Ultimate GPL setup to your driving style?

After adapting other people's setups and also creating my own, I found that at the end of the day I haven't got a setup that will allow me to lap 2 secs faster on any of my favorite circuits (Monza,Spa,Zandvoort,Silverstone,Rouen) in that order. I have read quite a lot of stuff on the net about setups and everything else I could get my hands on, but it all tended to become very complicated at the end, and sometimes the whole thing can become amazingly confusing. Is there a simple way -for vehicle dynamics illiterate people like myself, to explain the gains or related advantages in a setup in order to achieve the best possible setup for a driver's own style? Or have I got no choice other than to become a bit of expert on the subject as well? I have seem some great drivers on the net, most of them faster than the GPL AI (J.Clark in particular)cars I usually race against. How do you do it guys? Best hot lap in Monza: 1:29x... Racing never under 1:30, and the car feels great. Thanks.

One thing I've seen (or haven't seen) is the fact that.. In order to get faster laps, You must be able to feel what the car is doing when you try to make the car do something. The best way to achieve this is to have ALL the eye and ear candy on and have a minimum of 36fps at the highest resolution. If at any point of the track the fps drops down to 35fps your going to be missing something vital in what's happening. And then, with every frame/second less is a lot more that your going to be missing. Although the human eye can only see so many fps, I wish GPL would allow for 80fps. even at 36fps the screen still feels choppy. Or at least not *absolute* fluid. Give it another 5 years for computer development and this version of GPL will be close to that *absolute* mark. Unfortunately, by then then, this version of GPL will be very old and the newest we'll have to wait another 5 years. :-( Wish #2 would be to have it punishable by death to produce a sim that can't be run at it's full potential with the average computer of the time. ;-) Mike Barlow BTW>: I have the same problem you do..

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> After adapting other people's setups and also creating my own, I found > that at the end of the day I haven't got a setup that will allow me to > lap 2 secs faster on any of my favorite circuits > (Monza,Spa,Zandvoort,Silverstone,Rouen) in that order. > I have read quite a lot of stuff on the net about setups and > everything else I could get my hands on, but it all tended to become > very complicated at the end, and sometimes the whole thing can become > amazingly confusing. > Is there a simple way -for vehicle dynamics illiterate people like > myself, to explain the gains or related advantages in a setup in order > to achieve the best possible setup for a driver's own style? > Or have I got no choice other than to become a bit of expert on the > subject as well? > I have seem some great drivers on the net, most of them faster than > the GPL AI (J.Clark in particular)cars I usually race against. How do > you do it guys? > Best hot lap in Monza: 1:29x... > Racing never under 1:30, and the car feels great. > Thanks.

-- ========================================= Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing? MikeBa on the TEN network. Member of R.O.R. 1999 http://w3.ime.net/~marknjess/noflame.html ========================================= Racing online with the help of...... Race Communications Association http://members.xoom.com/RCA/toc.html Holodyne Engineering Mystic Music mikeba.vcf < 1K Download

Mike, Have you had your glasses checked lately ???? <VBG> I get 35 - 37 fps with everything on and 8 sounds. At the start of the race with 19AI my fps drops to 26 - 30. I do not see any "choppy" framerate at anything above 32 fps IMHO. I dont really seem to notice anything different at anything above 35 fps. Celeron 400 (Running at 450) 64mb of SDRAM Diamond Stealth II S220 BTW - It looks as if I am going to be attending Watkins Glen again this year with Tim Lansberry (knight82). If you are interested in getting together again I will make sure I dont have to leave in such a short time as I had to last year. =) Scott PA-Scott -- Scott B. Husted ICQ# 4395450

Thinking that very same thing this morning! You would think, alot of people won't buy the game unless they can play it and enjoy it. Meaning, there are probably a lot of people out there that would just love to beable to play GPL. But, because the can't or haven't yet upgraded there system, the won't buy GPL. Let me just say, that this seems to be the case more and more. New game / New computer. Not comments not just limited to Papyrus/Sierra. Have you ever wondered if the release dates on some games get pushed back, not because of problems with the game itself. But, the idea was so good, that the computers the end users had, where not up to speed yet. Here think of it this way. For a moderate price, what speed of computers where available to the general public when GPL was supposed to be released the first time. What speed of computer was available when GPL was first announced as an release in the future. IMHO Thad

On Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:01:39 GMT, "Scott B. Husted"

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>Mike, >Have you had your glasses checked lately ???? <VBG> >I get 35 - 37 fps with everything on and 8 sounds. At the start of the race >with 19AI my fps drops to 26 - 30. I do not see any "choppy" framerate at >anything above 32 fps IMHO. I dont really seem to notice anything different >at anything above 35 fps.

Hmm, having done so many video stuff over the last 10 years I know running an app at exactly the refresh rate of the video display is the smoothest you can get. So for a lot of cards, this would be 60 or 70Hz. Being just 2x the actual rendering speed, it will seem 4x as smooth. Seeing is believing. Ruud van Gaal MarketGraph / MachTech: http://www.marketgraph.nl Art: http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery

Yes, $ spent for PC hardware to achieve high frame rates with max candy on gives you more speed. That said, I hope that people with lesser PCs aren't so discouraged by postings like this that they never try GPL for themselves. My PC is running a 200MMX overclocked to 225MHz. I run at the lowest supported graphical resolution (500-something x 300-something) using a Sierra Screamin 3D Rendition-based 4Mb graphics card and 64Mb RAM. I have played against the computer AI only, but I race against 11 opponents at a frame rate in the low 20s fps range. Setups, and what the mechanical knowledge it takes to create them, just plain are important! But you don't have to be a rocket scientist. So many people offer theirs free for the taking over the WWW that anyone should be able to find a suitable setup or three to improve his/her lap times. If not, keep developing your own. With my out-of-date PC hardware and moderate driving ability, my race times around Monza are in the 1:31 range on a decent day. Good enough to compete with the back half of the field. I enjoy GPL tremendously without feeling like I've got to be best in the world. Richard Worden SCCA/Detroit "KVICK" Saab 900