Racing Sim Thread, Part II

[GB_Simo]

I did download that last night. Various issues that I haven't time to detail while i'm at work, so I'll go over them later. Here's your starter for 10: the new default setup is geared to do 130 mph in 1st.

[pk500]

I did download that last night. Various issues that I haven't time to detail while i'm at work, so I'll go over them later. Here's your starter for 10: the new default setup is geared to do 130 mph in 1st.

You either have the patience of Job or are a glutton for punishment.

[GB_Simo]

You either have the patience of Job or are a glutton for punishment.

In this instance, I crashed my road car on Friday (it's a top-spec 2006 Focus. My courtesy car, a boggo 2008 1.2 litre Fiesta, is serving only to reinforce just how good the Focus is) and this attempted turd polishing exercise is something I turn to whenever I start worrying it'll be written off. Calms the mind, somehow. Usually it's nothing more than patience, especially when the subject matter is of interest to me.

Patience can be exhausted, though, especially when you notice on your first out lap that there are sparks coming from the left front corner of the car for no good reason, and that the temperature on that tyre climbs like an ascending plane's altimeter on every straight. Sometimes you'll notice the same thing happening on the right front corner. At no point will you understand why. It won't happen every time you leave the pits, and there's no obvious trigger I can spot.

The understeer is still there in spades, though the spades are at least smaller than the original release, and the main noticeable difference in the apparently new tyre model is that they now run about 70 degrees hotter with no obvious change in how they perform.

I did notice one of the mod team saying that people were still complaining of understeer, and those people should scrap their old setups and start again using the default as a base. The default isn't massively changed from the original default, and my original created setup still works fine. That being so, I do begin to wonder what the creators really know about what they're doing.

My advice, as before, is not to bother unless you're dangerously obsessive.

[pk500]

Bummer about the Focus, Adam. You're OK, I trust?

[GB_Simo]

Yes, thanks mate. It was a relatively slow accident and the car did a wonderful job of taking the hit, to the extent that I didn't actually feel the impact, so when I got out and saw the damage I was amazed. It still fires, it steers straight, it stops alright and the temperature gauges all read normally, but the cosmetic damage is fairly impressive - bumper, wing, light array all messed up. It also shed some reasonably big lumps of black plastic which I'm hoping were bits of bumper rather than anything more expensive. Fingers crossed that the mechanical parts are fine.

The car's current value is somewhere just over £6k, I valued it at something like £6.5k when the insurance came up for renewal last August, and I'd be amazed if I've managed to do that much damage to it. You never know, though, do you? Because my car is what I bought with all the money I'd saved for my doomed emigration, it's as important to me as any lump of metal has been to any man and I'd quite like it back...

Anyway, enough of me wallowing. Did anyone try the Targa Florio track for GPL? I didn't, but will do when it comes to rFactor:

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

I can't help wondering how much fun it'll be, though. I know the first two miles of the Nordschleife better than I know any other virtual racetrack in the world, because for years I couldn't get past that point in GPL without crashing. Once I got out into the forest I practically had to stop, my haste having been lessened by my first run towards the long right hander before Karussel. With no detailed circuit knowledge at that time, I didn't realise I was meant to turn right and went straight on, absolutely flat out, into the invisible wall at the end of the escape road.

I'd love it if someone with direct experience of the Targa Florio layout could tell me otherwise, but I'm stuck with this nagging feeling that for all the brilliant work that's going into it, I'll end up doing the same thing in a Porsche 907 as I did in a Lotus 49. This time, though, it'll be over 3 times the distance.

[GB_Simo]

On the iPhone and haven't figured out linking yet, so I'll settle for saying that the announcement of Williams FW31 for iRacing, hinted at when the real-time events were announced, has filled this slicks and wings lover's heart with joy.

[pk500]

On the iPhone and haven't figured out linking yet, so I'll settle for saying that the announcement of Williams FW31 for iRacing, hinted at when the real-time events were announced, has filled this slicks and wings lover's heart with joy.

Really? Really? REALLY?

Fantastic news!

Ah, linky-link:

http://www.inracingnews.com/formula-one ... iams-fw31/

Hot damn!

[Smurfy]

Thanks for the link PK.

It's 11:07 pm. I'm still at work and waiting for a huge amount of code to copy to my local drive. I'm reading the digital sportspage forums and now I have saliva drooling on my keyboard.

I have a love-hate relationship with online open-wheelers. This will be both good and bad news for me (I tend to spend a great deal of time crashing open-wheelers).

[DChaps]

New iRacing Build Info was just released. This should be deployed in the next 24 hours. Some of the more interesting items I put in bold, particulalry Custom Paint Jobs and No Limits on Hosting Tracks and Configurations. Now there are even less reasons for us not to get our DSP League going again.

Direct Link for iRacing Members:

http://members.iracing.com/iforum/threa ... 3&tstart=0

The site will be unavailable as we deploy the latest build.

Four hours prior (20-Jan-10 0500 GMT) to the full site maintenance, we will disable the functionality to create a new hosted session.

All timing is tentative and subject to change.

Release Notes for 2010.01.18.01 - 2010 Season 1
Posted: Jan 19, 2010 11:17 AM


Some items that are not on this list that I had discussed in the forums are aero and tire changes for the three premier oval cars and a better transmission model.

We were not happy with how testing has gone with both of these updates and have decided to hold them off from this deployment. The truck, nationwide and COT aero and tire changes should hopefully be rolled out next week. The transmission model may take longer than that to be in a state we feel is ready for public use.

Release Notes for 2010.01.18.01 - 2010 Season 1

Web Site

- Added World Cup statistics pages for the RACC Runoffs, RACC Finals and World Cup Finals. These are all accessible from the “Stats” top level navigation bar item.

- Added restart configuration option to hosted sessions so you can select single file, double file with lapped cars on the inside or double file with lapped cars at the back.

- The Update Manager now shows file size in units (k, M, G) appropriate to the size.

- The Download/Installation progress indicator in the upper left corner of the site should now carry through to completion, barring any error condition or user abort.

General

- All tracks and configurations are now always available in hosted sessions.

- The Strength of Field (SOF) calculation has changed, which will slightly alter championship points paid out in races. The new calculation more correctly weights the various iRatings in the field.

- The prefix "INCIDENT:" is removed from incident report messages in-sim.

- Drivers reconnecting to a server will now see previously shared group setups.

- remindbf.wav is added to TJ&L spotter pack.

- The sim can now recognize windows accelerator keys (volume up/down etc) as inputs in the sim. All keys are supported except Cut/Copy/Paste. This should stop the bug where volume keys would cycle the cameras.

- The right shift key is now recognized by the sim.

- Pressing a shift key now works in conjunction with keys on the num pad when num lock turned on without having to turn off num lock.

Custom Paint Jobs

- Custom car/helmet/suit paint jobs are now supported.

The filename for a paintjob is just the customer ID with a .tga extension. The sim will also accept it with leading 0’s to form a 6 digits number (which sorts better alphabetically). You can find your customer ID by going to the My Account section of the iRacing website.

For instance, for a driver who has a customer ID of 12345, their custom texture in any of the below directories would be

“12345.tga” or “012345.tga”

The custom texture files need to be placed into the documents\iRacing folder, like this:

Helmets: docs\iRacing\paint\helmets\
Suits: docs\iRacing\paint\suits\

Cars (using the same structure as car setups):
RT2000: docs\iRacing\paint\cars\rt2000\
Rookie Legends: docs\iRacing\paint\cars\legends ford34c rookie\

The cars have to be 1024x1024 pixels in size. The suits and helmets must be 512x512. If they are the wrong size they are ignored.

If the sim can't find a custom texture, it will use the driver's defined colors and pattern from the website as usual.

A custom texture will be loaded and used even when loading older replays that were made before the custom texture was added or changed.

Custom textures are not automatically uploaded, downloaded, transferred, mailed, delivered, etc, in any way. Customers will have to put them up somewhere themselves, and others will have to download them themselves.

Cameras

- Added support for copy/paste of groups of cameras even across files. Pasting a group makes a new copy of all cameras in the group.

- All camera tool sliders now have edit boxes.

- Added a quick set button to adjust camera microphone gain based on current car position. Just click and hold while watching a replay and it will set all cameras you view to the same relative volume.

- Camera groups can now be reordered.

- The scenic camera no longer interferes with the default cameras when the focus car disappears from the view.

- Fixed mouse aim mode when in scenic mode.

- Does not save active camera group transitions to ini file when in scenic mode.

- Fixed bug that could reset active group if exiting sim while driving.

- Fixed chase views when focusing on pace car so that the camera no longer wiggles.

- No longer defaults to invalid camera group at load time.

- Group copy/paste properly grayed out when selecting a static group (on car cameras).

- Camtool only resets camera state when needed, volume etc should not cause camera to flash.

- Camtool updates more frequently when in slow motion.

- Statically aimed cameras as blimp, chopper, or chase cameras will now follow the motion of the camera and not just point north.

Replay

- The replay now back patches skid marks and smoke and dust to move them under the wheels.

Race Control

- Added a new type of double file restart where the lap down cars get pushed to the back of the field. Double file restarts will now be possible on road courses if set.

- Restart type is now selectable for Hosted races.

- During cautions the transition to double file should now occur at 2-to-go, except for road courses and ovals of 2 miles or longer which continue to transition at 1-to-go.
- For the new double file starting mode, lapped cars get sent to the back at 2 To Go while staying single file, then at 1 To Go the pace field will switch to double file. Unless the track is an oval over 2 miles long or a road course, where the lapped cars will get sent to the back at the same time as the field switches to double file at 1 To Go.

- Don't apply jump start rule if a driver entered then exited the grid and then missed the start and is put into their pit stall.

- Cars that end a tow while a caution is in progress are now properly added to the pace field when leaving pit lane.

Controls

- You can now unassign non-driving controls by pressing Enter when the control assignment pop-up window says "unassigned" while waiting for you to give it a control. The 'Esc' key is still good for exiting the control assignment pop-up window without changing the current assignment.

- Each car can now have it's own set of controls assigned. There is a checkbox in the bottom left of the "Controls and Other Options" windows to tell the sim to use a custom controls.cfg for the car (the file is stored in the car setup dir), or to use the default global controls.cfg.

Cars / Physics

- Some improvements and fixes have been made to the collision system. In particular, the player car's chassis should interact far more correctly with the ground surface. Also of note is that curbs seem to be more drivable.

- The anti-stall automatic clutch aid has been improved. (Although all our motors still can't actually stall)

- Drafting now actually reduces your car's downforce, not just drag.

- Atmospheric conditions used by the physics are now responsive to altitude, instead of being sea level all the time. At higher altitude tracks there will be properly reduced engine power and aerodynamics effects.

- Engine power has been recalibrated to match dyno reference conditions, which results in a couple of percent more power when near sea level.

- Engine throttle response is reworked to more correctly match how real motors respond. There is now much more response at initial throttle and less response at full throttle, varying with engine RPM, versus the old mapping which had very little initial throttle response and a lot of response near full throttle and did not change with RPM.

- Engines will now create smoke when damaged.

Dallara

- A default Indianapolis setup is supplied.

- The issue where legitimate setups would fail tech inspection at sim load time is fixed.

- Off-throttle engine braking reduced (per feedback from Real-World drivers of the Dallara).

- Downforce and drag has been tweaked.

- Tire grip levels tweaked to alter car balance (less understeery).

- Bump stop adjustments have been removed. Bump stops are now fixed in place at the end of full travel.

- The aero calculator ride heights updated.

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Riley DP

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted to match the numbers supplied by the Manufacturer. Very small changes were made to the wheel inertias, again due to additional data from the manufacturer. Engine inertia and the driveline inertias have been modified to more closely match real world behavior.

Corvette C6R

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted slightly. Rear wheel inertia and engine, clutch and driveline inertias are subtly massaged based on new data.

- Aero forces from body roll are improved.

- Brake bias in car adjustment is now limited to +/- 3%

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Lotus 79

- Bump stop adjustments have been removed. Bump stops are now fixed in place at the end of full travel.

Latemodel

- There is now more grip falloff with wear, and increased fuel use.

Star Mazda

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted. Engine inertia adjusted to reflect new driveline engineering data.

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

Radical SR8

- Chassis inertia in all 3 axes (roll, pitch, yaw) has been adjusted per real-world driver feedback.

Pontiac Solstice

- Clutch engagement travel changed to make clutch response correlate better with real world behavior.

[pk500]

You're right about the DSP League, Don. I've been really busy with family and friends during the holidays, and watching all the NFL Playoff games on the DVR on weekends has created an accordion effect with my weeknights.

But time should be more available now.

I wouldn't mind giving the COT a go as we get closer to Daytona. That might provide some fun, tight oval racing. Just a thought.

Thanks for the info. on the new build!

[GB_Simo]

Dallara

- Tire grip levels tweaked to alter car balance (less understeery).

I wonder how much of a difference there'll be. I like the current Dallara build but it has a remarkably lazy front end, nothing like I imagined it would really handle.

[pk500]

These changes appeal to me very much:

- Some improvements and fixes have been made to the collision system. In particular, the player car's chassis should interact far more correctly with the ground surface. Also of note is that curbs seem to be more drivable.

- Engine throttle response is reworked to more correctly match how real motors respond. There is now much more response at initial throttle and less response at full throttle, varying with engine RPM, versus the old mapping which had very little initial throttle response and a lot of response near full throttle and did not change with RPM.

Dallara

- A default Indianapolis setup is supplied.

- Off-throttle engine braking reduced (per feedback from Real-World drivers of the Dallara).

- Downforce and drag has been tweaked.

- Tire grip levels tweaked to alter car balance (less understeery).

- A small tweak to the updated tire model on this car has been made that gives more grip loss when sliding at high speed.

[DChaps]

Somehow in all the holiday rush and end of year work projects I missed the fact that the templates were released on Dec. 21 for painting all the cars in iRacing along with a nice little guide. There is also a 3rd party "unofficial" site that will allow iRacers to more easily share their custom paint jobs.

Painting Basics and Template Files for Custom Paint Schemes:

http://members.iracing.com/iforum/threa ... 0&tstart=0

Trading Paints -- Paint Scheme Sharing:

http://members.iracing.com/iforum/threa ... 0&tstart=0

http://tradingpaints.com

[DChaps]

Another feature I missed:

Each car can now have it's own set of controls assigned. There is a checkbox in the bottom left of the "Controls and Other Options" windows to tell the sim to use a custom controls.cfg for the car (the file is stored in the car setup dir), or to use the default global controls.cfg.

I believe this means you will be able to have different FFB settings, etc. per car so that you don't have to switch back and forth and remember your favorite settings. Cool!

[GB_Simo]

Good news, rFactor fans! F1 1993 LE v1.1 is out now! Giant strides have been made - this thing is now quite simply my 5th or 6th favourite F1 mod!

The default setup is much better this time, and the physics have been tweaked again (pro tip for the mod team: if your physics model needs to be reworked twice within a month of release, perhaps consider not releasing the mod just yet. I love you too), the result being that much of the understeer has gone. The handling is still on the safe side of neutral, but nothing like as unwilling to negotiate corners as before. If you're keen on hanging the back out you can do so, which requires suspension of disbelief but is otherwise good fun.

Back at the Montreal test base I was instantly 5 seconds a lap faster than I'd been with the previous build, which shows the difference that can be made when the handling properties are moved away from those of a Massey Ferguson. I was dismayed to note that they'd somehow buggered up the Renault V10 engine sample, which had been quite good last time around but is bad enough this time to make me drive a Ferrari instead, but the other sounds seem alright. As before, the models and liveries are excellent.

The mod remains non-essential, of course, but playing it feels like less of a punishment now.

[Rodster]

For those following and interested in the Grand Am Series, IDT has released their Grand Am mod.

http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cf ... and%20Slam

[pk500]

iRacing creating video Driving School:

http://www.inracingnews.com/iracing-new ... mment-1580

The best sim available just keeps getting better!

[Gurantsu]

Wow, I've been away for a while. I need to get on my PC more...

Anyway, a few days ago, as I was putting yet another set of batteries into one of my sons race cars I decided that enough was enough. I wanted to get him and I a slot car set, as I remember playing with mine for hours as a kid. So I did some research and discovered something called SCX Digital.

Holy crap..!

These things are the slot cars I would have done anything for as a kid. They are 1:32 scale so are pretty big and the cars are detailed and look great. You can race up to 6(!) cars on a track at one time. You can change lanes (using crossover tracks). You can run out of gas, unless you pit to refuel (yes there is a pit speed limit). The track will let you determine the gas tank size for all cars (more fuel affects top speed and responsiveness), starting fuel, and number of laps. It keeps track of who is winning. You can turn on the cars lights if you want, and also set them for slower speeds (great for kids) and also the braking force.

I couldn't quite believe it when I first read about it, but took the plunge. Damned if they don't work as advertised. My 2 kids and I have run a ton of races, and it's great to all be together and not staring at a TV (just staring at a race track!)

The sets aren't cheap, but I found a retailer in Jersey that has the 2008 GT set for about $100 less than the current sets, the only difference really seems to be the cars. In the set I got you get a Ferrari 360 GTC, Chevrolet Corvette C6R, and an Aston Martin DBR9. This is enough to get 3 people running and has the Pit Box to run the other features. Their web site is http://toysandhobbyshop.com/2008-digita ... -1254.html They shipped super fast, even with the snow in PA and Jersey.

I plan on getting more stuff for it. There is a digital lap counter that shows all of the cars positions (the default one only counts down laps as the lead car passes), a chronometer that keeps track of lap times, fastest lap, and will let you do qualifying (either a race or single car), an expansion to add 3 more controllers (although I think you may be able to connect 2 base sets together, you just need a cable), not to mention more track and cars (which I will most likely put on a display shelf when not racing them).

It's a bit expensive, but even the base set is a total blast and really nothing else is needed. To see my kids as excited about it as I was as a kid playing with my brother is worth the price of admission.

Any of you other racing guys need to check it out. If you go to YouTube and search for SCX Digital you'll find a ton of videos. I haven't been this impressed with a product in a long time.

[DChaps]

Thanks for the info Grant. I almost bought an SCX track for my son at Christmas from a garage sale, but it was definitely not digital. This sounds so cool.

Speaking of cool, check out these two videos of a guy's iRacing setup with 3 HD video projectors. One is open cockpit in the Skippy at Watkins Glen, the other is in the Jetta at Sebring. I literally looks like he is in the cockpit of both cars, especially the Jetta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG7XHyj4FAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhrAZ8tNBNE1

[GB_Simo]

Anyone try to run an iRacing Daytona 500 tonight? Their Facebook feed suggests something's gone wrong, but being unwilling to make my COT bow on a superspeedway around an awful lot of other cars I wasn't around to see what happened.

[Gurantsu]

No racing for me this weekend. Driving back now from seeing B.B. King and Buddy Guy in Atlantic City. Awesome show!

[pk500]

Anyone try to run an iRacing Daytona 500 tonight? Their Facebook feed suggests something's gone wrong, but being unwilling to make my COT bow on a superspeedway around an awful lot of other cars I wasn't around to see what happened.

Negative. The 7 p.m. (ET) start time wasn't family-friendly.

[pk500]

A good read about what's coming soon in iRacing:

http://www.iracing.com/news/blog/a-day- ... erder-xii/

[DChaps]

Circuit Park Zandvoort is ready for purchase in iRacing:

http://members.iracing.com/membersite/m ... ?trkid=147

[pk500]

I have been playing the piss out of the Ratbag games since I discovered a site that has ISO files of every Ratbag game:

http://www.ifrt-dirtracing.com/DTR%20Stuff.html?

Upon further review, I find Dirt Track Racing: Sprint Cars to be a far superior game on the PC than WoO. DTRSC has better racing AI, better control, more realistic damage and is skinnable with tons of different chassis available. WoO looks better, but that's about it.

DTR 2 and DTRSC are the pinnacle of Ratbag's games. They're not iRacing, but they're damn fun and realistic in their own right and as good as it's going to get for a dirt oval sim.

If anyone wants to play some DTR 2 or DTRSC online on the PC, holler! I'll be happy to host some IP racing.