F1RS vs. GP2

Hi all, I upgraded my machine to 48MB, K6-200 and a Voodoo I (Diamond Monster 4MB) in order to be able to give F1RS a try. After two weeks of playing, here are some points and thoughts I have about both games. I've been using the latest patch (1.09) in conjunction with the latest 3dfx/DirectX drivers available for my system. In favour of F1RS: * Great graphics once you're alone on the track * weather (spray tails on the cars look great!) * genuine spins that one can recover from * View of the front wheels * doesn't turn into slide show when smoke is about * very aggressive AI driving, albeit slow lap times even in expert mode * ghost mode * Automatic saving of track records * F1-Mag season history feature * Great support from UbiSoft Things I don't like about F1RS: * very slow menu system, even with a full install * reloading of setups required when changing tracks / game mode * replay unusable even with 1.09, and seldomly available * Race leader taking ages to lap other cars * slowdown at the start of the race makes it hard to react * no restart of Grand Prix races allowed * not-so-beautiful cars compared to gp2 (matter of taste, though) * win95 only (takes hours to load and get into the game) * track has to be reloaded even when entering the garage * game freezes momentarily when accessing hd for sounds Pros for GP2: * very fast startup (dos game) * quick menu navigation * great tools available on the net (gp2edit, carsets) * very good impression of speed while driving * great sound effects * decent framerates * quick, usable 15second replay always available * competitive AI using the editors * richer setup options than f1rs Cons about GP2: * turns into slide show when smoke is visible * no weather * no realistic tyre wear * canned spins, canned breakdowns * wheels not visible * serial / network play sucks * absolutely no support from Microprose If F1RS was a bit faster and more usable, I'd dump GP2 today rather than tomorrow. Bottom line: for a quick race on some circuit gp2 is the way to go IMHO, but gfx-wise nothing beats f1rs. Too bad though that the first-corner slowdown makes it near impossible to get a decent start without ending up in the gravel. Cheers for now, and I'd like to hear your opinions and comments. Uwe -- Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de> http://www.telemedia.de/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66 Best of Scottish Folk: http://home.pages.de/~nsg >>> Blue Ribbon Campaign: Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

Please explain this, as I think you wouldn't want the same setup for every track. I have 80MB of ram and a PCI soundcard (AudioPCI) and the slowdowns are GONE! I disagree (matter of taste). GP2 is not even close to F1RS. Disagree. Takes maybe 5-10 seconds. Only the first time and this effect is greatly reduced with more RAM. In fact this is probably where the first lap slowdowns come from. There is equivelant tools for F1RS. Check www.f1racingsim.com. F1RS is better. F1RS is better. F1RS is better. F1RS is better. F1RS is better. Agreed :-) Eliminating replays and getting more ram will certainly help. Also the 3D sound patch on the AudioPCI gives fantastic situational awareness. External car sounds in GP2??? I don't think so. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

>>Things I don't like about F1RS: >> * very slow menu system, even with a full install >> * reloading of setups required when changing tracks / game mode >Please explain this, as I think you wouldn't want the same setup >for every track. Ok then, I will. I GP2, every time you play it, it remebers the last setup used for every track. You can just load up GP2 and play a track. The setup is always pre-loaded. That's it.

Finally. Someone with their head screwed on straight. I was beginning to wonder if any of the participants of this argument had even driven GP2. At about 200 hours in F1RS I'd have to say the handling is arcadish compared to GP2. The ONLY things good about F1RS are the road surfaces, the ability to hear other cars, and the curbs. You put those in GP2 and F1RS is a Frisbee for the dog. -- mark "If you get to the point where you truly understand what the term 'controlled looseness' means, then, and only then, do you know what the term 'fast' means." F1RS - http://www.nmia.com/~chaser/car/results.htm Remove us here and there to mail me. I use my right to not agreeing with you regarding the realism of spins in F1RS vs GP2 :o).

I must start by saying that I am a GP2 fan - I race league and hotlap and serial cable (which works perfectly). I have only played an F1RS demo on a friends machine (my Cx166+ doesn't like it!) and from what I have seen it looks pretty good. However I would say that the one thing ALL driving games need above all else is better AI. When I played F1RS the computer cars ran OK (for AI) until I got to the first Lesmos corner at Monza. Here I simply drove past them.... In GP2 an 'AI' car will get in your slipstream (which is overemphasised anyway) and immediately pulls out. If you 'outpower' him he slips back into the tow and stays there like an idiot. On the next lap the AI should know that that won't work. This time he should wait until just before the corner and then duck out and try to outbreak you. Another problem here is that a 700 BHP car may pass a 780 BHP car - it will get a tow, dive out and not have enough power, dive back in, regain the tow and finaly dive out just in time to outbreak into the corner. Now a 750 BHP car may not manage this. It will get a tow, pull out earlier and almost get past, but then just as they approach the corner, it will have to dive back in because it 'didn't have enough power'. Pathetic! Also when you overtake AI cars they should move to the inside of the track to defend their place (as well as leaving braking to the last minute). And another thing! Question: Why at Spa on Ace level can I get from last to the top 6 without touching another car at the start? Answer: Because the computer cars leave a nice long gap down the inside for me to outbreak them... (20 of them)! For gods sake programmers the 'I' in AI stands for INTELLIGENCE. NOT following a line. NOT wimping out under braking. NOT getting stuck behind cars which catch them out on the straights... So please can we have a driving sim, which for the first time ever provides a revolution in the genre - AI. Maybe even one where Irvine and Schumacher co-operate to beat you in a crucial race - well we can dream can't we! -- Michael C Wallace

Hi Micheal, You are the first person that has made GP2 to work head-to-head "perfectly". Now for comparision sake, I would call Papyrus serial head-to-head perfect. You can play a P83 on 320x200 at 5fps against a P2/333 on 640x480 at 25fps and all works great (no lag on the P2 side). Thats with 39 computer cars on N2. Please tell us how you are getting perfect results with GP2. We all want to know. Jason. > I must start by saying that I am a GP2 fan - I race league and hotlap > and serial cable (which works perfectly).

Nice post... I suggest reserving judgement till you get a copy and try it out on all AI levels. But in honesty, I think most of your points hold. Amen! I've been racing at Pro level (2nd of 3 difficulty levels). And yes, on that particular turn, the AI cars are very slow to accelerate. As background, in F1RS, the cars get slowerr as you go to lower difficulty levels through slower braking and accelerating. Top speed remains the same. This contrasts with GP2 where top speed is reduced. I prefer F1RS's approach. Though not perfect, it at least doesn't give you the easy out of flying by on the straits. It is possible that each course has one turn where the AI cars are particularly slow. Maybe it's just that I just tend to figure out one curve making me particularly fast :-) But I haven't really raced against "expert" level yet to see if I lose that advantage there. I've wondered about how strong the slipstream/draft effect is in actual F1. Certainly it is much more strongly portrayed in GP2 than F1RS. Also, in F1RS, the consequences of getting in someones "dirty air" heading into a turn can be disastrous. I sit back and watch a fair number of expert level races in F1RS. I continually see cars try the same pass lap after lap. Thus, I agree the AI could use some work. Also, the F1RS backmarker AI cars are loathe to let leaders pass. They also hold the line tenaciously against all but you. In F1RS I gather? I also see similar at Monza with GP2. Yes, they need work. Yes! This I think is key! Time after time I've seen "teamates" duel with each other to each's detriment. Is it that hard to have teamates not do this? After all, they aren't all Prost and Senna :-)

Quoted text (12 lines)

> Finally. Someone with their head screwed on straight. I was beginning > to wonder if any of the participants of this argument had even driven > GP2. At about 200 hours in F1RS I'd have to say the handling is > arcadish compared to GP2. > The ONLY things good about F1RS are the road surfaces, the ability to > hear other cars, and the curbs. You put those in GP2 and F1RS is a > Frisbee for the dog. > -- > mark

So does this mean I don't have to bother upgrading my 3D card to 4MB from 2MB just to play F1RS and just continue with GP2 which still has the best car physics of any sim out there?? Good.

I believe this is the next major step for simracing. Forget fancy graphics and animated pitstops for the moment, and imagine F1RS if the AI cars were really clever (or stupid in some cases). Can you imagine racing at Suzuka, and it's coming to the end of the race and right behind you is Wurz or someone. Every lap at the chicane he shows you a wheel to let you know he's behind, he locks up once or twice. Then, two laps from the end he decides to slip inside where's there's really no chance and blazes past with his tyres smoking. He gets sideways for a moment but recovers, though not before slumping into the gravel. His wheels spin, but he can't get back out and the race is yours, but it wasn't without a fight. What about cars that sell you a dummy a la Mansell on the straights, or ones that try and overtake on the outside in the wet? Ones that can't handle the pressure in front of you and lock up, run wide, whatever? Backmarkers that get the hell outta your way? Team-mates working together? Drivers changing pit strategy to cope with traffic? I appreciate that the AI is the hardest part of a sim to get right, but it's time we had some real competition. -- Spudgun

>Finally. Someone with their head screwed on straight. >I was beginning to wonder if any of the participants >of this argument had even driven GP2. At about 200 >hours in F1RS I'd have to say the handling is arcadish >compared to GP2. Your opinion was completely worthless for three reasons: 1. You didn't prove your argument in any way. Just saying "it is arcadish" isn't enough, or then someone might say "GP2 feels like driving a shoe, and that's that" to keep your level of argumentation. 2. You have never driven F1, so how could you know which is more realistic. 3. You can't even configure your newsreader right to insert a linefeed after every 72 characters. By the way, GP2 is the worst and most unrealistic driving game I have ever seen. The spins and weather in Pole Position is more realistic than in GP2. Only braindead monkeys would ever play GP2 and think it is a sim. So there. :^P

..... Let's not expect the impossible. What you guys are asking can probably not even be done by some top-notch AI-researcher at MIT or JPL!! AI isn't "difficult", it's x!%*$& to implement !! I guess it's hard enough already to avoid making the CC look absolutely _stupid_ from time to time. Human behaviour and computer algorythms.... Basically incompatible. JoH Please remove *anti-spam* from the email when replying. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When everything else failed, we can still become im- mortal by making an enormous blunder.... John Kenneth Galbraith =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Well... no. You have to have both of course. F1RS is a much better simulation of being in a race. But it is not a driving simulation. CPR is a driving simulation as well as GPL. F1RS is a racing simulation, as the box says. It's way fun and you'd better run out and get that PII 400 with V2 before August anyway. :-) -- mark F1RS - http://www.nmia.com/~chaser/car/results.htm Remove us here and there to mail me. So does this mean I don't have to bother upgrading my 3D card to 4MB from 2MB just to play F1RS and just continue with GP2 which still has the best car physics of any sim out there?? Good.

Well... no. You have to have both of course. F1RS is a much better simulation of being in a race. But it is not a driving simulation. CPR is a driving simulation as well as GPL. F1RS is a racing simulation, as the box says. It's way fun and you'd better run out and get that PII 400 with V2 before August anyway. :-) -- mark F1RS - http://www.nmia.com/~chaser/car/results.htm Remove us here and there to mail me. So does this mean I don't have to bother upgrading my 3D card to 4MB from 2MB just to play F1RS and just continue with GP2 which still has the best car physics of any sim out there?? Good.

I've noticed the CC's in F1RS making mistakes when under pressure, but they rarely come from behind. When they do it's usually catastrophic. Let's say we were to try to implement some of the behavior that you've suggested. How do we get the computer to act like that, and how much processor power does it take? I'm no programmer by a long shot. I'm pretty much lucky that my wheel is hooked up to the computer, but who's to say that together we might not come up with a workable idea or two. Wurz is chasing you down at the end of Suzuka. How about three separate driving lines that are each connected to a technique? Regular, Defensive, and Aggressive. Regular is the normal "quick" racing line. Defensive blocks, goes deeper, and makes x% more mistakes. Aggressive fakes off line, goes deeper, and makes x% more mistakes. What would it take to implement this kind of behavior? How hard is it to make the AI decide when to use each technique? Pit strategy seems like it should be pretty easy. If the CC is being held up by traffic 1 or 2 laps before scheduled pit... -- mark "If you get to the point where you truly understand what the term 'controlled looseness' means, then, and only then, do you know what the term 'fast' means." F1RS - http://www.nmia.com/~chaser/car/results.htm Remove us here and there to mail me. >>So please can we have a driving sim, which for the first time ever >>provides a revolution in the genre - AI. > >Yes! I believe this is the next major step for simracing. Forget fancy graphics and animated pitstops for the moment, and imagine F1RS if the AI cars were really clever (or stupid in some cases). Can you imagine racing at Suzuka, and it's coming to the end of the race and right behind you is Wurz or someone. Every lap at the chicane he shows you a wheel to let you know he's behind, he locks up once or twice. Then, two laps from the end he decides to slip inside where's there's really no chance and blazes past with his tyres smoking. He gets sideways for a moment but recovers, though not before slumping into the gravel. His wheels spin, but he can't get back out and the race is yours, but it wasn't without a fight. What about cars that sell you a dummy a la Mansell on the straights, or ones that try and overtake on the outside in the wet? Ones that can't handle the pressure in front of you and lock up, run wide, whatever? Backmarkers that get the hell outta your way? Team-mates working together? Drivers changing pit strategy to cope with traffic? I appreciate that the AI is the hardest part of a sim to get right, but it's time we had some real competition. -- Spudgun

What I'm saying is not exactly to make the AI cars think like a human. See Mark Jeangerard's response to my post for some good ideas. -- Spudgun

Uwe, try turning off the ideal trajectory, IMO it's drawn unrealisticly clear anyway. I always drive without it, I use no helps whatsoever and still my fastest time at Melbourne is 1:28.4, so you dont really need the ideal trajectory :o). /Christer -- http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-41236/ (Read all about the "Global online racing"-proposal under "For developers". Read it a couple of times, cause noone has understood it the first time they've read it yet :o) ) > >Salve Uwe !! > >US> * Great graphics once you're alone on the track > >You can accelerate F1RS while starting the race. Lower the sound of the > >oppenonents...it really IS a defference. I've got almost the same hard- > I already did this, as well as decreasing the file system cache of > windoze. There still is a serious slow-down (you can hear the motor sound > cycle actually switching tones ;-) at most first corners which makes it > >ware (K6 200, Monster 3D, 64 MB SDRAM) and the same problem. After altering > >the sound the problem disappeared ;-) > Is there a big difference in performance between the K6-200 and the > K6-200-3D? I would not have thought so. > >US> * Great support from UbiSoft > >Hauauaua...I emailed them a dozend time but I ALWAYS got those > >shitty mailrobot-answer ;-( > Well, I had the various released patches to the game in mind. released so > far. F1RS could be the perfect racing sim with just one more patch > addressing the following shortcomings IMHO: > * faster menu system (yes, I do have a full install with CD music > and menu sounds turned off) > * better AI for lapped CC's (implementing a blue flag, for instance) > * Car settings saved and loaded autmatically on a per-track basis as GP2 > handles the issue > * faster and more easily available replay. > >Maybe you know a solution: I drive at 25% racelength and while being in > >the last round, the speaker orders to come into the pit "right now". If > >I ignore this stupid affair the view changes from incar-view to TV-mode > >in the last corner so that I have a finger on the F2 button then ;-( > Well, I have yet to finish a race driving in expert mode: the other > cars love to crash into me (see my previous post ;-) leaving me dead > on the track. > Greetings, > Uwe > -- > Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de> > http://www.telemedia.de/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66 > Best of Scottish Folk: http://home.pages.de/~nsg > >>> Blue Ribbon Campaign: Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

> I believe this is the next major step for simracing. I believe the next major step is global online racing, see link at the end of this message :o). The hardest part to do in a racing sim is the physics engine, the AI is just rule based AI found in any expert system. It does take CPU time, though, and so does the physics engine and the 3D graphics. So how do we want to divide the power? More AI and less physics, or More AI and less 3D. My favourite is more of everything :o), and for this we need faster puters all the time :o). Since the AI is rule based, the hard part is setting up the rules and iron out all the bugs in them. Unfortenately, more rules takes more time to execute and this time has to be multiplied with the number of AIs. So just set up the rules and off we go, but remember we want as few rules as possible, but not too few :o). /Christer, why not try the link below to get a picture of the next big thing in sim racing :o) -- http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-41236/ (Read all about the "Global online racing"-proposal under "For developers". Read it a couple of times, cause noone has understood it the first time they've read it yet :o) )

Quoted text (12 lines)

>Maybe you know a solution: I drive at 25% racelength and while being in >the last round, the speaker orders to come into the pit "right now". If >I ignore this stupid affair the view changes from incar-view to TV-mode >in the last corner so that I have a finger on the F2 button then ;-( >Also, man mailt sich... >.\\atze [ FmMW2109 - FmMB2139 ] >*home* : http://www.powerteam.de/ph/buesing/

That little glitch drives me *&*(&^(*%%%^$^%##$E!!!!!! crazy. Anytime you have a non-scheduled pitstop, like a punctured tire or something, you've got to pit on the scheduled stop, or keep a finger on that F2 key. Real pain in the ass.

>For gods sake programmers the 'I' in AI stands for INTELLIGENCE. NOT >following a line. NOT wimping out under braking. NOT getting stuck >behind cars which catch them out on the straights... And remember... the "A" means ARTIFICIAL ;-) Take a peek at http://www.nros.com/ Now _that's_ realistic AI.... - Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard, (-o-) - Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. - Member of the r.a.s. Ego-maniac club - Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking) - Excuse me for being provocative (I'm dumb speaking) - "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

> Only braindead monkeys would ever play GP2 and think it > is a sim. So there. :^P Ohh, that was so mature :o). Why would you drag down a discussion to that level? I would love to see the proof of that statement, though :o). /Christer

Yeah, kinda destroys the whole point of modern day F1 really. -- Spudgun

Hi Jeff ! JS> That little glitch drives me *&*(&^(*%%%^$^%##$E!!!!!! crazy. JS> JS> Anytime you have a non-scheduled pitstop, like a punctured tire or JS> something, you've got to pit on the scheduled stop, or keep a finger JS> on that F2 key. JS> JS> Real pain in the ass. The car was alright. But I think I've found the mistake - I use setups from f1racingsim.com and there is - by default - a 3-stop-strategy in all setups. Sorry, my fault. But not as easy as *you* thought, Jeff. Also, man mailt sich... .\\atze [ FmMW2109 - FmMB2139 ] *home* : http://www.powerteam.de/ph/buesing/