I am not familiar with wubi. I kind of read about a windows.exe - hack that does all sorts of things - but when it told you it would install it in a file on one of your ntfs-partitions then I assume it will do exactly that.

quote from wikipedia:

Quote :

It is not a virtual machine, but rather, it creates a stand-alone installation within a loopmounted device, also known as a disk image, like Topologilinux does. It is not a Linux distribution of its own, but rather an installer for Ubuntu.[1]
Users interested in directly installing to a dedicated partition, like a standard Ubuntu install does, without needing a CD should use UNetbootin instead.[3]

So you see: it will create a file of a certain size (a few GB), then format THAT FILE as like as it was an actual hard-drive and then install a bootable kernel-image pointing to that file-system by the means of a "loop"-mount. So your usually invisible Windows-boot-manager will offer you the option to boot Ubuntu from there instead of proceeding with the normal Windows-startup the whole way through. That will get obvious the moment after you restart your machine for the first time after the WUBI has finished the installation-process.

A very safe and sound option if you ask me. Although it will not run as performant as a so-called "native" installation. So don't expect any wonders on system performance. AND DON'T DELETE THE FILE FROM WITHIN WINDOWS IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO PLAY WITH IT.

On a side-note:
I see you've got about 53 Gigs of free, unallocated space.

You should make that your extended partition and then reboot into the Install-CD of the distribution of your choice. If that means Ubuntu, make that the most-recent stable version (8.10) of the Live-DVD to ensure that you don't end up with (yet) unsupported (too fresh of the shelf) hardware. You can then start a setup-wizard from within the Live-system that also includes a partitioner (AFAIR). Early versions didn't really support partitioning from the graphical live-system's installer but I THINK the newer ones do. Since I have been directly upgrading my system for the last couple of releases I really didn't get to see for myself, so you might want to re-check that before. Might be that you still need the "alternate-install"-Disk for manual partitioning.

JUST MAKE SURE YOU DON'T RUSH ANYTHING. Clicking "O.K." without reading what a dialogue's information is saying isn't always the right choice when using a Linux.

Other than that: Have fun!

PS.: use a proper network-connection to install the system, something with an attached and functioning ethernet-cable, not any WIFI-stuff

Quote from sam93 :

What are the advantages that Linux has over Windows exactly. I have heard that Linux is a lot better than Windows but I do not yet have the knowledge of what Linux can do to know why it is better. Could someone please tell me what are the advantages and disadvantages if you don't mind.

...if you prefer a little more letters to tell you why:

Windows has evolved from a simple name of a graphical user interface covering the most common file-operations under (MS)DOS, then was used as a name for a graphical application layer building upon DOS, then used for an integrated operating system, still based on DOS but with the graphical part now representing the "standard shell" (read: Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Millennium), then being used as the name for an all-new operating system designed to be network-capable rather than only network-aware and based on an entirely new "new-technology" native-32bit-system-kernel, thus they attached the two letters "NT" to it which - quite frankly - laid out the foundation for all the versions that are still in wide-spread use today.

Nowerdays Windows - as used in actual tounge - refers to a whole so-called "platform", including software object-code libraries, multimedia-layers and so forth, the Direct-X package being one of the more relevant to home-PC-users such as gamers.

Linux (or better say GNU/Linux) has nothing to do with any of those. It is in itself a "Unix"-Clone, relying heavily on the GNU-foundation's /-networks system tools that were modelled after what was once an operating system developed and owned by some nerds at AT&T (?). However, Unix-rights went from one owner to another quite a few times, resulting in an endless quarrel who would be the final legitimate owner of the thing. It was, although a commercial product, mostly an open-source one, meaning when it was further and further developed, people could actually have a peek at all it's core source-code. Hence all the relevant APIs and such were "open knowledge". That's not to say they were "public domain" or anything.

So that was the reason why the GNU-people could actually copy the behaviour of all the basic tools needed - and finally make them compatible (read: interchangeable) with the original system-kernels. They were up to recode all that stuff because they wanted a truly open development platform targeted at all people that was free to change up to it's core. Now all they needed was a piece of free (as in spirit) software that made it actually run without the need of an original system-kernel: That's were Linus Torvalds filled in the gap with his home-brew "Linux"-kernel.

Nowadays though, people just say "Linux" when referring to a whole unit consisting of system-kernel, system-tools (and even tend to include the usual widespread software packages into the equation) -- which all-together make up "a distribution", in short "distro".
Sounds amazing? Well it is. But the most amazing stuff is: it is not Windows. It has a little different way of how you use it. And each distro will have it's own go at how they present the package to the main user or administrator. What they all have in common, however, is that the productive software packages they include is mostly free software designed by the same people, just delivered in a slightly different fashion to fit the specific management tools, that the distributors decide to use on their distros. So users of any of them they can mostly (read: up to app. 95%) interchange user-generated data and work on/with that, as long as all people involved keep their systems reasonably up-to-date (or alternatively at the same development-level).

As for the sources: Anyone can adapt pieces of software made to fit one distro, to install and run on another. AND it is (mostly, as I said) all "free" software which means you can alter your installation and even a/the specific program itself - and if you whish just make a different install disc with the altered software and distribute your own, derived distro. Only some commercial distributors still use their own closed-source and non-free software-tools (mostly user-friendly installation-wizards and further subsystem-management-tools) that build upon their systems. So naturally, those specific tools&programs would be excluded from any sub-alteration, sub-redistribution (and then, that stuff is usually not supplied in an open-source fashion, read: "binary-only").

If you want to find out more, just browse some of the better-known websites/forums or -that would be my suggestion- get yourself a good all-round introductory book from your local bookshop's shelf. O'Reilly has some very good ones, so does Addison-Wesley. AND MANY OTHERS, too. That should lower the threshold of finally getting into the subject for a good deal. I would highly recommend to at least read a small bit before you go and install anything on your primary computer. Although most modern distributions handle most systems painlessly, there is always the chance of running into problems you didn't even know they even existed - when you are a complete newbie that hasn't got great computer skills AND KNOWLEDGE in the first place.

Overall conclusion: Linux is a different approach to a network-capable, multi-tasking & multi-user (-capable) operating system that is not only limited to PCs but all sorts of likewise functioning modern (and sometimes older out-of-production) hardware. Most-likely 5 out of 10 NAT-type internet-router-devices run a simplyfied version of it with a small web-server providing a browser-based set-up tool on a down-sized piece of hardware vastly different to any intel-PC in design and/or architecture. Since it is all available in source you can get it to run on virtually anything.

Well at least some guys can. At least I can't.

I am simply just an average user who likes using it. Ubuntu for me, too, after some years of SuSE, Debian and stuff. It actually runs better on my old laptop than the supplied Windows ever did. But I still dual-boot for reasons like Live for Speed. Sometimes you just can't get away from it

Last edited by DrBen, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 23:22.

Quote from NightShift :

IMO we should focus more on the difference between gated shifters in seq mode, since it is the most widely used setting. In seq mode there's the benefit of never having to face a misshift, so it would make sense to slow it down a little.

However, I have little hope of this being fixed, as the button clutch cheat would need to be sorted out first.

That's right from the "I want more realism and am using an h-shifter with the 3rd-pedal-view". And it's the exact same reason I use auto-clutch and the flappy-pedals most of the time, when I am in a race. Most (if not all) of the tracks in lfs are built for speed. Handling in sharp bends under treacherous road-conditions is mostly not designed into the simulation's grounds as of yet. And that's the only time I am experiencing the advantage of being able to shift gears directly (e.g. from 6th to 2nd or sth.). Playing with the car's weight and handling is where a proper manual really shines. On other occasions it is doomed to slow your reaction time down and to bring a disatvantage to the car's handling (especially at high speeds) since automated clutch is king (looking at the fact you can keep both hands on the steering wheel).
Drifting also profites from full-manual mode. But that's about it. When there are no more and much more difficult and norrow, bending tracks to come to lfs, then sticking to status-quo will indeed be the best solution.
Just look at all those cheapos - like me - sometimes using mouse-steer or sporting one of the simpler "two-pedal and no h-shift" - wheels in lfs. You would definitely exclude these fellow racers when dissing the automated clutch mode.

All-in-all I am happy that at least throttle-cut & -blip is no longer available to the most "sunday-drivers" around. That steepened the learning-curve with the benefit for them, especially, to gain some proper racing-experience right from the start with little chance to get it very wrong. Or in simpler terms: One chance to educate "false lerners" less. A good thing IMHO.

BAK TO TOPIC
For a real Auto-transmission, These driver-aids would have to be re-implemented (shwitched-on, again) 'cause never mind how smooth a real automatic transmission is on drive-shifts, it will most-likely never be as quick as a sequential or manual gearbox when operated with some skill. Thereby racing with an auto would prove pretty much useless. Thing is: in the 1980s, which most LFS-cars' real-world models are coming from, those transmissions AFAIR didn't have the refinement found in some of today's Auto-driven luxury (and mostly very heavy) exotics. So that might be some counting reason not to opt for a full auto, at all.

"DSG" is literally written out as "Direktschaltgetriebe" which is neither an old-school automatic nor comparable to LFS's "automated-gears" option.
It uses two clutches combined in the gearbox, on fitted to 1st,3rd,5th,(optional 7th) (and reverse?) plus one for the 2nd,4th,6th. So when changing gears, the next to come is already alligned inside the box before the actual - direct - change even occurs. That's why it is so fast.
The downside is that most of these systems built into standard road-cars are not suitable for stunt-driving manoeuvres since they lack an override-third-pedal that e.g. WRC-cars have with their customized, partly-automated sequential gearboxes.

So yes, in a way you drive those double-clutch systems similarily to an auto - if they are tuned to perform as such. And no: in certain situations a full manual will still perform better.

Quote from Takumi_lfs :

Hey, the DSG transmission is one of the fastest automatic transmission.

My cousin owns a Skoda Octavia with 160hp.

On S mode (Sport mode) it shifts very quickly at the redline spot.

That's usually an issue with one of the following:

a) dust building up and being collected right in front of the optical sensors of the mouse ('cause often these are installed in little moulds which are perfectly suited as to substitute for "vacuum cleaners")

b) You have a non-optimal mouse-driver setup. Try to disable ALL "acceleration" options for the movement of the mouse. This has to be done in the windows-settings for each and every system-user sperately!!

After doing that,
I doubt you will have any greater issues other than the dust-problem. Have been using a rather old cable-mouse ( Logitech mouseman dual-optical) for years and actually without the mouse-steering facilitated in LFS I would never ever have gone down the road to buy myself a S2-license plus a wheel (or in fact, 3 wheels consequutively by now).

But of course, there is always the possibility of your mouse being plain rubbish or the underlying pad / or desk surface-material not matching the mouse's optical system so brillantly.

Quote from Riel :

True.
Sometimes geometry damages is NOT seen at suspension bars! I have seen several times, that car behaves very weird, but nothing to see at f10.

Actually I think there's tons of space in F11 to give a short summary on what grade of alteration the chassis-geometry has reached. Maybe together with a user-friendly "box-assist advice" like "better come in soon" OR "you can keep on battling, not too serious" OR "Not even a real scratch, keep your eyes on the road!"

... or something like that. Wouldn't take too much of coding, I guess

Well, if you don't care about the profiler and just do the stuff manually - like me - you can set every steering-angle whilst preserving all FF.

It will just look odd when the wheel and hands/arms-animation will not turn further than 720/540/450/270 (depending on the car-model) degrees of rotation. You can disable the animation when driving in cockpit, though.

I personally just stick to the exact same amount of rotation as is animated in LFS. Given that there do exist but few cars like the Mitsubishi EVOs 4x4 Group-N-spec Basic-Rally Cars in the real world-- (which do sport an exact 720° steering-rotation) -- I think it is a fairly reasonable choice to stick to this setting for the tin-top road-cars. It also works pretty well on the less-expensive consumer-wheels like Logitech (G25, DF-GT) which do not provide quite the peak-velocity in simulated FF-caster-steer that real-world "A->B"-roadcars offer with steering-lock about 900-1080 degrees (when equiped with power-steering, at all).

So it really is a matter of "pick you own choice". Just try it out and decide what's best for you, yourself.

Your average happy G25 owner

Quote from 5haz :

Rfactor is good once you take a year or two to set it up properly, LFS is good right out of the box.

Hi, it's nice to read some reasonably sorted-out statement, anyway...

Quote :

Have you ever tried Neils Corvette mod and the HistoriX mod, clearly not. Trying a demo for 5 minutes doesn't really give you a good impression of Rfactor,

While that may be right I just cannot hold back and write this simple comment:
Why then do the rfactor-developers even send out a demo-version, if it doesn't provide an honest chance to get into the feeling and to specifically discover the sim-potential of that "game"??

The answer I give myself on that one is just this: They are already happy enough with their sales-figures, so they do not care to give the experienced sim-racer a good enough "hook" so he/she'll get's drawn in and effortlessly/instantly takes a bite.
So, sadly, I'll have to say: "no - thank you."

--> And yes, I tried the demo like 2/3 times with some time in-between and it never improved in that department, at all. Let alone the user-interface which is just plain counter-intuitive compared to LFS! Wasn't any fun for me right from the first intro-screen!

Quote :

Anyway, Rfactor 2 is supposedly in development, and they better have sorted out the physics.

Well, I'll be happy to give it's demo a chance when it's ready (and at that time one of my computers still proofs fast enough for it).

As for i-Racing: Money talks. Enough said.

...or maybe not: I recon it would have been quite easy for the lfs-guys to achieve a stable S-2 at the end of 2006 if they had been given that kind of speculative investment as loan that i-racing has already used up for their development and licensing costs. I don't whish them any bad luck but for me I say:
"no - thank you." An (online) demo with their physics would be the least to expect when wanting all of my little spare money!

on a side note: it's late here and I just got a glimpse at about half of the first page of this thread, so please don't slap me for not reflecting on anything further on and/or directly above my message.

once again:
happy new year to you all.

and PLEASE don't confuse the different driving aids, again:

read the first 2 pages & understand what's presented there.
ABS does nothing more than to prevent overbraking, thus preserving you traction on all 4 wheels under full brake-load so that you could still steer (and actually make it around an obstacle if there was any). And sure enough nothing less. AND YES it does it "in reverse", as well since it functions independently from any gears (although it won't cut in at walking-pace! 6 km/h minimum speed on my car, as stated in the manual)

What you Interjmt and BlueFlame are going on about is NOT 'ABS', but the more advanced stability management systems present in newer cars. They might (in their individual implementation) integrate with the ABS-function to assure best results - but they are originally designed for another purpose and thereby named seperately. I guess that's all what it was: a name-confusion of all things

Last edited by DrBen, Thu 1 Jan 2009, 17:40.

Quote from John5200 :

i dont think so... if it would be faster, why does EVERY racing series use secuential / h-shifter
@ the old quote, its still a racing simulator, not a cruising simulator so we dont need grandma shifting

The reason is simple:

when racing, you really do not want any computer to interfere with you yousing your engine and car-balance to it's full potential.

I drive a very ancient auto-transmission in RL, 4 speeds, not paddles or anything. For the kind of car and for the style of driving (RL, A-->B) it's o.k.
It just happened to turn out that way, so don't assume for a minute that I don't know how to drive a manual

Naturally for keeping the control over your car on the edge of what's physicly possible this old auto-box is no way a sufficiently capable transmission.


Newer posh cars however have the option of manually (only!) initiated instant gear-changes and fullfill that claim - depending on make and model - more or less to the driver's satisfaction.
The VW double-clutch system (and all other makes that adapted this method) are again another usable alternative. However: I'm not quite sure they offer the same instant "disengaging all force-transmission" that a simple clutch-press or auto-trans-lift-off offer you. To my understaning on a dual-clutch system you'll allways be stuck "in gear" hence you will lose a little bit of flexibility on the handling front.

The other thing I dislike about auto-boxes is the fact that you (the driver) are likely to develop a bad habit of a too relaxed seating-position. the right foot handles all the action, the left one is left alone, hence body-tension will eventually decline on the whole left side, mostly after just a few minutes of seat time, when covering larger distances. That's why I trained myself not to lose too much body-tension when driving: re-positioning myself every couple of minutes checking for maximum safe&sound manouverability of all of my arms&legs related to driving.
The oddly big brake-pedal on most auto-cars, too, is something I sometimes find very much annoying.

Plus: there are good & bad auto-boxes. Those that are good usually make up a good match to the car's engine in terms of shifting-points and flexibility of shift-patterns regarding load, road-angle (steepness), weight, delivered torque. A bad auto-box will change gear at the slightest alteration of accelerator-travel. A good one will not do that too often and offer a reasonable amount of tolerance to allow a torquey engine to not be revved up unnecessarily and be used to it's full potential even on lower revs.

But that's all another story when racing: here you want maximum control & maximum efficiency. And especially the latter is the killer-argument that will allways make you run away from any traditional automatic transmission. And what's the point in simulating an approx. 10% smoother changing modern auto-box in manual-shift mode (which is the only suitable option when racing) when there is this "auto-clutch" feature in lfs and the majority of the smaller high-volume RL-models sooner or later will all be converted for one of those dual-clutch atomated boxes (as an option) for buyers that want to do without a third pedal?

That said: I'm not against a simulated auto box. Cruisers will like it I guess. It's just that I can really do without in lfs, since my focus is on controllability and efficiency. Neither of which is going to be provided by the addition of an auto-box. However, simulating an auto-box wouldn't require much of work for devs except finding some good shift-patterns for each of the cars and therefor fitting gear-ratios, of course.

Thanks again for your help in clarifying this.
So my aim to introduce some rationality into this "discussion" finally met it's purpose.

On another note: Since engine-management is done mostly elctectronically nowerdays I imagine those other kinds of traction control implementations are soon do "die out" given the widely adapted use of stability management systems on new cars (Most not-too cheap new cars have them installed as standard on the german market). Would not make too much sense economically if any such cars didn't have a "drive-by-wire" accelerator - and therefor I expect all the variety-models based on a common drive-train and featuring TC to use a similar aproach, as well, as to keep dev-costs down a bit.
Am I wrong here? I'm no mechanic of any sorts, so that's why I'm guessing as well. Although sports cars might be a whole different story

Quote :

Because its a waste of time & scawen has a thousand more important things to do than worry about weather abs works in reverse.

Sorry for interrupting: has Scawen - once - denied that his implementation was meant to be universal? Because if it is, a fail when in reverse would be considered as a BUG.

In RL ABS is a system that funtions independantly from any driver-input. It detects two or more wheels doing vastly different speeds under brake-pressure - regardless of the direction - thus triggers some electro-pneumatic devices in the braking-system. Simple as that. Now it might not be engeneered to give best results in reverse though, but then again why should it be supposed to do such. I think it will work conveniantly well though, even in reverse.

The other thing that bugs me is the wild misinterpretation of driving assistence-systems:

ABS = Anti-Blockier-System / anti-lock braking system
--> it basically effects all wheels in a similar way since it is modulating the brake force the driver pushes onto the middle pedal. All 4 wheels have sensors on them that track rotation.

Traction-Control: a simple electronic gas-pedal with an intelligent "nanny" between it and the engine/fuel-pump stuff: it will disengage throttle when the driven axxis signals slip through the difference in ABS-sensor readings.

ESP = electronic stability (menagement) program
Now that combines all of the above (/builds upon them) and introduces electronic components inside the braking-system, some yaw-, steering and whatnot-sensors on top of all that, a "dsp" with some sort of predefined reaction paths (programs) and is connected to some kind of computational device which will help you regain a stable "in-lane"-kind of driving-state again, with no slip on any wheel:: by triggering each wheel's brake independantly and -if needed- simutaniously on it's own accord, even when there is NO DRIVER-INPUT on the brakes, what-so-ever.

Maybe the english language has now taken the term "traction control" as a substitute for the rather dull sounding "ESP" - that I don't quite know. JC from TopGear uses that term in this way, though - so might be a given fact.

Have fun!

PS.: I'd prefer my Scirocco un-tamed. But given the fact that the RL-model will prevent you from turning the ESP completely-off, I just wait and see what the Dev-s come up with in 2009

Cheers
DrBen
PS2.: sorry for this hard-to-read post, grammar-wise. It's late, I'm off to my bed!

Last edited by DrBen, Sat 20 Dec 2008, 03:24.

alright then, I just read that story

now I guess everyone will know how much enthusiasm shines from within me considering single-seaters

Don't let it come to you, too much so...

...I am the fist answering the poll with regard to the shifter unit. I had to have my dealer send in the whole set because of his supply-source that wouldn't accept handling a partial replacement-call with Logitech. Funny warranty issue here in DE.
Lucky me I got a V1.01 of the set back - but only after waiting like 2 months that supposedly was due to the high demand of those wheels back then (2008-04..05).
Don't get me wrong, it's still the best buy I ever did. Only the upcoming fanatec-products do have a chance to compete on features/pricepoint right now.
If I were you - I'd at least consider these, as well. Thinking loudly about the GT3-RS-version here...
...most forward-point for one of those is the replaceable shifter-set (you can get that seperately, since it is not part of all their "bundled" wheel sets).

Oh and just to make sure you'll not misunderstand my warning about the shifter-unit: I tend to treat all of my stuff with at least a reasonable amount of care. I do not throw stuff against the wall and I am fully capable of realising what things are made of before applying any specific task or even force to them.

have fun

Last edited by DrBen, Wed 10 Dec 2008, 18:05.

spot-on!

how about some totally unrealistic brake-lights for the not-yet-enlightened single-seaters then? Might improve my "temptedness" to actually go racing in them more often

Quote from Stynax :

I've got a ~$200 budget, so I could either get G25, or DFP, with something else. :P Right now i'm leaning towards G25, but i'm not entirely sure yet. Thanks.

fanatec top-of-the-line P-turbo wheel (only one available, right now)

+ | belt-driven, biggest wheel diameter, seperate shifters, 900°-mode
- | price, limited experience by fellow lfs-racers as of yet
o | the optional clubsport-pedals sure look like something superiour

Logitech wheels:
Momo Racing Force (black)
+ | nice hands-on finish to it, 6 buttons at centre of wheel, cheap street-prices, excelent pedal-shifts in reach
- | only 240° of rotation, slow/restricting ffb-motor (but with good overall-feel to it), cheap-looking sequential stick-shifter, known-to somtimes break pedal-unit, no clutch-pedal

Driving Force Pro
+ | 900°-mode (first of it's kind), lots of buttons, PS2/3 compatible, cheap street-price (preferable to the momo-black)
- | same cheap pedals as the momo-black, less well-located pedal-shifters, slow ffb (same as momo-black?), no clutch-pedal, already out of production --> see the "GT"

Driving Force GT
+ | 900°-mode, lots of buttons, PS2/3-compatible, relatively quicker ffb than momo-black or DFP, price-point/value for money, sequential side-shifter, sequential pedal shift present.
- | relatively new to the market, limited experience of fellow lfs-users, seems to sport the same old plastic pedal-unit known to give up unter advanced use / no clutch-pedal

G25
+ | 900°-mode with 2 very sharp and reasonably fast ffb-motors, nice leather finish on wheel and gearstick, 6+1-speed gearstick with sequential-mode, sturdy pedals with clutch-pedals, cheaper to buy than P-turbo wheel, excelent steel-pedal shifters, PS2/3 compatible (but who would need this kind of wheel for arcarde-style racing?)
- | gear-shifter might break under advanced use (build quality / construction not on par with the rest), lots of buttons - but harder to reach which renders them moderately useless, a pain to frequently mount on a normal desk because of the unique wiring strategy


If it was my pick of the bunch today (I am G25-owner already) I would probably go for

-> the DF-GT if money is key
(or still wait for the Porsche Carrera wheel for about the same price) - eventually opting for sturdy aftermarket pedals

--> go for the G25 if the Porsche-Turbo one is out of my reach but DF-GT is too cheap / unavailable for me.

--> take the G25 if I thought I would really be getting into things and wanted to try a "safe bet" at things

I'd completely dismiss any chances on the Momo-black (but, hey -> I had that as my 2nd wheel before getting the G25// it is in no way bad, but it's technology is completely outdated given the price-tag!)

-> the new Porsche-Turbo wheel with the optional clubsport pedals if money is of no concern.


PEW, got more complicated than anticipated.
However: If there would come a shortage of money and only cheaper stuff is left on the radar: go for a decent value Thrustmaster wheel as they are almost the same quality as the old black Momo / but with less to go wrong - pedal units! (those have got an actual bearing for the pedals, for once - so if something brakes they indeed are easier to repair! If that will be your choice examine the pedal-shifters fist, reason being: My first wheel, an early "Ferrari Enzo"-Model had too stiff springs providing the counter-force for the extremely thin and light shifter pedals, one of that broke cleanly in half during up-shift that way. The ffb was decent, though.

Greets
DrBen

Last edited by DrBen, Tue 9 Dec 2008, 17:53.

When having the option of a ' roughly-indexed throttle/brake axis' you'd lose the ability to press gas&brake at the same time though - obliterating the idea of left-foot-braking.

That said: you can still have some fast lap times with a mouse - just the control of the higher-powered cars will be limited to some degree. But even the lx6 is possible to keep in check when all you want is to hotlap. Racing is another story... ...as to prevail in the slower cars, that's not a big deal. But keep a safety margin doing so, and you will be more comfortable and regarded less hostile by other racers (at large).
Having the experience with mouse-steer that I used for quite a long time - I really felt lucky putting my knowledge about steering-speed & accuracy to some good use when finally switching to a ffb-wheel.

bottom line: know your limits.

And prior to mastering the lx6 comes learning & mastering the lx4 - which in my opinion handles even better than it's 'larger' brother

funny that this experience will be forever your own (and a very few others') exclusive piece of memory since I am not going to pay a single dime to those who won't give me a comprehensive try first, to test out if what they are claiming is "realistic"

FYI:
GTR2 put me off once before with an not-selectable (greyed-out) "sim"-option on their demo
-> and buying that piece of boredom after it dropped below 10€, I now have the confirmation first-hand why it has never been worth more than that (to me at least).
I actually don't dislike iRacing's claim to receive a continous amount of money from their user-base in order to keep development on par with the users' demands and overall competetive standards. Just the pay-before-you-try puts me off quite effectively: that's exactly not the way to attract my attention. Regarding that other people have come a long way before without resorting to such idiocity - they should seriously reconsider their attitude towards the market

...well one advice I have, though:

try to memorize your weak spots on the track, then have a couple ofminutes pause.
When you restart you next run, try to to think about weight-distribution and such. WHAT EXACTLY is going on with the weight of the body, which wheels are on the ground, which spring is compressed/decompressed, which piece of rubber is actually gripping on the road, what kind of deformation would tyre w,x,y,z suffer at right now, how does that affect grip?

and lastly: if this brings no clue to what is the key-difference to the faster drivers: start drifting on purpose throughout, at the beginning /at the end of such a problematic corner -> again, rethink your vehicle-dynamics as stated above -> notice any difference in anticipation and real (re)action? If so then there might be a lack of track-knowledge, that didn't yet cross you sight -> check it out.

Knowing how to lose traction and when gave me a better understanding of the force-feedback - although I'm no newbie to lfs, at all. I can now utilize a more precise steering- and pedal-input, weight-transition is now my key-focus --> made me able to apply throttle earlier, brake later find a more stable line through the corners

and - yeah - I rarely use foreign setups if I can avoid it. Messing with you own stuff is one of my key joys in lfs. But I reckon you are just getting there, too

Good luck!

If that prohibits people building ultra-tight, ultra-close gear-ratios they sometimes use to overcome excessive clutch-heat when flat-shiftingly-accelerating on auto-cross layouts -> then I am +1 for limited options on gear ratios. hope I didn't encourage other racers to adapt this unrealistic and painfull (to my ears) method, now

However I personally didn't find anything wrong with the current system apart from the auto-x issue as of yet.

thing is,
Logitech replaced the original DFP with the driving force GT, which is priced at an equal recommended resale value (or whatever the english equivalent of "UVP" ((i.e.: unverbindliche Preisempfehlung)) is). It should have faster FFB than it's predecessor and it has a sequential shifter on the side so it would suffice for some steering abuse quite well, I guess.
The Fanatec "Carrera" variant that is due to arrive to the shops some time next year would be the offer of the competition I think.

Drifitng with mouse would be the way to go when waiting for the latter to be "buy-able" Using the turbo-lag on the xrt it is in some way "not-impossible" to do so even with digital throttle/brakes ;-)

edit:
BUT I should add that for full control over everything a decent set of pedals (with clutch pedal) and maybe an optional analogue handbrake (for example a cheap joystick) would probably be both needed. Like what Sushi-man ("drift-king") calls 'shift-lock' is only possible with some decent amount of control over the clutch

and no I am not a pro-drifter - even if I tried some stuff for fun the past couple of days

Last edited by DrBen, Mon 8 Dec 2008, 22:51.

how about a simple 2-column expanded view option that is clickable to sort them setups by either of them {date-created | date-modified} (and clickable name-column, too so you could still go back to letter-by-letter search)

Quote from TAYLOR-MANIA :

Well i agree with practically all of what's been said here (especially the first post) & i didn't properly read the whole thread, but anyway... i have a question...

How realistic is it of us to expect such environmental changes that's been mentioned? I mean surely these things can't have been overlooked in the quest of making the most realistic racing sim, so why have they been [seemingly] overlooked by all sim developers? Will we ever see such detail i wonder...?

Quote from Toddshooter :

I imagine they haven't been implimented because it would be a monumental task to code. Shifting weather patterns and track temp changes seem to me to be a very complicated thing. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

well at least - judging by what has been said in this thread from people with insight in programming - it would be another grand, yet not undoable and thus reasonably achievable thing to start doing.

Quote from NightShift :

On a sidenote, this has been my thought for quite some time. We have a wind setting within a limited aero model, so why not introduce a temperature setting too?

If you leave a car sitting in the pits for some time, the tyres will cool down so LFS is already aware of an ambient temperature in its innards.

It would be great on servers with random conditions (e.g. CTRA). During hot 'days', people would be forced to play with tyre pressures or switch to R2 or Road Normal from R1 and Supers, while cold days would require a little more attention because of reduced grip.

As an immediate consequence, drivers would need to be more careful and develop a little flexibility when it comes to track conditions, effectively countering the sealed-set/drive-always-the-same approach which is common now.

In short, it would be a first important step towards a truly dynamic environment, in terms of player development.

I guess that this reflects most of Becky's thoughts from the open letter quite nicely and in order. And actually I feel about the same way. The challenge should be placed further away from finding that "perfect setup" and focus on driving and driving skills a lot more than at today's state.

Quote from TAYLOR-MANIA :

Yeah i see what you mean about the low grip situations in dry conditions...
Quite frankly though, that level of detail is just so far from anything we currently have that i really struggle to see it becoming a reality.

Not that I don't wish for such detail, or that it's the wrong path to take, or that it will never happen... but it's such a massive leap (almost revolutionary!) to add such a great deal of depth to the sim racing experience.
It's totally beyond todays sim standards & developing mentality... it seems so far beyond i'd say that it's out of reach right now.

For it to be achieved would require a fairly considerable shift in mentality (and hard work) from developers to even begin paying attention to the most basic of environmental factors.
Until they do focus on & get the basics sorted, the details you're talking about seem rather inaccessible to me.

I think you're spot-on stating that mentality in development is still so far off these ideas. But I disagree that it is about the projected work one has realised would bee un-doable with today's technology.

It has been mentioned before: the way how a slippery (meant: changing) condition is derived in detail does not matter much. It doesn't have to be a super-computer-exclusive real-time computation but can be pretty much simplified in it's details allowing for standard system with reasonable computing power to cope just well.
In the bottom line it's the resulting influence on the drivers and the whole race that really matters. We want to have these "effects" to "behave" as close to real life as possible in order to give us a racing experience as close to RL as possible.

After all when driving lfs for a longer periode of time there will eventually come a point where you think: "this pace, that the WR-holder puts into a combo is just unreal. If I was to challenge that track-time I would have to depart from a realistic driving-style and just hunt for the flaws in the physics/environment department - just like that other bloke does it."

A dynamic environment would not only change that condition for the better but at the same time have it's effects on online racing as it would then prove impossible to race with a hotlap set as they tend to be a LOT trickier to handle under not-ideal (clear "fast-line") conditions in a race. It would bring the fast hotlappers back closer to the ones focusing on the racing action: it would simply improve online-racing culture to resemble much better to the real thing.

The reason that sim-developers didn't come across a positive decision to try this is - in my eyes - very simple:
MONEY. It would certainly cost the part to develope such a thing. Since sim-racing is still a very young "sport" people buying a sim tended to be short-time-users, as they frequently moved on to the next-in-line "hot-product" after a few months or maybe years. Hence the return on investment would be limited given that the market (IMO with good reason) would simply reject any heavily over-prised product to hit the shelves.

With the introduction of sims like LFS, rFactor or even iRacing this thinking might prove to become a thing of a past. So maybe Becky's "open letter" is just a redundant bit of information that the devs themselves are already "on" as we speak. Or maybe not. How would we know?
However, in my opinion, this certainly is the way to strive for in future attempts. I simply won't buy any new "hot product" anymore just because it may have some nicer graphics or a better sound system. And that's because I have got so fond of actually racing a "Virtual Car" that those aspects, most magazines and review-sites happen to bark about most times, are just heavily irrelevant when adressing the real fun found in racing.

Way to go - yes.
And I believe it will be worth it big-time! As soon as the first one is to achieve a reasonably well-working product giving us all of the above-mentioned, they will have the ability to make some money out of it. It's just that they would be the ones to take the gamble of financing the whole development and the PR first - and against all these glossy magazines which just focus on graphics and such, since you cannot "sreen-shoot" the experience and fun of a real driving-challenge.

My 2 cents
DrBen

Last edited by DrBen, Sun 7 Dec 2008, 17:43. Reason : sometimes I forget about the final argument about on paragraph... PM me if anything else is still unclear :D

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

I've never once had the need for more buttons on my racing wheel. I use the two buttons for look left/right and that's all I need. There's more than enough buttons on the shifter unit. I'm replacing my wheel with a Sparco 270 in the coming months, and I bet I'll be able to live without the look left/right on the wheel - I'll just reassign them to the HAT button on the shifter.

Yeah, my critique is not about the number of buttons, rather their positioning as well as their alignment. They might work well with the shifter-unit mounted to someplace level with your seat - on the desk though (which is where I have the only space to mount it to) I barely use any of them except the outer-right of the 4 red ones for a button - E-brake. Those others are just too much a hassle to reach when acutally racing.
Other than that I really like the wheel itself. It seems sturdy and reliable. Same goes for the pedals (up to now). Only the shifter broke down on me once, having to send in the whole set because of it, waiting like 2 and a half months for the dealer to get a fresh replacement (german warranty/legal issues, you know - they really suck!). Many thank yous to all those playstation arcarde-gamers in the need of a 900° g25 at this point, hehe.

All in all, had fanatec hurried up with building and delivering the GT3-RS-Wheel, I might have reconsidered buying one with the clubsport pedals - and then probably expanded to the clubsport pedal-shifters which, as you can see, would/will cost a whole lot more than the G25.

It's just that the idea is spot-on, unfortunately though the world wasn't ready for(with) it, at the time (quoting some Tocotronic there).

Have fun - regardless of your buying decision
-- please continue to drive cleanly --

DrBen

Last edited by DrBen, Sun 7 Dec 2008, 14:51.