My favorite F1 game ever on computer or console is actually F1 '97 on the Ps1.
Okay, so visually it isn't very nice, but in all honesty, it is the only game that i feel has come anywhere near close to feeling like a real f1 car. The actual tracks aren't visually great either but i still think they modeled the actual road-bits of the tracks well.
If only Psygnosis & Bizzare kept the deal to produce all the new f1 games
D_Man
07-30-2004, 05:22 AM
My favourite game by a huge margin is Grand Prix Legends. My favourite modern F1 game is F1C, but I don't drive the F1 cars that often anymore. When I'm not playing GPL I usually fire up one of the mods for F1C :D
Dave
chris
07-30-2004, 06:07 AM
F1C most definately, without a doubt.
Although I loved the wet-road effects in GP3. (But nothing else however)! ;)
The F1 cars in F1C are amazing, they are really convincing in the way they are recreated. The sounds especially are so well done. The game is wonderful, especially heard through a good speaker system.
The other thing is that F1C seems like it is so moddable, and many things can be done with it. One guy is making some old F1 cars from the 80's (such as a Renault RE30B), and when you see that thing, it makes every other car in nearly every other game look obselete.
The cockpit especially is absolutely flawless, and sets the benchmark for all commercial game developers, even Simbin! :eek: It is that good.
jelly
07-30-2004, 12:12 PM
My fav F1 game ( if this counts, which it should ) is GPL. But even after 3 years, I have not started seriously playing it. I almost made a start around year and a half ago, but it turned out to be a false start. My favourite from around 1997 was F1RS by ubisoft. F1C is also a great game but I suck really hard at it. Maybe one day I will get good.
Despite my limited ( actually zero ) experience of driving a F1 car, I have very serious doubts about F1 '97s closeness to the real feel because of the way the cars handle through corners. They corner like they are on rails. You cannot spin them out ( unless you put a wheel on the grass ). From rest, you could put full lock on, throttle it fully and it would grip. Clearly that is not right. If you attempted that in any of the aforementioned F1 games, your car will donut - which is the method real F1 drivers use to face their cars in the correct direction if they lose it. Also the reaction to collision is a little strange. Having said that though, F1 `97 was not marketed as a sim so it would be wrong for me to judge it as one, also with my inexperience of real F1. But it was an enjoyable play nontheless. F1 `98 was better ( worse resolution though ), but not a sim. From my experiences of playing 1999 in F1C, the F1 series came good when EA got it.
- AC
D_Man
07-30-2004, 04:32 PM
2-AC you should get the 1965 mod for GPL. You will be absolutely knocked out by the handling and close racing :) It is easier to drive the 65 cars than the 67 cars because they are only 1500cc and put out just over 200 hp. The big bonus the improved tyre model :D Guys are now able to use the realistic 30/85 and 45/85 diffs without any problems.
Dave
lewi
08-04-2004, 03:17 AM
I haven't actually managed to play F1C as it doesnt sell in Australia. But the reason i like f1 97 is cos its very realistic for it's time and hardware limitations. Ok, well, maybe to uber realistic but its what i like to call a 'solid' game.
For example, GTR is an awesome game, but it's sooo hard to push hard and stay in control of the car. (I know its not an F1 game, but the principal is similar). In f1 97, though, you can really push hard, and stay in control and have fun at the same time (shock!). Unless you hit the grass :)
Thats just my opinion though ;)
chris
08-04-2004, 07:36 AM
The thing with modern F1 cars, is that anyone could drive one quickly at about 7/10th's or 8/10th's of the cars limits, and not spin at all. But venture close to the limits, and what was once reasonably pleasant becomes a nasty monster ready to bite the unwary.
Most race cars are like that these days. They don't tend to drift about anymore, they seem to grip grip grip, and grip, and then when the limit is surpassed, snap suddenly away.
Now on GTR, I actually compared that to the old GTR2002 recently, and to be honest, I found GTR easier to drive. And my lap times were certainly much better around Spa. That is probably something to do with the F1C Spa not being completely accurate, but I also found braking in GTR much simpler too.
In GTR, you actually have a chance to catch slides if you respond quickly enough. But even the "profi" race drivers spin sometimes in GTR:
That's Henrik Roos. He races a Viper GTS/R in real life. And he gives that poor Momo Racing wheel a hell of a work-out. He's driving a GT3 RS in GTR, and the computer car is a Ferrari 360 GT.
lewi
08-05-2004, 01:23 AM
Yeah, good point. Maybe Im just jealous cos I dont have a wheel :P
Talkin of wheels, that wheel looked very nice :eek:
Did you see the way he had to work the wheel outta the corners? Man, its tricky w/keyboard
chris
08-05-2004, 06:31 AM
He was also driving a GT3 RS there, with the engine in the back.. Have you seen the way the race-drivers drive the real GT3's?? ;)
They are dancing on the throttle and always adjusting the steering input. They hustle those things through the corners. Don't get me wrong, the GT3 is an effective device for going fast, but it demands some concentration and skill of its driver, and it you drive them the way they prefer.
They are very good cars for stop start sort of tracks, because they do have very nice traction coming out of corners, but for other types of circuits, a mid-engined car like what the AI had is nicer. The 360 GT is well known to be a nicely balanced car, and it behaves itself quite well. Most Ferraris tend to be well behaved these days, Ferrari has left the times of stormy handling mid-engined brutes well behind.
That wheel on the GTR sim their is a Logitech Momo Racing wheel, and it is quite a good one, but to be honest, if you really wanted to get serious in sim racing, you'd get one with a clutch pedal, and support for both sequential gearshifting, and a H pattern shifter.
In F1C 99-02, you can actually enable support for a device with a H-pattern gear selector. It's a little known *.PLR file edit, done by changing the following line (see quote)
Options Num Controls="26" // Number of configurable controls displayed in options
to this:
Options Num Controls="44" // Number of configurable controls displayed in options
Doing that brings up in the controller/key settings menu options to set specific buttons for changing to each particular gear from 1 through to 7. So with a H pattern shifter, you choose the setting for 1st gear, and shift the selector to the 1st gear position, and do likewise for the others, just changing the selector into the appropriate position for each gear.
With those sorts of things, you have an analog clutch pedal, so you can properly drive those cars with fully manual gearboxes. It also makes starts from a grid much simpler.
Although that won't particularly matter with GTR, since it has rolling starts, as in real life. Thank heavens for that, I've tried some standing starts in GTR with the Lister Storm, and it doesn't like them at all.
Did you see the way he had to work the wheel outta the corners? Man, its tricky w/keyboard
I do understand that. I'm involved in the making of an F1C mod at the moment, and a lot of times I can not be bothered connecting the steering wheel just to see how a 3d model looks in game, or to check that a motion-blur animation works correctly, so I use the keyboard.. I must use the steering help and stability assistance with the keyboard or the car is uncontrollable.
Typically I go into the game, spend about a couple of minutes or less verifying that the 3d model works right, and then I exit the game and move on to the next task, or I go back and attempt to fix any bugs that exist. That is a trial and error process, sometimes crashes to desktop can be traced through the trace.txt file, but other visual bugs that don't prevent the model from working in game can be more difficult to fix.
That's part of a typical trace.txt file for F1C 99-02. Here it is complaining about the fact no specific textures exist for the Porsche Kremer racing pit-crew, so it will assign the default place-holder textures instead.
If you should happen to be playing an F1C mod of any sort, and have troubles with it, such as crashes to desktop, you can use the following addition to the shortcut of the game *.exe file to trace the shortcut:
-trace=1000
So that might appear in the target text box in the short-cut properties as
Then if a problem occurs, go back to the \F1 Challenge 99-02\log\trace.txt file and it will probably tell you what the problem is in its own semi-cryptic way. That is preferable to nothing at all however. ;)
lewi
08-06-2004, 12:00 AM
Oh, a porshce! Anyways, I need to get the right gear, maybe when I leave school and have a job etc.
lol, whoosh, thats all too technical for me, lol. But talking of crashing to the desktop, GTR started to do that to me.
It gets to the loading screen, loads up the little bar, then when it usually says 'Race!' it crashes, no error messages or anything.
The only thing i changed was installing the Skinswitcher program, but it still worked for a small time afterwards. Any clues :confused:
chris
08-06-2004, 12:25 AM
-trace=1000
Add that to the end of the GTR demo shortcut. ;) Then look for the trace.txt file. It will tell you what is wrong usually.
GTR is still based on similar technology to F1C 99-02, so some of the useful tricks of F1C 99-02 still apply. ;)
lewi
08-06-2004, 12:29 AM
how exactly do i add it? do i change it's name?
And where do I look for trace.txt, and when I find it what do i do with it?
Sorry 2 be a pain in the south, lol
chris
08-06-2004, 12:33 AM
Okay, look on your desktop, or in the start menu for the short-cut to GTR.
Right click on it, then choose properties.
Click on the shortcut tab, then you will see a little box labelled Target.
Click in this box, go right to the end of the line, put a space and then add the -trace=1000. Like in my following example:
The trace.txt file can be found in the \Program Files\SimBin\GTR Demo\UserData\LOG\ directory.
lewi
08-06-2004, 02:10 AM
cool, thanks!! Ill let you know how it goes ;)
Edit, can't find the trace.txt file :eek:
or the 'directory' thing.
The shortcut thing with the -trace=1000 went fine :)
Y2kGoofball
08-06-2004, 05:07 AM
dunno
I'm not into F1 that much, so I take whatevers on offer.
I cant remember the first F1 game I ever had but it was a few years back now, it wasnt EA either, it wasnt graphically the best (what it ran on a 200 mhz or something) but it was easy to use, forward, brake, left + right basically.
I dont mind F1C 99-02, partially because of the V8 Mod, but it seems to be OK when its not overheating the AMD causing it to lockup, problem is theres too much stuff that can be tweaked in game and for someone like me with no idea :confused:
F1 '99 used to be ok on the PS1. Not too difficult but enjoyable
lewi
08-07-2004, 05:45 AM
chris.....:( it aint working. Plz help if u got sum time :) thanks
lewi
chris
08-07-2004, 06:04 AM
Oops, sorry, I was mixing up some sound effects, totally forgot about this message.
x:\program files\SimBin\GTR Demo\UserData\LOG
Can you find that directory? Replace X with the drive where you installed GTR, or replace that whole line with the directory where you have installed GTR.
The find the Userdata\LOG sub-directory, and you should see a file called trace.txt. If not, do a search for it. When you've found it, open it, copy the contents, and post them here, then I might be able to help out.
lewi
08-07-2004, 06:32 PM
Found it now :) I see alot of error messages
TRACE LEVEL = 2
NetComm.cpp 7979: NetComm checking command line: "-trace=1000"
game.cpp 433: Entered Game::Enter()
osman.cpp 470: Entered OSMan::Enter()
vidman.cpp 1028: Entered VidMan::Enter()
specialfx.cp 2934: Entered SpecialFX::Enter()
dynman.cpp 556: Entered DynMan::Enter()
plrfile.cpp 3016: Entered PlayerFile::Enter()
sound.cpp 675: Entered Sound::Enter()
hwinput.cpp 5831: Entered HWInput::Enter()
onscreen.cpp 2761: Entered OnScreen::Enter()
game.cpp 517: Entered Game::Setup()
hwinput.cpp 5846: Entered HWInput::Setup()
options.cpp 1275: Entered Options::Setup()
tire_manager 1187: Non-existent tire brand ""
tire_manager 1187: Non-existent tire brand ""
tire_manager 1187: Non-existent tire brand ""
tire_manager 1187: Non-existent tire brand ""
specialfx.cp 2940: Entered SpecialFX::Setup()
steward.cpp 4308: Entered Steward::Setup()
dynman.cpp 568: Entered DynMan::Setup()
sound.cpp 698: Entered Sound::Setup()
onscreen.cpp 2767: Entered OnScreen::Setup()
vidman.cpp 1112: Entered VidMan::Setup()
plrfile.cpp 3026: Entered PlayerFile::Setup()
plrfile.cpp 2271: Attempting to save to USERDATA\Player\Player.TMP
plrfile.cpp 2294: Retcode: 0 for renaming to USERDATA\Player\Player.PLR
game.cpp 554: Entered Game::Init()
vidman.cpp 1165: Entered VidMan::Init()
ai_db.cpp 2114: Entered AIDatabase::Init()
steward.cpp 4323: Entered Steward::Init()
hwinput.cpp 5882: Entered HWInput::Init()
specialfx.cp 3044: Entered SpecialFX::Init()
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
htree.cpp 300: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed once
htree.cpp 338: Gaussian elimination for HAT poly failed twice
dynman.cpp 577: Entered DynMan::Init()
pitcrew.cpp 190: CUBE error loading pitcrew mesh PITGUYC.GMT: Could not locate mesh file PITGUYC.GMT
does the PITGUYC.GMT file have anything to do with it?
chris
08-08-2004, 04:15 AM
Yeah, what that means is it can not find the mesh file for PITGUYC.
I suggest re-downloading the GTR press demo, and trying to install a fresh version. This one is obviously missing some files. Looks like there is also some problems with the HAT stuff for the track as well.
Don't worry about the non-existant tyre brand warning, that is in F1C as well, and I don't understand what it is for, and why it happens, it just seems to happen. It might be something to do with some tyre brand related features that ISI didn't fully implement.
F1C has heaps of features that aren't implemented or used fully, even by some mod teams to be honest.. As for that last bit, I have no further comment.. ;)
VQ
08-08-2004, 05:32 AM
I enjoyed playing F1 2002 but got bored of it and I can't get f1C in Aus cos of Sony having the liscense it is damn annoying.
chris
08-08-2004, 06:21 AM
Sony's F1 game seems quite mediocre as well, only just appears to match the standards of older EA/ISI F1 games.