Back in the late 1990's I had a lot of fun playing GPL on my homebrewed WIN98 computer. With XP my wheel(s) didn't work and I passed the whole mess on to a family relative.

Have the itch to try some kind of F1 game again. I see 'F1 2011' is available for PC. Is that the only GPL type game around ?? Running WIN7-64.... or VISTA-32.......

Bill

If you want the most addictive racing experience, go to iRacing.

I used to race GPL in a league and iRacing is actually better. It is expensive but well worth the money, I think.

At any rate, modern F1 cars don't feel anything like those old GPL cars. There are mods for rFactor which are quite good but the 67 F1 cars are not among them (although they aren't that bad, either).

Unfortunately, iRacing is pretty worthless if you don't want MP only other than practice. You can't just jump into the cars and tracks you want either.
F1 2011 comes out next week. It's probably mainly 2010 patched with some added features. You'll find a lot of differing opinions on it and it's not even out yet. LOL Simbin has some open wheel racing for Race 07, the recent Formula Race Room expansion was free.
http://www.raceroom.net/games/race-07-formula-raceroom/

The F1-1971 mod for rFactor is pretty good for giving old-world feel to the racing.
And Formula Race Room is good for Race07 as stated - there are even F1 skins available.
I would (and will) avoid anything from Codemasters until the reviews and the first patch is out...

All that said, nothing comes up to the mark of iRacing, but it is on-line only.
GPL reborn is of course still available! And was a predecessor of iRacing.

Cheers
keith

That is primarily because of the long history some of us have with Codemasters, the amount of wild hype they put into their products, and the promises they make that they seem unable to keep. With Codies, you gotta take the games for what they are and not for what they say they're gonna be. When I play one of their games, I expect a "Need for Speed" kind of experience rather than a "GPL" kind of experience.

(General rule of thumb for a Codemasters racing game - if they tell you it's going to be their 'most accurate simulation' yet, they probably mean 'most accurate dust kicked up as you drive by' or 'most accurate simulation of rain on a visor' and certainly not anything to do with accurate driving physics or anything else the sim guys typically look for.)

Please note: this is NOT to say that I think they release bad games. Just that the end product doesn't always match the hype.

Unless you are ready to be consumed with racing and only want a casual experience, I would recommend rFactor. 99% of the content is free and the quality is usually very good.

Thanx for all the replies. I'll chew them over. I did see F1 2011 for sale on Amazon. I did NOT look to see if those were 'pre-orders'...maybe so.

No, I'm not into Online Gaming of any kind, and usually my pace of things is a tad more relaxed than most..... Something like GPL, my own 'best time' to beat...TRY to keep up with the AI cars... about my speed.

B

As Kryptonite mentioned, check out the Race07/GTREvo/RaceON/Formula Race Room series of games from Simbin. Great value for money, excellent AI/offline play and a remarkably good open wheel model.

rFactor has free addons for just about every kind of racing you can think of and many of them are extremely good, offline AI are not the best but if you want variety and longevity then the options are overwhelming.

I'd stay clear of F12011 until it's been released and had some reliable reviews. Maybe have a look and see if you can pick up F12010 in the bargain bin first.

Ummm... Yes.. Read it wrong on Amazon. F1 2011 *is* pre-order; F1 2010 'in stock'.....

Thanks again, Fellers

Well If you don't mind a little waiting RF2 should be out sometime in the very near future. Although this doesn't have audio, I'm sure it will remind you of GPL, here take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohSJGipTO-I

Is reinstalling GPL out of the question Bill? It runs fine on W7 64 bit, and has been massively updated with new graphics, physics and various mods.

edit -

they emailed me the CD Key for Steam downloading now..

Wow I had not seen that rF2 video before that Spa '67 looks terrific, looking forward to rF2 even more now... brings back great memories of GPL and VROC and my Gurney Eagle on that track, I may have to dig out the GPL CD and revisit it while I wait.

Jens, for me it isn't out of the question! Had it updated on my PC in '07 or so, and that PC went down in flames. I bought GPL in '98 and it was always a special thing

On Win7 64 now, with a radeon card and I have been itching to try GPL again. I was watching youtube vids today and...well, I think if I don't drive a Lotus 49 at Monza and a GT40 MKII at Spa soon, I'm a-gonna die

But only a few years ago, it seemed like a difficult process to just 'jump in' and get everything updated. I was updating one thing here, another there...for weeks

is there a simpler install now?

If you enjoyed GPL, you won't enjoy Codemasters' F1 201X titles. We have yet to try the 2011 version, but the 2010 version had some issues, and the one and only patch for it made things worse. See our review here for details.

If you liked GPL, it works fine on Win7 64 bit (I have it on mine). Again, SimHQ did a nice piece on how to install it on a modern PC. I followed the article's instructions and it worked to a T. That would definitely give you a nostalgic flashback, yet with revised graphics to give the game a little better look than the original. And modern PCs run it with all the graphics settings max'd out with no problems.

As someone else said below, rFactor with the F1 1971 mod is really a hoot. My first racing sim was GPL, and the 71 mod really gives you a lot of the same feel, but with higher fidelity physics based on a 7 year younger game engine. Also nice about rFactor is that it was designed as a framework for freeware mods. There's a ton out there, the best all recommended in this forum, and all free. Like you, I enjoy an evening of just driving alone in practice, mastering a track, and besting my own lap times. rFactor works quite well for that, and is huge bang-for-buck due to the plethora of freeware content available.

If you're after a satisfying single-player racing experience, SimBin's GTR2/Race07/GTR Evo/Race ON titles (all based on the rFactor game engine but with different AI, graphics, weather, etc) are some of the best out there at the moment. Good stock game content, and a fair amount of freeware mods and add-ons as well.

Here's some links to SimHQ racing content on the above:
GPL (re)Installation Guide
F1 2010 Review
GTR2 Review
Race 07 Review
10th Anniversary of Sim Racing

Finally, here's a YouTube video we did to help virtual drivers master a track for an upcoming event, featuring rFactor and a solo hot-lap from in-car: Fast Lap: Fuji