Grand Prix Legends
Encyclopedia
Grand Prix Legends is a computer
racing simulator developed by Papyrus Design Group
and published in 1998 by Sierra Entertainment
. It simulates the 1967 Formula One season
and is considered by many people to be one of the most realistic racing game
s ever released.
is widely viewed as a turning point in Formula One, which was probably the reason it was chosen by the developers of GPL. The cars were powerful again after the rules changes of 1966 but had no aerodynamic wings as yet. They were still using only treaded tyres, which made them very delicate to drive. It was also the last full season before commercial sponsors' liveries replaced the teams' traditional national racing colours in 1968.
The risks involved in motor racing in the early-1960s were acknowledged and understood, and the general view was that like bullfighting
, danger was an inherent part of the sport that you had to accept if you wished to participate. As the 60s progressed, the sport became increasingly professional and attitudes began to change. Jackie Stewart
's shaping experience of being soaked in fuel while being trapped in a BRM wreck at Spa
1966 led directly to him, alongside BRM team boss Louis Stanley both becoming outspoken advocates for motor racing safety. The shocking fiery crash of Lorenzo Bandini
at the Monaco chicane
in 1967 and, in particular, the hugely talented Jim Clark
's death at Hockenheim in a F2 race in 1968 that got Formula One as a whole to start thinking on the topic of safety more seriously. As one result of that, the 1969 race at Spa
and the 1970 race at Nürburgring
did not take place due to the drivers boycotting the sites as safety upgrades were not installed as demanded. A simulation based on these seasons would lack these great tracks.
. To this day it maintains a reputation as a very realistic race car simulator. Its strong points are fairly accurate car physics (how the car responds and feels on the track), reasonably attractive graphics, impressive engine sound effects, good online racing and solid Internet support from its user community. The weak points are the game's difficulty as the cars are quite difficult to drive well (although many fans consider this to be a virtue, as Formula One cars of that era were difficult to drive compared to modern high-downforce cars), and some minor physics flaws, such as primitive aerodynamic modelling (for drag etc.), and a simplified tire model that completely omits tire wear, although, in 1967, racing tires on F1 cars would not wear out during a race and might regularly be used for more than one event.
, the Ferrari 312, the Eagle-Weslake T1G, the Brabham BT24
and the H 16
powered BRM P115 (which though striking was not a great success; indeed, Jackie Stewart called it the worst car he drove in his entire career). There are also two fantasy cars to choose from, the Murasama and the Coventry — thinly disguised versions of the Honda RA300
and the Cooper T81B
, with licensing issues precluding these particular marques from being included in the game. There are third party patches available to put the Cooper and Honda names back in the game. Some cars appeared only late in the season, especially the Lotus 49 which did not take part in Kyalami and Monaco. For all the cars, there are significant graphic updates available, most notably from the GPLEA (GPL Editors Association), which make the cars look far more realistic and detailed. Most of these were included in the GPL 2004 Demo but there have been subsequent upgrades.
, Denny Hulme
, Jim Clark
, Dan Gurney
, John Surtees
, Pedro Rodríguez
, and Lorenzo Bandini
. Jackie Stewart
was not included due to licensing issues.
Unlike the real 1967 season the make-up of the teams remains stable throughout the year. The driver list is not entirely accurate, since some of the computer-controlled drivers appeared only rarely in real life. For instance, the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Beltoise
is driving a BRM in the game, although in fact he drove a Formula 2 Matra
(at that time it was not unknown to see an F2 machine entered in an F1 Grand Prix) on three occasions in 1967, and never drove a BRM before 1972. The presence of the Belgian Jacky Ickx
who had a minor role in 1967 (driving only at the Nürburgring — also in an F2 car — and at Monza) is also noteworthy in this regard. There are third party patches available to change the driver list.
circuit in Italy, the roller-coaster-like Mosport
track in Canada, the tight streets of Monaco
, and the original 14 miles (22.5 km) long Nürburgring
Nordschleife in Germany.
All but one of the races in the game are held on the tracks used for the real 1967 season. The French Grand Prix is raced at Rouen-Les-Essarts
in GPL, even though the actual Grand Prix that year was held at the Le Mans
Bugatti track. This change from reality met little opposition from players: while the Rouen track, site of the 1968 French GP, passes through beautiful landscapes and is pretty interesting for the driver, the Bugatti track and its surrounding landscape is generally considered somewhat lacking in interest by comparison. In fact, the Bugatti circuit proved unpopular with the drivers at that time, Denny Hulme calling it a "Mickey Mouse" track.For this reason, the developers chose to include the Rouen track, which fits more into the spirit of the time, according to them. Eventually, a version of the Bugatti Circuit was released by the community. (The Alternative GPL Track Database)
In some ways GPL is more a virtual sport than a game. The essence of GPL is the talent required to drive these classic cars around the challenging circuits of the 1967 era. As in learning to play a fine musical instrument, the player must have the patience and the light, smooth touch to get the most from these machines.
Much of the difficulty in driving the GPL machines is due to the accuracy of the physics model, which is limited to dry conditions. Wet races are not missed, though, as the car handling is somewhat slippery anyway. 1967 Grand Prix F1 cars made a large amount of power i.e. over 350 hp (260 kW), had very little mass i.e. about 500 kg (1100 lb), and rode on hard, skinny, 'pre-radial' tires, with no downforce of any kind. All of these factors contributed to what in reality was one of the more dangerous Formula 1 seasons the series would know. Virtual racers can still get away with pushing the reset button, affectionately known as "Shift-R".
The demo version gave users a taster of the Brabham F1 car at the Watkins Glen
circuit. Unfortunately, the car was set up with approximately one degree of positive camber angle
whereas an actual car of that era would have run one or more degrees of negative camber. Negative camber proportionally increases the footprint of the tire, thus lateral grip, when cornering. Positive camber proportionally reduces the footprint and the amount of grip available from the tire when cornering. This resulted in a car whose cornering grip was markedly less than it should have been and whose grip decreased more sharply than expected when the car turned a corner, greatly increasing the skill required to drive the car quickly.
When version 1.0 of the game was launched, it allowed users the option to drive "Novice Trainer", "Advanced Trainer" or fully fledged F1 cars. The Novice Trainer and Advanced Trainer cars approximated F3
and F2
regulations in that they had reduced power and in the case of the Novice Trainer, fewer gears. These trainers were more forgiving to drive, but the game only allowed the cars to be used for practice sessions. It was only possible to race against the computer using the F1 cars, which meant that a player's first experience of competition was in an F1 car at F1 speeds with F1 opponents.
A further complication affected users with lower powered PCs. Version 1.0 of Grand Prix Legends allowed users to reduce the number of computer opponents if their PCs were unable to render a full grid of cars at a reasonable frame rate. Unfortunately, reducing the field was achieved by removing cars from the back of the grid starting with the slowest, leaving a reduced grid containing only the fastest drivers.
Perhaps the most damaging aspect to the game's reputation was that of ride height
.
Grand Prix cars from 1967 typically ran 5 to 6 in (127 to 152.4 mm) of ground clearance, unlike the later ground effect
cars that were designed to have the chassis as close to the ground as possible. Version 1.0 of Grand Prix Legends, allowed its cars to be set up with a ground clearance of only one inch.
Lowering the ride height lowers the center of gravity
of the car which helps improve cornering ability by reducing the roll moment
of the chassis. It also has the side effect of reducing the amount of suspension travel available.
When the suspension in a car is fully compressed, it reaches the bump stops, small blocks of rubber that catch the suspension arms at the end of their range of movement. This is often referred to as "bottoming out". Once a car's suspension reaches the bump stops, its effective spring rate increases sharply as the bump stops are effectively very hard springs. Increasing the spring rate at one wheel transfers weight onto this wheel and away from the other wheels, causing the car to understeer
if it is one of the front wheels or oversteer if it is one of the rear wheels. The sudden onset of understeer
or oversteer can result in loss of control if the driver does not react quickly enough to the change in handling.
The default setups in Grand Prix Legends combined uncharacteristically low ride heights with short bump stops which resulted in cars whose suspension frequently "bottomed out" and oscillated abruptly between the expected spring rates and much higher bump stop spring rates. This caused the cars to behave erratically over kerbs, bumps and any significant application of acceleration or braking, with only the highly skilled able to fully exploit these "low rider" or "go-kart" setups.
The problem was further complicated by the lack of audible feedback when the cars hit the bump stops, leaving many drivers scratching their heads at the erratic handling of the early setups.
Papyrus were aware that there would be difficulties for the novice even before the simulator was released. On the very first page of the manual, it cautions, "The first time you go out on the track, you WILL spin and crash. This is because, the first time they play Grand Prix Legends, EVERYBODY spins and crashes." Rumor among simulator racing enthusiasts was that when Jackie Stewart
had an opportunity to drive the simulator in the late stages of development, he claimed that it was harder to drive than the actual 1967 Formula One cars.
Papyrus recognised the ride-height problem and the first patch (version 1.1) prevented setups from being lower than 2.5 inches (63.5 mm). However, both the default setups and the majority of third-party setups were still designed with the theory used on modern, high-downforce
race cars, with the car as low as possible with an extremely stiff suspension to prevent the car from bottoming out at speed (due to increased aerodynamic downforce not present on 1967 era cars).
Increasing the ride height back up to 1967 levels transformed the handling of the cars and demonstrated the power and sophistication of Grand Prix Legends, but the reputation of "overly difficult handling" and "no grip" was already established. However, for those who were willing to try the more realistic setups, it became obvious that, while total grip levels were still realistically low, the cars were now extremely driveable.
and Rendition Verité. GPLs box stated that the minimum CPU required with hardware acceleration was a Pentium
90, and without it a Pentium 166, but in reality both these figures were well short of what is needed for a satisfactory frame rate
.
As recently as the end of 2010, GPL will run flawlessly at 36 frame/s (its native frame rate) on the most common hardware such as Pentium 4, Dual core series.
The GPL game architecture gives priority to the CPU calculations rather than the GPU.
Present gamers install it on Win XP 32bits/64 bits, Vista 32bits/64 bits as well as Win 7 32/64.
The last cars skin modellers have greatly increased in game cars textures sizes.
Now, 1024x1024 textures are sometimes seen on some carset texture addons.
To testimony how strong the Grand Prix Legends community remains, 2009 has seen a free dld 60 frame/s (frames per second) patch. Gamers can now swap at will between the native 36 frame/s patch and the 60 frame/s, which has been welcomed mainly by off line players willing to get a complete fluent immersion with TFT / LCD monitors, running at a fixed native 60 Hz.
GPLs lack of inbuilt support for 3D accelerator cards other than those produced by 3dfx and Rendition contributed to a decrease in sales when those cards became obsolete, since at the time there was no Direct3D
support.
As of 2004 total sales were around 200,000 units. Many of these sales came quite late in the game's life, when increase in CPU power made the game run more smoothly, and after Papyrus had released patches to allow GPL to work with modern graphics accelerators. The addition of Force Feedback support also helped. The release of the game on budget ranges, the inclusion of a demo CD with the Nürburgring
in the track's official 1999 season magazine as well as its giveaway in Germany in a 2001 issue of the magazine PC Action, also encouraged newcomers to GPL.
and/or OpenGL
support; and a third patch that gets around a problem that prevents the original game from working on computers with CPUs faster than 1.4 GHz. It was considered best to get the most recent "all-in-one v2" patch from SimRacing Mirror Zone to get this sim working at its best but the newly formed Grand Prix Legends Preservation Society (dead link) has come out with a new installer which not only installs GPL for the user, upgrading all the tracks and cars that come with GPL to the latest specification, but also helps with custom programs that are invaluable to the user. There is an original demo that was succeeded by the newer Grand Prix Legends 2004 Demo which has all the required patches included plus upgrades to the cars and track (as of 2004) that are included within the original one.
In later years, it became possible to have regularly patched GPL running not only on Windows, but also on competing operating systems such as Linux
and Mac OS X
due to improvements in API-emulating programs such as Wine
and Cider. Some configuration modifications have to be made before the program, despite its apparent lack of 'dirty programming', will run, however.
-like analysis and various degrees of customisation. These tools are often used for verification of laptimes for inclusion on the GPLRank
laptime ranking system.
Testimony to this strong community support, are the extensive graphical updates of the original Monaco track, where numerous photos of the actual GP at the time were collected from the private collections of many people within the community. This to make sure that all the buildings, billboard, bridges and tunnels were historically correct. The project got the name Monaco Rocks and it has been in the works for years, over which period it constantly put out updates of the track.
Another noteworthy feature is the track Montjuich Park. As with the Monaco Rocks project, numerous historical photos and videos were used to create the most historically correct track possible. With the help of some people within the GPL community, who apparently had connections with Spanish broadcasting companies, the track (along with the 69 mod) served as a representative retrospective view of the former Spanish GP track during the broadcast of the Spanish GP 2007, with Sir Jackie Stewart commenting on a full on-board lap.
GPL Trackmakers already knew that the original game had a 25 kilometre limit when it came to track length. Modders have now tackled this limitation and patches are being released which solve this problem. In 2009, 11 years after Grand Prix Legends originally came out, and with the length problem out of the way, the community has finished its most ambitious project up to now: the realization of the full 72 km long Targa Florio track.
. This game was a big hit in the United States, although as usual with NASCAR
games, much less so in Europe. The final incarnation of the GPL engine can be found in NASCAR Racing 2003 Season
which was considered at the time to be the benchmark of motorsport simulation excellence, particularly with respect to the tire model. More recently, the online subscription-based simulation iRacing, also designed by Kaemmer and built on the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season code base.
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
racing simulator developed by Papyrus Design Group
Papyrus Design Group
Papyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, MA, it is best known for its series of realistic sim racing games based on the NASCAR and IndyCar leagues, as well as the unique Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus was...
and published in 1998 by Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
. It simulates the 1967 Formula One season
1967 Formula One season
The 1967 Formula One season was the 18th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1967 World Championship of Drivers and the 1967 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, contested concurrently over an eleven race series which commenced on January 2, 1967, and ended on October 22...
and is considered by many people to be one of the most realistic racing game
Racing game
A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
s ever released.
The real F1 of 1967
The 1967 season1967 Formula One season
The 1967 Formula One season was the 18th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1967 World Championship of Drivers and the 1967 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, contested concurrently over an eleven race series which commenced on January 2, 1967, and ended on October 22...
is widely viewed as a turning point in Formula One, which was probably the reason it was chosen by the developers of GPL. The cars were powerful again after the rules changes of 1966 but had no aerodynamic wings as yet. They were still using only treaded tyres, which made them very delicate to drive. It was also the last full season before commercial sponsors' liveries replaced the teams' traditional national racing colours in 1968.
The risks involved in motor racing in the early-1960s were acknowledged and understood, and the general view was that like bullfighting
Bullfighting
Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France and some Latin American countries , in which one or more bulls are baited in a bullring for sport and entertainment...
, danger was an inherent part of the sport that you had to accept if you wished to participate. As the 60s progressed, the sport became increasingly professional and attitudes began to change. Jackie Stewart
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart, OBE , better known as Jackie Stewart, and nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am...
's shaping experience of being soaked in fuel while being trapped in a BRM wreck at Spa
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is the venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and the Spa 24 Hours endurance race. It is also home to the all Volkswagen club event, 25 Hours of Spa, run by the Uniroyal Fun Cup. It is one of the most challenging race tracks in the world, mainly due to its...
1966 led directly to him, alongside BRM team boss Louis Stanley both becoming outspoken advocates for motor racing safety. The shocking fiery crash of Lorenzo Bandini
Lorenzo Bandini
Lorenzo Bandini was an Italian motor racing driver who raced in Formula One for the Scuderia Centro Sud and Ferrari teams.-Career:...
at the Monaco chicane
Chicane
A chicane is an artificial feature creating extra turns in a road, used in motor racing and on city streets to slow cars to lower speeds.- Motor Racing :...
in 1967 and, in particular, the hugely talented Jim Clark
Jim Clark
James "Jim" Clark, Jr OBE was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965....
's death at Hockenheim in a F2 race in 1968 that got Formula One as a whole to start thinking on the topic of safety more seriously. As one result of that, the 1969 race at Spa
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is the venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and the Spa 24 Hours endurance race. It is also home to the all Volkswagen club event, 25 Hours of Spa, run by the Uniroyal Fun Cup. It is one of the most challenging race tracks in the world, mainly due to its...
and the 1970 race at Nürburgring
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a motorsport complex around the village of Nürburg, Germany. It features a modern Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old North loop track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. It is located about...
did not take place due to the drivers boycotting the sites as safety upgrades were not installed as demanded. A simulation based on these seasons would lack these great tracks.
1998 simulation of 1967 cars
The game, developed under the direction of David Kaemmer and Randy Cassidy, was published in 1998 by the Papyrus division of Sierra EntertainmentSierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
. To this day it maintains a reputation as a very realistic race car simulator. Its strong points are fairly accurate car physics (how the car responds and feels on the track), reasonably attractive graphics, impressive engine sound effects, good online racing and solid Internet support from its user community. The weak points are the game's difficulty as the cars are quite difficult to drive well (although many fans consider this to be a virtue, as Formula One cars of that era were difficult to drive compared to modern high-downforce cars), and some minor physics flaws, such as primitive aerodynamic modelling (for drag etc.), and a simplified tire model that completely omits tire wear, although, in 1967, racing tires on F1 cars would not wear out during a race and might regularly be used for more than one event.
Cars
The cars available include the Lotus 49Lotus 49
The Lotus 49 was a Formula One racing car designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe for the 1967 F1 season. It was designed around the Cosworth DFV engine that would power most of the Formula One grid through the 1970s and was the first successful Formula One car to feature the engine as a...
, the Ferrari 312, the Eagle-Weslake T1G, the Brabham BT24
Brabham BT24
The Repco Brabham BT24 was a Formula One racing car design. It was one of three cars used by the Brabham racing team during their championship-winning 1967 Formula One season. Only three BT24 chassis were ever raced....
and the H 16
H engine
An H engine is an engine configuration in which the cylinders are aligned so that if viewed from the front, they appear to be in a vertical or horizontal letter H....
powered BRM P115 (which though striking was not a great success; indeed, Jackie Stewart called it the worst car he drove in his entire career). There are also two fantasy cars to choose from, the Murasama and the Coventry — thinly disguised versions of the Honda RA300
Honda RA300
The Honda RA300 was a Formula One racing car produced by Honda Racing, and introduced halfway through the 1967 Formula One season. It retained the same V12 engine as the preceding RA273 car, but the chassis was designed by Lola's Eric Broadley and based on a previous Lola Indianapolis 500 car...
and the Cooper T81B
Cooper T81
The Cooper T81 was one of the last Formula One racing cars produced by the Cooper Car Company. It was designed ahead of the World Championship season to operate within the new 3 litre engine regulations that came into effect that year...
, with licensing issues precluding these particular marques from being included in the game. There are third party patches available to put the Cooper and Honda names back in the game. Some cars appeared only late in the season, especially the Lotus 49 which did not take part in Kyalami and Monaco. For all the cars, there are significant graphic updates available, most notably from the GPLEA (GPL Editors Association), which make the cars look far more realistic and detailed. Most of these were included in the GPL 2004 Demo but there have been subsequent upgrades.
Drivers
The player races against the top drivers of 1967 including Jack BrabhamJack Brabham
Sir John Arthur "Jack" Brabham, AO, OBE is an Australian former racing driver who was Formula One champion in , and . He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name....
, Denny Hulme
Denny Hulme
Denis Clive "Denny" Hulme, OBE was a New Zealand racing driver, the 1967 Formula One World Champion for the Brabham team....
, Jim Clark
Jim Clark
James "Jim" Clark, Jr OBE was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965....
, Dan Gurney
Dan Gurney
Daniel Sexton Gurney is an American racing driver, race car constructor, and team owner.The son of a Metropolitan Opera star, he was born in Port Jefferson, New York, but moved to California as a teenager...
, John Surtees
John Surtees
John Surtees, OBE is a British former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver from England. He was 500cc motorcycle World Champion in 1956 and 1958–60, Formula One World Champion in 1964, and remains the only person to have won World Championships on both two and four wheels...
, Pedro Rodríguez
Pedro Rodriguez (racing driver)
Pedro Rodríguez was a Mexican Grand Prix motor racing driver. He was born in Mexico City and was the older brother of Ricardo Rodríguez.-Career:...
, and Lorenzo Bandini
Lorenzo Bandini
Lorenzo Bandini was an Italian motor racing driver who raced in Formula One for the Scuderia Centro Sud and Ferrari teams.-Career:...
. Jackie Stewart
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart, OBE , better known as Jackie Stewart, and nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am...
was not included due to licensing issues.
Unlike the real 1967 season the make-up of the teams remains stable throughout the year. The driver list is not entirely accurate, since some of the computer-controlled drivers appeared only rarely in real life. For instance, the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Beltoise
Jean-Pierre Beltoise
Jean-Pierre Maurice Georges Beltoise is a former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver who raced for the Matra and BRM teams. François Cevert was his brother-in-law ....
is driving a BRM in the game, although in fact he drove a Formula 2 Matra
Matra
Mécanique Aviation Traction or Matra was a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobile, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry. In 1994, it became a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group and now operates under that name.Matra was owned by the Floirat family...
(at that time it was not unknown to see an F2 machine entered in an F1 Grand Prix) on three occasions in 1967, and never drove a BRM before 1972. The presence of the Belgian Jacky Ickx
Jacky Ickx
Jacques Bernard "Jacky" Ickx is a Belgian former racing driver who achieved 25 podium finishes in Formula One and six wins in the 24 hours of Le Mans.- Racing career :...
who had a minor role in 1967 (driving only at the Nürburgring — also in an F2 car — and at Monza) is also noteworthy in this regard. There are third party patches available to change the driver list.
Tracks
There are 11 vintage 1967 tracks included with the simulator. These include the high speed MonzaAutodromo Nazionale Monza
The Autodromo Nazionale Monza is a race track located near the town of Monza, north of Milan, in Italy. The circuit's biggest event is the Formula One Italian Grand Prix, which has been hosted there since the sport's inception....
circuit in Italy, the roller-coaster-like Mosport
Mosport
Mosport International Raceway is a multi-track facility located north of Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. The facility features a , 10-turn road course; a half-mile paved oval; a 2.4 km advance driver and race driver training facility with a quarter-mile skid pad Mosport International Raceway...
track in Canada, the tight streets of Monaco
Circuit de Monaco
Circuit de Monaco is a street circuit laid out on the city streets of Monte Carlo and La Condamine around the harbour of the principality of Monaco. It is commonly referred to as "Monte Carlo" because it is largely inside the Monte Carlo neighbourhood of Monaco.The circuit is used on one weekend in...
, and the original 14 miles (22.5 km) long Nürburgring
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a motorsport complex around the village of Nürburg, Germany. It features a modern Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old North loop track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. It is located about...
Nordschleife in Germany.
All but one of the races in the game are held on the tracks used for the real 1967 season. The French Grand Prix is raced at Rouen-Les-Essarts
Rouen-Les-Essarts
Rouen-Les-Essarts was a race track in Grand-Couronne, near Rouen, France.From its opening in 1950, Rouen-Les-Essarts was recognized as one of Europe's finest circuits, with modern pits, a wide track, and spectator grandstands...
in GPL, even though the actual Grand Prix that year was held at the Le Mans
Le Mans
Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...
Bugatti track. This change from reality met little opposition from players: while the Rouen track, site of the 1968 French GP, passes through beautiful landscapes and is pretty interesting for the driver, the Bugatti track and its surrounding landscape is generally considered somewhat lacking in interest by comparison. In fact, the Bugatti circuit proved unpopular with the drivers at that time, Denny Hulme calling it a "Mickey Mouse" track.For this reason, the developers chose to include the Rouen track, which fits more into the spirit of the time, according to them. Eventually, a version of the Bugatti Circuit was released by the community. (The Alternative GPL Track Database)
Gameplay
David Kaemmer said that "Driving a 1967 GP car is more difficult than driving just about anything else, and the simulation is more difficult than driving a real car... many people think that it feels like driving on ice."In some ways GPL is more a virtual sport than a game. The essence of GPL is the talent required to drive these classic cars around the challenging circuits of the 1967 era. As in learning to play a fine musical instrument, the player must have the patience and the light, smooth touch to get the most from these machines.
Much of the difficulty in driving the GPL machines is due to the accuracy of the physics model, which is limited to dry conditions. Wet races are not missed, though, as the car handling is somewhat slippery anyway. 1967 Grand Prix F1 cars made a large amount of power i.e. over 350 hp (260 kW), had very little mass i.e. about 500 kg (1100 lb), and rode on hard, skinny, 'pre-radial' tires, with no downforce of any kind. All of these factors contributed to what in reality was one of the more dangerous Formula 1 seasons the series would know. Virtual racers can still get away with pushing the reset button, affectionately known as "Shift-R".
Reputation
While Grand Prix Legends provided the most realistic (and hence, difficult) simulation of automotive physics in a PC game at its launch, the reputation of "difficult to drive" was exacerbated by a number of decisions made both for the demo and the launch of version 1.0.The demo version gave users a taster of the Brabham F1 car at the Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen International
Watkins Glen International is an auto race track located near Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. The facility is owned by International Speedway Corporation...
circuit. Unfortunately, the car was set up with approximately one degree of positive camber angle
Camber angle
thumb|100px|From the front of the car, a right wheel with a negative camber angleCamber angle is the angle made by the wheels of a vehicle; specifically, it is the angle between the vertical axis of the wheels used for steering and the vertical axis of the vehicle when viewed from the front or...
whereas an actual car of that era would have run one or more degrees of negative camber. Negative camber proportionally increases the footprint of the tire, thus lateral grip, when cornering. Positive camber proportionally reduces the footprint and the amount of grip available from the tire when cornering. This resulted in a car whose cornering grip was markedly less than it should have been and whose grip decreased more sharply than expected when the car turned a corner, greatly increasing the skill required to drive the car quickly.
When version 1.0 of the game was launched, it allowed users the option to drive "Novice Trainer", "Advanced Trainer" or fully fledged F1 cars. The Novice Trainer and Advanced Trainer cars approximated F3
Formula Three
Formula Three, also called Formula 3 or F3, is a class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers...
and F2
Formula Two
Formula Two, abbreviated to F2, is a type of open wheel formula racing. It was replaced by Formula 3000 in 1985, but the FIA announced in 2008 that Formula Two would return for 2009 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship...
regulations in that they had reduced power and in the case of the Novice Trainer, fewer gears. These trainers were more forgiving to drive, but the game only allowed the cars to be used for practice sessions. It was only possible to race against the computer using the F1 cars, which meant that a player's first experience of competition was in an F1 car at F1 speeds with F1 opponents.
A further complication affected users with lower powered PCs. Version 1.0 of Grand Prix Legends allowed users to reduce the number of computer opponents if their PCs were unable to render a full grid of cars at a reasonable frame rate. Unfortunately, reducing the field was achieved by removing cars from the back of the grid starting with the slowest, leaving a reduced grid containing only the fastest drivers.
Perhaps the most damaging aspect to the game's reputation was that of ride height
Ride height
Ride height is the amount of space between the base of an automobile tire and the underside of the chassis; or, more properly, to the shortest distance between a flat, level surface, and any part of a vehicle other than those parts designed to contact the ground...
.
Grand Prix cars from 1967 typically ran 5 to 6 in (127 to 152.4 mm) of ground clearance, unlike the later ground effect
Ground effect in cars
Ground effect is term applied to a series of aerodynamic effects used in car design, which has been exploited to create downforce, particularly in racing cars. This has been the successor to the earlier dominant aerodynamic theory of streamlining...
cars that were designed to have the chassis as close to the ground as possible. Version 1.0 of Grand Prix Legends, allowed its cars to be set up with a ground clearance of only one inch.
Lowering the ride height lowers the center of gravity
Center of gravity
In physics, a center of gravity of a material body is a point that may be used for a summary description of gravitational interactions. In a uniform gravitational field, the center of mass serves as the center of gravity...
of the car which helps improve cornering ability by reducing the roll moment
Roll moment
In a vehicle suspension, roll moment is the moment of inertia of the vehicle's sprung mass . The roll moment is the product of the sprung mass and the square of the distance between the vehicle's roll center and its center of mass...
of the chassis. It also has the side effect of reducing the amount of suspension travel available.
When the suspension in a car is fully compressed, it reaches the bump stops, small blocks of rubber that catch the suspension arms at the end of their range of movement. This is often referred to as "bottoming out". Once a car's suspension reaches the bump stops, its effective spring rate increases sharply as the bump stops are effectively very hard springs. Increasing the spring rate at one wheel transfers weight onto this wheel and away from the other wheels, causing the car to understeer
Understeer
Understeer and oversteer are vehicle dynamics terms used to describe the sensitivity of a vehicle to steering. Simply put, oversteer is what occurs when a car turns by more than the amount commanded by the driver...
if it is one of the front wheels or oversteer if it is one of the rear wheels. The sudden onset of understeer
Understeer
Understeer and oversteer are vehicle dynamics terms used to describe the sensitivity of a vehicle to steering. Simply put, oversteer is what occurs when a car turns by more than the amount commanded by the driver...
or oversteer can result in loss of control if the driver does not react quickly enough to the change in handling.
The default setups in Grand Prix Legends combined uncharacteristically low ride heights with short bump stops which resulted in cars whose suspension frequently "bottomed out" and oscillated abruptly between the expected spring rates and much higher bump stop spring rates. This caused the cars to behave erratically over kerbs, bumps and any significant application of acceleration or braking, with only the highly skilled able to fully exploit these "low rider" or "go-kart" setups.
The problem was further complicated by the lack of audible feedback when the cars hit the bump stops, leaving many drivers scratching their heads at the erratic handling of the early setups.
Papyrus were aware that there would be difficulties for the novice even before the simulator was released. On the very first page of the manual, it cautions, "The first time you go out on the track, you WILL spin and crash. This is because, the first time they play Grand Prix Legends, EVERYBODY spins and crashes." Rumor among simulator racing enthusiasts was that when Jackie Stewart
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart, OBE , better known as Jackie Stewart, and nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am...
had an opportunity to drive the simulator in the late stages of development, he claimed that it was harder to drive than the actual 1967 Formula One cars.
Papyrus recognised the ride-height problem and the first patch (version 1.1) prevented setups from being lower than 2.5 inches (63.5 mm). However, both the default setups and the majority of third-party setups were still designed with the theory used on modern, high-downforce
Downforce
Downforce is a downwards thrust created by the aerodynamic characteristics of a car. The purpose of downforce is to allow a car to travel faster through a corner by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip....
race cars, with the car as low as possible with an extremely stiff suspension to prevent the car from bottoming out at speed (due to increased aerodynamic downforce not present on 1967 era cars).
Increasing the ride height back up to 1967 levels transformed the handling of the cars and demonstrated the power and sophistication of Grand Prix Legends, but the reputation of "overly difficult handling" and "no grip" was already established. However, for those who were willing to try the more realistic setups, it became obvious that, while total grip levels were still realistically low, the cars were now extremely driveable.
Hardware requirements
When it was launched, GPL required quite high-end hardware. While a software renderer was available, for smooth gameplay a 3D card was all but essential, and GPL supported only two types: 3dfx3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
and Rendition Verité. GPLs box stated that the minimum CPU required with hardware acceleration was a Pentium
Pentium compatible processor
A Pentium compatible processor is a 32-bit processor computer chip which supports the instructions in the IA-32 instruction set that were implemented by the Intel P5 Pentium processor family...
90, and without it a Pentium 166, but in reality both these figures were well short of what is needed for a satisfactory frame rate
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
.
As recently as the end of 2010, GPL will run flawlessly at 36 frame/s (its native frame rate) on the most common hardware such as Pentium 4, Dual core series.
The GPL game architecture gives priority to the CPU calculations rather than the GPU.
Present gamers install it on Win XP 32bits/64 bits, Vista 32bits/64 bits as well as Win 7 32/64.
The last cars skin modellers have greatly increased in game cars textures sizes.
Now, 1024x1024 textures are sometimes seen on some carset texture addons.
To testimony how strong the Grand Prix Legends community remains, 2009 has seen a free dld 60 frame/s (frames per second) patch. Gamers can now swap at will between the native 36 frame/s patch and the 60 frame/s, which has been welcomed mainly by off line players willing to get a complete fluent immersion with TFT / LCD monitors, running at a fixed native 60 Hz.
Commercial success
While acclaimed by the press in 1998 as the most realistic racing simulator ever, GPL did not sell very well, especially in the US where a Formula One-based racing game holds less appeal than it does in the rest of the world. Also, the cars were difficult to drive, while the game's hardware requirements meant that it did not run well on many computers at the time of its release.GPLs lack of inbuilt support for 3D accelerator cards other than those produced by 3dfx and Rendition contributed to a decrease in sales when those cards became obsolete, since at the time there was no Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
support.
As of 2004 total sales were around 200,000 units. Many of these sales came quite late in the game's life, when increase in CPU power made the game run more smoothly, and after Papyrus had released patches to allow GPL to work with modern graphics accelerators. The addition of Force Feedback support also helped. The release of the game on budget ranges, the inclusion of a demo CD with the Nürburgring
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a motorsport complex around the village of Nürburg, Germany. It features a modern Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old North loop track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. It is located about...
in the track's official 1999 season magazine as well as its giveaway in Germany in a 2001 issue of the magazine PC Action, also encouraged newcomers to GPL.
Patches
An out-of-the-box copy of GPL lacks several features that one might expect from a modern driving simulation, and so most people add as a matter of course several patches: the official version 1.2 patch that adds force feedback; a second patch to add Direct3DDirect3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
and/or OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
support; and a third patch that gets around a problem that prevents the original game from working on computers with CPUs faster than 1.4 GHz. It was considered best to get the most recent "all-in-one v2" patch from SimRacing Mirror Zone to get this sim working at its best but the newly formed Grand Prix Legends Preservation Society (dead link) has come out with a new installer which not only installs GPL for the user, upgrading all the tracks and cars that come with GPL to the latest specification, but also helps with custom programs that are invaluable to the user. There is an original demo that was succeeded by the newer Grand Prix Legends 2004 Demo which has all the required patches included plus upgrades to the cars and track (as of 2004) that are included within the original one.
In later years, it became possible to have regularly patched GPL running not only on Windows, but also on competing operating systems such as Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
due to improvements in API-emulating programs such as Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
and Cider. Some configuration modifications have to be made before the program, despite its apparent lack of 'dirty programming', will run, however.
Community
The backbone of this game is its strong community. There are updates and addons for all tracks, cars, menus, AI, and drivers. There are now more than 500 tracks made by the game's fans, which are listed at the Alternative GPL Track Database. On-line races are organised using Virtual Racers' Online Connection. Also available now is a new online tool called iGOR which comes with GEM+ 2 (a necessary tool for all the new mods.) Many other tools are available, including those allowing telemetryTelemetry
Telemetry is a technology that allows measurements to be made at a distance, usually via radio wave transmission and reception of the information. The word is derived from Greek roots: tele = remote, and metron = measure...
-like analysis and various degrees of customisation. These tools are often used for verification of laptimes for inclusion on the GPLRank
GPLRank
GPLRank was/is the first really successful Internet ranking system for participants in simracing...
laptime ranking system.
Testimony to this strong community support, are the extensive graphical updates of the original Monaco track, where numerous photos of the actual GP at the time were collected from the private collections of many people within the community. This to make sure that all the buildings, billboard, bridges and tunnels were historically correct. The project got the name Monaco Rocks and it has been in the works for years, over which period it constantly put out updates of the track.
Another noteworthy feature is the track Montjuich Park. As with the Monaco Rocks project, numerous historical photos and videos were used to create the most historically correct track possible. With the help of some people within the GPL community, who apparently had connections with Spanish broadcasting companies, the track (along with the 69 mod) served as a representative retrospective view of the former Spanish GP track during the broadcast of the Spanish GP 2007, with Sir Jackie Stewart commenting on a full on-board lap.
GPL Trackmakers already knew that the original game had a 25 kilometre limit when it came to track length. Modders have now tackled this limitation and patches are being released which solve this problem. In 2009, 11 years after Grand Prix Legends originally came out, and with the length problem out of the way, the community has finished its most ambitious project up to now: the realization of the full 72 km long Targa Florio track.
Later games
In 2001, a revised version of the GPL engine was used for NASCAR Racing 4Papyrus Design Group
Papyrus Design Group, Inc. was a computer game developer founded in 1987 by David Kaemmer and CEO Omar Khudari. Based in Watertown, MA, it is best known for its series of realistic sim racing games based on the NASCAR and IndyCar leagues, as well as the unique Grand Prix Legends. Papyrus was...
. This game was a big hit in the United States, although as usual with NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
games, much less so in Europe. The final incarnation of the GPL engine can be found in NASCAR Racing 2003 Season
NASCAR Racing 2003 Season
NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, or NR2003 for short, is a computer racing simulator released in February 2003 by Papyrus for PC and Mac OS X. The game was the last to be released by the company before EA Sports bought the NASCAR license exclusively from 2004-09...
which was considered at the time to be the benchmark of motorsport simulation excellence, particularly with respect to the tire model. More recently, the online subscription-based simulation iRacing, also designed by Kaemmer and built on the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season code base.
External links
- Sold Out Software
- Grand Prix Legends Preservation Society (GPLPS)
- Grand Prix Legends 2004 Demo
- Alternative GPL Track Database
- GPLRank
- SimRacing Mirror Zone
- GPL Troubleshooting FAQ by Bob Simpson
- GPL Info by Stefan Roess
- GPL Links
- GPL Repository
- DoktorB's Grand Prix Legends Nostalgia
- gplsc - Grand Prix Legends Setup Comparator