Hi everyone,
I wrote this in response to a posting over on the NROS newsgroup, but
thought people here might be interested as well.
Cheers!
John
PS - When I mention "everyone should see the AVI of the run down to
Eau Rouge from La Source", I don't mean to imply that one is already
available and may or may not be released. Simply I mean that if Papy
have time to make another AVI then that could be one that would really
interest people. Things are pretty busy over at Papy these days, so it
may not be possible!
-----------------------
A dangerous comment - if you start me off on GPL I'll be here a week
from now waxing all poetic about flowing drifts, flexing suspensions,
birds, trees, flowers etc! Seriously though, GPL itself is stunning
and my thoughts on what that engine can do for NASCAR3 and the new
CART sim are positively x-certificate - they should be incredible.
Delicacy of control is the primary difference as far as driving is
concerned, and this is where most people's problems will come in!. GPL
brings a whole new style of driving to sim-racing, mainly because of
the era being depicted (which utilised the power drift as the fastest
means of cornering), but also because Papyrus now has an engine which
can accomodate this. Basically, the throttle totally rules the GPL
world. You accelerate, drift, steer, start, spin-turn, everything with
the throttle, and with 400hp under your foot being fed through a
couple of skinny rock-hard pieces of 1960s ***, that requires a
real deftness of touch. You're approaching the famed "Blanchimont"
corner at Spa - do you take it in "classic" modern fashion, braking
and then turning in? No, you bleed off a little speed on the brakes,
pop the car into a drift by turning in and backing off the throttle
enough to break the rear wheels loose, and then controlling the slide
through the turn with delicate balance of throttle and steering. It
takes practice to know just how much to back off, just how much to
counter-steer, and even then you are constantly balancing the car on
the thottle all the way through the turn. This really puts the sim
into the hands of the drivers - it takes a some practice to learn and
a lot of practice to be good at, but the feeling of a really committed
lap when everything comes together is beyond anything I've experienced
in a sim. You really feel like you've achieved something. The same is
true of braking, with a real finesse required on the brake pedal.
Missing a braking point is incredible, frantically jumping on and off
the brakes to get the car slowed down, then pitching it into the
corner faster than you should and trying to hold it all together on
steering and throttle.
The one drawback I've found in GPL is that it does underline just how
much has NOT been modelled in sims up until now, and has a slight
tendency to make other sims feel boring to drive. I could quote
incredible facts to you about the level of detail the GPL engine goes
into and exactly how much is modelled in there, but apart from getting
me shot for violating the NDA(!), these things are far better
explained by the Papyrus people - I would recommend everyone to keep
an eye on the GPL forum ([link lost in import] where Mike Lescault
often responds to questions and gives information.
I believe Papyrus plan to release some more AVIs of GPL prior to
release, and one that I think everyone should see is the run down from
La Source toward Eau Rouge, then up and through Radillon. The view
in-cockpit speaks volumes about the sim. The car squats under
acceleration out of La Source, and rounding the kink toward the old
S/F line it goes light over a bump in the track - you can hear the
tires begin to slide and a slight counter-steer gets things on track.
Down across the bridge and onto the brakes, trying to be smooth and
not unsettle the car for the transition to powerslide. Pitching into
the corner, the suspension moves from fully compressed at the bottom
of the dip to fully light as the car crests the rise of Eau Rouge. It
is here that your line has to be right since if the back of the car is
hung out too far you'll be into the banking. Flick the car the other
way now through Radillon, and gently feed the power back in to come
out of the corner as fast as possible for the run up the hill toward
Les Combes (or what is now Les Combes). The suspension movement and
steering inputs seen from the***pit view really show what GPL is all
about, and it is there that the driver's arms are useful - watching
exactly what I was doing through that turn with all the small flicks
or panicky grabs of the wheel when things go wrong :-)
So this is a NASCAR3 group and I'm getting all dewy-eyed about 1960s
F1(!), but all the way through testing I've been thinking how this
driving will affect the future sims in the NASCAR and CART series.
You'll need to be careful of locking the brakes at circuits like
Marty, or even stopping to avoid a pile up on a speedway. One of the
key aspects to NASCAR is speed exiting the turns, and with the new
wheelspin model employed in the GPL engine this is going to require
greater delicacy, especially to drive particular setups. Once more
playing toward the drivers. Air flow is better modelled, with GPL's
tyre smoke even being calculated based upon the airflow across the
tyre at that time! What that can do for drafting?! You can also see
the smoke of lock-ups or wheelspin much better, which will give you an
idea if the guy in front of you is overdriving or burning up his tyres
as you pressure him, which improves the strategy aspect.
All in all the new engine is exceptionally impressive, and that's from
someone exceptionally difficult to please. If anyone has any
questions, post them to either the N3 forum or the GPL forum and
hopefully one of the Papy guys will be able to answer you.
Cheers!
John
