Although it is over six years old now, Microprose Formula One Grand Prix remains the definitive Amiga F1 simulation. It is a measure of just how good the game is that it is still played by thousands of people all around the world. This is no more evident than on the Internet, where the Amiga F1GP scene has been alive and kicking for several years now.
The focal point of this continued interest is Oliver Roberts' F1GP-Ed utility - an incredibly powerful programme which allows you to update F1GP to the 1997 season, and much more besides.
As the name suggests, F1GP-Ed is an editor for F1GP. This means that it can alter many aspects of the game, resulting in a more realistic, flexible and up to date game. F1GP was released a long time ago now, and is based on the 1991 season. The features F1GP-Ed provides allow update the game to play like the current real life F1 season - 1994-1997 season datafiles are supplied.
There really are too many features to mention here, but most of the in-game setup can be changed including: computer car performance, car/helmet/pitcrew colours, car fragility and camera views. Sound samples can also be replaced, cockpit graphics changed, and lap records + car setups printed. One other important feature is that the game frame rate can be increased, which means the game could run upto 20 frames per second (i.e. the game will be much smoother) if you have a fast enough computer. In addition, no longer do you have to fiddle about with all the menus in the game each time you load it - everything can be preset using F1GP-Ed.
Changes can be saved directly to a copy of the game which is running in
memory, or to the main file used by the game for a more permanent
change.
The Internet, and especially e-mail, made it possible to gather the Amiga F1GP fans that are scattered around the world to take part in competitions, the Internet Championship (IC) and the Hall of Fame (HoF).
The Internet Championship is based on a simple principle: all competitors drive Grand Prix according to a schedule that is set before the start of each season. They submit their time within a deadline to the administrator of the championship who collects them and posts the result to the amigaf1gp mailing list. Points are rewarded for the position that a driver achieves among the other human competitors. F1GP-Ed plays a key role in the championship as it allows every driver to drive under the same conditions.
The Internet Championship has become a tradition now: the 5th season started in October consisting of 16 races at 100% race distance. The first season was held back in 1994 and everytime a new season started, new faces joined the competition.
The Amiga F1GP Hall of Fame has been running for around five years now and is a highly enjoyable competition open to all Microprose F1GP fans with an email address. The basic idea behind the HoF is that you submit your fastest laps to the HoF administrator, allowing you to compete against the other members over each of the 16 circuits for points. The current scoring system implies that points are awarded according to the how close you are to the fastest time for each circuit. In other words, the faster you go, the more points you score.
All the lap times, current scores, rules, etc. are brought together in one AmigaGuide file which is distributed each month by email, Aminet, and WWW pages.
SplitTime is a utility that displays split-times at every quarter of a track
while you drive. Not only are the current split-times displayed, but also the
best split-times for comparison - just like in real F1. The only difference is
that this utility uses 3 splits (at exactly 25%, 50% and 75%) rather than F1's 2
splits.The purpose of SplitTime is to give you an indication of how good your current lap is going to be, so you don't have to drive the whole lap before finding out that you are off the pace. Normally, you would have your own physical markers on the track at which you would look at the timer to see how fast you are. But with SplitTime you can forget those and use these very accurate splittimes instead.
Besides showing (best) splittimes it also keeps track of the best split differences, calculated by looking at the time between two consecutive splittimes. The four best differences are always remembered, and from these a virtual lap is calculated - allowing you to see what time you could have driven if you had only done a perfect lap.
AGPPerf allows you to record the telemetary of your car as you race in F1GP. The information gathered by this utility includes set-up details, horse power, and more importantly variables as speed, revs, gears, car position on the track, and car control input (acceleration, braking, and steering). The upshot of all this is that you can have a comprehensive collection of data for any particular lap, which can then be graphically analysed by...
GPDisplay is the utility required to display perf files saved from AGPPerf. By displaying up to 4 perf files at a time, it can allow you to compare several laps set with different set-ups to see just which one is best. Alternatively, it can be used to compare the perf file of your best lap with that of a faster lap to see where time can be saved.
AGPLapTime is a nifty little program which allows you to l og entire races (or any other session). It runs in the background while you play F1GP, and records information including lap times, positions, fastest laps (along with speed factors, driving aids and the horsepower of the car), pit stops, damage, crashes, setups and tyre grip. All this information is stored in a log file, which can then be analyzed by AGPLap or AGPLapD.
Processes log files created by AGPLapTime, and produces text based output
describing virtually every aspect of the race in detail. Here is a brief snippet
of output from a Phoenix race log file:
Car Driver Lap CP TG LapTime BestTime SessionTime Difference ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #11 Ralf Schumacher 1 -- -- Retired 105; 13% 0h00m13.991 0:03; 0:30 *39 Oliver Roberts 1 1 88 1:27.727 1:27.727! 0h01m29.664 ---------- FL 1:27.727 Oliver Roberts, Ace, 716 HP, SF 16384, FR 10.0, 100% # 3 Jacques Villeneuve 1 2 82 1:31.463 1:31.463= 0h01m33.849 + 0:04.185 # 5 Michael Schumacher 1 3 82 1:31.512 1:31.512= 0h01m34.691 + 0:05.027 # 4 Heinz-Harald Frentzen 1 4 82 1:33.454 1:33.454= 0h01m36.376 + 0:06.712 #10 David Coulthard 1 5 82 1:34.351 1:34.351= 0h01m37.773 + 0:08.109 #15 Shinji Nakano 8 19 86 Pits in RW 0h12m47.163 #15 Shinji Nakano 8 21 -- Pits out on A's 0h13m09.371 pit 22.208
It also produces a table of race statistics which lists for each car: the
finishing position, race time, fastest lap, number of leading laps, number of
pit stops, average tyre grip and how many laps were completed on particular tyre
compounds:
FP Car Race_Time Fast_Lap FL LL/TL PS Avg_Pits AG A B C D Q W ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 39 1h48m55.706 1:16.068 78 81/81 3 0:17.897 92 50 31 2. 10 1h49m41.559 1:18.218 75 0/79 1 0:23.899 86 79
Displays a graphical representation of an AGPLapTime log file. It plots
race time against laps, and draws a line for each driver. From this you can see
when drivers lost/gained time during a race. This provides a general idea of how
the race progressed, at a glance.
Merges AGPLapTime log files together into one log file. For example, in the Internet F1GP Championship all the drivers send in log files of their races. This program can then take all these log files, and recreate the race as if everybody was racing together by mixing all the log files together.
http://www.nanunanu.org/~oliver/ic/
- Internet Amiga F1GP Championship
http://www.nanunanu.org
/~oliver/AmigaF1.html - Amiga Formula One
http://www.nanunanu.org/~oliver/u
t
ils/ - F1GP UtilitiesInternet Competitions
http://homepages.enterprise.net/
aws/hof/ - The Amiga F1GP Hall of FameGeneral
http://online-
club.de/members1/rp10930/f1gp/help.html - The Help Section
http://homepages.enterprise.net/aws/
- Alan Strang's Amiga F1GP