Do you have any other old controllers laying about, maybe an old Microsoft Sidwinder joy stick or something? If so, you can easily fix that shifter bounce problem. I removed a microswitch from an old joystick and soldered it onto the board in my DFP when I ran into that problem. Works like a charm.
It doesn't solve the problem of it being a pain to setup. That is solved with a semi-permenent setup for the wheel and pedals.
Well, he is using a joy stick instead of a wheel in the first place. Simulating a real environment is not a high priority.There are situations in the real world where cars that would normally require a throttle blip and clutching on down shifts were modified to use a button to do the blip. If the sanctioning body OK's it, then it is a go. Not a big deal.
If you can figure out how to make the scripts do an auto blip for you... that's your prerogative. It is kind of like finding a technological solution to a problem in a real car.
The biggest problem is that it sounds like you are driving in pick up races on busy servers. There is no commitment from some people in races like that. They wreck in turn 1 and start spamming for a restart. You just have to laugh at them and carry on. The race will most likely be a short one anyway.
There are two ways to avoid this.
1) Race in leagues. T1 incidents still happen, but it is more rare and there is usually a way to punish stupid behavior.
2) Join a good team that manages a server and get active. Police your own server and try to keep it as clean as you can.
This kind of crap happens in real racing too, especially pro racing. Just look at BTCC for one example. They are all short sprint races and getting as many spots on the start is critical. It leads to nasty things in the first few corners pretty regularly.
There are two ways to avoid this.
1) Race in leagues. T1 incidents still happen, but it is more rare and there is usually a way to punish stupid behavior.
2) Join a good team that manages a server and get active. Police your own server and try to keep it as clean as you can.
This kind of crap happens in real racing too, especially pro racing. Just look at BTCC for one example. They are all short sprint races and getting as many spots on the start is critical. It leads to nasty things in the first few corners pretty regularly.
Fixed that for you
Sounds like your Dad is using a style that derived from the need to double clutch. It doesn't matter either way. Being smooth is the most important part. However, you have to have the car engaged in gear before the corner entry. Even if you are careful letting the clutch out, the rear will grab, and around you go. Also, you need to use maintenance throttle through the corner and you can't do this with the car in neutral.
The only absolutely necessary thing to be fast is to insure that you have the car in the proper gear for exiting the corner.
However, using proper heel/toe technique in a car setup for it, you will be faster than not using it. Most cars will benefit from using heel/toe and you would be sightly slower in those cars if you were not using it (for most of us though, it wouldn't matter. Only really skilled people can demonstrate the difference). Yes, if the car is setup to not use heel/toe, you will probably be just as fast.
I personally think that you do have more control using heel/toe. But that is my opinion.
Yes, I am not arguing that locking a wheel will bog the engine down if you don't have the clutch disengaged. However, what I am saying is one of two things
1) It is too easy to bog the engine down. There should seemingly be more "slop" in the system or there is something missing. I think the engine inertia increase has helped to a degree. I think possibly modelling the torsional twisting of driveshafts, guibos, subframes, diff mounts and tranny mounts might also help a bit.
2) The locking power of the brakes are too high. Even with reasonable values in the brake settings, it seems that rear wheels lock too easily. This could be because of aggressive downshifting, but I don't think so. If anything, aggressive downshift makes things better rather than worse. Even with setting the bias very far forward, you still have this problem. (this might be related to logetudinal tire grip issues too??)
It mostly does happen when you are turning even just the slightest amount.
Anyway, it just seems unnatural to me. It is totaly subjective on my part and it might simply be because of whacked out settings for the car.
I think the losing the locked diffs entirely is unrealistic. They do get used in the real world. But, it would be nice to force people into using more reasonable setups for the cars.
Also, heel/toe doesn't necessarily literally mean heel.
The most common practice that I have seen and heard described is a more rolling motion with your foot.
You brake with the ball of your foot in the lower right corner of the brake pedal. Your foot should overhang the gas pedal. (This is where it is critical to have the right brake pedal height otherwise you end up applying gas when you are braking because the outside of your foot hits the gas.)
When you are ready to blip, clutch, roll your foot using the lower or mid outside of your foot to blip the throttle, change gears, and declutch. You must maintain steady pressure on the brake pedal without lifting up on it. If you lift up, you will get very jagged braking and risk a lot of lockups when you press back down again.
The main point here is that you do not need to rotate your heel over the gas pedal and kick down with your leg. That method is valid too, but it is not used as much as the rolling method (from what I have seen and heard). I think the actual heel method requires either a wide gap in pedals or very small feet.
I have my pedals about 2.5 inches apart. This is about the same as my real car. It is close enough to do the rolling method for me with my foot size. This method does pretty much require shoes (or "house" shoes like I use) of some sort. Otherwise, your foot gets very sore from holding a lot of pressure on the corner edge of the brake.
The most common practice that I have seen and heard described is a more rolling motion with your foot.
You brake with the ball of your foot in the lower right corner of the brake pedal. Your foot should overhang the gas pedal. (This is where it is critical to have the right brake pedal height otherwise you end up applying gas when you are braking because the outside of your foot hits the gas.)
When you are ready to blip, clutch, roll your foot using the lower or mid outside of your foot to blip the throttle, change gears, and declutch. You must maintain steady pressure on the brake pedal without lifting up on it. If you lift up, you will get very jagged braking and risk a lot of lockups when you press back down again.
The main point here is that you do not need to rotate your heel over the gas pedal and kick down with your leg. That method is valid too, but it is not used as much as the rolling method (from what I have seen and heard). I think the actual heel method requires either a wide gap in pedals or very small feet.
I have my pedals about 2.5 inches apart. This is about the same as my real car. It is close enough to do the rolling method for me with my foot size. This method does pretty much require shoes (or "house" shoes like I use) of some sort. Otherwise, your foot gets very sore from holding a lot of pressure on the corner edge of the brake.
I can live with that.
I think the most important thing we can do to avoid clutch over heating is to make sure our gear ratios are set pretty closely. It takes a lot more work to fry the clutch if your gear ratios are setup correctly.
Just another data point for future consideration.
I setup an XRG with power, weight, suspension and gearing like my real life BMW E46 3 Series.
In less than 5 laps, the clutch was over heating. I used the exact gear ratios and diff ratio from the real car. The clutch does slip a lot between shifts. This can be minimized by very carefully insuring that the clutch is all the way out before touching the gas. This is not realistic because I can shift much more aggressively in the real car with no problems. The gear ratios ove a street car are very wide and this causes the RPM's to drop a lot and this seems to lead to more slilpping in the clutch on gear changes.
I do track my real car. I do 20 minute sessions around a 2 mile, 12 turn track. I do not heel/toe because of problems with my brake pedal travel so you would expect that this would add more heat to the clutch. I do heel/toe with LFS.
I think the clutch travel in LFS does contribute some to the over heating because the initial engagement to fully engaged range seems too long.
Thanks for listening Scawen, and a big thumbs up on this latest release.
Last edited by Hallen, .
Dude, strike two!
You should wish for your wife to look like <insert favorite super model here> and to be infinitely wealthy. Then you could go race real cars.
+1 on the direction of the changes Scavier has made (in general). I think they jumped the gun on the look function (which then got fixed), but in principle I agree with it. But the mirrors need to be better first.
Now I just need to get longer screws from my ECCI pedals so I can raise up the brake pedal for better heel/toe shifting (or is that heal/tow?:tilt
I was hoping the engine inertia would help with the problem. I think you are right, it has helped. I have been trying it out with LSD setting now too. I only brought the issue up because I wnated to point out one of the reasons, however unrealistic, that locked diffs get use.
I think... hope... that patch Y will allow us to use LSD's and make locked diffs a thing of the past.
I agree with your thinking on this, although I don't know enough to suggest LSD clutch settings.
However, the reason I end up using a locked diff sometimes is the engine bog down problems. You hit your brakes, the engine bogs down, and you end up with this weird skid problem. It only happens on LSD cars and usually only happens if you are turning just a little bit (ie trail braking or a slight bend in the brake zone). It is not so bad if you are going perfectly straight.
I try to use LSD (the diff that is) whenever I can, but I find in the GTR cars, even with setups I have made from scratch using some of Bob's tools, I still have this strange braking problem. I have tried reducing the amount of brakes to the point where you can't lock up the tires, I have tried moving the brake bias mostly to the front, which helps, but also severely handicaps you in a race. Nothing really works effectively, so I end up using a locked diff.
However, the reason I end up using a locked diff sometimes is the engine bog down problems. You hit your brakes, the engine bogs down, and you end up with this weird skid problem. It only happens on LSD cars and usually only happens if you are turning just a little bit (ie trail braking or a slight bend in the brake zone). It is not so bad if you are going perfectly straight.
I try to use LSD (the diff that is) whenever I can, but I find in the GTR cars, even with setups I have made from scratch using some of Bob's tools, I still have this strange braking problem. I have tried reducing the amount of brakes to the point where you can't lock up the tires, I have tried moving the brake bias mostly to the front, which helps, but also severely handicaps you in a race. Nothing really works effectively, so I end up using a locked diff.
It depends on what you buy. I know with my ECCI pedals, you can buy a set that works through your DFP or G25, or you can buy the type that are a stand alone USB controller of their own. I started with the former, and upgraded to the latter.
I am sure ACT labs is similar.
lol, I don't know what game it is that he is playing there but in a real car, if you jab on the brakes like he is doing there, you are going to spin. Or, at the minimum, be locking up every single time.
Game pedals make it hard to heel toe. The brake pedal level is always lower than the gas pedal when braking and the brake is way too soft over its travel.
Adapt and overcome!
And just to clear things up with the DFP POV button. The POV buttons cannot be programmed to do two key presses and two key releases. If you don't do the key releases, the view will simply turn 90 one way... and the view will stay there. You cannnot get back to view forward again. If you do the key releases, the view will just rapidly cycle from side to front to side and back again very quickly.
I don't think this is a bug in LFS, I suspect it is how the POV button works. It is odd, but that is the way it is.
It works fine to do one key press and release. You hold down the POV button, the view turns, you release the button and the view returns to the front. So, a separte key for 90° would be usable, but the combined keys as they are now cannot work.
I am trying to figure out an LFS script to make this work now, but I am unfamiliar with the commands so it will take some learning.
I don't think this is a bug in LFS, I suspect it is how the POV button works. It is odd, but that is the way it is.
It works fine to do one key press and release. You hold down the POV button, the view turns, you release the button and the view returns to the front. So, a separte key for 90° would be usable, but the combined keys as they are now cannot work.
I am trying to figure out an LFS script to make this work now, but I am unfamiliar with the commands so it will take some learning.
I don't know where to put this, since it is really not a bug, it is not a physics problem, it is sort of an interface problem... so I put it here.
Please reconsider the look function for 90° and 45°. Keep the 45° view, but please map a separate key for the 90° view. A POV control doesn't seem to allow mapping a double key press for a 90° view.
The problem is simple. If you look at the side mirrors on the XRG for example. You can see an object like a cone directly behind the car. You should not be able to see a short object that is perfectly centered behind the car with the side mirror. The side mirror is not adjustable for angle. You can't see objects, like cars, that are along side you right up past the 90° mark. You also can't see objects that are beside you and a bit back. You can completely lose cars for seconds at a time when they are in the right place. You have no idea where they are, especially if they drop straight back from you they don't reappear until they are well clear of the back of your car. This makes things very difficult. The 90° look is a feature that should be easily accessible until the mirrors work more like real mirrors. If mirrors were adjustable so that they work like a real car mirror, I could see making it more difficult or impossible to do a 90° look.
Thanks for all your work on this game. It is the best.
Please reconsider the look function for 90° and 45°. Keep the 45° view, but please map a separate key for the 90° view. A POV control doesn't seem to allow mapping a double key press for a 90° view.
The problem is simple. If you look at the side mirrors on the XRG for example. You can see an object like a cone directly behind the car. You should not be able to see a short object that is perfectly centered behind the car with the side mirror. The side mirror is not adjustable for angle. You can't see objects, like cars, that are along side you right up past the 90° mark. You also can't see objects that are beside you and a bit back. You can completely lose cars for seconds at a time when they are in the right place. You have no idea where they are, especially if they drop straight back from you they don't reappear until they are well clear of the back of your car. This makes things very difficult. The 90° look is a feature that should be easily accessible until the mirrors work more like real mirrors. If mirrors were adjustable so that they work like a real car mirror, I could see making it more difficult or impossible to do a 90° look.
Thanks for all your work on this game. It is the best.
I did some more testing last night on the clutch slipping/heating/clutch pedal travel thing.
I found that I could make shifts in the XRG and LX4 that did not burn up the clutch. It basically comes down to making very sure that the clutch is all the way out before putting any pressure on the gas pedal and then carefully rolling the gas in. It is slower shifting this way and it might be realistic... but I am not too sure about that.
If you apply any gas at all prior to having the clutch all the way out, the clutch will slip and generate heat. This would be normal except that the slipping phase seems to last too long and heats the clutch much more than you would expect.
The other thing I noticed, and this is where I could be completely wrong, but I noticed that the heat generation was really random. On some stints, the clutch heated up right away and became undrivable.
In other cases, I could not get the clutch to heat up even when being really aggressive on the shifts and applying throttle more quickly. This part has me a bit concerned.
I found that I could make shifts in the XRG and LX4 that did not burn up the clutch. It basically comes down to making very sure that the clutch is all the way out before putting any pressure on the gas pedal and then carefully rolling the gas in. It is slower shifting this way and it might be realistic... but I am not too sure about that.
If you apply any gas at all prior to having the clutch all the way out, the clutch will slip and generate heat. This would be normal except that the slipping phase seems to last too long and heats the clutch much more than you would expect.
The other thing I noticed, and this is where I could be completely wrong, but I noticed that the heat generation was really random. On some stints, the clutch heated up right away and became undrivable.
In other cases, I could not get the clutch to heat up even when being really aggressive on the shifts and applying throttle more quickly. This part has me a bit concerned.
I know how to shift. I know how to heal toe. It is not a problem for me. I was using proper technique while testing this, trust me.
It could be something to do with the clutch pedal travel that I have compared to a G25. I use ECCI pedals and they are quite a bit bigger, more stout and have longer pedal throws.
Edit: And I think it is a bug, not a feature enhancement. It (in my opinion) is not working as expected. It is a good feature overall, it just has a few glitches to work out.
On the clutch situation.
My thinking is that the pressure plate springs are not strong enough. The clutch should engage more strongly against the flywheel. The clutch acts like it is already worn down to the nubs.
If I shift the XRG like I do my real car, the Engine RPMs stay high, and then slowly work down to the lower level and this is after I have let the clutch all the way out. This does not happen on my real car even at the track when I am shifting rapidly. Once I have the clutch all the way out, the engine RPMs get drug down quickly to the level the transmission is at. There is minimal clutch slipping going on.
I haven't found a way to shift the XRG without burning up the clutch in a short time. I am using a clutch pedal with auto clutch off.
My thinking is that the pressure plate springs are not strong enough. The clutch should engage more strongly against the flywheel. The clutch acts like it is already worn down to the nubs.
If I shift the XRG like I do my real car, the Engine RPMs stay high, and then slowly work down to the lower level and this is after I have let the clutch all the way out. This does not happen on my real car even at the track when I am shifting rapidly. Once I have the clutch all the way out, the engine RPMs get drug down quickly to the level the transmission is at. There is minimal clutch slipping going on.
I haven't found a way to shift the XRG without burning up the clutch in a short time. I am using a clutch pedal with auto clutch off.
Please, go back to school. I know it will be tough now that you are 23, but getting that 6th grade diploma is so important.
Congrats on getting the S2 license from Santa.
Realfeel doesn't seem to be much different with the Caterham than with the Vette. It is a better thing than stock, but still not very good.
I thought the Vette's suspension was way too soft. The amount of squat and dive is way, way too much compared to the real car. I also couldn't figure out why the cockpit instrument panel was just a bunch of blurred gauges. It is probably one of those esoteric settings in an ini file or something that I don't know about.
The thing that is really bothersome in rFactor, and is also a factor in LFS, is how the tires behave when they lose grip. Simple understeer is the best way to feel this. If you go into a corner just a tad hot, and you start to understeer, your front end loses all grip until you slow way down, well below the speed that you would normally enter the corner. If while you are slowing down you enter more steering angle, which would be normal since you are now overshooting your turn in point, the car just won't respond. In my real car (and this may be just my car) if you understeer going into a corner like that, you still have some control. Yes, you have to back out of it as much as you can, but you can still turn the wheel more and get more bite. You start scrubbing the tires and you are heating them up quickly, but you will get more response. And then once you slow down enough, the grip gradually comes back and you stop scrubbing. With rFactor, and to a much smaller degree LFS, you just keep right on sliding until the tires decide that they have grip again. This behavior makes it very hard to do a late apex entry into a corner. You are at a slower initial speed, but the initial steering angle is a bit higher. This seems to cause the tires to break away immediately and you lose any hope of taking the corner quickly.
I have been driving rFactor a bit more lately because somebody released a pretty good version of my home track (they call it Vanport, but it is really Portland International). It really helps you notice some of the oddities of the game when you are driving on a track you are very familiar with.
Scawen said there were "physics" updates. He didn't limit them to just the things he mentioned. I expect (guessing here) that there will be some tire physics updates and other things. We will know soon enough.
Nope. I have not had it on button since I got my clutch pedal 2 years ago. Whatever I felt before was an anomoly and I can't go back in time to investigate it. It is what it is today.
Does nobody read anymore? Thanks for the tips guys, but please read the whole thread first next time.
Yep. I think this will be different with the "more engine inertia" that Scawen mentioned in the video. It seems that right now the engine, or flywheel, does not have enough inertia to allow feathering of the clutch at lower RPMs.
Yes, of course. No argument there.
There would be less clutch slip if the converter were stalled. Stall RPM is quite high on modern transmissions though.
Yes, of course. But I was trying to be simplistic. There is still no direct mechanical connection between the engine and the transmission.
Of course neutral is a figure of speech to illustrate being between one gear and another. It doesn't change the fact that there will be clutch slippage every shift otherwise there would be little point in having the clutches there in the first place.
Modern transmissions can lock at any speed.
3rd gear is 1:1? Man, you are living in the dark ages (or are looking at US designed cars)
. My E32 was a 5 speed transmission with a locking converter back in 1994. Newer cars have as many as 6 or 7 gears in their automatics.I don't have any facts to back up my assertion. I just know that automatic transmission are wear parts on modern cars and they will fail sooner or later. I have 140k miles on my car and it has the original clutch in it. I doubt I would have gotten that out of an automatic (but mostly because of BMW's stupid "lifetime" fluid policy.)
Yum, yum. It's a good thing I don't use foul words
Yep, you both were right. The clutch now has a bunch of range to it. It does seem to start a bit to low, and does not fully engage until the pedal is too high, but it definitely feathers.
I must have tried it prior to patch X or something. It was definitely binary before.
I know, we are way off topic, but I am having fun with this.
It all depends on how you shift your manual. If you feather the gear in slowly with lots of gas, then yes, a manual will slip more. But, on average, I would bet the automatic clutches will slip more than a manual clutch. I don't think the torque converter will slip much. It will probably slip no more than it would when you are fully engaged in a gear and powering down the road. In other words, about 5%.
The torque converter is just two big fans stuck in fluid. One is turned by the engine, and the other is connected to the driveshaft going through the transmission. If you are changing gears and the transmission is essentially in neutral, the transmission side of the torque converter will speed up with RPM's of the engine (assuming there is little or no fuel cut to the engine). As the clutch starts to engage, the engine RPM will be brought back down relatively slowly until the clutch is fully engaged and then the RPM will start increasing again assuming you have not lifted off the throttle. That period of time where the RPM is dropping is the time where the clutches are slipping. The smoother the shift, the more slipping you get. This is why it can be good to get performance software for you slush box. The software will typically shorten the slipping time to allow for faster shifts and this in turn reduces the clutch wear. It will also give you more of a jerk on each shift.
The real problem area can be with the transmission that use a final clutch to directly connect the engine to the drivshaft (a "lockup clutch") and bypasses the torque converter. This removes the inefficiencies of the torque converter and allows for better gas mileage when cruising. However, if you are constantly varying your throttle position, like if you are in traffic or rolling hills, the lockup clutch is constantly engaging and disengaging getting hotter and hotter and burning up clutch material. It is usually the first clutch to fail. It also does nasty things to the transmission fluid. This is why it is really important to change slushbox fluid regularly. It is why most cars have a way to turn off the lockup clutch for city driving or towing (two different Drive modes on the gear shift).
So there is my layman's understanding of all of this. Did I mention how much I hate slushboxes? I had to remove the one from my E32 and have it rebuilt ($3000) and then reinstalled it (all by myself) all because BMW has a stupid policy of a "lifetime" fill of transmission fluid.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG