F1GP (DOS) v1.05 Update Now Available

Microprose have released a new update for Formula One Grand Prix that adds modem multiplayer support, rudder pedal support and updates sound for Adlib and Soundblaster compatibles. It also includes the fixes from previous updates, including direct link multiplayer and control method switching when loading a saved game with a different controller now operating.

You can download the patch from our files page or contact the publisher for a disk. The patch has been released in EU, US and IT languages.

Here is the full readme text:

MICROPROSE FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX
Version 1.05 – Modem Update

Additional Technical Supplement
For IBM PC and compatible computers

Memory Management:

You will need about 600,000 bytes of Base Memory
available to run the program. If the game fails to run
properly your machine’s memory is probably not configured
correctly.

The easiest way to temporarily configure your machine
correctly is to make a boot disk. Make the GPRIX directory
current and type ‘BOOTMAKE’ from the DOS prompt.

To use your boot disk, insert it and reset the computer.
The game will use either EXTENDED memory (made available
via himem.sys), EXPANDED memory (via add on boards or
EMM386.SYS on 386 or above machines) or create a spill
file of 320k (‘temp000.tmp’) on your hard disc if no
extra memory is available. Of the three, extended memory
is preferred (it’s generally faster than expanded memory)
and is tested for first by the program.

EMM386.EXE

Emm386.exe is the standard DOS 5.0 expanded memory
manager.

If you are running Grand Prix on a 286 machine you will
have to use the Expanded Memory Driver supplied with your
machine.

There are many other 3rd party memory management programs
available. Grand Prix has been tested with a selection of
these.

Copy Protection:

Grand Prix has no disk copy protection. This means that
you can install the simulation files from the original
disks to a hard disk. However, the program asks you a
manual-related question. Use the manual to answer the
question. MicroProse regrets that continuing casual and
organized software piracy requires that we retain this
minimal form of copy protection.

Sound:

The sound for AdLib and Soundblaster cards has been
updated. The original files in your GPRIX directory will
be replaced automatically.

Enhancements for the IBM PC Version

Important: The IBM PC modem version of Grand Prix
contains some enhancements over the original.
Many of these program changes have been achieved without
affecting the instructions you’ll find in the manual.
However, you will discover that some things are not
documented in the main manual, but are explained below.

The Game Options Menu:

The most obvious changes to game options can be seen on
the Game Options Menu! You will see the following;
“About F1GP”
“Quick Race”
“Race”
“Game”
“Control Methods”
“Startup Files”
“Printer”
“Linkup Menu”
“Save Options”
“Main Menu”

“Quick Race” allows you to make selections about the
track, car, grid position, length and weather for a Quick
Race. The “Race” and “Game” selections are the equivalent
of “Race Options” and “Game Options” selections described
in the manual.

“Control Methods” allows you to select between keyboard,
mouse, joystick or customised control, to edit the
controls and to calibrate an analog joystick.

“Start Up Files” allows you to specify which saved files
you want to be loaded as defaults for Driver Names, Car
Set Ups and Circuit Records.

“Printer” allows you to specify printer type, port and
feeding instructions. You can print out any result screen
after a race by selecting “Printer Menu” and then
selecting the information set that you want to print out.
It is possible to print results to any IBM compatible
printer or to redirect them to an ASCII file. The printer
sub-menu on the Game Options allows you to choose between
an IBM printer (with IBM box graphics characters) or any
other IBM compatible printer (text only). If in doubt
about your printer, try the test print option. Unless you
have more than one printer attached to your machine you
should select LPT1 as the printer port. It’s also
possible to send a copy of the grid and/or results tables
to a file on hard or floppy disk. To do this select
‘File’ instead of LPT1-3 on the menu. The files created
will be plain ASCII files if you have selected ‘other’ as
a printer type but contain IBM graphics characters if you
have selected an IBM printer. These files should be
editable in all word processors.

Detail Levels:

There are four detail levels which can be adjusted to
ensure the faster running of the 3-D landscapes. You can
also remove the ‘texture’ which has been added to the
track, by pressing the “T” key. This will allow the
simulation to run faster on slower machines.

Gaps between Cars:

An additional feature has been incorporated which gives
you an accurate gauge of the distance between your car
and those in front and behind. It also tells you the
drivers’ names. By pressing the “G” key during a race,
the names will be displayed, along with the last recorded
time differences, if available. The time differences are
recorded when the cars cross the start/finish line.

Frame Rates and Processor Power/Speed:

Because of the wide range of hardware available on the
market today this simulation has several custom options
to help you get the best performance from your equipment.
Grand Prix / World Circuit will produce similar race
times regardless of what type of processor you have,
however more powerful machines will have the advantage of
being able to use a higher “Frame Rate”. This will make
the simulation appear smoother and faster, if you wish
the default settings may be changed as follows:

A) TEXTURED FILLS.
The keyboard letter “T” will toggle texturing on and off.
We recommend this function be turned off for 286 and slow
speed 386 machines.

B) FRAME RATE.
Within the “Game options / Game” menu you can alter the
frame rate of the simulation; provided your machine is
powerful enough this will provide smoother 3D graphics.

C) PROCESSOR OCCUPANCY PERCENTAGE.
While the keyboard letter “O” is depressed during a race
the screen will display the “Processor Occupancy
percentage”, this figure will fluctuate depending on how
much work the processor is doing.

If the % remains well below 100 you may wish to increase
the frame rate.

If the % rarely exceeds 100 you are getting maximum
performance.

If the % is mostly over 100 you may wish to reduce the
frame rate.

The File Selector:

When entering a filename you should be aware that the
normal MS DOS / PC DOS restrictions apply; i.e. Names
must not exceed 8 characters in length, punctuation
characters are prohibited, only 1 dot is allowed, this
separates the filename from the file name extension.

Steering Sensitivity:

A Steering Sensitivity button has been added to the
steering control method menu. This is only active if
steering help is Off and allows you to set the maximum
lock of the front wheels in degrees. This value then
corresponds to a full joystick movement. The default is
12 degrees.

The original release used a value of 22 degrees. It was
envisaged that an ordinary joystick would not be used
without steering help. A large lock ideally requires a
steering wheel device capable of spreading the analogue
values over a physical movement of about 400 degrees like
a real racing car instead of the 50 degree movement of a
typical joystick, otherwise the steering feels too
sensitive.

Even so, a real racing car is still very sensitive in
steering compared to a normal road car. It is because
typical joysticks make the very sensitive steering of the
real racing car yet 8 times more sensitive that steering
help is provided to compensate. However it is apparent
from correspondence that some people prefer to learn to
control the sensitivity in return for more direct ‘, the
adjustable lock should make it possible to get the best
from whatever equipment you have.

If you set too small a lock, the steering will feel more
controllable but you could have trouble getting round
sharp bends or find it harder to ‘catch a skid’.

Rudder Pedals:

A new sub-menu has been added under Edit Control Method.
Switch Joystick Axis is designed for users with rudder
pedals, which may only have horizontal (x)
potentiometers. It allows the steering to be re-assigned
to the vertical(y) axis and the accelerator/brake to be
re-assigned to the horizontal(x) axis. In addition,
since some pedals could have one pot for each pedal, a
further button will assign brake to one axis and
accelerate to the other.

Control Method and Game Saves:

In version 1.04 you can load a game which was saved
whilst using a different control method to the one
currently selected and the game now automatically allows
you to continue to play using the current
controls.(version 1.03 required you to remember the
previous control method and set it before loading the
game.)

Link Modem Play:

The major change in version 1.04 is that a new feature,
linked play has been added.

What is linked play?

Linking allows you to play on two machines
simultaneously. The two machines are connected either via
standard Hayes compatible modems using a phone link
(called a modem link) or directly via a special cable
called a null-modem cable (a direct link).

How to link up the machines:

First connect up the necessary cables. In order to use
the link you will need to connect the modem or the null
modem cable to one of the serial ports on the back of the
machine. Most PC’s have 2 serial ports, labelled COM1
and COM2. Either port will do, but if you are using a
serial mouse then you should leave that port alone and
select the other com port.
Having connected the cable, load up the game on both
machines. Now from the main menu, go to the Options Menu
and select link.
You should see the full screen Linkup Menu which controls
how the link operates.

The Link Menu:

The Baud Rate:
At the top of the linkup menu are 4 buttons labelled
2400, 4800, 9600 and 19200. These control the baud rate,
which is a measure of how fast data is sent down the
serial cable. A fixed amount of data is sent down the
cable for each frame of the simulation, so if you wish to
play with faster frame rates (for smoother animation and
control) you will need a higher baud rate.

The downside is that higher baud rates are more error
prone, especially with longer or unshielded cables and
that, while most modems will communicate with the
computer at higher rates, the modem-to-modem connection
down the phone lines may not be fast enough (in this case
you will see higher than usual occupancy rates in the
game).

Link Type:
Below the baud rate buttons are two buttons to select the
link type. Choose Direct for a null-modem cable between
two machines or Modem if you are playing across the phone
lines.

Direct Link Lead/Follow:
While the link is active, one machine takes control of
the menus on both computers and is said to ‘Lead’, the
other machine is said to ‘Follow’. For a direct link you
MUST set one machine to ‘Lead’ and the other to ‘Follow’,
otherwise they will not make the connection. For a modem
link the machine that does the dialling (and pays the
phone bill) is automatically the leader.

Modem Link Dial/Wait for Call:
If you are linked by modem over the phone line then one
machine must dial up the other, and the other machine
must be ready and waiting for a call. You should pre-
arrange this (perhaps with a voice call) before try to
start up the link. These buttons control how the machine
will behave for a modem link.

Modem number to dial:
You should type in the phone number to dial on the
machine that will initiate the call. The string will be
passed direct to the modem so, if your modem supports it,
you can use “,” to add delays to the dial etc. All the
linkup selections are included in your Options file so
it’s useful to save options before linking.

Modem dial type:
This tells the modem to use one of the two dialling
methods employed by phone companies. Pulse dialling is
much slower than tone dialling so tone dialling is
recommended if your phone exchange supports it.
Modem initialisation string.

In order for the game to work smoothly via a modem
connection, the mode must be set-up up in a particular
way. To keep the simulation running in real time it
requires the modem to pass the data through immediately
and not buffer or compress it as would be needed for a
file transfer. Also the game performs its own error
checking based on a packet system, so it is recommended
that you turn the modem error checking off, as this can
also delay data passage. Unfortunately, there is no
standard set of commands to do this across all Hayes
Compatible modems; we have included sample initialisation
strings for some makes below, but if your modem is not
included you may need to look up codes in your modem
manual.

In summary, we recommend that you:
1. Turn compression off
2. Turn error checking/control off

On a more technical note, it’s recommended (though not
essential) that you start the initialisation with the ATZ
command to reset the modem. This ensures that it’s in a
standard state at the beginning and will make linking
more reliable. If you need to insert control characters
in the modem initialisation string then the sequence ^ +
letter will do it. For example ^M will send a carriage
return. There no need to insert a ^M at the end of the
string as an ASCII 13 is automatically appended.

For example:
Modem type Sample initialisation string
Courier HST ATZ&M0&K0
Twincom 144/DF ATZ&Q6

Hangup/Connect/Exit:
Once both machines are set up, you should click on
Connect on both computers. If you are connecting via a
modem, then you should see the computer initialise the
modem and either show ‘Dialling’ or ‘Wait for call’. Once
a connection is established then the machines should show
‘Starting Link’ to the dialler and ‘Waiting for link’ at
the other end.

After about a second these messages should clear and the
button ‘Link is active’ appear.

For a direct link, one machine should show ‘Starting
Link’ immediately and the other ‘Waiting for Link’.
Again, after about a second these messages should clear
and the ‘Link is active’ button appear.

What to do if things go wrong:

a. For a direct link.
If the machines are showing ‘Starting Link’ and ‘Waiting
for Link’ but nothing else is happening then you should
check –

that you have selected the correct comm port on each
machine,

that they are both operating at the SAME baud rate.

If this appears o.k. and still nothing is happening then
you may have an incorrectly wired cable. If you are not
sure about the cable, you could check it with a normal
comms package.

b. For a Modem link.
If the modem is not responding, check the connections and
check that the modem initialisation string is correct.
Any error in the string will not get an OK reply from the
modem. As a check, try a simple ATZ for the string and
see if the modem goes on to dial or wait for a call.

If the modems dial but do not connect. This is the
trickiest problem. Many modems have subtle differences
and modems from differing manufacturers can have problems
with varying protocols. If possible, check that you can
connect with a similar modem, after that it’s down to
checking through the modem’s manuals.

After the link is connected:

After a connection is established, you shoiuld see the
message Link Started, with either ‘This machine has
control’ or ‘Other machine has control’. While in the
menus the system is controlled from one machine, with the
other echoing it’s movements. The machine with control
has the normal red highlight on the menus and is said to
‘Lead’, whereas the other will show a blue highlight and
is said to ‘Follow’.

The machine designated to ‘Follow’ is excluded from
certain actions eg Control Method set-up, Printer Setup
and general loading and saving (but not game saves) and
will display a ‘Please Wait’ message if the Leader moves
into these areas on the menus. Also certain menus will
behave slightly differently; Driver Select, for example,
now shows both machines’ drivers and allows either to
change their selections.

While in these Linked menus there are 3 Special hotkeys:

Alt/M On either machine will pop up a message box
over the current menu and allow you to send up
to forty characters of text to the other machine.
Type your message and press Return, the link
will then wait for the other machine to clear the
message before moving back to the original menu.

Alt/R This hotkey is only active on the machine that
has control of the menus. When it’s pressed,
control passes to the other machine.

Alt/H This hotkey is active on both machines and
brings up a menu box allowing you to hang up
the link. You should always end the link either
here, or by clicking on Hangup in the linkup menu
and not simply switch one machine off (the other
machine would then be left trying to regain
contact).

Alt/I functions as normal

These hotkeys are available on almost every menu, but
note that they are disabled in the File Selector.

Extra options while linked:

After linking you may find that some of your option
settings have changed, especially if the other machine
has control. Many of the option settings are copied
across from the ‘Lead’ machine.

If you close the link you will be given the option of re-
loading your preferences file.

Also, after linking, some menus change. Driver Select now
has selection options for either machine and the Quick
Race menu shows both players’ chosen car and grid
position. There is an extra option available in the Quick
Race menu when two machines are linked – a two player
Quick Race. This allows a normal Quick Race, but with
only the two players and no computer controlled cars.

A note on Quick Race driver selection…
Note that, the normal driver selection and the Quick Race
driver selection are two completely separate areas. Quick
Race driver selection is accomplished from the Quick Race
menu and only one driver is allowed.

Full driver selection, for non-championship and
championship races, is accomplished from the driver
select menu and allows full multi-player selection and
editing of Driver and Team names. Note however, that if
you edit the driver or team names in driver select, the
new NAMES will be used in any Quick Race.

Driving while linked:

Some in car options are accessed slightly differently
when linked.

Car set-up is accessed as before, by pressing brake while
on the jacks, but now, rather than going straight in, the
other machine will show ‘pause requested’ and the machine
wanting set-up will wait for ‘pause’ to be pressed on the
other machine. This is because both machines must exit to
the menus together. The request for pause is, in fact, a
courtesy request since the ‘requested’ player may be in
the middle of a hot lap and may not want to be
interrupted.

In fact, either player can press pause to initiate the
car set-up menu so the requested player should not delay
unreasonably (much more than a lap time for example)
before pressing pause. If the requested player is also
jacked up then that player will automatically go into car
set-up if a request arrives. Like ‘PAUSE’, ‘ESCAPE’ on
either machine will cause both to exit from the cockpit
into the practise, qualifying or race frozen menus.

Note that, when slow machines are linked and are
operating out on the track at 100% occupancy (press ‘O’
to see) there is a tendency for the pitlane graphics and
VDU monitor to add an additional overhead to the
occupancy. Although not usually a problem, when two
machines are linked this can have the affect of slowing
the frame rate on the other machine – even when its
driver is out on the track. Therefore, if you wish to
remain in the pits for a while waiting for results you
could agree to ride with another car out on the track to
keep the frame rate normal for your linked opponent (you
could ride with your opponent!).

Loading and saving:

While in linked mode, any game saves must be made on BOTH
machines, Screen prompts will guide you through the
procedure and the filename chosen by the ‘Leader’ is
automatically passed through to the other machine. It’s
recommended that you use the same filename on each
machine to save confusion, but this is not required.

Other menus:

Some menus, notably the control method menu, the startup
files menu and use of the printer/printer menu can only
be accessed by the machine in control. To reach the menu
on the other machine the ‘Leader’ should release control
(from the main or options menu). After the second machine
has finished, it can release control again, back to the
original ‘Leader’. Also some options are not allowed
while linked: load names, load track records and save
options are disallowed.

If you have any difficulty loading Grand Prix or need
help while running the simulation, MicroProse will be
happy to help you on the Helpline. Please ring UK 0666
504399, Monday to Friday 0900 to 1700 hours. Have a pen
and paper handy when you call.

Additional Keys Guide

Pressing ALT/I will display the PC’s processor type, DOS
version and the current time. Click on ‘Continue’ to
return to the normal menu system.

When Linked:-
ALT/M sends a message down the link
ALT/R releases control
ALT/H hangs up phone or closes the link.

With grateful thanks to Footwork Grand Prix International
and Honda UK

Game Design & Program Copyright ©1991/1992 Geoff Crammond
Documentation, Packaging & Logo Copyright ©1992
MicroProse Ltd.,
Unit 1, Hampton Rd Industrial Estate, Tetbury,
Gloucestershire GL8 8LD UK

This documentation and accompanying disk are copyrighted.
The owner of this product is entitled to use this product
for his or her personal use. Except for back-up copies of
the disks for personal use and the quoting of brief
passages for the purposes of reviews, no one may
transfer, copy, back-up, give or sell any part of the
manual or the information on the disks, or transmit in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher. Any person or persons
reproducing any part of this program, in any media, for
any reason, shall be guilty of copyright violation and
shall be subject to civil liability at the discretion of
the copyright holder.