Psygnosis’ Formula 1 Finally Coming to PC

According to GameCenter Formula 1 is finally coming to PC! It’s been a long-time coming, and when it does come it should support every major graphics renderer, including Rendition, 3DFX and even the S3 Virge cards.

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If you’re a PC player who has been following Psygnosis for the last year, you’re no doubt more than a little bummed that two of this big-time developer’s hottest racing titles (Formula 1 and WipeOut XL) are only available for the Sony PlayStation. Turn that frown upside down, because Psygnosis just stopped by to show off long-awaited, accelerated versions of both games for the PC.

While we glimpsed a 3Dfx version of Formula 1, the game will rev its engines on other major cards, including Rendition-based accelerators. Thanks to Direct 3D, the PC accelerated version should in fact be available for a broad range of cards including those powered by NEC and Video Logic’s PowerVR, 3D Labs’ Permedia, and S3’s Virge chips. However, Jim Drewry, US software development manager at Psygnosis, admits that Formula 1 will be most impressive when it’s optimized for such high-end chips as 3Dfx’s Voodoo Graphics and Rendition’s Vérité, which use specialized APIs.

“At the end of the day we want to support everything,” says Drewry, “but we won’t know exactly until we’ve finished optimizing the game for all the cards.”

From the looks of our demo, it’s safe to say the 3Dfx version of Formula 1 rocks. In fact, Drewry says the high-end accelerated versions will beat out the PlayStation original by featuring greater detail and higher resolutions, not to mention faster gameplay. Unless you have your face millimeters away from your monitor, you’d swear you’re watching Monte Carlo on the telly. Even better, right out of the box Formula 1 will be optimized for all the heavyweight cards it supports. Thanks to a handy executable that identifies your graphics card, you won’t have to download special patches for specific cards once you pick up the game. Expect Formula 1 for the PC this May.

WipeOut XL will blow you away too, optimized for MMX-based machines and the whole spectrum of cards (again thanks to Direct3D). Our demo was running at between 15 and 20 fps (frames per second), but Drewry promises the final version will cruise at 30 fps. Even at this early stage, its visuals easily kept pace with the PlayStation version. Get ready to blast off this May or June.