Expanded F1RS section on Eagle Woman's Racing Sims site

This weekend I had a marathon session of racing F1RS online. I'm more e***d than ever about the incredible realism of this sim. There is nothing else in the published sim world like it! Hurling the car over the bumps at Nurburgring, or flying through the forest at Spa...it's hard to believe a racing sim can be so real, or so satisfying. At the same time I'm a bit frustrated at some of the difficulties which arise when running F1RS in networked play, particularly over Kali. I learned some things about how to avoid some of the glitches (more about these on my Web site), but we need some software updates from Ubi Soft and perhaps Kali to really resolve these problems. Meanwhile, I intend to persevere, for the reward of racing online far outweighs the difficulties! I'm amazed at the motivation generated by racing against other people online. Despite the networking issues, I had some wonderful races with some very quick drivers from various locations around the world. The fierce competition drove my level of driving skill up a couple of notches, which in turn helped me to appreciate some of the more subtle - and realistic - nuances of the game's physics engine. All in all, fantastic weekend! *** I've reorganized and expanded the F1RS section of my Eagle Woman web site. Read more about my online racing experiences at: http://www.simracing.com/~alison/sims [address restored] Go to Reviews, and then the F1RS pages. You'll find new information about optimizing your chances of successfully setting up online races via Kali. If everyone were to read and follow these instructions, I believe we'd have a lot more multiplayer races going on Kali in no time. I've also added tips about where to get F1RS and about setting up the game to run optimally. I've identified a sizeable quantity of information relevant to setting up a Formula 1 car, and added links to two excellent reviews of F1RS. One day soon perhaps I'll meet up with you on a grid online! Eagle Woman Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

>This weekend I had a marathon session of racing F1RS online. I'm more >e***d than ever about the incredible realism of this sim. There is >nothing else in the published sim world like it! Hurling the car over >the bumps at Nurburgring, or flying through the forest at Spa...it's >hard to believe a racing sim can be so real, or so satisfying. Alison, you make me want to boot the thing up right now and play it, you're so enthusiastic. But I'll be darned if I still don't end up feeling a little flat after playing it. Perhaps you could tell me what your FAVORITE track is and what your favorite setup is (i.e. send it to me or point me to a link). Also, tell me what your control config is set to. I'll try to duplicate your wonderfully blissful setup as best I can and then spend a couple of hours working hard at bettering myself and see if I can't just find that sim-racing nirvana that has eluded me with this one. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

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>Alison, you make me want to boot the thing up right now and play it, >you're so enthusiastic. But I'll be darned if I still don't end up >feeling a little flat after playing it. Perhaps you could tell me >what your FAVORITE track is and what your favorite setup is (i.e. send >it to me or point me to a link). Also, tell me what your control >config is set to. I'll try to duplicate your wonderfully blissful >setup as best I can and then spend a couple of hours working hard at >bettering myself and see if I can't just find that sim-racing nirvana >that has eluded me with this one.

I am really confused. I am using the stock setups on all the tracks to just get used to them all. Then I was going to do a 25% championship season. For me, F1RS is awesome, nothing comes close. I would have to think that not having a 3dfx must have something to do with it. If you have one, my apologies. I am not trying to be an idiot (this time :-) and flame you, but I truely believe that F1RS is the best racing sim so far. I have run Silverstone, Melbourne, Brazil, Argentina, Nurburg, Imola, Barcelona, Montreal and I am currently doing Magny Cours . I would not still be this e***d about the game after doing all those tracks in 25% races if I did not feel it was awesome. The sense of elevation changes & blind corners is awesome. Magny Cours has a few... So when I read something like the above quote from someone who is supposed to know what this stuff is all about, I just don't believe it. I guess I am trying to figure out what your problem is. Unfortunately the only logical assumption I could come up with was that you are a 3dfx hater; the religious type :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

Different people have different tastes. I too, agree that F1RS is the best thing to come out in a long, long while. However, if everyone agreed with me all the time, it would be a very boring world. If Randy likes GP2 better than F1RS, then so be it. They are both awesome games. Now if he starts liking "ABC's Road To Indy" or CPR (in it's current weak AI state) better, we'll have to reevaluate this different tastes thing!<BG> Ken The Game Pad [link lost in import]

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> >Alison, you make me want to boot the thing up right now and play it, > >you're so enthusiastic. But I'll be darned if I still don't end up > >feeling a little flat after playing it. Perhaps you could tell me > >what your FAVORITE track is and what your favorite setup is (i.e. send > >it to me or point me to a link). Also, tell me what your control > >config is set to. I'll try to duplicate your wonderfully blissful > >setup as best I can and then spend a couple of hours working hard at > >bettering myself and see if I can't just find that sim-racing nirvana > >that has eluded me with this one. > I am really confused. I am using the stock setups on all the tracks to just > get used to them all. Then I was going to do a 25% championship season. > For me, F1RS is awesome, nothing comes close. I would have to think that > not having a 3dfx must have something to do with it. If you have one, my > apologies. I am not trying to be an idiot (this time :-) and flame you, but > I > truely believe that F1RS is the best racing sim so far. I have run > Silverstone, > Melbourne, Brazil, Argentina, Nurburg, Imola, Barcelona, Montreal and I am > currently doing Magny Cours . I would not still be this e***d about the > game > after doing all those tracks in 25% races if I did not feel it was awesome. > The sense of elevation changes & blind corners is awesome. Magny > Cours has a few... So when I read something like the above quote > from someone who is supposed to know what this stuff is all about, > I just don't believe it. I guess I am trying to figure out what your problem > is. Unfortunately the only logical assumption I could come up with was > that you are a 3dfx hater; the religious type :-) > -- > Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

One very lovely thing (of so much) it simulates extremely well is the feeling of binding up the car in a corner...hard to explain except to say that if you have been in a kart pushing to hard in corner you know what Im talking about....excellent stuff this sim....excellent. Pierre ..

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>The sense of elevation changes & blind corners is awesome. Magny >Cours has a few... So when I read something like the above quote >from someone who is supposed to know what this stuff is all about, >I just don't believe it. I guess I am trying to figure out what your problem >is. Unfortunately the only logical assumption I could come up with was >that you are a 3dfx hater; the religious type :-) >-- >Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>I am really confused. I am using the stock setups on all the tracks to just >get used to them all. Then I was going to do a 25% championship season. > For me, F1RS is awesome, nothing comes close. I would have to think that >not having a 3dfx must have something to do with it. I would love to believe that. But I'm running on a P300 and the frame rate is just fine. I dont have to turn off details at all to get a smooth frame rate. I find it hard to believe that the physics model is affected by which video board I'm running. My complaints are not with the graphics. Secondly, the 3DFX isn't going to help the sound, is it? I believe you. I really do. I am not at all arguing this as much as to say that I'm trying to find out what it is that people are finding so wonderful about this sim, because thus far, I don't have a lot of motivation to fire it up. There's just so many things that are annoying to me: 1. The "digital throttle" problem. Its like there's a certain spot in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an inch of pedal travel. 2. Canned spins. The initial spinning attempts don't bother me much. I can correct a lot of them. But sometimes, particularly at low speeds after the car loses its momentum, its more or less sitting still and some 'spin the sucker' routine kicks and slowly moves me around some random amount. It seems completely disconnected with the earlier part of the spin, which was right. 3. The pitch of the engine and the shifting sounds just totally grate on me. The best F1 sounds I have heard yet continue to be those from Psygnosis F1:Championship Edition on the Playstation (not to be confused with their first Formula One game). I just spend too much time fighting with the unpredictable driving model to really enjoy myself. I'm hoping that I can find what it is everyone is so happy about. I really love F1 and would love to get a breakthrough on this because its obvious a lot of people really like it. If I could be talked into loving something, I'd love F1RS :) Btw, I'm also annoyed at some track inaccuracies. Brazil was tonight's victim. Where's the sand traps to the right of turn one going down the hill (you know, the ones where Jacques went off at the beginning of the year and banged the car up pretty good..filling the ***pit with rocks!). Nice try, but I really doubt this has much to do with the video board. And yes, I do know what this stuff is all about. I'm seriously thinking of getting a Monster 3D just so I can satisfy my own curiosity on this issue! Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

Hi all, I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so unbelievable I cant handle it period. Also the throttle zinging thru the roof when doing quick downshifts is not caused by the I or anyone else is downshifting. If it was it would be consistent. If you dont believe me read a bunch of posts on Pieters F1 Forum (not the GP2 one) could be due to the D3D who knows who cares. 2.) I complained about these spins right off although the phrase " canned spins" is much better than the way I described it. It just does react like a car in a spin. Perhaps for the first fraction of the spin but then its auto spin time. I dont care if I haven't spun a " real" F1 car I have spun enough real cars to know what a spin feels like. 3.) The sound hehehehe man I can handle most sounds I even have grown to like ICR2s sound better than the couple alternative sounds available for that sim. But this nope sorry. problem. Its like there's a certain spot

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> Hi all, > I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs > tonight for these very same reasons,> >> > problem. Its like there's a certain spot > > in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops > > like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and > > its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) > > the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing > > with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, > > neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an > > inch of pedal travel.

1.) This zero to hero rpm is so unbelievable I cant handle it period. Also the throttle zinging thru the roof when doing quick downshifts is not caused by I or anyones downshifting. If it was it would be consistent. If you dont believe me read a bunch of posts on Pieters F1 Forum (not the GP2 one) could be due to the D3D who knows who cares. 2.) I complained about these spins right off although the phrase " canned spins" is much better than the way I described it. It just does react like a car in a spin. Perhaps for the first fraction of the spin but then its auto spin time. I dont care if I haven't spun a " real" F1 car I have spun enough real cars to know what a spin feels like. 3.) The sound hehehehe man I can handle most sounds I even have grown to like ICR2s sound better than the couple alternative sounds available for that sim. But this nope sorry. P.S. sorry to post twice but I forgot to proof read the first one ;-) Aloha, Mike

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>I >truely believe that F1RS is the best racing sim so far. I have run >Silverstone, >Melbourne, Brazil, Argentina, Nurburg, Imola, Barcelona, Montreal and I am >currently doing Magny Cours . I would not still be this e***d about the >game >after doing all those tracks in 25% races if I did not feel it was awesome. >The sense of elevation changes & blind corners is awesome. Magny >Cours has a few... So when I read something like the above quote >from someone who is supposed to know what this stuff is all about, >I just don't believe it. I guess I am trying to figure out what your problem >is. Unfortunately the only logical assumption I could come up with was >that you are a 3dfx hater; the religious type :-)

I don't understand this either. I only have the demo (waiting for my copy to arrive from Ubisoft) and I can't stop from driving the damn thing. I don't speak French and *hate* that there are too many driving aids I can't disable. Despite that, I can't help myself. This sim is truly a religious experience with a 3Dfx card! (and yes, I did catch the "religious" context from the previous quote and there is no pun intended.) Rob "Dead Meat"

Most of your points are valid IMO. >I would love to believe that. But I'm running on a P300 and the frame >rate is just fine. I dont have to turn off details at all to get a >smooth frame rate. I find it hard to believe that the physics model >is affected by which video board I'm running. My complaints are not >with the graphics. Secondly, the 3DFX isn't going to help the sound, >is it? I haven't tried it with software only yet ( I would have to disable my 3dfx drivers which is a hassle), but I doubt that you would get the transparency and atmospheric effects (fogging, haze and smoke) that hardware acceleration offers. Not essential for the racing, but it definitely contributes greatly to the overall immersion (at least for some people). <..> This bothered me at first also. But after fiddling with the accelerator sensitivity and with more practice learning the driving model, it is now possible for me to have constantly smooth transitions between acceleration and de acceleration (just like the AI cars do). I think this is a key factor in being able to drive this sim: It requires a much lighter touch of controls in order to not break the traction. My problems with controlling the car are diminishing as I become more proficient in controlling the degree of movement of the accelerator and brake (along with getting to know the effects of parameter changes in setting up the car). Yes they definitely are canned after about a 90 degree angle to the road. And I agree that the low speed rotation which continues for ever as long as some throttle is applied is completely rediculous. But once the car more than 90 degrees out of whack, the major racing damage has already been done. It is possible to correct spins prior to about a 90 degree rotation. Removing any acceleration and applying some brake will reduce the spin at any point. Whether this is totally realistic or not is a different issue. I know what you mean about the sounds. Listening to the GP2 engine's mean and complex harmonics with the occasional rapping off when de-accelerating is much more appealing to me. OTOH, the lack of hearing other car's sounds in GP2 was always less then satisfying to me (as well as not providing the audible feedback for knowing where other cars are when in close proximity). Well nothing is or ever will be perfect. But F1RS does excel in many ways over what I have seen previously and at least provides an alternative to GP2. Of course, everyone has different criteria as to what is important. Dave.

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> >I > >truely believe that F1RS is the best racing sim so far. I have run > >Silverstone, > >Melbourne, Brazil, Argentina, Nurburg, Imola, Barcelona, Montreal and I am > >currently doing Magny Cours . I would not still be this e***d about the > >game > >after doing all those tracks in 25% races if I did not feel it was awesome. > >The sense of elevation changes & blind corners is awesome. Magny > >Cours has a few... So when I read something like the above quote > >from someone who is supposed to know what this stuff is all about, > >I just don't believe it. I guess I am trying to figure out what your problem > >is. Unfortunately the only logical assumption I could come up with was > >that you are a 3dfx hater; the religious type :-) > I don't understand this either. I only have the demo (waiting for my > copy to arrive from Ubisoft) and I can't stop from driving the damn > thing. I don't speak French and *hate* that there are too many driving > aids I can't disable. Despite that, I can't help myself. This sim is > truly a religious experience with a 3Dfx card! (and yes, I did catch > the "religious" context from the previous quote and there is no pun > intended.) > Rob > "Dead Meat"

I concur! I was lukewarm about the demo -- always letting AI cars past at the start just so I could drive the course without wrecking in T1 -- but I jumped at the chance to order the full version and haven't looked back! I have been playing for 3 full weeks now and am continually amazed. With variable weather even the rain is variable! Running a grand prix at Monaco, trying to qualify in a very light rain with slight fogging and visible clouds -- looked like it would clear up any moment-- ran in wets anyway and was coming in 8-10th place on the grid -- switched to D's instead and improved to 2nd place -- Last night, went to replay the same scenario (variable weather again), and it was pouring, wets only! A new benchmark has clearly been set. The feel of speed and acceleration on those tight city streets is amazing. I'm hooked. Oh, and look! There are 15 other tracks to learn! *satisfied sigh* Former CPR Gold Beta Preview winner, Jeff Antley "Redwolf30" [link lost in import]

>is affected by which video board I'm running. My complaints are not >with the graphics. Secondly, the 3DFX isn't going to help the sound, >is it? I have no problems with the sound. In fact I like it. The bizzarre sound you hear when sometimes downshifting is (I believe) someone's attempt to model the brakes, adding to the binding feeling papadoc was describing (just a guess). But that sound is the one thing that can grate on me. It is also *MUCH* worse on your nerves if you have autoshifting enabled. I actually like the entire sim. For me it gives me the exact feel of being there. Well as close as is possible on a 17" screen. This is a "feature" in 1st gear. And I also don't like it. I think they are simulating how easy it is to over accelerate in 1st. If you see this *EVERY* time you mash the gas in any gear, you have system problems IMHO. The game is not like this other than 1st gear, or while trying to get out of the gravel or grass. While we have discussed this some, I'll just say this is not a problem for me at all. I can go 25% race distances without incident like this. So you really don't want to race me online until you get this sorted out :-) I also do not see the spins as random in any way, but rather the result of something substancial. Quite different from GP2. I too could catch many spins in GP2, but more often than not, you just swapped ends with no hope of recovery. F1RS is quite different where *YOU* the driver are in more control. At least that is my version of what I am doing with F1RS. Not for me. I find it quite good (since it *IS* a Renault engine sound) compared to what I have heard on ESPN2. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

> Hi all, >I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs >tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so >unbelievable I cant handle it period. Just when I was starting to think I was alone :) YUP! Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

> I haven't tried it with software only yet ( I would have to disable >my 3dfx drivers which is a hassle), but I doubt that you would get the >transparency and atmospheric effects (fogging, haze and smoke) that >hardware acceleration offers. Not essential for the racing, but it >definitely contributes greatly to the overall immersion (at least for >some people). Um, I'm running D3D, and yes I get all the special effects you are talking about on the Riva. Please send me your sensitivity settings. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Not for me. I find it quite good (since it *IS* a Renault engine >sound) compared to what I have heard on ESPN2. So is the Psygnosis model. In case you didn't know, Psygnosis strapped a DAT recorder to a driver's body. They also did something I don't think F1RS did: They recorded the sounds of each of the different cars. A Ferrari sounds TOTALLY different than a Williams which sounds totally different than the McLaren Mercedes. Its really neat in F1:CE to drive the different cars because they sound different and handle different. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

Two of the more cool visuals are the dust that kicks up when you get into gravel, and the brake dust that rises off the wheels when you stop. Attention to detail in this sim is astounding. Do D3D people see this? -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. >Most of your points are valid IMO. >>I would love to believe that. But I'm running on a P300 and the frame >>rate is just fine. I dont have to turn off details at all to get a >>smooth frame rate. I find it hard to believe that the physics model >>is affected by which video board I'm running. My complaints are not >>with the graphics. Secondly, the 3DFX isn't going to help the sound, >>is it? > I haven't tried it with software only yet ( I would have to disable >my 3dfx drivers which is a hassle), but I doubt that you would get the >transparency and atmospheric effects (fogging, haze and smoke) that >hardware acceleration offers. Not essential for the racing, but it >definitely contributes greatly to the overall immersion (at least for >some people). ><..> >>1. The "digital throttle" problem. Its like there's a certain spot >>in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >>like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >>its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >>the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >>with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >>neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >>inch of pedal travel. >This bothered me at first also. But after fiddling with the >accelerator sensitivity and with more practice learning the driving >model, it is now possible for me to have constantly smooth transitions >between acceleration and de acceleration (just like the AI cars do). >I think this is a key factor in being able to drive this sim: It >requires a much lighter touch of controls in order to not break the >traction. My problems with controlling the car are diminishing as I >become more proficient in controlling the degree of movement of the >accelerator and brake (along with getting to know the effects of >parameter changes in setting up the car). >>2. Canned spins. The initial spinning attempts don't bother me much. >>I can correct a lot of them. But sometimes, particularly at low >>speeds after the car loses its momentum, its more or less sitting >>still and some 'spin the sucker' routine kicks and slowly moves me >>around some random amount. It seems completely disconnected with the >>earlier part of the spin, which was right. >Yes they definitely are canned after about a 90 degree angle to the >road. And I agree that the low speed rotation which continues for >ever as long as some throttle is applied is completely rediculous. >But once the car more than 90 degrees out of whack, the major racing >damage has already been done. It is possible to correct spins prior >to about a 90 degree rotation. Removing any acceleration and applying >some brake will reduce the spin at any point. Whether this is totally >realistic or not is a different issue. >>3. The pitch of the engine and the shifting sounds just totally grate >>on me. The best F1 sounds I have heard yet continue to be those from >>Psygnosis F1:Championship Edition on the Playstation (not to be >>confused with their first Formula One game). >I know what you mean about the sounds. Listening to the GP2 engine's >mean and complex harmonics with the occasional rapping off when >de-accelerating is much more appealing to me. OTOH, the lack of >hearing other car's sounds in GP2 was always less then satisfying to >me (as well as not providing the audible feedback for knowing where >other cars are when in close proximity). >>I just spend too much time fighting with the unpredictable driving >>model to really enjoy myself. I'm hoping that I can find what it is >>everyone is so happy about. I really love F1 and would love to get a >>breakthrough on this because its obvious a lot of people really like >>it. If I could be talked into loving something, I'd love F1RS :) >Well nothing is or ever will be perfect. But F1RS does excel in many >ways over what I have seen previously and at least provides an >alternative to GP2. Of course, everyone has different criteria as to >what is important. >Dave.

>>Not for me. I find it quite good (since it *IS* a Renault engine >>sound) compared to what I have heard on ESPN2. >So is the Psygnosis model. In case you didn't know, Psygnosis I really like the Psygnosis sound. I especially liked the reverbration in the tunnel at monaco. Too bad the rest of the game was horrid. The inability to save any setting was what caused me to return it. At least F1RS will save settings. At least until you change modes. BTW, F1RS has the same game driving view as Psygnosis F1. I think it is F3 or F4. Kind of interesting that they would include that view :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

No flames, just amazement. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>>This bothered me at first also. But after fiddling with the >>accelerator sensitivity and with more practice learning the driving >>model, it is now possible for me to have constantly smooth transitions >>between acceleration and de acceleration (just like the AI cars do). >Please send me your sensitivity settings. I just checked mine. The steering, accelerator & brake are all at 80%. I think you may want to crank your accelerator sensitivity down to 40% or 50% since it bothers you. I thought the manual said these settings were for keyboard control though? Well if it works what the heck! -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

My GP1Wheel is perfect...absolutely no wierdness. I also disable poll with interupts and select TM wheel w/adapter...when calibrating I not only move the sticks to the side to side but also after moving the paddles up and down then move the wheel side to side with the paddles depressed individually. Is that clear...hehehe...works great... I also have moved the sliders down to 3/4 except for brake....thats full up. Also have disabled limited steering sorry dont know the exact name...and Im in my NT4 boot so cant go find out.... PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Infamous Pink Flamingo Pilot...

The D3D people are missing more than they think...but maybe less than requires them to buy a Voodoo...up to them...I cant see givng this sim less than 100% in the video card depart. PAPA DOC

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>Two of the more cool visuals are the dust that kicks up when you >get into gravel, and the brake dust that rises off the wheels when > you stop. Attention to detail in this sim is astounding. Do D3D >people see this? >-- >Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. >>Most of your points are valid IMO. >>>I would love to believe that. But I'm running on a P300 and the frame >>>rate is just fine. I dont have to turn off details at all to get a >>>smooth frame rate. I find it hard to believe that the physics model >>>is affected by which video board I'm running. My complaints are not >>>with the graphics. Secondly, the 3DFX isn't going to help the sound, >>>is it? >> I haven't tried it with software only yet ( I would have to disable >>my 3dfx drivers which is a hassle), but I doubt that you would get the >>transparency and atmospheric effects (fogging, haze and smoke) that >>hardware acceleration offers. Not essential for the racing, but it >>definitely contributes greatly to the overall immersion (at least for >>some people). >><..> >>>1. The "digital throttle" problem. Its like there's a certain spot >>>in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >>>like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >>>its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >>>the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >>>with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >>>neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >>>inch of pedal travel. >>This bothered me at first also. But after fiddling with the >>accelerator sensitivity and with more practice learning the driving >>model, it is now possible for me to have constantly smooth transitions >>between acceleration and de acceleration (just like the AI cars do). >>I think this is a key factor in being able to drive this sim: It >>requires a much lighter touch of controls in order to not break the >>traction. My problems with controlling the car are diminishing as I >>become more proficient in controlling the degree of movement of the >>accelerator and brake (along with getting to know the effects of >>parameter changes in setting up the car). >>>2. Canned spins. The initial spinning attempts don't bother me much. >>>I can correct a lot of them. But sometimes, particularly at low >>>speeds after the car loses its momentum, its more or less sitting >>>still and some 'spin the sucker' routine kicks and slowly moves me >>>around some random amount. It seems completely disconnected with the >>>earlier part of the spin, which was right. >>Yes they definitely are canned after about a 90 degree angle to the >>road. And I agree that the low speed rotation which continues for >>ever as long as some throttle is applied is completely rediculous. >>But once the car more than 90 degrees out of whack, the major racing >>damage has already been done. It is possible to correct spins prior >>to about a 90 degree rotation. Removing any acceleration and applying >>some brake will reduce the spin at any point. Whether this is totally >>realistic or not is a different issue. >>>3. The pitch of the engine and the shifting sounds just totally grate >>>on me. The best F1 sounds I have heard yet continue to be those from >>>Psygnosis F1:Championship Edition on the Playstation (not to be >>>confused with their first Formula One game). >>I know what you mean about the sounds. Listening to the GP2 engine's >>mean and complex harmonics with the occasional rapping off when >>de-accelerating is much more appealing to me. OTOH, the lack of >>hearing other car's sounds in GP2 was always less then satisfying to >>me (as well as not providing the audible feedback for knowing where >>other cars are when in close proximity). >>>I just spend too much time fighting with the unpredictable driving >>>model to really enjoy myself. I'm hoping that I can find what it is >>>everyone is so happy about. I really love F1 and would love to get a >>>breakthrough on this because its obvious a lot of people really like >>>it. If I could be talked into loving something, I'd love F1RS :) >>Well nothing is or ever will be perfect. But F1RS does excel in many >>ways over what I have seen previously and at least provides an >>alternative to GP2. Of course, everyone has different criteria as to >>what is important. >>Dave.

Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Infamous Pink Flamingo Pilot...

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>problem. Its like there's a certain spot >> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >> inch of pedal travel.

Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of tire spin. Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke. I've also noticed that the tires seem to spin more easily for a while after you go on the grass or gravel. -- Kevin (Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email)

Hi Greg, PMJI - I remember having a similar discussion with Randy on another sim - was it GP2? He also wasn't happy at all, when I (and most everyone else) thought the sim was a thrill. I think Randy will pick up on it later - when we've moved on to the next sim ;-) I agree with you - F1RS is also a milestone. and with the patches coming in such a quick succession, I'm willing to give Ubi a definite and clear thumbs up! Achim >I am really confused. I am using the stock setups on all the tracks to just >get used to them all. Then I was going to do a 25% championship season. .... >-- >Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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> >This weekend I had a marathon session of racing F1RS online. I'm more > >e***d than ever about the incredible realism of this sim. There is > >nothing else in the published sim world like it! Hurling the car over > >the bumps at Nurburgring, or flying through the forest at Spa...it's > >hard to believe a racing sim can be so real, or so satisfying. > Alison, you make me want to boot the thing up right now and play it, > you're so enthusiastic. But I'll be darned if I still don't end up > feeling a little flat after playing it. Perhaps you could tell me > what your FAVORITE track is and what your favorite setup is (i.e. send > it to me or point me to a link). Also, tell me what your control > config is set to. I'll try to duplicate your wonderfully blissful > setup as best I can and then spend a couple of hours working hard at > bettering myself and see if I can't just find that sim-racing nirvana > that has eluded me with this one. > Randy > Randy Magruder > Contributing Reviewer > Digital Sportspage > [link lost in import]

I have a Mad Catz wheel and this is what works for me. Calibration - T2 with adapter - Make sure that stupid "pole with interupts" is OFF (in the advanced section) - when calibrating move the wheel/pedals to extremities about 3 times. - And dont forget that if you do a reinstall of DirX then all the above need to be re-done In F1RS I have all the sliders set as close to the midpoint as possible.

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:24:21 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >Two of the more cool visuals are the dust that kicks up when you >get into gravel, and the brake dust that rises off the wheels when > you stop. Attention to detail in this sim is astounding. Do D3D >people see this? Brake dust rises off the wheels? Why would brake dust be coming off the wheels, and it was, why would it be rising up? Tyre smoke caused by braking I can follow, but the brake dust angle I've never seen (the stuff that flies out of Alesi's brakes whenever he has a tyre change). Cheers! John

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:30:13 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >I really like the Psygnosis sound. I especially liked the reverbration >in the tunnel at monaco. I liked the way Murray Walker reverberated in the tunnel as well :-) Cheers! John

>I really like the Psygnosis sound. I especially liked the reverbration >in the tunnel at monaco. Too bad the rest of the game was horrid. Which one are you talking about? If you're talking about the PC version, you're not talking about the same one I am. I am talking about F1:Championship edition , (The sequel to Formula One) which I think is a really good F1 sim, and is ONLY avaialble on the Playstation. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>I just checked mine. The steering, accelerator & brake are all at 80%. I.e. the defaults. Hm, what is the Yes | No at the bottom of the sensitivity screen, and what does the "Track Exit" option mean? Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

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>On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:24:21 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >>Two of the more cool visuals are the dust that kicks up when you >>get into gravel, and the brake dust that rises off the wheels when >> you stop. Attention to detail in this sim is astounding. Do D3D >>people see this? >Brake dust rises off the wheels? Why would brake dust be coming off >the wheels, and it was, why would it be rising up? Tyre smoke caused >by braking I can follow, but the brake dust angle I've never seen (the >stuff that flies out of Alesi's brakes whenever he has a tyre change). >Cheers! >John

Did you watch any formula one races last year? I guess not. Well, brake dust comes off the brake pads and the brake pads are located in the wheels. Therefore, the brake dust comes out of the wheels. It can go up because it is very light (like other dust) and gets caught by air turbulence. There were some classic shots of brake dust coming out the wheels at Melbourne last year.

I found setting the accelerator to %100 sensitivity gives the best results. The easdy way to find out is set it to %0 and try to drive , it is like an on or off button, set it to %50 and it has more feel and %100 gives as much travel as possible

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> >>This bothered me at first also. But after fiddling with the > >>accelerator sensitivity and with more practice learning the driving > >>model, it is now possible for me to have constantly smooth > transitions > >>between acceleration and de acceleration (just like the AI cars do). > >Please send me your sensitivity settings. > I just checked mine. The steering, accelerator & brake are all at 80%. > I think you may want to crank your accelerator sensitivity down to > 40% or 50% since it bothers you. I thought the manual said these > settings were for keyboard control though? Well if it works what > the heck! > -- > Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming > hordes. > >Randy > >Randy Magruder > >Contributing Reviewer > >Digital Sportspage > >[link lost in import]

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:09:06 +1100, "Dennis" >Did you watch any formula one races last year? I guess not. Well, brake dust >comes off the brake pads and the brake pads are located in the wheels. >Therefore, the brake dust comes out of the wheels. It can go up because it >is very light (like other dust) and gets caught by air turbulence. There >were some classic shots of brake dust coming out the wheels at Melbourne >last year. Ah, the standard immediately dismissive response - why do I ever expect anyone to open with the sort of friendly or neutral comment they would be forced to use in the real world? A car braking from 200mph has "dust" that would float _upwards_ in that kind of airflow?! Hydrogen wouldn't float upwards in those conditions. What I was trying to establish was whether the original message was referring to actual carbon fibre dust from the brakes, or whether it was tyre smoke caused by the locking up the brakes. The latter I have seen, the former I have not. Since brake dust would add little to the simulation even from the eye candy viewpoint I would be surprised if it was modelled. Perhaps if pad wear was modelled it would have an element of significane, but otherwose I would have thought that implementing "glowing" brake pads would have been a simpler and more effective starting point. Cheers! John

Now....let's get totally accurate about this dust, hey? It usually rises at an angle of 16.7 degrees from the vertical, but only if the speed of the vehicle is above 28.67 kilometres per hour whilst still 2.88 metres from coming to a complete stop. Naturally, and this is probably extremely obvious, the dust particles don't rise at all if it's raining. And if the vehicle catches fire during the refuelling process then the behaviour of the dust particles doesn't concern too many people very much at all, other than, perhaps, Dr. Jonathon Palmer. These, and more exciting snippets of information, are brought to you by Dr. Jonathon Palmer, ex BBC F1 Commentator & Statistician Extrordinaire. You can buy his book, "Is He Pitting Now....or on Lap 23, 25 or 26?", from all reputable outlets. -- Bruce. (At home)

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>On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:24:21 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >>Two of the more cool visuals are the dust that kicks up when you >>get into gravel, and the brake dust that rises off the wheels when >> you stop. Attention to detail in this sim is astounding. Do D3D >>people see this? >Brake dust rises off the wheels? Why would brake dust be coming off >the wheels, and it was, why would it be rising up? Tyre smoke caused

Wheels not tires... When the cars come into the pits and the crew changes the tires, you see the dust from the brakes being so hot. Same effect in F1RS. You don't think it is smoke caused by the tire skidding do you? I think you see this effect just from hard braking not skidding. If I am wrong, so be it. My initial impression was they were modeling the hot brakes. Which would be cool if true. If you look closely it seems the smoke is coming from the inner part of the front wheels. At least I thought so. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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>>problem. Its like there's a certain spot >>> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >>> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >>> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >>> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >>> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >>> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >>> inch of pedal travel. >Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of >tire spin. Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke.

Yes tire spin absolutely. I did some checking on this yesterday. Also when you downshift and your revs max out (another complaint), it is because they were supposed to, because it was over the same rpm that the gear normaly redlines in. i.e. the way it should be. As I have driven the car more this rarely happens anymore. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>A car braking from 200mph has "dust" that would float _upwards_ in >that kind of airflow?! Hydrogen wouldn't float upwards in those >conditions. What I was trying to establish was whether the original >message was referring to actual carbon fibre dust from the brakes, or >whether it was tyre smoke caused by the locking up the brakes. The Dust yes smoke no. You can roll just a little and stop and see this. I think it adds allot, which is another reason why I like the game so much. Attention to detail is astounding. Hey do you think it is tire smoke you see when you enter a gravel trap? :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>>I just checked mine. The steering, accelerator & brake are all at 80%. >I.e. the defaults. As has been posted before, I find the accelerator sensitivity and steering sensitivity works best (for me) at 100 %. I also have the brakes set to 100%, but I don't know yet if that is optimum. The "Yes | No" is (as it was conveyed to me) some sort of option that allows keyboard users to have more control (?). However, it seems that it does assist with wheel users as well (at least I have turned mine (on?) the opposite of default). The "Track Exit" is I think an aid during training that automatically pulls your car back onto the course should you slide off. Regards, John Wehman

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>>problem. Its like there's a certain spot >>> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >>> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >>> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >>> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >>> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >>> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >>> inch of pedal travel. >Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of >tire spin.

It happens up through about 4th gear. I'd love to, but the D3D crash bug forces me to drive with mirrors off. :) Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

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>>Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of >>tire spin. >It happens up through about 4th gear. >>Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke. >I'd love to, but the D3D crash bug forces me to drive with mirrors >off. :)

Under these conditions I can see why you are not thrilled about the game. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>1. The "digital throttle" problem. Its like there's a certain spot >in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . Does this happen in other than 1st gear? I notice something similar if I am not careful with the throttle in 1st but haven't really noticed anything similar in other gears. The default 1st gear is way too low and 1st should only be used at *very* slow corners so I don't find it a problem. BTW - I usually have 1st set at around 23 / 24 and 2nd at 27 / 28. Like that I have no trouble applying the throttle smoothly out of the slow corners. In fact, that's one thing that I like with F1RS - it does require a good degree of pedal finesse. It can seem a little sloppy at times, especially when switching from brake to throttle but I'm inclined to believe that is more due to the poor Win95 joystick routines than a specific problem with F1RS. Doesn't have much to do with physics, does it? At least it can be useful for correcting the direction of the car though ;-) That's what I thought as well at first but it's grown on me. I haven't tried F1:CE so can't comment. The F1RS engine sound does seem pretty realistic to me, but I think it is one of those areas where realism should perhaps be sacrificed in order to provide some extra feedback. Real life engines require ear plugs - I would rather have them simulated than feel a need to stick real ones in my ears <g> F1RS is perhaps a little over dependent on aerodynamic downforce. As a result the car is very slippery at slow speeds and too stable at high ones. This is the opposite of GP2 and can take some getting used to. As long as the track consists of either just slow or just fast corners this isn't a problem as it is at least consistent. But there aren't any all fast corner GP tracks these days :( At Monaco though, F1RS is superb. I don't find Brazil any worse than GP2's version, and rather better in some ways. But Suzuka is very disappointing without any noticeable gradient changes and Imola is, well, strange! I've no idea how they contrived to get the gradients so wrong there :( I really hope that UbiSoft produces a patch that puts the right gradients in place - such a superb simulation of 'being there' but then they go and ruin it with very obvious mistakes in some tracks :( Correct. The track deficiencies are there in the 3dfx version. Cheers, Richard

>(BTW, the NT solution won't work for D3D mode since there is no >released D3D drivers yet for any card) This seems to imply you are running F1RS in Voodoo mode. Is there a Glide driver for NT? [sounds of rummaging through the back of the closet for that long-ago discarded copy of NT 4.0] Eagle Woman Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

Canopus Pure 3D has drivers for NT.

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> >(BTW, the NT solution won't work for D3D mode since there is no > >released D3D drivers yet for any card) > This seems to imply you are running F1RS in Voodoo mode. Is there a > Glide driver for NT? [sounds of rummaging through the back of the > closet for that long-ago discarded copy of NT 4.0] > Eagle Woman > Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. > http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

You can run F1RS in NT4. I recall, since it uses GLIDE. i.e. Quake/2. jd ------------------------------------------------------------------ Hungry for NEWSGROUPS??? USE feedME.ORG Read and Post to 30,000 groups through feedME.ORG FREE FREE FREE http://www.feedME.ORG FREE FREE FREE ------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey maybe you can lend me a hand...I have the trial version of NT4 loaded up on a 1gig partition. My soundcard is working, my joystick is working but I dont seem to be able to get my Voodoo card going. How did you get yours going...? Did you load it thru multimedia? Where do you check its status...I get the 3dfx spinning logo but thats it....I reinstalled Quake2 got it going in software but as soon as I tried 3dfx crash...I have run the glide 2.43 drivers setup program and it correctly identifies NT4 ...anyway some clues would be much appreciated. I have NT4 sp3. PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Infamous Pink Flamingo Pilot...

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:35:31 +1100, Bruce Kennewell >These, and more exciting snippets of information, are brought to you by >Dr. Jonathon Palmer, ex BBC F1 Commentator & Statistician >Extrordinaire. You can buy his book, "Is He Pitting Now....or on Lap >23, 25 or 26?", from all reputable outlets. Biiig :-) Jonathon Palmer, the only man who could contrive to get things more wrong than Murray. Cheers! John

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 07:41:10 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >Wheels not tires... When the cars come into the pits and the crew >changes the tires, you see the dust from the brakes being so hot. Same >effect in F1RS. You don't think it is smoke caused by the tire skidding >do you? Well, you've certainly got me there, I've never seen that effect in F1RS although I have of course seen it in real F1. Perhaps I just switch off when the car comes into the pits (or more likely I am flapping furiously as I try to remember the keystrokes and tell the crew what I want as the field streams by...). I'll have a look next time I play. Is this something you see only in the pits, or do you also see this under braking as someone else suggested in an earlier post? Cheers! John

>Under these conditions I can see why you are not thrilled about >the game. Well, its Ubi's responsibility to fix the bugs in their D3D version. Whether you like or hate D3D, its not an excuse for the mirrors causing lock-ups. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Different people have different tastes. I too, agree that F1RS is the best >thing to come out in a long, long while. However, if everyone agreed with me >all the time, it would be a very boring world. If Randy likes GP2 better than >F1RS, then so be it. They are both awesome games. Now if he starts liking >"ABC's Road To Indy" or CPR (in it's current weak AI state) better, we'll have >to reevaluate this different tastes thing!<BG> First of all, I'm trying really hard to get to the point where I really like F1RS. Every time I hear the sound I'm reminded of what a steep challenge it is, though <GG> Seriously, I've spent a couple of hours at Spa and gone from a doggone disgraceful 2 minute lap down to 1:54. I had a 1:52 going but spun out in the bus-stop chicane. Oh well. One thing I've noticed is that camber doesn't seem to have any effect on tire temps. Has anyone else noticed that? I looked at the temps, and then changed camber and tires, and the next set showed much the same results. I got drastic in my changes, and still the same results. The outsides were always too hot no matter how much negative camber I added. And another thing, why don't more people complain about the slow-down glue anywhere off track. Put a wheel off, car suddenly grabs and slows down. Its so ridiculous. Lets face it, CPR models off-track kinetics much better than F1RS does. Regarding Road to Indy, I still feel like it didn't get a fair shake, mainly because of its damage model and AI. I felt like the actual driving model was pretty good at the highest difficulty levels. I think its closer to being a "complete sim" than CPR is right now. After all, there ARE yellows in Road to Indy, the driving model is decent, and really what it needs is a lot more damage possible to the car and an AI boost. Who knows if we're ever going to see that, though. Anyway, F1RS and NASCAR 2 are the 2 sims I spend the most time on now. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Does this happen in other than 1st gear? I notice something similar if I >am not careful with the throttle in 1st but haven't really noticed >anything similar in other gears. The default 1st gear is way too low and >1st should only be used at *very* slow corners so I don't find it a >problem. I find it to be true for 2nd and 3rd as well, but not quite as bad. Ultimately I feel like I have to slowwwwwwly add throttle coming off every corner, and the AI cars are cornering much better than I am. A classic example is at Spa. There's a double left hander (I forget the turn #'s/names) where the first one seems to drop me to 3rd gear and then I can accelerate up through 4th gear and take the second one flat out since its more of a kink. Even if I've gotten by an AI car earlier, it seems to be able to take that 3rd gear first left faster than I am, and it takes all I've got to hold him off, mainly because I just can't get in the throttle that fast without pushing right off the road. After 2 hours of intense setups, I have made a rather loose setup where quick nudges of the gas into the redline will break the wheels loose and help me slide the car around the turns more, but then I have a harder time getting the grip back in time to get a good run off the corner. There is definitely much to appreciate in this sim, but there's still something wrong in my book. These F1RS cars just don't feel as agile as they look and feel in other sims and in TV footage of real cars (though the AI cars seem to have no such problems). If you get a chance take F1:Ce out for a spin. And try several different engine makes. Its the best I've seen at giving each car its own personality! That ain't saying much, Richard. GP2's tracks are horrendous at best at least when comparing them to the real tracks. Thanks for noticing :) Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

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>First of all, I'm trying really hard to get to the point where I >really like F1RS. Every time I hear the sound I'm reminded of what a >steep challenge it is, though <GG> Seriously, I've spent a couple of >hours at Spa and gone from a doggone disgraceful 2 minute lap down to >1:54. I had a 1:52 going but spun out in the bus-stop chicane. Oh >well. One thing I've noticed is that camber doesn't seem to have any >effect on tire temps. Has anyone else noticed that? I looked at the

Alison did. I mentioned that at Silverstone I used camber to change the tire temps so that they were all equal. So in the one time I tried setting up the car, the camber worked. Are there any other settings which could be affecting that? Maybe allot of us don't go off track :-) Seriously though I think it is a good way to model the gravel traps, where you do get bogged down. Maybe they just model that for going off the road in general? -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

> > Hi all, > >I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs > >tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so > No flames, just amazement. > -- Yeah, I guess this means he's gone off race sims altogether!

Hi Randy, I've got a Pent II With a Diamond Viper 330 AGP. (Almost simular to your system). I've no problem what so ever running F1RS, the D3D version. I'm running with mirrors on, using F1RS 1.05. Maybe you should check out the nVidia OpenGL drivers, currently in Alpha 2 release. (They are available at The RIVA USERS GROUP http://www.rivazone.com/) Cheers! Remco

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>>Under these conditions I can see why you are not thrilled about >>the game. >Well, its Ubi's responsibility to fix the bugs in their D3D version. >Whether you like or hate D3D, its not an excuse for the mirrors >causing lock-ups. >Randy >Randy Magruder >Contributing Reviewer >Digital Sportspage >http://www.digitalsports.com

>I find it to be true for 2nd and 3rd as well, but not quite as bad. >Ultimately I feel like I have to slowwwwwwly add throttle coming off >every corner, and the AI cars are cornering much better than I am. A What AI level? Yes this is a 3rd gear corner. In GP2 you could almost take this one in 3rd full throttle. F1RS seems more tricky though. At least with the stock setup. Yes, I find that I accelerate up to 5th then drop to 4th as I enter this one and keep full throttle in 4th. I momentarily end up in 6th as I come to the fast 3rd gear esses. Well it could be realistic. After all I noticed that even against the AMRT AI, even though I am lapping 3-4 seconds faster (for the most part) they are still faster than I am in certain parts of the track. The inner hairpin at Magny Cours is a good example where the AI was much faster than I. But they would just get creamed in the fast turns. Frankly I have the opposite impression. IMHO they are very agile and exactly what I see from the TV footage. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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>On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 07:41:10 -0600, "Greg Cisko" >>Wheels not tires... When the cars come into the pits and the crew >>changes the tires, you see the dust from the brakes being so hot. Same >>effect in F1RS. You don't think it is smoke caused by the tire skidding >>do you? >Well, you've certainly got me there, I've never seen that effect in >F1RS although I have of course seen it in real F1. Perhaps I just

That was my point :-) You see it any time you stop. Just do a practice session. Get to the track and stop. Then very slightly go forward and stop. You will not skid and you will see the dusk/smoke come up from the inner part of the wheels. You don't need to go fast at all. I have seen it on every braking to a stop (forward or reverse) whether I skid or not. I do believe they are modeling hot brakes :-)

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>> > Hi all, >> >I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs >> >tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so >> No flames, just amazement. >> -- > Yeah, I guess this means he's gone off race sims altogether!

No not at all. Just off his rocker :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

Hi John, As mentioned before, when pitting hit the BS key, then hit the Pause key, get something to drink, go to the bathroom, make your choice, hit the BS key, and finally the Pause key. Cheers! Remco > Perhaps I just >switch off when the car comes into the pits (or more likely I am >flapping furiously as I try to remember the keystrokes and tell the >crew what I want as the field streams by...). I'll have a look next >time I play.

>well. One thing I've noticed is that camber doesn't seem to have any >effect on tire temps. Has anyone else noticed that? I had a moan about that in the Sim News review. A bit wierd. The dampers were also wierd originally (reversed) but that was fixed in the first patch). Another thing I really hate in a sim. I never liked the way Papyrus put walls around the tracks, I disliked the way SODA and F1RS have grass with velcro-like properties and I even disliked GP2's black flag. Where's the fun in*** a wheel of the track only to be grabbed and slowed down? It kills the atmosphere. So far TOCA and CPR are the ones to do this right :-) Let me cut corners if that's what I really want to do but make the grass and gravel realistically affect the car. Cheers! John

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>> > Hi all, >> >I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs >> >tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so >> No flames, just amazement. >> -- > Yeah, I guess this means he's gone off race sims altogether! >No not at all. Just off his rocker :-)

No never fear still like race sims and not gone insane ;-) Perhaps I will retry it when VooDoo2 comes out as thats when I will get a card. After all the posts here I really do think that F1rs is probably a better sim with a 3dfx card than what I was seeing with my Riva. But.... I also think that might hold true for other sims that were written for D3D and tried on 3dfx. I normally would never sell any sim/game as I might see it differently in a few weeks. I only sold it because of all the posts from folks here that seemed to be having a hard time obtaining one. Cya, Mike -- Remove-No-Spam to Reply

>>No not at all. Just off his rocker :-) >No never fear still like race sims and not gone insane ;-) Perhaps I will >retry it when VooDoo2 comes out as thats when I will get a card. After all >the posts here I really do think that F1rs is probably a better sim with a >3dfx card than what I was seeing with my Riva. But.... Ahh... That explains it then. I didn't know you had a Riva. I thought you had a 3dfx and still sold F1RS. OK I take everything back :-) This has been the experience of many including myself. 3dfx has a 50%+ market share for a reason. I can understand people wanting an all in one video card. IMHO that card hasn't been made yet :-) If you do ever get 3dfx by all means try F1RS again. I was reading the F1RS FAQ on the UBIsoft web site. There were several parts that said something to the effect "if you cannot or do not want to get a 3dfx card and the game is still not performing properly, try to return it". That isn't an exact quote. But that is the spirit of the quote. Clearly if you don't have 3dfx for F1RS, you will be lacking. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>The only thing I could think of is that if you 'curb' the wheels a lot >its the outsides that are going to take most of the beating, but I >just don't see this accounting for the changes. FWIW, my experience >was at Spa (where, btw, my time is down to 1:51.5 --not bad for a >couple of hours work starting from 2 minutes per lap :) ) It is a good time. It is 6 seconds faster than I do with a stock setup... In F1 they go off the track mostly in the esses and survive the race more. If they go off in a sand trap the race is most likely over (but then you know this). Of all the forma of racing F1 is much more unforgiving if you go off the track. I have lightly hit some grass and kicked up dust in F1RS and still maintained a vast majority of my momentium. I guess I don't see this as that much of a problem. Or a problem at all. I always thought the GP2 gravel was cheesy because you could get out once you stopped. But I am sure they allowed you to get out for playability. If I remember correctly it was much easier to get out of a GP2 gravel trap than it is to get out of a F1RS gravel trap. And how about those Fred Flinstone size stones that GP2 kicks up? I do like the fact that when you go off track in F1RS, you see your tires get dirty. You also loose much traction for a while until the tires clean off. Did GP2 do this? -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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> >problem. Its like there's a certain spot > >> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops > >> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and > >> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) > >> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing > >> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, > >> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an > >> inch of pedal travel. > Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of > tire spin. Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke. > I've also noticed that the tires seem to spin more easily for a while after > you go on the grass or gravel. > -- > Kevin > (Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email)

What they are talking about here is trivial and far from rendering the game unenjoyable. The sound is silly at times though and was the first thing that struck me about F1RS. Ubi definantly got this WRONG! But anyone turned away by these things is missing a great experience.

> >Under these conditions I can see why you are not thrilled about > >the game. > Well, its Ubi's responsibility to fix the bugs in their D3D version. > Whether you like or hate D3D, its not an excuse for the mirrors > causing lock-ups. I still would blame D3D, because a team that can produce such a great Glide version would not***up with D3D because of incompetence. There are good APIs, there are bad APIs... l8er ronny -- |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Hey John, The main reason the walls are in the Papy sims, I think, is because they needed a way to keep the online folks honest. they knew especially with N2 that eventually they would be going online with multiple drivers and rather than code some *** penalty system for shortcutters, they put the walls in...Of course this means we sometimes suffer the painful reality of having our simultated knees pushed up our simultated nose...but at least it keeps the online racing somewhat fairer. dave henrie

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> >well. One thing I've noticed is that camber doesn't seem to have any > >effect on tire temps. Has anyone else noticed that? > I had a moan about that in the Sim News review. A bit wierd. The > dampers were also wierd originally (reversed) but that was fixed in > the first patch). > >And another thing, why don't more people complain about the slow-down > >glue anywhere off track. > Another thing I really hate in a sim. I never liked the way Papyrus > put walls around the tracks, I disliked the way SODA and F1RS have > grass with velcro-like properties and I even disliked GP2's black > flag. Where's the fun in*** a wheel of the track only to be > grabbed and slowed down? It kills the atmosphere. So far TOCA and CPR > are the ones to do this right :-) Let me cut corners if that's what I > really want to do but make the grass and gravel realistically affect > the car. > Cheers! > John

>What AI level? The only level I race against...the top. I think it has a lot to do with the 'push' envelope. They go into a push condition too easily. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Alison did. I mentioned that at Silverstone I used camber to change >the tire temps so that they were all equal. So in the one time I tried >setting up the car, the camber worked. Are there any other settings >which could be affecting that? The only thing I could think of is that if you 'curb' the wheels a lot its the outsides that are going to take most of the beating, but I just don't see this accounting for the changes. FWIW, my experience was at Spa (where, btw, my time is down to 1:51.5 --not bad for a couple of hours work starting from 2 minutes per lap :) ) I thought we purists didn't like gimmicky solutions to real physics issues. This is a gimmick pure and simple. As far as going off track is concerned, real racers do it all the time. Mostly its just putting a wheel off, but sometimes its worse. (After sitting in the turn 4 grandstands for Laguna Seca last year, I can tell you that they put wheels off a lot more than you see on TV! -- the same can be said of F1 drivers trying to get to and stay at the limit). But putting a single wheel off shouldn't cause your speed to drop through the floor like you just drove onto fly-paper. As far as gravel traps, they do bog you down, once you've come to a stop. While you're still flying along, they are made bumpy so they throw the car in the air a bit and help disippate energy that way. After bouncing along they grind to a halt or hit a tire barrier, and if the guy is still in the sand, he's going to have a hard time getting it going again. GP2 did a reasonably good job of this. F1RS's gimmick is inexcusable. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

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>I was reading the F1RS FAQ on the UBIsoft web site. There were several >parts that said something to the effect "if you cannot or do not want to get >a 3dfx card and the game is still not performing properly, try to return >it". >That isn't an exact quote. But that is the spirit of the quote. Clearly if >you >don't have 3dfx for F1RS, you will be lacking.

That's a pretty sad excuse for not properly finishing the D3D version. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>I've got a Pent II With a Diamond Viper 330 AGP. (Almost simular to >your system). I've no problem what so ever running F1RS, the D3D >version. I'm running with mirrors on, using F1RS 1.05. Maybe you should check >out the nVidia OpenGL drivers, currently in Alpha 2 release. (They are available at The RIVA USERS GROUP http://www.rivazone.com/) Thanks, but those drivers don't work at all on my AGP STB Velocity 128 (nor do Diamond's drivers) Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:03:13 +0100, you wrote: >Alison, first I would like to thank you for the tip of moving the >stoppers >in the GP1 wheel, so I can get 270 degrees lock to lock, love it :o). Great! >My problem is this. I would really like to love F1RS, but I'm having >real >trouble doing so. I also drive, of course :o), with all the helps off >and I >cant "feel" the car as I can in GP2. I have about 800 hours in GP2, Wow!!

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>the last >500 hours with all helps and aids off, and never over 100% processor >occupancy. I use the GP1 wheel with T1 pedals. Doing so I have a best >1:20.2 >at Monza in GP2 and a 1:23.8 at Monza in F1RS, only so you'll know I'm >serious about sim racing :o). The 1:23.8 is only after an hour or so at >Monza in F1RS. The 1:20.3 is after about 1500 laps at Monza in GP2 :o).

Geez! You are dedicated!! Also damn quick! My best time so far at Monza in F1RS is a 1:24.3 after a lot of testing and setup development yesterday. I am still learning how to create car setups.

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>The >tyre squeling found in GP2 telling me things that my bottom would tell >me in >a real racing car I find abscent in F1RS. In F1RS I dont "feel" how >close to >the limit I am in accelerating, braking or in corners :o(. That's my >main >concern really. I dont feel the car in F1RS. The only real racing car >I've >driven is a Formula Ford and I felt that one :o).

Yes, me too! I think the issue is that F1RS models the real world more correctly than GP2 in this regard. In GP2 (and ICR2) the tires squeal when you are nearing the limit, giving you some good cues audio cues which usefully substitute for the kinesthetic cues that are missing in a sim. However, in the real world, on slicks, you usually don't get much squealing until you are very close to or even a little past the optimum slip angle. I think this is what F1RS does, too. So you have to learn by experience when you are approaching the limit. However, once you do, you will begin to hear squealing in some corners. For example, I definitely get squealing through Parabolica in F1RS, with a mildly understeering setup, when I start approaching the limit. Remember you are comparing a game that you have thousands of hours on to a game that you have little experience with. Think back to when you first started driving GP2, and try to remember how hard it was to know when the car was at the limit, and to anticipate its behavior. I think that if you keep racing F1RS for a while, you will begin to get a feel for it too. >In this thread I agree most with Randy's posts about the digital >throttle >feeling (yes, I have sensitivity on 100% :o) ), The "digital throttle" Randy talks about isn't a digital throttle at all, IMHO. What is happening is that the engine is coming on the power band and accelerating very quickly. Unlike GP2, which has a very tractable engine with very "friendly" power curve, the engine in F1RS has a very peaky power band. Above a certain RPM, the power simply multiplies with a rush. When you open the throttle to a certain point, the engine suddenly begins to develop *so* *much* power that it instantly spins the rear wheels, thus reducing the load on the engine, and letting it zing to redline. Since Renault was heavily involved with the F1RS project, and its vehicle dynamics model was written by an F1 engineer at Renault, I have to believe that this aspect of F1RS is more accurate than GP2's. It's hard to imagine their letting out the door a product with a less than scrupulously accurate model of their engine's behavior! The way I dealt with the peaky power curve was to create some "learning" setups which had tall low gears, with first gear redlining at about 100 mph. Then I never used first gear except for starting and getting out of gravel traps. By staying down off the peak of the power curve at low speeds, I found the power was much more manageable, and I could learn to drive smoothly and manage the throttle better. Now, after practicing with these, I can drive with shorter low gears. >canned spins For the life of me, I cannot find these canned spins that so many people talk about. Yes, when I get on the power in the middle of a spin, the rotation keeps going on forever as long as I hold the power on. If I do a donut, it's perfectly round, and I doubt if this would happen in real life, although not having seen anyone do donuts in an F1 car I can't be sure. For sure, CPR modeled Indycar donuts *really* well; they looked just like Alex Zanardi's! But I'm not into racing sims for their donuts. I was doing some data collection on the F1RS underbody at Monza yesterday, running a very low-downforce setup, and I did a *lot* of spins. Aside from the aforementioned too-round rotation under power, I never once felt the car do anything that seemed unrealistic to me. I've done a lot of spins in real cars, having spun dirt track karts, a Formula Vee, sports cars and stock Volkswagen Beetles more times than I care to remember. Everything the F1RS car does seems quite real to me. People have complained that they can't "save" the car after it gets more than 90 degrees sideways. In GP2, if you had opposite lock help turned on, you could save the car when it got pretty sideways, and if you locked the brakes, the spin would stop - unless you let off the brakes, when it was very likely to start up again! Perhaps people gotten used to these effects in GP2. But in a real car, long before you get 90 degrees sideways, it's gone. In race driver school, they teach you to lock the brakes when you know you're going to spin, so the car will go off in a straight line. In F1RS, if you lock the brakes in a spin, the car goes off in straight line. If the angular velocity is not too great, the rotation stops; if it's rotating fast enough, it keeps rotating, and you get these incredibly realistic skid marks showing the exact path of your rotating slide off the track. Another thing that is remarkable is the modeling of "pendulum effect" due to the center of mass of the car being near the rear of the car. Under certain spin conditions, when the car gets partway around, the rate of rotation goes up due to this mass being swung around the front wheels, which are at that point gripping better. The sensation is kind of like being slung around in a slingshot. This can happen in almost any rear-engined car, I believe, and is very familiar to me for the aforementioned embarrassing reasons. In F1RS, it's eerily like the real thing. To me, the F1RS car's spin behavior seems to be the result of a very sophisticated vehicle dynamics model that is accurately modeling what the car would do under any given set of conditions. The fact that power-on spins are more circular than they probably are in real life is most likely due to the omission of some factors which are likely not relevant in most other conditions, or possibly too costly to model, such as small variations in surface roughness across small distances.

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>and the >engine >sound. I read somewhere that the engine sound in F1RS is recorded from a >Renault F1 in a test rig. I dont think that's the best way of recording >the >engine sound for an F1 sim? The best way IMO would to let all the test >drivers for the team take one of the cars in the team out for a spin. >Mount >one microphone in each ear of the driver, record a couple of laps and >some >special other engine events :o). Then in the sim you'll have the correct >sound for each car as it sounds through a helmet :o))).

I think this is what Psygnosis did for their F1 game. It sounded great, too. After a few hundred laps in F1RS, the sound has definitely grown on me. At first, the "stepping" really annoyed me. This is the audio equivalent of poor frame rate, where the sound card is not updated frequently enough and so instead of a smooth rise in pitch, you get a series of rising notes like an organ going up the scale. However, with a 3Dfx card, the CPU is not so busy and it updates the sound card more often, so this stepping goes away except when I'm spinning the wheels in first gear. Since I don't do that very much any more, I don't notice it. The actual wave form sounds a lot like what I hear on ESPN. It lacks the burbles and warts present in real life, however, which GP2 models so well. Despite this, I find that now I have grown quite fond of the sound in F1RS. It has a crispness and immediacy that I like a lot. >I wont mention the menus, <grin> Better left unmentioned!

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>but the AI I'll give a go at. Did a couple of >starts at Melbourne yesterday viewing my car from the outside and even >if >I'm right behind another car into the first corner they ran into me from >behind far to often :o(. Then I watched them going at each other for a >couple of laps and they do things I haven't seen real F1 drivers do.

Some people like the AI in F1RS, and I think the AI cars are ok to race alongside of, but I agree that at the start they tend to be a bit too maniacal. I'd rather race against real people any day! >Please, help me like F1RS and then perhaps we could have a race or two >on >Kahn or Kali :o)? <grin> Well, I don't think I can make you like it if you don't. However, if you give it some time, even a fraction of what you've put in on GP2, I think you will find it growing on you. It's a complex sim, and the car is very difficult to drive hard, as it should be. I believe it's hard to drive for the right reasons. I think you have to get good enough at driving it hard to get consistently near the limit in order to really appreciate it. I went back to GP2 last night now that I've got a fair number of hours on F1RS. It reminded me of going back to my old 1980 RX-7 after I'd spent some time in my new (at the time) 1986 RX-7. Familiar, comfortable, but somehow more crude, more raw, less refined and precise. It felt like an old car compared with a new one. One thing I particularly noticed was the difference in ... read more »

>>And another thing, why don't more people complain about the slow-down >>glue anywhere off track. I complained about this somewhere. I think I called it "sticky grass". And ICR2. :-) I totally agree with John that this stupid idea should bite the dust right now. To prevent people from doing serious shortcutting, the sims could use a "gate" concept similar to that used in SODA, but the gate would be invisible. These invisible gates would be at any place on the track where illegal shortcutting might conceivably allow quicker times than staying on the track. If you miss the gate, your lap doesn't get timed, or in a race you get a penalty. Such gates already exist in F1RS; for instance, if you miss the chicane at the top of the hill at Imola, or shortcut the esses in the parking lot at Melbourne you get a penalty. So it's quite do-able, and I feel there's no excuse for the sticky grass. Eagle Woman Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

Damn .....all that and more. Nice post.... PAPA DOC >But I really like *driving* F1RS; not since ICR2 have I found a sim so >compelling. I think its driving model is the most realistic of any yet >released. >Alison Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Infamous Pink Flamingo Pilot...

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>A >classic example is at Spa. There's a double left hander (I forget the >turn #'s/names) where the first one seems to drop me to 3rd gear and >then I can accelerate up through 4th gear and take the second one flat >out since its more of a kink. Even if I've gotten by an AI car >earlier, it seems to be able to take that 3rd gear first left faster >than I am, and it takes all I've got to hold him off, mainly because I >just can't get in the throttle that fast without pushing right off the >road.

I know the place you're talking about. I haven't tried Spa against the AI so I don't know if that's a problem for me. I'll give it a go next time I fire up F1RS. Is F1:Ce available for the PC (and preferably as a demo <g>)? Engine sounds apart, F1RS does a pretty good job. The power differences are obvious but the handling is also subtly different. No <g> Some are OK. The model is obviously rather simplified, but Imola, Suzuka, Adelaide, etc seemed to capture the atmosphere (if not the exact details) very well. Cheers, Richard

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> Yes tire spin absolutely. I did some checking on this yesterday. Also when > you > downshift and your revs max out (another complaint), it is because they were > supposed to, because it was over the same rpm that the gear normaly > redlines in. i.e. the way it should be. As I have driven the car more this > rarely > happens anymore.

Ditto

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> First of all, I'm trying really hard to get to the point where I > really like F1RS. Every time I hear the sound I'm reminded of what a > steep challenge it is, though <GG> Seriously, I've spent a couple of > hours at Spa and gone from a doggone disgraceful 2 minute lap down to > 1:54. I had a 1:52 going but spun out in the bus-stop chicane. Oh > well. One thing I've noticed is that camber doesn't seem to have any > effect on tire temps. Has anyone else noticed that? I looked at the > temps, and then changed camber and tires, and the next set showed much > the same results. I got drastic in my changes, and still the same > results. The outsides were always too hot no matter how much negative > camber I added.

Yes, same problem here with camber. A definate bug that will hopefully be fixed in the next patch.

> Alison did. I mentioned that at Silverstone I used camber to change > the tire temps so that they were all equal. So in the one time I tried > setting up the car, the camber worked. Are there any other settings > which could be affecting that? I have tested this at Monza and it does not work correctly irrespective of springs/dampers etc. It's just wrong. I was just wondering if it could possibly be that I did not have the desktop set to 800 * 600. I think the traps are not too bad but the grass is ridiculous. There should be more dramatic results from puting a wheel off instead of globs of speed being taken off. It makes it more arcady.

Yes, I'm using the 3dfx 2.4 drivers available on www.3dfx.com. Don't know whether every 3dfx card maker supplies NT Glide drivers. Dave.

>Hey maybe you can lend me a hand...I have the trial version of NT4 >loaded up on a 1gig partition. My soundcard is working, my joystick is >working but I dont seem to be able to get my Voodoo card going. How >did you get yours going...? I've been using the 3dfx reference drivers (2.4) for NT4, but if yours installed okay and you have glide.dll glide2x.dll in the System32 directory and get the 3dfx logo it should be installed correctly. Don't know where to check since they don't show up in the devices Other tests are some of the technology demos on the 3dfx site (such as the Valley of Ra or Flip demos). or the FA-18 Hornet Demo. I don't load the drivers specifically. It just loads when a program requires it. GLQuake is openGL but requires glide as well, so it points to a problem with the Glide drivers. GLQuake2 (and GLHexen) demos work fine on my NT installation. Don't know what to suggest other than the old disect and disable routine. Disabling the joystick and sound drivers could determine if these are okay. Also, a real copy of NT might be the reason :) (Not probably). There isn't a great advantage to running a game in NT (at least not until they are multithreaded and you are running a multiprocessor system. For me, I'm using NT for work and thus find it more convenient to not have to reboot to Win95 for racing. Normally, I wouldn't reboot for weeks if it weren't for the need for games in Win95. Come to think of it, I seem to be getting less work done the last couple of weeks :) Dave.

I like the sticky grass. It's easier to mow because all the little bits stick together. -- Bruce. (At home)

(snip) Oh God! Here we go........another "unfinished game"! I was wondering how long it would be before someone posted this chestnut! -- Bruce. (At home)

>I could easily spin the GP2 car on the back straight at Spa, Oops. I meant the curving "straight" through Blanchemont, between Stavelot and Bus Stop, not the long straight between Eau Rouge and Les Combes. Eagle Woman Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

Yes the Camber adjustment does seem to be acting wierdly. Now here is a wierd thought.....we are all having intitial understeer if Im interpeting the reports here accurately. The sim is reporting that the camber is set incorrectly...ummmm. I know that would really be incredible but it IS interesting. Agreed but to me its not too big a deal...just dont go off....<VBG> PAPA DOC Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand Infamous Pink Flamingo Pilot...

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> Hey John, > The main reason the walls are in the Papy sims, I think, is because they > needed a way to keep the online folks honest. they knew especially with > N2 that eventually they would be going online with multiple drivers and > rather than code some *** penalty system for shortcutters, they put the > walls in...Of course this means we sometimes suffer the painful reality of > having our simultated knees pushed up our simultated nose...but at least > it keeps the online racing somewhat fairer. > dave henrie

Hmm, I'm damn sure I remember somebody from Papyrus mention problems with the AI drivers staying on track without walls. When I think about it, it doesn't sound reasonable, but... l8er ronny -- |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Right that *IS* the back straight in SPA :-) I also have spun allot in GP2 there. I also notice that Eau Rouge can be taken flat out in 6th at 260kph in F1RS with the stock setup. No matter what I did in GP2 I always had to lift. Great stuff. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. >>I could easily spin the GP2 car on the back straight at Spa, >Oops. I meant the curving "straight" through Blanchemont, between >Stavelot and Bus Stop, not the long straight between Eau Rouge and Les >Combes. >Eagle Woman >Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. >http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

>To prevent people from doing serious shortcutting, the sims could use a >"gate" concept similar to that used in SODA, but the gate would be >invisible. These invisible gates would be at any place on the track >where illegal shortcutting might conceivably allow quicker times than >staying on the track. If you miss the gate, your lap doesn't get timed, >or in a race you get a penalty. I don't know. As I said I don't mind the stick grass. I also don't think it is as sticky as gravel. I have blown the enterance to the bus stop at Spa and cut over the grass. Didn't really slow down at all. I still think it is an excellant ballance to provide a penalty for going off. Speaking of penalties. Has anyone gotten any? For blowing starts? Black flags? Over speed in the pits? I really do not like the fact that when you have the pit autopilot turned off, it still takes control when you enter the pits. Also, if you have selected a 25% race is it possible to have pitstops? I cannot find out how to turn pitstops on/off :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. >there's no excuse for the sticky grass. >Eagle Woman >Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. >http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison

>After reading the many comments in this thread, the thought has occurred >to me that perhaps for some of us, particularly those with many hours on >it, GP2 has taught us things that were not quite right. As a result, >now we find it difficult to adapt to a sim which is more accurate in >many ways because we're used to the way GP2 behaves. This is exactly what I am thinking. From what I have read you seem to think the driving model of F1RS is more realistic. I agree. I also really think that many people are comparing F1RS to GP2 assuming GP2 is the real deal. And this is where they are getting in trouble :-) Also, as for seeing the tires in the***pit view? I much prefer this and it is probably why I am hitting the corners better. I am hitting La Source every time now, where before (GP2) I would go *WAY* wider than Berger does :-) I also like the driving line to be displayed. IMHO the real drivers see this after *** is laid on the track anyway. I do think it would be cool to model less traction if you got off line, ie the marbles :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. >Alison

>Right that *IS* the back straight in SPA :-) I also have spun allot in GP2 >there. I also notice that Eau Rouge can be taken flat out in 6th at 260kph >in F1RS with the stock setup. No matter what I did in GP2 I always had >to lift. Great stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong, (I'm sure that will happen here!) but I wonder which is actually more realistic. From what I've heard, an F1 car with an average setup generates enough downforce at 200 mph to drive on the ceiling and not fall off. So therefore, it would make sense to me that it would be almost impossible to spin on the Spa backstraight at full speed. What do you think? Bill -------- "NASCAR is the Professional Wrestling of Motorsport." -Me-

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>> >problem. Its like there's a certain spot >> >> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops >> >> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and >> >> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) >> >> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing >> >> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, >> >> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an >> >> inch of pedal travel. >> Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of >> tire spin. Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke. >> I've also noticed that the tires seem to spin more easily for a while after >> you go on the grass or gravel. >> -- >> Kevin >> (Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email) > What they are talking about here is trivial

in your opinion. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>I still would blame D3D, because a team that can produce such a great >Glide version would not***up with D3D because of incompetence. Its not a matter of incompetence, but familiarity. Being expert in all the nuances of one API does not make you an expert in all API's. The reason could be everything from D3D to less development effort invested in it, to simply less experience with it. Your casting of blame solely on D3D is more a product of your own dislike for it than any real knowledge about the development team at Ubisoft. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>In F1 they go off the track mostly in the esses and survive the race >more. If they go off in a sand trap the race is most likely over (but >then you know this). The thing is, when you look at the tracks in real life, most of the time you see a strip of grass inside the curb and THEN you have the sand trap. The sand trap isn't waiting to snatch any car that just puts a corner off. And then there's gravel-style runoff that you can put a wheel onto and kick up some dust without necessarily getting dragged into the muck. Those traps are designed to stop cars which totally go flying off the track so that they don't injure the occupant or bystanders. Well, once you stopped, you'd already done quite a bit of damage to your race position, even if you could get going again. In F1RS you're bogusly penalized for just putting a wheel off. I always liked those. Definitely made me feel like I was going through kitty litter. I never noticed it. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>The "digital throttle" Randy talks about isn't a digital throttle at >all, IMHO. I didn't claim it WAS a digital throttle, just that it felt very digital. This goes both ways. I almost wouldn't mind if it were just the peak, but there's also the "sag switch" at which point the revs just drop alarmingly even though you only backed off a little bit. Wouldn't bug me if it was restricted to first or second gear, but it happens up through 3rd and occassionally even 4th. You don't need power and you don't need to be moving. There are most definitely a lot of canned spins. Want me to make you a videocassette? <G> You should hear Psygnosis F1:Championship Edition for the Playstation. They strapped a DAT recorder to a driver's body and they also did different samples for different engines. Its great. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Well, once you stopped, you'd already done quite a bit of damage to >your race position, even if you could get going again. In F1RS you're >bogusly penalized for just putting a wheel off. I understand your point. I have also gotten sucked into the traps. I have also barely gotten a penalty from hitting the traps and getting back on the track. It depends on how far off you are in the turn. It is not like you completely stop if you hit the trap. If you barely hit it, you barely slow. At least that is my impression. Of all the problems I could have with a driving sim, I'll take this one, and learn to stay on the track :-) I just had a friend over because I wanted to demo F1RS for him. He was blown away. I mentioned how someone in rec.autos.simulators thought the sense of speed in F1RS was slow. He said he did not know how that was possible. What got him most was the e***ment from the sense of speed and all the AI cars buzzing around. We do N2 via modem play allot, and he did mention that now he knows why it is hard for me to fire up Nascar2. Anyway, I think there will be at least one more 3dfx card sold, along with one more copy of the game :-) -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

all this talk about spins makes me wonder what I am doing wrong. Would you be willing to send me one of your setups, preferably a good setup that is slightly on the loose side? thanx L8er

> No matter what I did in GP2 I always had > to lift. Great stuff. I thought it was just me? I always had to lift for a second in GP2 too. Taking Eau Rouge flat out in F1RS is a real blast, and the sense of speed as the elevation changes is fantastic. Brilliant stuff!!!! 8?) * Peter * 8-) Please remove asterix from address to email.

Actually ICR2 is the worst - it had WALLS where none should be, so you aren't even given the option to put a wheel off the road :-( Cheers! John

Just check the new freeware version of GP2-Monaco without walls! I guess you would love it ... Wonderfull circuit ... Arto

Hi Greg, >Speaking of penalties. Has anyone gotten any? Yes For blowing starts? Yes Yes Over speed in the pits? No, the speed is controlled by the computer I agree, it spoils the "being there " atmosphere a bit Use the Enter key Cheers! Remco

>Correct me if I'm wrong, (I'm sure that will happen here!) but I wonder which >is actually more realistic. From what I've heard, an F1 car with an average >setup generates enough downforce at 200 mph to drive on the ceiling and not >fall off. So therefore, it would make sense to me that it would be almost >impossible to spin on the Spa backstraight at full speed. What do you think? By all accounts the corner "Blanchimont" is pretty terrifying even with F1 downforce. The cars drag right over onto the kerb on the exit and the run off is pretty limited for a car that will be doing over 170mph at that point. IMO this corner is too easy in F1RS (and also in GP2), but Eau Rouge is also too easy in F1RS. Cheers! John

I don't mind walls where there are supposed to be walls, and the walls are part of the challenge of Monaco. They are not part of the challenge at Portland however, but they're stuck around the first chicane anyway :-( I downloaded the new Monaco track but will need to re-install GP2 before I can try it! :) Cheers! John

>I have the feeling, that there *is* less traction after you have left >the track (not the driving line) for some time, but maybe Im wrong? Correct. Once you go off in the grass or gravel, it is quite some time before you regain all of your traction. So you have to be careful if you go off in one corner and another corner is nearby. Or you will go off again. You also can spin the car quite easily when your tires are dirty. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>> I cannot find out how to turn pitstops on/off :-) >Use the Enter key I know about using ENTER. But I thought there would be a menu selection. I figured the menus of F1RS was so horrid, that I couldn't find the pitstops. I thought if you hit BACKSPACE while driving you would get the pit window where you could tell your pitcrew what tires & fuel you wanted. Since I couldn't get this to work I thought I had pitstops disabled. Also, there is not much need for pitstops in a 25% race. But I knocked my front wing off in a race and had to pit to replace it. When I pitted, I then got the pit menu which I expected to get from hitting BACKSPACE while racing. I figured I wasted allot of time making the selections in the pit instead of while on the track. I thought someone said you could pause the race hit BACKSPACE and make your pit selections while on the track. Or are you supposed to pause and make the selections in the pits? I read the manual and this still seems vague. It is the one thing about the game that I am clueless on. So if anyone can help I would appreciate it. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

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> >>Another thing I really hate in a sim. I never liked the way Papyrus > >>put walls around the tracks, I disliked the way SODA and F1RS have > >>grass with velcro-like properties and I even disliked GP2's black > >>flag. Where's the fun in*** a wheel of the track only to be > >>grabbed and slowed down? It kills the atmosphere. So far TOCA and CPR > >>are the ones to do this right :-) > >And ICR2. :-) > Actually ICR2 is the worst - it had WALLS where none should be, so you > aren't even given the option to put a wheel off the road :-(

Yeah, I always spooged about driving the REAL chicanes at Surfer's Paradise... l8er ronny -- |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

I only bought F1RS two days ago, but I immediately realise that F1RS seems to be much more realistic than GP2. I'm only using a joystick, but will be buying a wheel tonight. However, already I see that there is much more to driving a Formula One car than Grand Prix 2 would suggest. It seems to be that in GP2 the car is very hard to "spin" when cornering, unless to put a wheel on the grass. In F1RS, even on easy, the car will "spin" pretty quickly if you haven't braked enough. I don't know which one is more realistic, as I've never driven a F1 car, but in my opinion, GP2 is too forgiving. F1RS seems to be much closer to what I think a F1 car would handle like. It also seems to require much more skill than GP2, which also seems to make me think that it's more realistic. Regards Andrew

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> >After reading the many comments in this thread, the thought has occurred > >to me that perhaps for some of us, particularly those with many hours on > >it, GP2 has taught us things that were not quite right. As a result, > >now we find it difficult to adapt to a sim which is more accurate in > >many ways because we're used to the way GP2 behaves. > This is exactly what I am thinking. From what I have read you seem > to think the driving model of F1RS is more realistic. I agree. I also > really think that many people are comparing F1RS to GP2 assuming > GP2 is the real deal. And this is where they are getting in trouble :-) > Also, as for seeing the tires in the***pit view? I much prefer this > and it is probably why I am hitting the corners better. I am hitting > La Source every time now, where before (GP2) I would go *WAY* > wider than Berger does :-) I also like the driving line to be displayed. > IMHO the real drivers see this after *** is laid on the track anyway. > I do think it would be cool to model less traction if you got off line, > ie the marbles :-) > -- > Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. > >Alison

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> >I was reading the F1RS FAQ on the UBIsoft web site. There were several > >parts that said something to the effect "if you cannot or do not want to get > >a 3dfx card and the game is still not performing properly, try to return > >it". > >That isn't an exact quote. But that is the spirit of the quote. Clearly if > >you > >don't have 3dfx for F1RS, you will be lacking. > That's a pretty sad excuse for not properly finishing the D3D version.

Another piece of evidence, that D3D is a pain in the ass... ;^) l8er ronny -- |\ _,,,---,,_ I want to die like my Grandfather, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ in his sleep. |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Not like the people in his car, '---''(_/--' `-'\_) screaming their heads off!

Hi Greg, Well, when I pit I use the BS key, then I press then Pause key, make my selections, hit the BS key, and finaly hit the Pause key. Works for me. You DO need pitstops when you turn the option relative wear on, even on a 25% race. Your problem about getting the pitmenu is not quite clear to me. In what situation you're not able to get the pitmenu? Cheers! Remco.

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>>> I cannot find out how to turn pitstops on/off :-) >>Use the Enter key >I know about using ENTER. But I thought there would be a menu >selection. I figured the menus of F1RS was so horrid, that I couldn't >find the pitstops. I thought if you hit BACKSPACE while driving you >would get the pit window where you could tell your pitcrew what tires >& fuel you wanted. Since I couldn't get this to work I thought I had >pitstops disabled. Also, there is not much need for pitstops in a >25% race. But I knocked my front wing off in a race and had to pit >to replace it. When I pitted, I then got the pit menu which I expected >to get from hitting BACKSPACE while racing. I figured I wasted allot >of time making the selections in the pit instead of while on the track. >I thought someone said you could pause the race hit BACKSPACE >and make your pit selections while on the track. Or are you supposed >to pause and make the selections in the pits? I read the manual and >this still seems vague. It is the one thing about the game that I am >clueless on. So if anyone can help I would appreciate it. >-- >Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>>If you get a chance take F1:Ce out for a spin. And try several >>different engine makes. Its the best I've seen at giving each car its >>own personality! >Is F1:Ce available for the PC (and preferably as a demo <g>)? 'Fraid not. Playstation only. Best appreciated with the Interact V3 wheel. Randy

>Well, when I pit I use the BS key, then I press then Pause key, make >my selections, hit the BS key, and finaly hit the Pause key. >Works for me. >You DO need pitstops when you turn the option relative wear on, >even on a 25% race. So this option will wear out tires & burn fuel quicker than normal? I have never used this but that is what I thought it did. So you can still do a 25% race and have your normal 2-3 pitstop strategy? Is that right? I was talking about accessing this menu while still on the track. But if hitting PAUSE when you pit is how it is done, then I'll do it. Thanks, -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

Errr, try GPII again, but this time turn off the 'steering help' and 'opposite lock' options in the configuration screens and *then* come back and tell me that GPII is hard to spin! F1RS reminds me of my first experience of ICR, there's a lot more 'play' in the car and you can almost feel the momentum in a turn. In this respect its more forgiving than GPII. -- Suck The Goat

It's just a thought Randy, but it seems to me that the 'sag switch' which you mention and the point at which the wheels start to spin occur at different times. Perhaps the sag switch is actually the game modelling the engine load. It doesn't matter what rpm your running, back off a little and the revs drop off significantly as the engine load becomes zero. Power on gently and as you reach the point where the engine has to start doing some work, the revs increase significantly. I agree though that it sounds a little wierd. <snip> <snip> Mike Armstrong remove nospam to email

I've never driven f1rs, but i promise, if you don't have the setup right, you can spin the car very easily is gp2. Remember, it all depends on setup. Try puting a lot of front wing in , take all your rear wing off, stiffen everything you can on the rear, loosen everything you can on the front suspension, race at monaco or hungary, then tell me you can't spin the car. If you work with setups a lot more, you will find that a loose setup is much faster, it is also harder to drive. Any good race driver will tell you that a fast car is one that is hard to control.

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> I only bought F1RS two days ago, but I immediately realise that F1RS > seems to be much more realistic than GP2. > I'm only using a joystick, but will be buying a wheel tonight. However, > already I see that there is much more to driving a Formula One car than > Grand Prix 2 would suggest. It seems to be that in GP2 the car is very > hard to "spin" when cornering, unless to put a wheel on the grass. > In F1RS, even on easy, the car will "spin" pretty quickly if you haven't > braked enough. > I don't know which one is more realistic, as I've never driven a F1 car, > but in my opinion, GP2 is too forgiving. F1RS seems to be much closer > to what I think a F1 car would handle like. It also seems to require > much more skill than GP2, which also seems to make me think that it's > more realistic. > Regards > Andrew > > >After reading the many comments in this thread, the thought has

occurred > > >to me that perhaps for some of us, particularly those with many hours on

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> > >it, GP2 has taught us things that were not quite right. As a result, > > >now we find it difficult to adapt to a sim which is more accurate in > > >many ways because we're used to the way GP2 behaves. > > This is exactly what I am thinking. From what I have read you seem > > to think the driving model of F1RS is more realistic. I agree. I also > > really think that many people are comparing F1RS to GP2 assuming > > GP2 is the real deal. And this is where they are getting in trouble :-) > > Also, as for seeing the tires in the***pit view? I much prefer this > > and it is probably why I am hitting the corners better. I am hitting > > La Source every time now, where before (GP2) I would go *WAY* > > wider than Berger does :-) I also like the driving line to be

displayed. > > IMHO the real drivers see this after *** is laid on the track anyway.

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> > I do think it would be cool to model less traction if you got off line, > > ie the marbles :-) > > -- > > Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. > > >Alison

(SNIP) nVidia OpenGL drivers, currently in Alpha 2 release. (They are available at The RIVA USERS GROUP [link lost in import] Randy, that's bizarre because we have the same PC and I was able to make work those Alpha2 driver. The Alpha1 didn't work. And the Quake2 OpenGL of my brother was very amazing. Well, No 2 PC are the same... I am starting to understand that, but *** companies are not IMHO. I don't know if you have NVTweak, but go get it. It's a fantastic utility that made me correct the Cart:PR glitches and all those F1RS bugs (except the black contours around textures). It's a must. * Fran?ois Mnard * With great respect, * May the downforce be with you, * Good race at the Brickyard, (-o-) * <ymenard> on NROS, sponsored by * [link lost in import] * SimRacing director, AWPSS * Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. * Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) * Excuse me for my provocative posts and reply's <g> begin 666 ymenard.vcf M0D5'24XZ5D-!4D0-"DXZ3>EN87)D.T9R86[G;VES.TXN#0I&3CIY;65N87)D M3#M#14Q,.U9/24-%.DXO00T*5$5,.TA/344[1D%8.DXO00T*0412.TA/344Z M.SLQ,30V.2!/=FED92U#;&5R;6]N=#M-;VYT<F5A;"U.;W)D.U%U96)E8SM( M3E1!0DQ%.C$Q-#8Y($]V:61E+4-L97)M;VYT/3!$/3!!36]N=')E86PM3F]R M+F%W<'-S+F-O;2\-"E523#IH='1P.B\O=W=W+F%W<'-S+F-O;2\-"D5-04E, M.U!2148[24Y415).150Z>6UE;F%R9$!A=W!S<RYC;VT-"D5.1#I60T%21 T* ` end

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> >> > Hi all, > >> >I know I will probably feel the flames for this but I just sold my F1rs > >> >tonight for these very same reasons,1.) This zero to hero rpm is so > >> No flames, just amazement. > >> -- > > Yeah, I guess this means he's gone off race sims altogether! > No not at all. Just off his rocker :-)

After further experience, the above is true.

> Yes the Camber adjustment does seem to be acting wierdly. Now here is > a wierd thought.....we are all having intitial understeer if Im > interpeting the reports here accurately. The sim is reporting that the > camber is set incorrectly...ummmm. I know that would really be > incredible but it IS interesting. Good point. It will be interesting to see the changed performance if/when they get this fixed.

Poor Widdle Byron forgot to mention his further experiences are limited to the responses he has gotten to his holier than thou attitudes on the CPR message board. < sigh> give it up go play have some fun.

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> >> >problem. Its like there's a certain spot > >> >> in the accelerator travel where a touch back and the engine note drops > >> >> like I've just jumped out of the gas, then perhaps 1/4 of an inch and > >> >> its okay, and then another 1/4 of an inch (WELL short of fully down) > >> >> the pitch zooms up and the rev lights slam . I feel like I'm playing > >> >> with a three way switch instead of an analog pedal. There's lifting, > >> >> neutral-to-mildly accelerating, and slamming it, all in less than an > >> >> inch of pedal travel. > >> Does this only happen in low gears and are the RPMs shooting up because of > >> tire spin. Check your rear view mirror and see if there is tire smoke. > >> I've also noticed that the tires seem to spin more easily for a while after > >> you go on the grass or gravel. > >> -- > >> Kevin > >> (Remove the "x-" prefix from my address in order to reply via email) > > What they are talking about here is trivial > in your opinion.

I said this because, although a bug, it is easily overcome by simply lifting off the throttle.

> I said this because, although a bug, it is easily overcome by simply >lifting off the throttle. Not really. If you lift off slightly and the revs plummet you could be losing more speed than you want, particuilarly if you're just trying to balance the throttle. Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

>Randy, that's bizarre because we have the same PC and I was able to make >work those Alpha2 driver. Did they just work or did you have to do anything special. (Its kind of academic now that the 1.32 STB drivers are out) I have NVTweak. Are you saying you can use the rear view mirrors in F1RS/D3D? Randy Randy Magruder Contributing Reviewer Digital Sportspage http://www.digitalsports.com

> > I said this because, although a bug, it is easily overcome by simply > >lifting off the throttle. > Not really. If you lift off slightly and the revs plummet you could > be losing more speed than you want, particuilarly if you're just > trying to balance the throttle. Actually, I think we're talking about different things. I was talking about how when the car spins (normally on grass I think) that the car spins about it's axis like a spinning top until you fully release the throttle.