GPL just too Hard for its own good?

I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just too damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could have at least included some difficulty settings such as arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not a ***driver, currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for laps and laps. Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but just can do consistant laps without spinning out. My hardware isn't a limitation, currently running : P2-300 64Mb Phoenix Banshee 17" Monitor Microsoft Force feedback wheel Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper. Anyhoo, I appreciate that GPL is supposed to be the MOST realistic sim ever, but I think they've gone just slightly over the top. Andy

>I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just too >damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could have at least included some >difficulty settings such as arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not a

Quoted text (12 lines)

>***driver, currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no >driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for laps and laps. >Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but just can do consistant laps >without spinning out. My hardware isn't a limitation, currently running : >P2-300 >64Mb >Phoenix Banshee >17" Monitor >Microsoft Force feedback wheel >Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper.

You don't get 40 fps in GPL as 36 is the limit. KSB

Quoted text (13 lines)

>I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this >games is just too damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could >have at least included some difficulty settings such as >arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not a ***driver, >currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no >driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for >laps and laps. Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but >just can do consistant laps without spinning out. My hardware >isn't a limitation, currently running : >(snipped hardware description) >Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper.

1) You can choose one of the trainer cars if you think it's too hard, but if you plan on driving online, you won't be competitive unless you find a server that only allows the trainer that you are driving. 2) While I've never driven "Viper", I have driven N1, N2, ICR2, and Monster Truck madness, and I can pretty much assume the next statement I make is going to be true regarding "Viper" - Ability in one sim does not guarantee or even imply ability in another sim. 3) If you truly enjoy GPL (as you claim to do), then my advice is to sit down and seriously concentrate on developing better setups and learning the tracks. If you don't know the track layout, you're not going to perform well. Before last week, I'd all but written off geting into the 8's at Nurburgring, but with a little practice, and simply learning about half a dozen landmarks, I've improved my time from 10:15 to 8:42. Not bad for a fender-bangin', paint-tradin' redneck. 4) The sim's max FPS at any given moement is 36. -- ========================================================= John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12) http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html IGPS Director [link lost in import] If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame. =========================================================

This is a tough one. However, I'm glad the game is as difficult as it is. I never did thoroughly enjoy the other racing games because the challenge was never there. I mean, you KNEW that at somepoint, you'd win and whup all the other AI cars to death. Now with this game, you have a REAL CHALLENGE. And I must say I like the fact that I KNOW I'm not going to win unless give it 110% plus!! But Sierra knew when they designed this game that is was NOT going to be a massive seller like their NASCAR games. They knew it would sell in a sort of a cult niche for people like and a few others who really appreciate racing at it's utmost. Whew....All that said, in a nutshell I don't thing GPL is too hard for it's own good....on the contrary I think it's perfect! NanaKofi

As they say, "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it." Hang in there.

dude i run 1:29's 1:30's .....running at only 18 to 22 fps on the monza track... so it really comes down to some practice, many hours at the tracks , but most importantly your car setup's..just keep on practicing ...Rome wasn't built in 1 day....

Quoted text (21 lines)

> >I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just > too > >damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could have at least included some > >difficulty settings such as arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not > a > >***driver, currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no > >driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for laps and laps. > >Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but just can do consistant laps > >without spinning out. My hardware isn't a limitation, currently running : > >P2-300 > >64Mb > >Phoenix Banshee > >17" Monitor > >Microsoft Force feedback wheel > >Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper. > You don't get 40 fps in GPL as 36 is the limit. > KSB

> I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just too > damn hard. <snip> I sympathize with your frustrations with GPL, but if you want to 'really' get the best out of the 'best' sim on the market at the moment, you have to persevere! The 'art' of GPL is learning the tracks, being in the correct gear (good set-up) and probably most important of all..... learning throttle control, you must learn to steer the cars with a combination of front wheel steerage and rear wheel throttle control! It ain't easy, takes lots of practice, but the rewards once mastered are breath taking....... Papy...... thank you! Best of luck..... Dave Hawnt UK (Lotus 49)

Hi Andy, When I first drove GPL, I was in the grass a lot too. Try this (in training mode so no computer cars will interfer with you): 1. Drive the Trainer (not advanced-trainer, just the small one) using the Coventry at Watkins Glen. (You can even grab Alison Hine's Conventry setups at [link lost in import] Cool Stuff link) 2. Drive until you can stay on the track -- consistantly. The trick here is to know you have to slow for the corners, and you just want more speed in the straights. 3. Move to the Advanced Trainer to get more speed on the straights. 4. Move to the Grand Prix Conventry car and practice some more. Once you have moved through these 4 steps, you should have the skills to "feel" how the Coventry reacts and therefore will be able to drive it consistantly without crashing all the time. I moved to the Ferrari after these steps and just recently (after 3 months) moved to the Murasama. Jason.

Quoted text (20 lines)

> I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just too > damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could have at least included some > difficulty settings such as arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not a > ***driver, currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no > driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for laps and laps. > Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but just can do consistant laps > without spinning out. My hardware isn't a limitation, currently running : > P2-300 > 64Mb > Phoenix Banshee > 17" Monitor > Microsoft Force feedback wheel > Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper. > Anyhoo, I appreciate that GPL is supposed to be the MOST realistic sim ever, > but I think they've gone just slightly over the top. > Andy

-- Jason Monds theCLAPPER in Kali "My other car is a Ferrari" (Remove 'no spork' when replying)

The hardness stems from the fact that you cant feel the car's extremly realistic physics model and only have your visual and audio senses to race it around the track.This hardness bothered me immensly and had me wondering if papyrus should of made a sim as advanced as GPL while lacking the feedback that a real car would give.After awhile of thinking about it though I came to a very rewarding(IMO)way of looking at the hardness of GPL.Plain and simply...there are only a select few people who can race this sim at the hotlap record speeds.In this way GPL becomes very realistic in that some people suck,some are mid -runners and some are GPlegends:)))Not every one can become a Jeff Gordan or even race a car well for that matter.Imagine that when your playing GPL ,you truly are trying to become a "professional *virtual* race car driver" as thats what you will have to become.But when you start to get a real feel for this sim youll fall in love.Some tips that have made it easier for me to improve are Remember that the cars are rear engined and need to take corners on the power so that the rear doesnt come around on you. Get top quality equipment.I built my own wheel and installed very very heavy springs so that its extremely hard to go full lock.I then short calibrate it 90 degrees each way and the wheel feels so real to me.The maker of the physics model in GPL states"to master GPL you need to master the loosening of the wheel".With a *hard* return to center wheel,I find it easy to power out of turns while I loosen up the wheel lock.Your brake pedal should only move about an inch and be very hard when fully depressed because you rarely want to lock your brakes up,especially if you want to become a professional 67"F1 driver. Very importantly you need to find a comfort braking zone for each and every corner as in real race cars.I brake at this spot for most corners when in a race BUT if I need to pass someone or am qualifying I go that extra second before I apply the brakes and drive that Ragged edge:))))In the begining,I would brake at each and every corner at the last possible moment that let me survive the turn at a previous session.If real race car drivers did this(actually the greats of this sport are actually able to ride this close to the limits lap after lap)there would be many more accidents,so find that comfort zone and relax and race safe. And lastly,learn from your mistakes because getting mad and frustrated will not let your brain learn from the experience.If you spin,fiqure out why.If you cant grip the road and slide off,figure out the maximum speed to take the turn and then find your comfort zone.If you attempt an out braking manuever only to slide into the car in front of the one your passing,leanr from it:))) Have fun Skeeter On Sat, 26 Dec 1998 10:12:15 -0000, "Andy Thilo"

Quoted text (20 lines)

>I've come to the conclusion from days of playing that this games is just too >damn hard. It seems that Papyrus could have at least included some >difficulty settings such as arcade mode to start drivers off with. I'm not a >***driver, currently running 0.58's in the Viper racing demo with no >driver aids and in sim mode. I can do that consistantly for laps and laps. >Don't get me wrong I love playing GPL, but just can do consistant laps >without spinning out. My hardware isn't a limitation, currently running : >P2-300 >64Mb >Phoenix Banshee >17" Monitor >Microsoft Force feedback wheel >Getting a pretty constant 40fps in GPL, and 55fps in Viper. >Anyhoo, I appreciate that GPL is supposed to be the MOST realistic sim ever, >but I think they've gone just slightly over the top. >Andy

I have an almost identical system, except I have a K6-2 350 and a 15" monitor. A few days isn't enough time to get consistent with GPL. It take a couple of weeks, but hot damn, it's worth it. If you find yourself crashing a lot, just go slower than you would normally want to, it's impossible to learn tracks if you're driving on the grass. Plus turn off the FF on your wheel if you haven't already, as you can make quicker responses than when it's stiff, GPL doesn't support FF anyway. Ian

Well, in my experience, the most difficult part of GPL when I was learning it were braking and accelerating out of corners. During braking, I kept locking up or spinning, so I adjusted my brake ratio (I ALWAYS use 56-57% on Lotus (I don't drive any other car :o)) ) and learned how to brake. There are 2 techniques of braking in GPL, one being ABS-simulations, where you brake and if you feel your wheels are about to lock up, you start pumping that pedal :o) The other one is one of the hardest things to master in GPL (besides mastering powering out of corners on high clutches :o)) - it's called trail braking - used & invented (I think) by Mr. Clark personally. With this technique when doing it right, you brake very late and whilst braking you start pointing the car into the apex. This makes the rear light and causes a light oversteer which you can correct with applying some throttle while braking (sounds hard ? hehe, it IS ! ) to transfer some weight to the rear and regain the grip - prevent the spin. With this technique you usually have to set brake ratio more to front. This is also why (besides the starts) it's good to have peddals on separate axis (so you can brake and apply throttle stuff) :o) Another thing are RAMP ANGLES. If you're driving Lotus and still learning GPL, I'd suggest you either get some other car to get to know the track better or use 85/30 ramp angles and only 1 clutch (u can move up with clutches when you have mastered this setting, but I doubt you'll get higher then 4 clutches, 3 already being hard to contron on power). If you still can't control the car under power then you have an option to increase rear TOE-IN. And if that still doesn't cut it, then decrease front tyres PSI. Another option is to increase front Anti Roll Bars (ARB) and decrease rear ARB. But by this time you should have a mother of all understeering cars :o)) and if you still find it difficult then I'd suggest you start looking at BRM or something like Advance trainer. If you still find Advanced trainer and Trainer to hard to control, apply upper tips to their setups. If that still doesn't help, your only option left is in Win9x > Sierra > Grand Prix Legends > Uninstall ;o)) Regards, Tadej Krevh

: Well, : in my experience, the most difficult part of GPL when I was learning it were : braking and accelerating out of corners. During braking, I kept locking up or : spinning, so I adjusted my brake ratio (I ALWAYS use 56-57% on Lotus (I don't : drive any other car :o)) ) and learned how to brake. : There are 2 techniques of braking in GPL, one being ABS-simulations, where you : brake and if you feel your wheels are about to lock up, you start pumping that : pedal :o) : The other one is one of the hardest things to master in GPL (besides mastering : powering out of corners on high clutches :o)) - it's called trail braking - : used & invented (I think) by Mr. Clark A couple of comments on this: The preferred method of braking a car like this is called "threshold" braking. You want to make the brakes work at 100%. If your tires lockup, you are no longer using the stopping power of the brakes. What you want to do is be right at the edge of adhesion. GPL simulates this accurately. What I don't agree with in the above comment is that you should lock and unlock the brakes to stop. This is incorrect. What you want to do is gradually release pedal pressure until the tires start turning again. This will drastically increase your stopping power and decrease stopping distance. A sliding tire produces much much less grip than a fully loaded brake. If you can, go back to your F1 tapes from this year. Schumacher was doing this all the time this year. Watch the Suzuka race especially. Another side effect of locking-unlocking the brakes is that is can quickly lead to a state of imbalance under heavy G-load -- always a bad thing. Jim Clark didn't invent trail-braking but he used it quite often. It is pretty advanced to go into here though. Check out one of the Skip Barber tapes on it. There is one from Lime Rock where they talk extensively about trail-braking going into T1-T2 and its benefits. It is pretty good. I forget the name of the video though. "Driving -" somthing. -J.

Quoted text (9 lines)

> : Well, > Jim Clark didn't invent trail-braking but he used it quite often. It is > pretty advanced to go into here though. Check out one of the Skip Barber > tapes on it. There is one from Lime Rock where they talk extensively > about trail-braking going into T1-T2 and its benefits. It is pretty good. > I forget the name of the video though. "Driving -" somthing. > -J.

... Miss Daisy? ;-D (I couldn't resist) -- -------- Jason Monds "My other car is a Ferrari" (Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

Tadej merits some attention to what he says. For those that don't know, he's turned a 1:04.07 at Watkins Glen! Wow!

OK. You got me. Keep stomping those brakes, Tadej! 1:07.5 is my best! Your 1:04 is blistering! J. >Tadej merits some attention to what he says. For those that don't know, he's >turned a 1:04.07 at Watkins Glen! >Wow!

1:06:11 in the Cooper\Glen for me with Alison's setup:)))I love this car and only wish it had a little more balls. On Mon, 28 Dec 1998 22:14:13 -0500, "c0ldfusi0n"

Quoted text (12 lines)

>OK. You got me. Keep stomping those brakes, Tadej! 1:07.5 is my best! >Your 1:04 is blistering! >J. >>Tadej merits some attention to what he says. For those that don't know, >he's >>turned a 1:04.07 at Watkins Glen! >>Wow!

slightly off topic - I was in a race a few nights ago where someone (don't remember who) did a 1:04 in a coventry at the Glen !!!! -Lindsay

>OK. You got me. Keep stomping those brakes, Tadej! 1:07.5 is my best! >Your 1:04 is blistering! I can turn in a 1.04 at Watkins Glen in a Ferrari. I would recommend stomping the brakes on a qualifier but if you want to look after your tyres the smoother cadence method keeps your temps down. Jon.

Jon... I think a lot of people would love to see a replay of and setup for a Ferrari at 1:04 at The Glen! Why don't you post your success on some of the many hot lap pages on the Web?

Quoted text (8 lines)

>>OK. You got me. Keep stomping those brakes, Tadej! 1:07.5 is my best! >>Your 1:04 is blistering! >I can turn in a 1.04 at Watkins Glen in a Ferrari. I would recommend >stomping the brakes on a qualifier but if you want to look after your tyres >the smoother cadence method keeps your temps down. >Jon.

Do you really have to preserve your tyres in GPL? I thought in those days the *** would last for approx. 3 races? -- DB

Even a Michlen street tire will get greasy when its oveheated. > >I can turn in a 1.04 at Watkins Glen in a Ferrari. I would recommend > >stomping the brakes on a qualifier but if you want to look after your tyres

Quoted text (7 lines)

> >the smoother cadence method keeps your temps down. > Do you really have to preserve your tyres in GPL? I thought in those > days the *** would last for approx. 3 races? > -- > DB

% > % >I can turn in a 1.04 at Watkins Glen in a Ferrari. I would recommend % >stomping the brakes on a qualifier but if you want to look after your tyres % >the smoother cadence method keeps your temps down. % Do you really have to preserve your tyres in GPL? I thought in those % days the *** would last for approx. 3 races? GPL doesn't really seem to model tire wear. However, it does model tire temps very well, so one does need to conserver tires at least when it comes to overheating. -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=