It's a great set of documentaries showing a sim racer turned Race driver and how they did. Loved the bit in the 2nd part when at Mid Ohio and the instructor said that Wyatt's telemetry was about as perfect as it could get!

Latest Update due tomorrow!

Quote :

Website:

Hosted Sessions

- Added the ability to purchase a session based on number of hours. The options are 2, 4 and 6 hours.

- Changed it so you can limit the race portion of your hosted session by laps, minutes or both (laps or minutes). If you select both, the race will conclude when X laps have completed or Y minutes have passed, whichever happens first.

- Added the ability to schedule hosted sessions to launch at some time in the future. The default is "now" but you can use a date picker to select a date in the future (up to 1 year) and specify a time. You should specify the date and time in your local time. You have to pick a time at least 15 minutes in the future.

- When you schedule a hosted session you will see it appear in the top part of the hosted sessions page. You'll see a new icon to the right that has a cancel link to cancel the session. You aren't charged until the session launches. At this time it isn't possible to edit a session once you have scheduled it. You will have to cancel and recreate.


Series Stats

- Fix to properly display PRO/WC licenses.


Mixed-Class Scoring

- If only a single driver registers for a mixed-class race in a particular class of car, that driver may only receive 50% of the full championship points that are available to drivers in that car class.


Facebook

- Fix to include series name and season name rather than just season name when the user is registered for a race.


Series and Driver Stats CSV Exports

- Added custid to csv exports for series stats and driver stats.


Event Results CSV Exports

- The csv export functionality has been enhanced to allow you to export each individual portion of a race session. For example, if you have a hosted session with a qualifier and race component you can now export the race and qualifier results as separate csv files. You will notice that rather than having a single "OUTPUT CSV" button there is now a button in each results table.

- There is also a new session summary that will appear at the top of the csv file by default. This provides some useful information that had been missing from the export.

- The feature was designed to be backward compatible with existing automated scripts. Your existing scripts should work the same way. You will only need to make a change if you want to include the new summary information in your export. To do so you need to append "&includeSummary=1" to your GetEventResultsAsCSV request.


Forum Private Message Notifications

- Added a new section to the site footer that displays how many unread private messages you have.

- Added a new section to the site footer that notifies you if your private message box is full.

- Added a forum profile link added to the helmet pop-ups throughout the site. This will provide a way to search for a member and then easily jump to their forum profile for watching/ignoring.


Practice Sessions

- Open Practice sessions for the majority of series have been opened up for all license levels.


Awards/Certificates

- The personal stats page has been reworked to now have 3 tabs (Career, Awards and Certificates). The Certificates tab will contain all of your earned certificates (Driving School Completion, First Road Win, Season Race Overall, etc). The Awards tab will contain all of the NEW "Achievement" type awards (Hard Charger, iLetYouWin, Picasso, etc). Achievements are not retroactive, so get out there and start earning them!


General

- Updated code to facilitate the moving of clubs between regions on a per quarter basis.


Forums

- It is now possible to "watch" a member's forum activity. From a member's forum profile you can select to watch/unwatch a member. Every time a member you are watching makes a forum post you will receive an email with a link to the post.

- It is now possible to ignore a member's forum activity. This choice is available in the member's profile and from the profile section to the left of each post. If you choose to ignore a member all of that member's posts will be hidden to you in the threads and replace by a subdued message "You are ignoring <Member Name>". To stop ignoring a member, you need to visit that member's forum profile and choose to stop ignoring them. You can get to the member's forum profile by clicking on their name in the subdued message or by selecting the "Forum Profile" link from that member's helmet pop-up anywhere on the member site. Ignoring a member does not block Private Messages from that user.

- Private Message inbox full indicator added. This message will be displayed in a black message bubble at the top of the forums.

- "Edit" and "Quote" text has been added to the icons for each post.


IE9

- IE9 has been added to the list of allowed browsers.


Reference Documents Page

- This has been rewritten to better organize the documents and make it much easier to find what you are looking for.


Live Broadcast Bar

- There is a new live broadcast bar that appears at the top of the member's site to notify you that a live broadcast is happening on iracing.com. It will appear 5 minutes prior to a broadcast and links out to the live broadcasts page on iracing.com.


Driving School

- There are a few known issues with the youtube video player. The popup resolution menu doesn't work properly. You should be able to change your resolution by clicking on the resolution icon itself rather than mousing over it. Similar issue with the volume control. To change your volume you should click on the volume icon but rather than using your mouse to change the volume use your keyboard's up/down arrows.


Car Number Preference

- You may choose a "preferred" car number for each car that you have purchased. Visit the My Racing/Customise Car(s) page and enter your preferred car number for each car. You may choose any 1- or 2-digit car number, with or without leading zeros, except that car number "0" is disallowed.

- Your preferred car number will be considered in all sessions except Races within Official iRacing series, where car numbers will be assigned by iRating, as before. With thousands of members on the service, it is inevitable that two or more people that have chosen the same preferred car number will join the same session.

- For sessions that can be registered for while in progress (open practices, and hosted sessions), you will be assigned your preferred number if no other driver that has previously joined the session was given that number. Otherwise, the server will assign an unused number to you. Your car number for a session can not be changed once one has been assigned to you. Withdrawing from the session, selecting a different number on the Customise Car(s) page, and rejoining the session will not change the car number that you were previously assigned.

- For sessions that require registration before the event starts (qualify, time trial, unofficial race), the service will prioritize requests for car numbers as follows:

1) A driver with a higher license has higher priority.

2) For drivers with the same license, the driver with the higher Safety Rating has higher priority.

3) If both license and SR are the same, the driver with the higher Corners Per Incident rating has higher priority.

4) In the unlikely even that all of those measures are the same, the system will prioritize the conflicting drivers.

- The preferred car number selection for a driver will be ignored if a higher priority driver has the same preference.

- Drivers that have no preference (or whose preference is being ignored) will be ordered by iRating and assigned car numbers counting from "1", but skipping any preferred car numbers that were allowed.



Simulation:

Misc

- Added app.ini option [view] DriverHeadNoPitch to lock head to horizon in pitch. This may be useful for people with motion platforms and static displays (such as a motion seats)

- Limited effect of pitch/roll lock to horizon to only ~25 deg.

- File dialog now supports pressing enter key as click/double click when file/folder selected in list.

- File dialog now handles partial path in filename properly.

- SoftTH 2.05 is now allowed to proxy D3D9.dll.

- Added keyboard support for focus on pace car and focus on most interesting using the *<driver><enter> keyboard shortcut (0 - pacecar, -1 to -3 focus on)


Graphics Engine

- A change was made to the shadow map system such that only one dynamic shadow map render target will update per frame. Previously, going around a turn might cause several to update all in the same frame resulting in a noticeable stutter on some PCs.

- Let windowed display grow to maximum size of desktop, not just primary display (the window can now span multiple monitors). On some systems spanning monitors may cause a significant drop in frame rate.

- A new option "PixelRatioWindowed" has been added to app.ini. In conjunction with the existing "pixelRatio", you may now specify different pixel ratios for windowed and full-screen modes.


Headlights At Night Tracks

- A preliminary version of headlight support for night racing at road courses has been added. Of course, only cars that actually have headlights will light up the track in front. You may drive cars without headlights in the dark, but you won't be able to see very well at all! Our current cars that have headlights are the Chevrolet Corvette C6R, Ford Falcon FG01 V8, Ford Mustang FR500S, Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup, Mazda MX-5 Cup and Roadster, Riley MkXX DP, and Pontiac Solstice. (Note: our Radical SR8 does not have headlights at this time - the one we scanned did not have headlights installed)

- In the advanced graphics options there is a new option labeled "Headlight Detail." This has four settings, which allows you to adjust the headlight quality vs. performance tradeoff to match your PC's capabilities. If you have pixel shaders disabled, you may only select DISABLED or LOW.

- Headlights Detail options:

LOW - This is the fastest version of the headlights support. It works very well from in car. The main issue is that headlights illuminate both sides of walls and all sides of trackside objects, rather than just the side the headlight is located on. It also suffers from banding and aliasing in the headlight effects. If you have pixels shaders disabled, this mode provides even higher performance than with pixel shaders enabled. If having frame rate issues at Sebring night, try setting headlight detail to low, unchecking headlights on track in mirrors, turning off pixel shaders, and restarting the session. If this doesn't help see the info about the DISABLED option below.

MED - This version makes it so that headlights don't show up on the backsides of walls and objects, and reduces aliasing a bit. The main issue is that colored headlights (such as the yellow headlights of the C6R) only work on the track surface, and show up as white light on walls, trackside objects, and reflectors.

HIGH - This version provides the best quality by far, with colored headlights working on the track surfaces, walls, reflectors and trackside objects, and it also virtually eliminates all of the banding in the illumination of the track surface.

DISABLED - If after testing some night tracks on LOW, your system cannot provide acceptable frame rates, you may choose this option as a last resort, which will disable nearly all of the headlight effects. This may allow you to still run at the well lit night ovals (Richmond/Bristol) where headlights aren't needed. If you only ever run ovals, this is the best setting for you. WARNING: Don't try to drive at Sebring night without headlights if you value your safety rating.

- A related setting in the advanced graphics options is the "Headlights on track in mirrors" checkbox. When enabled the simulation will render the headlight illumination onto the track surface in each of your mirrors. This will affect your frame rate to some extent, so you might want to test it both ways in an open practice session with lots of cars around to check the difference in quality/performance of the racing experience. It may provide useful, when racing, to see the headlights coming up in your mirrors on the track surface however.

- In addition to the above options there are two options hidden in renderer.ini:

ProceduralHeadlights=0
MonochromeHeadlights = 0

Enabling procedural headlights will cause your car's headlights (and only yours), to be generated procedurally using a shader, so that bumps affect the light cone somewhat. This is an experimental feature, but it is a neat effect. It's not quite done yet, but it is cool already.

Enabling monochrome headlights will cause all car's headlights to render as white light, providing a bit less banding, and a bit higher performance in some cases.


Sound

- A new app.ini setting may fix crackles on some sound cards when using fmod. Add a new line containing overrideFmodFormat=1 to the [Audio] section of app.ini to enable this. If it does not help, remove the new line. This is applied by default to sound devices using chipsets made by Sigmatel.


New Telemetry SDK

- We have created a new telemetry SDK that supercedes the old SDK. The old SDK still functions, so pre-existing tools will still function for now.

- This new SDK now supports unlimited clients connecting to the iRacing sim. Now you can run your motion platform, external gauges, and live telemetry app all at once.

- It is possible for a connected client to send commands for remote control of replay and camera selection.

- The live information available to connected clients is suitable for running motion platforms, or gauges, or broadcaster support applications, but does not include the full array of on-car telemetry data, which only goes to telemetry files recorded to disk.

- A comprehensive array of on-car telemetry can now be recorded to disk while driving, for analysis using external telemetry tools when you finish driving your car, such as ride height sensors, shock travel, acceleration, etc.

- Pressing the alt-L key when in-car will start/stop recording to disk. Pressing alt-L while at the replay screen will have the sim automatically start recording each time you get into your car. Telemetry files are saved in a binary .ibt file (short for iRacing binary telemetry) located in the [my documents]\iracing\telemetry\ folder. The file will stop recording and close when you get out of your car, so that you can alt-tab to an external analysis tool and load the file up for analysis without having to quit the sim.

- A third party telemetry analysis application will be made available at some point "soon."


Garage

- The sim will now snap any setup values to validly achievable increments. Old setups which have values that cannot be achieved any more will automatically be converted when loaded. Adjusting a setting to the minimum or maximum will no longer result in a different set of increments.


New Pit Crew with Damage Repair

- The existing pit crew has been replaced with a new flexible scripting system for ALL of our cars. All cars now have their own unique pit stop behavior, including having the car jacked into the air, and also the pit crew can make repairs when a car is damaged. All cars now have full pit control black boxes and pit crews, even our rookie cars that did not previously have the ability to make pit stops. The pit crew is still entirely invisible, you will only see the effects of their work on your car.

- Every car has its own invisible pit crew. The performance of the pit crew is dependent on the level of the car, the higher level cars have much quicker, more effective pit crews, while the lower level cars have amatuer crews who are competent, but not as on the ball as the pros. Some cars fuel continuously, while others fill using multiple cans of gasoline. Some of the higher level cars use 12 gallon cans, while many of the lower level cars refuel using 5 gallon containers. (This can take a while if you're filling a 22 gallon tank using dinky little 5 gallon cans!) Some cars are jacked up outside first, then inside. Some are front, then rear, or front and rear at once. Some are air jacked all at once.

- While some of the cars we model are fuelled separately from when they are having their tires changed in their real life series, we have made the decision that all our cars can fuel and do other pit work at the same time. This is for consistency between our own cars as we can run any cars together in multi-class events at any time.

- There is a new race control rule called the Repairs Needed rule. This rule will show a meatball black flag (a black flag with an orange circle in the middle) if race control has decided your car must pit for repairs - a smoking engine or some kind of leak will trigger a meatball. You must pit within 4 laps - INCLUDING caution laps - to have your car seen to or race control will disqualify you. Finishing the race while carrying the meatball black flag will not give any post race penalty, so it is feasible to limp a car to the finish if you're close enough to the end of the race. Race control will not issue a meatball black flag to a driver who is being shown the white flag, or after race is over.

- Your car will not be allowed to leave its pitstall if the pit crew are not able to repair your car enough to pass black flaggable levels of damage. Your pit crew will tell you that they can't fix your car. If you have a fast-tow available, you may exit your car and re-enter to get a fresh car and continue the race.

- Your pitstall information box will show you the amount of time remaining for required and optional repairs. Work on required repairs is begun as various pit crew members finish their pitstop tasks and begin working on your damage. You will not be allowed to exit your pit stall until required damage repairs are completed. Once they are completed the pit flagger will lift his lollipop and you may choose to drive away if you don't want to spend time working on optional repairs, but if you sit and wait, they will work on optional repairs for as long as you want to wait for.

- Any penalties are served once all regular pitstop activities and required damage repair are completed, but before any optional damage begins repairing. The flagger guy will hold you in your stall until the penalty is served, then lift his lollipop and you may choose to drive away if you don't want to spend time working on optional repairs.


Physics

- We have improved the accuracy of how our physical surface model uses the laser scan surface data. This makes a significant improvement to every track, particularly tracks with crowning or concave banking. The result is that many cars feel a lot better to drive at many tracks, particularly road courses. But also some of the oval cars will likely need a little setup tweaking, as the more accurately captured concave banking will cause the right rear tire to generate a little more grip relative to the left rear and thus rotate a little more than previously when on throttle, making your old setups possibly a bit too oversteery.

- Brakes are now modelled as a proper rotational position based torsional spring so they can hold the wheel to its exact position better than the previous brake model which was purely velocity based and could allow a weird visual wheel rotation to occur when stopped but trying to accelerate against the brakes. Has no effect when driving at speed, only when a wheel is supposed to be held stationary.


Cars

- Only cars that have a starter motor can start or restart a stalled engine any time you want. To start a car with no starter motor it must either be in the correct pitstall or in your gridstall prior to the race beginning, where the pitcrew is available to start your motor on request. So, if you turn off or otherwise stall your Williams FW31, Dallara, Sprint Car, or Silver Crown during a race, you will need to tow back to your pitstall to get going again. Note that the anti-stall clutch aid typically prevents a car from stalling during driving conditions, so make sure you don't go turning the car off when out on track!

- Window nets and some other graphical elements in car cockpits have been animated to simulate movement with wind speed.

- Metal shaders have been adjusted to better represent chrome materials.

- All cars have had their fuel level minimums, maximums, and increments fine tuned for consistency.


Skip Barber Formula 2000

- Graphical model rebuilt to match the standards of our more current cars.


Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype

- Re-tuned dive planes so they may be used without excessive drag or balance change. This still requires an increase of the rear wing to balance it, but that is now well within the range of adjustment of the rear wing.

- Fuel cell resized to match newly introduced 2011 20 gallon fuel limit (down from 24 gal).


Dallara IndyCar

- The pit crew will now apply external cooling fans when the car is sitting on the grid or in the pit stall waiting for a race to start, or when sitting in the pit stall during non-race times, or during a lengthy repair. Like the rest of the pit crew, these are invisible cooling fans.


Williams-Toyota FW31

- The pit crew will now apply external cooling fans when the car is sitting on the grid or in the pit stall waiting for a race to start, or when sitting in the pit stall during non-race times, or during a lengthy repair. Like the rest of the pit crew, these are invisible cooling fans.

- The pit crew will put tire warmers on when the car is sitting on the grid or in the pit stall waiting for a race to start, or when sitting in the pit stall during non-race times. Like the rest of the pit crew, these are invisible tire warmers.


Chevrolet Silverado

- Shark fin added when at restrictor plate tracks.


New 2011 Chevrolet Impala Class B

- We have an updated version of the Chevrolet Impala Class B for 2011 that is very nearly ready for release, featuring a "preview" version of Dave Kaemmer's long awaited new tire physics model. If you own the existing Nationwide car you will get it free as the new car is a part of the same car package you already own. It will be made available at some point within the next week or three, once all the details are finalized for public consumption. We apologize for the delay.


Tracks

- Many tracks have had more pit stalls added so more cars can be run at once. See the attached spreadsheet for exact details on which tracks and pit stalls have been altered.


Sebring

- Now has a selectable night mode.

- Club configuration rolling start no longer goes green immediately.


Okayama

- Now available. Features two configurations: Full and Short.


Commercial

- The distance and length of time that a driver can drive backwards in a commercial setting before being disqualified for reckless driving has been increased so that the driver has more time to notice and comply with the warning they are being given.

- An option has been added to commercial.ini ([Server] enable_backwards_dq) that can be used at a commercial site to prevent race control from disqualifying a driver that drives backwards. The driver will still be told that they are driving the wrong direction, but will not be disqualified and yanked out of the car no matter how long they do so.

- An option has been added to app.ini ([Drive Screen] resetCanExitCar) that can be used to disable the ability of the car-reset control to exit the car while sitting in your pit stall.

- A bug that could cause a Spectator node to ignore paint schemes and instead display all cars in solid white has been fixed.

- The default background images shown on a Display node are particular to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. You can now create and use your own custom images. Create 24-bit Windows .bmp files to be used as the backgrounds for the screens you want to change, and place those files into the iRacing installation directory. Use the following file names for their respective screens:

leaderboard.bmp - for the Leaderboard display
message.bmp - for the System Message display
podAssign.bmp - for the Pod Assignments display
results.bmp - for the Results display

Make the images the width and height that you intend to use as the desktop size on the Display node, and adjust the [WindowSize] width and height settings in commercialDisplay.ini to match. For the best image quality, all of the images should be the same pixel size, and should match the intended display resolution.

If you replace the Pod Assignment background image, you will also need to update the commercialDisplay.ini to specify the (X,Y) pixel locations of the center of the boxes into which driver's names will be positioned.

Quote from Andrew McP :

I'm not sure why I'm so intrigued by a feature which will make me even slower than I was already though. :-)

hahaha!

iRacing 2.0 coming!

Quote :

Highlights of iRacing 2.0

May 2011

Early preview of Dave Kaemmer’s new tire model available on the new NASCAR Nationwide car.

Launch of in-game awards program – over 50 different participation awards members can earn.

Night racing on road courses using headlights beginning with Sebring International Raceway and the V8 Supercar, Mazda MX5 Cup &
Roadster, Corvette C6.R, Riley Daytona Prototype, Pontiac Solstice, VW Jetta TDI Cup and Mustang Challenge race cars.

New NASCAR “Nationwide” stock car – race the car you watch on Saturdays.

Okayama International Circuit (Japan) – the first of several tracks from the island nation.

New telemetry output for the data hungry racers.

Private league racing enhancements including: reduced pricing, advanced scheduling, new race session options and additional grid
spots to virtually every track.

Graphic and shader upgrades in-game for more lifelike visuals.

Complete graphical overhaul of the Skip Barber FSB2000 race car – updating our first car to current standards.

Opening practice sessions to all license levels (excluding Pro Series).

Enhanced pitting and damage repair for all cars.

Preferred/custom car numbers.

Improved accuracy of the modeled physical track surface to match the laser scanned data better than ever before.

August 2011

New Tire Model for all cars.

Enhanced aero model for improved drafting and more realistic downforce characteristics.

Heat/Tournament racing for private leagues/sessions.

Driver aids available for private leagues and Rookie series (ABS brakes, traction control, driving line, steering aids, etc.).

Enhancements of new sound system.

Endurance racing and driver swaps.

Suzuka Circuit (Japan).

Iowa Speedway (USA).

Ford GT race car

Honda LMP ARX-01C race car

Live pop-up chat on member site.

Tony said on PSRTV last night that:

• the skippy is going to get remodelled graphically
  
• cars will be getting headlights
  
• one road car will be getting the new tyre model
  
• new aero changes to help high line
  
• driver animations toward full pit crew
  
• 74 different awards
  

These will come in the April or July build...

for those who don't want to download it:

Quote :

“In April we have an awards system coming out, where you'll earn 74 different awards at this point. We'll have the damage repair completed for every car. We're going to do a teaser release for the new tire model. That looks like it's going to go. We're going to roll it out for the Nationwide car and probably a road car as well. The new Nationwide car will be in the build, if you own the existing Nationwide car you will get that for free. We're going to roll out the Okayama track in Japan, we're going to give that away to everyone for free. New graphics for Skip Barber car, we'll start some animation in the sim in this build. New telemetry tools coming out, the list goes on and on. There's a hundred small things in this build, a lot to do with hosted racing. You can schedule hosted racing a year in advanced. You can pick different sessions for hosted racing or private league racing, two hours sessions, four hour session, six hour sessions, a bunch of things like that.

The July build is the real big one though with the new tire model launching, heat racing. We're going to roll out some driver aids for hosted sessions and certain series. Major aero changes, these drivers will be able to drive the high line so much better. So we're real excited about that, obviously really excited about the tire model. The Suzuka track, Iowa, the Ford GT car, LMPT2 car coming out in that build. The list goes on and on, there is a lot coming out this summer.”

Corvette will need the Radical too if you want to do mixed B class.... if you want pure vette then it will be fixed setup.

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

I doubt it, as Jack stated it was more or less ready to play for the 2009 Rockingham BTCC meeting already.

If the devs are stuck somewhere it must be on new tyre physics IMO.

you're missing my point I think.... Rockingham is the cause for the tyre model to need revamping.

I think developing Rockingham is one of the biggest reasons why LFS faltered on the continuous development........

Quote from AstroBoy :

Im officially a iRacing nub tips tricks k go :P

do some laps and make sure you can get to a pace where you don't get any incidents then do a race! I'd say for the first race, don't qualify and start from near the back. It will be good fun trying to get past people and also you wont have people t-boning you in to T1 that don't realise the key is clean not winning at the start!

those videos look fantastic. I thought the Blackshark looked good but this looks even better and just as hard!

Two notable LFS people, Wyatt Gooden and Dave Williams will be taking part in Germany for the Intel Global finals! Should be a good watch.

www.psrtv.com will be streaming it at 10am CET (9amGMT) on Friday morning.

Read about it here...

http://www.radicalsonline.com/ ... r-Intel-Star-Mazda-Finals

Should be good...... Wonder who will win this one....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkUEM1qr7jk&hd=1

we made a vid of the F1 car at Watkins

Quote from Glenn67 :

lolololololololol rofl Good one funiest thing I've read in some time

that was funny.... poor guy

and for those that want another competition, we'll be giving away a headset soon too from steelseries so please sign up on our website - www.radicalsonline.com

Quote from Bean0 :

I've certainly read somewhere that if you have each other as friends then you are more likely to race together.

Used to be the case at the start but it's not done now, purely on iRating now.

Quote from R3DMAN :

what does studied means on player profiles?

you can either be friends with or study. All that means is a way you can see what people you've categorised as friends or studied are doing and an easy way to get to click on their profile.

If you do use the studied and friends there are some useful plugins for your browser. here and also here.

Quote from DeKo :

Wasn't it an absolute disaster the last time they offered a free month? Rookie races will be even more ridiculous than they are now.

yeah it was a real disaster!

http://iracing.com/sbrs/

cool promotion for those that don't have it.

Quote from hyntty :

It's only my opinion that iRacing is the biggest ripoff ever and it's not even a good simulator and a rubbish game and I hate it and I feel cheated by you lot all saying it's awesome which it ****ing isn't.

Like everything in life, not everything is liked by everyone. I'm not sure why you feel cheated though. You could easily have got the sim for a month, tried it and seen what you think, then purchased content as you get used to it and like it more.

Sad you don't like it but to say it's not good is ridiculous.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

guys....is there something like shift-u camera in iRacing? I saw a lot of nice videos and I wonder how they did it because its not possible with the standard cameras

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/421006.page

Quote from Gnomie :

It wouldn't be technically difficult at all.. it's pretty obvious that it's part of their strategy to make people buy more content!

yup... very poor for longevity and more quick buck mentality.

What's everyone going to be doing this next season?????

I'm going to do the Indy Road, Silverado and Skippy with a little grandAm on tracks I like!

Quote from JasonJ :

Forgive my ignorance here. But can someone explain why profiler:107% and game:10 is more realistic than say profiler:100% and game:20 ? Does clipping start happening after you go over 10 or something? What's the reason?

I've been using profiler:100% and game:20 because the iRacing devs suggested to use that in some of the game setup tips documents.

not sure if this helps but here are a couple of interesting posts by the person that wrote the reelfeel ffb plugin.

Quote :

Force Feedback Part 1 - The Cold Hard Facts

There seems to be a lot of mystery regarding force feedback in racing sims, iRacing in particular. More worringly, there is a also lot of mis-information floating around, which feeds the mysteriousness and serves no use but to cause confusion and mis-understanding.

This post/article (whatever it ends up being) is my effort to put an end to this mysteriousness and confusion. I don't know if it will work, I may end up just causing more confusion. My apologies in advance, if that happens.

Let's start at what we could call the beginning - the physics engine. Physics engines understand numbers, nothing else. Just like money is the root of all evil*, numbers are the root of all physics engines.

Most of these numbers represent forces of some kind - forces generated at the tyres, the mass & inertia of the vehicle, aero forces acting upon the vehicle etc.

One of these forces is at the heart of any good force feedback system - the force occurring at the steering wheel.

Given that the physics engine is constantly calculating the relevant force it should should be no problem to send it straight out to the force feedback device, right?

Well, for me, this is where things start to get interesting.

Most racing sims use DirectX DirectInput to generate their force feedback output. In particular, they use a method known as DirectInput ConstantForce. As the name suggests, ConstantForce provides a method for the developer to send a constant force to the force feedback output device.

Sounds perfect, but there's one stumbling block. And it's a big one.

The DirectInput ConstantForce method doesn't use any particular unit of force.

The ConstantForce method only understands numbers from -10000 through zero to +10000, in effect having it's own unique units for measuring force. -10000 means 'turn as hard as you can in one direction', +10000 means 'turn as hard as you can in the other direction', zero means no force in any direction.

The reason for this is quite simple - the actual force that will be output by the device is wholly dependant on how much torque it's motor(s) can produce (or are configured to produce).

Chances are that the physics engine will be calculating the torque that should be occurring at the steering wheel in Newton metres (Nm), or a unit that can be directly converted to Nm.

It is down to the developer to convert this Nm torque value into the range -10000 to +10000, so that it can be output via the ConstantForce method.

When I said above that this is where things get interesting, this is precisely where I mean - the conversion between a distinct Nm torque value and DirectInput's +/- 10000 allowed range.

For the purpose of clarity, let's assume we have a force feedback wheel that can produce 10Nm of torque.

Let's also assume that under normal driving conditions our simulated car produces a maximum of 10Nm of torque at the wheel.

In this case it's nice and easy, there's not really any conversion to be done, we can simply multiply the calculated force by 1000 and it will fall within the range that DirectInput ConstantForce will accept.

This means at 10Nm steering wheel force we'll send a ConstantForce of 10000, at 5Nm we'll send 5000 etc. Given that our wheel can produce 10Nm we'll end up with what I would call the holy grail of force feedback, where the physics engine's calculated torque value is being mapped to our force feedback wheel with total accuracy and fidelity. We will feel exact same forces on the wheel as the physics engine is calculating.

So, where does it all go wrong? Why all the confusion?

Firstly, not many of us have wheels capable of producing a realistic amount of torque. The Logitech G25, for example, tops out between 2Nm and 3Nm. My road car with skinny eco tyres and power steering produces more torque at the steering wheel than this!

Secondly, different cars produce different amounts of torque at the steering wheel. Just changing the car set up can have an effect on steering forces. Caster in particular has a huge effect as it introduces jacking forces. On a car with lots of caster as the steering wheel is turned the car is effectively being jacked up with the steering, manifesting as a return to centre force on the steering wheel. The further the wheel is turned the more the mass of the car attempts to return the wheels to the straight ahead position, the stronger this force gets.

To cater for both these situations the developer has to build in some way for the user to control the conversion from Nm to ConstantForce values.

Usually, as in iRacing, this takes the form of a slider. The RealFeel plugin for rFactor is slightly different in that it let's you set the amount of torque that corresponds to a ConstantForce value of 10000, but the theory is the same.

Which ever way it is accomplished, what the user is actually altering is the 1000 multiplier value that we used in the example above to scale the forces into the range accepted by the DirectInput ConstantForce method.

If this multiplier is set too high the result will be clipped output forces and a loss of fidelity. The sim might be sending values way above 10000 but DirectInput will interpret these as a maximum of 10000.

What does this mean in practice? Well, imagine we're in a steady state corner, well below the peak slip angle of the tyres and the physics engine is calculating a torque at the steering wheel of around 15Nm. With the 1000 multiplier we used above the sim would be sending a force value of 15000 to DirectInput. DirectInput will interpret this as 10000 and your force feedback wheel will be putting out as much force as it can. Now let's say the corner tightens slightly and the car starts to understeer. The force at the steering wheel will drop as the tyres pass their peak slip angle**, the physics engine calculates there is now only 10Nm of torque at the steering wheel. That 10Nm of torque results in the sim sending a ConstantForce of 10000.

In this situation the physics engine would calculate a 33% drop in force at the steering wheel but the force at the force feedback wheel would not change at all, it would remain at a ConstantForce of 10000, i.e. maximum.

If this multiplier is set too low the result will be the opposite, the force feedback wheel will never reach it's maximum torque output.

If you've read this far, thank you, I appreciate it. There will be more to come, specifically regarding Logitech wheel settings and their effect on the relationship between the forces calculated by the phyics engine and the forces output at the wheel.

Any questions, please, fire away.

(Tech)Ade.


* Not neccessarily my personal belief, just a useful metaphor
** Assuming suspension geometry that doesn't have too much mechanical trail which could drown out any useful pneumatic trail from the tyres




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Force Feedback Part 2 - Logitech Muddy The Waters

Ok, so hopefully you've read Force Feedback Part 1 - The Cold Hard Facts and now understand the quest for the holy grail of force feedback, where the physics engine's calculated torque value is being mapped to our force feedback wheel with total accuracy and fidelity. We will feel exact same forces on the wheel as the physics engine is calculating.

This thread is about the settings available in the Logitech Settings screen and how they impact the quest for this holy grail.

First up, Combined axis. This has no effect whatsoever on force feedback. It should only be checked if you're using a sim that doesn't support the throttle and brake being on seperate axes. Using combined axis will mean that you can't use the throttle and brake at the same time as they will cancel either out.

Next up, degrees of rotation. Again, no direct impact on force feedback. For iRacing this is best left at 900 degrees, the sim will then give you 1:1 linear steering for each car.
Next we have a checkbox to enable force feedback and three sliders, Overall Effects Strength, Spring Effect Strength and Damper Effect Strength.

As long as the Enable Force Feedback is checked the three sliders below come into effect. I don't think I need to explain what will happen if Enable Force Feedback isn't checked, but, just in case - you'll get no force feedback!

On to the Overall Effects Strength slider. This defines how the Logitech driver scales the ConstantForce effects coming from the sim.

At 100% the output force at the wheel is mapped 1:1 to the input force (apart from a slight non-linearity built into the firmware in order to prevent unwanted oscillations around the centre).

With this slider at 50% an input force of 10000 (the maximum) will only drive the FFB motors at 50%. Unless this slider is at 100% or over the wheel will never drive it's motors at 100% and you'll never feel the maximum torque your wheel is capable of.

The force at the wheel will be the same in both the following situations:

a) ConstantForce of 5000 from the sim, Overall Effects Strength of 100% = motors working at 50%
b) ConstantForce of 10000 from the sim, Overall Effects Strength of 50% = motors working at 50%

As I mentioned in the Part 1 thread, the G25 is very weak and slow in comparison to a real steering wheel.

This means that if the sim is sending a ConstantForce of 5000, at 100% Overall Effects strength, we're only looking at a force of about 1-1.5Nm.

At a constant force of 2500, around 0.5-0.75Nm, we'll be lucky if the motor generates enough torque to even turn the wheel (when there's nobody holding it!).

In practice this means that on a smooth surface when the wheels are pointing straight ahead, i.e. when the forces on the simulated steering rack are relatively low, we'll be lucky to feel much at all on the G25.

Turn the wheel a bit or hit a bump and forces will build up, especially in a heavy car with lots of caster, or a car with lots of downforce (i.e. tyre load), but this weak feeling around the centre is a big put-off for most people as it just doesn't feel 'realistic'.

This leads us nicely on to what happens when we move the Overall Effects Strength slider up over 100%.

The further towards the maximum of 150% we go with this slider the more the Logitech driver amplifies the lower input forces. Going over 100% makes no difference to the force on the wheel when the sim is driving it at 100% (i.e. sending a ConstantForce of 10000) - 100% is 100%, the motors can't be driven any harder.

Going up to 150% has a massive effect on the lower magnitude input forces.

For example:

a) ConstantForce of 2500 from the sim, Overall Effects Strength at 150% = motors working at 100%
b) ConstantForce of 5000 from the sim, Overall Effects Strength at 150% = motors working at 100%
c) ConstantForce of 10000 from the sim, Overall Effects Strength at 150% = motors working at 100%

As you can see, with the Overall Effects Strength up at 150% it doesn't really matter what magnitude of ConstantForce the sim is sending, the output at the wheel will always be at it's maximum.

Think back to Part 1 and what happened in an understeer situation when the force at the wheel was staying at 100%. The same thing is happening here. As far as the force feedback wheel is concerned the forces haven't dropped off at all, whereas the physics engine could have calculated that they've dropped by 50% or more.

With this in mind, I find 101% or 102% Overall Effects Strength is enough to improve the straight ahead feel somewhat without losing too much fidelity.

Spring Effect Strength and Damper Effect Strength

I need to do more research on the effect of these sliders and how they interact with the DirectInput ConstantForce method. The theory says that these sliders should have no effect unless the developer issues a Spring or Damper command via DirectInput. In practice, I'm not so sure - I'm almost positive I've tried 100% damper previously and it does what it says on the tin, dampens the forces coming from the sim, however in a quick test the other day I could feel no difference at all between 0% and 150% Damper. As I said, more research most definitely needed here.

For now I'll just say that I recommend setting both at zero. They are going to do nothing but distort the ConstantForce output from the sim and take us further away from the holy grail.
Centering Spring

Centering spring is designed only to be used in games that do not provide their own centering forces, it has no place being enabled in iRacing or any sim that uses ConstantForce. It will counteract the forces from the physics engine, muddying the waters and hiding that holy grail out of sight forever.

Allow Game To Adjust Settings

Irrelevant as, to my knowledge, no sim yet makes use of this functionality. It is meant for developers to be able to control the wheel rotation settings from in-sim.
And there we go, the end of Part 2.

Again, any questions or confusion, ask away.

(Tech)Ade.

Added later:

I forgot to mention something about the Centering Spring... and why I have it checked but on zero.

Unchecked the centering spring is in effect during normal operation of Windows, even if the slider is at zero. Once the sim initialises force feedback via DirectInput if centering spring is unchecked then it will not have any effect, even though it does in Windows. With it checked and the slider to some positive value it will have an effect in-sim, and counteract the forces the physics engine is generating.

Sorry, it's on page 23.. did I miss an update?

That was some race......... Woot... we raised over $1200 so far - thanks to all those that donated and to those that still might!!!!

http://www.justgiving.com/RadicalsOnline

Should be good... Great to see LFS old Team Muroc coming back to take part!