Nascar Heat

By: GTX_SlotCar

I was too low on the track...... crossing the yellow line.....rear end is breaking loose! The spin starts and I can't pull out. Tire smoke everywhere and as I head backwards into the wall, the roof flaps open. I've never spun in Nascar 3 by riding the track too low. But this isn't Nascar 3, it's Nascar Heat!

Okay, I haven't played the demo enough yet to know the game very well, but just enough to get some impressions. And yes, the flaps really do open.

What you probably really want to know is how it compares to Nascar 3. Well, the force feedback is better. Kind of like GP3, but smoother. There is road feel, but it won't tear your arms off when you hit the walls, either. In short, stronger force feedback than Nascar 3. [see patches below] Steering and car physics are modeled quite well. In normal mode, you can get around the track without hitting the walls within a couple laps. In expert mode it's a completely different experience. You definitely have to slow before the corners and accelerate out. And you can lock up the brakes. But don't fret, the controller setup page has everything you need. You can adjust dead zones, how soon the brakes and gas come on and how fast they get to maximum. The game allows all the adjustments I could think of for steering, brakes and throttle. And, it has free shifting support for the Act Labs RS Shifter. I didn't play around with the car setups much, just increased the rear sway bar a little to make the car a bit looser. Somehow the car felt more sure footed than Nascar 3, yet it was harder to drive. I didn't feel like I was on ice, but more like the weight of the car was effecting the handling. To me, this is a refreshing change from the way many games are made.

The graphics looked very nice, considering I had to play in 800 x 600 resolution. The only other one offered was 640 x 480. When you set your graphics options, you can click "Frame Rates" and the game will run a partial lap and report the FPS back to you. They recommend setting your options so you get a least 35 FPS. I had no problems obtaining 39 FPS with all graphics maximized on my Celeron @ 922 Mhz. But again, it was in 800 x 600. I used a VooDoo 3000. Any card with 16MB of memory or less are limited this way. Cards with 32 or 64 MB of memory will be offered higher resolutions. I'm a little disappointed that the game doesn't allow me to choose 1024 x 768 and limit the texture memory. All in all, I didn't get many jaggies on the edges as long as the cars were moving. I did notice them when the cars were still, though. Here is where the FSAA cards will probably excel. Details were pretty good. Within a certain range, you could see the driver in the cockpit.

There are a couple of racing modes besides the usual single and series races. One is called "Race the Pro", where I raced Dale Jr.'s ghost car. The other is "Beat the Heat". This one has 2 parts, but in the second part you are teamed up with Bobby Labonte, who is a couple laps down but running with the leaders. With 3 laps left at Daytona's Pepsi 400, you can use Bobby's help to get you to the front of the pack. This means using the draft to pass the 3 drivers in front of you and take the lead. In Nascar 3 I had a hard time using the draft at all. In Nascar Heat, I actually drafted with Bobby in front of me, and on another try, with him behind me. The feeling was exhilarating. (Just like it looks on TV ) In the demo, these races were all at Daytona, and the only track for the regular racing is Richmond. [see patches below]

The car you drive in the Beat the Heat race.

The car on the left is the one you drive in Beat the Heat. On the right, look at the

color of the dirt. It's refreshing to see a cloud of dirt that doesn't look like gray smoke.

[Left] I didn't watch the tach and blew the engine. [Right] The cockpit actually

moves, giving you the impression that your head is moving as you brake or accelerate.

The game is really quite well done. I already like it as much, or more, than Nascar 3. The graphics can be stunning and the brakes even glow under severe use. The physics seem to model engine torque (I noticed this while upside down, revving the engine). The menu navigation is good as are the displays and driving views, and on my system it loaded quickly. The force feedback is good, but it's too bad it didn't offer all the adjustments like NFS:Porsche Unleashed. I guess, as much as I like it, I can still say there is no perfect game. For you open wheel racers, you can always drive in chassis view as I do quite often, and see the front wheels, part of the chassis and plenty of road.

[patches]

The patch (or patches) is a new options.cfg file and a options.txt file. You'll need to read the txt file to use the options.cfg properly. This patch will increase force feedback strength considerably, but still leave the steering fairly smooth. I've worked on these for hours, and it's a good compromise. This patch will also increase the FOV (field of view) in the rear view mirror to 130° and eliminates some blind spots. And finally, it will add another skill level called 'hardcore' to the existing 'normal' and 'expert'. I'm not sure how much harder 'hardcore' is, but give it a try.

The biggest problem with the stock FF settings is that if you hold your wheel straight and steady, you'll feel absolutely no FF at all, even if you slam into a wall. It's dependant on the wheel being turned. Strange setup. I've managed to get around that, hence the slight oscillation (only if you start it, though). Right now there are 4 of these patches. My original one for the Ferrari wheel, one for the LWFF, my second one (smoother) for the Ferrari wheel, and a special race version for the Force RS. You will feel all impacts, wheel wobble from bent suspensions, touching the car beside you, rear end taps, and even some seams in the roadway. Each patch is designed and tested for a specific wheel, but each should also work with other wheels. Since each of us has his own preferences, it might be a good idea to try each patch with your wheel and use the one you prefer. The FF patches are only a couple KB's long.

DON'T FORGET TO READ THE TXT FILES

LWFF Patch This patch is for the LWFF wheel. Use in the demo or un-patched full game.

Ferrari 1 Patch This patch is for the Ferrari wheel. Use in the demo or un-patched full game.

Ferrari 2 Patch This patch is for the Ferrari wheel also. Use in the demo or un-patched full game.

Force RS (race vers.) This patch is for the Force RS wheel. Use in the demo or un-patched full game.

The patches below are for the full version of the game that have been patched with the Official Nascar Heat patch version 1.1e. They are not mentioned in the above Nascar Heat Preview.

New FF settings -Ferrari wheel- for Nascar Heat patched with version 1.1e

New FF settings -LWFF wheel- for Nascar Heat patched with version 1.1e

New FF settings -Force RS wheel- for Nascar Heat patched with version 1.1e

The official NH patch is available for download here (1mb): ftp://internet.hasbrointeractive.com/anonftp/patches/heatpatch11e.exe

Options.cfg - Some settings you should know. (Sept 18, 2000)

Here are the setting in options.cfg that I use to control force feedback and some other settings you might want to know about.

version 2 [CONTROL]
ff_deadband_width -0.900000	This sets the center dead band. A positive number (as the default setting uses) means that you will NOT feel any FF when the steering wheel is straight. A negative the value means that you'll feel more subtle FF effects, but you also induce wheel oscillation.
ff_dont_trash_inband_spring no	Yes or No. No means the Centering slider in the game menu will NOT change the 'inband spring' setting.
ff_jolt 0.080000	Increases the jolt you feel from impacts, including some transitions from flat to banked road surfaces.
ff_inband_damping 0.000000	Nothing. Has no use.
ff_inband_spring 0.100000	Centering Spring strength on the slope of the bandwidth. Note, the menu slider gives a .3 bias on this side. Even when set to zero in the menu, this number will revert back to 0.30. If you want to get rid of the bias as I do in my settings, set the don't trash inband spring to no.
ff_outband_damping 0.000000	Nothing. Has no use.
ff_outband_spring 0.500000	Centering Spring strength on the flat of the bandwidth.
ff_torque_gain 0.400000	Overall FF gain.
force_feedback yes	Yes or No as set in the menu.
free_reverse Button 6	For Act Labs RS Shifter Support, make sure this key is set to Button 6. The default is a POV setting that is not correct.
[GLOBAL]
hardcore_enabled yes	Yes or No. This key adds Hardcore mode to your menu choice as: Normal, Expert, or Hardcore. The car will be harder to handle, but higher speeds and faster lap times are possible. You may as well turn this on. You don't have to select it in the menu if you don't wish to race hardcore.
no_video yes	Yes or No. Say Yes to get rid of the introduction movie.
[GX]
fov 100.000000	Forward vision Field of View. I believe the default is 130°. The minimum value you can have is 91 or the game will reset it to default. This may have no effect with some video cards, resolutions or views, or it just may not work at all. Nevertheless, the minimum value of 91° is still correct.
high_detail_car yes	If the option for High Detail Cars is not available in your graphics menu, setting this manually in the options.cfg file may force it to appear. I believe it depends on how close your system is to accepting it.
mirror_fov 154.000000	Rear view mirror Field of View. The default is 82. The maximum value you can have here is 154 or the game will reset it to default. This option always works and will help to eliminate blind spots when cars are beside you, slightly behind you, or slightly in front (passing or being passed). Caution: Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear. It takes some getting used to, but to me it's worth it for the visibility. In my FF patches this is set to 130, but I'd advise changing it to 154.
vertex_damage no	When set to Yes, this key will allow more visible car damage and damage on the sides of the cars. The drawback is that the game takes forever to load. You'll think that it's locked up, but it's not.
[SOUND]
music_enabled no	Yes or No. Since "Highway Star" or "Radar Love" aren't included in the game, I'll pass.

Minimum/maximum FOV settings were taken from the crash log file. Not guess work or trial and error.

Here's a little tip to keep your graphics sharp. NH reduces the texture quality 'on-the-fly' to make sure you maintain a good frame rate. This helps you maintain smooth game play and I personally think it's a very nice feature. If you're running with one or two cars in front of you, the tack on your dash and the cars in front may look nice and sharp. But if you're at the back of the field, they may get slightly fuzzy because high res textures can be replaced with lower ones. If this bothers you (and even if it doesn't), you can help to minimize it by properly configuring your graphics settings in the game. The Benchmark in the graphics menu is different in the demo and the full game, so this applies to the full game only. Put your graphics settings the way you want them and run the Benchmark. At the end of the run, look at the 99 on the car at the left of the screen. Is the white inside the numbers pure? If so, you're settings are alright. If they are not, try turning off High Detail Cars or turning the Detail slider down one notch. Keep turning down the graphics options or lowering your screen resolution until you can see that the white is pure.

For beginners, if you are racing in hardcore or expert mode and get frustrated with tracks like Watkins Glen or others, just switch to Normal mode and have a good time. Practice until you can make smooth laps. Then race the computer cars (AI) set at Easy or Novice and have a good time. When you're ready, change to Expert mode. There is no shame in racing in Normal mode. The idea is to have fun and get into some long races. Like any other driving game, if you put enough time into it, you'll be racing Hardcore soon enough. Not everyone has endless hours to practice, so have fun.

Regards,

Slot

Front view of GTX_SlotCar's ride. Doesn't look familiar?