Quote from Quietus :

I thought at the moment, LFS treats all gearboxes like a H-Shifter? i.e. that's how they're simulated (gear->neutral->gear)?

That's right.

Or he has been coding day and night for Y.

Quote from grandma_07 :

Can someone tell me were i can get a wheel

From a shop.

Quote from JTbo :

Keyword is planning and designing, those who think that modding will be just like mess in rFactor are not utilizing their brains to full possibilities

It would take a lot of effort to make sure that only quality mods get in to the game. Trouble is that it won't increase the amount of quality mods. There would be like 1 or 2 new cars/tracks every year and then people would be bitching how there are not enough mods. Also if there would be a quality control, people would be bitching how their mods didn't get approved.
In conclusion there would need to be a lot of effort and time invested to make it work, but it wouldn't yield any better results than you see on rFactor for example.

Quote from swingkid :

can't agree with that , look at gpl there are a lot of good mods and addons , in fact thats what keeps it still alive

Don't know about GPL, but it may work alright there because it's a smallish hardcore community. But just take a look at rFactor or Racer or just about any other sim that has a modding community. There are like gazillion crappy mods out there and only small few good ones. Like rFactor has a grand total of 2 or 3 good cars out of thousands.
Not to mention the trouble of downloading and keeping the mods updated and then you realize the server hasn't updated their files..
That's what I call a big mess.

Quote from Austin31287 :

i do wht others do

You obviously don't. Try using LFS Replay Analyzer and compare your lines/inputs to faster drivers and it will tell you what exactly you are doing different.

Quote :

I hate practis =)

Sorry, you lose.

Quote from BlackEye :

Hehe, I thought you'll like it. Here's some more

Totally off-topic, but http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

Error: No error!

Modding only works on paper. In practice it will just end up being a big mess.

AI are updates are in the next patch and you are wrong about the sounds (use the search to find out why).

Quote from Austin31287 :

Could u give me tips how i can get and keep speed to as in aston nation i can only get 1.52 in time and i seen people getting 1.41 soo i cant really join in becuz ill just make a mess

Post a replay of your driving then we can help you better. It's kind of hard to give you advice when we don't know what you are doing wrong.

You have to be from Finland.

Quote from The Very End :

Lol I`m ain`t that, it`s just that I tend to get myself baned quiet often

Maybe you need to look at your behaviour/driving then

Quote from Bodhidharmazen :

This is a good point. But its relatively easy to keep current graphics for "not that fast" machines, while giving the ones who do have the ultimate gaming PC the proper eye candy.

Some things could be added like that like realistic shadows and reflections to some extent. But some things need to work on everyones computer, things like realistic smoke and blinding reflections and weather visuals. Having those disabled would be a serious advantage.

PS. Shifting gears makes a sound, but you really can't hear it when the car is moving. Imho the sound is about right currently in LFS.

Quote from Bodhidharmazen :

Well, my girlfriends used to recognize me by the sound of my car... go figure!

You are not really thinking now. Of course the car sounds similar all the time, but there are still subtle changes. For example try this next time you drive your car: 1st rev it and listen to the sound, then go driving first push throttle fully on 1st and listen to the sound then do the same thing only on half throttle. Now repeat on 3rd gear. Is the sound the exactly the same everytime? No imagine that there are 6 gears in the car,there are in theory infinite amount of different throttle positions and up t 20 000 different rpm amounts. Now that's just the beginning. The sound also changes when load is different for example when you are going uphill or downhill. And that's not even scratching the surface yet.
There are infinite amount of variables that do change the sound (and not just the pitch or volume). As I said with samples you would need infinite amount of them. With a synthetic sound you would need infinitely complex algorithm. In a sim you don't of course need to take all the variables in to account, but still when closing in to the real life sound a complex algorithm is easier to make than record millions of samples of different states of the car.

And just to make my point even clearer here is a even simpler simplification: A simple addition algorithm. A number plus a number equals. With samples you would basically only know that 1 + 2 = 3 and 2 + 3 = 5 (two answers). With a synthetic algorithm you would simply know the algorithm: a + b = c. a and b could be replaced by any two numbers which then the computer would calculate and show the result. With the algorithm you would know the sum of any two numbers.

Simulating a sound is harder because there are variables that aren't really known or making the algorithm needs too much computer power to be realistic. Samples are a shortcut and they only represent the final result. Which is fine if you can record enough samples which turn out to be the downfall of the sampled system because you can never have enough samples.

Also considering that the current system in LFS gives so much more info than the sampled systems in other games proves why synthetic is the better tech. The thing that is wrong with the current system is that there are not enough variables and the sound is not random enough. The sound waves are smooth compared to real life where the waves are not smooth at all. This is what makes the sound sound wrong compared to real life. Samples won't just magically fix the situation, samples only work in the situation where they were recorded. The do sound right on those few situations, but anywhere else they don't.

Phew, a long post. Hope it makes atleast somekind of sense, can't be bothered to edit it anymore

Quote from Viper93 :

Well you are supposed to review the replay before submitting

That's why there shouldn't be a submit button in the game. Instead you would have to go to the MyCTRA page to submit the reports, I think this would lessen the amount of heat of the moment reports. Altough if you did this, you would have to remind the drivers that they need to submit the reports and not only store them.

Quote from Bodhidharmazen :

Hmm we are not communicating. The sound of ANY car would be repetitive for your tastes, I guess because its always the same!

Actually not. Real cars sound is never repetetitive, every little explosion inside the pistons sound different. Not to mention that everytime the engine load, throttle position, speed, position of the listener, position of the moon, ... the sound changes.
Real life has syntethic sound with infinite amount of variables

Quote :

Again, if you knew something about sampled music you would understand. To replicate the sound of a piano, for example, I would need to sample an incredible amount of individual sounds. Right?

You could just create a similar sound without samples at all? By synthesizing, you know.
This is the same problem here too. A sample will always sound the same. So to simulate a piano sound accurataly you would indeed need a infinite amount of samples

Quote :

Wrong. I have to know what sounds I need to sample, and then, from them, extrapolate others. Hint, a change in the pitch can be done without having to sample the change in some factual waveform.

That's just it. In real life many other things change in the sound, not just pitch or volume.

Last edited by geeman1, Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:46.

Quote from Bodhidharmazen :

Regarding the flexibility of sound, nope that would be a mistake in programing, not in flexibility of sampled sounds. Again, take a look a the music industry.

If you mean that a sample can be re-mixed to make it different it doesn't help. The sample will still be the same and it will get repetitive.
Infinite number of samples would be of course better than synthetic sound, but that's hardly a realistic task to do. For example simple thing like listening the sound from two different directions makes a big difference. Basically synthetic sound will need a less complex sound engine when closing in on the realism.

Last edited by geeman1, Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:22.

Quote from Bodhidharmazen :

Every sound in LFS should be sampled. End of discussion.

For sample you need the car to exist, which majority of LFS' cars don't. Also you need a huge amount of resources to do the recording. Which why Scawen went on creating the a synthetic sound engine instead of using samples. Besides fully synthetic sounds seem to do the job quite well.

Also as other people have said you need millions of samples to make even remotely as flexible sound engine and it still will end up being repetitive. Repetitive is the keyword here, sure it may sound good first couple of times while you are not doing anything unusual. But after a while the samples will start to 'shine' through and they will reduce immersion.

Stop bashing the Act Labs pedals Jakg. The old Act Labs pedals might of been bad, but the current model is much better. The current model is an Advantage1 design and they are mostly metal and very sturdy.
What comes to the shifter I think yet again that the Act Labs shifter is also better than the one in G25. I have the Act Labs shifter and it feels really good and solid. Sure it has some plastic parts which may break over time. But mine has endured about 1 years worth of heavy duty abuse now and it still feels good as new.
Only thing G25 has going for it is the wheel part itself. It's better than the DFP.
Anyway I am going to buy the Act Labs pedals soon myself to fill my DFP + AL Shifter combo.

Disclaimer: Experiences on Act Labs pedals and G25 are based on hearsay only.

Last edited by geeman1, Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:12.

Quote from csimpok :

It's interesting (or sad?) to see how the number of participants halved from week 1 to week 2 end again to week 3. Probably the newness of the challenge disappeared as the time went on and most of the people realised they have absolutely no chance of getting into the top 10 and that it's even more nervewrecking than hotlapping on a "normal" track.

Also CTRA X was launched

Why would anyone want to drive the lesser powered engine then?

http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... p;highlight=engine+tuning
http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... p;highlight=engine+tuning
http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... p;highlight=engine+tuning
http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... p;highlight=engine+tuning
+ many more can be found by searching.

Last edited by geeman1, Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:44.

Quote from riffey4 :

I disagree. There are several kinds of racing skills. On BnJ it's also about reflexes and choosing the best position to avoid being wrecked.

True on some BnJ tracks. The racing depends a lot on he current layout. Some layouts are almost pure racing and some are pure wreckfests. The sweet spot is right in the middle though. Pure racing is annoying because that isn't what I want to do when I join the BnJ server and the wreckfests are annoying because there no skill can help you, it's a pure lottery if you finish.

Quote from BlueFlame :

I normally play on the CTRA servers, and what makes it bad is that people report you when its clearly a racing incident.

No need to worry about that. You won't get punished if you didn't do anything wrong, infact if the other guy was at fault he may get a infraction or warning to his license.

That's just what is great about the CTRA reporting system. There are actual people watching the replays, not just some automatic robot.

Quote from Shotglass :

definitely not something you should do if youre as untrained as he is

Why not? If you start to train, why not to go all out while you are at it?
Sure he may be a little gassed at the end of day one, but it will soon get better.