18 replies to this topic

[ti2blegrr]

Even tho I've had the sim for years, I've never tried to learn it. Which track and driving mode should I start with?

[Bob Simpson]

I'd start with the full F1 cars at Watkins Glen and Monza.  If you find there's too much power to drive them in a controlled way, drop down to the Advanced Trainer for a little while, but not long.

Mind you, I race in a league - LoPeN - where we race the 67 F2 mod Advanced and Basic Trainers.  It's just about as as difficult to drive those at the 10/10ths limit as the more powerful cars.

https://groups.yahoo...PeN_Racers/info

http://lopen.autosimsport.net/

[JonnyA]

I'd agree with starting at Watkins Glen as it's an easy track to learn but has a good variety of corners.
If you spend too much time crashing with the 67 full car or trainer I would try a 65 car as you can still learn a lot with them.

[WalterC]

I would do a few laps in each car, and try to notice the handling differences. I've noticed that some cars suite my driving style more than others depending on the track. For me, I make too many mistakes when I drive the Cooper, Ferrari and the Eagle. So I gravitate towards the BRM, Honda, Brabham and Lotus.  

[Saiph]

Definitely don't start by using any of the driver aids (throttle help, braking help and auto-shifting). Although it may seem that they will help you while you're learning, effectively they will be teaching you bad driving habits, so when you get confident enough to switch them off, you will find that you almost have to re-learn your driving style from scratch.

I would also try to start with the full 1967 F1 cars. Yes, it will be difficult at first, but at some point you will need to learn how to control your throttle inputs to prevent unwanted wheelspin. Learning gently with the full cars will be easier in the long run, because if you start with easier cars, the full-power versions will take you by surprise when you switch to them.

The earlier you learn to use the throttle wisely, the sooner you can start to use it to help steer the car. GPL models power-on oversteer quite well, and it's great fun getting a car to drift through a corner (for example, Curva Grande at Monza), and using the throttle as well as the steering wheel to achieve the line that you want.

Most of all, you will need to have some patience, and learn to do several fairly slow laps to get the tyres up to a reasonable temperature, and get the feel of the car, before trying to get anywhere near racing speed.

For your first tracks, I would go with previous suggestions of Monza and Watkings Glen 1967. Monza is flat, with very little camber, so your eyes will tell you almost everything you need to know about a corner when you enter it. Watkins Glen is a small track which is easy to learn, but it has a couple of tricky places which can catch learner drivers out. The downhill braking areas into The Loop and the final 90-degree right-hander can be tricky, but it teaches you how camber and gradients can affect the handling and response of the car.

Good luck and I hope you have lots of fun!

Edited by Saiph, Sep 07 2014 - 09:20 AM.

[Fat Rich]

I'm dividing my time between the less powerful 65 Mod and the original 67 cars, although I have the occasional go on the other mods too.

My thinking is that the lower powered cars allow you to work on keeping the speeds up mid corner and in corner entry (in addition to corner exit speed which is almost always most important), but it's too easy to stamp on the gas like an elephant and not spin out due to lack of power in these cars unless you're right on the limit. You have to keep the speed up in the corners as it takes forever to accelerate in these cars.

The 67s are tricky at first and will definitely teach you finesse with the throttle but unlike the slower cars it's easy to not pay enough attention to mid corner speeds and corner entry, relying too much on the acceleration of the bigger engines.

Combine the corner entry, mid corner speed from driving the 65s and throttle finesse from the 67s and you'll start to go pretty fast pretty soon in all the mods.

Tracks: I've concentrated initially on the tracks that appear in the most mods: Monza, Monaco, Silverstone, Zandvoort, Spa, Nurburgring, Mexico, Watkins Glen etc.

From that list:

Monza is good for developing setups because there are fewer corners so it's easier to be consistent, can get pretty boring though. I'd suggest sticking with the default setups at first though, they're mostly easy to drive (apart from the 69 mods)

Watkins Glen is simple but fun

Silverstone is a bit stop / start but the fast kinks are quite tricky to get right at first.

Zandvoort is great fun but a little tricky to learn at first, surprisingly little braking after the first couple of corners.

I find Spa boring and frustrating, tiniest mistake and you'll lose a lot of time and it takes ages to get round and start another lap. Plus I know I won't race it once the new version comes out.

Monaco is pretty scary in a 67 car but much more fun in the 65s as they're smaller and fit through the chicane better.

Mexico is tricky, particularly turn 1 which is more about engine braking and timing your downchanges than braking.

Nurburgring is a challenge and takes a long time to learn, probably need to get stuck into it sooner rather than later.

Good luck whatever route you choose, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Edited by Fat Rich, Sep 07 2014 - 10:48 AM.

[ti2blegrr]

I'm out of bandwidth, so downloading anything is impossible until the 18th(Hughesnet sucks!), I've been driving the Eagle at Watkins since I've driven this version in NR2K3S. I'll defenitly try all the cars, I didn't realize they had all different physics!

Thanks for the information, I remember when I started NR2K3S, I just jumped behind the wheel and drove, this is defenitly different and going to be FUN!

[Fat Rich]

Out of bandwidth?!   I thought that kind of stuff stopped happening about the time GPL launched in the nineties!

Ah well, there's plenty to enjoy in the original game, Kyalami and Mosport are both fun and Rouen is a beautiful track.

[ti2blegrr]

Satellite(hughesnet) is just like the good old days. They only give you 10 gigs a month and with two PC's and two tablets it goes fast, I only have 8% left!

[WalterC]

I wanted to share a link to the GPL book, Four Wheel Drift.  http://www.autosimsp...nualREDUX-2.pdf

[Stefan Roess]

Also a good read
GPL Foolishness - Learn to drive - General driving tips:
http://web.archive.o...richardn/#Drive


As said before, besides original 67 also go for the 65 mod cars. The 1st GPL mod released in 2004 (time flies   ).
They really teached me over the years (mainly online racing) how to race GPL 67 and any other race sim.

Edited by Stefan Roess, Sep 08 2014 - 05:49 AM.

[Pete Gaimari]

Ah hell! Drive like a man. Grab the 67 Lotus F1, and fire up Nurburgring. Go kill some trees until you learn to control the beast.

Everything is easy after that.

[ti2blegrr]

LOL! Pete! I might just do that!

[JonnyA]

Funnily enough, I had just about finished writing an 'Absolute Beginners Guide to GPL' when this subject came up. I've finished it off now - as attached.

I am very nervous to post it up as I'm not a very fast driver, still not gone negative anywhere in GPL. I wrote it purely as a way of marshaling my thoughts, and getting a few things down about being new (like, really new) to GPL while they were fresh in my mind. It's subjective (as I'm sure everyone has their own way of learning GPL) and it really is for absolute beginners - 99% of the people on SRMZ won't read a single word they didn't already know. It's just that I found some of the existing guides are very good at covering advanced stuff but not much help when you're trying just to do a single clean lap that isn't embarrassingly slow.

If anyone does bother to read it and finds an error, let me know and I'll happily correct it.

Attached Files

•  GPL Guide.pdf   333.68K   190 downloads

[Lee200]

Excellent guide to GPL Johathan and congrats on posting it.

My only constructive comment is that GPL is a "simulation", not a "game".  Games for kids while sims for us old folks.  

Edited by Lee200, Sep 10 2014 - 02:56 PM.

[JonnyA]

I did try to just refer to it as a 'sim' but maybe a few 'games' slipped through!

[Lee200]

JonnyA, on Sep 10 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

I did try to just refer to it as a 'sim' but maybe a few 'games' slipped through!

No problem and thanks again for the guide.  It's got a lot of useful information.  

[MLGathome]

Hi Jonathan,

That was a very interesting read. Saved it on my HD as GPL_Guide byJonnyA.

Greetings, Marcel

Edited by MLGathome, Sep 11 2014 - 01:36 AM.

[djs]

Pete Gaimari, on Sep 08 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

Ah hell! Drive like a man. Grab the 67 Lotus F1, and fire up Nurburgring. Go kill some trees until you learn to control the beast.

Everything is easy after that.

Agree.  Took me about 20 goes to get around The 'Ring without crashing.  Extremely satisfying when I did!

And keep trying Monaco.  It's very hard at first, but you will get it.