Quote from tristancliffe :

Isn't it funny that backing down and rolling over, and agreeing to disagree and being all nice and cosy and wet gets you more respect than discussing what you believe with people. No wonder the world is full of Andys.

1. Agreeing to disagree and backing down or rolling over are two completely different things. But if you really think those two are basically the same or even remotely related, it would certainly explain your inability to do the former.

2. There's nothing wrong with discussing what you believe with people. Calling other people's beliefs "rubbish" however, is plain rude.

3. Unfortunately, being stubborn and bossy, does seem to get you more respect with quite a few people, than being mature and realizing that there's a point where further discussion is pointless. Simply letting the discussion rest and not replying anymore is much too often interpreted as a sign of having run out of arguments and therefore being the "looser" of the argument. Often very wrongly so.

Grow up, Tristan.

Quote from Vain :

Sorry, but I can't stop grinning when I think of this thread and this, so I thought I'd share the humour.

Vain

Thx for that!

However, I also think there's a side to this conversation that's not so funny. Just because supposedly everybody knows that tristan is usually condescending and has a habit of implying other people's stupidity on an "if..., then..."-basis doesn't make it right and is hugely detrimental to any intelligent conversation. I think nisskid has done a relatively good job of staying calm and keeping his arguments relatively offence-free, whereas tristan has done what he usually does: being overly provocative and calling other peoples arguments and view-points "rubbish" or "twaddle" on first reply. Yet, SamH (yes, a moderator on this forum) jumps in and implies nisskid was deliberately trying not to take on the "inferences in Tristan's posts" and later even calling nisskid arrogant. However, reading nisskid's first two posts again and tristan's reaction to them, it seems quite clear to me, that he (also) either did not take on the inferences in nisskid's posts or deliberately chose not to do so. I guess I don't need to elaborate on the arrogance-part. Yet, I didn't see any moderator criticizing him for it.

To make this clear: I'm not saying either party in this discussion is right or wrong, I don't think there is a right or wrong, I'm just talking about the debate culture, or whatever that would be called in english.

Quote from deggis :

When talking about LFS, graphics are the least important area, but when talking about other sims, they are the most important thing.

Says who? Personally, I don't like the look of iracing too much, but I'm not really bothered with graphics anyaway. I do think LFS does have a very consistent look, though, which iracing lacks, imho.

+1 to what what bawbag said!

Yeah, reflections and shadows are nice and all, but the cars do look as though they were made out of cheap plastic, which makes it overall somehow look like a scale model scenario. It's just not consistent, imho.

Quote from Shotglass :

it does indeed
in fact the official german name for it is "feststellbremse" which is a brake that you can lock so that it stays engaged without your input
further evidence that its not built for emergencies comming from the very nation that invented cars

Exactly, that's one reason why I said that the x-brake is apparantly not meant to be an emergency brake. The other two facts hinting towards that would be the decceleration of only 1.5 m/s² and that it doesn't have to reach even that measly decceleration from maximum speed.

Quote from mrodgers :

I know you are baiting me on that thinking I will argue that a certain Henry guy invented cars. Ain't falling for that one, I know better .

Are there really people around thinking that Henry Ford invented cars? Please tell me that is not the case... On the other hand, it's well possibe. When I was in the US in 1990, I was asked if we had refridgerators or washing machines over here and if there was still war in Germany.

Quote from LFSn00b :

next combo, Nurb got boring

I felt the same when I was online. It might have had to do with the fact that there was nobody else around, though.

Quote from Shotglass :

has it occured to you that he is and that he fully intends to?

How could anyone miss it...

Anyway, about the device being discussed here:

According to german law (§41 StVZO), simplified, a car must have two seperately operable brake systems. One of which has to be capable of stopping the car with a deccelaration of at least 5m/s² when stopping from max speed. The other has to be lockable and operable solely by mechanical means. It has to be strong enough to stop the car from rolling down a steep incline and be capable of a decceleration of at least 1.5m/s². It's mentioned explicitely that this does not have to be the case when stopping from max speed.

To me, this would hint to the fact that the lockable braking device, which is what we're talking about, is argueably not meant to be an emergency brake. At least according to german law. But we don't call them emergency brakes over here anyway. Supporting brake is one of the many terms used in the german wikipedia and it doesn't sound too bad, really.

A little OT, but did anyone else read or hear somewhere that Alfa is planning to switch their range to RWD (except for the 147, that is)? I'm sure I read it somewhere, but I can't seem to find a confirmation for it...

And when is Alfa planning to come back to WTCC?

I was online just now. But nobody else was there besides some guy named "server". But he claimed he was god.

btw, the '+'-sign is blue in my version.

Is the server still up? And how do you connect directly to it? And is it possible to chat while racing?

The difference is quite amazing, but some of the better videos don't load for me, some load only very slowly, some stop and some don't load at all. So, I guess they're indeed still experimenting with it.

But I've been using mostly sevenload so far, as the quality has been a little better there, not much, but a little.

Which upload site do you guys recommend for fairly good quality vids?

First racing game for me was "The Need for Speed" on PS1. It might have been a little too realistic for those standard controllers, though, so my enjoyment was limited.

GT1 on PS1 was what really got me into racing games. I still remember how me and my buddies were blown away by the intro back then. And driving the MR2 in full race-spec with the neGcon-controller and beating all those bigger much powerful cars was huge fun.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

(...) Simple thinking you'd say if a NA car is limited to non turbo and 2 liters, the same should go for a Diesel. If this non turbo diesel turns out to be 100hp short, then petrol has won and diesel should go back to vans and trucks. (...)

Just what I thought after watching WTCC yesterday. It would certainly get rid of all the discussion. However, that's probably not feasible, as some manufacturers (Audi, Peugeot, Seat) obviously have a huge interest in racing Diesels to market their production car Diesels. And even though Diesels are certainly not great for the fans, it's still better to have them, than to have nothing. And I thought the battle between the Seats and the BMWs were quite entertaining to watch, actually. Also, it doesn't look as though the diesels in WTCC have that much of an advantage as it is right now. On tracks that are not 1000m above sea level (or almost 2000 as Mexico is, I believe), the BMWs and Chevrolets should be very competitive (if Chevrolet can avoid crashing, that is).

But that was really besides the point of your post, I suppose.

Quote from Intrepid :

Vettel was out testing with Schumi's team KSM Motorsport the other week as well -

So, you think that's "a sign of things to come"?

Quote from Woz :

You have never driven an old Mini then

The engine has so much inertia coupled with a car that is so light that you DO have that sort of control over the car. You might not have the same fine grained control as a RDW because the power comes from the other end of the car but you CAN change the slip angles of the rears from you input on the trottle. (...)

You don't have to be in a Mini to be able change the slip angle of your rear tyres by modulating the throttle. I can do it in my Clio. Just a small lift while cornering does the trick fine.

Besides atlantian is 100% right, of course. I mean, anybody knows that there's more truth in large bold red letters than in small black ones -- It's the same with cars and speed.

It's actually:

In my imagination
there is no complication
I dream about you all the time
in my mind a celebration
the sweetest of sensation
thinking that you could be mine

In my imagination
there is no hesitation
we walk together hand in hand
I'm dreaming...

... I suppose we all can sing a long from there.

Quote from mrodgers :

Sorry, but I fully agree with Tristan. Driver skill prevails over equipment any day. And on the road, there should be absolutely no difference in performance as you should not be anywhere near the limit.

Yes, driver skill prevails over equipment most of the time, but sometimes it's just out of your hands whether you are on the limit or not. In an emergency brake situation, you are not in charge anymore. You need all the tyres have got to give. And if your tyres are shitty, you'll have a longer braking distance, whether you're a bad at braking or good at braking. Period. You guys are just too blue-eyed. Any racing driver (and that includes Tristan) knows that tyres do make a huge difference on track. And anybody concerned with driver safety training knows that your tyres can be the difference between life or death on-road. So, deliberately choosing the hardest and least grippy tyres out there is plain wrong.

Quote from mrodgers :

Until you are out on the track and driving at the extreme absolute limit, you are not going to tell the difference.

Wrong. In an emergency brake situation, there can be a huge difference between decent tyres and shitty tyres. Again: We're talking about deliberately choosing the least grippiest tyres out there as opposed to decent tyres which are not much more expensive. And your tyres have to be pretty damn shitty, if you're having noticeably more fun with them at road legal speeds.

Quote from w126 :

It seems that iRacing may be perfect for all those people posting here that they would pay more for adding developers to LFS team, wanting real tracks and cars in LFS, saying how much they would pay for real tracks and cars, and which, being bored with LFS content because they've spent so much time with it, being unsatisfied with too slow development pace of LFS...

Very true, that's a point I tried to make in that other thread, but nobody seemed to have gotten it.

Quote from AndroidXP :

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en- ... c1c499c0(en-us,VS.85).gif ?

That is quite funny, actually. Made me chuckle.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Cheap tyre (not re-tread) £25. Expensive tyre £60 (this is for a 195/65R14). That's £35 difference per tyre, or £140 per car! That's quite a lot in real life.

I'm not talking about cheap vs. expensive, I'm talking about least grippiest tyres you can get your hands on vs. decent tyres. So I suppose, £25 vs. £35 is not too far off.

Quote from Michael Denham :

(...) But if you are driving to the limits of your tires, you will be safer with tires with less grip.

Maybe so, but that is not the point. See below.

Quote from Michael Denham :

So any advantage in safety provided by grippier tires is more than offset by the extra speed you would be carrying if driving at the limit around corners with the grippier tires. Of course, if you're driving at the same speed with the two sets of tires, the grippier ones will be safer, but we're talking about driving at the limit...

No, I am only talking about driving shitty tyres on the limit, like tristan obviously does. I would never drive my Goodyears to the limit on public roads. And tristan wouldn't either, as he stated. So your comparison is not valid, really.

I probably shouldn't even respond to your polemic, but it's rubbish and you know it. The difference beween a decent tyre and a shitty tyre is what? £10 a piece, maybe? Probably even less. Buying the least grippiest tyre available, is not doing "your bit". And having "fun" on public roads certainly isn't either. If your tyres are on the limit, your so-called "safer speeds" are not particularly safe, really, no matter how fast you actually go.

Would be interesting to know how much earlier decent tyres come to a stand-still from 50 mph as opposed to your cheap hardest ones out there. I bet there are quite a few metres difference.

But I'm not going to argue any further about this with you.

I wholeheartedly agree to this, though. Driver safety training should be mandatory in order to get a license, imho. It's fun as well.

Quote from tristancliffe :

(...) learn to brake properly (...)

Last edited by Linsen, Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:02.

Surely it's all about buts and ifs... but if iracing had physics and ffb feel at least as good as LFS or netkarpro, and if they had some tracks available I could actually be driving in real Life (Nordschleife, Sachsenring, Oschersleben, Lausitzring), and if they had some cars or racing series available I'm interested in, I wouldn't have a problem paying 13$/month. But only if I could try it out for free beforehand. So currently I guess I'm not interested.

If you're going from winter tyres to summer tyres and vice versa regularly, you might as well rotate them, as it's no extra work. And even if you don't, it really doesn't take much time to change four tyres.

And about those recommendations to buy the cheapest/hardest/least grippy tyres available... That's plain stupid, imho. Sure, the most expensive tyres don't always work best, but there are some tyres out there with quite appaling performance, so I would always check some reviews and don't buy a tyre I don't know anything about.

Quote from tristancliffe :

If you're routinely avoiding accidents by the amount expensive, soft tyres will save over harder cheaper tyres then you really need to review your driving habits. Perhaps leave one more car length between you and the car in front, or corner 3mph slower on each bend. And learn cadence braking if you don't have ABS.

And if you buy expensive grippy tyres and do the same, you don't gain an advantage? Your reasoning is very short-sighted, or to put it more bluntly: utter selfish and plain stupid. The problem with accidents is not the amount of money it costs to repair your car afterwards. The problem is that humans are often involved who can be seriously injured or killed (those things do happen, you know). A car stopping only two metres earlier can mean a saved life. And driving habits don't even come into this. Sometimes things happen unexpectedly, like children jumping out right in front of you. If something like that should ever happen to me, I will want to be on the best tyres with the shortest stopping distance possible. Even if that means having less "fun" at "safer speeds".

Quote from tristancliffe :

Personally I always buy the cheapest tyres I can get - nice and hard for not much grip, which means more fun can be had a slower (safer, should anything go wrong) speeds, and they last a LOT longer, even with fooling around.

Quote from DaveWS :

I find setting realfeel to this works good:

[BMW 320 E21]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=1500.000000
SteeringDamper=2500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=-100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0

Although I'm not sure if it was designed to work with realfeel, hence the -100 bit instead of 100, but it feels way better than default force feed crap.

For some reason this does seem to work. I don't know why, but work it does. Changed MaxForceAtSteeringRack to 2800, though, as the ffb was too much for my taste. And I still got some spikes. 2800 seems to cure that.

10.08 for the VLN config is crap, of course, but considering I had a 1080°-spin and some contact to the armco here and there it's not all bad, I suppose. I hate the Nurburgring GP, though. It just doesn't flow.

Maybe this happens, if the team buying your engine is not racing? I don't know, but that could be it. I'd say you should terminate the contract.