GT4 BMW Series 1 Virtual Drive is OUT!!!

  • Thread starter amar212
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Ok if this is avaliable, then only for the Pal users. What will i need to run this game. A swap magic slide disc,.... and a television transverter. OK
 
500 seconds is maybe even less than one lap, the 1 series isn't exactly a speed demon...

Nice screenshots nonetheless! 👍
 
The time limit would be 600 seconds (10 minutes) and that would be enough time to do a little more than a lap in the new 1 Series. The one thing that does not make sense in the screen shots is that it shows a turbocharged car with a 7500 RPM redline. The new 1 series offers two naturally aspirated engines in 1.6L and 2.0L sizes and they (from the pictures I have seen) redline at 6500 RPM. The turbocharged diesel engines are offered in 1.8L and 2.0L sizes and they would redline lower than the gas engines, probably around 5k to 5500. What car would it be in these screen shots? It is just a BMW demo right?
 
Nice, wouldn't mind a go on the ring to see how it compared to PGR2s, still I don't plan on visiting any BMW garages ;)
 
The Ring in pgr2 is too wide. By looking at those pics, PD got it right with the Ring and they have the writing on the track :ekk:
 
OK. It is 3 am, and it is time for impressions. Piictures comes first thing in the morning.

BMW Series 1 Virtual Drive is the very latest public avaliable code of GT4 so far. As I can see, it is a code shown on E3 and it is 100 miles away from Prologue. First thing you notice is graphic.

After the intro movie (nice one, and car looks great in motion), the game-driven replay with S1 on Nurb begins. I could only say "They didn't manage to do this, no way". The graphic looks outstanding. High-res everywhere, amount of details around the track is fabulous, and car itself looks great. The resolution of car is the same as resolution of surroundings and sky and lightning are great. Replay looks astonishing.

There are just few options - screen (normal or wide), no music, no replay, nothing else. After the track selection - Nurb, NYC and Costa di Amalfi (Capri) - you find yourself in seat of gasoline driven S1 on start of Nurb. And the hell breaks loose there.

I can't realy imagine how will it look like to drive around the Nurb with 500+ HP cars. The track is exact copy of the Nurb (we knew that from before), but you find yourself realy amased with the narrowness of the track. Because of that, you have the feeling that S1 eats road, and you even do not pass 200 km/h mark nowhere except on the main straight (final section) - I managed to cope 208 km/h. It takes around 9:20 (with some nice fence kissing) for S1 to go around the Green Hell. And all the writings on the road are there, all the mountains are there, trees, telephone wires, more then 10 ddifferent looks of asphalt, more then 10 different looks of grass around the track, darker and lighter clouds, blazing sun, and 10+ variations of curbs (sound of tyres passing the curb at 180 km/h is something unique).

One fact - pictures posted before are not from this demo. There is no time-limit, you're only limited with one lap. You can watch a replay after the race, with the nifty "press-triangle-2-zoom-on-car" option. No specials there.

After you got blown-away with the glypse of future graphic, the race begins. Dials are new ones, with "G-Spot Meter", fuel indicator (not working), oil indicator, all as seen before on E3 pics. Lateral movement meter is a nice touch, especially in replay. Hope that final game will bring some data management there. The race begins (no clutch) and then you realise that this is a totally new physics engine. Prologue is arcadey (we knew that too, but it was hard to beleive) in compare to this. Suspension works properly for the first time in the series. When you speed up, suspension of the rear end takes accelration force in the way you feel it, while front suspension takes it while breaking. The view field goes up/down, depending of the movement, and car now reacts on another new feature - track roughness.

Naturally, Nurb is a very rough track. But now (and it can easly be compared with Prologue on NY track), all the tracks are more rougher or better said - now yoiu feel it on the car behaving. On Nurb and Capri car even goes airborne somewhere (we knew that too), and sound of landing is too good to be true. Having a nice surround setup in your room is highly wellcomed.

Tyre sound and all the algorythams regarding it are improved. You can't do much drifting because the TCS is always ON, but little drifting is welcomed and both physics and sound are great. Tyre squeezing in corners is a pure auditive heaven. Intresting is that game lets you choose between 3 type of tyres - normal, street and arcade. "Racing", although they exist on menu, can't be selected. I'll se what is that tommorow when I got back from work and drive all 3 tracks in the row, maybe something will happen.

Both sticks works, didn't try the wheel. DS2 driving is great - car now reacts very instantly and directly, while maintaing the great sense of speed. It is more difficult to cope with slow turns in high speeds then in Prologue, and all of "Wall Riders" can say goodbye to their little hobby - slightest kiss to the fence introduce another new feature - impact penalty.

It is not 10 sec slow-down, it is a total physics and visual treat which is manifesting trough screen blurring, shaking and a loosing control over car movement on a short time. As the impact is heavier, the effect will be bigger.

Rear-view mirror is another grat feture. It is big, wide, and filled with details. You see everything in it, like you're watching a rear-view on a small screen. It is a great job done by graphics programmers, taking into concern the public-known capablities of PS2.

There are no effects of fire or sparkles.

As you speed up, the sound of wind becomes louder and louder, while engine sound becomes more noosier. On the main straight it is a total wind-blowing vs. engine-roar sound battle. Fantastic job done in sound design.

NY is two times more detailed the in Pro. Capri looks great. But I just drove one lap of both and get my ass back to Nurb.

After driving few laps of Nurb and watching some replays I started to think how the final code will look like if this demo - hopefully, 4 months before the final game release - looks like this. Job done here is beyond expectations in every way. And I'm sure that this is not the final physics "Simulation" code, final graphic code and final sound code. Not to mention game structure or anything else which does not exist on this DVD.

Pictures in the morning. Vid - not so sure. I'll see what I can do.

Welcome to the first ever diesel car in the GT series. It has a great torque, nice sound and nice colours to pick. At 19 000 euros starting price, I find this demo a nice way to enjoy in something I can only dream about - driving a new Beamer around the Nurburgring. 4 am, going to sleep. All the people on the other side of the globe, have a nice evening.
 
Thanks for your great impression amar212, looking forward to the pics

Zarkoff500
The time limit would be 600 seconds (10 minutes) and that would be enough time to do a little more than a lap in the new 1 Series. The one thing that does not make sense in the screen shots is that it shows a turbocharged car with a 7500 RPM redline. The new 1 series offers two naturally aspirated engines in 1.6L and 2.0L sizes and they (from the pictures I have seen) redline at 6500 RPM. The turbocharged diesel engines are offered in 1.8L and 2.0L sizes and they would redline lower than the gas engines, probably around 5k to 5500. What car would it be in these screen shots? It is just a BMW demo right?

The reason why you see the turbo gauge is because that isnt the BMW version, its the Falken Skyline version
 

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VIPERGTSR01
Thanks for your great impression amar212, looking forward to the pics



The reason why you see the turbo gauge is because that isnt the BMW version, its the Falken Skyline version


Thanks Viper for clearing that up. It didn't make sense to me.
 
amar212 :eek: 👍 , you have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now...Do you know how much drool is covered over our keyboards?!? Really impressive article right there. I'm adding it to the "Answers to GT4" thread if you don't mind... Nice job 👍 :cheers:
 
askia47
the demo is for europe only? explain please! we need to know!

For all that we know right now it's only croatia, but if i'm not mistaken, there's another demo out there. Those pics are from a in-home TV. And since they're not from amar212's demo then i'm guessing there another one. Someone mentioned the other demo in another Forum.

Looks like the link was TriplePlay's.Other BMW S1 Demo...
 
Amar, you say the graphics have upgraded from gt4p. But how, in res? Does the NY track in demo look alot better than the NY track in gt4P?
 
cobragt
Amar, you say the graphics have upgraded from gt4p. But how, in res? Does the NY track in demo look alot better than the NY track in gt4P?

He did say this "NY is two times more detailed then in Pro"
 
I pray to God that this, or something like it gets released in the US. I'm sick and tired of Sony and PD shafting the American audience.

Are there AI cars in this demo? What are they? Has anyone looked at the disc on a PC to see if there's code for any other cars that could possibly be unlocked with Action Replay or anything?
 
Eagle
amar212: My hat goes off to you. Thanks for all of this - any fears I had about GT4 just got destroyed.
You're not this only one. This sounds amazing. Omg, I need it now. Just imagine, they've improved it this much. They're probably going to improve it more. Then even more before the actual release. If it's gone above and beyond expectations NOW, imagine what 4 MORE MONTHS will do to this game. It's freakin off the charts....PD rules.
 
I think just the swap disk will do the trick. The only problem though is that this demo is going to go for at least 50$ on Ebay... :(
 
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