So yet another card is relegated to > obsolescence before fulfilling its promise. If a card's features haven't been implemented yet, how can it be obsolete? I don't follow your logic here. If a game isn't pushing the envelope in terms of 3-d rendering, then why would you need to upgrade your video card? > Also, as is often pointed out in this newsgroup, GPL is pretty much the high > point in sim racing physics, even though it came out years ago. I don't know what newsgroup you're reading. Papyrus fans have universally concluded that Nascar 4 and 2002 have both improved on GPL by leaps and bounds. There is a huge crowd that thinks F1 2002 is better than GPL. I find Rally Trophy to be on par with, although some would disagree. Even die hard GPL fans are moving on to other sims, things are progressing. > Is there > simply no way to significantly improve physics modeling beyond GPL, or has > it essentially been perfected in mimicing what happens in the real world to > race cars ? Again, Nascar 4 and 2002 have more detailed and realistic physics modelling than GPL, and none of these sims perfectly mimic what happens in a real car. > Somehow N4 and NR2002 do not seem to be much improved over GPL, I love all 3 games and I disagree wholeheartedly. The tire models in GPL are worthless. It's a great sim, tons of fun, but as Dave Kaemmer has said himself it is nowhere near close to accurately modeling the interaction between tire and pavement, which is *the* most important aspect of any racing game calling itself a sim. > and in some respects actually feel inferior to GPL, IMHO. I find it hard to believe you've even played these games, if you've made this statement. Regardless, maybe you just need to take a brake from racing. I was burned out on racing sims around 96 and didn't pick them back up until 98. Most of last year I noodled with GPL here and there but couldn't get into the way I wanted. Now I race for an hour or two every chance I get. Take some time off and see if you're into it again. > Are the additional > real world physical forces that are lacking in GPL's physics model simply > too trivial to waste CPU cycles on modeling, providing little or no > potential for improving the genre? Every successive game featuring Dave Kaemmer's physics work has improved the handling model in some way. To many, the subtle changes to the tire model in N2002 has pushed it so far above every other sim that it is untouchable. I'm talking about GPL diehards here. <snip force feedback bit> I hate force feedback and find it distracting and nothing at all like a real car (considering NASCAR uses power steering, I wonder how much you actually feel through the wheel anyway) so I can't add to what you've said. > different from mud or gravel or hard packed dirt. Rally Trophy is a very > good off-road sim, but I never had the impression that the road surface > irregularities were likely to cause me to crash while negotiating a dirt > straightaway at speed, while by comparison GPL sometimes leaves me feeling > one twitch away from being out of control even on smooth asphalt > straightaways at max speeds, as the car wanders a bit from side to side. This could have as much to do with your steering settings and your car setup as anything. With full linearity on a good wheel using an 8th of an inch of toe at and a 60/30/1 diff I never feel remotely out of control in GPL unless I'm trying to drive too fast instead of concentrating harder. Also, part of the difficulty of GPL likely has to do with the unrealistic tire model, since increasing the fidelity of the tire model in N2002 has made the sim easier to drive. > Shouldn't an off-road racer be that much more difficult to control at high > speeds coming down a bumpy dirt straightaway, putting you that much more on > the edge of being out of control ? Have you checked your speedometer? I generally don't start feeling out of control until I start hitting speeds I don't normally drive in real life. I think there's a huge difference between the amount of control you have over the car at 200mph in GPL vs 100mph in Rally Trophy. > Having ridden motocross bikes down relatively smooth sand trails, I know > from experience that 60 MPH on sand is far more adrenaline inducing than 60 > MPH down a freeway. I find Rally Trophy much more exciting at 60-80mph than I do GPL. GPL feels like a cakewalk under 100mph. Whether this is realistic I do not know. I think the sensation of speed in RT may actually be exaggerated somewhat, since I always feel like I'm driving faster than I really am. > control. I have noticed that in VIPER RACING the force feedback effects will > sometimes be so strong as to cause me to over compensate in trying to > control a fish-tailing situation, and actually cause me to make the car > fishtail even worse until I lose control entirely. Weird. I do this regularly in Viper Racing and Rally Trophy without a force feedback wheel. I'm not God's gift to sim-racing, but I'm in the top 50% I'd reckon and I still occasionally trigger uncontrollable yaw. > be incorporated into a home racing sim, for obvious reasons. However, are we > at a deadend with respect to possible innovative peripherals that might be > supported > in a games code ? Moreso than making you literally feel the handling, I'd prefer if simracing looked at flight sims to see how they deal with the lack of physical sensation. Flight sims might be stuck in a rut, but they still have tons of features that have yet to catch on with simracing, or are just starting to be adopted (such as the driving school approach). I think that if there are real innovations to be made in the area of relaying information to the driver, it will be done through the use of an intuitive and useful heads up display rather than vibrating diapers. Imagine if there were a HUD with a traction circle display, or if there was some sort of a marker placed on the edge of the screen to represent cars that would normally be in your peripheral vision. > Anybody have any ideas where PC racing Sims are headed over the next few > years given the practicalities of the videogame business, or where you > would like to see them go ideally if developers actually cared what you > wanted or thought, instead of just about mass marketing appeal. I think that Papyrus may be the only person even attempting to develop realistic simulations 5 years from now. Geoff Crammond, ISI, Ratbag, Bugbear, and the Wests will either stop developing software or will need to bow into publisher pressure to make their games appeal to a wider audience if they expect to release anything. I can't imagine too many companies ever having the relationship Papy and Sierra have, even if Papy isn't permitted to develop GPL2 or the other wonderful sims we know they're capable of. Jason

is there a way to summarise all this to 5~8 lines ??? "MadDAWG" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > While not direct answers to your questions here is mytake on the state of > sim racing. > > I feel we are at a high water mark until somethingrevolutionary comes out > on the hardware side. Right now the improvements inhardware are not as > great as they use to be. Going from 1200 Mhz to 1400Mhz is not the same as > going from 200 to 400 or even 400 to 600. Video cardsare basically in the > same rut. Yes they can be amazing on paper but if youdon't have software to > take advantage of it you don't gain a whole lot. Ireally saw this when I > made the change from a GF2 to a GF3. Yeah the GF3 wasfaster, but that's > about it. I'll be skipping the GF4 line because Idon't see any great > improvements over the GF3 at this point. > > I think there is currently three major problems inthe sim-racing arena. > > The first is that the market is being overcommercialized. We now have > companies only worried about the bottom linecontrolling the development of > games. These companies go after the mass markets tomaximize profits. In the > past we had people making sims that were sim playersand they wanted to do > they best they could. Now the corporate mentality hastaken over. This is > why we see the "release it now patch it latter" wayof doing things with new > titles. This mass market approach is also holdingthings back from the point > that these companies are afraid to put to much into agame for fear of > alienating customers by either making the games tohard to play or requiring > to much hardware to run. How many posts have we seenlike this? "I have a > 600 p3 and a V3 how come I can't max out the graphicson this POS game?" > GPL is a good example of what happens to a game thatis declared too hard. > No matter how much we love it there is no denyingthat it was a finical > flop. This is also why we will never see a truedamage model. You'd think > that people would just use the option to turn downthe damage model, but > more on that latter. I also think this is why roadcourse racing isn't as > popular as oval racing. > > The second problem is what is there really left toadd? The graphic engines > can really shine if there is enough hardware to letthem. The physics models > are pretty darn good too. The two areas that needwork IMO are AI and Force > feedback. Force feedback is really a subjective thingso I would just like > to see it being more open to adjustment. If you lookat all the values to > edit in F12001 you should be able to really tweak itto your liking. There > just isn't anything left for that big leap betweentitles. How many times > have we heard that a new version should have justbeen a patch? I > personally have been a fan of the expansion pack wayof doing things. That > way you don't have to relearn the physics every newrelease, but you still > get new content like new tracks or chassis. TakeNR2002 for example I really > hope they do the Craftsman truck series and Buschseries add-ons, but why > stop there? Why not take it farther to like ASA orARCA? How many times > have we heard the cry for more short tracks? Why dowe have to stick with > NASCAR? Give the short track crowd what they wantwith an ASA add-on. They > have the physics engine so all it would take is somenew track models and a > new chassis. I think the fact that the basic gamestayed the same from N1-N3 > is why the series became so popular. I'd love to seean expansion pack for > GPL with some new tracks and an update to OpenGL. Iknow there is a lot of > great stuff on the net. But it would be nice to haveit all in one easy to > install setup instead of having 50 different add-onsto install in many > different ways. > > The third problem is what I think is the worse one,and that is us. That's > right I said us. I truly believe we are our own worseenemy when it comes to > the sim vs. arcade titles. We are not a veryfriendly group to outsiders. > When I say outsiders I don't mean newbies as much aspeople that think > differently. Since it's been debated so heavilylately I'll use the camera > view as an example. Its clear that anyone who doesn'tuse the cockpit view > is looked down on as being an inferior driver. Ifsomeone posts a question > about say a Need for Speed title they get laughed atfor playing an arcade > game. The worst part of it is that most of us can'tlet it go. We have to > start threads trying to blame Lara Croft for why wehave chase views. Get > over it people. We need to make this a muchfriendlier place so that our > numbers will grow. If we quit chastising people forusing arcade views or > moderate damage settings maybe they would work theirway up to becoming full > blown sim racers. Then we could get the thingschanged in games to what we > want. Right now I sure we scare off a lot morepeople than we invite in. > We must remember that we play these games for fun. Idon't care how > realistic it is there is no fun in running a lap,smacking the wall, and > having to go to the pits. When trying to learn a newgame. So if they run a > roof cam so they don't smack the wall who cares? Howdoes it effect our > lives? If any thing I would like to think it makesour sim lives better. If > a roof cam helps them control their car and keep fromhitting me in an > online race I'll hit f10/page down for them, and I'msure as hell not gonna > force them to do something they are not comfortablewith. If people were not > shamed so much for running in arcade mode maybe wewould get a better damage > model for the sim side of a game. As it stands thegame companies are too > afraid to make the damage too realistic because theydon't want the "too > hard" label tied to their game. > Another thing we do is illegal copies. Gamesoftware is not really all > that expensive. I'm sure most of us piss away $50bucks all the time with > out even thinking about it. If you don't believe mejust look at what the > price for a copy of Microsoft Office XP is going forthese days. Now talk > about software that is just a patch! At least withgames we usually get more > improvements than a typical Office upgrade. Helltaking a date to a movie > cost as much or more than most game titles thesedays. At the price of > cigarettes around here just take a few days off fromthat and you'd save the > price of a game. Quit altogether and in a year youcould have a few games > and a new Geforce video card. Don't get me wrong weall love getting > something for nothing, but again we cut our ownthroats at the same time. We > all hate having to swap CDs to play games, but you'rea complete idiot if > you think everyone that uses a no CD patch actuallyowns the game just > because the readme file says they have to. Like it ornot these games are > made to make money, and if they don't make money nomatter how much we like > them there won't be a squeal. It all comes down topriorities. If it's a > real priority to improve the sim-racing arena we mustall do our part. > > >

>"Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote > Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? I love racing sims, but > over the last year or two I dont see much in the way of advancement in > racing sims on any front. Actually, we're a *long* way home, Olly :) > Has the genre matured to a point beyond which there is little possibilityto find yourself amazed by a > future game ? I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a virtual headset or from the mouse. I'll be amazed when a developer has the guts to give us a brown-bag open source simulators that has a great game engine. I'll be amazed when we'll be able to really add realistic renderings of objects. I'll be amazed when some gizmo video card gives us the possibility of fast rendering curved polygons. I'll be amazed when a company releases a sim the features real-time data aquisition from real races on a server. I'll be amazed when somebody gives us a full tool of community options, and things like multipler drivers, crewchief, etc.. Still, graphics smaltics!!! It's ALL ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY, let's never forget!! > Is there simply no way to significantly improve physics modeling beyondGPL There's two ways of thinking here. Some will say that GPL features 99% of the most important physics that a game engine could possibily render. Others will say that this 1% is actually the most important features missing. We have yet to see a game engine where polygons on screen act like real bodies in their game environment, either for aerodynamics, tyre stretching, fluids, the engine, crash dynamics, etc... It's still faking a vast portion of what happens in real life. We won't see such game engine for a decade, I say. -- -- Fran�ois M�nard <ymenard> -- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/ -- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation - helping America into the New World...

>"John Metcow" <[email hidden]> wrote > is there a way to summarise all this to 5~8 lines ??? Well, this is the Usenet, not an IRC chat room. From how I read the quoting of his post, either him or you have a problem with line wrapping. -- -- Fran�ois M�nard <ymenard> -- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/ -- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation - helping America into the New World...

"ymenard" <[email hidden]> > I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a > virtual headset or from the mouse. Oooh. Now that'd be nice...!

"ymenard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:J4Am8.21231$[email hidden]... > > > I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a > virtual headset or from the mouse. Barf bag and / or third arm included free of charge? :-) Stephen

Tony Whitley ([email hidden]) wrote on 23 Mar 2002: <snip> > I've heard there is something like this under development, a kind > of cross between a real-time Virtual Spectator and F1 2001 where > you can race with the real F1 drivers. It doesn't sound impossible > technically, just get the telemetry data from the cars and then > feed it to the other PC drivers the same way as multiplayer racing. > I don't think you can take out the real drivers though :-)<snip> Hmmmm... wouldn't this mean the FIA approving - gasp! - internet play...? -- "After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll, really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh. The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

> > Hmmmm... wouldn't this mean the FIA approving - gasp! - internet > play...? > > -- I dont understand this policy at all, I think its just a result of ignorance on FIA's part. I heard before that it was because they think the game will be pirated if internet play is included. I dont understand this, why would they care? I suppose they probably get a cut of the profits. I think someone needs to explain to them that it will be pirated in either case and if there was decent internet multiplay they would make considerably more money. Aww well, Ash http://www.siroccoracing.com

"Ashley McConnell" <[email hidden]> wrote > I dont understand this policy at all, I think its just a result ofignorance > on FIA's part. I heard before that it was because they think the gamewill > be pirated if internet play is included. I dont understand this, whywould > they care? No, the way I understand it is, someday the FIA may decide they want to develop their own internet competition, and don't want to give away licenses now that may compete with that in the future. Shrewd, sure. But that's business, and look who's running the show over there. Do you expect anything less from Max and Bernie?

The end of great race simulators began the day Grand Prix Legends was released and fell on its face. Now, GPL has somewhat of a "cult" following of racers who appreciate the work that was placed into that program. Papy should have allowed enough settings to "dummy" up the physics model to allow not so serious racers a change to drive and compete. This was the major downfall of GPL. Sierra will now only create Nascar programs and this is because of the success of Nascar. When GPL was released it was too far ahead of what most sim racers expect in a race program. Most people then, and now, desire the eye candy over a sim created to be an actual simulator. The companies that create race simulators are now giving the public what they want and staying away from anything that might turn off potential buyers. The sad thing is that here Papyrus creates a program actually worthy of our well earned money and they lose out to the MANY other companies that create nothing more than mindless ripoffs. And remarkably, those companies are supported. Had GPL sold well, we would no doubt be driving a new CART sim by now. Papy had re-newed there license with Cart the same year they were working on GPL. Now, we will only have Nascar which is getting quite old at this time.

Geeesh....did everyone take "Tom Pabst Write-too-Much" pills or something? .....lol... Lots of good stuff is the thread....fun reading. Tom "Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Djkm8.570$[email hidden]...

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> Has sim racing reached its technological summit ? I love racing sims, but > over the last year or two I dont see much in the way of advancement in > racing sims on any front. I no longer wait eagerly for the next great game > to arrive, as I once did some years ago. Has the genre matured to a point > beyond which there is little possibility to find yourself amazed by a > future game ? > The graphics are certainly not living up to the potential seen in Geforce

3 > or 4 tech demos. I don't even think current graphics really even live upto > the potential of even a Geforce 2. We all seem pretty satisfied with just > gaining a few dozen frames per second from each new iteration of graphics > card, with the same old visuals. Mercedes Benz Truck Racing looksexcellent, > but couldn't it be even better with some extra programming instructionsfor > those snazzy expensive Geforce 3's and 4's and ATI 8500's. Kind of likethe > old GLIDE instructions for 3DFX cards. That would make them more worth > spending $300 to $400 , than getting 70 frames per second versus 40 frames > per second on my last generation card. Yet it seems that a new generationof > videocards arrives well before all of the new graphical features of thelast > two generations of cards has even been implemented in any vidogame, let > alone implemented in any racing sim. So yet another card is relegated to > obsolescence before fulfilling its promise. > > Also, as is often pointed out in this newsgroup, GPL is pretty much thehigh > point in sim racing physics, even though it came out years ago. Is there > simply no way to significantly improve physics modeling beyond GPL, or has > it essentially been perfected in mimicing what happens in the real worldto > race cars ? Somehow N4 and NR2002 do not seem to be much improved overGPL, > and in some respects actually feel inferior to GPL, IMHO. Are theadditional

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> real world physical forces that are lacking in GPL's physics model simply > too trivial to waste CPU cycles on modeling, providing little or no > potential for improving the genre? > > How about force feedback ? Has everything that you would feel in a real > world steering wheel in a given situation been imitated ? While asphalt > based sims like GPL seem to have sufficient force feedback effects,

off-road > sims still seem to lack the upredictable feeling of small ruts andpotholes

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> , or the way that deep sand areas can make steering a vehicle rather > different from mud or gravel or hard packed dirt. Rally Trophy is a very > good off-road sim, but I never had the impression that the road surface > irregularities were likely to cause me to crash while negotiating a dirt > straightaway at speed, while by comparison GPL sometimes leaves me feeling > one twitch away from being out of control even on smooth asphalt > straightaways at max speeds, as the car wanders a bit from side to side. > Shouldn't an off-road racer be that much more difficult to control at high > speeds coming down a bumpy dirt straightaway, putting you that much more

on > the edge of being out of control ? > Having ridden motocross bikes down relatively smooth sand trails, I know > from experience that 60 MPH on sand is far more adrenaline inducing than60 > MPH down a freeway. Consequently, I would think that the force feedback > effects could be made to more effectively convey that feeling of lack of > control. I have noticed that in VIPER RACING the force feedback effectswill > sometimes be so strong as to cause me to over compensate in trying to > control a fish-tailing situation, and actually cause me to make the car > fishtail even worse until I lose control entirely. I would like to seethat > kind of an effect in more sims, under appropriate situations of course,and > perhaps even moreso in off-road sims. > Finally, each of us knows that there are numerous visual and other sensory > cues that are sorely missing from sim racing. Many of them can never truly > be incorporated into a home racing sim, for obvious reasons. However, arewe > at a deadend with respect to possible innovative peripherals that might be > supported > in a games code ? Rumble seatpads akin to providing the rumble effects of > console joysticks, better 3D glasses support, HUD's , force feedback in > brake pedals and clutches, seats that tilt slightly in response toG-forces

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> giving you a hint of the forces direction and strength. > I am sure that there must be ways to make sims more immersive. Or have PC > racing sims pretty much gone the way of the light bulb, with not much room > for improvement, beyond maybe a prettier version of GPL. > Anybody have any ideas where PC racing Sims are headed over the next few > years given the practicalities of the videogame business, or where you > would like to see them go ideally if developers actually cared what you > wanted or thought, instead of just about mass marketing appeal. > > > > >

I like your idea of making a racing sim with an RPG element to it. How about a F1 sim that forces you to qualify for an F1 ride by moving up through the ranks of lower classes of racing, i.e. go karts and other racing formulas. Also,kind of as in the franchise modes so prevalent in sports videogames now, you could have the possibility that you would lose your F1 ride if you did not perform well. Or, perhaps you might be replaced by a better performing driver and have to contract out to a lesser team with an inferior car, and work your way back up. "Al" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:a7djda$6kp$[email hidden]... > > I am one of the great unwashed when it comes to sim games. I like the PC > version of F1 2001 best - mainly because the game has a sense of speedwhich > many games don't. I am not a decent driver but I still enjoy racinggames - > particularily the sim/arcade variety. My personal wish list is rather > different from you 'hardcore sim' drivers : I want more imersion - that > means better sound effects/animations. If I am Schumy and I'm racing at > Monza and I overtake into first place - I want to see the fans in thestands > stand up and cheer. If I take out Irvine - I want him to get out of his > cockpit and give me a piece of his mind. F1 games are getting too samey -I > want a career mode where you start in a lowly team and you have to help > develop the car - basically take out the test car and determine theproblems > with it. You would gain experience points for determining the correct > problems (like rpg games). If you reach a level of performance - you can > switch teams towards the top teams. I'd like a team tryout - where you are > told of what laptime you need to get to join a team - and you canbasically > work your guts out getting the car to reach the set laptime. Really thereis > so much more to F1 games that should be done. I'd also like a real > performance update - where you can race a season with the game updating > driver performances as the season progresses via the internet - ie forthis > year Jaguar to be near the back of the pack. I want a historical gameplay > update - so perhaps a few days after a real gp - EA could do a replay ofthe > real race in the F1 2001 game and you can take over one of the drivers. So > if there was a a big pileup at the start as with the recent gp - you canbe > Ralf Schumy and experience the crash - and perhaps try things to avoidit. > It would be interesting to see the game ai as what would happen if Ralf > breaked earlier - would it have caused a bigger crash etc. I want morefun > in my F1 games - I like the F1 intro that is at the start of every gp on > tv - its in the Sony F1 game - why not the other F1 games. I want a pitlane > sim aspect of the game where you can wander in the pit lane with all the > sounds/modelled real drivers hanging around. I want a decent podium where > you can pour the champagne. I want a highlights mode where the game just > shows the best overtaking/crashes. F1 is such a cool life for a F1driver -

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> lets have a F1 game with a rpg element. > > Al, the unwashed F1 fan. :) > > > > > MadDAWG wrote in message ... > >While not direct answers to your questions here is my take on the state

of > >sim racing. > > > >I feel we are at a high water mark until something revolutionary comesout > >on the hardware side. Right now the improvements in hardware are not as > >great as they use to be. Going from 1200 Mhz to 1400 Mhz is not the sameas > >going from 200 to 400 or even 400 to 600. Video cards are basically inthe

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> >same rut. Yes they can be amazing on paper but if you don't have software > to > >take advantage of it you don't gain a whole lot. I really saw this when I > >made the change from a GF2 to a GF3. Yeah the GF3 was faster, but that's > >about it. I'll be skipping the GF4 line because I don't see any great > >improvements over the GF3 at this point. > > >

"briGuy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:a7fd73$lq6$[email hidden]...

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> > "Ashley McConnell" <[email hidden]> wrote > > > I dont understand this policy at all, I think its just a result of > ignorance > > on FIA's part. I heard before that it was because they think the game > will > > be pirated if internet play is included. I dont understand this, why > would > > they care? > > No, the way I understand it is, someday the FIA may decide they want to > develop their own internet competition, and don't want to give away

licenses > now that may compete with that in the future. Shrewd, sure. But that's > business, and look who's running the show over there. Do you expect > anything less from Max and Bernie? > > Ahh I see, that makes a little more sense (as much as I dont like it). Thanks! Ash http://www.siroccoracing.com

On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 16:27:41 GMT, "Olly Greenfield" <[email hidden]> wrote: >I like your idea of making a racing sim with an RPG element to it. How about >a F1 sim that forces you to qualify for an F1 ride by moving up through the >ranks of lower classes of racing, i.e. go karts and other racing formulas. A game like that was released a couple of months ago, Williams F1 Racer or something like that. You start in karts, then F3, then F1. Unfortunately the game was even more crap than Ford Racing :-/ But let's see how to 'story element' of TOCA Racer turns out to be.. could be interesting :) Andre

> We have yet to see a game engine where polygons on screen act like real > bodies in their game environment, either for aerodynamics, tyre stretching, > fluids, the engine, crash dynamics, etc... It's still faking a vast portion > of what happens in real life. We won't see such game engine for a decade, I > say. I watched the film Grand Prix for the first time since GPL the other night. I was impressed by being able recognise the corners at Zandy & how well they were modelled in GPL. But the on board footage showed just how far we have to go. The number of different patches of tarmac and the scenery in general showed up the missing detail. In fact Zandy looked a bit of a dump in RL back in 66! I know where Olly is coming from. The last decade has taken us from Indy 500, 320x200x256 graphics and 10 fps to today's sims. Yet the rate of improvement has tailed off. Judging by Frank's wishlists there are plenty of quantum leaps we _could_ have. Perhaps sim development has reached the point where it will be minor rather than the major improvements we had become accustomed to. Tony

jason moyer wrote:

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> > >Nascar 2002, Nascar 4, Rally Trophy, Grand Prix 3, F1 2002 are all > >excellent sims. None are perfect, none are awful. All are much much > >better than what we had 5 years ago. I call that advancement. > [cut] > >I don't know what newsgroup you're reading. Papyrus fans have>universally >concluded that Nascar 4 and 2002 have both > improved on GPL>by leaps and >bounds. There is a huge crowd that thinks F1 2002 is>better than GPL. I find >Rally Trophy > to be on par with, although some>would disagree. Even die hard >GPL fans are moving on to other sims, > >things are progressing.

F1 2002 ???? ^^^^^^ Is that supposed to be F12001 ,or have I missed something ??? (likely) I thought F1 2002 was still in the making ??? Robert S�derberg [email hidden]

>"Tony Rickard" <[email hidden]> wrote > I watched the film Grand Prix for the first time since GPL the othernight. I > was impressed by being able recognise the corners at Zandy & how well theywere > modelled in GPL. But the on board footage showed just how far we have togo. The > number of different patches of tarmac and the scenery in general showed upthe > missing detail. In fact Zandy looked a bit of a dump in RL back in 66! Yes, one thing that made me think "wow we have a long way to go", was watching the footage at Watkins Glen during Nine Days in the Summer. Until we have track modeling with such precision, we'll be all riding in electrical-powered cars ;-) > I know where Olly is coming from. The last decade has taken us from Indy500, > 320x200x256 graphics and 10 fps to today's sims. Yet the rate ofimprovement has > tailed off. Judging by Frank's wishlists there are plenty of quantum leapswe > _could_ have. Perhaps sim development has reached the point where it willbe > minor rather than the major improvements we had become accustomed to. The problem with those "quantum leaps" that I wrote is that once developers start touching those issues, we're going to have to start all over again. The first sims that will try to touch those will be extremely crude. All the work previously done will be useless, developers will have to start from point zero. You won't be able to fake it like they do it right now. I mean it's all fake, there is nothing real in the game engines yet. The 1% left is the 99% most important ;) -- -- Fran�ois M�nard <ymenard> -- http://www.ymenard.8m.com/ -- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation - helping America into the New World...

briGuy wrote: > "ymenard" <[email hidden]> > > > I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a > > virtual headset or from the mouse. > > Oooh. Now that'd be nice...! I think a good system for head movment would be to have a dial on the steering wheel within easy reach of your thumb. Rather than the rather violent and disorienting switching of views from front to side, your could control the amount of panning as necessary. If it was on the wheel, you wouldn't have to be fumbling around for your mouse. -- ***************************************************** David A. Ewing Xilinx Boulder [email hidden] *****************************************************

Richard ([email hidden]) wrote on 22 Mar 2002: <snip> > Had GPL sold well, we would no doubt be driving a new CART sim by > now. Papy had re-newed there license with Cart the same year they > were working on GPL. Now, we will only have Nascar which is getting > quite old at this time. ...and which is annoying like hell all us Europeans who want to turn right occasionally! Still, at least we've got Rally Trophy. -- "After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll, really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh. The GPL Scrapyard: Back again! http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard

I said a couple of weeks ago in one of the cockpit debate threads that it would be nice if I could use the brake/gas paddles on my Ferrari wheel to look left/right. Your view would change according to how far and quickly you pulled them. David G Fisher "David Ewing" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... briGuy wrote: "ymenard" <[email hidden]> > I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a > virtual headset or from the mouse. Oooh. Now that'd be nice...! I think a good system for head movment would be to have a dial on the steering wheel within easy reach of your thumb. Rather than the rather violent and disorienting switching of views from front to side, your could control the amount of panning as necessary. If it was on the wheel, you wouldn't have to be fumbling around for your mouse.

I said a couple of weeks ago in one of the cockpit debate threads that it would be nice if I could use the brake/gas paddles on my Ferrari wheel to look left/right. Your view would change according to how far and quickly you pulled them. David G Fisher "David Ewing" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... briGuy wrote: "ymenard" <[email hidden]> > I'll be amazed when a simulator gives us free head movement, either from a > virtual headset or from the mouse. Oooh. Now that'd be nice...! I think a good system for head movment would be to have a dial on the steering wheel within easy reach of your thumb. Rather than the rather violent and disorienting switching of views from front to side, your could control the amount of panning as necessary. If it was on the wheel, you wouldn't have to be fumbling around for your mouse.

"Al" wrote... > > I am one of the great unwashed when it comes to sim games. I like the PC > version of F1 2001 best - mainly because the game has a sense of speedwhich > many games don't. I am not a decent driver but I still enjoy racinggames - > particularily the sim/arcade variety. My personal wish list is rather > different from you 'hardcore sim' drivers : I want more imersion - that > means better sound effects/animations. If I am Schumy and I'm racing at > Monza and I overtake into first place - I want to see the fans in thestands > stand up and cheer. If I take out Irvine - I want him to get out of his > cockpit and give me a piece of his mind.<snip> I've heard there is something like this under development, a kind of cross between a real-time Virtual Spectator and F1 2001 where you can race with the real F1 drivers. It doesn't sound impossible technically, just get the telemetry data from the cars and then feed it to the other PC drivers the same way as multiplayer racing. I don't think you can take out the real drivers though :-) Tony When I posted this I got the message: Outlook Express could not post your message. Subject 'Re: Have we reached the end of the road with sim racing development ???', Account: 'news.freeserve.net Tony', Server: 'news.freeserve.net', Protocol: NNTP, Server Response: '441 Article posted in the future', Port: 119, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 441, Error Number: 0x800CCCA9 "Article posted in the future"? Spooky...

"David Buttery" wrote...

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> Richard ([email hidden]) wrote on 22 Mar 2002: > > <snip> > > Had GPL sold well, we would no doubt be driving a new CART sim by > > now. Papy had re-newed there license with Cart the same year they > > were working on GPL. Now, we will only have Nascar which is getting > > quite old at this time. > > ...and which is annoying like hell all us Europeans who want to turn > right occasionally!

You should try Nascar pick up races - quite a few people there turn right from what I hear. It does seem to annoy the other racers though ;-) >Still, at least we've got Rally Trophy. I'm not convinced by RT, doesn't seem a lot different to CMR to me and I just don't believe a Fiat Abarth is t h a t difficualt to drive. Tony Whitley