I really like F1 2000. I've heard that ISI developed it for EA Sports in only 9 months, basing it on the Sports Car GT game engine. This is an amazing accomplishment!
To my knowledge, no one else has yet published a racing simulation for a race series at the beginning of the season. F1 2000 has Jenson Button in a Williams BMW, the Indianapolis Grand Prix course, and the Arrows Orange color scheme ... in April 2000!
In my opinion, ISI has taken the SCGT game engine to a new level. They've added a virtual cockpit (the only racing virtual cockpit I know of other than GPL's). The Force Feedback implementation has been drastically improved over that of SCGT, and the tire modeling seems to be much more realistic. Also, SCGT's dreadful "sticky grass" has been largely eliminated, and ISI has done a great job of reconfiguring the user interface appropriately for an F1 sim.
With Force Feedback, the cars seem very alive. At first I felt they were too easy; the tires' breakaway under power seemed to gradual and gentle. However, as I began carrying more speed through the turns, I found myself encountering the same kind of vicious snap oversteer that I see the real F1 drivers grappling with on TV - except that they cope with it a lot better than I do.
At the limit, F1 2000 is extremely demanding. It requires precision, delicacy with the throttle, patience, and lightning reactions. Slamming over curbs, fighting the wheel over bumps, feeling and using the downforce as the speeds go up, I find F1 2000 to deliver a very convincing and rewarding experience.
A nice touch is that the tires wear quickly; after 15 laps the tires are so far gone that stopping for a fresh set yields so much more grip that the car feels almost luxurious.
Since I started driving GPL, I don't play most other racing games much because they aren't as convincing and also because their more forgiving driving models allow me to get sloppy and tend to degrade my performance in GPL.
With F1 2000, the opposite is true; F1 2000 requires so much precision and discipline that when I go back to GPL, I drive better.
I find the track modeling to be very good. The tracks aren't perfect; for example, after watching the San Marino GP today on TV, I realized that the hill up to Piratella levels out too late in F1 2000.
Several areas of Monza don't seem quite right, either; Parabolica should be more open and a single curve rather than a series of bends and short straights, and the artist doesn't seem to have understood the point of the tunnel under the old banking, because they aren't in proper relationship to each other.
But I haven't encountered anything like the Flat Suzuka Disaster in F1RS. And we have the Indy GP track, months before the real cars will race there for the first time.
The various bumps and elevation changes make the tracks much more interesting to me than those in other F1 sims I've tried.
There are some functional things I don't like. The replay saving mechanism is so awkward as to be essentially useless, for example.
It's also extremely annoying that the game doesn't save lap times for practice sessions or for different chassis for a given driver.
Also the game doesn't show a list of lap times after you get out of the car after practice or a race - an omission that would have any real race driver wondering what the hell his/her crew was doing while the driver was out there working so hard!
And when is someone going to give us a model of tracks used only for testing F1 cars, such as Fiorano? Isn't testing just as much a part of real racing as the racing is?
And when are we going to get proper engineering data for the cars? How can sim developers expect us to function effectively as race engineers - which we obviously must, given a realistic simulation - when they give us access to none of the data available to real race engineers?
See GPL Race Engineer and GRE Help for an example of the kind of information and assistance that I feel any serious racing simulation should incorporate. At the very least, the sim should provide information like that included in GRE Help's Tables and Charts. Aerodynamic downforce data, in particular, is crucial in modern cars to setup development. Every F1 race engineer has data collected from testing their chassis and bodywork in the wind tunnel. We need to have this kind of data, guys!
Other gripes include very high CPU demands, problems with the sound, the same awful planar-looking smoke as in SCGT, and the annoying keyboard and joystick controller configuration mechanism. To their credit, ISI has made F1 2000 support the use of a wheel and buttons on one device and pedals on another, something I consider essential.
And couldn't the tracks have been listed on the track selection screen in some kind of logical order, like either alphabetically or in season order? And what's this with skid marks on the grass?
And, finally, they allow us to opt out of the pit lane autopilot (thank you!!), but the game still takes control of the car away from us after the race. What are we, chopped liver?
I haven't experimented at all with setups yet, because I feel I need to achieve a certain minimum level of mastery over these cars before I can make a useful evaluation of changes I make in setups. So far I'm a long way from being there.
ISI has provided the ability to adjust the AI strength, something I feel is essential to any realistic racing sim because most people will never develop the skill level necessary to be competitive in top-level racing cars against realistically fast AI. They've also provided what looks to be a nicely thought out array of driver aids (though I haven't tried any except turning off damage) and other realism adjustments.
I feel these are good, pragmatic choices on the part of developers who need to make a commercially successful realistic racing simulation.
As I said, I really like F1 2000. It's the best modern-era sim I've tried yet. As I drive, I find myself thinking, "if Papyrus ever did a modern F1 sim based on the GPL game engine, it would feel a lot like this."
Lively, responsive driving model with virtual cockpit and good force feedback. Convincing vehicle behavior. Very good versions of current tracks, nice-looking cars, current team and driver names. Generally very good user interface, good configurability.
It's hard to imagine a more enjoyable modern-era F1 sim.
I don't intend to operate an F1 2000 site as I did with GPL. That has been a huge task, and I need a break!
However, on this page are some things I've learned about F1 2000. Perhaps they will help some of the people who have had problems with this sim.
If you have suggestions about F1 2000 or have learned things that might help other people, or if you have a link to a good F1 2000 site, please don't send it to me!
Instead, post it on the F1_2000 eGroup site or mailing list.
There is an eGroup mailing list for F1 2000:
This list is free, and it's designed to prevent spamming abuse. You need not supply any personal information to join.
eGroups supports many more features in addition to the mailing list, including links, a database, file storage, and Web-based archives of all postings to the mailing list. I expect this could become a very useful site over time.
If you're interested in F1 2000, please join the eGroup.
I've put a link to the Black Hole Motorsports site and a few other F1 2000 links on the eGroup's Links page.
I won't be maintaining an F1 2000 Links page; if you have an F1 2000-related link, please post it on the eGroup's Links page.
Some people have reported that force feedback doesn't work in F1 2000 except for the rumble strips.
This isn't true. It works great. When I drive in F1 2000, the wheel kicks back over the bumps, gets light over humps, loads up as the speeds go up (due to aerodynamic downforce) or at the bottom of dips (like Acqua Minerale).
However, to get FF to work properly, you may have to set up your controller differently for F1 2000 than for other sims such as GPL.
The FF implementations for GPL and F1 2000 work differently. GPL seems to start at zero forces and add forces for download, caster, pneumatic trail, etc. F1 2000 seems to start at a centering force and subtracts forces.
Most FF wheels have some way of allowing the user to turn the centering spring force on or off. To get reasonable forces in F1 2000, you need to turn centering spring force on.
To set up F1 2000 for my Logitech Wingman FF, all I had to do was create a Wingman profile for F1 2000 and then for that profile, under Edit/Specific Game Settings, check "Enable Centering Spring". [For GPL profiles, this box is unchecked.]
I set Overall Effects Strength and Centering Spring Strength at 150%. The Damping Force is the same as what I use for GPL, 10%. You may want to use a lower value if you have a wheel that has a lot of internal friction, or a higher value if you don't like the wheel to kick back a lot.
Once you've turned on centering spring force, try Silverstone. Silverstone has several very fast turns where you can drive quickly and feel the higher forces from the aero download. I have taken Copse in 6th and the force is quite noticeable.
The steering is very light at low speeds. I think this is partly because most modern F1 cars have power steering; this allows lighter forces so the drivers don't get overly tired. I'd guess ISI has chosen to model this effect. Also, FF wheels have a limit to the force they can generate, so in order to have the forces increase at speed due to aero load, they have to start out light.
I do wish ISI had provided a means to adjust the maximum force, as Papyrus did in GPL. Even so, I find the forces in F1 2000 to be quite convincing.
More details about the Logitech FF wheel and CH Pedals on my GPL Force Feedback page.
Here are the controller settings I'm using inside the game:
Game Controller On GC Sensitivity 31% GC Dead Zone 2% * FF On KB Sensitivity 50% Speed Sensitivity 35% Auto Reverse Off
* I also tried 0 but couldn't feel a difference.
Some people have complained that it's too easy to drive F1 2000 because there is virtually no wheelspin when doing a standing start.
Part of the problem here is that F1 2000 doesn't seem to provide us a clutch. Also, modern F1 engines make their power at very high RPMs; it's probably quite very realistic that there isn't much grunt at low RPM.
But look beyond standing start launch behavior. When the car is cornering at the limit, a tiny bit too much power or hitting a bump wrong will break the rear tires loose almost instantly. And with radial tires, once you're a wee bit sideways, the car is gone.
Also I suspect that F1 2000 may modeling, at least to some degree, the anti-wheelspin logic built into the engine mapping logic in modern F1 engines' electronics. By sensing RPM increase and comparing it against the acceleration possible in a given gear, the engine computer can cut back power accordingly if the RPM increases too quickly. This is a legal way of implementing something that is a lot like traction control.
However, this has its limitations. The mapping must permit a little more RPM increase to allow for going up hills or other unanticipated conditions, so mapping alone can never prevent wheelspin.
When driving F1 2000's cars at the limit, this seems very apparent, because just a fraction too much throttle while cornering can cause wheelspin and a snap spin.
Some people have reported that the brakes act like a toggle switch, on or off. I don't have that experience at all.
Modern F1 cars have very powerful brakes, and F1 2000 seems to model this. I think the problems some people have with them may be due in part to the type of pedals they are using. I use CH Pedals on a PDPI L4. This allows very precise modulation of the braking force applied.
I can stop one front wheel from turning, or make it turn very slowly, under braking, while the other keeps turning, simply by modulating the brake pedal while turning in.
Some people are buying pedals from Thomas Enterprises (makers of the TSW). These can be plugged into the game port or Thomas will wire them into your LogiFF wheel in place of the Logi pedals. It's not cheap, but who said anything about modern F1 is cheap?
More details about CH Pedals on my GPL Force Feedback page.
F1 2000 is extremely demanding in terms of CPU requirements. I suspect this is due at least in part to the lack of Glide and OpenGL support, since DirectX still seems to be somewhat less efficient than these other API's.
As in GPL, frame rate in F1 2000 is critical. I've found I need to have very smooth frame flow in F1 2000 in order to feel what the car is doing and react appropriately.
I have a fairly powerful machine (C-366@550, Voodooo3 3500, SB Live! Value, PDPI L4) which is optimized for racing. I can run GPL with everything on and all AI at 1024x768, but I have to cut back to 800x600 and cut back on graphics details in F1 2000 to get good frame rate.
Here are the graphics options I'm currently running:
When I'm running solo, these settings give me smooth frame flow almost all the time at the tracks I've tried so far. The world and the car look good, too.
Running against AI cars is a significant frame hit. See my section on AI Drivers for why I don't run against the AI cars very much.
The engine sound in F1 2000 suffers from the same problem as it did in F1RS. Instead of changing pitch smoothly as the engine RPMs rise or fall, it changes pitch in annoying steps. This is because the sound card isn't being updated frequently enough because the CPU is busy doing other things. It's the audio equivalent of poor frame rate.
The only way I know to address this is to cut back on options in order to free up enough CPU so that the sound gets updated more frequently. See my Frame Rate section above.
I have not run very much with AI cars in F1 2000. I have spent almost two years racing with real humans over the Internet in GPL. As a result, racing against AI drivers holds very little appeal to me.
In my view, racing against computer-operated "Mika" and "Michael" is fantasy play; racing against live humans is real racing in simulated cars. You can guess what I'd prefer to do any day.
Let's hope that Internet play in F1 2000 gets sorted out quickly and we can race with each other online!
I have not yet been able to race in F1 2000 over the Internet. I'll update this page if I do have success with this.
As I mentioned in AI Drivers, I feel that Internet play is essential for any modern racing game or simulation. I believe that for most people, competing against real humans is an inherently more authentic and satisfying experience than competing against a computer.
I have heard a rumor that EA Sports has acquired from Bernie Ecclestone the rights make F1 2000 playable over the Internet. I don't have any official confirmation of this, but if it's true, EA Sports must have spent a considerable sum of money to acquire these rights.
If this is true, it would seem reasonable to assume that ISI will keep working on this aspect of F1 2000 until it works well enough to attract a substantial level of Internet participation.
I hope so!