In my opinion, interest in racing games of all types peaked late 2005, early 2006, and has slowly diminished since then. Many of the older players have been playing games for over 10 years now, and the interest in gaming, especially online racing, has lost some of it's appeal.
In my case, I pretty much know where I rank based on hot lap times, so there isn't much point in going online to confirm what I already know. For new games, I'll go online to determine which cars are best (or best for a particular class), and to get setup info from other players, but then go back to hot lapping offline. Eventually this stuff gets posted in forums though.
For some games, like NR2003, a lot of people liked running Talledega and Daytona open server, fixed setup events, because just about anyone could win these as much skill wasn't required (all assists, including steering assists, could be enabled), but this also eventually lost it's appeal.
iRacing is new, but it's had to change it's format to allow quick advancement and lower it's prices in an effort to increase the number of players. Activity there is about 4,000 to 5,000 players that run at least on event per week. I don't know what the maximum number of players online at any one time to make a comparason with the stats shown at LFS World.
LFS still manages to have an unusually large number of online players, although since I'm in the USA, I don't see the level of activity that occurs in Europe.
As pointed out, the next patch for LFS will result in an increase in the number of online players, but I suspect that how long the increased activity after each one of these patches, is going to decrease over time for the same reason that overall interest in racing games seem to be diminishing.
No one seems to have mentioned that the video in the original post is of multiple runs, not the same run. The first sequence shows a run which appears to have been done within the steering lock angle of the car. The next sequence, labled "replay", isn't a replay of the first run but is a diffferent run. This time the car yaws well beyond the steering lock angle, but the front end slides more than the rear end as the driver lifts off the throttle, and the car eventually recovers. The third sequence, "in car" appears to be the same or similar to the second run, going beyond lock angle and then recovering.
I still think Tiff's 100 mph power oversteer in the 5th gear episode featuring the Z06 was more impressive:
For vision correction, the gas-permeable hard lenses are the best. It's not uncommon to end up with 20/15 corrected vision with hard lenses. Because of surface tension in the fluid between the cornea and hard lens, they tend to "cure" cornea related astigmtism over time, and prevent cornea changes from changing your prescription.
In the USA these are somewhat rare these days, because it takes longer to acclimate to wearing them, and most people aren't aware of the vision improvement unless they've actually tried hard lenses.
Setting both damper fast rebound rates to max stiff will reduce the bouncing problem. Note, the settings will end up one click left of max stiff due to another game bug where maximum values are stepped back one click when you leave the tuning menu.
While making these videos, I noticed that there's a "lens" effect, the perimeter of the view is subtly darkened. The video effect is similar to the dirt accumulation effect used in GTR series, but in this case it's being used for a "lens" effect.
Try getting all stars. The master all corners is a pain at some tracks, and it's part of the stars for some events. You should do the master corners first via a quick race, since you won't be able to get them all in a normal career race. Once you get them, the game remebers you've done them all in later events.
Comments - Each car in NFS Shift essentially has it's own set of physics, so you can't really judge the game until you've tried a few cars. Only some of the cars can be upgraded to "factory works" cars, which removes the nitrous, and my guess is that these "works" cars will probably be the most realistic ones in the game.
If you do the invitational events as they get unlocked, and get all the "stars" for each event, tier 4 and the "works" cars will get unlocked before you complete all tier 1 events. You'll be able to start tier 2 with a "works" car.
I was also able to run sub 1:13 laps at Willow Springs with the "works" Z06, with minor tuning, reducing tire pressure to 30psi was enough (Zonda default to about 27psi, didn't try that with Z06), and geared the Z06 for about 170mph. So the "works" Z06 and the Zonda R are about the same at some tracks. I'm still plowing my way through career mode, so I haven't done much testing with the cars.
The oversteer of the cars is visually exaggerated, but it does give a sense of what the rear end of the car is doing, and it looks cool. The in car steering wheel doesn't match your controller inputs, but it doesn't seem to affect the car, so it's best to ignore it.
Even with all assists off, NFS Shift make control inputs less sensitve than typical sim-oriented games. If there's an analogy to be made, then the difference from GTR2 to GTR Evolution, is about the same as the difference from GTR Evolution to NFS Shift. Turn too much and the car will understeer, but not by much. You can spin the cars with too much throttle, but again, most "works" cars aren't that throttle sensitive (some of the stage upgraded cars are traction limited (too much power, not enough grip)).
Even in iRacing, some cars like the Radical are relatively easy to drive. You can use lift throttle oversteer, countered with induced understeer (steering inwards too much) to control the car while drifting like GPL. In this video of the Radical at Silverstone, I use this to drift from apex to apex during the right left right sequence about 1/3rd into the lap and again in the left just before the final right hand hairpin.
Bug workarounds - EA forums has this information, but it's scattered about in the technical thread. Here's a summary:
Some of the muscle cars will not move if you're last tune was done with advanced tuning. Regardless of which car you tune, the choice of quick or advanced tuning affects all cars. The workaround is to go to "my cars", then tuning, then switch to quick tuning. I'm not sure if you have to actually change anything. If you do need to change something, I recommend buying a spare car and use that for quick tuning fix.
Second bug - once you tune any car using quick tune, it affects all your other cars, so once you get past an event where a muscle car wasn't moving, then you have switch back to advanced tuning, here it's easy to move a slider then move it back without affecting anything.
Third bug - some of the advanced tuning stuff won't take. The one that I've found so far is if you change any gear to max speed (far right), it won't stay that way, it will revert back one setting.
Fourth bug - Sometimes your tuning settings won't go into affect until after you restart a race.
Bouncing bug - somewhat cured by tuning: I set both fast rebound rates to max stiff (fixes bouncing on some cars like works Camaro SS).
Better grip - (not a bug, but might as well include it here): For tuning in general, I set tire pressures to 30psi, or maybe 29psi (note the Zonda R defaults to about 27psi). I haven't tried to optimize this.
Perhaps their early songs, but by late 1965 (Rubber Soul) they quickly expanded beyond the typical 3 chord songs that were so popular in those days. As time progressed, a large portion of their music was "undanceable", something unique at the time but also something they could get away with because of their popularity at the time. In terms of content and variety, they were in a league of their own. Some of this credit should be given to George Martin, who helped with the techonology aspect of the sound, and provided some direction in the music itself. The "non-danceable" music era lasted from about 1967 to about 1972, when traditional rock bands became popular again, long after the Beatles broke up.
Sgt Pepper was the most popular (longest run as #1 album). Next was Abbey Road, then the White Album. Part of this is due to the competition from other bands and change in music tastes by the time White Album and later Abbey Road was released. Sgt Pepper did get a lot of hype at the time. By the time the White Album was released, other bands were catching on, with a wider variety of music. The Paul McCartney side of Abbey Road was an interesting medley of songs.
I'm not sure I have a favorite album. Being 57 years old, what I remember most was what seemed like the very short lived era where college students thought that the world was going to make significant changes. This era peaked about the time of Woodstock, and ended with the Kent State shootings. For me I would say that Crosby Stills Nash and Young managed to musically capture that short lived era more than any other band, sort of like a time capsule of a period that only lasted a few months.
The "bullets" tend to engage the higher gear during engine braking, so there's still some form of limited engine braking.
The above explanation of the zeroshift transmission, and other articles about seamless shift indicate tht the clutch is slippped during each shift.
No, more than just idle control. I can accelerate up to 25mph to 30mph, and lift off the throttle, and the computer controlled slowed ramp down of virtual throttle position prevents the car from slowing significantly, fighting the brakes. I usually have to use the clutch to slow down the car in these situations.
Traction control in a street situation, with cold tires is different than traction control in a race situation.
Otherwise, they'd be prone to oversteer, and oversteer while pulling close to 4g's at 160 mph would be considered hazardous to most, since once the car yaws (oversteers) enough, the downforce is greatly reduced because air flows over the wings at the wrong angle. For this reason, any "sane" (safe) setup for a high powered, high downforce car is going to have a rearwards aero bias, to reduce the chance of oversteer in high speed, high g force turns.
A bit off topic, but I think the original post was answered. As mentioned before do a web search for "crankcase vacuum pump" for more info.
The seamless shifter logic is still there though. The removal of traction control and brake reduction have cost about 3/10 to 4/10ths of a second per lap. The brake reduction was compensated for with a more forward bias on the braking. It's a bit tricky because the downforce has a rearward bias to make the cars safe (less oversteery) at high speed.
The clutches limit braking torque, and it's true that closign the throttle won't generate this kind of torque.
Just like in F1? How else do you reduce engine braking via an ECU if it's work done against a closed throttle?[/quote]In the case of F1 cars, the ECU also controlls the clutch, and that aspect is still there as part of the seamless shift transmissions.
Better stated is that the Z06 has a poor implemenation, as it holds the virtual throttle open even at very slow speeds. 1st gear redlines at 61 mph, but you can just feed in a bit of throttle at around 10mph to 20mph, and lift off, but the car continues to run at that speed, requiring you fight the virtual throttle with the brakes and/or the clutch in stop and go traffic.
What's worse is that the ECU is smart enough to also recognize engine braking tire slippage, (compares rear tire speeds to front tires speeds), which should be the main trigger for engine braking reduction. There's also a torque sensor in the drive train, but it's only used to cut fuel if excessive torque is detected. Also stability control, which involves individual wheel braking. The low speed aspect of this was just dumb. Aftermarket programming of the ECU can fix these issues, but then some aspects of your warranty might be voided.
Regarding the torque sensor and cutting fuel, the so called traction control only retards spark, instead of cutting fuel, very ineffective, so the only noticable difference between traction control on and off, is with it on, you see an indicator display while your tires spin, but there's is little or no difference in the actual tire spin.
Not in straight line, but there are some cars that have plenty of lift throttle oversteer. The higher powered Caterhams will do this. My guess is the Z06 with the ECU re-programmed will also do this, although I doubt the Z06 would recover as quickly as the Caterhams do.
Virtually all of that 1 g is due to aero drag. F1 race cars have their ECU's and clutches programmed to limit the amount of engine braking. Racing motorcycles and some street bikes use "slipper" clutched to limit engine braking. The Corvette Z06 limits engine braking in a dumb way, keeping the the throttle by wire partially opened when you lift off, somewhat annoying in stop and go traffic since you're forced to used the clutch in some cases to get around this.
In USA (also at wiki), "windage" is a reference to drag losses due to the oil being moved around in the crankcase. I'm not sure if there's a special term used for the power losses due to air flow in the crankcase.
In some cars the PCV valve helps reduce pressure somewhat, since it connects the crankcase to the lower pressure air in the manifold, although this also draws oil mist into the intake, and at full throttle, the pressure in the manifold is at it's maximum. Some older race cars with straight exhause pipes (no back pressure), would take advantage of visocity effects and connect the crankcase to side ports on the exhaust pipes taking advantage of a type of venturi effect.
However, the most common method used for drag and some race cars is to use a conventional pump to evacuate the crankcase. The pump comsumes power, but the decrease in power loss through air movment in the crankcase is even more, so there's a net benefit.
Do a web search for "crankcase vacuum pump" and you'll find quite a few links.
It's mostly movment of air in the crankcase and partialy due to friction in the engine. If you have a fuel injection engine and manual shift, go down a hill, turn off the ignition, and the engine braking is about the same regardless of throttle position (closed or open).
For the flow above the cylinders, the air makes a pretty good spring, any air that gets into the engine, gets compressed, but then that air pushes back with as much force as it took to compress it. Throttle position with ignition off doesn't matter much, because it just changes the amount of air going into and out of the cylinders, with the throttle closed the forces above the cyclinder are less, and with the throttle open the forces above the cylinder are more, but over time the forces cancel during the normal cycle of an engine, because there is little "hysteresis" when air is compressed and allowed to re-expand.
The air underneath is a significant source of resistance, as it has to flow from cylinder to cylinder, which consumes power. This is why drag vehicles use a vacuum pump to reduced the amount of air in the crankcase.
For additional engine braking, diesel trucks use a "jake brake", which releases the compressed air above the cylinder via yet another valve in each cylinder, timed so that there is force used to compress the air, then the valve opens and releases that higher pressure air so that the air doesn't return the force back to the piston as it moves back down.
The Pirate Bay became known to sim racing players when First, now called iRacing, threatened every web site hosting the NR2005 mod for Nascar Racing Season 2003 (they also got Team Redline to remove all car logos from their GTP mod for NR2003), getting it removed. The Pirate Bay, out of the legal grasp of First/iRacing, became the primary site for the NR2005 mod (it's still there), which is how the pirate bay became known to the sim racing community.
Proof that skill in a racing game doesn't translate into skill in real race cars or vice versa. They just dumped the poor guy into a car as a "guest" driver without providing any quality learning sessions with a instructor.
If I remember correctly, NFS4 - Hhigh Stakes was the first to make the windows clear and to include convertibles where you can see the drivers face and torso. NFS5 - Porche Unleashed - in some views, the drivers had no legs. NFS6 - did away with cockpit views (and replays). (NFS8 - Underground 2 was the last NFS to have replays, but they only worked post race, and weren't saveable).
In iRacing the Spec Racer Ford and the Skippy have open differentials, but I suspect the lift throttle oversteer is exaggerated, at least in the case of the SRF (Ian Lake's setup helps tame the SRF). The Radical (best car in the free trial), had some lift throttle oversteer, and responded well to steering induced understeer to compensate, making for some nice 4 wheel drifts:
Lift throttle oversteer is a rear wheel drive thing, related to engine braking. I know the Formula BMW is rear wheel drive, but the wings are usually set to be understeery at high speed, so the FBMW may only show lift throttle oversteer at slower speed. Are either of the other 2 demo cars rear wheel drive?
Bose speakers have always been over-priced and/or gimmicky. This tradition started with the Bose 901's (over-priced and gimmicky) and has never stopped since.
I don't know much about PC speakers. I either use headphones or a stereo with normal speakers with my PC.
The best PC speakers would be true near range studio monitors, but these aren't cheap and you'd need at least a power amp (QSC power amps are cheap but good). "Near range" means they are relatively close to the listener. Studio monitors are also middle and far range, with the far range versions handling the most power and producing the strongest sounds.
I haven't shopped for speakers in ages, as they last a long time. Good stereo equipment was long ago replaced with lower quality home theater equipment, and the good stereo equipment prices have escalated as their popularity has decreased.
The main thing is to find a pair of speakers that you like. The things to listen for is the quality of the sound and if that quality or the frequency response is affected by volume level. Sometimes the sound becomes harsh due to actual distortion, or because the speakers are more sensitive to mid to high frequencies at higher volume settings. Other speakers become boomy, sounding like cheap car speakers, "muddying" up the base so it's no longer "crisp" at higher volume settings (this is an issue with many home theater type speakers).