- 939
- Zürich
Yes, despite telemetry being an immense part of real life F1, Codemasters still steadfastly refuses to include it in the game despite generating all the relevant data. Hell, you can’t even see your laptime history until the session is over.
So, whether you want to really drill down on your setups, see where you’re making mistakes, or just want to look at some pretty graphs to immerse you a bit more I took a very quick look at 3 apps designed to do the job Codemasters should have done in the first place.
There are likely to be other telemetry apps available but I chose these as they are for the most part completely cross platform, all running on at least Mac and Windows and they are for the most part free. Plus they all work work with F1 2019 on PS4, Xbox and PC - I tested them with PS4
First up we have the snappily titled "Telemetry Application for Codemasters F1 201x games" available from http://www.ikorein.com/telemetry/ or https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/telemetry-application.22912/
Honestly this app is so packed with features that it’s likely to be the only telemetry app you’ll ever need. I’m not going to list all the features as you can just checkout the webpage for everything it can do, but standout points for me were being able to see what setups the AI was running, and that during a race it actually provides you with a dynamic „pit window“ that shows you your estimated position when leaving the pits. This is also the only app that gives you live telemetry as you drive, the others will record your laps and only after recording can your performance be analysed. Oh it also supports PC2 and DR2.0 as well.
However there are some problems. The interface is rather difficult to navigate, and being a Java applet it’s likely you’ll have to jump through a few hoops to get it working, such as installing a Java runtime environment and disabling any firewall software on your computer.
Unfortunately for me on a Mac I found that it was quite unstable with frequent hangs, and massive processor usage, which I attribute to the Java runtime environment rather than any failings by the developer. So if you’re on Windows or Linux I’d seriously recommend that you give this a try as it’s likely this could be your end game for telemetry software. If you’re on a Mac then YMMV.
Next up is SRT or Sim Racing Telemetry - https://www.simracingtelemetry.com
This is the only paid app that I looked at, but it does come as a trial version which is limited in terms of what telemetry you can analyse, but it may be enough for your needs. Technically this only supports F1 2018, but you can set F1 2019 to output the telemetry in 2018 format, and it appears to work well. The paid version costs around $10 to unlock F1 2018 fully
This is a simpler affair, not offering as many options but you can look at just about every parameter with the paid version. it also offers a track view where you can see whatever parameters you’ve selected as a heat map on the track. It may not be as comprehensive as TACF1G, but it still scratches that itch, delivers useful information, and looks good as well. it’s also available for iOS and Android as well as Mac and PC.
Finally we have PXG F1 Telemetry - https://bitbucket.org/Fiingon/pxg-f1-telemetry/src/master/ for details and https://bitbucket.org/Fiingon/pxg-f1-telemetry/downloads/ for download
The simplest of all, with the least amount of parameters selectable, but it does have one track up it’s sleeve - you can record not just your performance, but that of all the AI as well, so if you want to know why Verstappen is 9 tenths quicker than you in practice you can just record him and then overlay it onto your fastest lap and find out why. Oh, and it’s free.
This isn’t meant to be a review, just my quick opinions based on a couple of hours playing around yesterday, and to alert you all to the fact that you can get useful telemetry from F1 2019. Try them for yourselves, you've got nothing to lose.
So, whether you want to really drill down on your setups, see where you’re making mistakes, or just want to look at some pretty graphs to immerse you a bit more I took a very quick look at 3 apps designed to do the job Codemasters should have done in the first place.
There are likely to be other telemetry apps available but I chose these as they are for the most part completely cross platform, all running on at least Mac and Windows and they are for the most part free. Plus they all work work with F1 2019 on PS4, Xbox and PC - I tested them with PS4
First up we have the snappily titled "Telemetry Application for Codemasters F1 201x games" available from http://www.ikorein.com/telemetry/ or https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/telemetry-application.22912/
Honestly this app is so packed with features that it’s likely to be the only telemetry app you’ll ever need. I’m not going to list all the features as you can just checkout the webpage for everything it can do, but standout points for me were being able to see what setups the AI was running, and that during a race it actually provides you with a dynamic „pit window“ that shows you your estimated position when leaving the pits. This is also the only app that gives you live telemetry as you drive, the others will record your laps and only after recording can your performance be analysed. Oh it also supports PC2 and DR2.0 as well.
However there are some problems. The interface is rather difficult to navigate, and being a Java applet it’s likely you’ll have to jump through a few hoops to get it working, such as installing a Java runtime environment and disabling any firewall software on your computer.
Unfortunately for me on a Mac I found that it was quite unstable with frequent hangs, and massive processor usage, which I attribute to the Java runtime environment rather than any failings by the developer. So if you’re on Windows or Linux I’d seriously recommend that you give this a try as it’s likely this could be your end game for telemetry software. If you’re on a Mac then YMMV.
Next up is SRT or Sim Racing Telemetry - https://www.simracingtelemetry.com
This is the only paid app that I looked at, but it does come as a trial version which is limited in terms of what telemetry you can analyse, but it may be enough for your needs. Technically this only supports F1 2018, but you can set F1 2019 to output the telemetry in 2018 format, and it appears to work well. The paid version costs around $10 to unlock F1 2018 fully
This is a simpler affair, not offering as many options but you can look at just about every parameter with the paid version. it also offers a track view where you can see whatever parameters you’ve selected as a heat map on the track. It may not be as comprehensive as TACF1G, but it still scratches that itch, delivers useful information, and looks good as well. it’s also available for iOS and Android as well as Mac and PC.
Finally we have PXG F1 Telemetry - https://bitbucket.org/Fiingon/pxg-f1-telemetry/src/master/ for details and https://bitbucket.org/Fiingon/pxg-f1-telemetry/downloads/ for download
The simplest of all, with the least amount of parameters selectable, but it does have one track up it’s sleeve - you can record not just your performance, but that of all the AI as well, so if you want to know why Verstappen is 9 tenths quicker than you in practice you can just record him and then overlay it onto your fastest lap and find out why. Oh, and it’s free.
This isn’t meant to be a review, just my quick opinions based on a couple of hours playing around yesterday, and to alert you all to the fact that you can get useful telemetry from F1 2019. Try them for yourselves, you've got nothing to lose.
