Hey guys- About 15 years ago, I fell in love with a PC racing game that allowed you to use your mouse as a virtual gearshift (meaning you literally move your mouse to the different gear positions).

Was this LFS? Anyone know what game this was? I'm desperately trying to find it.

Don't know which game you are talking about, but it sounds like an interesting concept. Could be somewhat interesting in LFS for those who doesn't possess a wheel with shifters. Using a mouse in a pattern to select a gear.

Probably wasn't LFS, but i didn't played it 15 years ago. I can't think of a game that had it, but i know another game that has something similar, but it's not exactly manual. Check Spintires on youtube, you will see how shifting gears works there, but it's not racing game.

Also one thing you can do, and what actually helped me some time ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ... ng_and_racing_video_games
Here is wikipedia all racing games list. You can sort it by release date, and try to find familiar title name, or just randomly google titles which were release 15 years ago or earlier.

Thanks Razor. I looked there already and I don't think it was in that list. I think that whatever game this was, didn't make it out of a demo state because I vaguely remember racing the same 1 or 2 tracks over and over, with limited cars.

Enviro-Bear 2000, the realistic simulation of a bear driving a car, has changing gears via mouse.

Quote from Gutholz :

Enviro-Bear 2000, the realistic simulation of a bear driving a car, has changing gears via mouse.

LOL. Looks amazing, but not the one I'm looking for.

It was certainly not LFS. I can recall the game, but can't recall the name. I think it did include some rallycross, and was just demo from some Hungarian game developer team? I will not recall it, it's way too long ago. But I remember it, was a bit fun (and torture) to use the mouse gears, certainly not good for competitive racing like in league, but it was fun to try it out.

Quote from Ped7g :

It was certainly not LFS. I can recall the game, but can't recall the name. I think it did include some rallycross, and was just demo from some Hungarian game developer team? I will not recall it, it's way too long ago. But I remember it, was a bit fun (and torture) to use the mouse gears, certainly not good for competitive racing like in league, but it was fun to try it out.

Yes! I don't remember the developers, but it was a mixture of on and off-road racing.

The shifting was tough, but it was a unique experience.

This should be quite easy to implement - you can control LFS using virtual controller so implement a proxy that would use mouse for gear selection and forward this to LFS.

For gear changes only, you could emulate keyboard presses without use of virtual controller (as my lfs strobe program from years ago). For an example with proxy controller check my LFS autonomous driving project: https://github.com/soolek/autocruise

Did some quick digging and as someone mentioned Hungary, I came across a game called Cross Racing Championship 2005. I checked some youtube videos and it looked like you can shift gears with a mouse.

yup, that's the one I remember. ... that DIY H-shifter... well... Fun.

Quote from Ped7g :

... that DIY H-shifter... well... Fun.

Gives the term "Stick Shift" a new meaning, huh?

Maybe spintyres? But it will be really cool to add it!

In this forum: https://forums.naturalpoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3122 someone posted:
"Okay have played this game some now. That mouse gear shift though utter useless was a funny idea though"
That might confirm Cross Racing Championship 2005.

CRC did definately make it out of demo state however, it was a full game and not too bad for LAN actually when playing with gamepads. It had some special multiplayer modes if I remember correctly, similiar to 1nsane.

Another CRC '05 lover spotted