GB: As far as I know there are two version of the game for the PC, F1GP on floppies, which is supplied on 4 high density disks with optional upgrade disks, and F1GP on CD, which is EXACTLY the same game but on a silver disk. Do not buy this unless you don't have a floppy drive, since it costs more and has no extra features. Quite what MicroProse is playing at is unknown, but the CD version represents bad value for your money.
The game is now reissued by Digital Integration on the PowerPlus budget label.
DG: Having played both the Amiga and PC versions, I noticed some important differences. First, some of the tracks are physically different, Monaco and Imola at least. Second, perhaps because of the low frame rate or different control routines, the car is much, much harder to set up on the Amiga than the PC; it's very hard to feel whether the car has any under- or oversteer. It's also much harder to time the turn-in points properly, as Ivanhoe's explanation of frame rates above predicts.
CPU MHz Memory Detail Occupancy FPS ----------------------------------- P5 100 8MB 4d T 33% 25fps (Squirty's w/ D.Stealth 24 2MB VRAM) P5 90 24MB 4d T 37% 25fps (Gizmo's tower of power w/ PCI K64) P5 90 24MB 4d T 90% 50fps (Gizmo's tower of power w/ PCI K64) 486DX2/66 8MB 4d T 70% 25fps (Gizmo's Linux box w/ VLB CL5428) 486DX2/66 4MB 4d T 60% 25fps 486DX2/66 32MB 4d T 53% 25fps (Pete F's Dan4Win w/ Spea V7 VLB) 486DX2/66 ? 4d T 70% 25fps (MBP's under OS/2) 486DX 33 ? 4d T 90% 25fps (Graham A's) 486DX2/66 16MB 4d NT 35% 25fps (Nigel Bovey's) 486SX 33 4MB 4d NT 66% 25fps 486DX2/50 24MB 4d NT 95% 25fps (Paul Smyth's w/ ISA ET4000-W32) 486SX 25 4MB 4d NT 100% 25fps (a DELL) 486SX 25 ? 4d NT 80% 25fps (Nightshade's oldie) 486SX 25 4MB 4d NT 100% 23fps (Ben Lester's) 486SX 25 2MB 4d NT 100% 21fps 386DX 40 4MB 4d NT 100% 20fps 386DX 40 2MB 4d NT 100% 20fps (possibly optimistic) 486DX2/50 24MB 4d NT 100% 18fps (Paul Smyth's w/ ISA S3-924) 386DX 33 8MB 4d NT 100% 17fps (Gizmo's old faithful w/ T8900CL) 386SX 20 2MB 1d NT 100% 15fps (Max Behara's) 386SX 25 2MB 4d NT 100% 14fps (Stingray's) 386SX 20 2MB 4d NT 100% 8fps (Max Behara's)It appears that as long as you have at least 2mb of RAM, the actual amount makes absolutely no difference. The difference between the DX2/66s above is attributable to graphics card alone; see the difference between Paul Smyth's machine with two different graphics cards installed. DG: IMHO if you have a 486SX/25 or better with a VLB or PCI graphics card you should be able to crank the frame rate right up without texture; a 486DX2/50 or better will add texture without any penalty. A 486DX2/66 should be able to do linked play at 25fps, possibly with detail cranked down a bit, and a Pentium 75 or faster is pure heaven. (Lots of memory is useful, for logging data to a RAMdrive when using the GPPerf and GPLap TSRs.)
The details level is shown by the amount of detail around the track, 1d being the lowest level and 4d the highest, the other detail option is the track shading, this is shown by T (track shading on), NT (no track shading). The average processor occupancy is as you go around any track. This is just a rough estimate, since tracks can vary quite a lot (Phoenix and Hockenheim are quite stressful, with lots of buildings and tress), but the occupancy really shouldn't go above 100% very much. The final column show the speed in frames per pecond that this set-up allows.
Even on similar machines, several things will affect speed. A machine with some external cache will outperform one without; the actual amount of cache is probably not going to make much difference. Graphics card performance also makes a big difference; a local bus card will run much faster that an ISA card, and some cards have better DOS performance than others (Cirrus Logic based cards are good, ET4000 and derivatives are even better; VLB and PCI cards will be much faster than ISA ones).
The general consensus seem to be that people would rather have it running smoother, but with less detail, this shows one of the main advantages of F1GP over IndyCar, in that it runs quickly on a slow machine and smooth graphics are possible quite easily.
The Amiga version runs at a similar speed regardless of the machine's capacity, about 3-8 fps, depending on circuit and level of detail, even in the fastest 68060 system. (The latest F1GP-Ed and also F1GP-Patch can alter this, at a compatability cost.)
Does the performance vary on an ST? Mail me if you know.
Long answer: it doesn't... directly. DG is in the fortunate position of having both a P90 and a 486DX/66 on his desk and a 386DX/33 under it, and loaded identical copies of the game up on both machines. The first and most obvious difference was that the game does not do a good job of matching "real time" (measured on a stopwatch during laps on qualifying tyres at Monaco) ccording to MicroProse, played the game on a friends Amiga before the race at Spa, and the went on to win it!
"Because part of the circuit is on the public road, Oliver couldn't practice on the circuit", explains Geoff, "so he used F1GP to learn the track, took pole position and won the race."Derek Warwick on the other hand drove for the F1 team Arrows/Footwork (who helped write the game!) and gave it a glowing write up in Autosport Magazine, just before the Canadian GP (the 10 June 1993 issue). There was also an interview with the Footwork engineers. He gave some lap times but they were very poor, and he had to drive with full help. This provoked a spate of letters to the magazine from people asking for his job, including the following, from the 17 June 1993 issue:
GIZAJOBAlso, a Canadian driver contacted him to say how accurate the Montreal course was.I read last week's Canadian Grand Prix preview - about Footwork Formula 1's computer game - with interest.
I have been playing the game for several months now and was delighted to read how accurate it is. Allen McDonald claimed he could lap Montreal in 1m19s. Well I can lap in 1m17.627s so does this mean I can take Derek Warwick's place if ever he feels like having the weekend off.
J Mosley
Sheffield, Yorkshire
One correspondant reports that he is working on a patch to alter the pit-bay allocation.
One correspondant reports:
I've overshot the pit at Monza. The pit entrance is very straight and you can build up enough speed so that the game won't actually stop you.
There is no modem support on the first version (1.01) but this was added on the updates 1.04 and 1.05, the link option needs two quite fast machine to work well, on 386SX it is almost unplayable, and the slowest machine dictates the speed of the other machines; on a 386DX you'll probably need a 16550 UART to get acceptable performance. If the game seems to pause a lot or you get regular (but not constant) link data mismatches, try reducing the frame rate on the slower machine by 30% or more.
You should also be aware that if one of you has altered your gp.exe in anyway (either by a patch or a TSR), then you must both be running identical games. This means that:
If you have a dialup connection to the Internet, you may be able to use the Internet Head-to-Head Daemon (IHHD) to play with someone on the net. You can find more details in ftp://cactus.org/pub/IHHD/.
In theory, one could use a null-modem cable to loop the COM ports on two machines together, and write a TSR which would transfer bytes between the network card and the COM port which isn't selected in the game. So far, nobody has reported trying this.
There is a bug in the linked code that is a real bitch. It involves having only one or none drivers (ie. human) in the race.In other words, both human drivers must be actively racing or you will get a data mismatch error when the game is reloaded. Obviously, this is only if you reload the game during a race and one or both of the human drivers have crashed out.
This nasty little [bug] bit my friend and I over the past weekend. It was Monza and we were both trying to catch Schu who was running away with the championship (we have the AI turned up quite a bit). My friend crashed out real early. My car had so much oversteer that I was run down by the AI and passed for the lead [...]. I got really frustrated and crashed myself out as well.
Just as I crashed out, the modem link disconnected. I dutifully saved the game as I exited the screen. When we reloaded this game later, it gave us a mismatch error. There goes the season. The latest saved game we had was for Belgium, but we had both crashed out of that as well (however, the race finished, therefore, the mismatch bug was eluded).
Well, we tried to reload the bad game with the mismatch from Monza, but it still had the error. We then selected to restart (the race in Monza), however, the 2nd bug came about. This time, he was me and I was he. This was quite interesting because both of our files said we were selected as ourselves. What was more strange was that, obviously, I was in his car and he was in mine. In other words, my joystick controlled his car and his mine. When I hit N on my computer, it said I was him.
Well, we tried to drive each others cars and ended up crashing out anyway. Needless to say, we just accelerated the rest of the season, handing the title over to Schu.
The moral of the story: if one, or both, human drivers crash out, make sure that you finish the race! Do not save a game with only one human driver or else when it is reloaded, you will get mismatch errors.
You can play F1GP (and other games) through a direct connection, informing the game you are connected "Direct", and having a modem at each end. You establish the connection through a communication package, or from the DOS prompt, before entering the game. The link is done from modem to modem, through a direct telephone cable, with RJ-11 connectors at each end. This has some advantages:
This is the where you can push the computer cars to their limit, and they literally explode. What I can figure out is the program never expects the AI cars to go over a limit of 394 km/h, but if this occurence happens their speed is instantaneously reset to zero. So think about this scenario your happily pushing Nigel Mansell down the straights of Hockenheim at around 400 km/h, he hit's WARP SPEED! but your still doing 400km/h so the logical thing for the program to do is destroy his car. Funny maybe for the first time but thats about it.
Also it's interesting to go up alonside a driver while doing over 400km/h and clipping their wheels just enough to make them hit warp speed and make them dissapear into distance.
[DG: I believe the exact speed is 411km/h, which is 256mph, since 255 is the largest value a single byte can hold, so 256 becomes 0.]
Next, the game will not let you avoid some things by restarting a race. For example, if the race is wet, reloading, even before free practice, will not avoid the rain. (It is possible to do something about this with some of the Amiga editors, but not yet on the PC.)
Also, one correspondant has reported that pit stop times stay constant too. If you are in a race, save the game, then pit, and get a bad stop time, reloading will not help you.