Grand Prix Legends Rediscovered - unititiated gamer finally "gets it"

After owning Grand Prix Legends for 9 months, I had a series of events that lead to my finally discovering this game. I was so inspired by this event that I wrote a feature about it for our website, Digital Sportspage. The path was a bit serendipitous, but I'm totally hooked on it now. I'm still a novice when it comes to a true racing simulation like GPL, and that will probably be borne out in my description of the driving techniques that I've learned thus far, but a little time in this newsgroup and some reading in the GPL Drivers Manual and I should be able to swap jargon with the best of them ;-) You can read the feature at: [link lost in import] John Cauthen Managing Editor Digital Sportspage (http://www.digitalsports.com

I think several people eventually experiences this guy describes. GPL requires scary hardware. When the game was launched, such hardware wasn't to be found in ordinary people's homes. I have a PII350, 192 Mb RAM, SBlive, 2 Voodoo2's and a GeForce. Still I'm not satisfied. I *will* be able to reach 36 FPS in in-car view everywhere on every track with 19 opponent's some day. I'm probably going to buy a PIII600 soon, just to improve GPL performance. Hopefully, my driving skills improves, too :-) This is a truly fascinating game. When a first tried it a year ago, I did less than a lap at Kyalami, then I gave up. Too damned difficult. In december 1999 I had bought a MSFF steering wheel. I installed the 1.2 patch, and.... WOW!!! Since then, there has been GPL, GPL, GPL, GPL, work and serious lack of sleep. I've been told that GPL has been a financial disaster for Papyrus. Well, they should re-launch the game at 3/4 of the initial price, but before doing so making a difficulty slider like in DTR (for the less experienced simracers or racers that cannot afford top notch hardware). Bundle it with a Force Feedback wheel and get some money from the manufacturer of the wheel. What could be better for a steering wheel manufacturer's sales than to be able to market their product as the steering wheel preferred by Papyrus for playing GPL, *the* racing sim of all times? BTW. Remember to read John Cauthen's article at http://www.digitalsports.com/dsports/editorials/icr15.html Jon

Hello, John. Knowing what you know about feedback, you'll still be amazed at the difference force-feedback makes, if you haven't tried this already. Junk the RS wheel, and give the MSFF wheel a try. Michael.

>Hello, John. Knowing what you know about feedback, you'll still be amazed at >the difference force-feedback makes, if you haven't tried this already. Junk >the RS wheel, and give the MSFF wheel a try. Thanks for the suggestion Michael. You know what... I'm almost afraid to give it a try because I know what my reaction will be. Right now, I just can't afford to buy another wheel so I think I'm going to hold off buying one until I have the necessary funding ;-) The RS pedals are a bit of a limiting factor. They're rather sticky and that can be death in GPL. I have no hope of ever handling the cars without throttle and braking assists enabled with these pedals. The whole force feedback issue is one that I'm rather green on, wheel or stick. I've got a lot of research to do on this subject. John Cauthen Managing Editor Digital Sportspage (http://www.digitalsports.com)

>I think several people eventually experiences this guy describes. GPL >requires scary hardware. When the game was launched, such hardware wasn't to >be found in ordinary people's homes. Jon, I know that in my case this was the first intimidation factor. I just wasn't getting enough feedback in a timely enough fashion. Being a novice at a true auto racing simulation, I didn't have enough experience to cope with this lack of feedback. Many of you, knowing more about the true handling characteristics of these types of cars in this type of environment, probably knew enough to fill in the gaps and make the compensations necessary for the lack of timeliness in the feedback. That would be a dream, wouldn't it? I can promise you that they will! Believe me Jon, I can relate! Here's testimony #2 I've heard for the MS Force Feedback! How are the pedals with the MSFF... smooth enough? Our racing expert at Digital Sportspage (Randy Magruder) and I had this discussion. Randy wonders why Papyrus choose a niche racer to introduce such a complex simulation engine. Wouldn't have gone over better on NASCAR or perhaps even a modern Indy Car racer? Maybe the average racer would be turned off by the skill demands of this racer and Papyrus didn't want to risk it on one of their proven market successes. That would help... I don't pretend to think that we'll ever see GPL become a broad base product, but I don't see why it couldn't have an extended run in the bargain bin at say $19.95. It's just too good a product to be so overlooked. John Cauthen Managing Editor Digital Sportspage (http://www.digitalsports.com)

>Our racing expert at Digital Sportspage (Randy Magruder) and I had this >discussion. Randy wonders why Papyrus choose a niche racer to introduce >such a complex simulation engine. Wouldn't have gone over better on NASCAR >or perhaps even a modern Indy Car racer? Maybe the average racer would be >turned off by the skill demands of this racer and Papyrus didn't want to >risk it on one of their proven market successes. Alternative possibility: If you were going to do a truly, obsessively, purist simulation (as GPl is for its chosen genre/period) of just about any modern series you'd have to get _heavily_ into modelling the aerodynamic effects (right down to the effect of pitch changes and ground clearance, and what happens when cars run close together) involved, and I suspect that both the complexity of the algorithms and the amount of CPU grunt required would increase by an order of magnitude. What I _have_ often wondered, is why having designed, coded, and tested a physics engine, a graphics engine, and (presumably) a toolset for generating the circuits and car models to go with it they haven't attempted to get a little more return on the investment by producing a few more "nostalgic" niche sims (or GPL extensions) to give us "pre-war legends" (Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes, Auto-union et-al), "Sports Car Legends" Jaguar, Aston-Martin, Ferrari, Cunningham, Shelby, Sebring, LeMans...), and (for the European market at least...) "Touring car legends" (Jaguar MKIIs, Ford Galaxies, Sunbeam Rapiers, etc, etc, etc - I'm sure there must have been a US-based equivalent of this series/period... Trans-Am maybe?), which I would have thought would have required a relatively modest amount of effort compared with building/testing a whole new product from scratch... I'd buy 'em all :-) -- JG

The answer to your ponderings is simple, gentlemen: Mr. Kaemmer had a passion for the era and, being in a position to do something about creating a top-quality sim, he did so. End of story. -- Regards, Bruce Kennewell, Canberra, Australia. --------------------------- > >Our racing expert at Digital Sportspage (Randy Magruder) and I had this > >discussion. Randy wonders why Papyrus choose a niche racer to introduce > >such a complex simulation engine. Wouldn't have gone over better on > NASCAR > >or perhaps even a modern Indy Car racer? Maybe the average racer would be > >turned off by the skill demands of this racer and Papyrus didn't want to > >risk it on one of their proven market successes. > Alternative possibility: If you were going to do a truly, obsessively, > purist simulation (as GPl is for its chosen genre/period) of just about any > modern series you'd have to get _heavily_ into modelling the aerodynamic > effects (right down to the effect of pitch changes and ground clearance, and > what happens when cars run close together) involved, and I suspect that both > the complexity of the algorithms and the amount of CPU grunt required would > increase by an order of magnitude. > What I _have_ often wondered, is why having designed, coded, and tested a > physics engine, a graphics engine, and (presumably) a toolset for generating > the circuits and car models to go with it they haven't attempted to get a > little more return on the investment by producing a few more "nostalgic" > niche sims (or GPL extensions) to give us "pre-war legends" (Bugatti, Alfa > Romeo, Mercedes, Auto-union et-al), "Sports Car Legends" Jaguar, > Aston-Martin, Ferrari, Cunningham, Shelby, Sebring, LeMans...), and (for the > European market at least...) "Touring car legends" (Jaguar MKIIs, Ford > Galaxies, Sunbeam Rapiers, etc, etc, etc - I'm sure there must have been a > US-based equivalent of this series/period... Trans-Am maybe?), which I would > have thought would have required a relatively modest amount of effort > compared with building/testing a whole new product from scratch... > I'd buy 'em all :-) > -- > JG -----------== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ==---------- http://www.newsfeeds.com The Largest Usenet Servers in the World! ------== Over 73,000 Newsgroups - Including Dedicated Binaries Servers ==-----

: What I _have_ often wondered, is why having designed, coded, and tested a : physics engine, a graphics engine, and (presumably) a toolset for generating : the circuits and car models to go with it they haven't attempted to get a : little more return on the investment by producing a few more "nostalgic" : niche sims (or GPL extensions) to give us "pre-war legends" (Bugatti, Alfa : Romeo, Mercedes, Auto-union et-al), "Sports Car Legends" Jaguar, : Aston-Martin, Ferrari, Cunningham, Shelby, Sebring, LeMans...), and (for the : European market at least...) "Touring car legends" (Jaguar MKIIs, Ford : Galaxies, Sunbeam Rapiers, etc, etc, etc - I'm sure there must have been a : US-based equivalent of this series/period... Trans-Am maybe?), which I would : have thought would have required a relatively modest amount of effort : compared with building/testing a whole new product from scratch... Although Sierra's outlay for GPL was more modest than others, the marketing costs are a large part of the total costs. Even GPL had some splashy full-page ads in major magazines. For "Driver", GT Interavtive spent about 1 million on marketing, or so I've read. They made that back many times over, though. Stephen

John, this is an excellent article! You've described beautifully many of the factors that have made GPL seem inaccessible to so many people, and also the immensely rewarding experience that GPL gives if you've got the hardware to run it well and have the perseverance to get over the other hurdles. Force Feedback does indeed make an amazing difference to the experience that GPL provides. After I'd used a FF wheel for a few weeks, I tried going back to a passive wheel, and there was just no comparison at all. I could barely drive with the passive wheel! A good FF wheel gives so much more information about what the car is doing that once I got used to it, it's hard to imagine how I drove without one. I've tried the MSFF wheel, the Act Labs Force RS, and the Logitech Wingman Formula Force. Of the three, the Logitech is far and away my favorite. I felt that the MS wheel has too much internal friction, and its software also induces artificial damping that makes it very difficult to make the kind of rapid, precise corrections that GPL demands. Also, the MS wheel uses an optical sensor instead of a potentiometer, and, while this is a good idea, unfortunately it lacks precision because the small slots in the sensor disk are too large and too far apart. The Act Labs has potential, but in the one I tried, the toothed belts were much too tight, causing too much internal friction. This completely dampened all the subtle feedback that GPL gives. The pedals also had a lot of friction. The Logitech isn't perfect; the brake pedal is awful, and its wheel also has more internal friction than I'd like, due to its use of nylon bushings instead of ball bearings. But I use CH Pedals with it and these are very precise. Also, by carefully adjusting the force and damping in the Logitech software and in GPL's ini file, I have it so that the wheel moves quite freely and transmits all those wonderful, subtle forces that happen when the car gets light, loads up, the front end washes out, or the tail starts to come around. It's fantastic! There are more details about Force Feedback wheels on my GPL pages: http://eaglewoman.maximumspeed.com/gpl Go to Help, then Controls, then Force Feedback. Also, if you haven't tried racing against other people in GPL yet, you're in for a treat. You can race via the Internet any time you want on VROC at http://vroc.net Peak times are evenings (North American time) and weekends. There's a club for people who are just getting into online GPL racing called the VROC Formula 2 Club. Details are at the VROC site. I hope to see you online sometime soon! And thanks for the great article, John. I'm delighted you've discovered GPL! Alison On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 19:47:59 -0800, "John Cauthen"

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>>Hello, John. Knowing what you know about feedback, you'll still be amazed >at >>the difference force-feedback makes, if you haven't tried this already. >Junk >>the RS wheel, and give the MSFF wheel a try. >Thanks for the suggestion Michael. You know what... I'm almost afraid to >give it a try because I know what my reaction will be. Right now, I just >can't afford to buy another wheel so I think I'm going to hold off buying >one until I have the necessary funding ;-) The RS pedals are a bit of a >limiting factor. They're rather sticky and that can be death in GPL. I >have no hope of ever handling the cars without throttle and braking assists >enabled with these pedals. >The whole force feedback issue is one that I'm rather green on, wheel or >stick. I've got a lot of research to do on this subject. >John Cauthen >Managing Editor >Digital Sportspage (http://www.digitalsports.com)

Alison Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me. http://eaglewoman.maximumspeed.com

The pedals with the MSFF are nice. Only trouble is that there is a lack of resistance in the brake pedal, but that is a problem with all pedals, I guess. It is easily fixable with a squash ball cut in two, placed under the brake pedal. Some may call this cheating, but it gives a more natural feel to the brake pedal, and a kind of ABS effect. A really nice feature to have in GPL :-)

Thanks Alison, you've hit the nail on the head, "perserverance"... if you don't have that, you're not going to discover what this simulation (I hate to call it a "game") has in store. It took the right hardware to make me find that perseverance, but that's because I was a lightweight racer to begin with. I was accustomed to these instant gratification racers, which really don't give the gamer a clue about real racing. I had an idea that you were going to say that. Yes, it makes a lot of sense, particularly in GPL. Now this is a surprise. I really hadn't expected the Logitech to be a contender in this category. Most of the people I've heard from swear by the MSFF. I did have a fellow give his support to the Logitec in an earlier e-mail today. He didn't like the pedals for it, however, and wound up using CH pedals instead. I found that interesting because that's what Randy Magruder does with his ACT Labs Force RS. I see your point here, Alison... any yes, it makes a lot of sense. Technology can get carried away with digitizing processes that are better served with analog devices. I have tried neither of these, but I'm definitely going to have to get my hands on a Logitec for a test drive. Personally, I haven't tried the Force RS, I've got the old standard RS. I can't complain about the feel of the wheel and the spring tension seems about right. I didn't realize how much friction and binding were present in the pedals until a disabled throttle and braking assistance - there's no way I could execute the precision commands necessary to pull this off with what I've got now. I didn't think they stuck all that bad until I tried this, but again, this just goes to show how incredibly detailed this simulation is! Yes, this would be the solution that many prefer. I'm going to do a little shopping and see what I can come up with. Alison... you're making me salivate just thinking of the prospects :-) <sigh>... I can just feel this based on your description! Thanks Alison. Randy just pointed me to your new site a couple of days ago. I downloaded your Coventry and Ferrari setups. I took your recommendation to start with the Coventry to heart, and abandoned my Ferrari season. I had finished 12th at Kyalami in the default Ferrari, using the stock AI cars and drivers, and then fared miserably at Monaco. I just can't get that track! Anyway, I finished 13th (at Kyalami) in the Coventry (13 laps), using your setup - and that was after wiping out in a crash on the first turn! I finished 19th at Monaco with the Coventry (and again your setup), but it was really due to a crash that took my opponent out on the 7th lap. I'm thinking the braking and throttling assistance is hurting me here. That plus the fact that I'm still running with an automatic transmission (my RS shifter paddle is broken on one side). I will check your info on the Force Feedback page... thanks! I'm definitely going to do this. I've downloaded and installed the VROC software and I'm trying to learn what it's all about. I'll see if I can't find that club... that's where I need to be. I'll be there Alison, no doubt about it! I was delighted to contribute this article - believe me, the motivation was there once I really found out what this game was all about! I've come a long way, but the more I see of GPL, the more I realize that I've got to go! Thanks! John Cauthen Managing Editor Digital Sportspage (http://www.digitalsports.com)

> The pedals with the MSFF are nice. Only trouble is that there is a lack of > resistance in the brake pedal, but that is a problem with all pedals, I > guess. It is easily fixable with a squash ball cut in two, placed under the > brake pedal. Some may call this cheating, but it gives a more natural feel > to the brake pedal, and a kind of ABS effect. A really nice feature to have > in GPL :-) Whoa, calling a brakepedal-mod for cheating ? Why did someone call it that ? -- Olav K. Malmin remove spam when replying

Jon Andersen <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:nW2j4.12175$[email hidden]... > I think several people eventually experiences this guy describes. GPL > requires scary hardware. When the game was launched, such hardware wasn'tto > be found in ordinary people's homes. > > I have a PII350, 192 Mb RAM, SBlive, 2 Voodoo2's and a GeForce. Still I'm > not satisfied. I *will* be able to reach 36 FPS in in-car view everywhereon

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> every track with 19 opponent's some day. > > I'm probably going to buy a PIII600 soon, just to improve GPL performance. > Hopefully, my driving skills improves, too :-) > > This is a truly fascinating game. When a first tried it a year ago, I did > less than a lap at Kyalami, then I gave up. Too damned difficult. In > december 1999 I had bought a MSFF steering wheel. I installed the 1.2

patch, > and.... WOW!!! Since then, there has been GPL, GPL, GPL, GPL, work and > serious lack of sleep. > > I've been told that GPL has been a financial disaster for Papyrus. Well, > they should re-launch the game at 3/4 of the initial price, but beforedoing > so making a difficulty slider like in DTR (for the less experienced > simracers or racers that cannot afford top notch hardware). Bundle it witha > Force Feedback wheel and get some money from the manufacturer of thewheel. > What could be better for a steering wheel manufacturer's sales than to be > able to market their product as the steering wheel preferred by Papyrusfor > playing GPL, *the* racing sim of all times? > > BTW. Remember to read John Cauthen's article at > http://www.digitalsports.com/dsports/editorials/icr15.html > > Jon This is one of the few realistic ideas I've read here as to how Sierra can salvage gpl from being a total financial disaster. And if this works to the point where gpl goes into the black, then just maybe we would see gpl2 or even a Cart sim. Joel Willstein [email hidden]