Here are my thoughts on what I'd like in the Ultimate Racing Simulation. I posted this on the racing sim newsgroup, and included some of the responses below.
Okay! I am about to vent some frustration here, and express what I've been hoping for from one or more of the sim producers. So far, all my pleas to them have been rebuffed, so maybe I will feel better after I tell the world.
First, let me say that I am eagerly awaiting Papy's historical F1 sim, in which I suspect the cars will be much more fun to drive than modern F1 cars. Modern Grand Prix cars, in my humble opinion (based on my vast experience driving F1 cars in GP2) are too darn grippy. There's no margin for error when you get near the limit; one instant it's sticking; the next instant, it's gone.
If the Papyrus ICR2 dynamics model is accurate, modern Indycars are much more "tossable" than current GP cars, and I find them much more fun to drive. Hopefully 1967 GP cars will be even more tossable, and more fun.
However, I want current sims as well, because I very much like running on the current tracks before and after the real races; it really helps me relate to the racing on the real tracks. Being able to race with several friends in current cars, on current tracks, would be the ultimate!
Unfortunately, development of both of the best open-wheel sims, ICR2 and GP2, seems to have reached a dead end. Both are very good in many ways, but both have some significant weaknesses, IMHO. Despite the ground-breaking histories of both sims, I consider ICR2's lack of network play and GP2's lack of Rendition support as major deficiencies in today's world of sim racing.
Here's my vision of the Ultimate Racing Sim.
It would be Rendition-ready, and multiplayer (up to, say, 8 players) with modem play, as well as TCP/IP (i.e. internet) connection built in.
In networked mode, it should be capable of having one PC on a LAN acting as a gateway (via modem) to allow play between all the PC's on the LAN, and other PC's elsewhere on the Internet. (This is a feature available in a recent Kali95 beta).
Rendition support is a must. Anyone who's played both GP2 and the Rendition-ready ICR2 cannot fail to appreciate how much difference direct support of a 3D card makes in the feel, driveability, and quality of visual display in a racing sim. GP2's texture-mapped graphics, realism, and visual and audio detail are markedly superior to the original ICR2. But the Rendition version of ICR2 blows GP2 away, both in terms of visual impact, and in terms of playability, due to hugely superior frame rate. All this is as a result of ICR2's taking advantage of low-cost 3D hardware technology.
For those of you who haven't experienced ICR2/3D, the difference between it and non-Rendition ICR2 is as great as the difference between the original IndyCar and ICR2. We gotta have 3D support!
I don't care too much if my Ultimate Sim runs in Windows 95, but if it does, it should be as robust and stable as in DOS mode, and there should be no performance hit.
The Ultimate Sim's menu structure should be similar to NASCAR2, with ready access to all important options without leaving the track, or disconnecting from other players. Dropdown menus for multiple selection fields, as in N2, are very nice.
It should have a garage with all the adjustments in ICR2, plus maybe a few more like the damper and spring settings in GP2. Setup sheets like in N2 would be nice. Tabs could lead to multiple sheets, since there would be too many settings to fit on one sheet.
When you load a setup file, the sim would remember (and continue to display) the name of the last one you loaded, and also, if you modified the setup since you loaded it, display a caption to that effect. If you attempt to leave the track, or load another setup, without saving a modified setup, it would warn you and give you a chance to save the setup. The ability to review, compare, print, rename, and delete setup files is of course taken for granted.
Telemetry or on-board data recording would save all the pertinent data for each lap, if desired (as in GP2) and would allow graphing it, or exporting to a text file for manipulation in spreadsheets such as Excel.
Current sims allow the user to create new carsets, and to modify paint schemes. The N2 style of managing carsets and driver names would do fine. Enterprising sim racers have even found ways to modify the shapes of ICR2 cars, and even create new shapes. My Ultimate Sim would have these capabilities built in.
Now, for one of the most important features. Like ICR2 and N2, The Ultimate Sim would be extensible; that is, it would be possible to add a new track, or a variant of an existing track, and the sim would recognize it. Most importantly, it would be possible to create entirely new tracks, so that when CART suddenly decides to race at Texas, or F1 comes back to Watkins Glen (I'm joking, Mr. Ecclestone!), or Roger Penske builds a new track in New Jersey and stages a GP and a CART race there the same weekend (just kidding, Roger), we (admittedly, with lots of hard work) can replicate the new track and race there too.
Of course, we'd need to be able to edit the existing tracks, to reconfigure the corners at Homestead (like Ralph Sanchez is going to do to the real track), say, or remove that pesky Interloop from Watkins Glen when we want to run Indycars there.
It's obvious by now that I want this to be a multipurpose sim. Why should I have to shut down one sim and start up another to run first a GP car at Monaco and then an Indycar at Cleveland, when almost everything except the shapes of the cars and tracks, the names of the drivers, the engine sounds, and the vehicle dynamics, are (or could be) identical?
The missing piece we need to do this would be configurable, or at least selectable, vehicle dynamics models. Since all vehicles are subject to the same laws of physics, basically what the sim would need to provide would be the ability to define the mass, mass distribution, horsepower, aerodynamic characteristics, braking power, tire adhesion, fuel capacity, and some suspension geometry parameters for each type of car.
I'd like it to come with vehicle dynamics parameter sets for F1 cars and CART cars. Even better, it could include sets for cars from steppingstone series such as Formula 3000, Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, Indy Lights, and the IRL, so we could learn in less challenging cars and work our way up just like real race drivers do.
If the vehicle dynamics sets were editable (the way carsets and tracks would be), then enterprising people could create sets for Trans Am, NASCAR (such as Winston, Busch, and Craftsman Trucks) or maybe WSC and Le Mans cars. Obviously, editing would have to be accompanied by ironclad security that ensured that multiplayer races were all conducted with identical vehicle dynamics models on all machines, to prevent someone from defining a 1000 hp GP car or an 1100 lb Indycar.
Of course, all this means we could just as easily run a GP car at Laguna Seca as run an Atlantic car at Monaco. Geez! What a shame! giggle Well, ok, we could have each track have a default type of vehicle (and associated race rules - oops! Guess we'd need a rule set selector/editor too) for each track, but let the user choose any other type they wish.
Of course, this is all just a fantasy. I realize that commercial reality makes this impossible. First, there is the licensing issue that seems to have killed further interest in CART on the part of Papyrus. How would anyone ever get licenses for one sim from the FIA, CART, the IRL, and the various snotty tracks who seem to think they are something special?
Further, why would any sim developer want to release such a sim? Such a fully configurable core racing sim engine would kind of obviate the need for new sims, wouldn't it? We could all just create new tracks and tweak the carsets and vehicle dynamics models to follow developments in the real world from year to year.
Of course, this would be a lot of work; maybe the sim developer could release new "SuperPacks" each year, containing relevant updates, charging a reasonable sum so we could all stay current and they could stay in business.
And, as hardware development keeps giving us new capabilities, new releases of the core sim engine could include enhancements like a virtual reality driver's view, more sophisticated modeling of suspension behavior, the capability for multiple vehicle dynamics models in one race (i.e real differences between a Jordon-Peugeot and a Williams-Mecachrome) and other cool stuff. Jeez, maybe the sim company could even make some money here.
One other thought: some perusal of various ICR2 and GP2 sites on the Web reveals significant grass roots development projects under way to come up with utilities that allow creating new tracks (not just modifying the scenery on existing tracks, as is now done to create "Texas" out of Charlotte, or "Anderstorp" out of Watkins Glen). Already there are Trans Am and IRL car images for ICR2, and a broad assortment of '97 carsets for GP2 and ICR2.
If commercial sim developers don't work towards the dream of the Ultimate Racing Sim, will the more technically-oriented of us sim drivers do it anyway?
Well, thanks for enduring my rambling. We can dream, can't we?
Michael Carver responds:
BRAVO, right on. I am sure that there will be a few whiners when your ultimate sim hits the shelves, but you covered just about all I have ever wanted in a sim (even came up with a few that I missed).
I'll wait in line all night to be one of the first in the door when they announce its release!
Jason of Kennesaw State writes (quotes from my original posting are highlighted):
I don't care too much if my Ultimate Sim runs in Windows 95, but if it does, it should be as robust and stable as in DOS mode, and there should be no performance hit.
A game with as much networking capability as you suggest would probably be programmed in Win95, because it tends to be easier to write network code with, at least for lazy people like me.
I'd like it to come with vehicle dynamics parameter sets for F1 cars and CART cars. Even better, it could include sets for cars from steppingstone series such as Formula 3000, Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, Indy Lights, and the IRL, so we could learn in less challenging cars and work our way up just like real race drivers do.
That's a tall order. Do you do any programming? [Ed. note: yes, I'm a software engineer.] It sounds like you do. But remember one thing. Game developers don't program games to BE real, they only program them to look and feel real. I wrote a car sim program once that took all the physics straight from the textbook, exactly how it would be in real life, the problem was it was impossible to drive. There have to be tradeoff's in computer games. Realism, graphics and accuracy are often sacrificed to keep speed acceptable.
However with all that said. The idea you suggest would lend itself extremely well to Object Oriented design and programming. I can almost hear Visual C++ calling me.
If commercial sim developers don't work towards the dream of the Ultimate Racing Sim, will the more technically-oriented of us sim drivers do it anyway?
You're talking about a year or more of development with a good sized, well educated development team. I doubt its possible to get that many folks together to work on something like this that may never make them a dime. Interesting thought though.
Larry writes:
Rendition support is a must.
Rendition? 3DFX? Pyramid? Perhaps some common format like Opengl?
I don't care too much if my Ultimate Sim runs in Windows 95, but if it does, it should be as robust and stable as in DOS mode, and there should be no performance hit.
My ultimate sim will run on a multi processor Solaris box. I suspect another PC might be required to read the joysticks.
Like ICR2 and N2, The Ultimate Sim would be extensible; that is, it would be possible to add a new track, or a variant of an existing track, and the sim would recognize it. Most importantly, it would be possible to create entirely new tracks...
I want Le Mans.
Of course, this is all just a fantasy. I realize that commercial reality makes this impossible.
I was thinking of delivering the basic 3D sim package, and let others violate the licenses with "Plug ins".
It's nice to make money, It's also nice to learn new skills. I've always felt that an involvement in a project like this would be educational.
I suggested a Linux like project for driving and flight sims about a year ago. I don't think anybody bit. I suspect the required talent is represented in the readers of this group. It's not just programmers like me, there are many disciplines required to pull this off.
Good ideas, good luck.
Larry