Why Grand Prix 3 Is So Underrated?

When you talk about the Grand Prix series by Geoff Crammond you mostly talk about GP2 or GP4. If very nostalgic then about the original F1GP. It seems no one cares about GP3. Now it's a brilliant game, so why?

When I fired up GP3 for first time in about two decades(!) I was amazed how great it was to drive. If you play with a keyboard there's no real difference compared to GP2 but with a wheel it's a completely different game. Mostly this is of course because of force feedback support but the steering is also a lot more finesse.

The dynamic weather in GP3 is, of course, revolutionary! It took ten years or so for others to do something similar. Driving in chancing conditions and trying to figure out the right calls brings a completely different dimension to the game.

So why was this awesome F1 simulator pretty much forgotten?

Some wet racing in GP3 (Austria, A1 Ring 1998)

Too Much Hype?

For some people the game was a disappointment. Back in the days the expectations and hype built up a bit too much since the game was very much delayed. And for many people the end result looked like it was just GP2 + wet weather + 3D-acceleration. Personally I don't agree, because as I said above, driving (with a racing wheel) is a lot more enjoyable in GP3 than it was in GP2. And in my mind the driving is the most important thing in a racing game.

Too Difficult to Mod?

GP2 was quite simple to mod, bitmaps of the cars and helmets were simple and I remember how I spent hours upon hours on editing the cars. I never tried to edit anything in Grand Prix 3 but I've heard it's a lot more difficult. Of course this also affects how easy it's to keep the cars and drivers up to date so the game got old pretty fast if up to date cars were important to you.

Having said that, there are season mods in GP3 and a community that keeps editing the game. However if you're into modding yourself but don't like it too complicated then GP2 is probably a better choice.

Performance

As they all, this game also needed a monstrous PC to run decently. I remember how I had to turn all the graphics down in order to be able to play without slow-motion.

Compatibility issues with Windows 10 and other mordern OS:s.

Of course it kills your interest to the game if it doesn't work! Today the game has got a lot of issues on modern computers and I myself have not been able to get it to work with Windows 10. I get it up and running but it crashes to the desktop randomly. And yes! I've tried literally everything! So if you have any good tips I've already tried them :D I like to run 100% races so random crashes are not really an option.

At the moment it seems that I managed to get the thing to work. I went on and installed Windows 7 to an old computer of mine. The game runs fine and hasn't crashed yet. I haven't tested it too much though so fingers crossed. Some people say it doesn't work with Windows 7 either or the performance is awful so I might be just lucky here.

Grand Prix 4

Of course when GP4 came out GP3 was forgotten. Because why would you play GP3 when there's GP4? Also GP4 has stood the test of time a lot better because the graphics engine is more adaptable and the game works ok with modern computers and even with Windows 10. Also high resolutions are supported and you can even play with a triple monitor setup.

The evolution of the F1 GP series goes from F1GP to GP4 where F1GP is the first reasonable F1 sim ever, GP2 the first one with realistic physics, GP3 the next step with force feedback and dynamic weather and GP4 is the final product. So it's kinda understandable that GP3 is the loser in this pack.

But I'm really looking forward to my hardcore season with GP3! Hopefully it runs fine with Windows 7 so I can live-stream it on YouTube like I originally wanted to.