For Grand Prix 2 by MicroProse

under construction

Grand Prix 2 or Grand Prix II ?

Question:: What is the difference between Grand Prix 2 and Grand Prix II? I have also seen two different box of design. Answer: Grand Prix 2 and Grand Prix II is the same game, but GP 2 is European name and GP II is American. European American

Chicane-cutting

:On certain tracks, it is possible to take shortcuts. GP2 does use black-flags to prevent most shortcutting, but this is not very effective in some locations. Curva della Roggia at Monza and Busstop Chicane at Spa are two obvious examples. Shortcutting at Curva della Roggia, Monza

Processor Occupancy (PO)

When you push the 'O' key during a replay or when you are playing GP2, the game will show you a percentage value that indicates how bussy your processor is. This value is called Processor Occupancy (PO) and  ranges from 0 to 100% .... and  HIGHER. Basically, a value less than 100% means that you are driving in "realtime": your processor is fast enough to calculate the desired framerate with the selected graphical options(objects around the track, textures, smoke..). So if you drive a lap in 1m30 (simulated time), you will have been driving (close to) 1m30 in reality also. When you would have a constant PO-value of 200% during driving, the simulated time would still be 1m30, but if you watch your clock on your wrist, you'll notice that you drove around 3min in reality! You drove in slowmotion! (clearly  recognisable in the slowdown of the action on screen) No, this has nothing to do with Einstein's Theory of Relativity: your processor simply tries to calculate all the frames, but since it is not powerful enough it needs twice as much time as desired.  Note that it does not really work like that the other way round: if your processor is so powerful that it has only 50% occupancy, you will not play faster than realtime. Also note that the "watch your clock"-experiment above is a theoretical example. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Here are some tips to get that PO-figure down:        1. for a good approximation, always set the desired framerate about 2 frames per second lower than the framerate that        GP2 "recommends". GP2 is typically too optimistic with this estimate, and you end up with slightly sluggish gameplay.        2. run in DOS instead of Windows95: I experienced a speed difference equivalent to something like 1.5-2 fps.         3. you don't need any details, let alone textures in the mirrors when hotlapping, and not much else either! We are not        here to admire the landscape! So turn them off and only leave the most essential ones on.        4. use one of those bigger cockpit pictures that you can download from the Net. A bigger cockpit (maybe even combined        with smaller mirrors) leaves a smaller part of the screen to be updated, and as such it makes the game slightly faster.

Sounds

The background music is stored on the Gp2 CD itself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The gameplay sounds are transferred onto your hard disk during the game installation process and are stored in a compiled form in the Gp2 subdirectory sounds in a data file called sample.cat Normally you can't access the sounds in the sample.cat file - but by using gp2edit you can de-compile the sample.cat file into 100 standard WAV format sounds. Once the sounds are in WAV format you can modify and replace them as you wish - with certain restrictions for some sounds, and then again use gp2edit to re-compile them back into Gp2's sample.cat file.   Engine Sounds Sound 0 Sound 1 Engine High Engine Low Most other sounds can simply be modified or replaced and Gp2 will simply play them as given at the appropriate time. However these two  sounds work differently from most of the others. These two combine to make up the engine sound, which of course has to match the current rev level of the cars' engine. Gp2 uses its own internal processes to change the pitch of these sounds to match the engine status. Sound 2 Sound 3 Sound 4 Sound 5 Sound 6 Gear changing Gear changing Gear changing Engine starting Engine idling Tyre Sounds Sound 7 Sound 8 Tyre screech Tyre screech Contact Sounds Sound 9 Sound 10 Sound 11 Sound 12 Sound 13 Sound 14 Contact - short, sharp, high, mild-ish impact Contact - short, sharp, lower than 9, medium impact Contact - short, sharp, lower than 10, heavy impact Contact - short sharp, simular to 11 Contact with curb, or ripple strip Contact with wall - long - wall scraping Off-Track Sounds Sound 15 Sound 16 Sound 17 Gravel trap transversing Rumble - very low, occurs when a car is being cranned off the circuit. Rumble - car on grass Car Passing Sounds Sound 18 Sound 19 Sound 20 Other car passing in distance, medium pitched    These sounds are used when you're in the pits area and another car goes past you on the race track. Other car passing in distance, high pitched Other car passing in distance, low pitched Garage Sounds Sound 21 Sound 22 Sound 23 Sound 24 Sound 25 Sound 26 Garage - air gun Garage - Dropping a small object ? Garage - compressed air Garage - another air gun Garage - ratchet wrench Garage - squeak Crowd Sounds Sound 30 Sound 31 Crowd - cheering Crowd - cheering Special Event Sounds Sound 32 Race pre-start horn Weather Sounds : Sound 27,28,29 - Rain.  Not used in the game, Gp2 doesn't include any wet weather simulation effects. Radio Sounds :      Sound 33 to 99      Gp2 does not simulate pit radio communications. However the sound files for these are included in the sample.cat sound data file. As with the weather sounds, this implies that the games' producers were probably hoping to have pit radio communications included in the release version but for whatever reasons were unable get them into production.  Example :

Tracks and slots

Gp2 uses 16 tracks. They are set out in the track selection list that comes up whenever you proceed through towards a gameplay session. The default circuits from  Brazil to Australia have track data file names from f1ct01.dat to f1ct16.dat respectively which are located in the Gp2 \ Circuits directory. Each position in the list has its own unique track performance value. It' been suggested that the original function of this value was to adjust the computer driven cars' ( CCs ) performance at each individual track so that they matched, more or less, the known lap times of the real world F1 cars. This seems a reasonable assumption. This means that a given circuit when slotted in at one list position will promote different lap times than when that exact same circuit is slotted in at a different list position. Before we had the ability to produce new tracks or to swap track positions around this wasn't an issue. Everyone by default was racing any given track in the same list position as everyone else. But now that we have new tracks, and can put those tracks in any position in the list we like, and can also swap around the positions of the existing circuits as we please, it confuses the integrity of lap times - due to the different track performance values of the different list positions. The track performance value may be a single value somewhere in the program code or it may be a combination of different values of which some may be fixed while others are variably. These things at this time are not entirely understood. In any case, that different track list positions produce significantly different times can easily be demonstrated by anyone who cares to take the time to investigate the matter. Before if someone said they achieved a certain lap time at a certain track we could simply take it without qualification. But as the position of the track in the track list can greatly affect the achievable lap times its no longer enough simply to say the circuit and the time. We now also need to know the track list position the track was in when the time was achieved. The track list position affects the times of both the CCs and the human drivers. To see the effect for yourself copy any track you like both to the Pacific position ( the second position ) and the Australian position ( the sixteenth position ) and with the same car setup see how you go at each. You'll be much faster at the Pacific position. Below is a table I've worked out that sets out the track position performance factors, by both the default original circuit positions and also by the performance factor itself. These results have been obtained by experimentation and not by hacking the Gp2 game code. Experimentation methods, as done here, are not always perfectly accurate. If you test the track performances yourself you may find slightly different values. Having said that I do believe that the values shown here are reasonably accurate. They are the result of more than just one testing procedure and session. Hacking, ie reverse engineering and analysing, the Gp2 code should produce a perfectly accurate result but I don't have the skill or knowledge to do that.   Track Performance Position  by Performance Factor slot  (Original) circuit performance factor  02 Pacific ( Aida ) 1.000 ( fastest ) 14. Europe ( Jerez ) 1.015 03 San Marino 1.033 13 Portugal 1.046 05 Spain 1.050 10 Hungary 1.050 01 Brazil 1.052 08 British 1.057 15 Japan 1.060 11 Belgium 1.070 07 France 1.083 12 Italy 1.087 04 Monaco 1.104 09 Germany 1.129 06 Canada 1.155 16 Australia 1.174 ( slowest ) You can see that the f1ct02 track position, position 2 originally occupied by the Pacific circuit, has the lowest ( and therefore the fastest ) track performance factor. The f1ct16 position, position 16 originally occupied by Australia, has the largest ( and therefore the slowest ) track performance factor. What does all this mean in actual gameplay ? For example ... Say you had a circuit on which you could lap in say 1m0.000s when that circuit was slotted in at position 2 ( the f1ct02 "Pacific" position ). If you took that same circuit and slotted it at position 16 ( the f1ct16 "Australia" position ) you could expect to lap times to increase by .174 x your position 2 lap times. That would be in this example ... 1m0.000s + ( 1m0.000s x .174 ) = 1m10.440s - an increase of nearly 10.5 seconds on the same circuit with the same car setup and power defaults etc and with the same driver but with the track slotted in at a different track position on the track list. Quite a difference I'm sue you'll agree.

Tracks

The tracks are just like they were in season 1994. For example, Imola is as dangerous and fast as it used to be and Silverstone has turned into slow track.

Brazil - Interlagos Pacific - Aida San Marino - Imola Monaco - Monte-Carlo Spain - Barcelona (no tyre chicane) Canada - Montrela (no chicane) France - Magny Cours Great Britain - Silverstone Germany - Hockenheim Hungary - Hungaroring Belgium - Spa-Francorchamps (no chicane) Italy - Monza Portugal - Estoril Europe - Jerez Japan - Suzuka Australia - Adelaide

                                              Don't hit the cerbstones to hard unless necessary.
                                              Don't block your wheels to much.
                                              Look at the computer drivers to see how they drive trough corners and what topspeed they have.
                                              When braking at high speed try to brake hard at the beginning and then a bit less.
                                              When you have a fight with Verstappen or Brabham, let them win or otherwise you both are out.
                                              If you get a black flag when you are in front in a race, weave from left to right in front of the oposition so they don't
                                              pass, then when you get your power back leave them for dead. Not very sporting, but since when has F1 been
                                              porting!!
                                              To learn a new track, put all driving aids to on (except the ones in controller configuration: steering help and the other
                                              one which I both always keep to off) and drive around. This way you have very little chances of getting off the track,
                                              and the memorizing process is not interrupted, which is important.
                                              Hit the gas when your in a chicane, you will gain about 0.2 sec.
                                              If you do a 360 degrees with your formula one, the best way to keep the car straight is when you are backward just
                                              push hard on the brake and when you are half way of your 360 just turn the steering wheel to the good way and
                                              accelerate.
                                              Drive you first championship season with indestructible and without mechanical failures. You will learn the tracks much
                                              faster becuase you aren't then out in the first lap. You will need an aid utility.
                                              Before watching hotlaps or replays downloaded from the Net, save your current settings: save a game or hotlap. After
                                              watching 'strange' files restore your settings back loading the game/hotlap you saved.
                                              Check the occupancy at the start of the race. If it's over 100% do the following:
                                              Turn off the textures until the estimated frame rate shows that you'll get >25 frames/sec. Then decrease the frame rate,
                                              but not under 20. Then start the game and you will notice how well the game runs! Seems like GP2 uses the frame
                                              rate you have chosen as a minimum and the estimated as a maximum.
                                              At the start of the race, turn off all the trackside objects and after first lap put them back. The hotkey for that is
                                              ALT-D. You will notice how fine the game runs when there are lots of cars.

Special thanks to Phillip McNelley, I have used a lot of informations from his (closed)