Formula 1 '98

Race fast cars round in circles well enough to unlock an ellipse.

Due to the change in developers, this game is often considered as the worst officially licensed Formula One game, so Psygnosis changed developers yet again for the next game, Formula One 99.

To do: EU v1.0 and v1.1 differences There are two European demos, other one giving Oct 27 1998 date (found in e.x. Euro Demo 40) and the other giving Oct 28 1998 date (found in e.x. radicalgames@psygnosis v.3)

Unused Pictures#

Among the interstitial loading backgrounds are four copies of this image. It was used in the demo, but not in the final game.

These two images appear in Loading.vsr from the demo and European releases, but don't see the light of day in any of them. The file was removed for the US release.

Regional Differences#

To do: HUD has some differences.

• All volumes are 57% in default in Europe and 66% in North America. They also go to slightly different percentage values when changed.
• The default Grand Prix mode best times on all tracks and Arcade mode best times on bonus tracks are different in the North American version.
• North American version doesn't make you select the language before main menu, instead you have to select it manually if you want other than English.

Development Text#

Pressing Select on the Player/Game select screen prints a version and build date to the top of the screen.

EU v1.0:

Formula One -98-
Beta - 6.3.a - Build Date Oct 6 1998

EU v1.1:

Formula One -98-
Beta - 6.3.a - Build Date Oct 12 1998

NA:

Formula One -98-
Beta - 6.3.a - Build Date Nov 11 1998

The demo version has the same functionality and same 'Beta' and '6.3.a' designations so whether a beta was actually released as final or they just failed to update the string is debatable.

fe.exe contains various assert and other debugging related strings. Some of these strings can be seen when the game loads using PCSX's console output feature:

VSStackGuard == STACK_MAGIC
VS_MAIN.CPP
 F198 Initialisation
hRes != NULL
SO_3DMDL.CPP
pResBIN != NULL
pData != NULL
showloading
showunloading
PSX Input Devices
PSX Input Devices VBlank
LETSGOBARBIE
User VSR
Master Input Queue.
m_pReturnBuffer != NULL
RESGTX.CPP
ViSOS Application
netqueuesize
VSNetwork Manager
fEnoughMemory
VSMEM.CPP
pCMEM!=NULL
fFreedOK
MAINMEM.CPP
pCMEM!=NULL
Mem Broker Descriptor array
ppCMEM != NULL
VSMEMBRK.CPP
Number of managers 
MainMemoryManager
numcmems
numcvmems
numcsmems
dwMainMemoryAvailableSize > 0
INITMEM.CPP
CMainMemoryFactoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating MainMemoryFactory
Main Memory Manager
CMainMemoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating MainMemoryManager
Memory Broker
bOK==TRUE
g_pMemBroker!=NULL
CVMEMMemoryFactoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating VideoMemoryFactory
CVMemoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating VideoMemoryManager
CSRAMMEMFactoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating SoundMemoryFactory
SRAM Memory Manager
CVMemoryInit::_Initialise() :
Error in creating SoundMemoryManager
WindowManager
Surface [
Screen Buff 1
Screen Buff 2
Creating OTag buffer
Buggered Prim: 
PSX GDI SubSystem
Surface CLUT
primcount
Initialising OTag Prim buffer with 
VRAM Data
resTPAGE
resCLUTPage
VSNetwork Manager
g_nCDErrorCount != 0
numsectorcopies
maxvsrs
Input
FALSE
fSplit
pAlias
verbose
sorted
 Prims
devkit
Master
Slave
/+debugstd /+pcfiles /-async /+movies /+verbose /+pal

Hidden Cheats#

Along with the two widely known documented cheats for unlocking the hidden tracks, there are 14 more which can be entered for varying effects. Edit a driver name to what's in the first column to activate the associated cheat. These affect the global flag variable at 80010B78 (EU)/80010b90 (NA). Your language choice may prevent some of these from working.

Unused Translations#

Amongst the six translations the game allows selection of, the European text archives include Scottish, Portuguese and Japanese strings (the game was not released in Japan). The US version adds American English to the list. None of these are tied into the language selection screen, so the archives are all that remain.