Quote from RS1T :

the fact that its big is the whole point !!! if i t was small people would forget

Maybe so, but there should be some way to acknowledge the penalty and get the obstruction off the screen. He's 100% right about it being an unrealistic annoyance and it should be possible to change it to smaller text.

Quote from JCTK :

he would need a lap or two at the very least to put some heat back into the tyres anyway.

So where were his times at the end after he had been on the tires for a few laps?

Why didn't he pit for warm tires?

Quote from Becky Rose :

they said he chose the wrong tyres then had brake trouble.

ITV, especially that moron Steve Rider, is so hopelessly biased towards Hamilton that you really can't rely on anything they say about him. The simple fact is that he wasn't as fast as many others in the session. He didn't have brake trouble. The team made the wrong call to try inters at the beginning of the session, but as has already been said, he continued to be slower than them even after he switched onto extremes. It just wasn't his day. He's a great driver, he doesn't need a whole team of excuse-makers trailing behind him to explain why he isn't crushing everyone by four seconds a lap.

In the race, James Allen decalred "HAMILTON'S STRUGGLING!" after he had barely done one corner. :rolleyes:

I can't wait for the BBC.

I should learn to type on a Dvorak keyboard. Playing this game and trying to go as fast as possible just highlights how utterly stupid the QWERTY keyboard is.

Most people can type 25-50% faster on a Dvorak once they get used to it.

Are you actually leaving the pits to check the brightness? When just sitting in the garage you're in the shade and the cockpits are very dim. On my screen they're pretty much black. Pull out into the pitlane and into the sun and everything brightens up.

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

Pretty simple. Drag and drop the squares in order to arrange them by color. The first and last ones are fixed, so you have a point of reference.

Very surprisingly I got a 0 (perfect score) on my first try:

Quote from CSU1 :

Has it been done yet by anyone else?

Good question. Not to my knowledge. rFactor doesn't and I don't think either iRacing or NKP do either.

Quote from CSU1 :

...mainly the particle and collision systems

Those things and a dynamic track surface, especially temperature, weather, differing types of tarmac, rubber/oil/water/dirt/gravel on the track, painted lines, all kinds of stuff.

Quote from CSU1 :

i guess maybe for training purposes LFS could strive to claim to be a racing engineers base testing application

I don't think LFS is anywhere near advanced enough for that.

Quote from bubbles :

^^^ Ever raced a real car, you tell me.

Either way it doesn't look real

What is this, one of these "I've done it and you haven't therefore I'm right and you're wrong" threads? Spare us, please.

It doesn't look real because this is a game played on a wheel clamped to a desk on a flat monitor. Real racing is, well, real.

Yes, some people are extremely fast in the XRT. They can hold the car right on the limit for long periods of time, and the WR laps are good examples of what an XRT looks like on the limit. Quite a lot of oversteer is evidently what is quickest. Of course you don't have the danger of dying in LFS, so the driving tends to be braver and more spectacular than what you'd typically see in real life racing.

So your suggestion is to incorporate drivetrain damage into the sim? What would that achieve? What does that have to do with driving the XRT quickly?

I'm not familiar with the current crop of graphics cards. I haven't paid attention to that stuff since 2005.

Quote from Jakg :

Power makes 7200RPM drives usually useless.

OT - GFX card sucks.

What do you mean? That 7200 RPM drives drain laptop batteries quickly?

That doesn't seem like a big deal if it's always in one spot and plugged in since he'd be gaming on it, but if that's the case, why not just get a desktop?

Antec is a good brand, but don't buy based on wattage alone. High wattage is generally good, but some companies use cheap parts and disingenuous test conditions to achieve unrealistically high wattage ratings. More important is amperage, especially on the +12V rail. Check the box for the ratings on each rail (3.3V, 5V, and 12V) and get the highest ratings you can afford. A good PSU should deliver at least 25A on the +12V, preferably 30 or more. I bought mine a few years ago and it does 34A on +12V, so a newer one should have no trouble doing that.

They're still on those slow-ass 5400 RPM HDDs in laptops? That might be quite a considerable bottleneck, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Quote from mcintyrej :

Why would you want to buy a lump of gold?

It has value, and will have value outlasting any country. The US dollar has lost half of its value in the last eight years, while the price is gold is very steady.

Quote from Rappa Z :

I think it'll be the same for '09, but in 2010 I wouldn't be surprised if Kimi moves on like he wants

Bleh. I hope he sticks around. He's one of my favorite drivers and I still maintain that lap for lap he's the fastest one of them all. It would be disappointing to see him go.

Quote from NitroNitrous :

Button sucks

No, you're wrong. He's a very skilled driver.

It's obvious when you watch his style even in a car as shit as Honda's. He surges forward in the wet whenever he doesn't get the short end in a first lap crash or other such nonsense. He's one of the smoothest, most clinical drivers on the grid. That isn't necessarily always the fastest though, in this modern of age of huge downforce and critical tire temperatures requiring a more aggressive style than his. He has a similar problem to Kimi in the Ferrari. I'm not saying Button's the best overall driver on the grid (that's why I put him in #2,) but to deny his talent is daft.

I don't plan to upgrade to a new system. When this computer can't play games anymore, it will just browse the web. I'm through spending thousands on new PCs every few years; it's a futile effort. I don't give a shit what great PC technology is just over the horizon.

All I need is a card roughly similar to the performance of my X800XL. I just found an X850XT for $50 on ebay, which seems like a good deal considering all the other X850 series cards are at least twice that on ebay, and more than that elsewhere.

The 1650 Pro seems to be quite a crap card for me compared to my old X800XL. Much lower fillrate, less memory bandwidth, older RAM...

Looks like I'll have to spend more money than I was hoping.

How is the 3850?

Is it even worth upgrading to a much more powerful card? Will my system be a bottleneck? I'm running at stock speeds now but my CPU will easily go to 3.3 or 3.4GHz.

P4 2.8e @ 3.01GHz, HT enabled
2x512MB OZ PC3700 DDR466, matched pair, 2.5-3-3-5
MSI 865PE Neo2 PFISR, not overclocked, BIOS version 3.8 (I think)
Enermax Noisetaker 470W PSU
Seagate 200GB SATA HDD
WinXP Pro SP2 + latest updates

I got my hands on a Radeon 9000 64MB. Put it in the problem PC and it booted fine. I'm posting this on this PC and everything is OK, except it looks like crap because no drivers are installed. I tried the X800XL in the other PC and sure enough, same problem of not booting. So it is definitely a fried graphics card.

I thought this might happen and made a thread asking about current graphics cards. If anyone could help, please look here.

Thanks for the help.

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Sure. I know this sounds loopy, but it could be that both components (GPU and PSU) are faulty. The odds are slim, but both cards not working isn't a good sign.

The 9600 doesn't work because it's damaged. It has done the exact same thing in 3 PCs. It failing in my main PC doesn't mean my main PC has a problem.

HDMI Out? DX10? HD AVIVO? Are these features that I should have to future-proof a graphics card purchase in the next few days?

I'm still on AGP, so my choice of new cards is limited. My current one (X800XL) broke and I'm in the market for a new one.

I see several X1650 Pros on Newegg for good prices ($40-65). Why are these so cheap? Only 128-bit? How big of a difference does that make? How does this card compare to the X800XL?

EDIT: How big of a difference does GDDR2 vs GDDR3 make? How big of a difference is there between an X1650 Pro and this card? What are the big online computer parts stores in North America? Still Newegg and Tigerdirect?

Should I spend more and get something newer? If so which? I'd like to keep it ATI.

Thanks.

Last edited by Lateralus, Thu 4 Sep 2008, 03:10.

Quote from Linsen :

That corner is awesome even in my puny little Clio, I can't even begin to imagine how great this corner must be in a more powerful car.

Did Spa change to a one-way derestricted toll road a la the Ring? Can the public drive on it?

Quote from speedemon57 :

McLaren is better than Ferrari on corners, but lose on straights, while Ferrari loses on corners, but wins on straights.

This conclusion isn't accurate at all.

It isn't as simple as how you describe. There's a big difference between slow corners and fast corners in terms of car setup. And it's a severe oversimplification to say that the Mclaren is better at slow tracks and Ferrari at fast ones. It depends totally on the overall nature of the circuit. Monza is the fastest circuit, yet Mclaren was better than Ferrari there last year and are likely to be again this year. Their aero package has been more efficient than Ferrari's this year, and at Monza efficiency rules. The Mclarens have tended to have higher trap speeds than Ferrari all season, which indicates they are actually better in a straight line than Ferrari. The Ferrari has very good downforce, but it isn't quite as efficient. The Mclaren is also more compliant over bumps and kerbs. The Ferrari is more forgiving to its tires than Mclaren as well. This is why the Ferrari is so good on tracks with fast, sweeping corners like Spa and Istanbul and why Mclaren was better at, say, Montreal. Ferrari can generally run a riskier tire strategy on tracks with long fast bends which stress the tires more, while Mclaren often have to alter theirs because the tires wear so much. Just look at Turkey this year.

No useful conclusion could be drawn from whether one or the other was better at Monaco. It's a complete one-off in terms of setup, and it rained there anyway. It rained at Silverstone as well, which is why the Ferraris weren't slapping Lewis around a bit. Hell, Kimi nearly did anyway except the team pissed it away on tire strategy.