To me LFS is exactly the same. The big difference is the max brake force is customizable in LFS which basically makes keyboard and mouse users potentially as good brakers as wheel users (=utter nonsense)
TBH I prefer the iRacing approach: the software is agnostic so it's only up to you and your controller (as IRL it's only you and your car), and they're trying to make sure nobody finds a way around this.
Slartibartfast
Can't you calibrate your brake pedal in iRacing in this way:
- press and hold your pedal up to the resistance point and go into pedal calibration menu
- when iRacing will ask to move brake pedal back and forth, press it to the metal and then release only to the resistance point
- finish callibration
I can't check that because my iR subscription has ended. But I do similar thing in LFS calibration for clutch pedal. I'm setting bite point at 1/3 pedal travel, and full disengagement at 2/3 pedal travel.
But in LFS we have calibration lock option, so in iR it can fail.
I've had excellent races with keyboarders. Races I wouldn't trade for any philosophy. And LFS is not the same, there are actually several options throughout the game that relate directly to the brakes. And by going through DX, they allow even more options. I've never been beat by a cheat in LFS. I've always been dominated by skill. Keyboard, mouse, joystick - which is allowed in iRacing, or wheel, if the driver pays for the ware and produces skills, why not let them race? I think the point *is* to allow key/mousers to be as good. Trust me, they work hard for it.
Let's explore that second idea.
I real life any car I've owned, new or used, sporty or utilitarian, has always had the brakes pretty well matched to the driver controls, yes... in RL it is me and my car. In iRacing it's me and a car that is wildly inferior to yours. We all use the same iRacing software, but we all do not have access to it in the same way. The nature of my controllers in their unaltered state give me a different Mazda than your Mazda. So by the logic in the agnostic approach they have created a sim for the elite with low integrity? Or they have simply turned me into a keyboard braker. In which case, it is my goal to be potentially as a good braker as pedal users (=NOT utter nonsense)
I've been thinking about why they are not using DX. I'm assuming one reason may be to keep people from exploiting the controllers. I personally can't figure out how changing the shape of a control slope would allow one to cheat, but there is a lot I can't figure out. If the idea is to keep things even then they should allow everyone to adjust their controls how ever they like so they can exploit the simulation. How about charging $350 for the first month then sending the Official iRacing controller to the driver? The software could check for compliance. Or use the same compliance to check for any number of controllers on the iRacing authorized controller list?
Man. Do I like that idea. I think I have tomorrow night off. I will try it. The rubber stopper is too stiff. I've already whittled one down too far trying allow lock but not terminal lock. The one I have now doesn't allow lock, so it's still too high. Adjusting the pedal in that manner should be great if it doesn't drift.
I'm perfectly aware LFS offers a lot of leeway in altering how the controllers work, otherwise this exchange of posts wouldn't be taking place, ain't that right?
LFS is the same as iRacing as in you have no feedback from the brake pedal. It's the same in LFS, in iRacing, in nKp, in rF... in every simulator ever made.
5 minutes in a real car and you'll have a feeling of how it brakes. You'll be able to stop smoothly in exactly the place you want. In sims, it takes much more than 5 minutes. It's just a fact of life.
If you can't be bothered to buy a decent-but-affordable set of pedals, why should the sim developers fix that for you?
If you can't be arsed to buy a decent PC to ensure smooth, good-looking gameplay, why should the sim developers fix that for you?
If you don't want to replace the old tyres for your car despite they haven't any grip anymore, should the car manufacturer, the government or god fix that for you?
You want to run LFS on an old PC and a keyboard?
Fine with me, but it is entirely YOUR choice, and YOU have to accept the consequences of it. Not the other players.
To be able to fight for a WR using just a pocket calculator and an old gamepad from the 80s, it's not a heavenly right, it's not a constitutional right... it's not even in the bill of human rights.
Actually, that's not true. I have spent valuable time in the View options getting my load forces just right to help with the braking feel. I also find the sound in LFS helpful. And that is eactly the point. As a real time sim designer you have to pull what's not there out of your ass. The braking in iRacing fails in every respect. Not very impressive coming from the Godfather of sims. A weak showing.
You know, I can't disagree in any way. This is a wonderful philosophy. However, I think iRacing should be a little more public with it, especially so people will know this before buying in. It should be very obvious in their marketing campaign. If they are offering iRacing to the masses, it should be developed for the masses. If not, it should be marketed as such.
The literature says that you must use a wheel. It does not say anything about a load cell. If it did, I would have waited until June to try it.
You see. That's where I really just don't belong in this conversation. I simply do not see how the other players would be negatively affected by having more clean racers on the grid. Sometimes I can be quite thick.
I disagree.
While usual brake force slightly varies between cars, I've never experienced lockups under braking with less than 50% on a smooth and level braking zone. Here's a Skippy lap I recorded some time ago and if you look at 1:30 you'll see that I'm applying 70-80% brake force all the way without any lockup and rougly the same for last corner as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8mXXBilKFA
Still, that is in Skippy which at least to me feels much more prone to lockups than Mazda with it's fat slicks.
I don't use 500€ pedals, just standard G25 without any mods. Only adjustment I've made is having removed that deadzone from beginning of the pedal travel.
The sound in iRacing is very helpful with braking. It may be different than in LFS, but just as useful once you get used to it.
Also, iRacing is completely playable and enjoyable with plain old potentiometer pedals, even without any modifications. That's what the vast majority of their users have, after all. I've seen only one or two people complain about the brake calibration system on the official forums.
Actually... it's not really marketed towards the masses. That's why there's that whole speal about "training tool for drivers blah blah".
I'm sure they count on more people picking it up, but it certainly isn't marketed towards the masses. (No keyboard support? Forced cockpit view?)
Blimey, you sure as poop don't "need" a loadcell. I'm starting to think something is really really wierd about your setup. You're clearly having issues that you're either A) hyperbolizing beyond recognition or B) something is goofy with your setup for reasons I can't discern.
The only real difference between LFS and iR in terms of braking is that I can't just set the brakes to some arbitrary value to keep them from locking up - I have to use my foot, and as the video Crommi posted shows, it really isn't that hard. If that video was LFS, the user would've had a "setup" that allowed him to smash his pedal to the floor without thinking about it... My experience mirrors that shown in the video, and I think Phil's does too. You seem like a bright fellow, so I don't imagine A is the answer - it must be B. And I hope you get it sorted because it's ruining the sim for you!
For anyone who implied, even in the slightest way, that I was off my nut for thinking the controller implementation is not optimum in iRacing, well... thanks for the support. I was starting to believe you.
In my case, blindly assuming that the controller implementation was as bad as GPL when clearly only 15% or less people are complaining of the same problems I'm having (not the other way around like GPL) so it's probably something else, well... that's what I get for having a vendetta against DK and Crew.
GPL had no feel, there was GUI latency, and the braking slope licked.
iRacing brakes are wonderful. Man do they feel good. I'll have to bounce back and forth between LFS and iRacing before I make a fanboy decision. But right now I'm going to be spending a lot of time in iRacing.
Let me try to state this quickly because I need to go to the iRacing forums so other with the same problems might benefit from my experimentation.
Based on Yaper's suggestions I fiddled with the calibration and got the controller to report to iRacing correctly. There was some kind of over that would happen in iRacings brain if I moved my controllers to their full extent during calibration. By limiting my input during calibration, as well as another trick that has to do with sequence of calibration moves, I got what I now know some of you are referring to. Full resolution.
Holy smokes the brakes are good. They don't lock when they shouldn't. They do lock when they should, and I can floor the pedal momentarily at speed without locking. I now have full range of motion and am feeling detail that simply was not there before.
Prior to today's session I was having real problems. At Oak Tree turn in VIR the line is pretty straight forward. But it was always a crapshoot for me. It drove me nuts that I could only set that corner up by chance. It's not the kind of corner that should be such a struggle. Also the entry into T3. With any yaw, it was really easy to upset the car with the brakes. Really, really easy. And of course the last corner at VIR. To get the right the second to last has to be solid. I was struggling with consistently getting entry into the second to last. Again it was a crap shoot.
It's all better now, and it's repeatable. Thanks Yaper.
So here's an analogy. I have no way of knowing what is actually happening, but this is my interpretation of what my problems were like based on the difference in my new setup:
It's as if there were only 6 steps of resolution in the controllers. I wasn't getting consistency. Lockups seemed random. I would under or over brake without knowing why, or feeling or hearing it. Sometimes I'd brake smoothly with yaw, sometimes the thing would get upset. I could never set up that tree because I never knew how quickly or slowly I was going to enter that diminishing combi. So if I was up against the stopper, I might be at level 3 one lap, or level 2 or 4 the next lap. I get this impression because a) braking power was highly inconsistent, and b) the sound did nothing for me. Now, there is soooo much dimension in both the sound and what the pedal does. It's like the pedal was only sending 5 or 6 messages so the brakes only had 5 or 6 states. Add to that random pressures, such as spikes, and the thing is beyond cumbersome. I can't believe I ran so many races like that. (I did, and have been, checking both the iRacing raw report and DXTeaks raw reports and the pedals themselves are smooth. There are no spikes or missing ranges. There is however, a hesitation for the throttle pedal to return to 0, staying up around 14 out of 255 from time to time.)
That being said, I am about 7/10ths per minute slower than I was. I hope it's just because I am learning a new controller.
I can't imagine what this means software wise. There are some other discussions in the iRacing forums that point to possibly being caused by what ever is causing this. I was also having the same kind of res problems with the steering, not as severe, that are also smoothed out by tricking the calibration routine.
OK, back to fanboy mode. I have always thought LFS is the single most trouble free software I've ever used. I've had my complaints about the physics and sound from time to time. But I swear I have never done anything but click on the icon and it goes. It does what it's supposed to every time without fail. I've been lucky enough to never have a blue screen or black screen. I think once I was having frame rate issues but that was something I clicked. An once in a while info appears or disappears on the screen. Oddly enough during session chats.
Look I have the shake options on. I listen to the sound, too.
Nowhere in the world that gives me the amount of the feedback any shopping cart will give me in the 5 minutes of a quiet trip to the mall Don't tell you didn't get this the first time I said it... but as you declared yourself a fanboy since the subject line I won't complain about that
LFS does that to a point (it has no real marketing but bear with me) and look where it is now. People setting WRs with a 5€ mouse(*), clutch macros, locked diffs and all kinds of weirdnesses in the sets, as long as it's fast, anything goes.
Congrats on your purchase and boasting about it in public
Balancing the brakes near lockup in iRacing is one of the most satisfying things about the sim.
It was really really really hard readjusting to the setups LFS when I can mostly just mash it to the floor.
In any case, the faster guys in LFS do modulate the brakes, usually when trail braking. So having to control your right foot (or left) under braking shouldn't be anything new to a LFS driver.
Having to recalibrate brakes is probably due to some driver conflict. I haven't experienced this issue in any sim since I bought my first wheel+pedals set 8 years ago.
Well, I'm not iRacing fanboy, LFS fanboy, I'm not fanboy of anything.
I just playh and enjoy all the sims, and I cleary realize the differences between them.
And IMO, no matter what people say here, iRacing feels and reacts much more like a real car than LFS, and this is in all situations.
Braking in a straight, tail braking a chicane, using engine brake, and etc.
I'm not saying LFS is wrong or bad, but for me iRacing is better, that is what I feel, and all the extensive explanation here to prove the opposite, for me, is useless, because I know what I feel, and I feel iRacing very precise.
I sorted my controller problem absolutely. It is surely a wonky Momo specific problem. And... as I've heard from a few others, G25 as well. The whole time it was the deadzone in the throttle pedal. That's right, the throttle pedal. By bypassing that deadzone the brakes now calibrate properly. But only if I do the wheel after the pedals. If I do the wheel before the pedals I get glitchy surges in braking power and lose the ability to go full throttle. I can mash the brake pedal to the floor without lock at speed. Modulation is now possible. I'm looking at replays before and after. Before the brake was going on and off like a switch. After, the pedal gauge is fluid and realistic.
iRacing is smooth. Really, really cool. I understand what people are saying about the feel. iRacing is much more apparent on some level. It rocks the boat so to speak. More seat of your pants, in your face... The physics are not all that great I have to say. I mean, flat in first gear in the Star Mazda from the apex out of 18 at VIR Grand West with full steering lock? I don't think so. It's even off camber. Not a chance.
Did a few laps in the FBM at Fern Bay last night. Now that's rear drive.
Without question, I like the left foot better in iRacing and the right foot better in LFS. I also like the perspective much better in LFS. iRacing cars are too big. Even when I can see a tire on a curb I have no idea where I am on the track. The chassis dynamics feel much more precise in LFS. That might be part of why iRacing seems more immediate. It moves too much over the road and not quite correctly so you get this sense of being loose all the time. Thrilling.
I really jumped the gun posting this. Now that I've driven both for real I am done. LFS is better. But not by a lot.
Well, and I would say that if you give more time to iRacing you will feel it better and better.
I think that the perspective in LFS looks "better" because the majority of the tracks are a bit wide, while in iRacing the tracks and the cars have the real proportion.
You need to buy a G25 (do it as soon as you can). The difference is big.
Here I use it inverted, but this photo is before I disassembly the pedals and mount them directly on the wood.
That mill has NO torque until high rpm, and your setup can allow that. In fact the default sets are rather safe. You could do the same thing in a comparable corner in LFS in the FOX. Think of the final turn at AS3R in the FOX.
What.. the... Are you talking about iRacing or LFS in that sentence? Because that's very precisely how I feel about LFS. I drove each for 2 hours last night, and LFS is a constant game of managing how much you slide around, never feeling that the car is actually connected to the track for some reason. I better point out that I still really like LFS as well, and the difference between the two isn't really that huge physics wise but I find that LFS feels like you're flopping around like a rubber fish in comparison. iRacing is much more beleiveable over the limit - less controllable but nowhere near in an ISI kind of way. Drifting is possible and rewarding and actually requires some driver input in iRacing . I find that LFS rewards overdriving to a point, while iRacing punishes it.
After reading much and watching some very impressive reviews on Youtube, I have gone ahead and ordered the Fanatec GT3 clubsport. I hope that is not a mistake as, as far as I know, no one has one in their grubby little mits yet. The G25 however is widely used.
Your cockpit is sweet. If I had two computers I would build something like that. I really find comfort in the seat position being static.
I'm always a bit tentative there, but I catch your meaning.
It would be fair to say that I feel the exact opposite. For the last 15 years or so I have pondered the relevance of ocular disposition on the sim racing experience. How big is the monitor? How far away? What shape is the eyeball? What, psychologically, are we expecting to feel?
I really can't imagine how any of these devs make a universally acceptable sim.
LFS uses 90 degrees default Field of View. By default in iRacing the FOV is 78 degrees, so you see less on the sides and the car takes more of your view. I suppose you can change it somewhere in options.
Yeah those are good points. I suppose all the banter in the world can't really do anything about these things... Universally acceptable, to me, means as close as possible to real world, repeatable, predictable (somewhat) reactions. A sim (to me) isn't about recreating a sensation, but about recreating a faithful reproduction - irrespective of how it's interpreted on the user end. The former is objective, the latter is subjective. I don't think iRacing spent gratuitous amounts of dough on their own tire testing equipment for no reason, and I doubt (though am open to being proven wrong) that the guesses of one sim coding superhero (as great as they really are) would happen to be more fundamentally correct than said testing.
Tires even aside (ahem), I am starting to get spoiled by the presentation - aural and graphical on the other side though. Especially the sound. Having voice chat is real nice, and the atmosphere "on the track" is really cool.
Yeah, and my timing is off. I suppose I could adjust through practice. I usually set the FOV by intuitive timing. I move it until I naturally brake and throttle at the points that I think I am doing it. So iRacing 82, LFS 95. iRacing seems like it has a fisheye or wideangle to me. LFS seems more natural. Considering my lap times, I won't hurt to experiment in both.
Slart, you said that you use 95 of fov? hehehe... I can't imagine something like this. I always use between 55 and 70.
FOV above 80 start to look very tunneled.
Minor FOVs takes off some lateral view, and that is not good, but the proportion worth the sacrifice.
The fov in EVO was locked for months in 80 degrees, until the lasts patches. That was horrible.
I use a 22" wide screen monitor, and I still don't like of high fovs.
IMO the best fov for LFS is 60. Have you tried it?
Hehe, yeah that's crazy FOV @ 95 - to each their own. I tend to run 55-65, but then my monitor is as close to my face as reasonable to compensate.
Just fun excercise to try - during a reply, set your FOV rather low at say 50 - and put your face right up to the screen. Notice how it feels fairly fast? Now back your face up 12" instantly - your sensation of speed drops off dramatically. Bob has an FOV calculator that gives you your most "true to life" fov for a given monitor size and viewing distance (as if you were looking through a viewport the size of your screen). Get a wall mount and put your screen at the right distance & FOV, and train your brain to like it.
Slightly OT: Is it bad for your eyes using and LCD quite close? I know with a CRT there is obvious concerns with emissions, what about LCDs?
I have no cameras here, so later I'll take a picture and show the position that I use my lcd. That photo above shows the LCD on the table, but today I use it on the wood of the cockpit just behind the steering wheel. That position is the closest possible, and the real steering wheel lies in the same position that the game one. So, with a small fov (like 60), the perspective is almost exact from my real point of view.
I think taht the perfect configuration will be the use of 3 monitors (a thing that I dream for soon), because the lateral screens will compensate the lack of lateral vision.
Are you talking about iRacing or LFS in that sentence? Because that's very precisely how I feel about LFS. I drove each for 2 hours last night, and LFS is a constant game of managing how much you slide around, never feeling that the car is actually connected to the track for some reason. I better point out that I still really like LFS as well, and the difference between the two isn't really that huge physics wise but I find that LFS feels like you're flopping around like a rubber fish in comparison. iRacing is much more beleiveable over the limit - less controllable but nowhere near in an ISI kind of way. Drifting is possible and rewarding and actually requires some driver input in iRacing 
. I find that LFS rewards overdriving to a point, while iRacing punishes it.