Quote from Polyracer :

The quality and feel of your pedals are the make or break for heel and toe driving, - not your actual seating position.

I agree that proper pedal placement and pedal feel is important. That's why after looking at all the pedal choices out there I decided to buy the CST's. For what it's worth I've never sat in a nixim cockpit so I can't argue that it does not have an ideal driving position. But if my goal is to emulate a car, I think it's important that the relative position of the pedals, wheel, shifter are as close as possible to an actual car - even if real cars' cockpits have safety/cost constraints and are not ideal.

I can't speak for everyone here of course. Not everyone is trying to emulate a car. Some may want an F1 style cockpit, others might want something small and portable, etc

I had not seen those pictures. Thanks!

Last edited by Technique, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 04:49.

Quote from blackbird04217 :

Virtual Roadster does look good, and if I had the chance to actually see or maybe test one I might be willing to buy it... But without seeing it in person or using it I can't let myself spend $700... I don't know how good it actually is because they didn't have much info that I would be interested in. Also how is the total weight 70lbs and the shipping weight is 37lbs or something like that?? Confused. The only thing I would complain about is their ad video isn't showing their product much. There are a lot of in game clips, and clips of people "enjoying the game" but I would like to see the cockpit/rig in a walk around and explanation type of video. Well sorry to intrude on the thread about cockpits, I did find it helpful and am thinking about buying or building one within a year or two...

I felt exactly the same in regards to the video. There's too much footage of the games, and not enough of the cockpit. People appear to be enjoying "the games" - not the cockpit. A racing cockpit doesn't make you smile or laugh, the game does. The video appears to be targeted towards the console gamer market. I think us sim-racing folks are much different. We want to know all the details. Does the monitor vibrate? Is the steering wheel mount solid? And possibly most important, is the driving position natural? The video doesn't actually show someone sitting in the cockpit from head to toe. It either shows their upper body or their feet. And there's no picture gallery on the website (or atleast I couldn't find one). I'd like to see someone sitting in the unit. Anyway, I hope the virtual roadster folks don't mind my feedback

Even though I started this thread looking to purchase a cockpit, I'm not sure if I'm entirely satisfied with what's out there. It looks like I may wind up building my own.

Here's my thoughts on some of the units out there (note: I have not tested any of them in real life). With several of the cockpits, it appears that the pedals are at the same height as the seat base. I've never driven a Formula car. The only thing I've driven with that sort of layout is one of those corporate go-karts. In a cart, my left foot is fixed on the brake, and right is fixed on the right pedal. In a cart, I don't have to worry about heal toe downshifting or moving my feet at all. It seems like it would be uncomfortable (or maybe a better word is unnatural) to attempt to operate a 3 pedal unit in this configuration. The nixim, virtual roadster, and several others appear to have this sort of layout.

Others like the rinoseat appear to be better in this regard. My main complaint with the rinoseat just from pictures is the seat appears to be reclined too far. In all the cars I've owned, I've always sat in a racing position (even when not racing) with the seat close to the wheel and barely reclined. I can go on 6 hour road trips in this position without feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps this is a flaw in the rinoseat itself in that it needs to be reclined a fair amount to be comfortable.

Another complaint I have with just about all the cockpits is that they're all designed for 99% of the pedal units out there - the standard floor mounted pedals In my quest for absolute realism, I bought an overhang design. I can't blame them for this. Overhang style pedals are very rare and designing for them doesn't make sense $$ wise.

So in summary, I want my cockpit to be a clone of a sports car seating position. The perfect seating position is different for everybody. For example, in my Miata (or MX-5 for the rest of the world), all the controls (wheels, pedals, shifter, seat, ebrake) are perfect for my body size, arm length, etc. On the other hand, the position of the shifter in my RX-8 is too far backwards, the ebrake is too far away, etc. I think in order to properly emulate my car's cockpit, I would have to build one myself.

Not sure what version this was, but I remember "cheating" by using the grass (?) in the turn after the back straight in blackwood. I don't remember if there were concrete patches or what, but I remember being able to go very wide there even though it was considered cheap. It looks like I joined the race sim central forums in nov 02 - so whatever version live for speed was at that point i guess...

Last edited by Technique, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 00:32.

I didn't get any PM either. I guess I'll practice with you guys another date.

Why in the world would you want a Toyota Camry steering wheel in a racing simulator??

If there are 19109 German players, 13790 UK players, and 21295 USA players according to the LFS Racers database, how come the license pie says:

Germany 19.2%
UK 14.5%
USA 12.9%


Is it because the racers database includes demo players??? And these cheap americans can't buy licenses?

haha.. this looks like a ton of fun when you don't want a serious night of racing. What server is usually hosts these type of things?

I have a stupid question. If you have auto-clutch on and just lightly apply the throttle in 1st gear, LFS keeps the clutch slightly engaged. Yet, there does not seem to be any detrimental effects. I tried driving around for a few minutes like this and nothing appeared to happen.

So I'm guessing "riding the clutch" for several minutes does nowhere near the same amount of damage as one ~5000rpm clutch dump?

Quote from Osco :

I did a few 5-5.5 k launches on my stock 85000 mile old miata clutch before I swapped it, still looks and works great...
perhaps the saab clutch quality isn't all that

Same. I had a 99 miata that I used to autocross atleast once a month for a couple of years. I launched it pretty hard every time and never had any issues.. In between autox's I didn't exactly drive it like a granny either. Stock clutch... 50,000 hard miles. Yet, with the FBM, if I spin out on the second lap, rev it pretty high, and attempt to spin around, I'll burn out the clutch instantly. Is it because I don't push in the clutch when I go into a spin (dont have a button mapped)? Shouldn't the car just stall without causing much damage?

Then again... I drive my RX-8 alot more conservatively and I think I burned the clutch a bit last month just trying to get out a snowy driveway

Last edited by Technique, Mon 14 Jan 2008, 19:25.

Quote from Glenn67 :

work doesn't stop me visiting the forums though

Tell me about it... I wish the moderators could ban me during the weekday's from 8-5 so I can actually get my work done

The only problems I had today were during the yellow flag laps. I don't watch enough real racing nor have I ever participated in a race with cautions. Is the safety car supposed to maintain a consistent speed? It felt like I had to alter my speed +/- 20mph constantly. I checked the replay (just for the first race) and the speed of the safety car varies from 55mph (tighter sections) to 120mph (oval) at different points on the track.

So I guess my question is, in real world racing is the safety car supposed to maintain a certain speed? If so, may I request the safety car use analog pedals (instead of the keyboard) so the cars behind can maintain an even pace?

In the USA, the only real racing I get to see is nascar (unfortunately) but I dont remember the pace car speeding up to 120mph before the green and then diving into the pits I think it maintains the same speed and gently goes into the pit area.

Also, in the first race when the safety car did go into pits, the yellow "safety car" message was still displayed, yet all the cars went green flag. I didn't know what to do, so I went full throttle too. The green flag wasn't displayed until the leader had already gone through the chicane.

I guess that's the only issue I really had during the practice session. I don't think we had one good restart where all the cars stayed nicely bunched up. The field was spread all over the place on restarts.

Please don't take this the wrong way! I had a fun time. I just want everything to run smoothly when the league begins.


Edit....
After reading the "safety car procedure" I guess the variable speed is normal and the safety car is supposed to accelerate right before green. Still, the speed varied from 55 to 95, which seems like alot to me and it was hard to maintain a tight pack of cars.

Last edited by Technique, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 23:10.

Quote from sinbad :

Ahh but g-forces only "tell" you when your body is accelerating, slowing or experiencing the lateral acceleration caused by cornering. The same level of forces could be experienced at 50mph or 150mph, and if you're driving at a constant speed you feel none of those things, so why doesn't 10mph feel like 200mph? And vibrations/bumping which you also feel with your body do not make you feel like you're going fast either, since again, you could feel the same thing at any speed and it doesn't make you feel like you're suddenly going faster than you are.

"When the trees go past me really fast" - how do you feel that? Perhaps you see them with your eyes? Just like in LFS?

Sight is the prime tool for judging solely speed, everything else is secondary.

Hmm I'm not so sure. As an example, a couple of years ago I was testing out my in-car camera system. I had a really nice lightweight bullet camera and a quality mount so the image was perfectly steady. Long story short, I wanted to make the test footage... err interesting! So I drove through some tight winding backroads like a mad man, near redline in 2nd and 3rd, at the edge of traction (on azenis) in just about every turn. I might have even been airborne over one section.

When I got home I found out my mic didn't record any audio. When I started the video I couldn't believe how incredibly slow it looked like I was going (much like LFS in any normal street car).

I attribute the false sense of speed to several things:
* The lack of sound
* The position of the camera (windshield mounted, so it can't see out the sides of the car - much like LFS for most users).
* The fact the camera was so steady
* The lack of vibration/g forces. In real life your body is being thrown around and pressed up against the door panels. Unless you have competition seats, you have to use your knees to brace yourself.

I don't think anyone actually answered one of his primary questions. I don't believe you can create a huge cloud of smoke (like you would if you were doing a massive burnout) although I still have my graphic settings at the default level.

Sure there's plenty of smoke but it doesn't linger for more than a second or two. Perhaps there's an option for the number of particles or how long they lifespan is. I haven't really checked.

Quote from bbman :

I'm sorry, that's a (rather common?) misconception... Blipping on downshifts with autoclutch on is perfectly possible... The clutch is operated by LfS and while it's doing its work, you quickly dab the throttle... I've been doing this since I've started with LfS, and still do it in league races...

I see, thanks for clearing that up. The OP's original post makes more sense now.

The rest of my argument still stands though. You're doing alot more work every lap than someone with auto-blip.

Now that I think about it, you have two advantages over someone with a proper 3 pedal setup:
1) You don't have to push in the clutch
2) Since your left foot is free, you can use it to brake while your right foot simply has to blip the throttle - someone with a proper setup has to do a bit more work with their right foot.

That's not very realistic I guess it will be fixed once they remove auto-clutch

Last edited by Technique, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 19:47.

Quote :

Yet, patch Y has done just that with the removal of auto-blip, because it's not possilbe to blip the throttle while braking with a combined axis setup

This targets me. I'm one of those who has a combined axis setup with an ancient wheel. I'm not complaining. Why? It's physically impossible for me to blip with a 2 pedal setup (even if the axis were separate) unless I press a button for the clutch - something I refuse to do because it's not realistic. A 3 pedal setup that has combined throttle/brake doesn't make sense to me - so I doubt one even exists (correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm all for this change. If I had a 3 pedal setup, I want to be awarded for working my butt off during a race with fancy footwork. I don't want the average joe schmoe with a gamepad to be out-braking me without putting any effort into it. Even if the auto-blip assist was made to be slightly slower, I still wouldn't like it. Humans make errors - computers don't.

In fact, in the future if h-shifters are more common place, I wish there was a way to prevent paddle shifters from being used on cars which do not have paddle shifters like the XRG, XRT, RB4, GTI, etc.

whoops, my fault stan!

Correction.. it was "stu" (a non-member) wrecking everyone on fern bay.

I must say Fern Bay Rallyx was one of those bizarre practices/races I've ever been in... in my short LFS career.

We had Stan, a.k.a Tow Truck wrecking people so I could win... random cars flipped over waiting for the safety car who then goes afk... good times

Thanks guys. I'll do my best

I'm looking at the calendar now and the only track I really know well (or at all is Blackwood) - which I'm currently getting 1:39 - 1:42, a far cry from my pb of 1:34:8x when I was active.

I've never driven on kyoto or aston. I've driven on south city long a bit, although not with any of those cars, but I think I'll be ok there. I don't think I've ever driven on fern bay rallyx (I thought blackwood was the one with the rallyx track...?). I don't remember fern bay black. Since I bought S2 on Dec 23 I've played SO chicane exclusively, but I've driven it with the FBM - not in reverse and not with the UF (which I've never driven), or the XF (which the last time I drove was pre-S1). I've never heard of these baby UF or XF cars - I'm not even sure where to find the setups I've never driven the MRT with a wheel, but maybe I'll actually be able to control it now.

I know this is a beginners cup but as it stands right now I'd be a danger on any of these tracks if I joined a public multiplayer server because of my unfamiliarity with the cars/tracks. Due to work (business trips and such) and various family outings, I'll probably be able to play LFS 20 out of the 30 days maximum before the league starts.

If I practice on blackwood or SO long 1 day each, that gives me 3 days each to learn the 6 layouts I've never driven. I only have hard track for all cars except for FBM (but the set is for SO not Kyoto) and I still have to learn 3 new cars. 3 days practice IMHO isn't enough time for me to even compete with beginners on these tracks So I guess I'm wondering if I should drop out of the league...? Or is everyone else completely new to these cars/tracks as well?

Yeah I understand arcade wheels are made to withstand abuse, but besides that I was hoping the latest and greatest mass market wheels would be as quiet and powerful as arcade wheels built 15 years ago.

Then again, most daytona machines have the audio very loud - so maybe that's why I recall the FF being fairly quiet.

The only FF wheel I've used extensively is the one in the Daytona USA arcade machine - which believe it or not is a 15 year old arcade game.

The force feedback in that system was very powerful and fairly quiet (just a low "hummmmmm"). I did buy a used act labs force rs wheel and the noise the wheel made when turning was awful. But since it broke after using it only a couple of days I can't really compare it to the old Daytona wheel.

So I guess I was wondering how far mass produced FF wheels have come in the last 15 years. How does the G25 compare to say commercial quality arcade wheels?

Polyracer, may I ask what wheel/pedals you are using? I was just wondering how easy it was to mount them to the Nixim chassis.

Please excuse my ignorance but what's:
UF-BR/XF-BR, and FZ6. What's the BR designation? FZ6? Is that supposed to be FZ5 or FZR?