Alright, that photo really doesn't do it justice. So here's a photoshop that is much closer to what it looks like on my screen. I think if you view this image in full size (not zoomed out) on a high res monitor you'll understand why even though the mirrors are angled they look perfectly natural. Because you actually have to turn your head to the left to see them, and when you do, they're at the correct angle.

If you have a 3 monitor setup and you spread this image across all 3 it will not look correct because this image already has the perspective of left and right monitors taken into account. If you want to see what it looks like use the images in the zip file. Note: I have a special program (UltraMon) which allows me to use different wallpapers for each monitor. You may have to open them in some image viewer and fullscreen them on each one. Make sure you tilt your left and right monitors ~45 degrees and your eyes are aligned vertically with the center of the monitors.

Warning: very large image (my monitors are 1600x1200 each). Oh yeah the screenshots were taken with both AA and AF off - which explains why it probably has jaggies.

Mods: This will be the final spam message from me.

Last edited by Technique, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 05:33.

Quote from Marlbro :

What next?..All racers should be able to get 60fps with full detail with a full field?
It seems to me from what I've seen during and after races that more crashes are caused by low frame rates or near draw distances than have been caused by not using a wheel.
This is simply Elitist.

And I use a Joystick...

Oh and not to sound too negative, I'd like to put forward the idea of "fixed setup races".
I think some people who are members of teams have a much easier time getting a good setup, beginners tend to struggle with this.

You're right. Apologies if I offended anyone. I think just seeing the pace car swerve left and right into the grass at like 30mph using keyboard more than once made me think this way! And in the pace laps... mouse users are 100% throttle off 100% off 100%. If this was a league for just XFG or XRG cars I would have never said that as I believe those cars can be easily controlled in a field of cars using keyboard or mouse. I guess you guys will have your chance to prove me wrong in the final race where throttle control really matters!

Anyway, I think the fixed setup idea is great.

Thanks, I'm guessing you have a 3-monitor setup? I didn't think it was possible to take a screenshot at that aspect ratio otherwise.

The problem with 3 monitors right now is distortion. You're still rendering one flat view onto 3 monitors.

Screw image stitching, if we could just render multiple view ports to multiple monitors, it would be awesome.

Here's a crappy photo of what it would look like. I took a screenshot with 45° FOV. Next, I rotated the camera 45° and took another screenshot. I then set them as my desktop wallpaper and rotated the left monitor ~45°. I only have 2 monitors so unfortunately I cannot show the full effect.

If I had a third monitor, this would give you a 135° field of view with no (?) distortion. With large enough monitors, I think this would be good enough without spending crazy money on a dome projection system.


Update: See the photoshop image (post #77) - it looks pretty close to what I see on my monitors in. I think it looks amazing! ... if I must say so myself.

Last edited by Technique, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 05:33.

Here's something similar:

http://www.immersivedisplayinc.com/omniMap.htm

However, this appears only to warp the normal viewport whereas the previous article takes 5 viewports and combines them to form one scene.

Quote from vixer :

Your right, but the stretches are even visible on standard 90 FOV.
I think that most Sense of Speed benefits would be given by a fix to the different refresh cycles of the engines .

huh? wouldn't that just make it "smoother"?

Hey Juls, I google'd around a bit and found this neat article on howstuffworks.com

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/elumens.htm

I'd especially look at page 3.

Edit:
Now that I think about - 'stitching' the left angled, center, and right angled viewports together and just projecting on a normal curved screen (not a hemispherical dome) would be fine for LFS. What's above and below you doesn't add to the sense of speed.

Last edited by Technique, Wed 12 Mar 2008, 20:44.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Because then the pedals pivot on roughly the same arc as your heels. Hung pedals suffer conflicting arcs, which makes precise modulation harder.

Interesting... I guess I never really thought about that.

Quote :

...very few people use their heel. It's much much much easier and quicker using each side of the ball of your foot.

I don't actually use my heel, I just said that because it was easier than saying "side of the ball of my foot" That said, my technique could definitely use some improvement.

Quote from tristancliffe :

A decent car will have floor hinged pedals. They are only hung from above for reasons of cost and packaging (and homologation).

Hi Tristan, I'm just curious why floor hinged pedals are "better" ? I think one of the reasons why I have a difficult time heel-toe downshifting with the G25 pedals compared to a real car is because it takes more force to push the bottom of the gas pedal in with my heel than the top of the pedal (since the pivot point of the pedal is at the bottom of the pedal).

Of course that's just one of many reasons... seating position, pedal placement, pedal height, etc.

I've only joined a CTRA server once so I doubt I have any sort of license. The whole points system and license stuff seemed a bit overkill to me for pickup races.

I am one of the original members of the clean racers club though!

Good points Tom. I was probably out of line with that statement. I watched a few replays from some of the bigger racing leagues and there appeared to be a couple of mouse users that seemed to do fine.

The green flag overtaking probably has more to do with the poor restarts than "slower" drivers.

Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you go to http://www.autosimsport.net/ and download the latest magazine it has a decently long article about iracing complete with pictures. It's on page 19 in the magazine.

Quote from J@tko :

Certainly not ()
I use a keyboard and havn't hit anyone all season. (yet )
This merely discriminates against people without wheels. (and who else, apart from me, races with one?)

I knew this was going to stir up a debate But that's good. There can't be any progress otherwise. Many new players use keyboard and mouse. I too used the mouse when I started and was quite fast. Still, I feel the lack of proper control leads to incidents not only during the race but also during the SC periods. Mouse users have to keep rapidly clicking in an attempt to drive safely behind someone.

Quote :

+1. The SC needs to go quicker down the straights, but slow down in the corners to a constant speed. So, for example, (@ Blackwood) travel flat out (depends on car, obviously) down the back straight (to save time), and then (for example) 70 mph in the corners, consistently.

I don't agree with that though. That's exactly the problem I stated. Because they speed down the straight and then slow down hard for the turns it causes a chain reaction. Better drivers may not have a problem with this but this is a beginners league.

Look at one of the IGTC race replays. The pace car does 60mph around the whole track both on the straightaway and turns.

Last edited by Technique, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 20:10.

If we don't mind turning this into an "improvements" type thread, I think there's a few things I'd change for season 2 that many may disagree with.

1) Drivers must use a wheel.
Sorry but I do not think you can properly control the car with a mouse or keyboard especially when you have cars to the left and right of you and need to make subtle split second movements. This isn't meant as an attack on anyone - I simply think it will lead to less accidents on the track. There's a big difference between running fast in qualifying laps and running safe in large fields of cars.

2) Pace car must travel at a consistent speed
Whether they do this or not in real life I'm not sure. But as beginners we obviously cannot handle doing 120mph in some sections and 40mph in other sections during safety laps (especially if the pace car drives each lap differently). If the pace car traveled roughly the same speed the entire course it would only extend the race time a few minutes. Case in point: Taylor-mania, the leader in the championship and one of the more respected drivers in this series almost wiped out rob in the last race because he had to brake from 100+mph down to a stop.

3) Pace car must use a wheel
Sorry but in order to drive a consistent speed, you need an analog pedal.

4) The rules can be better defined - look at the IGTC rules.

5) I happen to like IGTC's rule on safety period restarts than what we currently have:

"2.6) When the green flag is shown, the SC period and full-course yellow are ended and drivers may resume racing. Drivers may overtake as soon as the green flag is shown. However, beginning or completing a pass before the green flag flies will result in a DT if caught by the marshals. If successfully protested post-race, this infraction will receive a C1 penalty."

The reason is related to items 2 and 3 above. But also because this is a beginners league with all different types of skill levels, some people are just plain slow during restarts! If you're behind a less experienced driver, you are penalized because you must wait for him to cross the finish line before you can pass. This can cost you several seconds and you may never catch up to the rest of the field due to the short races.


With all that said, I had a blast during all the races I participated in.

Well I'm sort of responsible for starting this entire argument about 100 posts ago I didn't intend for it to escalate like this. My original post was on topic. I don't really care if an evo is computer controlled or if it's the fastest thing on 4 wheels.

Fact: The S2000 is a great track car out of the box
Fact: The Evo is a great track car out of the box
Fact: The Miata is a great (cheap) track car out of the box

We all might have our own opinions of which car we'd rather drive and that's perfectly understandable. The miata is popular in the US because it's extremely cheap, easy to maintain and repair - not necessarily because it's fast. I've never participated in a spec miata race but I've seen a couple live at Lime Rock. As a spectator they're much more fun to watch than Formula Ford or Speed GT due to the large fields and close racing. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer a close race in LFS over one that feels like a qualifying session any day.

The S2000 is a great track car. Is it the fastest? No. Is the evo the fastest? No. They're two entirely different cars. Are we lacking proper sports cars (lightweight FR - excluding LX's) and proper rally cars in LFS? Yes! Would cars with the similar physics make great additions to LFS? Yes! Would the devs time be better modeling older cars or more tracks? Hell I don't know. That's not what this thread was about.

omg 30 seconds i made it!

dah.. another hour until this launch. I'm going to sleep! It's almost 1:30am here.

Good review. I'll add my thoughts in here as well (note I have only used this thing for a few days!).

Design:
The ButtKicker Gamer itself is a pretty cool looking device. The gamer unit is designed to clamp to the center post of your office chair, but it could clamp to anything with a metal tube. It’s fairly compact and does not extrude past the edge of the chair. The clamping mechanism was slightly cumbersome to use but I had no issues with the ButtKicker coming loose.

The amplifier for the ButtKicker is massive (fig1_ampsize.jpg). Make sure you have enough room to store this somewhere (as you can see I have absolutely no room on my messy desk). You’ll want to put it somewhere where you have easy access to the dials from your seat. There’s plenty of adjustments on the front panel (fig2_ampfront.jpg) of the amp. Here are the descriptions of the leds/knobs from the instruction manual:

·POWER LED – This LED indicates the amplifier is switched on and is plugged in a power outlet
·LOW FILTER CUTTOFF (yes they misspelled that) – This switch toggles the 25 Hz low cut filter. The “in” position enables the filter; the “out” position disables the filter.
·HIGH CUTOFF FREQUENCY KNOB – This knob sets the variable high cutoff frequency.
·HIGH CUTOFF ON/OFF – This switch toggles the variable high cutoff frequency knob. The “in” position enables the frequency knob; the “out” position disables the frequency knob.
·CLIP LED – This LED is illuminated when the amplifier goes into clipping. Ideally, this should not come on, or should dimly blink.
·SIGNAL LED – This LED is illuminated when the amplifier is sending amplified audio signal to the ButtKicker Gamer.
·VOLUME – This knob increases and decreases the output of the amplifier and consequently, the intensity of the ButtKicker Gamer.

Setup:
Amp setup:
The setup took longer then expected. The reason for this is the instructions were not as clear as they could be and they supply twice the necessary amount of cables (since connecting to a console requires a different set of cables). For example, they package two “Y splitters” in the box. I happened to drop the one I needed on the floor during the install, and assumed they gave me the wrong type of splitter. Perhaps one solution is packaging the cables into separate plastic bags - one labeled “PC Cables” and another labeled “Console Cables”. Anyway, looking at the setup for a 5.1 system (fig3_connections.jpg) you can see it’s not too difficult. Basically, you just split the audio output from the sound card so that it goes to both the subwoofer (or speakers in a 2 channel setup) and the amplifier.

Here’s what I didn’t like about the amplifier setup:

• A black RCA cable is just left dangling which made me question whether I hooked it up correctly.
  
• Pushing the power cable into the back of the amplifier pushed in the whole rear panel.
  
• The quick connect connection on the amplifier is color coded but the plug is just labeled +/-. This isn’t a big deal but it’s hard to see the + and - on the plug.
  
• It would be nice if the group loop isolator was just built into the case. It’s kind of a heavy cylinder and since I keep the amp on the edge of the desk it keeps falling off the desk tugging on the cables.

Buttkicker/chair setup:
Hooking the ButtKicker up to my office chair was pretty straightforward (fig4_chair.jpg).

1)Raise the chair a bit
2)Push the plastic sleeve covering the chair’s center post all the way down
3)Turn the red clamp dial to open the clamp, close the clamp around the center post, and tighten the dial.

You can use the supplied Velcro straps to keep the cables neat on the chair leg. The strain relief is used to keep excess slack so if the chair is turned rapidly you don’t yank on the ButtKicker cable.

One thing that was annoying was the quick connect cable (fig5_quickconnect_chair.jpg). There’s nothing quick about it. This cable coming out of the ButtKicker is fairly short and ends at the chair’s leg. The quick connect cable is long and connects directly to the amp. The problem is the cable goes in only one way and it’s pretty hard to see which way is the “correct” way. One prong is only slightly larger than the other.

Computer Setup:
There’s no installation CD. Once connected, the unit immediately worked for movies with deep bass. However, since LFS does not exactly have any deep bass, I needed to enable “Bass Redirection” in one of my sound card’s utility programs (I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Zs).




First Impressions:
This ButtKicker rumbles the **** out of the plastic height/tilt knobs on my office chair!!!11! It’s something I didn’t even think about before buying it. My chair is especially bad because I have 3 plastic levers (with loose plastic sleeves) and another knob on the bottom. The FAQ on the instruction manual says to jam foam under the levers or hang bean bags from them.

My most comfortable seating position had the chair at its lowest height setting. Unfortunately, to install the ButtKicker, I had to raise the seat about 2 inches. While this may not seem like much, I had to move closer to the pedals and I still feel awkward when driving (I keep wanting to lower my seat but I can’t!).

Does it work?
I was hoping I could tune it so that when I’m at idle there’s a slight vibration, when I rev the engine there’s a rougher vibration, and when I take off there’s a constant but much higher vibration than when idle.

Unfortunately, in Live For Speed the wind generates the most bass. The engine doesn’t appear to generate any bass. I tested the unit mainly with the FBM but I also tried out the LX6 and RAC and the results appeared to be the same. Thus, the vibration of the ButtKicker is directly related to the speed you’re traveling at and the amount of wind. I found with the volume up any higher than 2% it vibrated too much for my liking. It not only vibrates too much it also makes a good amount of noise even when I attempted to eliminate the rattles from my chair’s plastic levers. If you watch the sim racing tonight episode, when Sean turns the amp on it sounds exactly like that. IMHO, the vibration device should be perfectly silent.

So… I turned the volume all the way down to generate nice smooth vibrations (the kind I wanted when the car was idle). This seemed be a bit more realistic (as far as how much vibration I felt in my butt). The problem is, since the vibration is based on wind, when you’re not moving there’s zero vibration. Whenever you slow down for lower speed turns (less than ~90mph) the vibration just cuts out abruptly giving the feeling that you stalled your car or the engine died. Perhaps tuning the bass settings and adjusting the frequency knobs would fix it. I gave up after an hour or two. None of the knobs (except volume) appeared to do anything for me. To be honest, I think I would be just as happy with a vibrator completely independent of my PC – one that was simply on/off and had an adjustment for intensity. Maybe such a simple vibrator combined with the ButtKicker would be ideal for LFS. You can still get vibration at idle and slow turns with the standalone while the ButtKicker adds more vibration as the speeds pick up.

Conclusion:
I’m satisfied since I only spent $50 (using the coupon code found in the latest Sim Racing Tonight video - normal price is ~$150). I think I’ll enjoy it much more when I have a proper cockpit. Right now I just have too many cables, not enough power outlets and the ButtKicker just adds unneeded complexity to my desk setup.

Last edited by Technique, Tue 11 Mar 2008, 00:36.

Hello. On lap 3 in race 1, in the last turn, the tire wall suddenly appeared in front of my car. I tried turning away but they did not make any effort to move away either. This caused me to flip over the wall in a horrific accident.

I'd like this incident to be investigated and have future tire walls removed from the race (or at least be penalized).

Just kidding. I'm just trying to lighten the mood here. hyntty and taylor both worked hard for that race and I'm sure both were disappointed because of that incident (as was I with my incident).

Not sure if I can make this race I'm going to a Knicks game on the 16th. The game doesn't start until 6PM EST but I'm an hour out of the city and we generally try to get there an hour early in case of traffic.

And... the following event I'll be on another business trip so I'm not sure if I'll make it back in time for the race... boo...

+1 if speed was all that matters the devs might as well remove all vehicles except the BMW F1 car.

Just curious because I have never driven this car or track, is it not possible to do 20 laps straight? If it is, why is the pit stop required? It seems like the driver should be rewarded if he doesn't abuse the tires.

In the real world, I would guess they have race officials who look over replays to determine the order before the restart? I really had no idea I had overtaken under SC. No one said anything (I know kipsus was obeying the no-chat rule). Since it was not so blatant I would blame this on the limitations of the game. Deko can't stop mid-race to check the grid order and neither hyntty or I realized we did anything wrong or we would have definitely given up our spots.

Quote from kipsus :

Hintty and Technique both passed me during SC in race 2.

Hey you're right. Even when I watched the replay I did not notice this. We were already 3 wide when the SC came out and to be honest when the adrenaline's pumping I didn't even notice the SC message for a few seconds. Sorry about that. I think it's the responsibility of race control to tell us if we should be behind a car when it's so close like that.