Racing Sim Thread, Part II

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:02 pm

Good news continues for iRacing:

1. Indianapolis Motor Speedway was released today.
2. A Ford Falcon V8 Supercar and Phillip Island Circuit will be added to the service.

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:10 pm

Celebrating 20 years of my sim racing addiction as I purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for iRacing. I believe it was just about the same time 20 years ago that I purchased Indianapolis 500: The Simulation for my PC, because I know it was around my birthday in Sept. Pretty cool that it is still the same guy basically that I am feeding my money to.

Gurantsu · Post by **Gurantsu** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:29 pm

My sub just expired, I'll have to sell a few things on ebay to crank it up again. I haven't played much recently anyway though (on my wargame kick at the moment).

The clean racing is certainly worth the price, and even though I balked at first, I'm glad it's set up the way it is.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:14 pm

These screens of IMS in iRacing are just ridiculously accurate and nice:

http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.co ... Simulation

I didn't get a chance to drive it last night, as a good friend visited. But I'm going to try to get on track tonight!

Take care,
PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:18 pm

Don, Adam, Terry:

The 24 Heures du Fun race this weekend at iRacing -- open to all license classes, including Rookie -- is the Lotus 79 at the Indy oval.

We MUST try to get together for at least a practice session some time.

This is major BOINNNNG! factor.

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 7:31 pm

I know I am always the boy who cried wolf, but I will definitely be up for that. Let's figure out a time frame and I will be there.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:48 pm

Just ran a 25-lapper in the Lotus 79 on the Indy oval in the 24 Heures du Fun with 27 other drivers. INSANE fun!

Take care,
PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:46 am

Just finished another 25-lapper at Indy in the Lotus 79 trying to chase down one John Henry. Yeah, that guy: The owner of the Boston Red Sox and owner and chief financier of iRacing. Dude was running 24 Heures du Fun with all of the rest of us iRacers!

He's a VERY cool guy.

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:05 pm

pk500 wrote:Just finished another 25-lapper at Indy in the Lotus 79 trying to chase down one John Henry. Yeah, that guy: The owner of the Boston Red Sox and owner and chief financier of iRacing. Dude was running 24 Heures du Fun with all of the rest of us iRacers!

He's a VERY cool guy.

Take care,
PK

That is awesome. So what kind of a start is it? Rolling, 3 wide? I have not tried to qualify yet, do you have to put together 4 laps? Can't wait to give it a go tonight.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:37 pm

DChaps wrote:That is awesome. So what kind of a start is it? Rolling, 3 wide? I have not tried to qualify yet, do you have to put together 4 laps? Can't wait to give it a go tonight.

Don:

Two-wide rolling start. I'm not sure about qualifying. The only time I tried to qualify, I had less than three minutes before the start of the race and stuffed the car in the short chute between Turns 1 and 2 on my first qualifying lap!

I'm heading out to a block party that could be a bender, but I hope to be on later tonight. Hope to see you there!

P.S.: I'm e-mailing you a good, stable setup that will put you in the middle of most packs. You can't use the default low-downforce Lotus setup.

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 2:14 pm

Well I got online last night for some Indy fun and found out the hard way that I have got to get a new PC if I am to continue to enjoy my newly refreshed annual subscription to iRacing.

When I am time trialing or practice/race with a small group, iRacing does fine at pretty high graphic detail and maintains frame rates of 40+.

However, last night while trying Indy with fields upwards of 20 racers it was a complete no go. First two attempts my machine locked up entirely just trying to Grid.

For my third attempt I had qualified 12th out of 29, thanks to PK's setup above! This time I had reset my graphics to the lowest possible settings (looks absolutely terrible by the way), and I was still only getting frames in the 10-17 range. As you can imagine, it was a chug fest and by turn one my race was over and I had many people cursing my name.

Oh well, I have been trying to push this old AMD for a long time, so I guess it's time to figure out an upgrade path, otherwise I will be stuck time trialing.

For any iRacers here - What type of graphical settings are you all running to get playable frame rates with a big field of cars, and what is your hardware? Thanks in advance!

On a side note, here is some very cool video from racing at Indy that includes Todd Bettenhausen

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-LCsNDQJ7VU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed>

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:34 pm

I raced against Todd Bettenhausen in the same event with John Henry. Both very cool guys who enjoy offering encouragement and other positive talk with their microphones. Todd is more of a talker than John, though.

Todd must race with John often, as he said: "Oh, hi, John. I didn't even see your name there for a bit," to Henry, who chuckled. I just smiled in semi-amazement. I'm thinking: "This dude owns iRacing and the Boston Red Sox, and Todd is talking to him like a buddy from down the street."

To answer your hardware question, Adam, I have an IBM Thinkpad with a 2.16 gHz Core Duo Centrino processor, 2 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon Mobility X1400 video card with 128 MB of dedicated video RAM. I get a few small framerate hitches from time to time at Indy that work themselves out the more laps I turn. I get 51 FPS alone at all tracks and 51 FPS in races at all tracks except Indy, where I got 40 FPS with 27 other drivers at 1280x960 (or something like that) with 1X in-game AA and AF. Pretty bare bones, but it looks decent enough.

Take care,
PK

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:31 pm

pk500 wrote:To answer your hardware question, Adam...

You flatter me, Sir, but I'm not sure how Don is going to feel about that...

Edit: And I'm going to miss the whole 24 Heures Du Fun. A bit of life got in the way of my attempts to take part to such an extent that I'm only just downloading Indy. Thanks for the setup PK, I'll give it a run in a test session when I get the chance. Out of curiosity, what's a benchmark lap time? I assume Indy isn't flat in a 79?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:47 pm

GB_Simo wrote:
pk500 wrote:To answer your hardware question, Adam...
You flatter me, Sir, but I'm not sure how Don is going to feel about that...

Edit: And I'm going to miss the whole 24 Heures Du Fun. A bit of life got in the way of my attempts to take part to such an extent that I'm only just downloading Indy. Thanks for the setup PK, I'll give it a run in a test session when I get the chance. Out of curiosity, what's a benchmark lap time? I assume Indy isn't flat in a 79?

Indy is big-time flat in a 79 due to the downforce and the top speed only reaching 198 solo and 201 with a tow with that setup. It's very point and shoot, so you may find practice getting pretty dull pretty quickly.

You should be anywhere from 46.6-46.8 with that setup once the tires are warm and fuel starts to drain a bit.

Take care,
PK

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 10:27 pm

pk500 wrote:Indy is big-time flat in a 79 due to the downforce and the top speed only reaching 198 solo and 201 with a tow with that setup. It's very point and shoot, so you may find practice getting pretty dull pretty quickly.

Silly me - the 79 is a ground effect car. I was struggling to imagine that any F1 car of that era would have the downforce to stay wide open at Indy, but in my mind I was thinking more of McLaren M23s and Lotus 72s. In spite of my Legends successes, I'm still out to lunch on ovals, so aiming to consistently run the benchmark lap time should occupy me for a bit. Thanks again, mate.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:56 pm

PK, do you have any kind of inside track on this?

http://www.virtualr.net/indianapolis-50 ... -previews/

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:39 pm

GB_Simo wrote:PK, do you have any kind of inside track on this?

http://www.virtualr.net/indianapolis-50 ... -previews/

What, you want a free copy?

Other than helping Destineer edit a few press releases, no, I've had no involvement with this. I'm much more dialed into the iRacing side of the IndyCar Series video game equation.

Take care,
PK

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:42 pm

Hey PK if you start handing out free copies don't forget me, PK Jr.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:13 pm

I don't expect to get any. Sorry.

Take care,
PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:49 pm

Targa Florio circuit released for Grand Prix Legends:

http://www.virtualr.net/targa-florio-fo ... -released/

This legendary course is 44.7 miles for one lap.

Who will be the first to memorize it?

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:29 am

Have a day off so I went to try a little rFactor online since it had been a long time and there were a couple mods I had wanted to try. Within about 5 minutes, I quickly realized why I am just fine sticking with iRacing. Below is a chat log from the server.

09:16 dtruemca : brb reinstall without lobby update
09:16 JFF_Robbie : which 1.1
09:16 psworx : ah well guess ill have to skip this for now
09:16 JFF_Robbie : me too wasted 2hrs
09:17 psworx : gotta shoot for a bit back soonish
09:17 JFF_Robbie : bye mate thanks
09:20 Ragster : it takes me ingame but its says incompatible game versions
09:20 Ragster : gonna wait for the download and try then

No such issues ever in iRacing. Ok, advertisement off....

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:41 am

Let me guess, Don: The Enduracers Endurance Series mod? Don't expect any help from Enduracers, which rivals MMG as the most arrogant rFactor modding group. Neither ever has done anything wrong, and we're all morons.

I'm with you: iRacing is all I drive. But I must admit, I'm getting a bit of a rallying jones, so I may reinstall Richard Burns Rally.

Take care,
PK

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:47 am

pk500 wrote:But I must admit, I'm getting a bit of a rallying jones, so I may reinstall Richard Burns Rally.

RBR is awesome but I seem to recall having a rough time getting the game to look right on my widescreen monitor. Because of that I haven't installed it on my new gaming rig yet. Now if iRacing ever adds rally I'll subscribe in a heartbeat.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:22 am

mixdj1 wrote:Now if iRacing ever adds rally I'll subscribe in a heartbeat.

I would say that's VERY unlikely. iRacing seems very focused on circuit-based auto racing, especially with the very detailed laser-scanning of every track.

It's very expensive for iRacing to laser-scan even a 3-mile road course or 2.5-mile oval, so I can't imagine the cost of scanning 180 miles worth of stages!

Take care,
PK

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:00 pm

First Impressions Indianapolis 500 Evolution for Xbox 360:

Well, this weekend I could not help but pickup this game at Best Buy for $29.99. My instincts told me not to, especially since I already have the Wii version of this game. However, I thought maybe with the upgraded graphics, steering wheel support, and Xbox Live, there could be more fun and substance to be had. I was also all geared up for it after listening to the AJ Foyt/Robin Miller interview on Speed.

First off, I will admit the concept of this game is literally my racing sim nirvana. There is no period in racing that intrigues me more than Indycars, the tracks, and the drivers from 1961-1971 that this game replicates. Plus even though I love all forms of racing, Indycars has always been my favorite, and my Dad was at every race from 1961-1971 so I know the era well from his stories, programs, books, and newspapers. The drivers of this era are legendary to me (Foyt, Unser, Andretti, Rutherford, Gurney, Clark, Hill, Brabham, etc., etc.).

The promise of a racing sim with authentic tracks, cars, and drivers that change as the seasons change from 1961 - 1971 following the transition from front engine roadsters to rear engined winged monsters is like the fullfillment of a childhood dream (ok, maybe that's too dramatic). Racing at the Indianapolis 500, Milwaukee Mile, Trenton, Riverside, Hanford and Langhorne Speedway, it's idea is basically Grand Prix Legends for the Indycars, but have it follow an entire 11 year period.

For me it sounds so, so cool on paper. And I can only imagine it sounds cool on paper to like a mere handful of other gamers (pk, simo, etc.) Which makes the target audience of this game seem so very strange. Who are they really planning to have buy this game? Certainly not the Shift, Grid, Dirt crowd, nor the Forza, GT5 crowd. I can't imagine it appealing to the budget minded gamer, or the impulse buyer.

No, a game like this could only be made for the hard core, old school racing nostalgia geeks and aficianados like myself, right? Who else would even be remotely interested in a game like this?

Well, unforunately, like many Indycar console games before it, this game only hints at what could have been. I am going to give it as much time as I can possibly bear, but so far it only confirmed for me what I got out of the Wii version. A niche concept, created by a team operating on a small budget with little vision for their target audience. I just can't imagine the licensing costs that it would take to produce something like this to then so half-ass the actual game. From what I have read, the dev team certainly meant well and wanted to respect and recreate the era as best they could, but it all seems to fall short.

Graphics: PS2/Xbox graphics at best. There are also real frame rate issues once you get in a pack. The Wii version had really dark/bleak graphics and the 360 version is not much better. Seems a little brighter, but still hard to see. It says it supports 720p, but on my 1280x1024 monitor it looked stretched. It was also letterbox ala Grand Prix Legends. Only 360 game that does this on my setup. It could be something I need to change, but I could not find any settings in game. The text on screen is jaggy and almost unreadable. I know they may be trying to recreate on old news reel type atmosphere, but the end result is just very ugly, especially if you have just played Dirt 2 or Shift.

Control: While the back of the box shows wheel support, the implementation is poor at best. Very floaty with a HUGE deadzone and no option to adjust that I could find. Minimal force feedback and no weight to the wheel at all. These cars had no power steering, and just last night AJ was talking about how hard it was to drive these things. They could have at least implemented the tightness of the wheel. Not so. Even at the 1961 Indy 500, which still featured almost the entire front stretch of bricks, you feel absolutely NO CHANGE in surface in the wheel, not even the slighest rumble. You do feel a little bit of tire scrub if you start to get it too loose, but overall the FF and control with the wheel is just not there. I have not yet tried it with the regular Xbox controller.

Online: The main reason I bought this game was the thought that maybe, just maybe the online might make it worth the $30. It promises 8 players with the rest of the 33 car field being filled out by AI. Also, you can supposedly run from 10 laps to the full 200 lap race. I know the game was just released, but in 3 different attempts last night to get online, there were no other players online. Could it be that I will be the only person to buy this game.

Anyway, more rambling impressions later.