Many people raised a number of excellent criticisms of my initial review of CPR. Rather than attempt to include even a small subset, which would be a huge undertaking, I've chosen to quote the longest and one of the best.
From John, creator of the excellent CPR-devoted Web site, the APEX:
Alison, I totally agree with your ideas of the ultimate sim and have been hoping companies would follow many of the ideas you outlined. I would like to run down the list of your ideas and see if MS CART Precision Racing has them.
(1) 8 Player Multiplayer - YES CART PR has this.
(2) Rendition Support - YES CART PR has this in Direct 3D. No in terms of a dedicated Rendition port. Because 3DFX is the current 3D card leader I don't think you will see many companies doing dedicated rendition ports anymore.
(3) 3D Support - YES CART PR has this in Direct 3D. Runs best on 3DFX which many people own now because of it's high performance. If I owned a rendition card I would be dissapointed that 3DFX runs CART PR better but I was disappointed when Papyrus only released a Rendition port.
(4) Win 95 or DOS. Yes CART PR runs on Win 95. No in DOS. In your specifications you say Win95 is ok with no performance hit. I think ultimately any DOS game is going to run faster than a Win95 game because the OS overhead is not as much (These are my assumptions and not based on great technical knowledge of OS's). To ask Win95 to not provide any performance hit over DOS is asking a lot. Hopefully the performance hit will be minimal. It is also the current trend to develop games in Win95 and not DOS so for the time being we don't have much choice on this item.
(5) Comprehensive Garage Settings - YES CART PR has this.
(6) Tabs for accessing the many garage settings - YES CART PR has this.
(7) Loads last setup for each track - YES CART PR has this. CART will not warn if you change a setup I don't think but it will save it under the custom name.
(8) Telemetry - YES CART PR has this. Since the Replay or PI Analysis file is a text file (Go to the APEX in the editing section to see the file layout) you can easily create a more in depth data analysis tool or import the data into a spread sheet.
(9) New carsets - YES CART PR has this with the recently released Paint Kit that extracts the textures from the game.
(10) Add new tracks/ car models - YES CART PR has this in the soon to be released track editor. This editor allows you to extract many different files form the game and gives you the opportunity to edit more than just the track. The tools to create a track from scratch are very powerful+ACE- The track editor that T.R.I. will be releasing is the exact same editor that they used to create the tracks for CART P.R. People will drool when this tool is released.
(11) Vehicle Performance Model Editing - NO at present. I'm working on this item and it may be possible to to edit some values in the near future through hacking. The problem is that many of the performance varaibles are hard coded in the program and not available via external input files. So looking at this list CART P.R. has met many of the items as that you list as being in your ultimate sim.
Now that doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you are unhappy with the sim.
Many of the items that you listed as being unhappy with in your review are being addressed in the patch. There was no mention of the patch or the editors in your review.
In your review you also listed some postings from R.A.S. from people that were also unhappy with CART P.R. It would have been nice if you would have posted some of the positive messages on R.A.S. to give a balanced view.
I read your background and learned that you have race experience in SCCA. I too have raced in SCCA and set lap records at SEARS POINT and won the championship both years I raced.
I also raced 1 year of S.C.C.A. Pro racing in the ESCORT Endurance series (World Challenge).
In college I got my degree in Mechanical Engineering and helped work on a Bob Sled Simulator for the U.S. Bob Sled team.
I just like you am searching for the ultimate race car simulator. I too have played race simulators from the original World Circuit to INDYCAR 1,II and NASCAR I,II. I had very high expectations for CART PR before it came out also. When I first played it I too was frustrated by the steering and the default setups. After a lot of tinkering and messing around I was able to resolve the steering and I used many setups that were sent to me for The APEX page.
The game is now very enjoyable to drive and gives me the same feelings that I used to feel when racing. I have raced at both Sears Point and Laguna Seca so I have intimate knowledge of both these tracks. I set a lap record at Sears so I definitely know what I'm doing.
Since Nascar Racing has Sears and Indy Car games have had Laguna I have been able to use these tracks as a basis to evaluate how realistic the track and physics models are. Until now no other sim has felt as real as CART PR. The layout of the Laguna Seca track is very accurate and reproduces many of the small items of the track that I remember. The only item that is not realistic is the Aligator teeth curbing, but that would be hard to model.
With regards to the dynamics model the car feels very real. Now I have not driven an Indy CAR before so I can only compare the feel to the less horsepowered and non ground effects cars that I have driven. The game was tested by both Big Mo' and Mark Blundell. Many of the items were changed in the model to reflect their feedback as to the feel of the car. CART PR uses a 6 degree of freedom model where each tire is modeled on the car. Many other sims including Papyrus's have used a 2D stick model.
The only item that I have felt is strange in the driving model is the stability of the car when it spins backwards. When the car is rolling backwards it seems very stable. I talked with some people at T.R.I. who worked on the driving model and they say it may be related to aerodynamics when the car is rolling backwards.
Beyond that I have found the driving model very satisfying.
An item that was not mentioned in your article is the forth coming track editor. This editor will allow the creation of any track your heart desires. There is also the possibility that the car models can be edited also. The editor that they will be releasing is the exact smae editor that they used for the game and is very powerful.
Another items you did not mention is the Garage Engineer and the Garage item descriptions by Nigel Bennet. As sims get more complicated it is getting harder and harder for the average player to setup a car. The Garage Engineer is a revolutionary idea that is awesome! Now people don't have to worry about the specifics of the car they can converse with the garage engineer on how the car feels and have the negineer do the changes. If you want to learn more you can actually observe what the engineer changes or click on a garage items and you will get a full description of it and its effects.
In your article you briefly mention the good sounds. I think the sounds in CART PR are the most accurate to date and they sound exactly like what you hear in real life or on T.V. I especially like the sound of the car on the rev limiter or during shifts.
On my P133 with Monster 3D card the game has been very enjoyable and trouble free. In your review you mention the steering bug. I noticed you mentioned my site - The APEX - so I'm assuming you read the steering help section in the FAQ.
If you tried ALL of the items listed your steering should be acceptable now.
I receive several emails daily from people thanking me for the FAQ and how to fix the steering. If you have tried EVERY item listed then I'm sorry that it is not working for you and hopefully the patch will address the problem. Like I said the suggestions to improve the steering on The APEX have worked for numerous people and not one has gotten back to me saying, "Hey it is still not working for me".
In your article you say that Terminal Reality has no concept of non-linear steering. How do you know that? Do you know how non-linear steering is coded in the program? If you don't know you are making accusations that are based on your assumption. The assumption being that the steering problems are based on improper coding of non-linear steering by T.R.I. and not related to any other item. You should not make accusations unless you know the facts.
There are many different items that can cause the steering feel that you have mentioned some of which are not due to the coding of non-linear steering.
With regards to the Random Frame generator I cannot help you with out knowing more details. I'm thinking that the change in frame rate may be due to you going from Full Screen mode to Full screen with a title bar mode when you press the escape key.
The game only runs in Hardware accelerated mode when it is full screen without a title bar. You can see the three different modes the game runs in by pressing F4. The windowed mode and full screen with title bar mode are software accelerated.
The game will also change its frame rate depending on the complexity of the scene being rendered. For example if there are a lot of buildings or AI cars around the game will slow down due to the extra rendering task. In simpler sections the frame rate will increase due to the easier rendering task.
You mentioned that SODA works well but the frame rate is not great. Is that in the dedicated rendition port version?
Remember CART PR is in Direct 3D and not running on a direct port to your rendition card like SODA is.
With the patch you will have a 30% to 50% increase in frame rate with Direct 3D.
The next item you mention in the review is the OS corruption. Do you have solid proof that it was CART PR that caused the OS corruption? I'm not saying that it did not do it but you can't say that it did either.
I just recently had my registry hosed on my computer. I was not playing CART PR nor had I started it at all during that session. Do I blame the email program that I was running? Maybe, or Maybe not. I can't blame anyhting because I don't know the specifics of what caused the corruption. It is very hard to tell if CART PR caused your problem.
One item I agree with your review is the tire temps. These items are needed to adjust toe angle and camber on a race car.
You mention the PACE LAP and PIT LANE autopilot in your article as a design flaw. I would not list these items as a flaw but as a design decision. You did fail to mention that this item is being addressed in the forth coming patch.
It is nice to see that T.R.I. and MS are responsive to our feedback and adding a option to turn this autopilot off.
The setups were never advertised as being excellent. At least that I can remember.
If you want an excellent set up head on over to The APEX http://cart.gamestats.com and download some from the setups page. I guarantee that many of these setups will increase your enjoyment of the game immensly.
A race car with a poor setup makes it very hard to drive. You can sort out setups during a test session. I think I have rambled long enough :-) My purpose of this posting is to give a different view of CART PR. For me the game has been very enjoyable and looks to get even better with the patch and track editor.
I recommend that you try the game out and make your own decision. All Microsoft games come with a 30 day money back guarantee so you can return the game if you don't like it. I would also recommned you check out THE APEX site. There are many excellent information resources on the site to make the game very enjoyable.
Alison, if you still have the game and you would like to give it another chance please email me and I will be very happy to spend the time to try and get the game working well on your machine. The same goes for anyone else that is having problems with the game. I have been able to get the game to a point where it is very enjoyable. I would like to do the same for others because otherwise you are missing out on a truly fun sim.