The vehicle adding and editing screen seems to not respect your units preferences. It is always in metric.

Also, I might be doing something wrong, but when I check the HP/Wt performance values, they look way wrong to me. I think it should be something like 18, the program shows 30 something.
170hp 3153lbs. =18.54 lbs/hp. The program shows 33.6. Maybe there is a units problem here? I know, I should use metric, but I just prefer some imperial units for certain things.

For spring length in the suspension settings, you are looking for the total uncompressed length of the spring when it is not installed on the car, right?

Quote from Dj-Aeri :

Hi guys,

Victor says something about the Y patch?


My english is pathetic to undertand the interview.

Thanks!

Yes. He said it was not a major new release. It is just continuing the improvements need to reach S2 final. He did specifically mention the AI improvements.

Quote from wsinda :

You can, but only the ones that have a whopping big V8 under the hood. (Also very handy in those gigantic Yankee shopping malls. BTW, I heard that some even have banked turns. Left only, of course.)

A banked 'merican race track... you mean like this? Oooh, ick, it has one of them 'merican cars in the picture too...


I think it was pretty obvious that Victor was reading from notes during the interview. But still, it was very good. It was nice to hear Scawen's name pronounced for the first time.

Dennis has been very busy with outside projects this year. He did just get the Atom with the Hartley Hayabusa V8 (400hp) running, but it is not exactly track-ready yet.

Dennis, unfortunately for us, can't publicly document the progress on the production dp1 car like he did for the prototype. So, it is a wait and see situation now.

Track days in Portland are now shut down until February next year because of the track getting repaved, widened and changed a bit.

So it will be a while before he can do some serious testing with the Atom (unless he takes it up to Pacific raceways in Washington or down to Thunderhill in California). Not to mention the winter rains just kicked in here today... a wet track would not be a good idea for a first drive in that monster.

As far as the rumors go... let em ride. It is totally non-productive, useless and usually completely wrong, but it is fun

But, we don't want to dissuade you from setting up another series.

It would actually be nice to have a series that wasn't open wheel cars or GTR cars.

The LRF cars would be cool, or even the street cars would be cool.

I participate in most of the LOTA series when they come up. Generally, they are run on Thursdays.

Come up with some more details about the series: rules, points systems, protesting, format, etc, and you might get some more interest. People need to know it is a solid effort before committing.

Fill us in. I might be interested in participating.

The second episode is down right now, but I am watching the first. Although not a profession production, it has good information and is generally well done.

A suggestion for a segment for Tools of the Trade is to do a segment on force feedback. You may ask ECCI why they don't have FF even though they have one of the best wheels on the market. The answer is licensing. It is extremely expensive to license the technology and if you can't amortize that expense over thousands of products, it makes FF prohibitively expensive. ECCI will tell you that their fluid damping system provides better feel than FF, but since it is not dynamic, it is a bit hard to believe. I think it is mostly because of the costs. Check out http://www.immersion.com/ for more information. Immersion owns the Patent.

Also, the shifter segment was OK. But it would have been much better if a couple of different products were tested, compared and contrasted.

Quote from RMachucaA :

Im usually running these league races, not lately though since work is hectic, hopefully i'll find time to get a few races in with my fellow canadians\americans.

Oh no you don't... You just don't have the time... repeat after me..

I don't want to be one more position down on the grid. It is bad enough now.

Plus, if Banshee ever does get behind me, I get punted sooner or later.

You also might want to check out the CHOPS guys too. The host Sunday fun races and are a good team.

I don't think it matters what RL car they are like

The FZ5 behaves like a rear wheel drive, rear engine car, etc, etc. The cool thing is that you can really tell the difference between the cars. They all have their own characteristics that are a result of the design. Just like a real car.
In other sims, the cars all pretty much feel the same. The only difference is how fast you go down the straights and how much grip you have in the corners.

Quote from Jakg :

I was bumbling about SO on my own today with 150 fps - but the second i drop in a full grid i'm looking at 45

Yep, but that is a result of your CPU not the graphics settings (for the most part). The AI eat frame rate. As long as you don't drop below 60 with a full grid online, then you really have it made. If you do drop that low, then it is a result of your Dynamic LOD and other LOD settings.

Quote from Iron :

Wrong. You definitely benefit from having more fps than your monitor's refresh rate. One example is more frequent reading of input devices -> less input lag.

What game are you playing? This is a discussion about LFS.
LFS cycles for input is not tied to frame rate in any way. Frame rate has nothing to do with the frequency of car position or physics updates. Frame rate is only how frequently your picture gets refreshed. How often your screen is refreshed is dependent on the frequncy setting for the monitor.

Yep, I recently switched from a lower end ATI card to a similar nVidia card. nVidia can't handle negative MIP map bias. If you don't have that setting to "Clamp", you get moire effect all over the place (I use a LCD monitor at native resolution, I don't know if it happens on CRT's).
I still get some moire, especially at Aston and Blackwood. It is distracting for sure.
I had some problems with moire with the ATI card too, but not as bad and I found settings that fixed it.
If you leave MIP clamping off, you have to bump your AA up to 8 to get rid of most of the moire. But, with my card and my resolution, that drops me back to ~40fps in hotlap mode.

To whoever mentioned they were getting 100+fps. Why? What is your refresh rate on your monitor? Getting higher FPS than your refresh rate does not do you much good. Bump up the quality settings to the max until you start dropping below 60 FPS.

Quote from Bob Smith :

The last time we had this discussion, I dug up that post you are referring to and turned it into a simple app:

http://lfs.thefloatingwidget.net/files/FOV_Calc.zip

Cool! Thanks Bob.

I will give it a try when I get home.

Somebody once posted a formula to use to get a "natural" view FOV setting, I think it was on the old forums.
That formula would be a good place to start if anybody stil hase it available.

The formula used screen size/resolution and your eye's distance from the monitor to calculate a FOV that would give you the correct perspective or "viewing window" as if it were a window looking into the real world.

I have a 20" 1680x1050 wide screen (new to me ) and I use upper 90's for the most part right now.

I would love to be there guys, but I don't think it will happen. I will be watching on TV though. Have a big LFS sign up for me

I will be at the next race at Laguna Seca. It's a bit shorter drive. 1000 miles vs 2000 miles.

Bones!!! Well done.
That was a nicely written article. Very clear and informative. It is one of the better written pieces that I have seen in ASS.

And for those of you in North America who could not watch this race, SPEED will air it during the winter. They always air all the Porsche Super Cup races then. So it is a chance to actually see an LFS'er race. (of course it would be better if they aired it in the same season as the race was done, but they are too busy wasting air time showing NASCAR reality shows and reruns)

Great Job Norbi!
The cup races are tough. There are a lot of big name drivers who don't do that well in the series when they do their guest drives.

There are some things about setups in LFS that are a bit contrary to real cars. You can build setups in LFS that are very opposite of how you would setup a car in real life, and you get good or better results than you would if you set it up "right". Some of these tricks will show up in most of the sets used for hot laps.
Also, there is a huge wide range of changes that can be made that wouldn't be possible on a real car. For example, you are not going to find springs for your personal car (even if there is a club race class it is used in) that give you spring rates above about 4 Hz. In LFS, it is possible to do such things. If you could find those springs, you wouldn't be able to find dampers to match. (Assuming you are not using a cutting torch and TIG welder to greatly modify the car)

But, still LFS is much better (IMHO) than the other sims out there right now. You can really feel small changes in setup, which I find amazing.

A good set will allow you to be more consistent, and therefore, faster eventually because you can find the little problems with your line and fix them. With an unstable set, you might be fast for a few laps, but you will wreck a lot too. You won't drive a consistent line making hard to evaluate your progress.

LFS is very CPU intensive. Something is eating up cycles is what I am thinking.
You don't happen to be using Mozilla Thunderbird for your email do you? I know that sometimes when running LFS, Thunderbird will for some reason start sucking all the CPU cycles and LFS starts stuttering really bad. If I shut down Thunderbird, the problem goes away in LFS instantly.

If not that, I would guess you have some other app or malware that is sucking up CPU time.

Quote from de Souza :

on topic: never heard anyone call oval racing NASCAR

off topic: sounds TO ME that car racing the way it is in USA - drag, NASCAR, IRL etc. - are more for the show, more for entertaining the public than anything else..

Uh, yes. Racing is entertainment. All racing is. Even in Europe.
If you are trying to say it is dumbed down racing and somewhat fake, like the WWF for example, then you might be partially right when talking about NASCAR, but overall you are still wrong.

Quote from de Souza :

you don't care who's racing (even because there's a LOT of cars),

Uh, no. The drivers are the stars, especially in NASCAR. You root for a driver. You ask a NASCAR fan who drives the number 43 car and they will tell you who it is.

Quote from de Souza :

as long as they stay close and crash eventually.

That is part of the whole NASCAR thing. There are a lot of cars and they are bunched together closely. If one driver makes a mistake, or a tire gets cut down, it will lead to a big crash. It is the nature of the beast. Does it bring a certain kind of fan to that form of racing? Yes it does. But it is not the reason that long-term NASCAR fans go to the races.

Quote from de Souza :

European car racing seems to be more on the pilots/mechanics/skills side...
remember: there should be exceptions in both places

Well, in this case, the exceptions make the rule then. Many people's perceptions of US racing is only based on NASCAR. We do have other racing, although not quite as prolific as you see in Europe.

We have CHAMP car, Atlantic, Star Mazda, Mazda MX cup (really fun stuff), World Challenge, Formula BMW, Formula TR, USTCC, Porsche Cup, Grand AM Rolex and Koni Challenge, and my absolute favorite ALMS, home of the Audi R10, C6 Corvette, and many other wonderful cars and teams (who generally do very well at Le Mans) and big name drivers from all over the world . We also have more club racing than you can shake a stick at. None of the above mentioned series race on ovals. They are all road course based series. (and I am sure I missed a few. That was just off the top of my head)

Quote from thisnameistaken :

All american sports are dominated by stats. Even when they play sports the rest of us play, they are compelled to track all manner of stats. Watch coverage of an MLS football game one day - the commentators produce stats for things that don't even have names in the rest of the world!

That's because we are very sophisticated in our understanding of sports so we can expand the envelope with more data. Plus, our announcers are stuffed shirts who like to hear themselves talk.

If you do look at any really good racing team, they are obsessed with stats too, just a different kind. Engine performance, tires, suspension, split times, etc. It is actually the same thing with other sports' stats.

NASCAR is NASCAR. F1 is F1. The thing about both of them, and it is also true of other sports, you have to get into the history, teams, drivers, rules, and the technical aspects, to really enjoy the sport fully. Just 20 minutes of a baseball game can be very boring. But if you follow the team and the sport and understand the strategy and all the little nuances that makes it great, then you have a great time.

You can't just sit and watch 20 minutes of a racing series or even a whole race, and really say anything about it beyond your dislike for it. There is a lot that goes into all forms of racing and you have to spend the time to understand it all before you can really enjoy it.

NASCAR style oval racing is very challenging. If any of you have driven the old NASCAR 2003 game with a bunch of good drivers, you would know that. It is also a lot of fun.

I don't like NASCAR because they are the 800lb gorilla that dominates racing in the US where I would rather see more money and talent going into other series. But again, that is just my opinion.

Oh, and I have never heard anybody in LFS refer to oval racing as NASCAR. It is always oval racing. And then somebody brings up NASCAR and how sucky it is and we end up with a thread like this. Which I am enjoying immensely btw

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Actually, Americans tend to adopt genericised brand names more readily than we do in the UK.

The one that really baffled me was a recipe book that asked me to include a Parkay Spread Stick - I didn't have a clue what one of those was, so I had to go next door and ask my neighbour! Would it have been so hard to just write "4oz Butter"?

I just googled it, and there are loads of recipes out there that refer to butter as Parkay Spread Stick! "1 tbs Parkay Spread Stick" - how the hell am I supposed to measure a tablespoon-full of stick? What kind of lunatic cooks do you have over there?!?

illepall

That's because it was a cook book sponsored or written by the folks that produce Parkay Spread Stick, you twit. Stick to racing. You might have trouble with that cooking thing

Americans don't call butter Parkay.
We might call it oh, I don't know... Butter? Or if it is fake butter, we call it schmeer, oleo, spread, margarine (another brand name from France no less) and butter.

You know the really, really sad thing about NA$CAR? There are some drivers there that would be brilliant in sports car racing like ALMS and a few that could have even been good F1 drivers. But NA$CAR is where the money is in the US, so that is where much of the best talent goes.

Oh, and BTW, IRL stands for Indie Racing League, hence using the term Indie is proper. CART is the series that no longer exists. CART was broken up by Tony "I am taking my toys home and not playing anymore" George. CHAMP car and IRL were the results of that putting a major damper on US open wheel racing.

I can't stand IRL anyway. Ovals, if you have to run them, should be dirt. Open wheel cars don't belong on ovals, well except maybe sprint cars, but I don't consider them a real open wheel category. Of all the race track based racing, I think IRL is by far the most dangerous and the races are more boring than NASCAR. (Just my opinion, nothing more)


P5YcHoM4N! You're a Brown Coat??? Cool!

FE is more of a club style track. If you look at it from a real world view, FE would not be up to standards for professional level racing. The GTR cars are similar to cars you would see in professional racing. The super high curbing is something commonly seen on older, club type tracks (at least here in the US)

FE is too tight for the GTR's mostly.

Having said that, I really like most of the FE courses except for some of the goofy chicanes and the really high curbs. There are lot of challenging corners with off-camber issues and other cool things. GTR's are just a bit crazy there though.

For short races and for very long endurance races, the fuel burn rate really is not an issue at all. The XRR eats front tires just as fast as the FZR eats tires. You are always lap limited on tires, not fuel. The XRR had to pit at about the same intervals as the FZR during a 24h race for tires.

Power is not really the answer. I do agree that the turbo lag might be a big factor. If you can't get the power down coming out of corners with the XRR, you are going to have slower laps and you will have slower top speeds at the end of the straights.

I also don't see how the FZR could be considered harder to drive than the XRR. They are different, which is good, but they both have their challenges. This is as it should be.

Tire modeling is a big part. Search the forums. There have been some great discussions with real evidence backing up a lot of it.

11:30AM Pacific Time would completely exclude me I'm afraid. Gotta work so I can get that triple monitor setup
Have you considered weekend races? I bet between NASSA and CoRe, we could get 4-6 drivers to join.

Potentially, part of the problem is that seat of the pants "feel" from experience was used to create these graphs. As the tire breaks away and starts producing less grip because of a slide, it will feel like the the tire just broke loose in a very abrupt manner. The tire has not broken loose in an abrupt manner, but the g load in the car will change abruptly going from a constant 1g lateral (in a constant speed corner) to something much less than 1. This is going to feel like you went from tarmac to ice when you haven't.

I think it is very similar to the misconception that if you go from tarmac to wet grass, the car actually speeds up. Well it doesn't. Your rate of deceleration decreases giving you the feeling of acceleration. (I know, deceleration is just negative acceleration, but using the deceleration term is easier to understand)

I think a lot of those graphs in those books were derived from bias ply tires and with cars with much less advanced suspension systems than we currently use. It is possible that those cars with those tires behave very differently than what a more modern setup will behave.

Also, people may equate tires to something like a solid heavy object on a smooth surface (picture a square block of metal). You push and push on the object, and once you get it moving, it slides along pretty nicely. Try that with a rubber block. With enough force, you will get it moving, but it is not going to just start sliding along nicely once it is moving.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. That is just my way of thinking about this subject.