Don't blame users or hacker for the delays on LFS development.
The reason for slow development is a combination of the natural dificulties on car and tyre modelling and the size of the LFS development team.
It's huge hard work to do a proper model, not only due to the dificulties to model the transient tyre behaviour (that is sensitive to a lot of variables) to fit this model to our computers processing power, to have access to real car telemetry data and tyre measurement data. All simulators (LFS, NkPro, iRacing, Rfactor, Rfactor2) have their flaws, you usually pick the one which flaws you live better with.
If you take those simulators the F1 teams use to driver training and car developing, they run on array of high powered computers to be able to handle more complex models, they use very secret data acquired on real race tracks, have support from the tyre manufacturers, and even with that, the drivers reports the flaws aren't that much different from what we see on consumer grade simulators.
I recognize that LFS is still a brilliant piece of work for a such small team, and they made the money I've spent worth it. In my opinion, today it became quite outdated (specially sounds and the low grip under low tyre load), but it still worths the money.
I stopped driving on LFS since I've signed iRacing, I keep checking the forum to follow Scawen's posts and see what is going on, and I will eventually give LFS a try as soon as physics updates are released.
Not yet, at least for me (and I believe for a bunch of people), what is missing is physics changes that changes the car handling and setup behaviour. The changes announced are more program optimizations, that although important, LFS is already fast and stable even on very modest configurations, and also about circuit layouts.
And, as on previous situations, it's an announced patch, and not a released patch.
It's interesting that most of the pit stop mistakes made by Ferrari happens with the 2nd driver, and most of them when the 2nd driver is close or ahead from the 1st driver.
It was this way with Barrichello versus Schumacher, and now with Massa versus Alonso.
Would the pit-stop be a new and more "polite" version of the "Fernando is faster than you. Do you understand that message?" ?
I'm an LFS member since 2003, and I'm one of those who quit LFS (about a year ago), but still come to the forum to see what the community is talking about and to see if Scawen posts something new.
I believe it worth the money I've spent, and I would even recommend buying S2 for newcomers. It gave me a lot of fun, but can't stand the current physics anymore.
I'm waiting a patch that fixes some handling issues (and makes those absolutely unrealistic setups and driving techniques a performance penalty), and if S3 comes out, I'll probably be buying it.
Well, I will help you translating your question first:
"Hello guys,
I've formatted my computer and installed Windows 7
Now I want to play LFS and I can't, it complains about drivers and things like that.
I kindly ask for your help.
Thank you in advance"
SLKT, estes drivers são programas que fazem funcionar as funções do seu computador, como aceleração 3d de vídeo, som e outras coisas do gênero.
Primeira coisa é verificar quais peças compõem seu computador, e baixar os "drivers" no site do fabricante. Essencialmente o driver da placa de vídeo (geralmente é Nvidia ou ATI).
Sem eles, o LFS não vai rodar pois não consegue ativar as funções do seu computador.
Well, I've already spent $200 on iRacing, and almost didn't see how much I've spent.
On LFS, I've spent $36. Got a lot of fun for a while (while it was the best sim around). But I personally think that it is as good as just one programmer can get.
Scawen is very talented, most don't have a clue about how hard is to code a simulator, but making a step further on LFS for a more realistic driving might be a impossible task for LFS team. At least, to keep it up with other simulator offerings.
I'll eventually try LFS once a new patch comes out, and if S3 is going to be ever released, I'll buy it. But it still depends heavily on the leagues to have nice races, while on iRacing you can expect good races everyday (at least once you pass the rookie license).
I would say that LFS did worth the money I spend, as well iRacing.
Do not forget that the man behind this judgment was who was leading Ferrari on 2001 and 2002, when eventought the huge points advantage Schumacher had, Barrichello was forced to give up from winning races.
But one point I can't understand. As far as I know, the F1 supporters usually support a driver, and not a team. For the audience, the drivers championship is more important than the constructors championship, but FIA insists on thinking otherwise.
Although F1 is all about business and bring media attention, and points means money for the teams, I believe that this year RedBull got much more attention from media than other teams, and positively eventhough Vettel's mistakes. And also, the money which the sponsors pays the teams comes from the audience.
Actually in Brazil Massa lost credit, and lost fans. I'm hearing more and more people saying they will stop supporting him. People didn't forgive Barrichello yet for letting Schumacher pass on Austria.
Barrichello is much better regarded outside Brazil than inside. People don't recognize him as a man with honor because they say he sold his soul to Ferrari for money. He is regarded here as a emotionally weak driver and mercenary. Except for who really understand about motorsport, who recognize him as a fast and talented driver, although not the #1.
Doing things like loosing a race for money (what in last instance we can say that Massa did) is not something that a Brazilian would be proud of. Ok, as an employee people have to respect contracts, but motorsport is usually connected to bravery and being like a hero. A decision like that is considered like braking an opponents leg in football match to avoid loosing the match because the team manager asked for....
But in other way, I remember when Massa was suspended from Sauber for not letting Heidfeld pass on a race after a team order (at the same year that Barrichello let Schumacher pass), and had to wait a year to come back, so I can understand (a little bit) why he did that.
Worse than Ferrari's order was the Alonso behaviour.
First saying at the radio that it was ridiculous that Massa blocked him, on a clean way. Let us not forget his overtake move over Massa at the pit entrance on China GP, without the needed space, making Massa go to the grass to avoid a colision, and on the British race where he touched Massa when being passed, and blaming him. This is ridiculous.
Second, at the end of the race, saying that he was worried for Massa loosing a gear, and asking if he finished the race. Ferrari on a smart way closed this conversation before it was too late.
Alonso is a dirty driver. Not only for participating on the whole story of the Singapore GP, when Piquet crashed for him, but he does dirty moves on the track, and after gives interviews acting as a victim.
He remembers me Schumacher on his first championship wins, when he hit the other driver to avoid loosing the championship. He is fast, an excelent driver, but the behaviour brings a cloud over his achivements.
I really hope that Alonso and Massa gets disqualified on this race, as well Ferrari loosing the team points.
About the F-ducts, I find that it's simply insane to make drivers use just 1 hand to steer for the cars that didn't previewed it when they did the chassis homologation (like Alonso did this race on some fast corners). It's too dangerous, and it makes it easier to the driver to be distracted (they have to deal with over 20 buttons on the steering wheel plus the brake bias selector, and now have to block the airflow using their hands).
Newey is just a genius. He built the Maclarens that Senna and Prost drove on that year where they won 15 on 16 GPs, built the Nigel Mansell's Williams that made him the world champion. On the last 20 years at least he was involved with almost all cars that made drivers world champions.
Ok, he did cars for fantastic drivers, but on racing you can't do too much with a good car.
Combine that with physics without updates for a good time already, and the virtual races and car behaviour are pushed even further from reality.
Scawen have already told us that tyres are not reacting properly with the load, and the suspensions don't have the anti-squat or anti-dive systems that there are on reality, and are making a huge influence at the setups used by the fast drivers, and the technique used to drive.
Did you set on profiler to let the game change the wheel settings ? Are you using G25 or G27 ? That option I turned off due to recomendations I've seen here in the forum. And also, the FF should stop trying to make the wheel steer further after the stop.
I will try it this weekend if this option make any difference.
I'm not cranking the wheel. To get a better idea from what I am talking, here is an example:
If you set the wheel for 900º on profiler (that means 450º for each side), and pick a car on LFS with less degrees of rotation, like mrt, that has 240º of wheel rotation (120º for each side), and set on LFS that your wheel has 900º and set wheel turn compensation, the car's virtual wheel rotation matchs the controller wheel.
If you go past 120º for one side on the controller, there will be no action on the simulator (let's call it the inactive zone) although you can move the controller further without the simulator prevents you from doing that.
If you are oversteering on a corner to the right, you have steered the controller 200º to the left and the car continue oversteering, the force feedback continues pushing the wheel to the left, making you go further on the "inactive zone". Once the car snaps back, you have to turn the wheel back to the "active zone", and still turn it to the right position.
This condition simply doesn't make sense, since in the actual car you would have physical stops, that prevents the wheel from going past the maximum degree of rotations.
So what I'm suggesting is that the simulator's force feedback simulates the "physical" stops, so you can't turn further than the car's wheel degrees of rotation, eventhough the wheel is set to turn more. Like if the controller wheel was set on profiler to have the same degrees of rotation than the car you pick on LFS.
While driving with my g27 set to 900º rotation, LFS set to 900º rotation and wheel turn compensation to 1.00, condition that makes the actual wheel match the "virtual" wheel movements, I noticed the following:
If I go past the "virtual wheel" rotation with the actual wheel to correct an slide and I'm still oversteering, the force feedback continues to pull the wheel further away from the maximum "virtual" rotation. Once I stop to oversteer, I have to catch all the way I went further than the wheel actuates, and then start to catch up the car.
In reality, there would be something to stop the wheel from going further. Like if the wheel were set on profiler to the "virtual wheel" degrees of rotation. This can be annoying on cars like the formulas or mrt.
So, I suggest to make the force feedback position dependent, so if you go past the "virtual wheel" degrees of rotation, it tries to limit the wheel turn.
We are grateful that, someday, Scawen, Eric and Victor decided to start a racing simulator by their own, and develop the way they wanted despite of costumer or market pressures, based on their will to bring a good racing simulation to the public on a time that the most realistic sims were still "arcadeish". This provided us, for a period of time, the only "hardcore" racing simulator avaliable for normal costumers, that most of us were willing to have.
But, this way of development, where they do what they want to do the way they want to do, have a side effect, that they will unlikely change the way of development, eventhough their target market makes pressure to change, and they start to loose potential costumers of more content.
Now the situation changed. Some (bigger) companies have seen that there is a market of costumers willing for good hardcore racing simulators, and started to develop other simulations. Today we are not constrained only to LFS.
Actually I think that the fact we have other (better?) options comparable to LFS is a good thing, so we can opt which one we want to follow.
Of course there is the community. On this kind of simulator, the community plays a big role, but I think that today a lot of LFS racers are trying other simulators, and the other simulators communities are improving.
Of course, as I said before, we know the potential LFS has. We know that there are small things that ruins the experience (at least for those that are racing on it for a long time) like some physics flaws that people are getting advantage of, and this brings a frustration feeling....
But it is the way it is, things will be released when they are done, it will continue to be a small 3 guys team, charging content the way they charge, communicating with the community the way they communicate.Nothing will change it, only if they want themselves, and no one will convince them.
At least, to be fair, Scawen is quite compromised with solving software bugs that prevent people from experiencing the simulator, and with the software compatibility and stability.
I've bought a G27 (by the way, thanks for those who recommended me the stores in Hannover, but I ended by buying it locally), and I found a noise that I would like to know if it is normal or not.
Its a "knock" noise when turning right, making force against the FFB. I don't use too much force either on LFS or profiler (15% on LFS and 105% on profiler). I used it less than 10 hours.
I've already heard reports about it, even on logitech's forum, but I still don't know if there is a deffective batch around, or if it's due to the wheel's project. Besides this noise, this wheel is much more silent than my previous one (Microsoft Sidewinder FF Wheel), and there is no looseness or any kind of gap on the wheel's mechanism.
In this case, maybe a proper improvement suggestion would be to make LFS a multi-user software, so you can have different unlocked accounts under the same installation.