The wobbly camera is a simple but highly effective method of making the replays look a bit more real. I love it

Gran Turismo has been doing it for ages, and RBR also has it. GTR also does it occasionally but in that it looks more like an earthquake, so it doesn't always work

I've noticed that the camera in LFS isn't locked onto the cars now, (which I think is a clever way of getting around the problem of a jumpy camera if the car is lagging), so I would guess the effect could fairly easily be implemented.

Another feature that is rarely used but works really well, is one that zooms the camera out to fit more cars into the shot, rather than centering on one driver. The only time I've seen this done is in Crammond's GPx efforts, but it would be superb for multiplayer races when you want to watch a wheel-to-wheel battle, rather than having to switch between the two.

Quote from mrodgers :

...Learn to modulate the throttle to drive the cars instead of mashing the pedal down and wonder why there's no grip.

You shouldn't assume everyone complaining about grip can't drive. I have no trouble getting round in LFS but I still know there's quite a big problem with the physics.

You are right though, it's been done to death now

That's where LFS really shines, the transfer of weight from one side to the other and any time that the tyres still have grip. The problems come when it loses grip. You can't quite see in the vid that the back end wants to step out but if you've played LFS at all, you just know that another half second in either direction and it would have lost it.

Interesting comparison. I'd like to see something similar but with the car losing it a bit first. Might do a hunt around the web sometime for a video to try that with

You're right Riche, there is a problem with the physics in LFS but it's more complicated than simply a lack of grip. There are loads of threads on the subject already, but basically I think the concensus was that the problem lies with the ease at which the tyres break away, and then with how quickly they regain traction. It seems to affect the rears more than the fronts, for some reason, and you can end up drifting all over the place without much effort.

It can be frustrating when you know that what you might do in real life doesn't necessarily work in LFS, but you do get used to it eventually and learn to drive around the problems. Also, it's almost certain the problem will be fixed at some point since the devs are extremely responsive to the community.

The default setups are a bit iffy too, which seems to exaggerate the problem, so it's certainly worth finding some better ones.

Also, the FWD and proper racing cars in S2 (particularly the open-wheelers) don't seem to suffer from this problem as much, so they are a lot of fun and, to me, more rewarding to drive.

Granted you wouldn't hear them whilst actually racing but if certain simple sounds were imlpemented, it would help create a more believable environment. Then there's also the replays, when you should, at the very least, hear the trackside commentary.

I think LFS comes under fire for not really capturing the essence of motorsport. Technically it is excellent but, with all due respect, I don't get the impression from playing it that the devs are complete petrol heads. I'm not saying they aren't, I'm saying it isn't apparent in the product. GTR does a fantastic job of creating a realistic atmosphere and a lot of it is from an extremely good understanding of sound. Although I wasn't impressed with GTR on the whole, it's difficult to argue that they don't love the sport.

Great idea

Karts would be excellent but they could be the most difficult things to recreate, since everything is more direct than in a car, and so much relies on reaction and feel.

One bonus is that karting is accessible to most people, whereas performance cars and trackdays are not, so the experience could easily be comparable to something that many of us have done.

I wonder if a serious edit to the setup of the MRT5 could give some clues as to how the LFS engine would cope...?

After hearing the ripple of applause at the end of the race I realised that LFS is skimping on some decent and realistic background sounds to create more of a sense of 'being there'. The applause is more akin to a tennis match than a race track.

Probably most importantly, you should be able to hear the trackside commentary echoing round the place, (an incomprehensible murmur will do, just like it is in real life ). GPL did this when you were sat in the pits and it worked really well.

There are other noises that make up that racing atmosphere, such as engines being started up when you're in the pitlane, the air horns when a group of fans spot their driver, or the ridiculously loud warble to warn that a car has entered the pitlane.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Take a car with and one without (each designed originally to have it or not), disconnect the power steering stuff, and you'll find the one that is designed not to need PAS will be easier to turn.

I'm not sure what your point is. If the car has a different steering system, then the setup should be tweaked to make the most of that, obviously. Similarly, if it had a different braking system, then you would also tweak the setup to get the best out that.

In fact you could say that about any feature of the handling. To get optimum handling, you adjust a car to what it has not what it has not.

Anyway, to get back to the original point (whenever that was), power assisted cars make better race cars because they are easier to control, which is why most, if not all, of the cars in LFS would have PAS.

Quote from Bob Smith :

On my old wheel (Thrustmaster F1) it used to oscilate like crazy, then I updated the drivers and it went away

Blimey, I've not updated my wheel drivers in years!

Quote from tristancliffe :

Saying 'Our car is shit slow round a track, but at least you can park it, and you save £200 in the process'...

What are you on about? Who would buy a car that will be awful to drive and look at on the road but might go a couple of tenths quicker if they ever happened to take it to a track?

Power steering is simply about making the wheel easier to turn. Non-PAS cars are a pain in the arse to park, often have less feel and are more difficult to control.

Actually

Edit: Oops, this is rather OT now...

Last edited by durbster, Thu 25 Aug 2005, 08:25.

Actually there is another factor in this that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, and that's the road itself. My own experience of the steering going light when understeering is when there has been something on the road that causes a serious loss of grip, like ice or spilt diesel. In those situations, you get understeer and the resistance through the steering wheel is virtually zero. This isn't modelled in LFS because low grip surfaces aren't modelled in LFS, so I was probably wrong to use this as my own experience.

The steering going light due to excessive speed is a different matter, and I think this is where the confusion has crept in.

Quote :

I think you need to go for a drive in a decent car, preferably without power steering (although difficult as all cars have it now new, which just goes to show that modern people are generally a bit girly.

Well, that wouldn't really be much use since the real equivalents of all the cars in LFS (excluding the MRT?) would almost certainly have power steering. Girly? No, I'd say it's more to do with the fact that engineers can do a lot more to improve the feel of a car with power steering than without it.

But you're talking about a point to point comparison on a public road which means practically nothing because the limits are not set by the car, but by the conditions, the ability/bravery/stupidity of the driver and the type of road you're on. You simply can't push a car hard enough on public roads to make a valid comparison because there are far too many variables.

On a track, most things will beat an MX-5, for example this is Autocars Best Drivers Car feature:
http://www.tuningpt.com/scanspages/scan86/scan86.htm

It was won by the MX-5, but it's laptime is very average, especially compared to some of the cars you've rubbished. The only arena in which an MX-5 would outshine those cars (Caterham excluded) is on tight and twisty autotest courses, where it's brilliant balance allows you to chuck it around a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I love the car. I'm in the owners club and I've just been to the National Rally (did you go btw Tristan?), but where the car is truly special is not on paper, it's in the driving seat.

Why do you think it needs a longer top gear btw? It seems fine to me.

And if you're going to comment on my spoiler, I shall refer you to your style bars.

Last edited by durbster, Tue 23 Aug 2005, 15:45.

Quote from illegal :

Donnington?

Well done, 10 points

Quote from bobvanvliet :

That's not true, as I stated before

OK, I thought you were talking about the effect in LFS, whereas my comment was about the effect in real life. Confusing eh

Here's my baby (10pts if you guess the track in the second one ).

I think Tristan is overstating the capabilities of the MX-5 a bit but I can recognise his enthusiasm! They are outrageously good fun and the handling is just perfect. It does all anyone could want a car to do. You don't drive them, they become part of you, like a big, metal suit of joy

Quote from Woz :

I am sure Scawen stated how it works although it might take a huge search on RSC to find the post. And as to it being strange to just base the FF on the front wheels, Why?

Simply because the only time the steering wheel really tells you anything is when the fronts have no grip and it goes light. Everything else that you need to know when driving comes from the feeling in your arse. You don't drive according to the feeling in your hands, if you did you'd always react too late.

Basically, the forces acting on a steering wheel in real life are not the most important ones, and therefore it doesn't make sense to use the only tool we have to translate feeling for that purpose.

Anyway, next time I fire up LFS I'm going to play with the settings. It's not bad by any means, but there are some things about it that don't seem quite right.

Quote from Bob Smith :

You know that's odd, I've read other people mentioning that, yet I can practically let LFS doing the countersteering for me (though it won't recover the slide as quickly as I could, nor prevent it in the first place).

Perhaps it's more related to the users wheel and settings. I can feel everything happening almost before it's happened, which helps me keep the car pointing in the right direction.

Interesting. I haven't really played with the FF settings much so perhaps I was a bit premature in commenting. So do you get light steering when the fronts wash out (on the RWD cars specifically)?

From experience (with power steering in my car, and none in karting ) I know the wheel should go light with understeer and I'm surprised anyone is suggesting otherwise. If the front wheels aren't gripping then how could they put up any resistance?

The FF in LFS seems a bit odd at times but with so many other forces acting on you in real life, it's really difficult to relate that to a PC. The FF on oversteer seems a bit strange to me too, as it seems to encourage you to lose the back end and you have to fight it to counter-steer. I've never experienced that in real life but like I say, it's almost impossible to compare the two directly.

I doubt FF in LFS models the front wheels only. If that were true then why the see-saw effect on straights? Has it actually been stated by the devs or is it one of those rumours that's become fact?

It wouldn't make any sense to do that anyway, since FF is a fantastic opportunity to give lots more feedback to the user, about weight distribution etc. GPL simply based it around the centre of gravity iirc, and that worked extremely well.

I agree that RBR has excellent FF. You don't notice it working when you're driving, which is always the sign that they've got it right. It's extremely fluid

Quote from BWX232 :

For the hell of it I downloaded netKar to see what it was like.

Quite off topic but try the Formula cars. Dare I say they're possibly even better than LFS :eek:

Quote from M.Mos :

If you ever touched a hot slick , you know its is more like chewing gum.

It's not something exclusive to slick tyres, even standard road tyres get extremely sticky when they're hot, and would still pick up a load of dirt. Probably a bit less than slicks though

Personally, I think the effect is superb in LFS. I love how it punishes you when you've stuck one corner off the track, and you can feel it

I would recommend leaving the setup as it is (unless it's absolutely horrible!) and concentrate on putting the laps in. Every time you adjust the setup, you'll knock your progress back a little as it takes time to get used to it. I'm still using the default race_1 setups for a lot of the cars and can just about keep up with the pack

You're probably right Bob, but if you compare it to something like a Lotus Elise then the standard setup will not sacrifice the handling for comfort and ride. Having said that, maybe the Elise isn't an appropriate comparison. It's a 2 seater Roadster but looks quite comfortable inside so maybe it's more like a BMW Z4 or a Honda S2000...?

Btw, I just tried your setup for the RA and it's an enormous improvement and makes the bleedin' thing driveable, thanks a lot

Quote from BWX232 :

I still think it is more of a physics flaw than anything, and the setups have little to do with it.

I think they are a contributory factor. I've always felt that the default setups exaggerate the flaws in the physics, rather than mask them and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has installed S2, taken the RA out and simply thought, "this is not a realistic sim."

If the default setups are supposed to be the road-going setups then they should be soft, driveable and fun. It certainly shouldn't be impossible to turn into a corner without losing the back end. :eek:

The points about your average road car being setup for safety is generally true but not relevant to LFS. All the cars in LFS are sporty things, and their equivalents in real life would not be setup for little Granny Goggins.

You wouldn't buy a Ferrari, a Caterham 7 or a Lotus Elise and expect it to be soft, wallowy and understeery would you? Almost all the cars in LFS are the sorts of things people should be able to take to a track, and so while their default setups will be compromised for bumpy, speed-bump ridden public roads, they wouldn't be enormously removed from their race equivalents.

Quote from Woz :

When I say unstable I dont mean the car falls off the track as the first possible situation but that they are tuned for agility and NOT stability.

I still disagree.

Just like a lot of sporty road cars, race cars are tuned for agility and stability but without the compromises necessary for public roads. Basically, if you don't have confidence in your car when you turn in, you have no chance of performing well in a race.

Hello.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I haven't done ONE test yet.

If tests or credits are used to unlock cars (highly likely) then perhaps the cars you are allowed should be stored on LFSW (but not accessed each time), so that you don't have to redo them (or hack LFS) when you reinstall.

But what about the people coming from GPL, GTR, rFactor, GeneRally or possibly even those who race in real life? Basically, what about people who are already sensible, responsible and good enough to use the top cars?

Surely a significant portion of the LFS community have migrated from other sims.