I don't know the answer to that, but for what it's worth Dan, I thought you made a reasonable point. Not sure why you got jumped on here.
That's pretty rich coming from a man who ties women to railway tracks.
Moss, I am coming in on this a bit late, but: one thing I can suggest is making sure that you use the option to display the pedal input signals as little bars in the lower right corner of the screen (somewhere in display options). This will make it easier for you to tell whether the problem is spiky inputs from the Saitek wheel and pedals, bad calibration of the pedals, or just your own ham-footed driving (). If you're seriously getting a kind of on-off use of the accelerator, then it's probably one of the first two.
I find these pedal input displays are great for letting me know when my pedals have slipped out of calibration and I'm not actually getting full throttle when I have my foot all the way down.
I used to have a Saitek years ago and had to bin it once the potentiometers on the pedals became insufferably noisy. This might be your problem, who knows.
). If you're seriously getting a kind of on-off use of the accelerator, then it's probably one of the first two.I find these pedal input displays are great for letting me know when my pedals have slipped out of calibration and I'm not actually getting full throttle when I have my foot all the way down.
I used to have a Saitek years ago and had to bin it once the potentiometers on the pedals became insufferably noisy. This might be your problem, who knows.
I reckon I could just about take Nick Heidfeld. But then again, those guys spend so much time in the gym. No, on second thoughts best not to pick any fights with F1 drivers. Will stick to badger-baiting.
Hey Aaron, nice one. Some of what you're doing to the ute seems a bit like putting lipstick on a horse, but each to his own. Nice car and good luck with it. Try not to end up with it wrapped around anything rigid, that's what I always say.
So if one was a female Japanese LFS player, stereotype overload would be complete, eh?
Kev: I like Sato also, and I think your analysis of his difficulties in previous years is pretty good. I was being sincere in saying that the big difference in lap times between Sato and Ide might remind people that the guy (Sato) has some talent.
Kev: I like Sato also, and I think your analysis of his difficulties in previous years is pretty good. I was being sincere in saying that the big difference in lap times between Sato and Ide might remind people that the guy (Sato) has some talent.
At least Ide makes Sato look good.
No offence intended, Duke. Games companies target a demographic that happens to include you: millions of fourteen-year-olds actually do buy games. It's great to hear that one or more thirteen-year-olds are buying LFS, but sadly you're a man against the tide.
Ollie you psycho -- think of the family!
Kev -- basically I agree with you: my limited experience also suggests that things are just a little bit wrong in LFS. My post was speculation about what might be behind some of the complaints.
This is probably a stupid thing to say and will only result in stirring up trouble, but: when someone says they think tyre model A is more realistic than tyre model B, how often does that really mean, "I can keep it on the road in game A, but in game B I keep having these frustrating spins"?
I like the tyre model in NR2003/GTP very much, but I wouldn't know how to tell you whether it's realistic, having not driven any big heavy 750HP cars on slicks.
It strikes me as entirely possible that the tyre model in LFS right now is closer to accurate than we would like to admit, and what is getting in the way is the lack of visceral feedback which makes slides in a real car much easier to catch. I'd really like it if Scawen released a physics patch tomorrow that made the GTRs a bit less horrible through low-speed corners. I'd drive around feeling proud of my improved ability to handle these beasts. But imagine that a week later someone who really knew their tyre physics then told me, "Actually, the old LFS model was closer to reality, and this new patch has overcompensated in the other direction to make the game more playable". How could I mount an argument without a PhD in physics and a lot of time on a test track in the relevant cars?
I like the tyre model in NR2003/GTP very much, but I wouldn't know how to tell you whether it's realistic, having not driven any big heavy 750HP cars on slicks.
It strikes me as entirely possible that the tyre model in LFS right now is closer to accurate than we would like to admit, and what is getting in the way is the lack of visceral feedback which makes slides in a real car much easier to catch. I'd really like it if Scawen released a physics patch tomorrow that made the GTRs a bit less horrible through low-speed corners. I'd drive around feeling proud of my improved ability to handle these beasts. But imagine that a week later someone who really knew their tyre physics then told me, "Actually, the old LFS model was closer to reality, and this new patch has overcompensated in the other direction to make the game more playable". How could I mount an argument without a PhD in physics and a lot of time on a test track in the relevant cars?
Vain and Hankstar, you make some good points, and I don't want to argue just for the sake of it. But I'm sure I didn't just imagine the response from motorsport fans to (for example) the changes to the Tamburello turn after Senna's death. Or Hank, you're Australian aren't you? What about the things people said about the new vs. the old Conrod Straight?
I agree that a fast sweeper can be boring if the car involved has so much mechanical grip or downforce that there is no serious issue of keeping it on the track. Don't mean to sound heretical, but think of some of the Kyoto Long corners in the FOX with high downforce, for example. The enormous downforce of modern F1 cars at speed certainly renders a lot of potentially terrifying corners much more tame (e.g., Eau Rouge). But look at the track layouts from formula one in the 50s and 60s, the kind of tracks featured in GPL (e.g., Monza, Silverstone, Spa in their old layouts). You can tell from one glance at the maps of those tracks that they featured extremely high speed corners, and history tells us that these corners were exciting for the spectators and challenging for the drivers.
Back to NASCAR, I agree that simply getting a car around one of the superspeedways like Daytona or Talladega is not too challenging (although presumably terrifying the first few hundred times). But on a more subtle track like Phoenix or Pocono or Darlington, the driver is necessarily close to losing control of the car in every corner. That for me has always been the definition of a good and exciting car & racetrack combination: corners that can be taken at high speeds but with the limits of grip being tested every time.
I know that the same skills are necessary for negotiating tight and twisty sections of track, but can you honestly tell me that something like the infield section of the Indianapolis GP track is dear to anyone's heart?
Anyway, thanks for listening. YMMV, of course.
Agreed, raptor. These people probably also push to the front in the queue at the all-you-can-eat buffet, so what can we do? Just smile and wave, as Mr. Funnybear would say, and keep looking for a server with nicer people on it.
I think we're getting beyond Funny- and into Really-Odd-Bear territory here. 
Thanks for the info, AJP, I didn't know that. Why is this so? Do they overheat after 30 minutes?
Looks like Canada is the place to be then.
Hi Raptor. If you google for "GPL recommended driver behaviour" you'll get an excellent guide to corner rights and motor racing etiquette. Sounds like exactly what you're looking for. (The hard part is getting the other guy to read it too, sadly.)
www.asrg.org/gpl/gplac/rec_dvr_beh/rec_driver_beh.htm
Cheers,
Jason.
That will be me, pretty much. I probably won't be so laid back about it though.
Kinesis, not meaning to attack your brother-in-law's skills, but those 3 pictures in the order you posted them tell a sad story. Is there a little bit of schadenfreude going on from the photographer's point of view? 
Agreed, Tristan.
I think deep down my point is just about how humble we should all be in predicting the long-term future of technology, computers, and entertainment. Thirty years ago there wasn't really such a thing as a computer game, and now look at the world. The futurologists did a terrible job in failing to predict the existence and importance of the internet, which reminds us that unanticipated world-changing stuff can always be around the corner. Current game designers are showing a lack of imagination in recycling the same four or five game concepts over and over, but the dark ages needn't last forever.
I think the only safe prediction is the obvious one: whatever technological breakthrough occurs, someone will try to use it to sell porn.
I think deep down my point is just about how humble we should all be in predicting the long-term future of technology, computers, and entertainment. Thirty years ago there wasn't really such a thing as a computer game, and now look at the world. The futurologists did a terrible job in failing to predict the existence and importance of the internet, which reminds us that unanticipated world-changing stuff can always be around the corner. Current game designers are showing a lack of imagination in recycling the same four or five game concepts over and over, but the dark ages needn't last forever.
I think the only safe prediction is the obvious one: whatever technological breakthrough occurs, someone will try to use it to sell porn.
Good point, I forgot possibly the dumbest one of all.
You could hardly call me an oval freak, but I do think that oval racing at its best does have a weirdly compelling beauty and zen-like simplicity to it. I find it interesting that fans of European-style road tracks often seem to hate ovals, but they also moan about modern changes to the road tracks they love: long, high-speed corners like Curva Grande at Monza being de-fanged by slow chicanes and first-gear hairpins. If you think that fast sweeping curves are the greatest spectacle in motor-racing, well, then, why not just join two of them together -- hey presto, an oval.
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Yes, I assume you're talking about commercial pressures to produce games that millions of fourteen-year-olds will buy. And it's true that this perceived market doesn't push game production teams towards super-realistic simulation.
But I disagree with the fatalism inherent in your "console is always a console" statement. If you think about it, the PC is a terrible hodgepodge of parts and systems that doesn't make for a great game-playing environment either. Ten years from now, with high-end consoles in every living room, who is to say that a developer couldn't choose to go after the niche market in realistic driving simulations. You may protest that it wouldn't sell enough copies for them to bother with it, but then again most of the bad shooters and arcade racers don't sell many copies either.
This made me laugh.
To the original poster: I agree with you that NASCAR gets a bad rap. I say this as someone who didn't watch any oval racing at all when growing up (hardly knew it existed). I discovered NASCAR largely through late night television and Papyrus games. I learned that simulated NASCAR races can be fantastic fun to drive, and that the real sport includes some very smart, determined and skilful drivers. On a trip to the US I went along to a small local circuit (Irwindale Speedway, CA) and had a great time.
But -- wouldn't you agree that the way the sport is currently run gives it some problems in being taken seriously by outsiders? What is it with that "boogity boogity boogity" guy? And crap like the "lucky dog rule"? And having to pretend that these cars bear any real relationship to on-road Chevy, Fords, Pontiacs, Dodges, etc?
(Clearly a sport run by stoopid orange-loving idiots, but maybe that can change.)
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