Quote from Mattesa :

Pho is the food of champions.

Damn freaking straight!!11

Quote from boosterfire :

Correct me if I'm wrong, and don't go thinking that I've actually played iRacing, but from what you guys are generally posting, it just seems to be better than LFS.

From what I understand, every aspect, seldom graphics, is similar to LFS. That is, whether it's better or worse, it's very close to what you get in LFS.

I have a feeling that the aspects iRacing promotes and counts on to make itself stand alone from other sims are indeed playing a big part in its sucess. That is, real tracks and cars, along with the graphics. Apart from that, it seems to be quite similar to LFS, maybe with a touch more developpment in it (?).

You're quite right, but it's actually more than a little better than LFS overall. The graphics are more than a little better, but you don't *notice* it all that much - ok the car and the track surface you really notice - but the rest you don't see that much while trying to drift the car just enough to be fast, but not too much because you'll lose speed or have a SERIOUS problem to deal with.

The thing that catches my attention the most is the feeling that you better know what the hell you're doing to be fast. Being properly smooth is more difficult than in LFS, but at the same time much more rewarding. I literally found myself holding my breath trying to be as fast as possible in the skippy, testing the limits and seeing what I can get away with. I'm pondering how this perception is acheived .... I'm thinking it is a combination of better tires physics and the fancy laser scanned on the tracks. Tire wise, you won't find better lat/long grip combination around right now and that's probably a lot of the difference.

Quote from Mattesa :

I don't know why I'm lurking in this thread so much.

You know you want to try it, that's why!

Yes, it is much less clinical.

One other thing that pisses me off: why do the brakes automatically engage when you come to a stop? Geez, that's retarded.

It's definitely raised the bar in sim-racing, and yet with the manpower and budget there's the odd thing that makes me shake my head (per the bullshit section in my review).

Quote from franky500 :

cleaned up a few posts.

Censoring FTL :thumbsdow

Keeping a fake sanitary environment = overmoderation.

I know not of what you speak?

Well, although my "technical difficulties" with iRacing have unfortunately not concluded, I've had enough time on track to consider and evaluate it.

The tire physics (at least while moving) are a decent step up from LFS; although they feel remarkably similar in most sitations. Perhaps not quite as forgiving over all. I like the fact that front tire slip does modify aligning torque in a proper fashion. There is no on/off about that behaviour (ala GTR2) but it's also not almost completely lacking (ala LFS), and it's modified by the setup a lot (I'm no setup guru whatsoever, but I think it's caster that plays a part in this - someone who has a clue correct me please). This makes the 4 wheel drifting necessary sometimes much more intuitive to get right since you can tell much easier what the front end is doing.

Of course, this is made possible by very VERY good force feedback - on par with LFS and nKpro very easily, and probably better in many situations although that could very well be due to the better tire physics of course. All I know is that driving the Skip Barber car (which is nothing short of the most fun I've ever had simracing BTW) is the most compelling and convincing driving experience I've had on a PC. The steering on that car seems to convey every single nuance. I have FF set on 50% and keeping the thing going on the front straight at Limerock is really something. The track "impurities" so to speak cause a lot of ruckus, and the more "interesting" surface undulations really pull the front end around. Clipping a curb is a daredevil maneuver in this car.

The sound is good, pull away from the pits you can tell it's sampled at the super low revs, but since you don't spend much time there I suppose it's not a real issue. It's nice that they sampled different things and have different sound sources. IE, if the camera is set to the Solstice suspension cam for the front, you hear mostly intake / mechanical clutter... if it's set to chase cam or what not then you hear mostly exhast note. This means the sounds is quite dynamic depending on your view point ; for replays this sounds great since the character changes from when the camera is facing the front of the car and transitions to the rear of the car when it goes by. Very good.

The tracks are very well done and very interesting. I never thought I would care about real tracks, and in principle I still don't but I can't deny that Limerock, Laguna, and Summit point are all very interesting tracks and more challenging than LFS offerings for some reason - but I can't figure out why. There seems to be a lot of details in the lines that you have to get just right to be quick, and a lot of altitude changes to consider. Not totally unlike LFS, but somehow it's different. I feel very connected to the car in iRacing, and I do in LFS. LFS feels more like always driving on parking garage cement in comparison - iRacing sure has a more gritty feeling to it. In short, it feels a loT LIKE LFS, but with many of the things I've been wanting in LFS for some time. iRacing is a much less clinical experience, to be sure.

The damage is much more believeable in iRacing, basically a tuned version of LFS's damage really. Can't mess around in the Skippy with risking those fragile looking suspension bars. No idea about engine damage yet.

Graphics are very nice, track surfaces look beauteous, interiors are superb etc. Overall it doesn't look THAT much different than LFS. Driving the XFR at South City is graphically quite similar to iRacing over all. But having cars without ridiculous polygon beams for suspention components is sure a breath of fresh air, as well as wheels with motion blur (we're in 2008 FFS) and nice rotating brake rotors etc. Feels like driving a car rather than a decent cockpit on a phonyass chassis (speaking about the SS and LX cars). Skid marks are more progressive than LFS which is probably more correct and realistic as well. There's also an abundance of ambient details in the iRacing tracks - very nice.

Bullshit I notice:
-Why the hell can't I stall the cars? I thought this was state of the art.
-Why the hell does the car slide sideways slowly when stationary in some places? I thought this was state of the art.
-Why the hell does the car model go above the surface in replays sometimes? I thought this was state of the art.
-Why the hell isn't the shifting method forced per car?
-Why does there seem to be a lack of transmission modelling? (correct me if wrong)

Anyway, overall I love it. I'm not sure if I will subscribe long term just yet mostly because I'm at a low as far as simracing activity / interest is concerned. If I was "into it" more at the moment it's a no brainer though. The only other downside to me is the lack of road car variety. If they were to add say the Porsche GT3 series / Ferrari F430 Challenge etc then I would sub just to lap those cars and probably start seriously competing. Although I dislike open wheelers, the Skip Barber - again - is simply marvellous to drive, and I'm glad I bough it to play with.

That's my 10c worth anyway.

PS Why is Shotglass so quiet? I bet he secretly bought a month to play with and doesn't want to admit it :P

edit: I only briefly proofread this, because I am starving for some Pho. Gotta go. Excuse typos etc.

Last edited by Ball Bearing Turbo, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 19:02. Reason : Pasting bastardized my post :(

Quote from ajp71 :

My computer had locked up with red bands across it for the second time, not happy

Does this happen to you often?

It's video driver related and I have not found a fix yet.

It sure is a hell of a sim, the Skippy is sure a blast.

If only I could play the damn thing without getting what you describe above after 10 minutes or less.

I think my wife should do some shopping tonight!

Time to dust off the G25!

Hmm, I'm leaning towards that Asus Xonar... $160cad, not bad...
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX18908(ME).aspx

It says only EAX 1.0/2.0, is that right? The Auzentech says it's supports EAX 5... The S/N ratio on the Xonar is the best of anything from the looks of it. Never seen a soundcard with a fan before, sort of ironic?! (edit: pardon that moronic comment... it's not a fan :doh

Last edited by Ball Bearing Turbo, Mon 23 Jun 2008, 22:54.

So the ExtremeMusic is just as good as the other ones then? What would I be "modding" on my soundcard? Are there any other brands or things you recommend Jakg?

Quote from jonny__27 :

notice the "up to". they're not guaranteed 15% in all cases

For sure. I just found it suspect that such a number could ever be acheived. So assuming that even half of that is plausible, that's still worth it performance wise.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Unless you're running a home theatre, I doubt you'd relly notice the difference in sound quality anyway.

Nah, I can hear quite a bit of distortion with the onboard. I also wish to have the ability to vibrate my brain inside my skull with decent SPLs; something that's currently impossible.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

They certainly do in iRacing. Not so sure about LFS.

Is that so? Details please! I'm not that concerned with LFS performance since I run 16AA 16AF & max driver quality settings and can only bog my machine down to 80FPS. But iRacing, Age of Conan & Crysis will be my mainstays for the year.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

gratitude I originally felt when I installed my first soundblaster and said good bye to speaker beeps and boops for ever!

Ah, that was amazing wasn't it?

386/16Mhz... I had a SoundMaster II for awhile but nothing supported it so I got Sound Blaster... I remember playing Links 386 trying to hear the "digitized audio" (remember that catch phrase?) through the PC speaker. Good times!

Quote from The Moose :

I noticed a huge increase when i first bought my audigy2, though i guess modern processors are a lot better at processing onboard sound these days.

Define huge? What system was that one - I gather not a recent one?

Quote from Electrik Kar :

foo-dangley

Hehe, some sites claim "up to 15% improvement in gaming performance" which indeed sounded a little awry to me. My onboard sound sure doesn't go very loud either, it would be nice to have some oomph... I generally have EAX or equivalent enabled in games, so perhaps getting away from onboard sound would help a tiny bit? I wonder where they get this "15%" claim, that's pretty extravagant. Thanks for the input thus far.

Greetings,

Contemplating getting Soundblaster X-FI or something to replace my onboard sound chip. I mostly want it for the recording features, but if it would actually make a difference to gaming performance I might bump it up on the priority scale.

Thoughts?

Quote from wtf im nameless :

There's some sort of issue with FPS on LFS, I don't know for sure what the bottleneck is, but I get 35-40FPS at 5040x1050 with everything max'd.

LFS is the only game where my framerate didnt skyrocket.

rFactor went from 30ish to 50ish FPS at 5240x1050.

I can even play Age of Conan at 5040x1050 now... but at 1680x1050 I run with everything on the game max'd and I get 40-50FPS outdoors, 20ish FPS in towns.

Are you using the test patches? He's changed they way he's using the GPU a little and it's supposed to help.

edit: I get the same in AoC with lesser specs. But I only run 1280x1024. 40-50 outdoors in most places, 100 in small instances, 20-30 in cities. I have everything on high (maxed out sliders save for grass draw distance at 500M) as well, bloom turned on as of the last patch.

Althon X2 6400+ (3.2Ghz)
4GB DDR2 800
nVidia 8800GTS 512 (G92)

Last edited by Ball Bearing Turbo, Sat 21 Jun 2008, 21:13.

Indeed. As you can see by my join date I've been here for awhile, and you're the second person I've seen from Calgary. The first one that actually lives here!

See what I mean?

Hi wtf, that's where I get all my stuff (Memory Express), do you live in Calgary as well?

Don't mention Porsches to Shot though he doesn't understand how sweet handling they are on normal roads; what with that low polar moment of inertia. I'm starting to think Kev is right!

Quote from Boris Lozac :

But nothing curently suggests that it's teh next-gen of sim racing. Sounds, while sounding great, are just samples, which no matter how good they sound won't give the same feeling as simulated sounds, there's nothing better than the sound of a car strugling on an uphill, while the sample would sound the same on the uphill and on the flat surface... so, nothing next-gen about the sounds...
Graphics are good, while i can't judge the physics by the videos, Legends on the oval looked pretty realistic, while Radical looked too rFactorish to me... I'll check them out for myself though, at the friends house... since there's no demo (great way to atract customers and pay back 18 mil )

It's possible that you're right, it might sound the same but you're being presumptuous since you don't know how they implemented the samples. Maybe they did them under tons of different loads?

Besides, LFS's sounds don't change "on an uphill", anyway since you're really at WoT most of the time regardless. Uphill WoT = any other time WoT really

ROFL @ "solstii", that's perfect.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

You're a christian and you swored! I'm telling mom!

(I considered lying and saying I only have one testicle to make you feel guilty but then realised this is the internet and a dozen others would jump in with photos of Adolf Hitler)

No, I just used a swear acronym!

Actually, you can't prove what the 'F' stood for anyway, so you'll have to accept it when I arbitrarily tell you it meant "fruit".

Heh it's more about attitudes than words anyway I think, afterall words communicate ideas and therefore the words themselves are somewhat moot; being rather a means to an end. IMO of course.

Quote from Shotglass :

also youre ignoring that what you get for that money is the amazing opportunity to testdrive a solstice for 1 month...

Could be wrong, don't you get to use the single player test mode on other things? I thought you were only restricted to racing with what you "own", and that testing was not so. Could be wrong, don't care, I'll still be trying it out.

Quote from Shotglass :

riiiight...
http://forum.racesimcentral.co ... =456675&d=1212999932

Wow, a car without a black void of an undercarriage... it's like an epiphany!

Kev, please get 5 testicles or GTFO.

I don't know Shot... I can see quite a bit of suspension movement all over that vid even with the dreadful video compression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6zJF0uQyHE

At least we know it's one of 2 sims where cars look like they have mass, so far.

edit: just for good measure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... xbzCM&feature=related

Quote from George Kuyumji :

I had the same feeling as AndroidXP, I was also shocked the first time I drove iRacing that cars that had 300+ Ping appeared very smooth to me, you can lean a bit against them, a little rubbin' is possible now, even with high pings

[ot]
Can you PM me the full pic in your avatar?
If you die suddenly can I has your stuff?
[/ot]

Don't insult Kartor's Balls Anton!

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

EDIT: due to the nature of independent games, I may be unaware of brilliant games; it was a matter of luck that I stumbled upon LFS to be honest.

Yeah this is unfortunate.

Armadillo Run is a seriously fun peice of work that I would never have known about if KidCodea hadn't brought it up a long time ago (obviously since he's gone... unfortunately gone).

Heh,

Yes of course it fits the mould. However it doesn't look like a circus at all, and plays less like a circus that WoW so right there it has my attention.

I'm nowhere near 50, let alone 80 so I can't comment too much on the grind aspect. So far it's a very enjoyable game though.