Historic Kyalami: AMS2 vs GPL?

newbert · May 10, 2020

This morning I decided to try AMS2's Historic Kyalami with the Vintage F1 and compare it to GPL's Kyalami with the Lotus. Although I haven't run GPL in ages, the results were quite surprising to me.

Back in the day, the most frequent comment about GPL was that the cars felt like they were racing on ice. Well, running just two laps in GPL after running a few in AMS2, GPL's car felt quite a bit more planted to me than AMS2's. IN AMS2, I was all over the road, since I had no feel for weight transfer, etc. Although GPL's graphics pale in comparison to AMS2, of course, the overall driveability was much better for me. In fact, my laptime in GPL was 20 seconds faster!!! Granted that I didn't play with settings or set-ups on either, and only ran about 2 laps on each - but nevertheless, I was quite surprised.

So, I'm curious whether anyone else here has made this same comparison between the AMS2 Formula Vintage vs the GPL driving experience?

David Wright · May 10, 2020

As an old GPL fan I agree the GPL cars are easier to drive, though I've not tried the AMS2 version for a few weeks and they have made changes since then. I think the V8 version might be the worst - try the V12 option if you haven't already.

And AMS2 models altitude so their cars are down on power here compared to GPL.

I will try the latest version later today and see what I think.

David Wright · May 10, 2020

Just tried the latest version - the V12. The tyres are difficult to heat up which doesn't help. You have to be really careful applying the throttle or you get too much oversteer and there's not much lift off oversteer (or weight transfer as you put it). I will play with the differential to see if this helps.

David Wright · May 10, 2020

OK - made some setup changes and I think it feels better.

In suspension, change front toe to +0.2, rear toe to +0.4
rear arb to 4 n/mm

In drivetrain change final drive to 6.467
turn geared LSD to ON
Bias Ratio power 3.0:1
BiasRatio coast 1.5:1
Clutch pack lsd turn to OFF
viscous lock reduce to 0 Nm

BrunoBæ · May 12, 2020

Just because of you guys I tried the 2 vantage V12.
My honest oppinion is that they are utterly crap(IMO).
I have some good times when the orig GPL came out - looong time ago.

The cars were difficult to handle in the beginning - but as I recall they had some resemblance to RL cars - probably

Eventhough the GPL cars were slightly drifting/sliding all the time.
But these 2x AMS2 vantage F1 have not the slightest recemblance to the GPL cars I remember.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: I tried to mess with the gears/diff but nothing did help. And eventhough I could see that my best lap (in the V12 something) could get me a somewhat reasonable position on the LB then the car felt just like a joke(IMO). No joy at all. Just utterly irritating.

newbert · May 13, 2020

Even after applying David's set-up changes, I have to agree with Bruno's assessment that GPL fells sooo much better than AMS2's vintage F1's. Too bad - I really like most aspects of AMS2, but this isn't one of them.

blanes · May 13, 2020

I drove GPL many many hours back in the day, however last time was about maybe 2006 so tooo long back to remember accurately. However I might be in the minority but I actually love the feel of driving the current AMS2 vintage cars.

Which is more accurate ? Who knows ... maybe we can get Jackie Stewart into a simulator with AMS2 ... Now THAT I would love to see and hear his impressions !

BrunoBæ · May 13, 2020

blanes said:
Which is more accurate ? Who knows ... maybe we can get Jackie Stewart into a simulator with AMS2 ... Now THAT I would love to see and hear his impressions !

Haha. Good one.
That could be great - eventhough I guess he would have some problems keeping a reasonable upper class tone in his language

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: My negative comments comparing these classic cars with the cars in GPL is solely based on the "fact"

that I can remember that I managed to feel that I could 99% control the cars in GPL(after practice and practice) where I was completely unable to to get that feeling in AMS2.
Im not in any way comparing it to RL - for obvious reasons

CatsAreTheWorstDogs2: My use of the phrase "resemblance to RL cars" was probably not my best moment

EDIT: Just to be sure we are talking about the same cars - right?