F1 2011 It’s a funny old sport, F1: an ever changing maelstrom of rule adjustments and technology upgrades, ensuring any given season is entirely disparate from the next. Imagine if FIFA suddenly deemed that football’s throw-ins were to become kick-ins, before adjusting the rule once more the next. That’s precisely the issue facing F1 …
Whilst they've done a revamp for the 2011 season, is it just me or are the load times when visiting each track even longer than F1 2010 (which was already bad)? I have 12GB RAM, but it doesn't seem to have the concept of caching data for tracks already visited in this session. Perhaps the fact it's a 32-bit app (why? Aren't there loads of 64-bit Windows 7 users out there now?) doesn't help, but the loading times are so appalling that it detracts significantly from gameplay, IMHO.
If the install is smaller than 6GB try a ramdrive. Load some 6GB straight into a mapped ramdrive and watch loading times wither and die. Plus you can't corrupt your install folder if you always run it from the ramdrive.
You can always hardlink the files or folders that hit the storage subsystem harder too, thus avoiding a complete reinstall of the game or copying the whole game to the ramdrive (if it doesn't fit). Just be sure the save game is not hardlinked.
Or go splash-cash mode and buy yourself a couple SSDs and RAID 0 them.
Bridgestone always did - it was just Michelin who weren't prepared. Glad they didn't change the rules of the race to favour teams who weren't properly prepared. And it was Schumi's only win of the season so I was quite happy!
No Indy in this year or last year of course anyway, but looking forward to it resuming at Austin though.
As I recall it was more a complaint about the freshly diamond-cut road surface that was supposed to increase traction on the banking section (for the Indy cars that only use the outer oval), but was resulting in increased tyre abrasion on the F1 tyres. Given that the rules that season only allowed tyre changes for rain and punctures, and the Michelin tyres weren't up to lasting the race, the Michelin runners decided to quit on safety grounds.
Michelin did try a second tyre type, but this also suffered the same problems, and would not have been allowed by the stewards under the regulations in any event. Bridgestone didn't suffer any issues over the weekend, so presumably their tyre construction was more suited to the circuit.
In any event, roll on the new US circuit next year, which is designed from the outset as a F1 layout, just needs the fans to attend, or it'll become another Turkey.
..... And the Bridgestone angle was that they were the incumbent tyre supplier for the IRL and of course, for the Indy 500 itself, and had prior access to the new surface. Michelin had no choice, they'd have been sued to buggery and back if any had gotten themselves hurt, the FIA were aware that they couldn't race that track configuration with the tyre they had available and in grand FIA fashion and in the face of personal interference from Max Moseley (who used the issue as a political stick to beat teams not signed up to the then pending new Concorde agreement), and lobbying from the eventual winners, refused all compromise except their own risible option - the Michelin runners filing through the pits on the speed limiters every lap...... Bonkers.
From my point of view everybody dragged the sports name through the mud that day with the possible exception of the Michelin contracted teams who were contractually obliged to follow Michelins advice that the tyres were not safe and as such should not be used. If they hadn't pulled the plugs and run regardless Michelin could and probably would have removed such a teams tyre supply for the remainder of the season. Unfortunately the Michelin teams were also contracted to Bernie and the FIA to take the start, on pain of removal of transport funds, start money and financial penalties, so we had the edifying sight of them filing back into the pits at the end of the recon lap. The poor sods were over a barrel.
As to the game itself - the review fails to acknowledge poor framerates on PS3, the same replay cache file issue that crippled performance at times on the F1 2010 title on PC (possibly rectified by moving your replays to another drive or by simply making the replays read only if you don't have a spare drive available.This worked for me, framerates rendered the game useless, but are now excellent with detail at max)- stupidly there's no other way of switching off replays than this kludge nor did they fix the bloody issue itself. There's also a god awful keyboard driven menu system on PC (no mouse for menu use), some very odd handling, lag in control inputs caused by some sound card drivers, the inability to remember you have a wheel attached at times, the inability to remember any settings at times (again) and and quite a few other bugs confirmed and discussed on the Codemasters own forum already that I can't remember.
I have to ask..... Did the reg reviewer actually run this title or did they simply import a press release into their review.....and did Codemasters actually test the product before release ? C'mon be honest.
"Imagine if FIFA suddenly deemed that football’s throw-ins were to become kick-ins"
They actually did ... well, they thought it might improve the game and ran a trial for a season in 2 or 3 different leagues - think the "Conference" (i.e. whats now the BlueSquare Premiership) was one of the leagues that ran the trial. Result wasn't what they expected - think they thought kick in would result in quick short passes to bring ball back into play but instead, I assume, resulted in large numbers of throw-ins turning into slightly different versions of corners with long flighted crosses and lots of delay and barging around in the penalty area before it was taken. So the result of the trial was that the idea was dropped.
"F1 2011 is also, out of sheer necessity, a game of compromise; when you think that a true F1 sim would be all but impossible to drive for mere mortals"
you can get a reasonably good idea by getting a copy of Live for Speed and trying out the F1 car they modelled in that; it's enough work just changing gears five times in two seconds, never mind actually braking and turning the flipping corner. I felt quite proud of just finishing a lap without missing any corners, never mind it was 15 seconds below optimal. (And I was pretty _good_ at LFS.)
My biggest problem with f1 2010 was actually the lack of a decent replay. Without being able to view what happened to your competitors and no display of lap number / splits/ times etc... You mnight have a great race but have no way to find out what happened to your rivals in the race.
Anyone know if they have made replays actually useful this time?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
