Kyalami, and Willow Springs have racing lines that aren't intuititve. The fact they still run F1's a Monaco is anti-driver.
Regarding Nordschleife, they still have high level club races there, sometimes combining both the old and new as in this video, one warmup lap on the new Nurburg ring, then a race lap, exiting left onto the Nordschleife, all the way around, then back to the Nurburg ring finish line.
Nordschleife has a history in racing games, mostly because of Grand Prix Legends. It was like a game inside a game. As time as gone on, demand for versions of Nordschleife have created versions for many racing games.
Longest circuit is bikes only as far as I know. Isle of Mann Time Trials on an island near England, 37.75 miles, the best lap times are just under 18 minutes, averaging over 126mph.
Ok, I made another LFS video, the 52.10 hotlap of a BF1 at BL. Set ansiotropic filter to 16x. No anti-aliasing, since fraps does the equivalent when doing half size video. Screen at 1280x960x32-60hz, fraps at half size, 30fps. I checked the frame rate of LFS when doing a capture and it drops down to 30 fps, which lucky for me, just matches the fraps capture rate. With fraps off, it's just over 90 fps with AF set to 16x. Converted to a WMV file using Premiere. Ended up pretty clean. When I get the time, I'll make a dual view video, adding chase view to the bottom of this one.
I have a reasonably fast system, with hyperthreading enabled. Both fraps and the driver for my ATI video card will take advantage of hyperthreading. I used to record full size with the game set to 640x480, but I find I get better quality recording at half size with the game set to 1280x960, letting Fraps do the equivalent of anti-aliasing when it reduces the screen size by a factor of 4 (1/2 width, 1/2 height).
Although it's a bit annoying, setting refresh rate to 60hz, with fraps running at 30hz seems to also help.
Afterwards, Windows Movie Maker should be good enough to convert the AVI into a reasonable sized .WMV file without any issue.
I use Adobe Premier Pro 1.51, but it's expensive, and unless you need multiple videos on the screen at the same time, it's doesn't help much.
I haven't made a LFS video in a while, but will make another soon. In the meantime here's are dual view ones from one of those older other "... for speed" games, graphics isn't modern, but it is colorful and has a cool "feel":
How to shave 2 seconds off the ET of a econobox to get it into the 14's, with virtually no cost modifications. I wonder if a future version of LFS will allow such simple mods as shown and discussed in this informative thread:
They also run a street course in Melborne, but I don't know how tight that one is. F1's only weigh 1300lbs (with driver), is the wheelbase and track width really that big compared to other race cars?
What about a Radical, or a Caterham? Cobras (the ones based on AC-bristols, not the Mustang) are pretty small.
F1's race at Monaco, and that's a very tight track.
I don't think the impression of speed is due to the width of the track but instead to the level of detail in the surface of the track itself and how low your point of view is, speeds look faster in a go-kart than a SUV. Some examples of the sensation of speed:
What 180+mph looks like with a motorcycle on 2 lane road: busasr.wmv
World Racing 1 (very animated, but you get the idea): wr1c14.wmv
NFS8 street x, looks fast from bumper view, slow from chase view: n8sx.wmv
I agree, the fixes to the tire physics in T and later versions of S2 mostly solved this issue.
The real Caterham CSR 260 has 260hp, and it's not a death trap. LFS should have something equivalent to this, and being the top LX, it should have slicks (assuming that there would be 3 LX's).
Note that the 1967 Formula 1 cars ran 400+hp on 1300lb cars. With modern tire compounds, the cars would be a bit easier to handle, but still difficult.
Housed in the main gearbox. Other than the ratios being less than 1.00, they're the same as the rest of the gears in the transmission. I don't know if any current cars use a seperate overdrive unit any more.
One thing I haven't seen in an automatic tranny lately is a "lock up" clutch. Once a car was cruising, the "lock up" clutch would engage, directly connecting the engine to the driveshaft so a 1.00 ratio. The advtange was better gas milage since no energy was consumed through via the fluid "clutch". The "lock up" clutch would often act as a 4th gear in an otherwise 3 speed tranny, where the 3rd gear ratio would be > 1.00.
I would redo the LX series and not base it on number of cylinders, but instead on power. Caterhams are available with horsepower from 120hp (only classic has 105hp) to the 260hp CSR 260, all with very light 4 cylinder engines: http://www.caterham.co.uk/showroom/index.htm.
Since these are the current cars, LFS should model these, not the cars of the past. If there are to be 3 different LX's, then I'd recommend 140hp, 200hp, and 260hp. The 260hp version should have bias ply slicks, as these are often used for wheel to wheel racing. The CSR 260 includes a dry sump oil system so it can deal with the conering forces from slicks.
Sorry to get off topic, but a reply to clarify my previous response:
It is a six speed manual. With manual transmissions, they generally don't distinguish gears as overdrive gears. I was just pointing out that top gear is reached in 5th gear, not 6th. This is also true of the more recent Camaros and Trans-Ams (top speed in 5th, not 6th). The manual transmissions in all of these cars (and the Viper) are variations of the Tremec (formerly Borg Warner) T-56. The strength of the the transmission (engine torque rating) and the gear ratios are the differences.
In the case of the 2006 C6 Z06 Corvette, the gears are:
Some might consider any gear ratio smaller than 1.00 to be an overdrive gear, which would make both 5th and 6th overdrive gears, but as I mentioned, generally the transmission is just called a 6 speed manual without regard to the gear ratios or which gear top speed is reached in.
The Z06 427 cubic inch - 7.0 liter engine makes it's peak power (505+hp) at 6300rpm, so 5th was set so that the car reaches it's top speed just a tad higher at 6330 rpms, at 198 mph. So the car can only reach the 7,000 rpm redline in the 1st 4 gears. 6th gear is a crusing gear, running at about 1500 rpm at 70mph - 112.6kmh, helps with gas milage, and reduced engine wear.
The term "overdrive" is more of a historical term, often used with automatic transmissions, again in reference to gear ratios less than 1.00. Some cars have a button to disable "overdrive", so a driver won't have to use as much throttle to cause the car to shift out of overdrive on a highway, like when passing a car or going up hill. Again, some manufacturers, just refer to their automatic transmissions as 4 speeds now, instead of 3 speed with overdrive. This is more of a legacy terminology. Most of the time, the automatics are just referred to as 4, 5, or 6 speeds.
The history behind all this was the fact that generally the rear end / final ratio on a car was set to work with a 1.00 gear ratio from the transmission for the top gear, and ratios below 1.00 were considered overdrive. In the case of manual transmissions, this meant that first gear ratio was well over 3.00, involving a large gear and a small gear, which reduced the number of gear teeth engaged at any one time, reducing the strength of the gear (it would have to be wider to be stronger). The newer trend, as with the T-56 tranny, is to use a higher ratio rear end, and a lower ratio 1st gear, < 3.00. A first gear 2.66 gear set is stronger than an 3.26 gear set (of the same width), and also produces less torque on the drive shaft. This reduces the amount of strength required for the rear end and allows a higher ratio, like the 3.42 in the case of the Corvette (also Camaros and Trans-Ams).
For example, the Z06's 5th gear of 0.74 and rear end ratio of 3.42 would be the equivalent of a 5th gear with 1.00 and rear end of 2.53, but with a rear end ratio of 2.53, first gear would have to increase from 2.66 to 3.60, making it weaker. So the bottom line is that the gearing of the T-56 type tranny and rear end combine for a stronger tranny / final drive setup without requiring extra weight.
This was done to get 1 more mile per gallon on the Camaro, Trans-Am, and Corvette. It's not really good for the engine, and you'd be lugging the engine if you're weren't going easy on the throttle trying to get good gas milage for an EPA test. Many owners of Camaros and Trans-Ams will buy a skip shift eliminator because it's so annoying.
In the case of the 2006 Z06, it's pretty obvious it's just an EPA thing as the range is so small, <=21% throttle, speed >=15mph, <=19mph. Since 1st gear on the Z06 can run up to 60mph, typical shifts into 2nd occur at speeds greater than 20mph, so the skip shift is only noticable in an alley where speed limit is 15mph.
As already posted, 1st gear isn't setup for taking off from a standing start, but instead for accelerating out of the slowest turn on a track in the case of that UF1, which only has 4 gears.
In the case of high powered vehicles, 1st gear is fairly tall to prevent wheelspin or wheelies (motorcycles). A 2006 Z06 Corvette redlines at 7000 rpm, which is 61mph in 1st (91 in 2nd, 125 in 3rd, 162 in 4th, 6330rpm at 198mph in 5th). A Suzuki Hayabusa redlines at 11,000 rpm, 81mph in 1st (111 in 2nd, 138 in 3rd, 165 in 4th, 185 in 5th, top speed without speed limiter is about 192 in 6th). A Formula 1 race car might be geared to run between 90mph and 100mph in 1st.
On a 3 mile runway, Jerermy started in 5th gear and got up to 160mph or so before running out of runway. Jeremy states that the car can go 175mph in 5th gear, but the Z06 Corvette reaches it's top speed of about 198mph in 5th gear at 6330 rpm. (6th gear is an overdrive / cruising gear). In the episode, the shots of the tach and speedo during this run aren't correct. First shot shows 2300 rpm at 42mph, which is 3rd gear. Next shot, tach indicates a bit over 6,000 rpm at 110mph, which again is 3rd gear. Last shot shows tach between 6500 rpm and 7000rpm (hard to tell from the angle) at 160mph, which is probably 4th. 7,000 rpm in the Z06 in 4th is about 162mph, so the speedo in the episode is optimistic, or it's just hard to see where the tach really is.
Let me clarify, it depends on the real race car. It's to prevent glass from getting all over the driver in case of a crash. In Nascar, there is no glass in the side windows. However, Lemans racing cars have fully enclosed cockpits, so it's up to the type of racing involved.
For club racers, if track rules don't mandate windows down, then the drivers can choose. When Motor Trend tested the Z06 at Laguna Seca, the windows were up and the AC on.
Probably true, but it depends on how loud the cars are, or how fast the cars go if they are open cockpit cars like a Radical, Caterham, or any of the formula type cars. In these cases, most of the drivers will wear ear plugs. Almost all of the motorcyle racers use ear plugs.
The longest online race I'm aware of used to be held once a year or so. 1000km race at Nordschleife with Grand Prix Legends. Each lap is about 22.7km (14.1 miles) so it was a 44 lap race (just under 1000km). The fast guys were running around 8:05 per lap, so it was 6 hours of racing and a required 40 minutes of break time (this was done during pit stops). So about 6 hours 40 minutes to 7 hours long. All of this was recorded in a replay (GPL has a good replay system), and then verified (this was a lengthy process as well).
Personally, I haven't done a lot of long races online. A typical NR2003 race is about 20 minutes of racing and 10 minutes of waiting / qualifying. This was taking up too much time for me, so I quit racing NR2003 online, and eventually quit racing online altogether, although I still enjoy hotlapping.
Here's another sample, a BMW M3 GTR running a combined Nurburg Ring and Nordschleife. One warmup lap on the Nurburg, then a race lap and a left onto the Nordschleife. There are 2 fast sections early on, and the final straight. The gears and rear end sounds seem to be the dominating sounds on this car:
Ok, but it's a lot less noise than the souped up Busa that ran up to 211mph.
Based on my personal experience with foam ear plugs and a helmet, the wind noise (at least the high frequency component) is almost completely eliminated by the ear plugs.
Here's a speed run (gauge view) in a 2006 Z06 Corvette to 190mph, wind noise is barely noticable. Of course in a real race car, the side windows would be down. This was done on a 3 mile runway, and my guess is that it took over 2 miles to reach 190mph.
Now in this case, a souped up Hayabusa running up to 211mph (speedo shows 220mph), the wind noise does get very loud, but you can still hear the louder engine until the rider backs off the throttle.
With a tank cam video, you really can't appreciate what 180+mph looks like but here's a good example. The camera dislodged from the mount, so the video is short. The rider takes it's easy until he gets past some dirt on the two lane road, but after that, he opens it up and you can see just how quickly the busa gets up to speed:
As I peviously posted, in a real race vehicle, the driver would be wearing ear plugs and a helmet, or helment with headset that cuts out wind noise so the driver can communicate with the pit.
I'm not aware of any open cockpit racer or motorcycle racer that doesn't use earplugs of some type. I always use foam earplugs and a helmet when driving my motorcycle. The earplugs cut out almost all of the wind noise, and you can hear the engine (and other vehicles). When I had the Caterham, the wind noise was also very loud, and earplugs once again greatly reduced wind noise to the point that if driver and passenger wore earplugs, you could hear a normal conversation. The foam earplugs mostly eliminate high frequency noises.
The in car sounds should reflect what a driver hears, including the effects of earplugs, or earplugs should be a sound option.