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1999-03-05
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Virtual Grand Prix
by The Alien (Paolo Cattani)
(C) 1998-1999 by Paolo Cattani
Virtual Grand Prix is the final name of the old AlienF1 demo. The final version is practically
finished and, after the necessary playtesting/bug-fixing, will be released by Epic Marketing
A NOTE ON SPEED: VGP is written to get the most out of the AGA chipset. This means that, tough
it supports gfx-boards, on many configurations native AGA screenmodes give
the maximum speed (maximum frames-per-second rate). It has been reported that
on some configurations disabling the DATA CACHE improves a bit the fps rate
(this occurs normally on 040 with slow memory access, like on standard A4000):
I have not tested it myself, but give it a try...
INSTALLING THE GAME: copy all the files of the archive in a directory/partition, then make the
required assignment VGP_DATA: wherever you have copied those files to. You
can of course put the assignment in your user-startup
PLAYING THE GAME: double click on the "VirtualGP" icon. Select the ScreenMode you prefer, and
click the left mouse button when prompted by the game. Select modes with
1/1 ratios for better viewing. You can of course select gfx-boards ScreenModes.
If you have a fast processor, you can try the "VirtualGP.Hi" version: in this
case, select modes with 1/2 ratios (ie 320x512 if DBLPAL).
Click on the circuit you want to race on, and you`ll be in your "VirtualBox"
where you can enter the cockpit (by clicking on the F1 car on the left),
change car settings (by clicking on the toolbox) or control game options
like race duration, telemetry, type of input device, etc. (by
clicking on the computer to the right).
CONTROLLING THE CAR: use the mouse, the joystick or an analogue device. To center the analogue,
go on the "GAME OPTIONS" menu, select "CALIBRATE JOYSTICK", then center along
x axis, click "OK", center y axis, again click "OK", accelerate, "OK", brake
and again click "OK". To control x-axis amount of steering use "STEERING
SENSIVITY" (this works for the mouse too). It has been reported that some
PC-to-Amiga analogue adapters erroneously "switch" the x/y pot bits, so you
find yourself with a car that steer when you accelerate/brake and vice versa.
In the final game I put an option to let you switch these pot bits, so
that the game reads x as y and x as y (so things work anyway...)
To change gear use joy button, middle mouse button or up-down arrows.
If using the digital joystick, the game tries to "drive for you" a bit,
because the digital joystick isn`t suitable for a game like VGP (you cannot
choose the amount of steering when entering turns, as an example). You simply
steer left or right, and the game will try to enter the turn in the best way.
Remember, anyway, that you must enter the turn at the correct speed and with
the correct line (this is still under your control - after all, is YOU who
is playing, NOT your Amiga!)
To change view, to see info and follow opponent`s cars use F1-F10, DEL/HELP
To restore the car (if spinning, etc.), press R
CAR SETTINGS: VGP gives you a real F1 car simulation, so you have the possibility to fine
tune it to its best (and to your driving style). Clicking on the toolbox you`ll
be prompted by the setup menu. You can choose:
TYRES: this let you choose the tyre type
(hard, medium, soft). Tyres don`t degrade in the game (for now!), so
if you want you can always choose soft ones to get better time-lap.
CHASSIS: here you can choose from some sub-menus
CAMBER: this is a very important setting, controls the
degree of inclination of the tyre in respect of the ground. When in
turns your car tends to roll, and rolling changes the angle between
tyre and ground (because of multi-link suspensions), so to keep the
tyre perpendicular to the ground while in turn you must change this
setting. Of course this setting depends on the type of turns, on the
antirolling settings, etc. It also influences a lot the car behaviour
when jumping over kerbs, because kerbs change car inclination.
SHOCKS: VGP simulates 4-ways suspensions used in
real F1 cars. You can control separately suspensions settings when
the suspension goes in compression (DW setting) or in traction (UP
setting), and this for low and high frequencies (HI - LO settings),
so that you have four settings for each tyre. As a role of thumb, use
soft settings when the ground is rough (or you use a lot kerbs), and
hard otherwise - the correct setting must anyway be found tyre per
tyre, practising the track.
antirolling bars: these limit the amount of rolling
of the car, and are very useful when in fast turns. Unfortunately, the
car tends to become very nervous when jumping over kerbs or in rough
tracks.
brake balancing: this is self-explanatory, the
lower the setting, the more brake power will be delivered to your rear
tyres.
wings: this controls your wings settings; the higher the
setting, the more downforce you have but, of course, the less will be your
maximum speed. The numbers represent the amount of downforce (in Kg) you
receive at 100Km/h
gear box: for now you can only alter gear ratios.
fuel: the amount of fuel you want. When practising, or in
qualifying sessions, you can go out with very low fuel, but when racing you
must choose whether to start with a lot of fuel, and make less pit-stops,
or be lighter but make more pit-stops. In the final version of VGP you`ll have
a computer on your car which will be able to say to you the exact amount of
fuel needed to do a fixed number of laps, etc.
help): this is an helping setting, thanks to Marco Saupe from Germany
for his suggestion. This controls the amount of "fake" downforce you receive
at 0Km/h. By default this is 0 Kg, but you can increase it to have a more
controllable car in slow turns.
save/load setup: simply, loads or saves your current
setup. You can have a different setup for every track.
HINTS ON SETTINGS: - first of all, find the right wings settings/gear ratios setup; to do that,
put everything to default values (leave camber to 0), make some laps, change
the wings settings and gear ratios accordingly, make some other and compare
the time - go on this way until you find the settings that let you do your
PERSONAL best lap time (don`t look at your opponents`)
- try inserting or removing antirolling bars - on tracks with very fast
turns it`s best to insert them, on tracks with very low (where you must use
the kerbs) it`s best to remove - anyway, antirolling bars normally are NEVER
removed totally (lots of drivers use them a bit even at Montecarlo!); again,
make experiments until you find your best lap time.
- play with suspensions: try to keep them as tight as you can (the car is
more controllable because of reduced mass-transfer time), but lower the
settings if you use a lot the kerbs or the track needs a "smoother" settings -
normally low-freq settings are used to absorb track "roughness" while hi-freq
ones are for the kerbs; try to keep the DW settings (ie when the suspension
goes in compression) a bit tighter than UP ones, this gives you a better car
response in fast chicanes (tough it makes the car jump a bit more over
kerbs...). You must find the right settings tyre per tyre: as an example, on
the MagnyCours track I use a very tight settings for quite every tyre, but I
leave low the hi-freq settings of the rear right one because I use a lot
the kerbs in the two 1-2nd gears turns. Try to find a comfortable car without
loosing on your lap-times
- change brake balancing accordingly to the track: if you can, try to put more
braking power on your rear tyres (settings of about 33-35%), because of F1
cars mass distribution; if you find, anyway, that the car tends to spin while
braking reduce the settings until you have a drivable car
- Try increasing the camber settings to lower your lap-time: first of all,
try to increase only the EXTERNAL tyres BY THE SAME AMOUNT (ie if the track
turns normally to the right, try increasing your LEFT tyres (SX ones) by a
NEGATIVE amount, otherwise increase your right (DS) ones by a POSITIVE
amount). Go on this way, you`ll see that the speed in turns will increase
(normally for low turns values of 4-6 are enough, on fast turns it can be
more, expecially without antirolling bars). After, if the track has some
difficult internal turn, try to increase your INTERNAL tyres too. When you
have found the settings that give you the best lap time, you can try to get
the car more controllable: if you find that when jumping over the kerb the car
tends to spin too much, LOWER the camber of anterior tyre and INCREASE the
posterior one (by only some units, they will be enough), otherwise if you
have the opposite problem.
To get a help in the setup you can use telemetry: simply activate it in the
VirtualBox, then pass the end-line (you should notice some yellow flickering
of the screen that indicates you that telemetry is on); complete a lap, and
then go to the box and read it. The first gadget on the left reads the speed,
engine's rpm and gear; the second is for accelerator/brake pedals (you can
see where you start braking); the third gives you the lateral Gs and the
amount of inclination of the car (very useful for camber settings); the
fourth is for tyres temps & degradation, not yet very useful (until tyres
don't degrade...)
RACE SESSIONS: on the track menu you can choose practising, qualifying
warm-up or racing. When you are in the cockpit simply accelerate to exit the
box (your car will automagically be put on the pit-lane, you don`t need to
steer to avoid your opponents), when you return to it decelerate when you
are near your box and the car will be put in it and refuelled automagically.
In the current version of VGP you can change settings while racing but you
won`t be able any more in the final game.
A NOTE ON CHAMPIONSHIP: you can try playing the championship, you can play
it on the first three tracks (start it from the main menu) and you can save
it during the various events, but the game will probably hang when you are
about to go for the fourth race ;) (championship requires all the 16 tracks
to work properly)
CONFIGURING THE GAME: VGP lets you change a lot of things to suit it to your needs/feeling. You can
change drivers and teams stats, change the team you race for, etc.
DRIVERS: drivers are controlled by the ASCII file Dati/Drivers.config. You
can edit this file with a standard text editor. You can change the names of
the drivers, and change drivers` skill, the number which immediately follows
the driver`s name: the higher the number, the more skilled will be the driver.
You can change drivers stats if you think that the current stats don`t
resemble real drivers, or you can lower everyone just to get a more playable
game ;) . The asterisk (*) in front of a driver`s name selects him as you (ie
you`ll be that driver the next time you play VGP). The other three numbers
are the driver`s colors, don`t change them. After you made your changes, save
the new file (in ASCII format!!!).
TEAMS: the file Dati/Teams.config controls teams stats. After team`s name (you
can change it) there are three numbers: they control the chassis, the
aerodynamic efficiency and the engine power (there`s a fourth number too, but
it doesn`t work for now). The higher the number, the better will be that car`s
feature.
TRACKS: in the Piste/ directory you`ll find a sub-directory for each track.
In these sub-dirs you`ll find a file called Pista.config. This controls some
stats about that track. The numbers represent the number of laps to go, the
maximum speed reachable and the wings set-up for your opponents (they`re
expressed in "strange" measurement units, leave them as they are for now),
the (medium) fuel used to complete a lap, an internal-only number and the
level of "roughness" of the ground (safe values of the latter are from 4 to
2000, in hex). I suggest you to change only the number of laps (if you want),
just to have shorter races if you don`t like the full distance.
VERY VERY IMPORTANT: SAVE the old .config file BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO
IT, so if something doesn`t work ok you can revert back to the last saved.
GAME HINTS: follow opponent`s car to learn the best line and the gear to enter turns with.
Avoid kerbs if possible (expecially with very rigid settings), otherwise be
quick on reverse-steering; try to jump over them while accelerating to
transfer mass to the rear, keeping your rear tyres on the track, but remember
that with very low gear is best to partialise the accelerator (by fast clicking
on and off gas button). If you find too difficult making a turn with a too low
gear, try to enter it with an higher one (ie enter a 1st gear turn using your
2nd one): you`ll have less torque when exiting the turn, thus a more
controllable car. Don`t steer too abruptly at first, expecially when
accelerating on a low gear, EXPECIALLY if you have very low downforce (wings
settings low). Remember that when you brake you have only little directionality.
Pay attention to car setup, expecially on camber/shocks/roll-bar ("CAMPANATURA"
"SOSPENSIONI"/"BARRE ANTIROLLIO"); camber influences car behaviour a lot in
fast turns and on the kerbs. When qualifying, heat your tyres, because tyres
temperature influences a lot the grip.Remember that F1 champions are first of all very
good test drivers, and that they spend hours in finding the best car setup - no
one is able to sit on the car and make immediately a pole-position!
CREDITS: I want to thank everyone who sent me mails about AF1, you are too many to
be put here. I want to thank expecially Oliver Roberts for his invaluable
aid for tracks (he deserves my deep respect), Simone Pancri for his aid in
the Monaco track design, Mathieu Burgerhout and Marco
Saupe for their suggestions, Thomas Steiding from Epic Marketing for his
support, Andrea Favini and Nicola Morocutti for the playtesting and, last
but not least, all those brave Amiga users who still dare to
stand against the Wintel duopoly - long live to the Amiga, hope that big
things happen...
Enjoy the game!
A final note: I`ve very little time to answer mail, so if you want you can send me your mails, but
I won`t probably answer you (I`m sorry, it`s not very kind of me but my time is VERY little). I`d
prefer to receive only mails about big problems of VGP (ie BUGS!), and very nasty ones (as an example,
don`t tell me that sometimes you see cars through the scenery, I already know of this, but if the
game crashes on your computer for no reasons, well, this IS a bug, so please report me).
If you want to know market-related things (date of release, price, final-version features, etc.)
please contact Epic Marketing, they`ll publish the game and they`ll answer you.
Paolo (oxenos@tin.it)