Yep agree 100% Although I wish I had known about the physics patch that GPLaps used during the last NR2003 video (at Phoenix). I'm not sure how recently that came out, but for me that was the only way it gets even better.
I remember when it came out and thinking "man, I can't imagine how realistic this will get 20 years from now"..... Boy I really couldn't imagine that the best thing out there is a modified version of NASCAR racing (in iRacing).
I was a beta tester for Nascar 4, still have my box with autographs from the entire team. Dale Jr and Kevin Harvick were also testers with us. Those were some fun races online
I started with N2 and Ten network, I remember pickup racing with TJ Major, and in a league with Justin Marks. They were just a couple tween punks That Jr. took a liking to. That tells you how much this game affects NASCAR today.
@@kurtheidel6535 I started about the same time. I missed the Hawaii days. Played the most in N3 and helped with Flashpoint Racing, Onlineracin, BH Motorsports and some others. Helped with N4 (including writing an app for them to launch online races). I started dropping out with N2003 and only played iRacing a little bit. Have no time for all of this like I used to. Was also part of the "general discussion" group that used to be the hangout for all the old timers
@@scotttruehart8024 this is the second time they've done something on Roblox, and in my opinion neither was great. Just a standard Roblox cash grab event. The unlicensed Nascar games on Roblox aren't good either
The bulk of the mods I remember for N4 were track conversions from GPL. I basically skipped NR2002 but I spent a ton of time on N4 and NR2003. I'm happy you went back to look at old reviews. People were NOT that impressed by the changes between each, although I think Papyrus did everything they could to tweak things in the right direction.
This video brought back some memories. Me and my racing buddy spent a lot of time racing with Papyrus. They really understood what racing was all about. My racing buddy has passed away from cancer unfortunately. I wish so much that he could have seen GT7. Oh well that's life.
Other than the blob in the grandstands, this is still a nice looking game 22 years later. It took the Project Wildfire folks to finally address the awful looking crowds in NASCAR 2003 with their unofficial (but sanctioned by Papyrus as they were closing up shop) homebrew patch that also added the pit stall tape markings on pit road.
NR2003 is what I play now, but NR4 was the nascar game of my childhood. Playing in my dad's office with his bright yellow Logitech wingman formula wheel with no FFB and only a 180 degree steering radius. Seeing that UI scratched my nostalgia in some kinda way man
The sheer feeling of raw, brutal speed on NR4 is demented, it was somehow lost on NR 2003 and even more on iRacing. It really feels and even looks like driving a 3000 pounds box but it's actually a rocket, or vice-versa.
I did some tweaking and got restrictor plate racing pretty fun on NR2003. I enjoy that it takes nearly 20 laps of a 60 lap race to climb from 40th to 20th while being two or three wide. I had some great races, but could never win the Daytona 500 in my career that I ran on there (over 15 seasons long). I was leading off of turn 4 on the inside on the last lap and got passed on the outside by Ryan Blaney and lost by .020. It was a blast.
Did some of the same in Nas4... how my fingers would go numb and felt like you get vertigo in a sense from staring and focusing so carefully and being on edge the entire time. It really was a blast.
Another really good sim was Dirt Track Racing 2. It was so accurate drivers were using it off season to keep in practice and test new setups for their late model dirt cars.
This was the first and last NASCAR game I played, and I was both impressed with how good it was and also how difficult it was. I also really enjoyed the road courses. Sadly I pretty much lost interest in NASCAR a while after Earnhardt's death and I never really got back into it. But NASCAR Racing 4 sure brings back a lot of nostalgia.
I agree with you GP. After NASCAR racing 2003, every single NASCAR game since then has been nothing but crap. NASCAR racing 2003 was genuinely the last greatest of the NASCAR game series.
I remember being so blown away by Nascar 4s gameplay and physics. And my computer could barely play it and the controls had to be mapped so weird since I didn't have a wheel or controller
I remember reading somewhere, that the plan was always to use the GPL engine for Nascar 3, however the people at Sierra, and even within Papyrus were scared that the difficulty of GPL would transfer to the Stock Cars and scare off potential customers. So they decided to just upgrade the graphics side of Nascar 3 and keep the old physics engine. However when they built a test Stock Car into GPL the game just worked and made a really amazing driving simulation of one, they just couldn't convince management that the game would be better for it.
So fun to watch! Lots of memories. I started racing NASCAR online with NASCAR racing 1. It was a beta online called the Hawaii project. I was hooked. I had the first Thomas Super Wheel made and raced Online through NASCAR racing 2003. Many leagues and many different teammates. So much fun. Would love to see more of these videos.
This was my first nascar PC game and I got it in 2001 and played it literally every day for 8 years until the disk broke. I drove thousands of hours at Daytona cuz it was fun and drove a lot at bristol
I loved the reference of Nascar racing 3. The 19 year old me was so disappointed because, as you rightly say, it was a shinier NR1/NR2. I remember I even sent a complaint email to Papyrus or Sierra 🤣🤣
Every year during Daytona 500 race week, there's at least one hideous crash. Sam Mayer nearly became the next Ryan Newman this year. Half the reason for that is because nobody can get out of anyone else's way or run away from anyone else. "Three wide, ten rows deep" is creeping dread masquerading as excitement. Spread-out cars slingshotting each other is ACTUAL racing.
If I remember correctly, this type of superspeedway racing carried over into NR2002, and as you mentioned, changed for NR2003 to make more pack racing.
I played 4 but I was 12 in 2001 and just couldn’t figure it out. Major step up in difficulty from nascar 3. I then got 2002 and finally got my head wrapped around it.
i like to race on watkins glen circuit, you really have to muscle the big cars around the corners and bounce em' over the chicane at the top of the hill :)
Use to play Racing 4 all the time when I was in kindergarten up until about 8th grade. I still have it along with a few other pc games just collecting dust on a shelf in my basement but they are still too sentimental for me to get rid of just yet all these years later
damn, I miss the old nascar racing series. And that was really in the infancy of most people having home computers and decent internet connections. Seemed so far ahead of its time to be able to race with other people across the world
Great video and a good point. I remember Nascar 4 made a lot of us Papyrus fans feel like we were finally keeping up. We always had the physics, but EA and Monster began making better looking games (at the time). Nascar 4 was mind blowing though. You finally had Daytona and Indy in the stock game. You could finally get airborne. Thanks for reminding a generation of this gem!
I think some of the issue with the pit entry is probably the strategy changes on the AI ratings. I'd suggest looking at that since if they're all the same it will make everyone pretty much pit on the same lap as far as I can tell.
Another really great overlooked sim is the original NASCAR Heat PC version. It had the best AI at that time. You were able to bump and lean on each (you vs AI) other without you spinning out. Unfortunately they decided to start making console versions and it all went bad after that.
My first sim was NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition, and I stuck with Papyrus to the end. My best memories of N4 were the initial version, where a physics bug made it too easy to Ross Chastain any track, and one time flipping off track at Pocono, my car still running, and then just driving around outside the track, totally bemused XD
PREACH. I never had NR2003 but grew up on all the others... 2, 99, 3, 4, and NR02. I remember 4 feeling so groundbreaking to play, it was the first time you could flip. Compared to 3 it was night and day, then of course 02 was even better with the Coca Cola track. 03 gets all the love but 4 is where it's at!
NR2003 was by far my all time favorite racing game/sim - but N4 is special in that it was the first PC racing game I got, and the first one that even sparked my interest in PC racing (I still remember seeing the magazine 2-page ad for it, thinking, WOW this is way better than Nintendo). Can't remember how many times I also listened to the DW track tutorials while I was figuring out how to drive around Talladega for the first time (in my defense I was 12 lol). Good memories, thanks for posting this video.
NASCAR Racing 4 was my absolute favorite of all the Papyrus sims. It was such a different game than the previous titles and had great physics. This was also the first game I realized that you could download add on cars and tracks as well as finding the online community, which I've remained active in ever since then.
This brought back some nostalgia. I still have my copy of this game, though it's been a long time since I've played it. As an Earnhardt fan I enjoyed that I got to race against him in the game. I'm by no means great at the game, so I never turned the AI all the way up. What I often did was set like a 35% distance race at Rockingham or Bristol and turned off cautions in a race where I started from the rear and would try to keep my car together to get to the front and dodge all of the AI wrecks--especially at Rockingham there always seemed to be a big AI wreck on the backstretch on the 1st lap.
First sim I raced online with, me and the gang at NORL had amazing league racing on the superspeedways and 1.5 milers. The sim was really accessible and the league did a great job of keeping the game alive til about 3 or 4 years ago now. I remember too as late as 2014 we were still getting 15+ racers on the speedways. Was so much fun
The only major problem with the series is that it ended the year before Nascar's rule change: racing to the line after a yellow was in it's last year. The game is great but what would have made it perfect would have been if they had released just 1 more iteration of the game with the new rule that froze the field when the yellow comes out. The issue is in nr2003 there can be a wreck, which is normal, but after the yellow comes out the cars race to the line recklessly like it was the final lap, and will many times create more wrecks or just crash into previous pileups. So with one incident sometimes half the field is out. Some tweaks can help with the cars slowing down on yellow but it would have been great if we had an official nr2004 or nr2005 with new rules.
Lol, that pit stop was wild I used to drive like this, constantly buffeting around. Someone told me to try steering 100% linearity and use 20%steering assist. Game changer for me. I suddenly felt in control. (Find both under 'advanced' in steering.
One of the biggest misses they made when moving to the GPL engine was getting rid of AI spins; in Nascar 1through 3, the AI can sometimes spin, but they must have not liked the artifcial hard-coded way they implemented that so they got rid of it in NR4 and never brought it back. Self-spinning is such a thing in Nascar that I think NR4 through NR2003 really really hurt for it--the games are still amazing, definitely, but I wish the AI could still fuck up and cause accidents that way. They can still slide up into each other and wreck that way but you'll never see them spin unless the AI line for the track is completely messed up so bad they can't even get around the course.
I’m 55 and I played Papyrus 2002 and 2003 NASCAR Racing on my parents beat up junker Hewlett-Packard desk top back in the early 2000,s. I can’t believe how laughable the NASCAR games are now 20 yrs later. Devs should hang their heads in shame. So ridiculous. 😢
I actually have never played NR2003 because I snapped up NR4 when it came out and just stuck with that. I loved the hell out of that game. I haven't touched it in years but man, I felt like I would never get tired of it. Even if I started to get bored of actually trying to race I could just see how many cars I could get airborne on the superspeedways, or how high I could jump my car over that one berm at Sears Point.
Dale Jr, Sterling Marlin, Bill Elliot, and several others back there should have been near the front. The AI ratings definitely needed tweaking. 2000 was Kenseth's rookie season.
Great video; it brought back great memories of when I first played NR4. I had NR3 and downloaded the Daytona track for it, but I was mind blown when I played NR4 the first timeown. Joe
I just got into NR2003 in 2022... but i really enjoyed 4 more when growing up. I forget exactly what .ini tweaks i did but I had AWESOME Daytona and Bristol racing on it
I remember the demo or N4 showed up on a PC Gamer (I think it was?) disc over here. N3/Trucks got glowing 10-20% reviews because of the engine bugs, but N4 got genuinely good reviews in the UK press. This was aroun the time our Rockingham got built, CART was over here and ASCAR/ASCAR Days of Thunder (yes that was a short lived name for the series) got a cult following, as did the pickups, and became SCSA that's tie into ASA and loosely, Euro NSASCAR Back to the N4 demo. It was, and I don't know if it was track choice, but I could just lap Dover or hours trying to get the perfect line, and not sure why. N2002/NR2003 demos never grabbed me in the same way honestly, but I think part of it was Dover showed off the engine in a great way with a track that unlike Talladega in NR2003, you had to really drive as far as Dover went, Richmond in NR2002, you didn't have to in the same way I feel is part of it.
I found my old and pristine copy of NR2003 in my garage, if it wasn't for my Pokemon Crystal cart it would be the most valuable game in my collection 😆
I discovered nr2003 in 2007. The number of hours I spent tweaking the game, installing cars/series, addons, tweaking tracks... must be in the thousands over the years. Due to time and work, I stopped playing then made a stupid mistake while rebuilding a new computer and lost it all. I downloaded it again just to be sure I have it in the future one day when I get more time or when I retire. It was/is a must have in racing, especially for oval racing. No other sim does oval racing well. AI needs some tweaking but there are some files out there. With modern day gpus and cpus and all the mods/addons it looks pretty good and in hd. And there are also great road circuits (Infineon, Watkins Glen...). Must have.
it's crazy that they used to just discard these games after only one year, they still do it with F1, iracing sure is not perfect but I like the idea of having one "game" that is perpetually updated, wish other racing games followed a similar model, sequels like AMS2 and rFactor 2/ACC really seem to kill momentum and userbase.
I'm a late adapter to most consoles not made by Nintendo and got F1 2021 when I got an XBOX One and I've enjoyed it enough to stick with it instead of upgrading to '22 or '23.
N4 and Nascar 1999 edition are still the only papyrus games I own and play, always wanted to get NR2003 but never had the chance or the need to. N4 is a blast and always has been. I do have to say, those are not the stock engine sounds for N4, what sounds file did you get installed?
Nothing better than being 5 years old playing this game driving backwards around the oval and smoking the leaders head on. Older cousins used to hate me. Great time though.
if i remember right, try not using the breaks as much as possible, adjust air pressures based on tire wear indicators and how high the pressure rises to force more friction on that green left front tire
2:11 I highly doubt that Sierra told Papyrus games not to use the GPL engine I watched a interview recently with Ken and Roberta Williams, and Ken was all about acquiring game studios that focused on one type of game and where the best in there field. He spoke at length about Papyrus and what geniuses he felt that they where. The founders of Papyrus went on to create iRacing, the first iterations of iRacing where built on top of the source code of NASCAR Racing 2003.
I still have all this stuff packed away, original discs and instruction manuals as well as all the downloadable content I could get for all these racing sim games.
This game is so much fun. I played it for the first time ever today for hours. I put it on arcade mode and easiest difficulty and it's like playing an expanded version of Daytona USA but with really good controls. I haven't had this much fun with a pc racer since GTR2.
Hi, sorry for digging up this old video, but I just found my old disc and installed this game (in Linux using Proton and OpenGL - runs nicely out of the box and even supports my old force feedback wheel) and I was just wondering how you got these insane crisp graphics. It looks like you're running at well beyond 1600x1200 even though you cropped to video to 16:9. Did the setup program offer you to select such a higher resolution or are you using some additional anti-aliasing tools or settings? I'm only able to select up to 1600x1200 which gives me horrible jaggies in the background and standard Nvidia OpenGL AA-override settings don't seem to be working. Thanks a lot and great video!
I remember getting this game in 2001 and my computer was not ready for it so I returned the game to Babbages. Finally had a new PC that was able for 2002.
The main problem with NR4 was that the AI was just broken on short tracks. Racing at Martinsville or Bristol was just impossible as the game would quickly devolve into a massive pile-up as the pace car (not yet ghosted) would plough through the wreck lap after lap. I remember at Martinsville one AI car got stuck on top of the pace car as it slowly lapped for 100+ laps of yellow. What a mess.
Wonderful nostalgia. I must admit to dropping NR4 like a hot potato when NR2003 surfaced. But there's no denying that it was a wonderful performer. Won't keep me away from my staple diet of iRacing AI Nascar, but thanks for evoking some great memories of so many hours playing this sim.
take the race, minrace, and maxrace LPs from NR4 and replace default LPs for daytona/dega in NR2003. bump ai_dlongpad_scale to 100. optional: add a smidge of ai_squeeze_pcnt for some variability. enjoy!
Gotta say, at least on this Nascar Racing 4 it doesn't feel that the way to go up the pack is to stick to the low side of the track, but the up lane feels possible
Ok Jake, I gotta ask again how many takes did this one take to get this final race? That pit entry was insane, the luck you had threading the needle right into the box was so cool to see from cockpit and then the external. WOW
In this video NASCAR Racing 4 actually looks better than 2003. The colors and the contrast are better. Do you have the graphics turned down. I noticed in your other 2003 video that it was missing the shadows from the catch fence on the car. Anyway, I bought NR4 early enough to get the version with Dale Earnhardt still on the box and in the game. He got patched out of the game later though. I didn't buy 2002 Season or 2003 Season when they came out because I thought it was silly to buy the same game over again just for newer liveries. It wasn't until much later that I saw 2003 in a bargain bin for like 6 bucks and decided to go ahead and get it.
I think it was 1999, 2000 I picked up together in late 2001, and f course grabbing and 2003 about 6 months after it’s release …I was blown away back then, heck, they had animated pit crews 😮 and still, even today looking back at this, ahhh, the memories, it was just after the turning of the millennium, 2001’ish and having a friend in the PC business, my $3000 got me what would be considered a hot rod back in the day, running Win 98, Pentium III PC133 ram… 27” Samsung CRT Sync-master true Flat screen and creative labs surround sound with sub..hell, internet was dial up, speed was measured in kbps … with all that I was blown away..and now broke mind you..but amazed nonetheless 😮
I have not played Nascar Racing 4 but I will say I prefer Nascar Racing 3 over NR2003. This is simply because I find Nascar Racing 3 much easier to control than NR2003! This is likely me being incompetent but I have just finished a Nascar Racing 3 truck championship, full damage, full distance, 97% and got five wins. In contrast, my struggles controlling the car in NR2003 leaves me needing set the ai to about 92%.
P sure I was the only person that played this in the U.K. (maybe not, but felt like it) I raced online over dial up but may have been an older Papyrus game. So many great memories of it. Except the warping into each other during online play, funny as that was.
Just wait until you find out about the texture updates and add-on tracks. I put way too much love and time into N4, the online racing in arcade was some of the best casual yet fun racing you could get, only issue was the netcode being well 2001 netcode. I still think N4 is more fun to drive than NR2003 but, 2003 has more options and that extra level of polish. Kinda surprised you didn't run across more of the community work for the sim. I wish there was a car on iRacing as fun and competitive to race as N4 was. Long live N4!
Dude lower your tire psi and you won't slide up like that omg. Also I'm the "papy ai guru" and I owned nascar 2, 2002, and 2003 and my biggest gripe with 03 is the weak draft. This game looks on point though. Will DEFINATELY pick up a copy and mod it now.
I had N2, 3, 4, 2002 & 2003 plus the truck add on for N3, plus Nascar Legends....I had issues getting Nascar to work on a Windows 10 PC, only 2003 would run, I how have a W11 PC & should give it another go but new PC's don't have CD/DVD drives.
I had the big box version of nascar racing 4 but never got to play it, I always had old hand me down computer until 2002 but I owned. all of them dove nascar racing 2
It's been 20 years since NR2003. Imagine going back 20 years and telling someone back there that it never gets better. Ever.
Agree, but I think it still is a really good sim
NR2003 is the best! So immersive.
Truly sad... Wish iRacing would spend some time making a singleplayer game (even though I'm subscribed)
Yep agree 100% Although I wish I had known about the physics patch that GPLaps used during the last NR2003 video (at Phoenix). I'm not sure how recently that came out, but for me that was the only way it gets even better.
I remember when it came out and thinking "man, I can't imagine how realistic this will get 20 years from now"..... Boy I really couldn't imagine that the best thing out there is a modified version of NASCAR racing (in iRacing).
I was a beta tester for Nascar 4, still have my box with autographs from the entire team. Dale Jr and Kevin Harvick were also testers with us. Those were some fun races online
I started with N2 and Ten network, I remember pickup racing with TJ Major, and in a league with Justin Marks. They were just a couple tween punks That Jr. took a liking to. That tells you how much this game affects NASCAR today.
@@kurtheidel6535 I started about the same time. I missed the Hawaii days. Played the most in N3 and helped with Flashpoint Racing, Onlineracin, BH Motorsports and some others. Helped with N4 (including writing an app for them to launch online races). I started dropping out with N2003 and only played iRacing a little bit. Have no time for all of this like I used to. Was also part of the "general discussion" group that used to be the hangout for all the old timers
The fact that NASCAR fans have been searching for a better NASCAR game for 20 years now is depressing.
Yeah, and now Nascar is officially in Roblox 🙄
Ridiculous that it's gotten to this point.
@@scotttruehart8024 this is the second time they've done something on Roblox, and in my opinion neither was great. Just a standard Roblox cash grab event. The unlicensed Nascar games on Roblox aren't good either
That was indeed Stacy Compton in the Melling #92. His crew chief that year was some kid from Illinois named Knaus...wonder what ever became of him...
speaking of compton i went to that link to download the extra cars and was confused at why he wasnt there
The bulk of the mods I remember for N4 were track conversions from GPL. I basically skipped NR2002 but I spent a ton of time on N4 and NR2003. I'm happy you went back to look at old reviews. People were NOT that impressed by the changes between each, although I think Papyrus did everything they could to tweak things in the right direction.
This video brought back some memories. Me and my racing buddy spent a lot of time racing with Papyrus. They really understood what racing was all about. My racing buddy has passed away from cancer unfortunately. I wish so much that he could have seen GT7. Oh well that's life.
Dang
Yeah...and death. Bummer.
Sorry to hear about your loss, mate.
Other than the blob in the grandstands, this is still a nice looking game 22 years later. It took the Project Wildfire folks to finally address the awful looking crowds in NASCAR 2003 with their unofficial (but sanctioned by Papyrus as they were closing up shop) homebrew patch that also added the pit stall tape markings on pit road.
That pit entry was wild. "You're on the outside, six wide."
NR2003 is what I play now, but NR4 was the nascar game of my childhood. Playing in my dad's office with his bright yellow Logitech wingman formula wheel with no FFB and only a 180 degree steering radius. Seeing that UI scratched my nostalgia in some kinda way man
The sheer feeling of raw, brutal speed on NR4 is demented, it was somehow lost on NR 2003 and even more on iRacing. It really feels and even looks like driving a 3000 pounds box but it's actually a rocket, or vice-versa.
I did some tweaking and got restrictor plate racing pretty fun on NR2003. I enjoy that it takes nearly 20 laps of a 60 lap race to climb from 40th to 20th while being two or three wide. I had some great races, but could never win the Daytona 500 in my career that I ran on there (over 15 seasons long). I was leading off of turn 4 on the inside on the last lap and got passed on the outside by Ryan Blaney and lost by .020. It was a blast.
Did some of the same in Nas4... how my fingers would go numb and felt like you get vertigo in a sense from staring and focusing so carefully and being on edge the entire time. It really was a blast.
Another really good sim was Dirt Track Racing 2. It was so accurate drivers were using it off season to keep in practice and test new setups for their late model dirt cars.
made here in Adelaide SA, by ratbag if i remember rightly.
They also made a really good offroad stadium racing game called leadfoot offroad racing.
This was the first and last NASCAR game I played, and I was both impressed with how good it was and also how difficult it was. I also really enjoyed the road courses. Sadly I pretty much lost interest in NASCAR a while after Earnhardt's death and I never really got back into it. But NASCAR Racing 4 sure brings back a lot of nostalgia.
I agree with you GP. After NASCAR racing 2003, every single NASCAR game since then has been nothing but crap. NASCAR racing 2003 was genuinely the last greatest of the NASCAR game series.
I remember being so blown away by Nascar 4s gameplay and physics. And my computer could barely play it and the controls had to be mapped so weird since I didn't have a wheel or controller
I remember reading somewhere, that the plan was always to use the GPL engine for Nascar 3, however the people at Sierra, and even within Papyrus were scared that the difficulty of GPL would transfer to the Stock Cars and scare off potential customers. So they decided to just upgrade the graphics side of Nascar 3 and keep the old physics engine. However when they built a test Stock Car into GPL the game just worked and made a really amazing driving simulation of one, they just couldn't convince management that the game would be better for it.
So fun to watch! Lots of memories. I started racing NASCAR online with NASCAR racing 1. It was a beta online called the Hawaii project. I was hooked. I had the first Thomas Super Wheel made and raced Online through NASCAR racing 2003. Many leagues and many different teammates. So much fun. Would love to see more of these videos.
This was my first nascar PC game and I got it in 2001 and played it literally every day for 8 years until the disk broke. I drove thousands of hours at Daytona cuz it was fun and drove a lot at bristol
I loved the reference of Nascar racing 3. The 19 year old me was so disappointed because, as you rightly say, it was a shinier NR1/NR2.
I remember I even sent a complaint email to Papyrus or Sierra 🤣🤣
Every year during Daytona 500 race week, there's at least one hideous crash. Sam Mayer nearly became the next Ryan Newman this year. Half the reason for that is because nobody can get out of anyone else's way or run away from anyone else.
"Three wide, ten rows deep" is creeping dread masquerading as excitement. Spread-out cars slingshotting each other is ACTUAL racing.
If I remember correctly, this type of superspeedway racing carried over into NR2002, and as you mentioned, changed for NR2003 to make more pack racing.
I played 4 but I was 12 in 2001 and just couldn’t figure it out. Major step up in difficulty from nascar 3.
I then got 2002 and finally got my head wrapped around it.
i like to race on watkins glen circuit, you really have to muscle the big cars around the corners and bounce em' over the chicane at the top of the hill :)
Use to play Racing 4 all the time when I was in kindergarten up until about 8th grade. I still have it along with a few other pc games just collecting dust on a shelf in my basement but they are still too sentimental for me to get rid of just yet all these years later
damn, I miss the old nascar racing series. And that was really in the infancy of most people having home computers and decent internet connections. Seemed so far ahead of its time to be able to race with other people across the world
Great video and a good point. I remember Nascar 4 made a lot of us Papyrus fans feel like we were finally keeping up. We always had the physics, but EA and Monster began making better looking games (at the time). Nascar 4 was mind blowing though. You finally had Daytona and Indy in the stock game. You could finally get airborne. Thanks for reminding a generation of this gem!
I think some of the issue with the pit entry is probably the strategy changes on the AI ratings. I'd suggest looking at that since if they're all the same it will make everyone pretty much pit on the same lap as far as I can tell.
Another really great overlooked sim is the original NASCAR Heat PC version. It had the best AI at that time. You were able to bump and lean on each (you vs AI) other without you spinning out. Unfortunately they decided to start making console versions and it all went bad after that.
Heat was good, the garage was good, AI racing was great.
My first sim was NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition, and I stuck with Papyrus to the end. My best memories of N4 were the initial version, where a physics bug made it too easy to Ross Chastain any track, and one time flipping off track at Pocono, my car still running, and then just driving around outside the track, totally bemused XD
N4 was my first Papyrus game and I still have the disc for it. such a fun game/Sim
Also the biggest change is Fred Jones in the 83 Dodge
PREACH. I never had NR2003 but grew up on all the others... 2, 99, 3, 4, and NR02. I remember 4 feeling so groundbreaking to play, it was the first time you could flip. Compared to 3 it was night and day, then of course 02 was even better with the Coca Cola track. 03 gets all the love but 4 is where it's at!
NR2003 was by far my all time favorite racing game/sim - but N4 is special in that it was the first PC racing game I got, and the first one that even sparked my interest in PC racing (I still remember seeing the magazine 2-page ad for it, thinking, WOW this is way better than Nintendo).
Can't remember how many times I also listened to the DW track tutorials while I was figuring out how to drive around Talladega for the first time (in my defense I was 12 lol). Good memories, thanks for posting this video.
NASCAR Racing 4 was my absolute favorite of all the Papyrus sims. It was such a different game than the previous titles and had great physics. This was also the first game I realized that you could download add on cars and tracks as well as finding the online community, which I've remained active in ever since then.
This brought back some nostalgia. I still have my copy of this game, though it's been a long time since I've played it. As an Earnhardt fan I enjoyed that I got to race against him in the game. I'm by no means great at the game, so I never turned the AI all the way up. What I often did was set like a 35% distance race at Rockingham or Bristol and turned off cautions in a race where I started from the rear and would try to keep my car together to get to the front and dodge all of the AI wrecks--especially at Rockingham there always seemed to be a big AI wreck on the backstretch on the 1st lap.
First sim I raced online with, me and the gang at NORL had amazing league racing on the superspeedways and 1.5 milers. The sim was really accessible and the league did a great job of keeping the game alive til about 3 or 4 years ago now. I remember too as late as 2014 we were still getting 15+ racers on the speedways. Was so much fun
I love this channel, covering the golden age of racing games... RBR, NR2003, GPL etc.
The only major problem with the series is that it ended the year before Nascar's rule change: racing to the line after a yellow was in it's last year. The game is great but what would have made it perfect would have been if they had released just 1 more iteration of the game with the new rule that froze the field when the yellow comes out. The issue is in nr2003 there can be a wreck, which is normal, but after the yellow comes out the cars race to the line recklessly like it was the final lap, and will many times create more wrecks or just crash into previous pileups. So with one incident sometimes half the field is out. Some tweaks can help with the cars slowing down on yellow but it would have been great if we had an official nr2004 or nr2005 with new rules.
Lol, that pit stop was wild
I used to drive like this, constantly buffeting around.
Someone told me to try steering 100% linearity and use 20%steering assist.
Game changer for me. I suddenly felt in control. (Find both under 'advanced' in steering.
I was never a huge Jeff Gordon fan but he was/is really really good. You just don’t get many people like that in any sport.
NASCAR 4 was the first sim I raced on a computer. Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.
You have the best material on UA-cam, BY FAR!!! I’d love to see you do some seasons with this game.
One of the biggest misses they made when moving to the GPL engine was getting rid of AI spins; in Nascar 1through 3, the AI can sometimes spin, but they must have not liked the artifcial hard-coded way they implemented that so they got rid of it in NR4 and never brought it back. Self-spinning is such a thing in Nascar that I think NR4 through NR2003 really really hurt for it--the games are still amazing, definitely, but I wish the AI could still fuck up and cause accidents that way. They can still slide up into each other and wreck that way but you'll never see them spin unless the AI line for the track is completely messed up so bad they can't even get around the course.
I’m 55 and I played Papyrus 2002 and 2003 NASCAR Racing on my parents beat up junker Hewlett-Packard desk top back in the early 2000,s. I can’t believe how laughable the NASCAR games are now 20 yrs later. Devs should hang their heads in shame. So ridiculous. 😢
I would love another video like this. These cars are so fun to watch the way they get the runs!
love your videos, man. thank you for your care and attention to detail
Man what a throwback. I used to have nascar racing 2 with a wheel back in the day.
I have vague memories of watching my brother playing this game on our home computer. Glad to see its getting some love.
I actually have never played NR2003 because I snapped up NR4 when it came out and just stuck with that. I loved the hell out of that game. I haven't touched it in years but man, I felt like I would never get tired of it. Even if I started to get bored of actually trying to race I could just see how many cars I could get airborne on the superspeedways, or how high I could jump my car over that one berm at Sears Point.
Dale Jr, Sterling Marlin, Bill Elliot, and several others back there should have been near the front. The AI ratings definitely needed tweaking. 2000 was Kenseth's rookie season.
Great video; it brought back great memories of when I first played NR4. I had NR3 and downloaded the Daytona track for it, but I was mind blown when I played NR4 the first timeown.
Joe
Not a huge NASCAR fan, but this was riveting to watch. Might try this if I get an itch for oval racing.
I just got into NR2003 in 2022... but i really enjoyed 4 more when growing up. I forget exactly what .ini tweaks i did but I had AWESOME Daytona and Bristol racing on it
Just recently found your channel, loving all the historic racing content! Hope to catch your next stream live.
I remember the demo or N4 showed up on a PC Gamer (I think it was?) disc over here. N3/Trucks got glowing 10-20% reviews because of the engine bugs, but N4 got genuinely good reviews in the UK press. This was aroun the time our Rockingham got built, CART was over here and ASCAR/ASCAR Days of Thunder (yes that was a short lived name for the series) got a cult following, as did the pickups, and became SCSA that's tie into ASA and loosely, Euro NSASCAR
Back to the N4 demo. It was, and I don't know if it was track choice, but I could just lap Dover or hours trying to get the perfect line, and not sure why. N2002/NR2003 demos never grabbed me in the same way honestly, but I think part of it was Dover showed off the engine in a great way with a track that unlike Talladega in NR2003, you had to really drive as far as Dover went, Richmond in NR2002, you didn't have to in the same way I feel is part of it.
its abandonware now. still better than 95/100 of the newest racing games released since then
I found my old and pristine copy of NR2003 in my garage, if it wasn't for my Pokemon Crystal cart it would be the most valuable game in my collection 😆
I discovered nr2003 in 2007. The number of hours I spent tweaking the game, installing cars/series, addons, tweaking tracks... must be in the thousands over the years. Due to time and work, I stopped playing then made a stupid mistake while rebuilding a new computer and lost it all. I downloaded it again just to be sure I have it in the future one day when I get more time or when I retire. It was/is a must have in racing, especially for oval racing. No other sim does oval racing well. AI needs some tweaking but there are some files out there. With modern day gpus and cpus and all the mods/addons it looks pretty good and in hd. And there are also great road circuits (Infineon, Watkins Glen...). Must have.
it's crazy that they used to just discard these games after only one year, they still do it with F1, iracing sure is not perfect but I like the idea of having one "game" that is perpetually updated, wish other racing games followed a similar model, sequels like AMS2 and rFactor 2/ACC really seem to kill momentum and userbase.
I'm a late adapter to most consoles not made by Nintendo and got F1 2021 when I got an XBOX One and I've enjoyed it enough to stick with it instead of upgrading to '22 or '23.
The thing I remember most about N4 is how awesome the tutorials were.
N4 and Nascar 1999 edition are still the only papyrus games I own and play, always wanted to get NR2003 but never had the chance or the need to. N4 is a blast and always has been. I do have to say, those are not the stock engine sounds for N4, what sounds file did you get installed?
Nothing better than being 5 years old playing this game driving backwards around the oval and smoking the leaders head on. Older cousins used to hate me. Great time though.
Great video! How did you get that amazing resolution?
PAPYRUS foi simplesmente a MELHOR desenvolvedora dos jogos da NASCAR. 👏👏👏👏👏
Milagre achar alguém aqui do Brasil rsrs
@@leandrosouza9875 Pois é amigo. Sou fanático pela NASCAR. Abraço 👍
@@leonardoholanda2250 e hoje tem Daytona.
Start your engines.
Abraço
@@leandrosouza9875 Estou sabendo sim, amigo! DAYTONA é simplesmente INIGUALÁVEL 👍
if i remember right, try not using the breaks as much as possible, adjust air pressures based on tire wear indicators and how high the pressure rises to force more friction on that green left front tire
and water temperature vs grille tape percentage
2:11 I highly doubt that Sierra told Papyrus games not to use the GPL engine I watched a interview recently with Ken and Roberta Williams, and Ken was all about acquiring game studios that focused on one type of game and where the best in there field. He spoke at length about Papyrus and what geniuses he felt that they where. The founders of Papyrus went on to create iRacing, the first iterations of iRacing where built on top of the source code of NASCAR Racing 2003.
I still have all this stuff packed away, original discs and instruction manuals as well as all the downloadable content I could get for all these racing sim games.
Another excellent video. Really makes me want to try this one I race nr2003 all the time along with iRacing.
When NASCAR Thunder 2002 wasn't released for the PC and I didn't have a PS2, I got NASCAR 4 and enjoyed it!
The key to early 00s video game super speedway racing was: find the 8 and run with him.
I loved that you could use a qualifying engine in NR4.
This game is so much fun. I played it for the first time ever today for hours. I put it on arcade mode and easiest difficulty and it's like playing an expanded version of Daytona USA but with really good controls. I haven't had this much fun with a pc racer since GTR2.
Hi, sorry for digging up this old video, but I just found my old disc and installed this game (in Linux using Proton and OpenGL - runs nicely out of the box and even supports my old force feedback wheel) and I was just wondering how you got these insane crisp graphics. It looks like you're running at well beyond 1600x1200 even though you cropped to video to 16:9. Did the setup program offer you to select such a higher resolution or are you using some additional anti-aliasing tools or settings? I'm only able to select up to 1600x1200 which gives me horrible jaggies in the background and standard Nvidia OpenGL AA-override settings don't seem to be working. Thanks a lot and great video!
2003 was by far and away the best nascar game ever made in my opinion. Loved the plate racing.
I remember getting this game in 2001 and my computer was not ready for it so I returned the game to Babbages. Finally had a new PC that was able for 2002.
Still have and play nascar 4. The paint booth was my favorite aspect.
The main problem with NR4 was that the AI was just broken on short tracks. Racing at Martinsville or Bristol was just impossible as the game would quickly devolve into a massive pile-up as the pace car (not yet ghosted) would plough through the wreck lap after lap. I remember at Martinsville one AI car got stuck on top of the pace car as it slowly lapped for 100+ laps of yellow. What a mess.
Latest patch for nr4 fix this short track problem. And also it improves some other AI behavior.
@@pavelzherebtsov2965 How "latest"? The official patches did not fix it.
@@azarisLP it was better but tbh NR2003 still has some of the same issues only real fix was ghost pace car.
Wonderful nostalgia. I must admit to dropping NR4 like a hot potato when NR2003 surfaced. But there's no denying that it was a wonderful performer. Won't keep me away from my staple diet of iRacing AI Nascar, but thanks for evoking some great memories of so many hours playing this sim.
take the race, minrace, and maxrace LPs from NR4 and replace default LPs for daytona/dega in NR2003. bump ai_dlongpad_scale to 100. optional: add a smidge of ai_squeeze_pcnt for some variability. enjoy!
Surprised there's no AI mod for NR2003 that brings back this AI
Awesome video! I was just wondering, How were you able to get NASCAR Racing 4? If you got it online where did you download it from?
wake up babe new GPLaps video
The best fun ever. My other favorite was monster truck madness 2.
Loved NASCAR 3. Wish I could play it again.
I got nascar thunder 03 and 04 there good too
Gotta say, at least on this Nascar Racing 4 it doesn't feel that the way to go up the pack is to stick to the low side of the track, but the up lane feels possible
Ok Jake, I gotta ask again how many takes did this one take to get this final race? That pit entry was insane, the luck you had threading the needle right into the box was so cool to see from cockpit and then the external. WOW
One take!!
@@GPLaps buy a lotto ticket you jammy git 🤣
In this video NASCAR Racing 4 actually looks better than 2003. The colors and the contrast are better. Do you have the graphics turned down. I noticed in your other 2003 video that it was missing the shadows from the catch fence on the car. Anyway, I bought NR4 early enough to get the version with Dale Earnhardt still on the box and in the game. He got patched out of the game later though. I didn't buy 2002 Season or 2003 Season when they came out because I thought it was silly to buy the same game over again just for newer liveries. It wasn't until much later that I saw 2003 in a bargain bin for like 6 bucks and decided to go ahead and get it.
When did you even find time to make this? I just finished watching your SRM rally.
I think it was 1999, 2000 I picked up together in late 2001, and f course grabbing and 2003 about 6 months after it’s release
…I was blown away back then, heck, they had animated pit crews 😮 and still, even today looking back at this, ahhh, the memories, it was just after the turning of the millennium, 2001’ish and having a friend in the PC business, my $3000 got me what would be considered a hot rod back in the day, running Win 98, Pentium III PC133 ram… 27” Samsung CRT Sync-master true Flat screen and creative labs surround sound with sub..hell, internet was dial up, speed was measured in kbps … with all that I was blown away..and now broke mind you..but amazed nonetheless 😮
I have not played Nascar Racing 4 but I will say I prefer Nascar Racing 3 over NR2003. This is simply because I find Nascar Racing 3 much easier to control than NR2003! This is likely me being incompetent but I have just finished a Nascar Racing 3 truck championship, full damage, full distance, 97% and got five wins. In contrast, my struggles controlling the car in NR2003 leaves me needing set the ai to about 92%.
P sure I was the only person that played this in the U.K. (maybe not, but felt like it)
I raced online over dial up but may have been an older Papyrus game. So many great memories of it. Except the warping into each other during online play, funny as that was.
Just wait until you find out about the texture updates and add-on tracks. I put way too much love and time into N4, the online racing in arcade was some of the best casual yet fun racing you could get, only issue was the netcode being well 2001 netcode. I still think N4 is more fun to drive than NR2003 but, 2003 has more options and that extra level of polish. Kinda surprised you didn't run across more of the community work for the sim. I wish there was a car on iRacing as fun and competitive to race as N4 was.
Long live N4!
Do you know where some of the addons and things are available?
Best fricking Nascar game I ever played or will play!
Dude lower your tire psi and you won't slide up like that omg.
Also I'm the "papy ai guru" and I owned nascar 2, 2002, and 2003 and my biggest gripe with 03 is the weak draft. This game looks on point though. Will DEFINATELY pick up a copy and mod it now.
NASCAR racing 4 is better than NASCAR heat and iracing.
This was the game that put PC sim racing ahead of the arcades graphically.
Max that front camber out :P Very fond memories of this time in sim racing.
Notice how sidedrafting actually works here?
Also the main race setup exacerbates RF tire wear by a ton, change weights to 50/50
I had N2, 3, 4, 2002 & 2003 plus the truck add on for N3, plus Nascar Legends....I had issues getting Nascar to work on a Windows 10 PC, only 2003 would run, I how have a W11 PC & should give it another go but new PC's don't have CD/DVD drives.
I had the big box version of nascar racing 4 but never got to play it, I always had old hand me down computer until 2002 but I owned. all of them dove nascar racing 2