The forthcoming F1 2011 videogame from Codemasters has this morning been confirmed as having achieved 'gold' status.

Good... heres hopeing... BTW anyone know if this is coming to Steam, Codemasters usually does but not seeing it listed... anywhere else?

nevermind, got my answer via twitter... on steam now for pre-order.

Does gold also include all the bugs too? I can't remember if those are included in a gold release... As much as I would like to save a few pennies on a pre-order, I'm still left with a sour taste after the failure of 2010. Sure the title wasn't meant to be a simulation, but even to classify it as a game with what they broke after they gave us a patch...umm I mean removed features, I'm scared to donate anymore money to CM.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/44360/

There it is ^

Hmm. Still going to wait a week after being emotionally scarred by 2010. You go first, I'll watch from here.

I'll wait a month or 2 after it's release to try it...

Wait til it achieves brown status?

Totally agree.

I spent more time trying to get F1 2010 running without game crashes than I did actually playing. Codeshafters seem to have a penchant for abandoning any support for their titles very quickly. The (so called) patch was a travesty that actually broke more than it fixed. Then there was Red River and for this reason I have no confidence in anything they release. To be honest I had pre-ordered F1 2011 after thinking that they wouldn't dare repeat the 2010 fiasco, but sense has prevailed and I have cancelled this and will wait to see what the score is.

Every other post I read regarding Codemasters refers to their poor track record regarding the quality and support of their releases. Strange thing is that they don't seem to care (more likely that they are in denial!) that they have this poor reputation and continue to tread down the same path with every release. Panther and I have voted with our feet...I wonder how many more will?

I happend to talk with Stephen Hood, chief game designer last night on the phone. A writeup of the conversation has been submitted for publication here on SimHQ, so without jumping the gun and posting the entire thing here and now, my main impressions as a result of the conversation were:

- I think it is highly likely that 2011 will recieve the same amount of after-sales support as was the case with 2010. They're going to move to 2012 about five minutes after they've taken your money.
- No improvements regardig replays
- No improvmenets or changes regarding taking control of your car in the pit-lane
- No new anti-cheat masures in terms of keeping the leader-board honest.
- Apparently, code-optimisation has been done to ensure that it will run on hardware that ran 2010.
- They claim the AI is faster and better and able to evaluate the race through strategic analysis. especially the last part I have a hard time believing.

well said Papa_K

Seriously, they're charging full price every year for what should be a Ł9.99 add-on. How many years will this continue? There must be a lot of fanbois out there keeping Codemasters supplied with company Porsches!

You mean FIA. I'm sure they charge CM several arms, legs, and internal organs for this license, and if they don't release annually like other sports titles they'll either lose the license or be forced to give it up due to the costs.
I doubt CM is run well enough that ANYONE there could be making significant money.



The Jedi Master

I'm going to do something I rarely do video game wise... Just say NO, lol...

Was looking to pre-order and get day 1, but I'm not liking what I'm seeing and hearing, and Steam has it for 44 bucks, maybe it will be under 20 by X-mas, plus I am gamefly'ing it for 360.

Now If I can just fight the temptation release day.

Cut-n-Paste Job from Steam:


Minimum:

OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 5400+
Memory: 2GB Ram
Graphics: GeForce 7800/Radeon X1800 or higher
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive:12.5 GB HD space
Sound: DirectX Compatible Soundcard or onboard audio
Other Requirements: Online play requires log-in to Games For Windows - Live.
Network Requirements:

Broadband internet connection required (512kbps+ recommended)
TCP/IP Network
Supported Graphics Cards:

ATI Radeon x1800, x1900, x1950, HD2400, HD2600, HD2900, HD3XXX Series, HD4XXX Series, HD5XXX Series, HD6XXX Series
NVIDIA Geforce 7800, 7900, 7950, 7950Gx2, 8400, 8600, 8800, 9600, 9800, 9800Gx2, GeForce 210, GT220, GTS250, GTX2XX Series, GTX4XX Series, GTX5XX Series
Not compatible with all integrated sound/graphics solutions (inc. laptops).


Recommended for DX11:

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Phenom II x4
Memory:4GB Ram GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX460 or ATI Radeon HD 5850
DirectX®: 11
Hard Drive:12.5 GB HD space
Sound:DirectX Compatible Soundcard or onboard audio

Thanks for that very useful info Jens. It sounds like the F1 2010 approach was seen as a success to the Codemasters team and they are ok sticking with that for F1 2011 too.

I will also be passing on this for now (maybe pick it up on bargain bin someday), but I don't doubt there are millions of casual gamer F1 fans who will pick this title up and allow it to be a sales success for Codemasters thereby validating their strategy as a sales success, I'm sure we'll end up seeing it on the F1 BBC coverage again as we did last year (Lewis Hamilton and his brother appear to be fans of it).

I suggest they adopt a new slogan: Codemasters F1 - the Madden of Racing Games

If F1 2011 has the same level of support that 2010 did (thinking Pixie straws holding up a beachside condo), then it won't find a place on my HD.

I did enjoy the Career/Live the Life offline mode (when it didn't crash and I had to restart it) that they had and there are some new features that make it sound interesting....safety car, the now disclosed co-op mode especially....but it's going to have to be a LOT different than my current favorite coaster (F1 2010) was for me to get it.

If they really wanted something that would sell, they should have patterned the Career mode after James Hunt's career....now THAT would have made CM money.

Well, if you rent it for the console you're hardly telling CM no.



The Jedi Master

Sad that some of the biggest games are the ones that get the least support. Lucky to get 1 patch these days.
What's worse? I'm so attuned to buying new games at $65 from my 360 ($60 + tax) that I see this thing for $45 and think I'm getting an amazing sale price, not just 5 bucks. LOL
I'm just to tempted to see that safety car, I don't think I've ever had that in a game. Going to try to hold out a couple of weeks to find out how polished it is.

It's in rFactor, and iRacing.

I've got rFactor, just don't like it enough to play it. iRacing has been getting tempting again though.

its a shame it looks really nice, but Ill pass

I'll be getting it for the PC.

Ever heard of FIFA 08, 09, 10, 11 or 12? It's a new game! Of course they will charge you full price.

People don't have a problem paying full price for the next COD installement. Shake my head at you people some times.

The next COD installment (or FIFA for that matter), is not just composed of the new uniforms for the new season along with just the fixes to features that were in last years game but broken and they refused to fix them because they stupidly admitted they were too busy working on next years version already.

It would be fine if it was just some hidden or minor features, but we're talking about broken wet weather and pit-out which are key things in a F1 sim/game.

Personally I have F1-2010 for the occasional F1 hotlap or track re-familiarization activity, and I will put my hopes on rFactor2 and F1 mods for my F1 racing for 2012.

It's all about new content and as far as I can see F1 2011 doesn't have an awful lot over 2010, therefore my argument is that it is not a new game but more like an update that has added the 2011 drivers and new rules. Having purchased F1 2010 which was full of bugs, they then release one useless patch and drop all support for 2010 and start work on F1 2011. I'm still unable to play F1 2010 today because the game is still broken for me and many others. My point here is that I'd probably be happy to fork out the full price for F1 2011 if I hadn't been totally shafted with the previous release. My other point is that after spending a couple of hours today finding out as much as I can about F1 2011s content it seems to me that it's not worth forking out another Ł28 on as I feel it will only be a somewhat enhanced version of F1 2010 (that's if it doesn't keep crashing to desk top!). I'd go as far as to say that quite a lot of the features claimed for 2011 should have been included in the 2010 patch!

So Bull... I'm afraid I have to shake my head back at you When Codemasters decide to produce a new game that is in a playable state and doesn't contain 80% of the previous titles code then I might well give them the benefit of the doubt and go for it. Releasing a title in the same series every year means that new content and a properly finished product probably won't happen as there's not enough time for these to be implemented properly before release.

I do not like the way Codemasters work and until they have a change of attitude I'll take my business elsewhere.

It always makes me smile when I someone claim "I'll never buy xxxxx product ever ever again!!!!"

I'm sure in 12 months Pete, you'll be playing the same tune...."never ever buying it ever ever again!!!!"

Bull, check out the last paragraph of my post. There is no indication from me that I'll never buy a Codemasters product again. I'll never pre-order their games and then I'll only purchase when it's known that the content is worth the full price of admission.

I'll repeat that I'm still unable to run F1 2010 due to unfixed bugs and this is what I find unacceptable as Codemasters saw fit to ignore the fact that the game had serious problems and very quickly withdrew any support. Good luck to them if they continue with that line as I'm sure it can and has damaged their health this time around with F1 2011. I'd be pretty crazy to set my self up for that scenario again with 2011. "Once bitten...twice shy" as they say.

I like it when people take a stand about EA.
"I'll never buy from them again, boycott!
*Except Tiger Woods, gotta have my Tiger Woods. And Madden. And NHL. Can't miss those every year but that's it! Maybe Battlefield. "

I haven't bought a game from Codemasters since Race Driver 3. It was a fast-paced arcadish game that was a lot of fun to play online, and I didn't really like the direction they went with GRID.

This isn't because of any sort of moral stance, I'm just broke. That makes it a hell of a lot easier to say I'm not going to buy someone's games.

Usually the only way I get to try new stuff is borrowing my brother's copies. Since he's single he has plenty of expendable income.

All that in mind, I'm pretty thankful that rFactor has enjoyed such a long life. While I'm looking forward to what rFactor 2 will bring, I don't mind the current delay in release info. Saves my wallet just that much longer...

I also never said anything about not buying Codemasters ever again, in fact even after the F1-2010 fiasco, I still bought and really enjoy Dirt3, as well as it's somewhat expensive for a DLC $10 Monte Carlo track and a few car DLCs, these contain a lot of new value and new fun.

I don't have a problem paying money for something that is fun and contains sim racing value, but I will not be paying $50 for last years broken F1 game with the patches that they should have given us and a few new cosmetic changes and a safety car.

BULL it seems like you are arguing the point without owning last year's title, which probably explains a bit why you don't understand our "once burned twice shy" feelings, but I hope for your sake that you don't find out by them releasing F1-2011 with a broken safety car feature (what seems to be the main new feature this release) and then moving on to F1-2012 without caring about fixing it, this particular dev team has proven that is an acceptable/lucrative strategy for them.

No thanks. The "one and done" patch for 2010 did it for me with these guys. No passion. It's all about money. I prefer to purchase my games from companies like iRacing, or DCS.

I'll be buying it on day 1.

I love F1 and agree that F1 2010 had great potential but was massively let down by the bugs, subsequent patch and support.

Lets just take a couple of minutes though to check these comments by McGonigle:



Wow, a big exaggeration about the move to 2012. Sarcastic?...maybe but isn't it worth actually giving the devs a chance especially as F1 2010 had heaps of potential. The original wasn't exactly broken and the bits it did well, it did very well. Unfortunately the bugs such as the AI lap times hit hard. I'd like to think that the areas in which the devs have concentrated on are the areas in which didn't turn out so well in F1 2010 - I think it's unrealistic to think that the devs will have ignored the problem areas from F1 2010 and if they have then yes, they have really blown it.

Replays? Are we really bothered about replays in the first place? The majority of people that use SimHQ would be classed as hardcore simmers. Replays are/should be bottom of the list - they add nothing to the game other than a large amount of hard disk used up. The same goes for GT5 - a game heralded by console gamers yet the best bits were the replays and photo modes.

No improvmenets or changes regarding taking control of your car in the pit-lane......but we know the reason for that, I personally think it's justified because it will only take a few online gamers to race/reverse down a pitlane attempting to take out the heavily licensed teams and cause all the wrong headlines and bad publicity for the game.

code-optimisation has been done to ensure that it will run on hardware that ran 2010......is this a bad thing? It's the age-old balance of whether you get a lot of PC gamers buying a game or using the latest fandangled technology so that only a small percentage of gamers can run it at a decent frame rate. F1 2010 at max settings is arguably the best looking racing game out there.

They claim the AI is faster and better and able to evaluate the race through strategic analysis. especially the last part I have a hard time believing
Why is that so hard to believe? It's surely not the most difficult task and really only revolves around fuel-load/tyres/pit-stops and laptimes against a comparison of previous lap times for each car.

Kludger, I own F1 2010 on both PC and xbox.

Hi Paradaz,

About the move to 2012: Not an exageration or sarcasm, Stephen used the almost exact words that 2011 might get an update or two depending on how the release goes.

Replays: Some of us are bothered by lack of replays and the incredibly clumsy excuse for a replay function that was bolted on to 2010 in the patch. This point has been raised on several occasions in the forum and in various race sim communities. Fine if you feel you don't need it. That's cool.

Control in pit-lane: Again, some of us are really disappointed in the lack of control over the car in the pit-lane. Realizing that each person has different preferences and expectations, generally many folks want to be able to steer their car. Completely. And personally I can't see why a couple of potential pit-wreckers should stand in the way of that. There is massive potential for interesting gameplay in this area.

Code optimisation: Not a bad thing. A good thing. Never saw that as anything but a good thing.

Well, just call me a sceptic then, I would love to be disproved by the actual facts, once the game is released.


You can catch the writeup of the interview here: http://www.simhq.com/_motorsports5/motorsports_178a.html

BULL it is good to know what perspective you are coming from, I am a huge F1, sim racing and gaming fanatic and frequent purchaser of lots of games, I want F1 2011 to be good so I can purchase it and enjoy it just like I wanted F1 2010 to be good and why I pre-ordered it last year.

No ill will here, sounds like we're all fellow F1 and sim fans, nobody will be happier than me if it turns out that you guys that buy F1-2011 on 9/23 release date report back that all the previous probs were fixed, the race strategies and safety car work and it's a great game.

If I hear good feedback from fellow sim racers and see good reviews for it like I did for Dirt3 I would still pick it up, I don't expect a hardcore sim from it, but a decent fun representation of F1 similar to how Dirt3 is not hardcore WRC but very fun to me as a WRC fan.

I'm a huge F1 fan and a Sim racer, I owned F1 2010 and pre ordered F1 2011.
I think F1 2010 was about as much Sim as Mario Cart so my expectations aren't very high it this point.

Not touching it. Still feel rather bitter about F12010 and the lack of support post-release.

What really pisses me off about Codemasters however is the amount of spin we get inundated with during development, typically along the lines of what motorsport want fans to hear. Recent examples include trumpeting Anthony Davidson's input into F12010, despite the driving model suggesting he was either never really involved or completely ignored. Then there was Dirt 3, which apparently went 'back to rallying's roots' by merely including a MkII Escort and Mini Cooper in the same formula of the previous games. Pretty sad that they prefer to spend so much money on PR rather than investing it in the actual product.

I'm also cynical enough to believe that mainstream reviews of Codemasters games are less than honest. In the case of F12010 I find it inconceivable that anyone could have played it for a significant amount of time without encountering (certainly not reporting) any of the problems that were discovered within hours of it's release.

Wow.
Some of us do enjoy making the occaissional video. More often I like to watch a replay or better yet, capture it so I can see what I'm doing wrong. You catch a LOT of things in a proper replay that you don't see from the cockpit while in the game.
Also, it's a lot of fun to try to make a video, all the way through a run, worthy (or in my case almost worthy) of keeping to watch again. When you know the camera's on you, it puts you on the spot to execute well so you can enjoy what you've done. Sometimes it takes hours of running a track, playing a game, flying a plane etc to get it where you want it---especially if you don't want to do it with edits in one single take. If I hadn't done this on the Nordschleife, I wouldn't have learned in REMOTELY as fast. I needed to see it from outside, not rushed and behind the wheel to see what I needed to do.

...and it doesn't take up much hard drive space. You can always record, make the video, upload to youtube and then delete the whole thing if you're that pushed for drive space.

Personally, I'm not sure what bugs people always talk about, but I'm a SP only player. I assume they're in the MP experience. Comparing this to Mario Kart is beyond exaggeration though, into the "just don't say anything" area, IMO. It's borderline between game and sim, but far, far from an arcade title. I just hope they fire that creepy pit crew guy that looks like Moby.

Given their track record, I think it's unrealistic to trust the devs will get all of the new features for F1 2011 right. As for doing what it actually did, it did well...there's many varied opinions as to just "what" it did well besides leave a lot of F1 fans simmering over the lack of support and ignoring of bugs that were reported since Day 1. That's what was done best by the devs. And as for support, repairing bugs they created when assmebling the game....well, CM's got a long track record of not repairing those in many of their games.



Replays have been a staple of just about every major popular racing sim title since 1998. To use any part of "replays take up too much space" in this era of terrabyte HD's and external sotrage units is nothing short of ridiculous and reeks of a laziness on the developers' part because it requires work.



Actually, we don't know the reason for this....it's been more of a guess on our parts that it's related to licensed teams not wanting to see their precious cars smashed in online sessions with idiots. There should at least be an option to turn pit control on/off and if they're so worried about idiots wrecking the cars in online sessions, it could be forced in MP by the host. As for bad publicity, F1 2010 gathered enough of that on it's owwn without the need of people driving the wrong way down the paddock. In that department, they didn't need any help at all.



I won't argue that it's great, graphics looking wise and yes, the best on the market. As previously mentioned, most of the Sim HQ'ers would be classified as hardcore simmers....a hardcore simmer's going to have as much interest in the physics than he is a bunch of eye candy. Being able to take a Lotus to the WDC with all the settings maxxed out isn't a sim, it's a game. If they're going to make games, then they should market them as such.



It's hard for me to believe anything they say about the AI since they initially denied that the AI times in 2010 were scripted until it was proven on their own forums and then they tried to sweep it under the proverbial rug.

I myself think the writer was giving them too much "credit" for last year's game and should have addressed their track record in support and ignoring issues harder myself....so, saying he was overly critical is a bit much when most of the hardcore simmers previously mentioned would have been much, much worse.

Meaning they are both games not Sims, made so we can sit on a couch and play with a Xbox controller. Maybe NFS would have been a more fair comparison but still...No Sim.
I'll try F1 2011 to see whats improved.

Well to be fair, if there was a true F1 "sim" out there, 90% of us would struggle to complete a lap, let alone a race.

I think F1 2010 makes a nice balance between fun and sim. At least for me it does.

Looking forward to F1 2011.

But there are

@SteveGee
I'm not going to argue with you as many of your points are valid, it does seem like there are many people writing the game off before they have really seen it or heard much about it though. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but one of your answers is verging on the ridiculous:



You really thinking that driving a Lotus should mean the best position you could ever finish in is the last 4 as long as other drivers don't leave the track and/or retire from the race? You really think that you should have to endure 3 or 4 full seasons of racing before realistically seeing any improvement? You really think that the game or sim should only have 3 or 4 teams that have a realistic chance of winning each race? You have to appreciate that regardless of anything being called a 'simulator' be that rFactor, DCS A10 or Arma there are compromises that have to be made and a balancing act juggled in order to bridge the difference between enjoyment and boredom. I haven't seen you in the Arms forums stating that it cant be labelled a military combat sim because the game doesn't feature your characters eating or drinking anything in order to increase their energy levels before the next attack or that there is no enforced rest period after completing a 6 hour sortie in Falcon 4.

I'd be willing to bet my mortgage that the term 'game' features multiple times more than the word 'sim' or 'simulator' throughout the F1 2010 marketing drive and manual. Its more likely that its the community itself that gave F1 2010 the 'simulator' tag being hungry for a new F1 game than the devs /publishers!

Anyway, the Monza qualifying starts in a few hours and then we can all look forward to the race in just over 24 hours time........or is this another flaw in the F1 2010 game because you can do the qualifying and then race in the same day!

Driving in one of the bottom 3 teams I would definitely not expect to score any points in the first season (let alone win), except maybe in one or two races if the weekend went perfectly. That should make the effort put in and the points earned a lot more satisfying. Then after the first season or mid-season, if you had strong finishes for a crap team, other teams might be interested. In any other team I'd expect to be able to score points and the occasional podium. But I wouldn't expect to be winning races until I got into one of the top 5 teams.

But here is the balancing act I was talking about.....what happens when you venture online? You can't have a full grid of Red Bull RB6's (how could that be a 'simulator'? ) , therefore all the cars have to be used. So you have people trying to get the 'best' cars, people disconnecting because they don't get the car they want, people on the grid knowing they have 2 hopes of getting anywhere near the front of a race and people racing with the knowledge they don't have a hope of winning.

There is a line in the sand, and I think some people can't appreciate that regardless of what some people label a 'simulator' we are actually playing a 'game' that simply has to appeal to as many people as possible. The PC 'simulator' market has never been in a worse position with big releases once in a blue moon, why would you want to push it into an even worse position? The less people that buy a title, the less likely it is that you will see the next game in the series. If every driving 'simulator' had to be like rFactor where you can determine the torque setting of each nut and bolt there would only be one or two developers that would bother putting the time and effort into creating new titles. We can't rely on the niche community to come up with the goods every time, because that will also shrink as the titles dry up!

I don't like the situation we're in and personally put a lot of the 'blame' into the console market whereby cash cow developers are forced to churn out crap as fast as possible. Regardless, there is nothing our community can do about that because what we desire is at the opposite end of the scale. I'd be happy to pay Ł100 for a 'game' or 'sim' that is flawless in execution and caters for our needs and as the community gets smaller or our interests are only catered by the shrinking dev studios it's something that may be more likely down the line where the cost of games dramatically increases in order for the niche dev studios to survive.

I think what's disappointing to me is that far too many people are prepared to write something off way too early, but I guess that's their perogative. Whereby someone will state that they have little belief in a future product they surely can't be too happy for other people to dismiss their opinion so quickly either. I wonder how many people who are already dismissing F1 2011 will honour their own sentiments of going nowhere near the product if it turns out to be what F1 2010 could have been. Personally, I'll support any game that I enjoy regardless of who develops/publishes it. To me, people being so dismissive are no different to being a console fanboy giving allegiance to a particular brand name and not actually using the games that the console provides as the comparison measure.

All cars have equal performance online (it's an option)

The only (or main) problem people have with Codemasters is that the game had some game-breaking bugs in it from launch, such as the lollipop man holding you in the pits and letting everyone else go by, and then releasing a patch which according to the majority of users, did not fix the problem. The patch also broke one of the main features of the game which was the wet weather system.

Besides these 2 issues, I have no problem with F1 2010 and would not have any bitter feelings towards feature installations.

If you choose the option of having equal car performance online then surely that will also get someone's knickers in a twist that it's a 'game' and not a 'sim'.

The issue that people have with codemasters is exactly my point here.....people have raised issue with Codemasters and the bugs that were present within F1 2010 which is perfectly fine. (I had the same reservations that was the mess called Op Flashpoint) For me, that doesn't automatically mean that it justifies a good slagging for a new game that hasn't been released and that no-one has played yet.

Their loss if F1 2011 turns out to be a blinder. A few red faces is always a possibility.
I'm more than prepared to give the game a good playtest and make a judgement based on gameplay and not the brand name of a publisher or a previous title.

Yes, I think that driving a Lotus in the first season...I shouldn't be able to win the World Driver's Championship, plain and simple. The backmarker teams should, and historically are, used as stepping stones for drivers to try and impress the mid and top tier teams so they can acquire a ride with them....refer to Alonso and Webber's Minardi stints as examples of these currently and plenty of others throughout history if you'd like. Being able to take the Lotus to the WDC in the first year with all the supposed "hard" setttings on is absolutely ridiculous if you even want to consider F1 2010 as a sim-lite piece of hardware. The whole "Live the Life" theme is touted, yet it's a farce. If you want to take a Lotus, Hispana or a Virgin to the top of the F1 ladder, then go online where all the cars are equal and do so. CM doesn't need to try to sell me on some roody-pooh, candy ass game and tell me it's a great sim and they have attempted to sell this to the harcore sim crowd as such.

Rod Cousens, the CEO of Codemasters, himself has said that the goal of F1 2011 was to make it so people could quickly get up to speed, post a laptime on an online board to compare with others and move on to something else because of their limited attention spans, or words to that effect. Do a search if you think this is made up, too...I've posted links to it many a time and don't feel the need to do so again.

As for not seeing me in the Arms forums....whatever that is....it's probably because I don't have that game and this wasn't a discussion about it, rFactor or DCS A10. It was a discussion about F1 2011 and these comments are feeble attempts to try and get the focus off of it and onto something else. Besides, if you're talking about America's Army....I've got over a decade of time humping a full rucksack under enemy, and friendly, fire and I really have no desire to play some game that attempts to make me a "warrior"....been there, done that and have multiple t-shirts from hostile AO's, along with mulitple disabilities.




As for you comment on Monza....I really don't know what the point is that you're trying to make. Actually, qualifying and the race aren't held within the same day. Qualifying is done on Saturday and the race is on Sunday, so I'm having to guess that maybe there's some sort of time warp in your area that lets you see both within the same day....and manipulating a 24-hour period doesn't make a day when you try to prove some feeble point of which I cannot beging to fathom.

Oh, BTW....if that time warp's made by Codemasters, don't expect more than one patch for it if you have problems with it.

So there you have it, the game isn't a 'sim' and was never meant to be....which one is it? In your first post you're questioning why the game was sold and marketed under a 'sim' banner, but you're also happy to link the CEO stating it's an arcade racer - confused!



You have just repeated my point....qualifying and the race itself is on a different day hence why I said I was about to watch qualifying yet the race is 24 hours away. It seems that in your opinion something that is classed as a 'sim' has to repeat/portray real life exactly - so that means that is never any chance that F1 2010/F1 2011 can carry a 'sim' banner if the game lets you qualify and race within hours of each other. Sarcastic and pedantic just like many comments that people make when trying to make their opinion sound like fact.

Like I've said previously, any game has to be a balancing act between enjoyment and reality.

I wasn't talking about Americas Army either but if you're after any bonus points for being in the army for 10 years, they'll be lost on me and the same reason why I hadn't ever felt the need to broadcast my 15 years service, 10 of which being as a Paratrooper with 5 Iraq tours and 2 in Afghanistan in my last 8 years alone amongst many others aren't going raise my eyebrows especially if you were humping a rucksack under friendly fire. It sounds like someone's SOP's need addressing.

It does seem strange though that you take F1 and a game that (in your opinion) attempts to simulate it so seriously yet you're quick to dismiss a military combat simulator because you served in the forces! One rule for one......! My last post on this as you obviously like an argument. I'll let you know if F1 2011 is any good.

A military simulator? If you are a former Paratrooper, then you should know as much as anyone there's no such a thing. Those are games, plain and simple. The day you find one that simulates the actual conditions of combat, please inform the rest of us. As for letting me know how F1 2011 is, I'll be paying more attention to the review sites than I am of people that seem to be more determined to fly the Codemasters flag, thank you.

lol, I think you'll find there is barely any comment regarding Codemasters. I have already stated that F1 2010 had great potential but also had some bugs and also that I playtest games to make an informed decision rather than simply looking at a brandname to determine whether a game is good or not before it has even been released.

Arma 2 as an Infantry Combat Simulator in my opinion is as close as rFactor is to racing, DCS is to an A10 Warthog and F1 2010 is to Formula 1. They are all good in certain areas and have huge compromises in others in comparison to the real thing. The term 'simulator' can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people and often is just a description or means of playing something virtually in comparison to an activity they would either not want to do in real life or would never have the chance.

Agree to disagree but it's almost like you're trying to enforce a specific set of rules with regards what can be classed as a simulator one minute and then using a completely different set of rules for something else in which you may or may not have some real-life experience in. Let's face it, there are a lot of arm-chair experts in the simming community, ourselves included when it comes to F1. Like 'Bull' said earlier....if any F1 game was a 'real sim' then 99% of us would never complete a lap in the first place, never mind squabbling about whether we could get a Lotus from the back of the grid into the top 10, and we can take the proof from that from other professional drivers and petrol-head journalists that have access to hugely powerful cars that have tried it, failed and stuttered in amazement about the complexity and skill required for the task.

Actually, I've tried to keep the conversation towards F1 2011, F1 2010 and Codemasters' lack of support for the latter. You were the one that's brought numerous other titles...rFactor, DCS A10, Arma (America's Army I'm guessing), Falcon 4 and the aformentioned Arms forum which I guess is a typo and was supposed to mean Arma... into the discussion. My mention of other titles has been to either ask what they were (Arms) or to point out that a "military combat simulation" doesn't exist, but there are plenty of military combat games. The attempt to change the topic of discussion is usually reserved for people that have realized the point they were arguing is pretty much a moot point.

The original discussion was you thought it was ridiculous when I stated that the ability to use a specific team (Lotus) that has yet to score a Championship point since it's return to the Formula One grid in 2010 to win the WDC was pretty unrealistic. You seem to think that it should be possible in a simulation, which F1 2010 was marketed as at least as much as it was marketed as a game, and I don't.

We'll leave it at that.

Yes, the mention of games like Arma/DCS/rFactor is because they each 'simulate' certain aspects of what they are attempting to portray very well but massively compromise other areas in order to remain enjoyable as a game.....to the same extent that F1 2010 does to Formula 1. You then went on to talk nonsense about 'conditions' in a combat game......why don't the same rules apply to racing sims then? Perhaps they can't be labelled simulators until they effectively model 5.0g forces on your neck and head?

You may describe F1 2010 as a game (I couldn't give a monkey's what you define it as either way) but the point of bringing the other titles up is that they can easily be described as games or sims depending on what areas of them you are talking about. Do you know of any other games that actually simulate ballistics as well as Arma 2? There aren't many titles that even try to my knowledge. If you compare Arma 2 to Americas Army then one of them is a simulator and one of them is a run and gun arcade game!

Like I mentioned previously, you seem pretty anal in determining that a 'lower spec' car shouldn't have a hope in hell of actually winning an F1 race. Maybe so if you're being ultra realistic to the point of taking the fun out of it but how many people are interested in starting a 50 lap race in which your best possible finish may be 18/20?



If you look through the posts I've made there isn't a single instance where I've described F1 2010 as a simulator. You're getting yourself mixed up, you're the one who stated that F1 2010 was marketed as a sim, you then link Codemasters CEO openly admitting it was never anything of the sort yet you're the one whining about the performance of certain cars that should never be able to win a race!! Make your mind up, I've yet to see any evidence that anyone ever claimed F1 2010 was any sort of realistic simulator.

Again, as I have mentioned in nearly every post so far....games need to have an element of fun in them or we wouldn't bother playing them. If you are wanting true realism in an F1 game and have to warm the tyres up, keep the brakes within a certain temperature range just so they function etc etc you'd never even complete a lap. You are making your own rules up with regards as to whether it is allowed to be labelled a sim or not. My original point in the whole of this topic is that you and many others are prepared to write F1 2011 off without even playing the game purely based on who the developers/publishers are! I'll only make the judgement on F1 2011 after playing it and using valid hands-on experience to make that determination.

Guys, that's a whole lot of BS about a damn label for a piece of software.
Play it or don't play it. You're not a better person for going either way. Let it go.

Well, all this static aside, I preordered F1 2011 based on two things:

First, the almost-there result that F1 2010 was. Remember that while the game engine wasn't new and had been used before, it was still CM's first F1 game. The patch fixed some things, broke others, ignored yet others. Par for the course for a patch. Did it suck there was only one? Yes. I totally understand the business decision behind it though. As we've heard from other devs, notably ED and the patch for LOMAC FC 1 that never actually came but instead became FC 2 (and required $30, remember), having your team working on a patch instead of the next revenue-generating project costs money.
Unlike the Dirt franchise with its DLC of more cars, more tracks, more liveries, etc, F1 has nothing. Your season is the cars and the tracks. You have to have it all, and then there's nowhere to go. That means all the money is from the game itself, you can't make more from those who buy it. The solution is to make a yearly release with the new tracks and teams changes that occur, adding in new features where possible to entice buyers (new and repeat). That yearly cycle, though, gives little time and patching eats into that a great deal.

Second, the coop season. As has been remarked upon by some others on the net (although not too many), the last F1 game to feature a coop season was...in 1992! MPS' Grand Prix: World circuit, which I played a TON of for a few years, that let you complete an entire season and kept track of the points for you. Sure, you could always just do the single races and keep score yourself, but it's not really the same. Besides, if they did it in 1992, why couldn't they do it in any F1 sim since? Finally, 19 years later, 2011 has it.
I'm willing to give CM the benefit of the doubt here. If F1 2011 fixes the most egregious problems of 2010, plus adds a great new feature I've wanted FOREVER, it was worth it. However, if it is arguably lesser than 2010 thanks to bugs and whatnot, well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... I won't say I won't buy another CM game, that's ridiculous. They're too big a publisher for that. I COULD say I won't buy another F1 title from them, and unless I hear an overwhelming "3rd time's the charm" chorus from the net, I will stick with that.

So I'm taking a risk preordering 2011, but I'm willing to. If I get burned, I won't take that risk with 2012 or whatever. I just won't condemn them based solely on what happened with 2010.



The Jedi Master

Yep, couldn't have put it better myself.

Whilst I may have come across quite defensive in the posts above, it's nothing to do with Codemasters whatsoever, I'm a huge fan of F1 and I'm only too aware that F1 2010 (the game) had some big flaws, but if they've been put right and added some extra content for F1 2011 then I'll be happy. If the game is mess then I'm unlikely to purchase another F1 game from them on release as I won't want to be the person that lays down Ł30 and beta tests it for them.

What is funny is that in some of the other threads, there are people recommending to others that they wait until F1 2011 is patched before going anywhere near it lol. This is obviously before seeing the game in action, playing it and making any valid justification whatsoever as to how they have so much more information than anyone else and know what the finished product is like well before the official release.

That's primarily because of past experience with Codemasters.

I don't want to jump too deep into the hilarious conversation you guys are having, but I will say that when I first tried out F1 2010 I was very happy with the prospect of being in a backmarker racing for positions at the back of the grid with no hope of winning. Being able to win in one of the back three cars seemed a silly idea, but having a realistic goal of beating just those other teams...at the beginning of a 'career' mode with the hopes of working my way up...now that I could get behind.

I mean, if I wanted to be up front fighting for wins I'd just run a one-off event in one of the top cars. Easy enough to do.

So the first race I tried, I went in with the goal of trying to be the best of the backmarkers...and I won the race, without difficulty.

My interest in the career mode was instantly shot down. If I could win in that car then what possible challenge was left?

I said something similar...based purely on past experience, the patch for F1-2010 effectively broke it.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Except in this case it was twice bitten, thrice shy and I didn't bother with 2010 either.
Happy to be proved wrong by 2011...
Cheers
Keith

Good points made in the discussion despite some heat.

I for one wouldn't deny anyone the right to buy F1-2011, remembering how much anti iRacing fervor there was in the simracing community back in the day and how I initially tried it to judge for myself and am very glad for that as I've enjoyed a couple of great years of racing there already.

I'm just really hoping that the folks buying it give us honest unbiased feeback of it once they get a chance to play it, even better if they were fellow F1-2010 drivers, so those of us on the fence (or near the fence) can then make an informed buying decision.

No one will be happier than me if Codies manages to put out a F1 2011 that makes it worth buying and has me eating humble pie for my low expectations and concerns :-)

Late to the party, just back from holidays.

For me, I'd really love to have KERS, DRS and Pirelli Tyres. I still play F1 2010 occasionally and with some workarounds applied it can be good for a race weekend or mini career offline.

Main two reasons to not buy 2011 as others also have mentioned are the total lack of support we had last year. Which put Codies on my eternal boycott list.

And also the fact that really they are still leaving out tons of stuff that should be in there. Like Telemetry. There is no single glowing new feature that makes it worth a full game price IMHO.


I mean for comparison: SBK 2010 - a 20EUR Budget game when I bought it - has three classes of motorbike racing. It has telemetry, a clever engineer to help with setups, it has awesome replay features, it has awesome statistics for each race weekend, it has driver personalization. It has good driving and challenging AI. Why Codemasters for double the price couldn't get a "watch AI cars" replay or telemetry or session statistics right in 2010 is beyond me. Heck in 2010 you still can't see your third sector time properly.

2011 should have been a 30EUR DLC for 2010 delivering full fixes for all game breaker bugs.

Not sure if linking shops is allowed. If not, please delete.

Does that mean F1 2011 will be great value if all the bugs from 2010 have been eliminated and you can buy it brand new for 22EUR?

While 22EUR seem realistic value, I won't sponsor Codemasters ever again after their communication and patch behaviour last year. Shame the new release doesn't integrate in a single game install so that you could actually have all the 2010 and 2011 content in a single title. That would have been awesome to move from a 2010 season into 2011 season wthin the same game.

Ł17.99... For a marginally improved version of 2010 which (for me) was not a bad arcade racer with some pretty serious bugs... I think thats a decent price so pre ordered..

Hi guys

I'm preparing a review of F1 for Eurogamer DK, but I thought I'd share my first impressions based on one evening (and one night) of single player.

- Career mode is almost the same. No big improvements apart from press clippings etc.
- Difficulty: easy is now easy, hard is hard. I'll admit I had issues with the difficulty settings in the 2010, too hard. Now I'm able to get a P1 from time to time (unless I lose concentration) :-)
- Simulation: the car feels totally different. It feels like they redid the entire under the hood simulation. The car feels like the Williams F1 racer in Iracing, except better, more F1'esque... You can really feel and hear the tires, the sense of speed is great and the car seems alive somehow. The Iracing Williams is very much 'on rails', whereas when you drive the F1 2011... I don't know :-) I think the cars are a lot more difficult to drive now anyhow.
- The FF implementation on the G27 is a lot better (and totally painless to get to work)
- AI is really good! It goes to great pains to avoid crashes and it is very well behaved, better behaved than me most of the time :-D
- All in all, big chunks of the sim look like the old one, but for me (and I suspect for most people on this forum), the 'under the hood' improvements are really important and I believe they're there.

I'm looking forward to McGonigles impressions when he gets time with the sim.

Tonight I'll test the new coop campaign mode with a friend. That's without a doubt for me the single most anticipated feature in the game! Fingers crossed that it works. Oh, that and the new TV mode where you can watch your buddy race if you crashed your car....

Oh, and is it worth the full price? Yes, for me it is, but then again, I'm a huge F1 fan :-)

I read the opposite in a german preview based on WIP code. According to them AI is still prone to crash into you from behind and Stewards still tend to punish the player for such incidents. Both not as terrible as in F1 2010, but still bad. On what difficulty settings did you play?

And cheers btw for the first impressions, looking forward to reading your opinion on coop campaign.

Well, I'm playing the retail code and I still think the AI is pretty good. I haven't noticed any untowards bumping from behind. I'm playing on full rules, full flags, all aids off, no abs, no traction, full damage etc. The stewards are pretty cool this time, not like last time where playing full rules was impossible. But hey, maybe I'm just a well behaved racing driver ;-) I once got a 10 grid penalty during qual but it was well deserved :-)

Btw, a thing I always wondered: is it realistic to have traction and ABS turned off? Do real F1 cars have it or not?

You can now pre-load F1 2011 on Steam. I'm doing that right now.

This is quite disconcerting, as I thought F1 2010 was too easy.

Did you play F1 2010 with all driving aids off and with the AI cars set on "legendary"? If you did then you sir are a much better racing simmer than I am.

Really?

I thought it was ridiculously hard... not the driving itself... I could do great hot laps... but actually participating in a race was nightmare hard... I guess mostly because of the AI and the ridiculous rules F1 has... F1 (from my limited TV watching and limited gameplay) is more like multiple hot laps with other drivings, then a race... way to many rules in F1 (both real and game) for it to be entertaining or easy.

IMO

That said... I know my friend PM got 2011 and plays alot, so i caved in an pre-ordered... more for MP then SP.

Neither ABS nor TC allowed in Formula1. So yeah, off with it.

As far as difficulty is concerned, F1 2010 is a handful for me.

Yes

Well, Ahmad, what can I say, you must be a better driver than I :-) I tend to lose concentration after a while, mistakes happen. Even so, my laptimes aren't that great. I think getting real good at this takes more than I can give :-)

from looking at this video, it does not look like it, but having not played F1 2011 I can not comment, but dispite everything it looks a beutiful game and depending on what the word is in the SimHQ forums depends on if I get it or not.

Well to be fair, the F1 series from Codemasters has no pretense of being a hardcore racing sim. Something like iRacing would definitely be a better fit for you.

I'm not sure what being a sim game or not has to do with it. I'm not the fastest sim F1 driver out there so I just don't see the point of difficulty levels if they don't even use them properly? Not everyone should be able to win at legendary, I shouldn't even be able to, not unless I've practiced for hours on end at a particular track, and even then maybe not.

I don't find satisfaction in winning, I find it in earning the win.

Difficulty levels are there for a reason and it shouldn't be too hard to set them properly.

Remember when games used to be hard?

I agree with you that there should be a feeling that you are being challenged in a game but just like there are hardcore flight sims and "lite" flight sims that cater to different crowds, the same thing exists with racing sims.

I don't mind working difficulty levels, but all too often I see games where the easiest level is far too hard or the hardest level is far too easy.

The worst thing about the AI in F1 2010 was that, aside from the inability to avoid hitting you (and the screwy rules making it your fault), they had no tyre wear or fuel concerns. That forced you to play the same way to be competitive with them, or else you started out heavy with good tyres compared to their light w/good tyres and finished light w/worn tyres compared to their light w/good tyres.

So, I "gamed the game" to make it more enjoyable. I will also say my single greatest frustration for driving the car sans AI was the curbs. I've driven a lot of racing sims over the last 20 years, and in none of them have the curbs caused as many spins (and crashes) as the ones in F1. I try to avoid them as much as possible so as not to, but that slows me down vs the AI who happily careen over them like they're just painted on the macadam. The specific mentioning of the curbs being improved for 2011 brings me hope.



The Jedi Master

I was hopeless in F1 2010 without some of the aids. (mainly the simple tire model or whatever) Even with that, driving for Sauber I still couldn't get a win. Never tried the easiest AI setting because I wanted SOME challenge to it. I'm an awful driver though, I'll be the first to admit.

I did kind of like not being able to dominate the AI right away as a minnow team.

Hoping F1 2011 is all around a better and more enjoyable game.

Some observations from playing coop for a couple of evenings.

- 1st evening was good fun. It works as you would expect, practice, qual, races.
- 2nd evening was not fun: connection failure. Again this morning. No idea what caused it, but we can't start any multiplayer games. Suspect lots of people will have problems with this. In Windows Live, however, we can see each other...
- Windows Live: it SUCKS. Sometimes we can see each other but invites never appear (not related to the connection problem above).
- Overall, with the connection problems above, Codies will get a lot of grief from players.
- Cutscenes are really annoying and clunky. Not sure what increased 'life' in the pits is... Seems like hype.
- A few bugs: I can't change setups before the race but my teammate can... Very annoying when you discover it rains on racing day and you practiced and qualified in dry...
- AI: I will maintain it is quite ok. Bumping yes, sometimes, but that's what happens when you're unpredictable in front. I do it all the time too :-)
- AI Safety car... huh? It never appears because the AI never crashes. In general the races are too predictable. In real life F1 it is common to see 5-6 cars not finish. In the game everyone always finishes. (note: we're playing on 50% races most of the time which might influence the stats. However, I have yet to see a crash.) Sometimes the AI drivers slip out, but it is very rare.
- Pits work, in and out. No issues.
- Spectator TV (for lack of better word). When one of us crashes or retire, we can follow the other guy as spectator. This mode is cool, but it leaves a lot to be desired. We need a TV mode like in Iracing. As it is now, you can only watch a car from the bumper, from behind or from in front. It severely limits your understanding of what is going on as a spectator. Furthermore, as spectator you don't get any information re timings, nor can you see who the car in front is (unless you can recognize it visually). It is kind of weird they didn't include a TV mode because you actually have it in the instant replays and in the race replays.
- Replay: you can replay an entire race when it's finished. You can't save it or anything, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KYugZygcuw

1:40 ??? Five seconds quicker than last years pole time, and he didn't even know the circuit. That is WILDLY inaccurate.

In F1, you can't change the setup from the first lap of Qualifying to the Race (parc ferme) besides for minor adjustments (front wing I think it is), so if it rains for the Race and you're set up to run in the dry, you're pretty much screwed except for putting on wet tires. If you're teammate (AI?) is able to, then that's a bug.

And, he lost a couple hundreths in two corners.

That's the second video I've noticed that the revs really build in the lower RPM's...like they should....but the rears rarely seem to break traction. The video did mention he had tire wear and fuel off, so that may be some sort of built in TC or something running those settings. Also, the curbs don't seem to have much affect on the cars, even when they run completely over them. There's a 3-lap race video at VirtualR at Melbourne where a few times, the curbs should have tossed him into the sponsor boards or off the track, yet the car barely wiggles.

Was a bit disappointed to hear the "Live the Life" was pretty much the same as last year, at least from most of the initial posts. Offline was my main interest in the CM series as I got too much warping with F1 2010 online. If the physics/AI tweaks have made it so you can't take a minnow to the WDC in the first year, it actually could be a fun thing to try and progress your way to the top teams over the length of a career.

Any of the people that have already bought it.....does it still have the 3/5/7 year selections in the Career mode? Never seen any info on that in the previews.

Edit - Seems there's a few folks that are saying that tire pressures can't be adjusted....not sure if this is throughout the race weekend or just during tire changes. Any of the US guys have an idea what they're talking about?

Not sure about career mode, haven't checked it yet. But to my infinite surprise, you can't take 130R flat without breaking traction and spinning out.....................................................................................................................................................

Also, just as F1 2010, you can't feel what the tyres are doing which makes it difficult (basically impossible) to know when to control the throttle and arresting a slide is as simple as tapping the brake again (which I guess is needed because you can't feel what the tyres are doing).

I will have a more in-depth look tonight and report back.

Thanks, Ahmad...take your time. Your's is an opinion I'd be interested in for the overall aspects of how it "feels" and how it plays.

Edit - Seen some posts that said it's only a max of 5 years for a career.

Also, about your mention of 130R...someone else said that they can take it flat out with TC on, which really makes no sense to me as the aero grip at that speed would hold the car to the tarmac, not TC...there was an attempt of a response in the thread I was reading that TC would come into play at 130R, but I ignored it for the obvious reasons. Maybe try 130R with TC on and see if it's possible flat out.

Definitely keep the reports coming in Ahmad, like Steve your opinion is one I rate highly....

From what I've read I'm already disapointed... The track models are out, there's bugs, maximum of a 5 year career when 7 was too short for me, and you have to use TC through 130R... All have made me think that Codies will deifinitely not be getting any cash from me for this title...

Anyone had any problems with the safety car at all?

that is so true, game companies these days try a little to hard to appeal to the masses....

Not to worry... it's early on. WILDLY will become something else.

The One Reason I could see for getting this is for how it looks. It may even be a fun game.
Does the late-season release help or hurt? Not sure, but I for one would be more inclined to get it earlier in the F1 calendar.

I don't think from the video it looked all that great... But that might of been the capture... It could have some fun elements to it though...

But as far as early or late season releases I like both... Early because you can play along with the current calendar. and late because you have a lot more of the elements of the season at hand and the performance of the cars is tweaked to better represent the season...

Well, F1 2010 was gorgeous, graphics wise, I thought and that was before the DX11 support was enabled by the patch....I just had problems with it in other areas.

First Impressions

I spent tonight testing out F1 2011 and these are my thoughts so far.

Firstly, I launched F1 2010 so that I could make a direct comparison for the feel of the car. Then I launched F1 2011 and started my career. Then I went back to F1 2010 for a short race.

Sounds

The first thing that struck me as different were the engine sounds, F1 2011 is far superior in this department, much more realistic and less annoying. The engine doesn't give as annoying a whine on downshift and hitting the limiter is not as annoying either. I do like the engine sounds this time around.

I did have one problem with the sound though, and that was lag. Learning from previous experience, I went into the options and changed the audio setting from Rapture to Software, that fixed it.

Graphics

The graphics didn't seem all that different to me, but after playing F1 2011 I went back to F1 2010 and the graphics were definitely better on F1 2011, and seemed more natural.

Handling

All driving aids off.

The handling is different, it seems a bit more difficult to control the car as it isn't as glued to the ground as much as F1 2010. The first thing I did notice was that the rear end of the car seemed lighter, it was a bit of a strange feeling. The lightness of the rear end is more exaggerated in high speed corners, which seems wrong, and instead of being flat on the throttle, I've had to lift and modulate it, sometimes drift it around the corner. I've experienced this feeling before in an rFactor mod, and it was just wrong, completely different to all the other F1 mods.

The car does oversteer and it can be corrected with opposite lock, but I feel that I would like to correct it earlier than what I am currently.

It's now a lot easier to lock up your brakes, especially if you're not braking in a straight line, which I welcome.

Overall though, having gone from F1 2010 to F1 2011 and back to F1 2010, the car is more satisfying and more rewarding to drive, and feels a bit more natural in F1 2011.

Force Feedback (Logitech G25)

The FFB has been improved on F1 2010 in spades, you can feel more as you're driving but there's still something missing with the tyres. I was really nervous on the throttle but as I played more, I began to get used to it and rely more on a visual cue. It's a bit disappointing considering how many racing games Codemasters has done, but it is better than F1 2010.

Career

So far I am up to my 4th race in the Career. At the beginning you can choose from Force India, Williams, HRT, Virgin or Lotus. I chose Lotus because that's what I chose in the previous instalment. The team expects me to qualify 20th and finish 18th. It's quite hard to finish 18th as all the teams are quite quicker than you except the bottom 3 teams, which is a welcome addition, but I have done it once, which brings me to my next point.

AI

I done all 3 races on the hardest AI setting.

Qualifying went as expected as I qualified somewhere amongst the bottom 3 teams, only once making my goal of 20th, and I believe that was in the rain at Malaysia. I couldn't get anywhere near the rest of the teams.

At the start of the race you can make up a lot of places, as it seems to be case with every racing game I've played, the AI is just not very fast when they're all congested. But after the first few corners, if you've managed to get in front of one of the midfield teams, they will be all over your gearbox and you'll have to seriously fight to keep them behind. They are much quicker than you and will pounce on any mistake you make, but if you don't make a mistake, it is possible to keep them behind for a while because they are not very good at braking. But if they pass you, they'll run away from you.

I raced Melbourne and Malaysia at 50% length and I was lapped twice by the leaders, which I was very happy to see. At last the performance difference seemed realistic. In China I only did a 20% race and only just managed to finish in front of the winner. Good stuff. So the highest difficulty level is definitely realistic, at least for the moment.

KERS, DRS, Safety Car & Penalties

The KERS and DRS work as expected, and it actually gives me a greater appreciation for what the real drivers have to do in a race at 300kph, quite frankly what they do is bloody amazing.

I have not experienced the safety car yet. I did crash into the barriers once, but the SC did not come out. It does not seem trigger happy at all, which is a good thing.

I've only received one penalty so far, and that was for not obeying blue flags quick enough, which is fair enough as I went about 6 corners without moving over. I have received a couple of warnings but other than that no penalties, which is sensible.

Possible Bugs

The AI slows too much when given a blue flag, allowing me to catch up to the guy I'm racing a lot quicker than I should. I believe this needs to be fixed.

Fixed from F1 2010

As far as I have seen, the pit stops were done fine and I was not held up unnecessarily like what used to happen in F1 2010, so this seems to be fixed.

The wet weather system works, but the dry line doesn't look the best, graphically, and the road is like a mirror, it's a bit annoying to be honest. I prefer the dry, but the wet does work.

Thanks for those impressions Ahmad, they are excellent and really help a 2010 owner weigh up whether to jump in or not.

I'm happy with the first impressions.....it was always going to be fingers crossed that the big hitters in F1 2010 had been fixed.

Ahmad, can you clarify the point you made about the blue flags? Do you mean that when you are being lapped, the other cars that are in front of you but also getting lapped slow down too much making it easier for you to close the gap with them? If so, how do they react once the leaders make their pass?...are they straight back on the gas or are you able to pass them too?

No problem. If you were a big fan of F1 2010 and were very happy with it, then getting this would be a no-brainer. But if you were on the fence, or it didn't hold your attention for too long, or you stopped playing because of the bugs, then I would wait for a ~50% discount before purchasing, if you purchase it all. While there are improvements, they're nothing shattering.


If the car in front is only a few seconds ahead of me, it slows down before I even need to slow down, and allows me to catch up and sometimes make an easy pass. Once the blue flag is over, they are straight onto the gas again, but I may have already taken the position. Sometimes I have seen an opponent slow down and move off the racing line for no apparent reason too. So it seems like the blue flag code needs to be optimized.

First Update :

http://www.drivingitalia.net/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showcat=91

Ahmad, thanks for the first impressions....sounds like they did some work on it.

You mentioned KERS....do the bottom 3 teams (Lotus, Hispana and Virgin) have KERS? I seen in another thread that they didn't (think only the Williams and the Force India had it of the available Career teams) and honestly, I can't remember if any of those 3 are actually running it for the 2011 season. Don't get a lot of cockpit shots of Lotus, Hispana and Virgin for some reason...

Sounds like the Career mode's better, at least the ability to take a minnow to the front is gone. I'm guessing they still have the same opportunities durign a season that 2010 had...i.e., getting a drive for a mid-level or even a top tier team depending on your performance? I know you're only on race #4, so you probably haven't seen that yet and the manual I read from Steam wasn't a lot of help. Career mode's the most interesting thing for me, as I figured it would be a nice change of pace for offline running.

As for the rear being loose in high-speed corners, you think maybe it's a setup issue or does it feel like something more along the lines of general car physics itself?

Steve the 3 new teams won't have KERS until next season... All 3 have stated this year it won't happen at all... HRT and Virgin might not have it next year either...

And Ahmad thanks for the impressions, that's made it seem like there's some fun to be had with it... How long I end up playing it is yet to be determined... But probably won't be too heavily until after the Singapore SCES race...

Lotus does not have KERS. I guess the other teams that don't have it in real life also don't have it in-game.

There are interviews and the reputation system just like in F1 2010, and also contracts, so I'm guessing the career works like that in the previous game. Though at the start I was not given an option of how many years I wanted to do, in the email it said I had 5 years to win the championship.

The light rear feels like wrong physics, for sure, though I'm not sure if any setup changes will help reduce the effect. Even trying to drive through Turkey's high speed turn 8, of course not full throttle, I found myself with not very much control or precision of the car, and was sort of drifting it around, as if the downforce doesn't pick up over higher speeds. Very strange. If I was to liken the effect to anything else, it would be the SHiFT games, which is not a good thing.

Does anyone know if this is going to be released on a DVD?

Thanks for the info, Ahmad...appreciate it.

If you get a chance, keep us updated on your Career. I'd be interested if R&D helps the minnows or not, at least to overtake the other minnows at least. Sounds like it can be a handful, especially if the back end likes to step out. I read some posts where people were complaining that as soon as they activated the DRS, the rears would feel like they're breaking loose at times, especially during the Practice sessions...since it can be used all the time in those. Of course, coming out of a slow turn and getting on the throttle hard with DRS active could be the cause of that as well.

Overall, from what I've read.....it sounds like it's a step up from 2010 for sure in many areas.

Yep I'll keep you guys updated. But the rear-end/downforce thing was first felt in the Ferrari around Suzuka.

The DRS also has nothing to do with it, of course I don't have it open when taking corners, especially in a Lotus

I noticed that it was pretty easy to induce oversteer when applying power through the last third of Parabolica at Monza. This was mostly solved by making the car tend towards understeer in the setup screens, via roll bars and spring stiffness. The default setups seem to be more about oversteer than balance. One can also use a limited amount of traction control to help the issue, if one's controller is not particularly high end.

I was badly disappointed in F1 2010. It just never worked well for me. F1 2011 seems to me to be far, far superior. In fact, it looks pretty much certain that F1 Challenge '99-'02 is destined for retirement on my rig, after quite a few pleasant years of racing with EA's F1 titles, dating back to F1 Championship Season 2000.

Yes, tomorrow (Friday) worldwide

Interesting to hear that high speed oversteer is possible now. One of my biggest problems with F12010 was that if the rear grip appeared to be close to the limit, the engine power was noticeably restricted.

One other thing I was wondering is whether the opposition still treats you like a ghost car in the pits?

Nice graphic and sound comparison here:

Oh dear!

Just checked out the Codemasters forum for F1 2011. Looks like a lot of the problems from F1 2010 are still problems for the new release. Crashing during the loading screens being one of them. This was something I (Codemasters either) was never able to resolve for F1 2010. I was hoping this sort of stuff would have been resolved by now but I'll be holding off on purchasing this. Codemasters track record for patches and fixes isn't the best it has to be said but hopefully they'll get their act together for this release.

I played a lot of F1 2010 and haven't seen that once!

Not disputing other people may have had it but F1 2011 got delivered today so as soon as I get back home from work I'll report back if I see that myself. I haven't seen the few users that already have it in these threads report it yet.

Cheers mate! Let us know how you get on. Check out the Codemasters forums for bug/crash reports.

I spent far too much time trying to get F1 2010 running reliably (fail) so didn't want the same scenario again.

Q9550 at 3.8ghz

EVGA GTX480 SC

4gb ram

Windows 7 64 bit.

I would not count on that.

Yeah, know where you're coming from. I was trying to have a 'glass is half full' attitude!

Edit:- not looking too good. Quote from the Codemasters forum.

"Also I experience a lot of crashing...none of it really reproduce-able...but things like simply exiting a menu or changing a setting seem to crash the game...at times it wont even load...then it does on the next attempt...but same old Codemasters issues with PC racing games, as no matter what title it is for me by them they all crash constantly..."

Sound familiar? There's quite a few threads regarding system crash/lock-ups etc.

Disappointing.

For the first few hours that I had F1 2011, I had this problem. The game failed to load at all once, and loading of any game mode crashed about two thirds of the time. I then updated my nVidia drivers, and hey presto! It has not happened since.

That's good news! I take it you've updated to the newest Nvidia drivers?

Some people are reporting that they are only getting crashes when running in DX11 mode and switching to DX9 cures it. There's a good chance of there being more eye candy in DX11 so who wants to run in DX9? To be honest, I'd rather see Codemasters squash these bugs that have been around since the introduction of F1 2010. Fat chance though I reckon.

I'll hang on a while before making a purchase decision to see how it pans out.

The DX11 loading crashes on Dirt 3 were never fixed, have always had to run that in DX9.

I decided to do a quick GP at Singapore to see how the car handled curbs and if there was any auto-spin midway through a slow corner like last year. To my delight the car (Ferrari) was a pleasure to drive around the Singapore street circuit, there was no rear grip issue because I only feel that in sweeping high speed corners. Last year it really annoyed me and I stopped lapping it, but in F1 2011 it's much better. The curbs don't throw you off like last year, unless you take too much, and even then it might not, you can also correct it.

After some mistakes I ended up finishing around 9th, just hanging onto the back of Perez but lapping the 3 slower teams. The Expert difficulty really is expert, excellent

It's also really fun deciding where to best use KERS, but their positioning of the DRS zone (on the short start/finish straight) was pretty stupid. Using DRS during prac/qual was pretty hectic, the real drivers are going to have a handful this weekend!

The Ferrari sounds awesome too, I love the engine sounds this year.

Though the times are unrealistic (sub 1:40), no big deal.

Took a plunge at this title as they managed to do a pretty decent Dirt3.
And as they have had a year to get things from 2010 ironed out, it should be quite OK.

As it is not a "true sim" I do not expected it to be iRacing.
Installed it this morning before work and tried a couple of laps in the Williams.
It has been an easy install and no issues what so ever so far. No DX11 issues or crasches either.

Set my Fanatec GT3 to 360, but if I look at the virtual wheel is seems 380 is more correct.
Set ingame all to 0% except saturation for 25%, which might be a bit low.
Tried Australia and could feel that the steering is quite a bit "off" from iRacing.
It just doesn't have the right feel. Might be my settings though.
Will do some adjustments this evening and see if I can get get it better.

The throttle response was not that good either, feels like a rubberband to me.
The view incar is too wide. I would like to be able to set a lower FOV (due to having triple monitor setup)
(there is a mod for this in Dirt3 so I have high hopes)

BUT...
The graphics and sounds are astounding.....
Got fairly good FPS (55fps max , low 45fps in the benchmark not all things set to Ultra though)

I don't think I will ever complete a season , but much like Dirt series, do some quick fun gaming
and perhaps pull it out when friends are over.
It's not that many can get good control in iRacing after just a few laps, so this is good enough for them

EDIT: FOV and cam mods allready in progress.

PATCH !!!!!!!

The game's just patched on PS3, what does this patch do?
During the past two weeks since the game was submitted to Sony and Microsoft for approval, the team have continued to work on the game, refining, polishing and tweaking. The patch you experienced today was the result of these optimisations. The patch is due to release on the X360/PC in the near future so stay tuned for any announcements regarding this.
There aren't any major changes to game features in there, just lots of minor tweaks and optimisations done under the hood.
No changes regarding the addition of brake bias in the 1st patch, as for later on I honestly don't know at this time.

F1 2010 Monaco, Lotus: Podium finish.
F1 2011 Monaco, Lotus: 19th, 1 lap down.

Bug: The engineer is not very accurate sometimes, and sometimes contradicts something he just said, or is too slow to give information.

Ahmad, you tried the 11/11 spring rate setup bug that the hotlappers are setting fire to the Codemasters forum over? You'd think Vettel ran over a little old lady with a shopping cart or something from reading some of those threads....

Lol nope. I tried going to the forums earlier today but the site isn't working for me.

At first I found KERS and DRS to be a real handful. Was making silly errors due to the increased workload. Starting to get there now though.

Really enjoying it!

Well, I had to break down and try it out....needed something simple to run offline and I always enjoyed the Career in 2010 when it worked....and couldn't let Ahmad have all the fun.

Have had only one bug and I think it was related to running Rapture, even with the new drivers installed recommended by CM. Was in Practice 2 at Melbourne and a car got up beside me in a turn....sounds went completely away, screen went black and next thing I know...Patrick Head's cussing at me because I destroyed my Williams somehow. Switched to Software and it's been rock solid since. Been the only session showstopper, game wise, so far.

Graphics....I kinda like them myself. It's not that overdone "bloom" that 2010 had and I've got everything maxxed out except shadows and get an average of 59FPS (low of 49) in the Hamilton at Monaco benchmark, so I can't complain there. In 2010, if the sun was out, it always seemed to reflect off my car...now, it seems to be more positional related. I am running the latest AMD profile for F1 2011 and that might be helping as well. Overall, damn thing looks fanatastic but I expected that.

Sounds....Not too bad really. I always thought 2010's were a bit canned at times and these don't seem to have the built-in reverb that 2010's did. Haven't ran through the Tunnel at Monaco yet, so no idea what they sound like there. Wish there was more adjustments to them, like for opponents, environmental....things most of us are used to having the ability to adjust.

Online....for some reason, I can't stay connected to GFWL long enough to get into a race. I did find a Melbourne lobby, joined it....but evidently, everyone got tossed as the race wasn't listed when I returned to the Lobby. GFWL sucks as an online matchmaking service as far as I'm concerned. VROC for GPL was world's above what GFWL is and it's 10+ years older. As I'm not a hotlapper, races are my concern and if I ever get into one, I'll find out if they're any good or not.

AI....The Legend AI seem to be reincarnations of Aryton Senna and Gilles Villeneuve, with some Jim Clark tossed in for good measure. Damn, they are fast! They are pretty fun to mix it up with, if you're in a comparable car...even the backmarkers. Ran a 50% GP at Melbourne...Trulli, Heikki and myself had a hell of a battle for 19th....Heikki ended up with it and me right behind him at the line....also, a Virgin and a Hispania DNF'd during the race. It does have a bit of NASCAR'ish feel with the AI. You can bump and lean on them, and they on you as well, and pieces don't start flying off your car and it doesn't always turn you pointing in the opposite direction. Although, if you spin one of them out you will get at least a time penalty in the Finishing results at a minimum.

Physics....Since I've never driven a F1 car, I couldn't tell you if they're right or wrong...but they sure are loose for sure, especially when compared to 2010 or any rF mod of the modern F1 seasons I've tried. Theoretically, as Ahmad stated....the faster you're going, the more downforce there would be on the car, forcing it to stick....doesn't seem that way here, though. Haven't really put any time into setting the car up, but it looks like the major changes in the Quick Setup are just wings really....didn't see much difference at all in the other areas when looking through them quickly. Setting the car up was a weak point in 2010 I thought and it's not gotten any better from the looks of it.

Overall....it's not too bad at all. So far, it's better than 2010 when it first came out for sure, at least in my opinion and on my system. It runs smooth as can be, looks great and is something you can run and not have to put in a lot of practice into it to have fun with....at least offline, which was my main reason for getting it.

Chaps, are there any of you running 2011 PC with a fanatec wheel.. if so could you share your in game and on wheel settings for me.. I can't get mine to feel right. Ecen using Dri and low wheel weight the wheel still feels really heavy.. Like there is an inbuilt amount of return to centre that overpowers my wheels settings.

Myrig, most forums are recommending 100% for all settings within your windows/software profiler and then configuring the in-game settings to '0' for everything with force feedback turned on.

I haven't tried it yet on my DFP but was struggling to find the right settings myself when I was playing with it earlier

For the flight-sim guys who like an occasional blast around a track---can you configure it to use a joystick as a controller ?

TIM

Cheers Daz, i'll give that a bash.

I'm enjoying it, only played one GP so far, not tried the career mode. Mostly using the Williams on timetrial, all aids off. I agree about turning down the grip a little at low speed, though arguably that could be due to DRS switching off under braking?

You should be able to...it's got a Custom setting for the Controller where you can define the axises need to operate a car. Might have to adjust the saturation and linearity settings a bit to get a decent feel out of it, though...but it should work fine.

One thing....you'll have to be sure and select the Custom controller EVERY time you load the game...it's evidently a long standing problem with CM's Ego engine as everyone says other games they've made have the same problem.

I might be mistaken but I think ive seen an .xml edit which creates a specific controller as the default. Will double check and post it if I can dig it out.

Thanks Steve / Paradaz for the info on the basis of which (and the opinions of other SimHQ'ers) I've pre-ordered the DVD If it doesn't work out no problem ..life still sweet with GPL and RBR .

TIM

NB Codemasters owe you commision !

Well, if life's still sweet with GPL (never tried Richard Burns Rally), just don't expect the same level of challenge from F1 2011.

If you think of it as something that can be fun, without having to put lap after lap of pratice into it, then it's worth the price. If you're looking for a modern GPL, F1 2011 isn't it. There are some parts of a '11 race that will make you think...fuel mixture settings and tire type selections namely...but it's not a high-fidelity simulation like GPL tried to be.

Choosing to run a leaner setting too long can cost you a spot up the finishing order and for not long enough a spot in finishing the race, especially the longer 50/100% races...as can tire selection. Don't accept what your engineer suggests, because he's basically an idiot when it comes to that.

Example....at Melbourne, if you start on Options, you can make a set of Primes you take on your first stop last to the end if you're careful, but you're going to lose time to everyone else. The top AI will stop twice at 50% there, so a Option/Prime/Option works pretty well....you can stretch that Prime stint a little longer to keep fresher Options on longer for that last stint....as long as you ignore your engineer's constant reminders to "Don't forget, pit this lap". And, he'll misinform you on that last Option stint that you need to pit one more time...you don't, as you've met the F1's requirements to run each tire type at least once.

I'm still waiting to hear him say "Fernando is faster than you" over the radio, too...

In that video going around corners the drivers hands and part of the steering wheel are blocking the view.

Preview of Suzuka

The steering lock range does not look very realistic in this video. Otherwise graphics looks great.

Don't know what you think is wrong with it. Looks fine to me.

I was having issues with slight controller lag (not the *huge* lag with Rapture), and I reduced it significantly first by turning off vsync (unfortunate, as I'd prefer it on) and then by setting up a custom control profile rather than using the built in G27 profile (modified for different pedals), and this last thing seemed to make a huge difference. Now there is hardly any lag at all. It's possible that this is a coincidence, but I'm wondering if anyone has experienced a similar thing, and if so, whether they can pinpoint a more specific cause of the lag reduction in the config files.

I'd like to make some adjustments I believe, because I think the FFB levels felt a little better with the G27 setting, but it's not worth trading for input lag.

I had a bit of lag using the preset controller setting for my wheel (old Logitech MOMO Racing), as well.....using the Custom setting, I have very little, if any. Had the same issue with 2010, too so I knew to use the Custom setting from the start.

Aero, check the FFB settings under the G27 profile, then match them with the Custom profile you're building if you haven't already.

the steering wheel movement is bigger in game that in Schumacher's video. Have a look at Degner 1 and Degner 2 corners for example...

but maybe it's just displayed like that while actual input from player is smaller... don't know as don't have the game yet, but looking at positive reactions here I think I will get it :-)

Had it on rental (Xbox360) for one night, played for half-an-hour.
Not for me.
Cheers
keith