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#3672631 - 10/31/12 04:11 AM GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall?  
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Bahger Offline
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Guys, I'm reprinting this from the official GSC2012 forum in case anyone here can help. It's galling that the save funtionality is so spotty in a game that offers a relatively well-developed singleplayer experience. Anyway the original thread is here and here is the text:

Quote:
I really like this sim and considered it the answer to a long-held desire to race against AI again, as opposed to the iracing environment.

However, even though I realise this is not a custom-made single-player game but an adaptation of a multiplayer product, certain aspects of organising races and setting options are making me grind my teeth. I'll need to resolve this, or it won't last long on my PC. Here is my problem:

- On finding that the game won't save between sessions in "Single Race" I started a Championship series in order to race the F3 at Interlagos. I managed to save after spending several hours working hard to qualify 4th of 20. After exiting the game, I was brought back to the "Warmup" session.

- I did the warmup, ended the session and elected to start the race. Rather than 4th, I was in last place on the grid, it would not honor my qualification position. No reload of the session would recognise my qual time, I would have to start again.

- As a workaround I launched a "Single race" after fixing my position on the grid as 4th in general Options. I set up the Single Race with no practice sessions. On starting the Single Race session, I was put in a Qualification session. I hit "Finish Session" in order to start the race as 4th on the grid. No dice. Once on the grid, I was last again, presumably because I had not qualified.

As you can see, I just can't engineer any way to race in the starting position I qualified for without doing the race immediately after qualifying, which is silly; I need to be able to save and come back to race. I never drove rFactor but I am very familiar with GTR2 and GTL and I know that these games allowed saving between sessions in every module. They also allowed you not to have to qualify. It seems like a huge oversight/glitch to me that this sim imposes a qual session that invalidates the race starting position the player has already selected.

The bottom line is that I cannot race in the starting grid position I've qualified to race in, either by saving my qual performance so that it carries over to the race (either in Single race or Championship) or by forcing it by selecting that position for the same event in Single Race, because it imposes a qual session whose result determines grid position.

I'm very frustrated by this. I would really appreciate guidance, or this game will not be the go-to sim for me I was hoping for and I'll uninstall it and go back to iRacing. Unless there is a solution I'm missing, then either there are huge single-player design features missing from the sim, or the UI is impenetrable.

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#3672658 - 10/31/12 06:03 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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I'm not sure how the save feature/function is implemented....if it's in the series files like the .gdb or if it's something that's hard-coded. I'll do some researching and see what kind of answers can be found. Any editing would probably cause an online mismatch, but that doesn't seem to be a concern for you as it's the SP that's interested you more in GSC.

There's probably someone that will venture into this post that will have the answer, too.


"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
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#3672680 - 10/31/12 07:04 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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I appreciate it, Steve, many thanks. It's frustrating not only that the save function is unreliable but also that the "start on grid" feature seems totally non-functional. This all but invalidates singleplayer.

#3672681 - 10/31/12 07:09 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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I haven't really ran much on GCS but some practice sessions and pickup online races, so I'm not really sure just how it's set up but using the gMotor engine, there's plenty of resources available to find out about it.

I know it's got to be frustrating...there's been plenty of times I've wanted to qualify one day and race the next, due to whatever reasons, and not having it possible is a major letdown, no matter what title.

Edit - After going through every file that I can think of in-game, there's not a setting that controls the save ability, so it's got to be something hard-coded.

In the GSC description, it states there's supposed to be the ability to save at the end of every session, but not during a session. Since you can't do that, maybe something changed in GSC 2012 or the ability was never though...I'm not sure. I had to reformat, so I lost my original GSC download but once I get it again (hopefully within 24 hours), I'll check out and see if I've got any save options.

Last edited by SteveGee; 10/31/12 08:48 AM.

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
"Politicians are like dirty diapers. They need to be changed often and for the same reason."

Mark Twain

"I do not suffer from insanity. I enjoy every, single minute of it."
#3672745 - 10/31/12 11:53 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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As a workaround I launched a "Single race" after fixing my position on the grid as 4th in general Options. I set up the Single Race with no practice sessions. On starting the Single Race session, I was put in a Qualification session.

In rFactor, if you plan to set your grid position via the options, you have to deselect the Qualifying session before launching the event. Otherwise the quali session overrides the grid position option, and if you skip quali it'll place you at the back.

Not sure if GSC gives you that option or not.


Active Sims: rFactor 1 & 2
#3672859 - 10/31/12 03:28 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Thanks very much for helping me investigate this, guys.

The facts, now largely confirmed, here and in my post on the official forum, are:

- It is not possible to save between sessions in Single Race mode.

- Saving in Championship mode works but a race grid position previously set in quals is invalidated by the Warmup session, which cannot be cancelled in advance via the UI.

- The "set position on start grid" feature is completely broken. It can only be set in the main options menu, rather than in the individual session setup UI and any grid position set in the main options menu is invalidated by the qualification session that the player cannot opt out of.

I realise that it's a good sim in most respects and great value for money, and I also know that it's an adaptation of a product never built for SP, but this seeems like very sloppy coding and I believe I'm within my rights to expect them to fix it. I bought this sim because I heard the AI is exceptionally good. That is true, it is, but the failure of the save feature and being able to start in a pre-set position on the grid is really sloppy coding. If these features are included in the sim's functionality, as they undoubtedly are, we are entitled to expect them to work. It needs to be patched or I will actively discourage all other racing sim players from buying GSC2012 if they expect an acceptable level of SP functionality.

#3673800 - 11/01/12 11:51 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Seems strange that they would remove the ability to skip qualifying as this is present in rFactor and is essential for the "set position on start grid" feature to work.

Might be worth dropping an email directly to reiza (support@reizastudios.com). They are nice guys and are hard at work on the next patch so they might be able to help.


Roses are #FF0000 , Violets are #0000FF
#3673850 - 11/02/12 01:53 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Thanks, Darren, I sent them an email outlining my issues with the sim yesterday. Hopefully I'll hear from them. Even if they cannot or will not, fix it, I'd still like to hear from them.

#3673959 - 11/02/12 10:55 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Adding the ability to skip qual should be easy as the functionality is essentially built into the engine, they've just chosen to remove it for some reason. I'd be interested to hear their thought process behind that.

As for making the save feature more robust - I suspect that's a bit more tricky, that stuff is effectively hard coded into the engine (which they license from ISI) so their ability to tweak it is probably minimal. As you know, the rF engine was never really designed for SP so has more than it's fair share of quirks. Thankfully the multiplayer aspects are so good that most of use learn to live with it. Quite frankly, the very fact they've been able to get workable AI is nothing short of a miracle. Of course if you're looking for a predominantly SP experience then it's a bit more of a deal breaker.

Keep us informed how this develops. I'll be very interested to hear their response, if anyone can make it work it'll be Reiza.



Roses are #FF0000 , Violets are #0000FF
#3674115 - 11/02/12 03:56 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Thanks for the support, Darren, it is both reassuring and quite possibly of considerable practical assistance in my dealings with Reiza.

I still have not heard from them today. I feel that they need to do me the courtesy of acknowledging the issue, even if they do not intend to fix it. Ignoring my email entirely will make me very angry and quite determined to seek some sort of redress. As I say though, merely an acknowledgement will do, a promise to fix it will be even more welcome.

The inability to opt out of quals just strikes me as sloppy coding, especially as it effectively disables the "Start in Grid Position X" feature, a must-have in any sim that advertises itself as single-player. I agree with you about the save issues; I'd be happy with merely a working auto-save from last session rather than a save-at-will feature. I think the reason the autosave does not work is because of the above, i.e. the inability to opt out of intervening sessions that invalidate both saves and saved qual times. Again, sloppy.

I'm sure you're right that the real value of the sim is in MP and that the good AI (and it is good) is a very welcome bomus. I bought it because I had only driven iRacing for the last three years and missed running against AI, so after reading your review I jumped on this. The fact is, as good as the AI is, they can also be quite destructive in the way decent human competitors are not; they'll wreck you diving into T1 at Interlagos, for example.

I want an acknowledgement from Reiza or I am going to feel very ill-used. And I think I'm headed back to iRacing, somewhat chastened by my experience with this sim.

#3674134 - 11/02/12 04:28 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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citizen guod Offline
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Check in the .plr file in your profile. There should be the option to "qualify=1" or "0"

It is in the vanilla version of rF1 and rF2, but not sure about GSC.


Wisdom is knowing what's enough
#3674160 - 11/02/12 05:06 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Thanks, Guod. I may well fiddle with that option but of course it would invalidate MP synchronisation until changed back and the messiness of it extends to the fact that it's not just the inability to opt out of quals that wipes a previously set qual time; in certain circumstances (such as when trying to preset a start position on the grid), the warmup session invalidates the qual time and you can't opt out of that either. A UI option is obviously part of the solution; this worked perfectly in GTR2 back in the day. It appears to me that they have not thought through the sequential differences between the Single Race and Championship modules and the "Set Place on Grid" feature. By not being able to opt out of unwanted sessions that wipe saved data and by not having even an auto-save feature that works, Reiza have released a sim that is missing a very significant amount of advertised single-player functionality.

#3674187 - 11/02/12 05:53 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: citizen guod]  
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Darren_Blythe Offline
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Originally Posted By: guod
Check in the .plr file in your profile. There should be the option to "qualify=1" or "0"

It is in the vanilla version of rF1 and rF2, but not sure about GSC.


That doesn't exist in the GSC .plr and adding it makes no difference frown

Bahger, I've taken the liberty of contacting Reiza to see if we can speed up the process.


Roses are #FF0000 , Violets are #0000FF
#3674191 - 11/02/12 05:59 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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I really appreciate this, Darren, thank you.

In my correspondence with them I have included a link to this thread so that they can see how I have documented the issue and how others have verified it.

#3675782 - 11/05/12 06:09 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Ok, it's now nearly a week since I emailed Reiza about this and still no word from them. This is unacceptable. If they do not have the courtesy to get back to me I am going to start warning others about the gaping holes in their product's single-player functionality.

#3676235 - 11/06/12 07:35 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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Well, I finally got a response from Reiza, thanks in no small measure, I strongly suspect, to Darren Blythe. Appreciate it, Darren.

The fact that the response, which you can read on the official forum here, vindicates every one of my gripes regarding this sim's singleplayer implementation, offers little consolation, as they can't fix any of it and I cannot bring myself to ask for a refund. However, anyone looking to buy GSC2012 for singleplayer needs to be aware of certain severe limitations in its singleplayer functionality, especially as they are all undocumented.

#3676271 - 11/06/12 10:41 AM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Thanks for the heads up Bahger.

I'm pleased you got a response. Sadly not quite the outcome we were hoping for but i do understand Reiza's predicament. Their hands are essentially tied by the access they get to ISI's source code. Some things they can change but most things they can't. I must admit that I thought the ability to skip quali would have been fixable. Evidently that's not the case which is a shame both for us and Reiza.

The relative success of GSC should hopefully give Reiza the confidence and funding to ensure future developments can be based around a platform with less limitations.

In the meantime anyone looking to GSC for a predominantly single player experience should take your observations into account. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

PS. I'm glad you didn't get a refund. Join us for the SimHQ series and single player pain will become a distant memory smile


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#3676402 - 11/06/12 02:30 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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From your RD forum thread:

Originally Posted By: Bahger
I may race GSC 2012 online at SimHQ but I am sad that the holes in singleplayer functionality are likely to discourage me from using it for the purpose I had in mind when I first bought it. All the workarounds you mentioned are valid but I feel obliged to point out, again, that "workarounds" devised by the consumer should not be a necessary part of any end-user's experience of a paid, finished, commercial product. I believe you are under an ethical, possibly even legal, obligation to document these shortcomings where they apply to reasonable user expectations of the sim's singleplayer functionality and to get rid of misleading aspects of the UI as soon as possible.

I shall continue to look out for a fully-functional, ultra-realistic singleplayer racing sim; I haven't driven one since GTR2 and GTL and, sadly, GSC2012 cannot meet my expectations in this regard with such an incomplete, almost jury-rigged save system.


I think you're going about this the wrong way.

The limitations you're describing have been part of the ISI game engine for many years. Even when I used to play F1 Challenge 99-02, I had to take some extra steps to play it the way I wanted to.

It sounds like you're limited on time and can't get a full practice/quali/race done at one time. Your original post mentions working for "hours" to qualify 4th. If that truly is the case, let me make a suggestion based on what I used to do in F1C.

If you need to practice for a long time to learn the track and fine tune the setup, then set aside some time to do just that. It doesn't matter if you use the practice session built into the race weekend or if you do a test session...just make time to practice, and do it.

Then, if you plan to run quali/race as another gaming session the next day or something...come back the next day, do a quick quali blast, get your laptimes in, then move to the race.

In other words, plan it so that you can do quali and race during the same session, and you should be fine.

You can argue all day long that you shouldn't have to do it this way, but guess what? You do.

You've spent money on this game, and you have two choices: take the advice given and use the workarounds, and find a way to enjoy what you bought...or complain bitterly about the shortcomings and never play again, wasting the money you spent.

I know I'm coming off as being harsh here, but I've been playing video games since I was old enough to hold a joystick (I still have my Atari 2600 biggrin ).

Games are not perfect.

In spite of everything they try to do, game developers have yet to craft a perfect game with no flaws or drawbacks of any kind. It is our job as consumers to keep an eye on them to make sure they aren't blatantly disregarding us, but we have to keep in mind that sometimes games don't work out the way we hoped.

I've spent many hours of my life with flawed games, and I still found a way to enjoy them...doesn't matter if it's a $60 Triple-A title from a big publisher or an old Atari game I picked up at a yard sale for 25 cents.


Active Sims: rFactor 1 & 2
#3676478 - 11/06/12 04:19 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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Bahger Offline
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LugnutUSA, I have been careful to monitor the tone of my misgivings regarding GSC 2012, as I do not want to whine, nor to "complain bitterly". I think I have succeeded in both regards. My expectations were formed not by rFactor, which I have never raced, but by GTR2 and GTL, which, like GSC 2012, are ISI-engine sims but with full singleplayer functionality including a save system and a "start on grid" feature that works.

I understand that games are not perfect, and, as I said, I am happy to grant special latitude to this one, as it is the product of genuine enthusiasts who have worked hard and are not over-charging for their efforts. However, they need to clean up their interface so that there are no prominently displayed functions that simply don't function and for the sake of the singleplayer consumer they need to document the very limited (or, a little more harshly but no less accurately, "broken") state of the save system.

You're right, I had to learn both the car (the F3) and the track (Interlagos), which is why it annoyed me to find that the Single Race module does not save qual times but the Championship does (up to a point) and that the start on grid feature is completely non-functioning. It isn't right that I would need to make a series of posts in a users' forum in order to verify all this because it simply isn't documented in a readme or a manual.

#3676499 - 11/06/12 04:45 PM Re: GSC2012 UI frustrations: Can anyone help before I uninstall? [Re: Bahger]  
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I'll explain to you why I view it the way I do: Not only have I been playing games my entire life, I'm also a PC repair technician.

I work with broken stuff on a daily basis, so when I encounter something that isn't working right the first thing I do is try to find a way around it. This is just what I do.

As I hinted at above, I'm also the type to make sure I get what I pay for. If I paid for GSC I'd be using it one way or another.

I own GTR2 because it was bundled with a retail copy of RACE '07 I bought years ago. I spent my time with RACE '07 but never bothered much with GTR2 until just this past month. I guess the mental effect of it being "free" meant I never felt obligated to invest much time in it. wink

The main point I'm trying to get across here is that you seem tremendously negative about your experience with GSC, but I honestly believe that if you approach it with a different mindset you could probably really enjoy it...and that, to me, seems the better outcome.

Last edited by LugnutUSA; 11/06/12 04:47 PM.

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