F1 Challenge '99-'02

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 05 Aug 2013, 07:28

Both mod genre have their pros and cons.
The CK mod uses physics almost identical to the stock game, and thus, it is better balanced. But it lacks some of the tracks, has outdated visual quality and almost completely misses mid-season changes, and sometimes it crashes.
DM's mod has top quality visuals (graphics and models), it has all the tracks, has unique pyhsics, andfollows the midseason changes in color schemes, driver lineups and most of the car part upgrades (different 3D models). But it is balanced for AI vs. AI races, the game sometimes can't control the physics and sometimes it crashes.

I, personally would DM's mod all the time, because it's much more pretty, accurate and unique, but you have to be prepared to spend a lot of time with balance, bugfixing and difficulty adjustments.

DM 95 in particular is by far superior to any other 95 mods, but unfortunately it wasn't completely finished until racesimulations went down. The current issues I found:
- Doesn't follow drivers change in graphics (has no helmets for substitute drivers - other DM mods have) - I already fixed this for myself

- For some unknown, and very rare reason, it CTD on Buenos Aires. But it's very rare and you likely can make a whole weekend without any issue.
- Physics aren't completely finished. Cars are sparated into "tiers": Williams-Benetton, Ferrari, McLaren-Jordan-Sauber etc. Only the engine power is different. - I'm already working on this one too.
- AI can't keep the fastest cars on track in Buenos Aires - Already taken care of.
So it's not perfect, but I'm on my way to fix whatever I can, and then it will be hyper-awesome. Now it's just awesome

TheBonobo4 · Post by **TheBonobo4** » 05 Aug 2013, 16:06

That does sound awesome. If it's not too much trouble, when you're finished could you share and upload it for us?

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 05 Aug 2013, 17:52

Sorry to be a pain in the arse again, but does anyone have a camera set for the 1989, 1990 or 1991 mod?

pi314159 · Post by **pi314159** » 07 Aug 2013, 14:11

I recently got F1Challenge, and now I tried to install the 1966 mod. But when I try to load a track, the game crashes.

TheBonobo4 · Post by **TheBonobo4** » 07 Aug 2013, 16:38

Have you tried doing what I did and set up a trade file in the target directory? I highly suggest you do because that's what I did and it turned out to be something as stupid as a putting graphics problem. There is a post in here earlier about how to do it but it is actually quite straightforward.

TheBonobo4 · Post by **TheBonobo4** » 08 Aug 2013, 20:28

As an aside, I recently downloaded DM's 92 mod, and in the readme it says "Wait for 92Setup.bat to autorun (This will add driver names to game.dic and insert all 92 team pit walls in logomap.mas)". However, when I downloaded the mod there was no 92Setup.bat at all. So, the mod works fine, drivers, cars and tracks are all there and work fine, graphics are superb. But there was no bat file (I think I had this problem with 1990, but I can't remember what I did to fix it), and all drivers have (1992) after their names. Other than that it seems to work fine.

So now I have a working 90 mod, a (sort of) working 92 mod, a working 95 mod without the tracks, and all the default seasons. If I knew how to get Prequalifying and Qualifying to work, I'd start a full 1990 Season. But first things first I suppose.

MRacer · Post by **MRacer** » 13 Sep 2013, 14:51

Does anyone know how to "speed up" the AI qualififying session?

I like to run qualifying "real time", so actually with AI driving their laps on the track and not using fast forward.

The problem is that some cars stay inside their pitbox for a very long time.

Does anyone know a way to make them leave their pitbox faster?

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 17 Sep 2013, 05:52

You can't influence that as far as I know.

Post by **Nuppiz** » 17 Sep 2013, 06:57

MRacer wrote:Does anyone know how to "speed up" the AI qualififying session?

I like to run qualifying "real time", so actually with AI driving their laps on the track and not using fast forward.

The problem is that some cars stay inside their pitbox for a very long time.

Does anyone know a way to make them leave their pitbox faster?

Julien wrote:You can't influence that as far as I know.

Aye. You can press Ctrl+T to speed up any session while still retaining somewhat realistic performance (it's pretty much like hitting fast forward on a VCR, you can press Ctrl+T again to get back to normal speed), but there's no sure way of having all cars set a qualifying time. I usually use Ctrl+T for as long as possible, and only near the end I click on "Finish Session" to generate the times for those drivers that did not set one in the 'proper' simulation.

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 17 Sep 2013, 20:32

Finish the session only if there is no more time to make an out + hot lap, otherwise many AI cars will do a last run ignoring their previous performance. I had a few cases when midfielders suddenly became polesitters when I finished the qualifying 3 minutes before it ended.
When I roll full session I usually set my alarm clock and turn off the monitor and the speakers, and I read a book or something until I want to go out to the track. Otherwise I let the AI to do its job. That's the most secured way

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 14 Oct 2013, 16:02

I have problem with david marques season mods (89,92,93). the problem is: when i finished a race and results come up, then i press accept button to continue main menu, but when i press accept button, then game crashing

. its doing same at champioship mode

. please help me!

(sry my bad english)

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 14 Oct 2013, 21:39

I'm gonna check this out soon. Do you have the same issue with DM's other mods? I could play '94 and '95 without issue.

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 15 Oct 2013, 12:42

i have only DM`s season mods 89,92,93, nothing else. (i think, that is maybe something like bug).

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 19 Oct 2013, 16:01

MrRigu98 wrote:I have problem with david marques season mods (89,92,93). the problem is: when i finished a race and results come up, then i press accept button to continue main menu, but when i press accept button, then game crashing . its doing same at champioship mode . please help me! (sry my bad english)

I have that problem with the 1989 mod too, when I run more than 22 cars anyway, no problem when I do pre-qualifying.

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 22 Oct 2013, 14:44

I have another problem, I recently added a 1987 carset to F1 Challenge, and it always CTD's when I try to load a track. I know it's the mod as I tried one of my other mods and it worked perfectly still.

Anyone have a clue what to do?

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 22 Oct 2013, 19:04

Fist of all, which mod you use?
Second, narrow the reason of the crash down. First try to load the race on a track form a different season, which you know that works fine. If it works, then start loading free practice sessions (AI cars turned off) with every team. You can narrow down the issue and it becomes easier to track down the bug.

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 23 Oct 2013, 12:09

Julien wrote:Fist of all, which mod you use?
Second, narrow the reason of the crash down. First try to load the race on a track form a different season, which you know that works fine. If it works, then start loading free practice sessions (AI cars turned off) with every team. You can narrow down the issue and it becomes easier to track down the bug.

It's something like F1C 1987 Mod DRR.

I've tried turning the AI off, and just like before F1C will load the track, then crash to desktop.

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 24 Oct 2013, 05:37

I didn't play that mod, so I can't help directly, but here is what I would do:
First add a track to the races available, by changing the entry in its GDB file to this: Filter Properties = 1987
Try to run a test day (still alone, no AI). If it crashes,. then the problem is with the car. From here, what you do is to pick a car which you know that does work and replace it step by step with the car that crashes.
Pick a team, preferably one which didn't race int he era, and duplicate one of the cars in a new, 1987 folder. I assume here that you know how to do it so I woN't go into details. Don't forget to add the team to the championship file as well! Then run a test on the same track you know that doesn't crash. If you did everything right it should run smoothly.
Now replace the team with your crashing team, step by step. For comfort reasons I always replace everything, including graphics files, so I can follow my footsteps. Start with graphics, then with the drivers, then with engines, then the model, and finally by the HDV. Once you have the file that causes the CTD you'll have to narrow it down by manually replacing certain entries in the file.
Keep in mind that every season must have tire, damage and suspension files as well, so they could cause the crash too.

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 21 Nov 2013, 21:59

I have also another problem: I cant add more AI players to championship mode. Example: I add 25 AI drivers for championship mode, then i go to game and then i go to championship mode, but there is still 21 AI drivers. :cry:

What is the problem? Answers please!

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 22 Nov 2013, 21:26

My guess would be that championship mode can't handle more than 22 cars. Or that you changed something in the setup, which may reset the driver count to the maximum of 21. I always play by races and self made cross tables to keep the score because I can follow driver switches during the season.

Post by **Nuppiz** » 22 Nov 2013, 21:31

Try changing the BCH file for that particular season (e.g. F1_1995.bch) found in the same folder as your PLR file, there's a line called "GAMEOPT_opponents=". You could also try editing Config.ini found in the main folder of the game: by default the GRIDSIZE variable is 22, change this to your desired number (AI cars+yourself).

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 23 Nov 2013, 11:40

it did not work, there are still some options?

Ferrim · Post by **Ferrim** » 24 Nov 2013, 19:14

IIRC, you have to start the championship and THEN, before the first race, modify the number of cars in some files, and also add data for the other four cars in the file where the saved games are stored. Then you will be able to continue your championship with 25 opponent cars (DON'T re-start it, just continue the saved game). I don't remember the exact details of what had to be changed, but maybe Google will help you.

Using more than 24 cars is tricky, though, and you could see AI cars trying to pit in the same box at the same time and crashing against each other.

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 24 Nov 2013, 20:40

Well.. my game crashes to desktop now.. :cry:

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 25 Nov 2013, 07:02

Yeah, it's really hard to do it right and if you mess up even a comma (","), your game crashes. That's why I make races instead. The only problem is that you need 3 hours to make the qualification and the race as well

Der_Hans · Post by **Der_Hans** » 01 Dec 2013, 10:13

Hey guys!

I guess since this is my first post I should probably introduce myself a bit? I've always played mostly simulators, usually flight simulators, but the odd tank or submarine simulator thrown in for variety. I bought a copy of F1 Challenge when it came out, played with it a bit on and off, forgot about it, and only recently bought a wheel and pedal set and started downloading mods and seriously playing it.

Before I had a wheel and pedal set I was racing with either a joystick which is awkward and painful after a short while, so I would set the race length down rather short. Now that I've got the length set to 100% I noticed some odd things with tire wear, at least in the 1990 mod by David Marques.

I seem to be getting notices after only about 15 laps or so that my tires are "starting to blister". Sure enough, right about that time the car starts handling like junk. I thought that perhaps I was driving too aggressively, so I made an effort to handle the car more gently. I set slower lap times, but the tires still seem to wear out very fast.

On the Interlagos circut the tire wear didn't seem to bother me too much. My lap times would keep getting slower as the messages about my tires blistering got worse, so I would hit the pits for a new set and keep racing. I had more trouble at the Imola circut, but at the Monaco track I find that I'm in the pits every 10 to 15 laps for new tires. Meanwhile, the AI cars keep on racing without stopping unless they need a new wing.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, if there's any fix to this or if it's even a problem with the game rather than how I drive, or if I should just turn the tire wear off?

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 01 Dec 2013, 18:52

Wait till you get to Magny-Cours there is just no way to manage tires there in David's mods

But it is a common flaw in his mods anyway that tire wear off much faster than they should. Even hard compounds, which were capable of making full race distance back then wear off in 20-30 laps, depending on the track.

To fix this issue, go to Seasondata/Vehicles, and open 1990_goodyear.tbc wioth notepad.
In this file you will find the tire physics for every compound in the given season. Look for the line starting with WearRate=
The number after it has a strange format, for example 7.730e-7. This means that the wear rate is 0.0000000773 unit (per every turn of the wheel I assume). To lower the wear rate of the tire, INCREASE the last number. In our example: 7.730e-8.

NOTE 1: Increasing the number by 1 reduces the wear by 10. In my experience, if the number is 10 or higher, you have next to no wear, you can make as much laps as you wish without wearing off your tires (I made 102 laps once

).

NOTE 2: Keep in mind that to be fair with the AI, you should edit the line AIWear= as well, otherwise you'll have a massive advantage in the races. Don't bother if the formula is a bit different (i.e.: 7.334e-008), just delete the 0s

NOTE 2.1: by default, AI gets some tire wear advantage over the player.

NOTE 3: There are different rates for the front and the back tires, so don't forget to change the wear rate for both!

NOTE 4: As I said earlier, the characteristics of every compound can be found in this file. Changing only one won't affect the others, so if you want lower wear for inters, wets and softs, you have to repeat the procedure on all of them. Just scroll further in the file

NOTE 5: As Moonsoon tires were introduced in the early 21st century, Moonsoon and Wet tires have identical characteristics.

Der_Hans · Post by **Der_Hans** » 01 Dec 2013, 20:43

Julien, thanks for that information!

I'll try changing those values and seeing how it goes.

You mentioned rain and monsoon tires, which brings me to another question, sort of. It it just me, or does F1 Challenge have the wet weather tires modeled so that they are a disadvantage to use even in wet weather? I recall that both in the original game and in David's mod I seem to do better in the rain if I just keep normal hard or soft tires on.

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 02 Dec 2013, 06:56

I don't think so. Maybe with every driving aid on, dry could be faster. But otherwise, when it rains you need Inters or Wets, or you won't be able to keep your car on track.

Der_Hans · Post by **Der_Hans** » 02 Dec 2013, 08:09

I went and double checked, I knew I was playing with traction control and stability assistance set to "Low" (My cheap pedals make it sort of hard to feel where exactly I am on the throttle and brake), but I didn't realize that I had Anti-Lock brakes set to "High".

That makes quite a difference in the rain!

I played around with the tires a bit, and I have it set so that hard tires should go pretty much all (or at least most) races without needing a change, but soft tires should need one or more. I can't say for certain but I think now that I have extended the tire lifespan, I actually have time to notice the tires wear down a little bit more. Previously it seemed like I would make it 10 laps, then on lap 11 I would be slower, and on lap 12 or 13 my pit crew would be yelling at me that my tires were melting like burning marshmallows while I struggled to limp it back to the pits.

I just did the 1990 race in Canada in a McClaren, changed tires after about 45 laps, then barely squeaked into first place on the last lap. The AI Senna always seems to be leading the pack, always. Oddly enough the AI De Crasheris always seems to be irritating me, too.

NovaXRT · Post by **NovaXRT** » 27 Dec 2013, 04:20

In the .bcd file you need to edit the veh line and the name line to match the .veh file of your choice.
Although it may work if you do it after starting the championship (with 21 AI) it might be better if you played on a race by race basis.
I have an excel file where I put the names and the points :mrgreen:

I know it's not the best way but it works at least for me.
Well... talking about championship... rfactor 2 dissapointed me as did rfactor. It seems that the AI doesn't matter to ISI. So bad.

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 25 Jan 2014, 14:49

What is good wheel settings for this game, if anybody use wheel on this game, please tell me!

, i cant drive in this game with wheel, because it feel bulls*it

, (I have Logitech G27)

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 26 Jan 2014, 15:14

Funny. I found this game being somewhat more realistic than rFactor, and way better than anything else ever released. Especially F1 2010 or 2013, because they are awful...
All I can say is to enable the wheel's "jump back to center" option. You can't setup it in the game, you have to do it in the Logitech Gaming Software. I changed that, and I increased the wheel's accuracy a bit, but that's all. Works like a wonder...

MrRigu98 · Post by **MrRigu98** » 30 Jan 2014, 00:20

it was everything you wanted to know, and the car feels much better now, thank you!

AndyPerry · Post by **AndyPerry** » 13 Feb 2014, 13:11

Hi, guys!

I'm new to this forum so forgive me if an answer to my question has already been posted anywhere on here

I'm an avid F1 Challenge mod player and lately I've been having "fun" with David Marques' 1994 and 1995 mods. I'm enjoying it, but there is one thing that I would love to change because it's bothering me a bit.

The set-up window for the rear and the front wing on all cars is 0-30. On basically all other mods that I've played (including the original 99-02 Challenge) the set-up wondow for wings is 0-50. Can that be changed/modified anywhere? I don't like it because it hampers the behaviour of the car in almost all circuits with the exception of Monza and Hockenheim and maybe a few others.

Can you help we with some advice how to fix this "bug"?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Andy

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 14 Feb 2014, 22:13

Those changes are meant to be to represent the drastically reduced downforce that made the cars so dangerous in '94. The '95 cars were still suffering of it, and the teams could only fully solve the issue of the lost downforce by 1997.
If you want to change that, you must edit every car HDV file in the Vehicles/Teamname/Model folders. Look for the [FRONTWING] entry and change this line:
FWRange=(0.0, 0.9, 30)

to this:
FWRange=(0.0, 0.9, 50)

Then do the same thing with the [REARWING] entry as well.

But be advised! The AI already has troubles handling the cars properly and you may find those mods already very easy (I run races on 100% aggression and 120% AI strength and still can keep up in my Pacific with the leading midfielders). If you change those settings and you use 30+ values, you will be in a brutal advantage against AI cars because their setup range doesn't changes. AI cars get their setup from the pre-written setup files from the Save folder.

AndyPerry · Post by **AndyPerry** » 14 Feb 2014, 23:51

Thank you Julien!

I understand what you mean. I won't change the settings then as it would most probably mean I'd be lapping everyone 2 or 3 times in 12 laps! I got one more question - how can I make AI cars faster still? It's like you said, with 120% strenght and 100% agression I find it way too easy (on some tracks). Is there some way to make AI even faster (more than 120% aggression)?

Oh, and two more - why is it that at some races, people seem to crash out left, right and centre? I'm usually the only one finishing at Monaco, Aida or Adelaide. And the rear tires seem too wide - have you any idea whay that is so? Will your "fixed" 1995 mod be available for download?

I'd like to thank you for your reply, you're very kind

Cheers,

Andy

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 16 Feb 2014, 09:09

Well, there is not really much you could do, unfortunately. The AI just can't handle the reduced downforce of the cars very well, so it is struggling on tracks liek Montreal, Monaco, Aida, Adelaide or Hungaroring. On these tracks you could be relatively faster. There are a few things you could do.
1) Improve the AI dirvers' strength in in the Drivers/1994 folder. This is a double-edged sword though because if you lower it too much, the AI won't be able to handle it any more. I noticed that if the race ability is under 2 (lower means faster), they will leave the track so much that they will lose time.
2) Improve the grip level of those cars you don't drive. This will hurt your team mate though because he will have the same attributes for the car that you do. But it can make the whole field faster.
3) Give the AI your setup.
4) Increase the grip level of the tracks. This could lead to ridiculous laptimes and unreal race results. I don't like it.
5) Modify the CorneringAdd and CorneringMult values in the Drivers/1994 folder. But pay attention! This influences the cornering speed of the drivers and it can lead to very unexpected results!

There a re some problems with Aida, Monaco, Montreal, Hungaroring and Adelaide. As I said earlier, AI can't handle the cars with the realistic physics files. Especially not over 100% AI strength. In Monaco and Montreal the main issue is that the best line is too close to the walls and the cars hit them. I made some tweaks so the cars crash less, but the fastest cars (usually Schumacher and Hill, sometimes even Coulthard, Alesi and Berger) turn in too wide and either crash or damage their suspension so much that they slow down 2-5 seconds per lap! All I could do in these cases is to make the suspensions ten times more strong against impacts for those races.
In Aida, the AIW file is simply broken. When the AI comes back or goes into the pit, it STOPS the car on the best line and other cars hit them. The line also sent the cars into the wall in the first and second corners, it had to be edited. I fixed these issues and now they work just fine

Monaco, Adelaide and Hungaroring are interesting form another aspect: With these cars, AI can make spectacular driver errors, which is good and realistic, and fun to watch. The problem is that there is no room for driver errors on these tracks, and there could be a real mayhem when one car spins and the two behind him crashes into him. There is nothing really much you can do here, except trying to avoid trouble. I recently had a nice race at Hungaroring where only 8 cars were classified, the others dropped out in various incidents. Every car made at least one extra stop, except Schumacher who was lucky enough to avoid all the trouble. But it was fun!

AndyPerry · Post by **AndyPerry** » 16 Feb 2014, 09:56

Hello, Julien!

Where can I pdowload your version of the game? I'd love to have it!

Cheers,

Andy

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 16 Feb 2014, 21:15

Well, I should extract it from my previous mod, I should pack it together with David's original, get his permission to release it and then upload it somewhere... I'm gonna do it but I can't promise for sure that it will be done within the week. Or the next one...

Oh, by the way, it will contain a fully detailed Pacific team with all the livery and part updates I could find confirmed (we're on F1 Rejects after all...). The original mod did not pay any attention to this beloved team, they had only one livery and one carshape, while they were really busy during the season. You'll see