PERFECT GP TRACK PACK DEMO is out!!!!!!

Check the web site - www.instantaccess.com - just downloaded it - trying to get Paul Ricard track installed. If someone else has downloaded, please advise on how to run new track! I'm probably looking over something stupid due to my e***ment!!! Thanks! Tim

It installs fine for me -- run the DL'd program, which extracts to a temporary directory. Run SETUP.EXE. That creates a Perfect Publishing group. Run the program in that group, choose Track Manager, and install Paul Ricard from there. It will replace Magny Cours on the calendar. Two problems I found --- one small, one huge. The small one is that the graphic on the track selection pages show Magny Cours even when Paul Ricard is installed. The huge one is that the uninstaller doesn't work... the option to restore original tracks changes the name of the track back to Magny Cours in GP2, but it does *not* change the track back to Paul Ricard. (There *is* a way to restore the track... if you have a "No CDRom" utility, run YESCDROM or NOCDROM and it will restore Magny Cours.)

I would also like to add an additional problem. actually, two more. First off when you are trying to review the replay, A lot of the track is ovscurred making it had to see from a distance what exactly you did to have that crash. Second, If you don't have a really fast computer and try to run the game in SVGA mode the picture tends to be a bit choppy almost undrivable. IMHO, If you want to purchase the product all I have to say is 'caveat emptor'. Let the buyer beware.

Okay, the demo is released and on the 'net - what does everyone think? The prospect of a new track interested me enough to dust off my copy of GP2 and reinstall it, following which I made a few familiarisation laps and a test race - something I wonder if the Instant Access people have done, but more of that later. Thus far the major points I have noticed are.... - The Minardi***pit is pretty dodgy, nowhere near as good as the examples on the WWW. If I had downloaded this I would have deleted it! The looks are pretty bland (okay, it IS a Minardi I suppose) but the artwork on the wheel is poor. The major defect is that numbers for laptimes appear in the middle of the wheel where there is no display. Not a big deal, but the attention to detail doesn't bode well. - The track itself looks good but extremely narrow in the first sections (much narrower than actual Ricard where the first corner is quite wide. The Mistral straight has no elevations whereas in real life it it dips and then climbs slowly back up as you head toward Signes. It is also much wider. This part seems also to be too short, although that could be my imagination (200mph could make it feel short I guess!). This may be an issue with the GP2 engine, but I seem to recall the PIT road at Paul Ricard is noticably higher than the circuit, with the cars dropping done a significant incline as they blend back into the circuit. The laptimes themselves are quite good, close to what you would expect with 3.0l and grippy tires. - The AI are quite good when racing, but what the hell happens when they try to pit? They whack straight into the wall, sometimes getting into the pit lane but more often that not bouncing back out onto the track. At that point they rev their little engines and try to drive through the barrier into the pits! It's so comical and so obvious I wonder how it could be missed?! - Once into the pits the AI exhibit much the same "intelligence". In the race I did most of them ran a two stop strategy, stopping on lap 12 then again on lap 24....leaving 56 laps to the finish! Also, when they stopped most of them still had around 10 laps of fuel in the car. - Various other small gripes. Graphical glitches with tree textures appearing to the left of the track (on the tarmac) at Mistral, cars being visible through spectator filled randstands, occasional flickering armcos (esp. at last corner before S/F line. My copy of GP2 is ***al except for a copy of a 1997 carset, so I don't think this could have caused the problems (although it is not beyond the bounds of possibility!). Hopefully these are issues which Instant Access have already addressed, since while I'd be happy to download this free, if I'm paying for it I want it to be free of major defects. Can anyone else comment if they have seen any problems like this or am I the only one? Other than that it's great, nice to have a new track and it is quite a challenging circuit. Mistakes are punished pretty severely, and some nice curved braking areas to catch out those driving with heavily front-biased cars/brakes. Looking forward to the final release, but all the more so if it is problem free :) Cheers! John

Install the Demo - follow the on screen instructions. The run Perfect Grand Prix Demo and install Paul Ricard. Fire up GP2 and go to the practice or race any circuit menu. You will notice in the bottom right corner of every track screen the name of the track is displayed. When you choose France, Paul Ricard is displayed. You can now run this track. To re install Magny Cours just run Perfect Grand Prix Demo again and re-install original tracks (you will need the CD in the CD ROM drive) Took me some time to work this out as ther are no instructions. BTW first impressions of the track are good. Steve

> BTW first impressions of the track are good. 2nd impressions, at least for me are not so good! Try setting up a non champ race and de-select your car so you only watch the practice and race. During timed practice the cc's will try to pit only to hit the inner pit wall, then jump as if by magic to the wall on the main straight along side the pits banging against it still trying to enter the pits through the armco! Then they will give up and do another lap only to run out of fuel before completing it and end up littering the circuit. So mostly they only get 5 laps to set their grid position. Some manage to enter the pits and get another go dragging themselves allong the wall. In the race only about 6 cars will be left on the lead lap after 50+ laps as they still cant find the pit lane entrance. Not much good for anything more than hotlaping and short (no pitstops) racing as it is, certainly not "perfect grand prix". Perhaps its the way the pits building is drawn in front of your eyes as you approach it that confuses them<G> they dont seem to see it till the very last moment even then they seem to think its actualy much further over to the right than it is. If this is the best they can manage with only a week or so to release day i think they are in trouble. Mike. -- 22:41 on 10/11/97 From sunny Herne Bay, Kent.UK. mailable also at remove NO-SPAM to mail me.

> Okay, the demo is released and on the 'net - what does everyone think? > ....... Circuit du Paul Ricard, n Monza? From the time I blasted out of pits, I knew I had a feeling of dja-vu around here. The grandstands, the billboards, the kerbs, there're all from Monza!!! Maybe it's to reduce the amount of disk space required for the demo (resource sharing), but I never did get the feeling that it was Paul Ricard. Other than all the points that John rightly mentioned, where's that run off at the first corner (memories of Maurico Gulgemin meets Red Arrows - 89)? And it's oh so narrow. Other than those technical glitches (of which I have experienced every single one- less the Johnny Carwash-type pit strategy ) , I think it's a nice little fun circuit to drive (and it'll give mere mortals a chance to get World Records before the hot-lappers get to work!) with a really fun back-section. Certainly kudos to IA for doing what no one else has been able to do and doing admirably well. I hope all those glitches which John has pointed out may be still rectifiable or have already been fixed for the release version. I just hope that the Nurburing isn;t so Spa-ish or Beunos-Aires isn't too Jerez-esque. I have enjoyed this demo track, however Monza-fied it seems and I'll be looking forward to getting my copy in Singapore soon. Cheers, Stanley Chan

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>> BTW first impressions of the track are good. >2nd impressions, at least for me are not so good! >Try setting up a non champ race and de-select your car so you only watch >the practice and race. During timed practice the cc's will try to pit >only to hit the inner pit wall, then jump as if by magic to the wall on >the main straight along side the pits banging against it still trying to >enter the pits through the armco! Then they will give up and do another >lap only to run out of fuel before completing it and end up littering >the circuit. So mostly they only get 5 laps to set their grid position. >Some manage to enter the pits and get another go dragging themselves >allong the wall.

That happens on a lot of track too

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>laps as they still cant find the pit lane entrance. >Not much good for anything more than hotlaping and short (no pitstops) >racing as it is, certainly not "perfect grand prix". >Perhaps its the way the pits building is drawn in front of your eyes as >you approach it that confuses them<G> they dont seem to see it till the >very last moment even then they seem to think its actualy much further >over to the right than it is. >If this is the best they can manage with only a week or so to release >day i think they are in trouble. >Mike. >-- > 22:41 on 10/11/97 > From sunny Herne Bay, Kent.UK. > mailable also at > remove NO-SPAM to mail me.

Hi John, I haven't downloaded many***pits so I don't know if others have achieved this or not, but the positions of the rev lights, gear indicator etc were in different to normal positions. I agree though that the general artwork isn't that hot. One thing I did notice whilst hotlapping was that the gear indicator stopped displaying whenever I passed a split time point! I suspect that this is a limitation of the engine. GP2 doesn't really support banked sections of track so having the pits higher than the track may be impossible. I'm pretty ignorant of Paul Ricard (although I'm sure it shouldn't be _that_ flat). What should real life times be like? Oh dear :( Yes, I can confirm this. Hadn't noticed it previously as I hadn't tried an actual race. Bit of a major faux pas by IA. Also whereas with most of the original tracks it takes more like 1.1 "laps" of fuel to complete a lap, here it only seems to take around 0.7 - I wonder if it is still using the Magny Cours values?? The scenary is only drawn when you are quite close to it. For instance the grandstand at the start of the pit straight should be visible well before you make that last left hander. Since there is nothing else available, I think it is probably worth the money. But I don't expect any of the problems to have been sorted out. IA are advertising an Oct 17th release date so it must have gone gold already. The question is, "is Paul Ricard typical, better or worse than the other tracks?" Cheers, Richard

Hiya Richard, Now why doesn't it surprise me that you were hotlapping and didn't notice the flaws in "race" mode...? :) It's a bit difficult due to all the different reg changes. I recall Senna/Prost running 1:09s there, Mansell was doing 1:11s in the Willy Honda Turbo a couple of years earlier. The teams still used to test there sometimes (until the new regs stopping this) so I'm sure a fairly recent test time will be archived somewhere. Anyway, we're already faster than real-life. I think it may be, or perhaps this is coded into the .EXE somewhere rather than being part of the circuit file. All the same, I noticed the pit flaw and fuel consumption within 15 minutes of installing the track so it doesn't say much for the beta-testing which has been done. Yep, exactly. IMO it still isn't worth the money. Because "nothing else is available" people will pay the money, but it's not worth it. I personally feel that if these tracks had been designed by BB&B or some of the internet groups they would be _better_ than these commercial ones. The reason being that we do this sort of thing because we enjoy it and because we want it to be correct. Essentially the Paul Ricard track is fine for hotlapping, but it's useless for racing which is primarily what I enjoy. Perhaps Instant Access did notice these flaws and were just unable to find how to solve them - who knows. Out of interest, has anyone tried recording a hotlap on Paul Ricard and replaying it on Magny Cours? I'm just curious as to what might happen :) Cheers! John

p> Second, If you don't have a really fast computer and try to run p> the game in SVGA mode the picture tends to be a bit choppy almost p> undrivable. Not for me it's not. Runs like every other track in Gp2. Must say i'm impressed at how well they got the computer cards to run around the track. IMO, Paul Ricard is as good as the Gp2 team could have programmed it. ________ _________________ (_ |_| |____)imon | |armel ... "Bother" said Pooh, as he accidently ran FDISK... Transponder Mail System +44 151 226 4631 Fidonet 2:250/220

The Paul Ricard track is definitely fast. I drove in practice in 18 frames per sec. and the whole thing was whizzing by! Luckily, I had drove 4 to 5 laps slow, just in case. The car is doing fine on the track but they could do better. The track is something like a bonus track, I raced on it and felt no glory winning what so ever. Perhaps, the other tracks may do better. Paul Ricard is certainly one track I don't think I would find fun in...

Hi John, Can't think <g> It's nice to know just _how_ much faster <vbg> "Worth" is always a subjective opinion. Is it worth more than one the new Dylan & Wyatt CDs? Is it worth 2/3 of the price of SODA? Or the price of the N2 Track Pack? IMHO it isn't going to be worth any of those. To me it is probably "worth" it because I am lucky enough to be able to afford all of the above. If I had to choose between it and one of the above then IA wouldn't get my money. (I'm not going to rush out on Friday & get a copy though - I want some assurance from others that they have worked out how to include gradients and that the other tracks are OK for racing on) I have to say that I can only come to the conclusion that no-one who is actually experienced at either GP2 or sims in general beta tested the Paul Ricard track. Yes I spend most of my time hotlapping or, more so these days, just driving for fun without other cars on the track (the GP2 AI is good for AI, but it's still artifical) but I would never have given my personal go ahead without completing at least one full length race on each track. There's enough guys out here who would have willingly beta tested the tracks that IA have really shot themselves in the foot if Paul Ricard is the best that their in house testing can come up with. Possible I suppose. But in that case they shouldn't put out the pack without spelling out the limitations. If it does turn out that the other tracks suffer from the problems we have found with Paul Ricard then maybe a phone call to the local Trading Standards office might be in order? I've tried it the other way round (MC hotlap replayed at PR). It starts you off in the middle of a field and doesn't get any better <g> Cheers, Richard

> Out of interest, has anyone tried recording a hotlap on Paul Ricard > and replaying it on Magny Cours? I'm just curious as to what might > happen :) > Cheers! > John I did the opposite and tried to play a Magny C saved HL with Paul R installed. I got booted straight back to a reset situation....no damage to the gp2 files though<G> Mike. -- 06:49 on 10/14/97 From sunny Herne Bay, Kent.UK. mailable also at remove NO-SPAM to mail me.

Driving on the Paul Ricard track, I noticed that the fences on the side of the track somtetimes flicker. Did anyone notice the same? I don't think there is a problem with my video card (Matrox Mystique).

>Can't think <g> .......nah, it's just too easy! :) Isn't everything? :) I know what you mean though. The question of "worth" is defined in large part by the number and quality of the competition, in this case some massively dodgy Himalayan tracks which can be downloaded free from the 'net. Personally I probably won't buy it since I tired of GP2 quite some time ago and driving Paul Ricard only briefly flickered that flame, but I know that I would otherwise snap it up. My money will wait for SODA, Ubi-F1, NASCAR Manager, Ubi-F1 etc which are completely new challenges. Likewise. If everyone here is raving about the tracks I could be tempted, but I love tracks which are very up and down, and that seems to be lacking in a big way from the IA versions. I hope I'm wrong on this since to do the A1-Ring without hills would be nigh impossible! I doubt they'd spell out the limitations, partly because it would spoil their sales and partly because it isn't a limitation in the GP2 engine, it would be a limitation in their knowledge of how to manipulate the GP2 engine and/or of what they could negotiate with Microprose regarding the architecture. Looking at Monaco and Spa it's obvious that it can be done, it's a question of lacking the time or knowledge (technical of the engine or physically of the tracks) to do it properly. I usually end up there, so why not? Cheers! John

I thought Spa's pitlane was lower than the track in GP2? -- Dave Bowers

> Driving on the Paul Ricard track, I noticed that the fences on the > side > of the track somtetimes flicker. > Did anyone notice the same? > I don't think there is a problem with my video card (Matrox Mystique). Hi,Mine does the same! Its the s/ware......also, the Grandstand pops up into view as you approach down the main straight. If the Paul Ricard track demo is the 'best of the rest', I dread to think what the other tracks are like? I will hold off buying the complete CD until I have read a few reports/posts......."Come back Geoff Crammond, all is forgivan". Perhaps GP2 s/ware is pretty good after all! Jammer (UK)

You take the words right out of my mouth... I think the (seemingly very BIG) crowd of anti-GP2-whiners has no idea what a great achievement it actually was. I'm STILL waiting for something better, and I have this feeling that I will have to wait for GP3... JoH Please remove *anti-spam* from the email when replying. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When everything else failed, we can still become im- mortal by making an enormous blunder.... John Kenneth Galbraith =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

On Wed, 15 Oct 1997 14:05:34 +0100, Dave Bowers >I thought Spa's pitlane was lower than the track in GP2? You could be right. Thinking about it, the pit lane entrance is slightly below La Source but I can't really recall the track actually climbing between the pit entrance & La Source <g> One of life's unsolved mysteries? ;-) Cheers, Richard

Hi Jo, No way can anyone describe me as an "anti-GP2-whiner" but I fully expect Grand Prix Legends to blow GP2 out of the water. The real question is "how will GC top GPL?" <vbg> Cheers, Richard

>Personally I probably won't buy >it since I tired of GP2 quite some time ago John, you must have hammered it to death mate. I play GP2 with 5 others every Tuesday Night. We have a few beers and play multiplayer mode on one computer. I personally think that GP2 multiplayer mode is totally unique, and I hope at least one of the other new racing games has the same sorta thing, but I doubt it. Without this feature, we would not have Pieters E Races, which I also play. Unfortunately, I fear the worst, and I think all these new games will feature Modem multiplayer or Split screen. I really think that being able to play with friends just totally enhances the game. Something similar to the way that multiplayer Quake is soooo much better than playing it by yourself. Surely we all don't want to be playing these new great games by ourselves ?? Seems such a waste, and the boredom factor is bound to set in, no matter how good the game is. Cheers.....Ken Remove "NOSPAM" from address before replying

Bad news guys. GP2 was the best so far ! Ubisofts upcoming F1 sim will put everything else to shame. The demo (Which is in French) requires a 3DFX card and is 27MB You can get it at www.avault.com The European full product release dates are 27th October and Mid November. Unfortunately, I think we North Americans may have to wait until January 98. If we all bombard UBI USA with E-Mail requests, maybe they will give it to us earlier !!

>John, you must have hammered it to death mate. I play GP2 with 5 >others every Tuesday Night. We have a few beers and play multiplayer >mode on one computer. That "have a few beers" part probably goes a long way to explaining why you find GP2 to be playable in multiplayer... Unique? Yes, that's one description. I think you'll be disappointed if you hope any other sim has that feature - for all GP2's excellent points I doubt that anyone else could program multiplayer support quite that badly :) You may have Kali races though, which are a whole lot cooler. See that guy up your chuff? That's me that is :) Oh yes! OOOOOOH YES! <Mouse fingers and strafe/mlook fingers twitch uncontrollably> Seriously, I just got hacked off with GP2 eventually. While it's very immersive for Europeans in that it has tracks and drivers that we know, is very realistic to drive (or so we're told) and is challenging, it just wasn't as much fun as ICR2 or NASCAR. I like that opposite-locky slidey type of driving. Too much of that in GP2 and a canned-spin routine grabs you. So, I caught the next flight back to Portland and Indycar heaven :) Cheers! John

>You may have Kali races though, which are a whole lot cooler. See that >guy up your chuff? That's me that is :) Is racing on the Internet possible with GP2? Eric

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>: >We have a few beers and play multiplayer mode on one computer. >: That "have a few beers" part probably goes a long way to explaining >: why you find GP2 to be playable in multiplayer... >John, you misunderstood. He was talking about multi-player on ONE >computer. Not over a null modem or linked up in any way. Like as in >select more than 1 driver on ONE computer and then each driver drives for >xx% of the race and then gives it to the next guy.

Thanks....thats EXACTLY what I meant. The fun that can be had on ONE computer, by several players. Saves a lot of hassle, and cost, with modem play etc.. Cheers.....Ken Remove "NOSPAM" from address before replying _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ ___ ___ !_ _! |_| | | | | \| | _ \| __| \ | | | _ | !_! | .` | !_) | _!| !! / !_! !_! !_!\___/!_!\_!___ /!___!_!\_\