miki2000milos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> what competition?
As an alternative to jcaranti's answer, I present this.
(Skip right to the bottom for a summary)
It was a friendly and casual competition run by TomMK through his website.
Using one of his 'Laptop mods' - standalone installations of GP4 modded to represent a season set - we would, over the course of a week, submit saved hotlaps and see who had the fastest time.
We'd all run the same track, with the same weather seed and on the same difficulty, with checks run to make sure we all used the same physics and performance files and to check for exceeding the track limits etc.
jcaranti was the runaway winner of
season 1, winning all but one of the championship races.
Season 2 used Tom's 2014 mod, and the difference in Physics between it and the 2013 mod was quite drastic owing to the nature of the 2014 cars.
That season was won by stefano86k (with Supermonty in second place), despite them using keyboards; It is generally accepted that keyboards are the hardest controls to use for GP4.
It was also the first season to impose a performance penalty system (See
here for an example) for the top drivers, with the aim of levelling the playing field.
A major part of this penalty system - the TC (Traction Control) & SH (Steering Help) restrictions - don't affect keyboard users, as the game forces them to use those aids.
Despite the fact that only two of the eight or so keyboard drivers had any success that season, the opinion was voiced by some players - Jcaranti was the most vocal of these - that the mod's physics and rules favoured the two keyboard drivers.
Jcaranti (Wheel Driver) won the first race that he drove in that season, with Javi (Wheel Driver) second and Bata (Wheel Driver) third; Supermonty and Stefano were fourth and fifth respectively.
The podium of that event was, therefore, all Wheel drivers.
The next race was won by Stefano, with Jcaranti second and myself third.
Race after that, stefano won, followed by Tom and Javi.
I won the next race, followed by Supermonty and Stefano.
The final two races were 'Stefano, Tom and Supermonty' and 'Stefano, Supermonty and Tom'.
After not winning in Singapore - he only lost by 0.015 - Jcaranti declared it
impossible for a wheel user to win - despite him winning the previous race - and refused to participate further.
It wasn't 'impossible for a wheel user to win'; It was
nearly impossible for anyone to beat
Stefano.
Stefano was incredible that season.
Had there been such an advantage for keyboard users, it would have been a Stefano and Supermonty 1-2 finish every race.
Season 3, was a much closer contest.
Tom won the first two events, with myself and Supermonty trading 2nd and 3rd in each of those races.
Tom was 3rd in Korea, with Supermonty winning and I came 5th.
Tom missed the final event, I won and Supermonty was second; Had I not screwed up Korea, I had a very good chance of winning the championship.
Season 3 did away with the TC and SH restrictions, but kept the fuel penalty.
This was perfect; Tom didn't use TC and SH anyway, Supermonty
had to use them and so I (I believe all other drivers were keyboard users) would have been the only one affected.
Despite using the same physics set as season 2, there was no dominance by the keyboard users.....though, had Stefano participated, that might not have been the case!
This, in and of itself, all but proves the physics file held no advantage for the keyboard users; The only question that has any right to remain is if the season 2 penalty system was fair.
If you did use one of the aids that was banned through the penalty system, it
did slow you down, as it was supposed to; I, for instance, had my high-speed handling ruined by the SH limit.
But, as someone who played with a keyboard for many years, having my traction control taken away and my steering help reduced was nowhere near as bad as having to drive with a keyboard.
Summary: Jcaranti won a lot of races in season one, won a race and came second in a race in season 2 and then left because keyboard drivers had an 'advantage'; Everyone else kept playing and had lots of fun, with the rightful winner winning.
Reservoir Dogs version of summary.
F1 Graphics Swapper ---
Lensdump - Renders and Screenshots ---
GP4 Performance Generator