F1 drivers need to look to thier MotoGP brethren to see how to get the public on thier side. Rossi is an utter b*stard on the track and yet we all love him because he does not go over the line of being an utter bstard and being a cheating or unsportsman bstard a la any F1 driver you care to mention of late. (let me just clarify I mean Rossi is a damn hard racer and he will race to within the smallest quantifiable margin of sportsmanship and THAT is what makes him great in all our eyes)

Sure there will be folk out there who do NOT want Rossi to win but I bet they don't actually dislike the fact that he has won. In F1 people actively dislike the champion and would not give them credit due to thier off and on track antics.

As for the comment that wet races on bikes are rubbish, did you see the BSB at Cadwell park w'end before last? It was mental! Sure they are being super cautious but you can still see the ones that are pushing.

Right so last night I took as much of this as I could into consideration and went for a quick race. LX4 (me) v LX6, FZ50, RA (all AI) round aston. They have the speed on the straight but they are easy picking on the corners but as they do not always try and avoid you you have to stay on your toes. Used a different screen (was about 6 inches further away). Kept consistant lapping until I actually felt tired something like 3/4 of an hour later. A marked improvement. I think the close fighting and the fact that I had to think of the track as sections where I was quicker and sections where I was slower to contemplate passes not just several corners ahead but maybe even several laps ahead. Good fun, I would have raced online but all I could find was bloody drift servers.

Cheers all, maybe I'll get up to 'endurance' standards in a month or so.

Did LFS change the way I drive? No, did it make me think about how i drive more? Yes. When on the road I have always been fast and aggresive, I am naturally inclined to push the limits of the car on a given road. Living where I do the country road commutes provide ample opertunity to push the car at or below the speed limit. I am the most economical driver in the family, my anticipation and prediction are the best of all my friends. As such I need less steering input, less acceleration and less braking to be as fast or faster than those I know. Since passing my test I am the one that the family calls on to chauffer as my style on the road is so smooth. All this is improved by LFS forcing me to think about how the car is 'feeling' at any given point. But the things I have learned in LFS and other simulators have only given me confidence, not changed the way I drive.

tbh I was expecting at least a few comical 'rituals' that folk do to get 'in the zone'. I suspect that the main problem is work stress and eye strain, i shall work on these and let you know how I get on.

Cheers for the replies.

Whoever wins Suzuka will take the champoinship. If Alonso manages to beat MS at that track then he deserves the win. China and Brazil are kinda non entity tracks in my mind. Suzuka is still a very real challenge and I've yet to see anyone do it better than MS.

good point becky, I'm using a bstard huge 19" crt on a small desk, I'm not sure I can actually sit further away but it may well be the cause. I only recently switched to it as my old CRT died

Time for a new LCD.

Recreational drugs put me to sleep most of the time, I'm a very boring stoner and a when I get drunk the lap times are not so good.

I find that if I try to concentrate then I'm just as likely to come off, then you get into the cursed cycle of came off -> try harder -> came off etc.

I certainly do not get the same 'rush' when racing LFS as I do when racing GPL, maybe that is what is lacking, time to try more 'exotic' combos.

Actually a spinoff from this would be a developer pool of tracks. Essentially we have professionaly done tracks that work in certain games. We, the public, would have to buy the tracks and the game seperately but we'd know that the more racing games we own that use this database the more we can use the tracks we love. The developers no longer need to worry about the quality of the tracks or diversity as the racers will decide what they want to drive and obviously the developer for the game could provide some 'free' or included tracks with thier game. Virtually impossible to do as getting the money men to agree on what is worth what and who should get the money from the tracks and games and licensing ect sadly. It would be great to know that the next version of GTR, LFS and rFactor all used the same track data. Of course there would then be a repository for fan made tracks that could be properly looked at and given not just community approval but the support of the track developers. I wonder if we can convince an F1 team to start dumping all thier track data from last year?

we can dream

I have always been told that I'm a bit of a dreamer, in school I'd spend many a happy hour not thinking about anything much and just staring into middle distance. I find that my concentration for any particular subject is limited to about 1hour. However of late I'm finding that I can only manage 20min stints of LFS and GPL - I used to be able to do a full GPL race weekend! Granted my chair is not as comfy as my old setup but I don't think that is the main issue. Do any of you have any good tips for improving concentration. (other than the usual eat well, sleep well, excercise)

I have recently (the last few months) cut out added sugar and virtually all caffine from my diet in an effort to increase my concentration but it only seems to be of limited benefit.

Cheers

I don't know if it is just my FFB but the aston Eau Rouge is most challenging in the F08 and BF1, the weight change and speed give the impression that I'll never make it through the exit of the turn, you have to 'float' the car till the aero kicks in and you have some weight in the steering again until then you might as well be flying. It is certainly one of the harder corners to judge without 'feeling'. The only other corners I find 'challenging' are the ones that ALWAYS induce turn in understeer. So anything downhill, off camber, ever decreasing radius screws me royally.

£400 = A day at croft with a caterham

or

£400 = A week holiday in the sun.

No question, I'll have the caterham please.

ok, currently the 7300 retails for a little over £50 and is plenty quick enough. Regarding the CPU, I'm not sure on intel upgrade routes but tbh I doubt it is holding LFS back as my Sempron 2800+ manages just fine and with your OC that takes your CPU to a speed that beats mine.

suggest you go here for some help, they are all fairly friendly and there is a sticky in the processor OCing page to help with all the general stuff

http://www.overclock.co.uk/for ... 3c0b08b8c15f6c176a2b6cd28

Quite simply its the Newey Redbull-Ferrari with Coulthard ftw next year. You wait and see.

British democaracy is actually ruled by a head of state that is supposedly chosen (or at least given the OK by the Christian God). Yup, what a model of democracy we set for the world, go us!

I'm not sure why everyone is dissing Fuji, sure Suzuka is a fantastic and unique challenge but lets face it:
The first sector belongs to shumi always has always will.
The middle sector is anyones game.
The final sector with 130R belonged to the bravest (and shumi) seeing as F1 is systematicaly removing the 'brave' element from drivers or simply eliminating the drivers known for thier bravado then a switch to Fuji may be good.

Honestly, Spa used to be interesting, but Eau Rouge is not exactly the challenge it once was and the rest of the track leaves alot to be desired.

The only sure way to make F1 interesting anytime soon is make it a dry qually, wet start, changeable during the race. In my opinion they should try and schedule the races for that particular countries wettest period. Only problem being that the spectators at the track wouldn't enjoy it so much.

IMHO the 'essence' of the game is the feel. LFS felt good to drive the first time, and still feels good now. GPL still feels good so i still play it, GP3&4 suck nowadays. GTR is frustrating and GT Legends is my next purchase. I don't see any conversion working to such a limited platform, I cited doom as you had, and cited GTA as it is probably the best top down car game ever. There are several arcade racers available on the J2ME platform and none of them will capture the essence of LFS. If you remove the 'feel' of LFS you have just another racer, in fact you have an ugly sounding and only alright looking racer.

So, sorry if you feel this is a bash, it's not. Just it's an unrealistic expectation given the platform. I doubt you would be able to do real time analysis for a race, even for a spectator view on the majority of phones. Maybe a setup calculator with simulated lap times? (you change the setup then the AI runs x laps) Would be pretty boring (and would take a while to process the laps) but you might be able to fine tune your setup while on the bus?

Doom, originaly released on a 486
GTA originaly released on first gen pentium (but did run on my 486SX 50!)

LFS, struggles on anything less than a decent CPU = no converstion possible.

At best you'd get a nasty arcade racer of the sega rally ilk but nothing better. The physics processing is just too intensive for the limited resources of a phone.

Also, don't confuse Doom RPG with a real doom port, both exist and the doom port runs just fine on my A1000 and uses the original wads!

Reasons for shifting to DX10:

Faster
More adaptable
Better integration to OS
Host of other stuff too long to list

Reasons not to:

You HAVE to have Vista and a new graphics card.

Sounds like plenty of reason not to unless you actually NEED something that DX10 provides that DX9 does not. (Unified Shader, callback support and a host of other FPS and fancy graphics orientated stuff)

IMHO I'd love to see a fully realised rendering engine that simulates the view as well as the car physics simulate the driving feel, but I'd only play the game for the physics so I'm more than happy with what we have now - but with better support for silly high res, AA and AF etc. (not sure what the support is like right now but I know that occasionaly my machine refuses to do either AA or AF.)

ok, you will no doubt get alot of fanboy nvidia > Ati and likewise. If you have a preferance then go with that otherwise pick some games you play and look for benchmark comparisons for the cards you have selected and choose the best price performer. The cards you are looking at are fantastic and will easily play most games at pretty decent settings (rest of computer dependant).

EDIT:- Get a new PSU right now! Have a look for Tagen/Sparkle or something similar you'll need a 400W PSU to be on the safe side.

Well, I've been to the ITV website and told them to take stock of the situation. This is not the only place I've found a "James Allen you're a twat thread" so I told them to check out some sites and review thier policy. I suggest everyone here goes along and leaves them a little message. If 2 complaints to BBC can get an advert banned then I'm sure that a couple of hundred messages of dispair can at least get them to ask him to sharpen up his commentary.

I did a test a while back. It was nice and simple:

After a decent feed for tea I sat down and started playing GPL, Colin McRae 2 and Grand Prix (3 or 4 I don't remember). I quickly settled into my usual pace on all games and cracked open a beer. Within 20mins of drinking my GP times started to get less stable but the fast ones were still fast as PB. GPL and McRae had no noticable difference. After the first about 30min (1.5 beers) McRae times were better and GPL was coming good but not much faster. GP on the other hand was out the window. .2-.5sec slower a lap. I gave up with GP at this stage. An hour and 3 beers later. McRae was totaly on form, never missed a beat and had the best run through the tarmac stages in France I've ever had. GPL was ok so long as noone was nearby, if they were I'd spend too much time watching them and FAIL. Lap times were ok but not consistantly PB. A couple of hours later and I wanted to play NFS (yes Need for Speed, not a typo) which pretty much told me it was time to either hit the town or go to bed

Smoking and driving disconnected me totaly from the experience, I find that it is more like playing any other game and less like getting the 'feel' for the car that I can get when sober. My main trouble when stoned or drunk is that my will to be first is deminished. I dont WANT to succeed quite as much so I don't worry about the little mistakes. That seems to be ok in tin tops and rally but sucks for single seaters.

IRL the issues surrounding judgement calls that need to be made all the time suggest that the legal limit is too lax as it is. For me anyway.

umm did MG not release a 1000bhp version of one of thier cars? Those specs are off for pretty much any real car as 1000HP is just too much for us mere mortals (or so the makers claim). You'd normally only see 1000hp in a modded car with nitro. So with that in mind I'd say it must be a modded scoobie (or similar size car) with NOS and a revised engine, but the 200mph limit is crap, so it must have been kitted out with a nasty body kit giving it stupid amounts of downforce at high speed.

BTCC is excellent, but it is not F1 and, really, should not be compared to it. If the F1 drivers weren't in open wheelers and could follow as close as the BTCC boys they'd have just as many bumps, offs etc. Why? Because noone out there gives a toss about the guy who came second (RE:MS v Damon Hill, MS v JV, MS @ Monaco, Alain Prost v Senna) The best (most successful/popular whatever) drivers of the last 2 decades in F1 have all been known to 'knock doors' with thier opponents to get an advantage. Im not condoneing it but I do think that when I race online that, sometimes, people don't risk enough in an overtake due to politeness. In real racing the nice guy finishes last (RE: DC, Gilles Villneuve, Stirling Moss - many others, unless your ONLY objective is to win then you won't)

Comparing BTCC to and single seater open wheel stuff is pointless, it requires a different mentality. Who remembers when Mansell had a shot? He was blindingly quick and hugely couragous just like we remembered but he couldn't hack it due to the amount of contact involved. Can't say I blame him but it does make for decent entertainment if not racing.

And I'd far sooner see GP2 and motoGP get F1 style coverage than BTCC or other tin tops.