Formula 1 '98

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

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 PAL release, but don't see the light of day in either. The file was removed for the US release

Development Text
Pressing Select on the Player/Game select screen prints a version and build date to the top of the screen. PAL Formula One -98- Beta - 6.3a - Build Date Oct 12 1998 NTSC-U Formula One -98- Beta - 6.3a - Build Date Nov 11 1998

The demo version has the same functionality and same 'Beta' and '6.3a' 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
In frnttxt.vsr there are labels for undocumented cheats surrounding those of the unlockable tracks. Using the base Gameshark code of (PAL), and replacing xxxx with the values below, they can be enabled.

There are two other labels grouped with the above, 'WinAllRacesCheat' and 'ChallengeCheat', but the unrepresented bits in the Gameshark code (C810) don't seem to do anything when activated. These two may just be other names for the RomanCheat and StuntCheat, since unlocking those tracks are the rewards for winning the championship and clearing challenge mode respectively.

Unused Translations
Amongst the six translations the game allows selection of, the PAL text archives include Scottish, Portuguese and Japanese strings. The US version adds American to list. None of these are tied into the language selection screen, so the archives are as far as they remain.