The online racing simulator
#76 - joen
Defending LFS like a fanatic/fanboy would be like "nanana, no matter what you say I'm not receptive to your reasoning, LFS is teh bestest anyway no matter what you say". I have not seen anyone act like this, people give motivations for their points of view.

You on the other hand give very little motivation and just say in order to simulate physics, real life cars MUST be imitated. Period.
You label people not agreeing with you as being unable to comprehend.
Good luck in life.
Quote from joen :Defending LFS like a fanatic/fanboy would be like "nanana, no matter what you say I'm not receptive to your reasoning, LFS is teh bestest anyway no matter what you say".

Sadly, I have seen people responding that way, mainly just when it's related to rF though. And thankfully not so much recently. Perhaps the people who used to do it either grew up or got banned.
#78 - JTbo
Quote from Whitmore :A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input

Problem is when he has no experience from sims he does not see what is causing different behavior, he is then saying how it feels and what he feels is really twisted presentation of what sim really does, now when they adjust sim based to this they make it work well for that particular system setup and for those settings instead of basing their adjustments to real facts, this causes problem of sim to behave unrealistic.

How it feels has nothing to do how real it is, feeling is just illusion to give immersion, or something like that.
Simulating is just making things happen according to facts and rules.

That is how I see it, we really need to separate these two things.
I reinstalled rF yesterday, and played in the Sauber (bleh), the F3s (tee hee) and now the 1979 mod (woah).

Anyone care to direct me to a mod that is like a real car? I think part of the problem is my ini files, so I've eventually managed to find some controller settings recommended for the G25 on RSC (took ages), and it's a bit better, but still lacking.

Been driving for about an hour in it today, and so far none of the 'cars' have felt like cars.
Quote from Whitmore :A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input

The point is how can he compare the car in the Sim to reality when he doesnt know much about Sims? He cant. Simple Example: Take a real Dodge Viper driver who has no experience in Sims, and let him test Viper Racing, he may very well consider the suspension movements and weight transfer of the car to be "good" or "very good", when maybe they are poor compared to other Sims. But how should he know if he doesnt know other Sims? It is actually very logical that real life drivers cannot improve or comment on Sims very good when they have only little experience in Sims, which is the case with most real drivers. It is essential for the real driver to have experience in Sims to give useful feedback on it.
Quote from Electrik Kar :Some good posts here/differences of opinion as to what should constitute a good sim. Regarding above statement, I wonder how practical this approach is, given current technological restrictions. I've read that it's pretty impossible to just input correct physical values of various RL data and expect that your virtual car will behave in the same way, because in reality there are so many other small variables interacting with and influencing these forces which are not being calculated and which cannot be calculated due to the hardware limitations/whatever. I'm not a physicist/engineer so I cannot comment any further, it's just that I wonder about this purist approach- the idea that if you've the correct data, in theory it should all just work the way it's supposed to. At some point, if you want your simulation to be believable, to feel right, to behave realistically, you're going to have to fudge some variables here and there because no matter how good the data is, it's not representative of the full spectrum of forces which are operating within the real world.

In general what your saying holds true of course. But the problem is with how you fudge those physics and what effect you´re trying to achieve by it.
Let´s take aero for example. Obviously no current hardware is able to run a full fluid dynamics calculation 2000 times each second, so you´re forced to somewhat fudge the aero physics in your sim.
The ISI approach seems to be to not bother much with it and to fudge most of the aero physics into the tyres slip angle curves, which causes the infamous snappiness and undriftability of ISI sims, even at speeds where the aero has no sizeable effect on the cars handling.
LFS goes a totally different route by trying to get the tyres to behave as correctly as possible and then putting some fudged aero physics simulation on top of. The current largely underdeveloped state of those is what ironically causes the exact opposite of how ISI sims behave, ie you´re able to drift an f1 at speeds where any yaw should cause the wings to stall, the tyre loads to drop into nothingness and the car to swap ends.
Apparently neither one is correct.
Thats not the end of it however. LFS' tyre physics are now at a point where they´re reasonably correct for most of the time. If you were to take LFS in its current state and let it run on a quantum computer some 40 years from now and replaced the aero phyics by an all out real time CFD calculation you´d have a sim which has tyres that behave more or less correctly with very good aero on top of it. If you did the same thing with GTR2 you´d have an even bigger mess than the game is in its current state as you´ll effectively double the snappiness of the cars.

Personally i will always go with sims that take the correct physics aproach simply because thats the meaning of simulation as opposed to immtation.
Quote from Whitmore :A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input

Of course a real driver needs exerience in other sims to give useful feedback. Okay he can still give feedback on certain things but you need something to give you an idea of what is currently achievable. Anyone who has driven anything around a race track will tell you that sitting at your computer with a plastic wheel is boring in comparison, due to the lack of G-Forces and the risk factor that gives you a buzz.

Look back through the years of racing simulations. F1GP was awesome in its time, so why don't we still think that now? Because a new crop of games appeared on the scene?

We all compare things relativley to what we know. There is a point where you have to say it's still a game (how does a real driver who has never played sims before know where that mark is?), as no racing simulation will ever come close to simulating the real thing until they figure out a way to simulate the real G-Forces on your body.

Let me point out I'm not saying a driver who has raced the car he is giving feedback on is totally useless without trying other sims. What I'm saying it's hard to get past that, "This is only a game" feeling. Giving someone a taster of what is currently available allows them to build a picture in there head to realise what's possible.

Keiran
#83 - JJ72
Quote from George Kuyumji :And who defends LFS "like a Fanatic"?

Many people go to the LFS forum and make long posts just to tease the fanboy among us show their face, cause they tend to get a good laugh from it.
#84 - joen
Quote from Foropsico :Well, giving an ilogic reasoning is the same. Do you think is logic saying: "GT4 has tons of real cars and tracks. How realistic is that to you?" "so LFS is better because it doesnt have real cars and tracks". GT4 is a sh**** because its devs, not because it has real cars and tracks.

You sure have a way with rehashing what people say, then adding your conclusion to it (and even putting that in quotation marks!) and implying that's what people have said. This is a perfect example of it.

Quote :
This doesnt help to improve LFS.

Oh, is that what you're trying to do here? A newbie that just registered this month, doesn't know S2 and seems to think he has "the vision". Give me a break.

Quote :
But i didnt give any name, so if you felt identified with my words, is up to you.

Who said I was speaking and/or defending for myself? You made a comment in general about people not being able to understand your undeniable truth, thus making them fanatics, and I responded to that trolling statement. So that's you drawing your own conclusions again.

Anyway, enough of this.
Quote from Foropsico :
Thats the only important thing in a simrace, numbers are for engineering purpose, simrace is about feeling. Of course, is a better aprouch to make a physics model than just a code who move your forcefeedback like you want. But this is just about feelings.

Without numbers no racing sim would exist...

Quote :
I propose a challenge, drive rfactor F1, take turns faster as you can, dont push the throttle, then push the throttle (dont slide the tires, drive without aids), do the same with rfactor. If you know how a real race car feels, you will notice that LFS has a physics bug there.

Yes and how would you know about LFS BMW sauber... :rolleyes:

Anyway, rFs BMW Sauber suffers the same fate as most rF cars. Start sliding and that's it, the grip disappears and no matter how much counter-steering you throw at it, the thing still spins as if you were steering in the wrong direction to catch it. That is a huge mistake in the slip curves from what JTbo seems to have managed... I also can't understand your point either... If you were to suddenly let off the throttle when the car was fully loaded around a fast turn, you'd most likely come out the other end backwards in real life...
Quote from Foropsico :You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

No, I'm talking about physics being applied universally to everything rather than car-specific... Because it's far more "real", because it's right...
#87 - JTbo
Quote from keiran :That is a huge mistake in the slip curves from what JTbo seems to have managed... I also can't understand your point either... If you were to suddenly let off the throttle when the car was fully loaded around a fast turn, you'd most likely come out the other end backwards in real life...

I can't understand quite fully that, but anyway.
I think that I have not managed to accomplish much anything yet, just few experiments that has shown promising possibilities, maybe some day I can get overall behavior to be what I seek, but I can tell that current result of my experiments is not perfect tire, there is some potential that shows that engine itself can do much better than how it has been used, but those are rather bad tires actually
Quote from JTbo :I can't understand quite fully that, but anyway.
I think that I have not managed to accomplish much anything yet, just few experiments that has shown promising possibilities, maybe some day I can get overall behavior to be what I seek, but I can tell that current result of my experiments is not perfect tire, there is some potential that shows that engine itself can do much better than how it has been used, but those are rather bad tires actually

Juding from what you've said I think you have understood me fine

The majority of mods and the deafult content of rF seems to have problems in the tyre department resutling in a horrible driving experience when you step over the limit IMO. I'd rather have the LFS way which seems to be a little too controlable at large angles than not being able to slide much at all. From the video I've seen of your work so far you seem to have managed to get rF to slide more naturally.
#89 - JTbo
Quote from keiran :Juding from what you've said I think you have understood me fine

The majority of mods and the deafult content of rF seems to have problems in the tyre department resutling in a horrible driving experience when you step over the limit IMO. I'd rather have the LFS way which seems to be a little too controlable at large angles than not being able to slide much at all. From the video I've seen of your work so far you seem to have managed to get rF to slide more naturally.

Yes, reason for this too much slide syndrome is that after 10-12 degrees slip angle slip curve drops very fast over 20% and then keeps dropping so that there is over 30% less at 90 degrees. Slip curve is not absolutely grip, but is used to modify grip, there is other very important parameters too and that is just one piece of puzzle.

But when you take wheel that turns only that 0.67 rotations from lock to lock, those default tires feel quite good, however you should not be able to lost any slide with such wheel and thus it is false good feeling, imo. Now it is easy then to say that something feels too easy if using such wheel, but trying with 900 degrees gives completely different feeling, very hard to catch.
This is big change we have seen when these wheels with 900 degree possibilities did came in and I'm sure huge amount of issues are something around these different controllers.
if it comes to controllers, we are no way near reality. the padels don't feel like in a real car, the wheel is too small comared to a real car. gear shifting is still a joke (unless you have some boutique parts...)


i don't think realism is that important in online gaming. most important thing is, to have fun no matter if the one game lacks of realism in damage and the other lacks on tyre simulation.

greatest experience with online gameing is the interaction with other people and not with a stupid or predictable AI.

BUT if you can do a donut in a front wheel drive, then it's a NO GO
Quote from Fischfix :if it comes to controllers, we are no way near reality

When you think about this, it is not entirely true.
The materials are different, but the action you do with the real wheel and the PC wheel are the same.
I am talking about racing now, and the situations where you don't have to turn your wheel more than 270 degrees. So, i don't count countersteering, drifting etc, because it is very hard to reproduce the same effects and forces that real wheel gives you in that situation.
So, you are driving at normal racing speeds, going in ideal racing line, without sudden movements. So, the things you would feel in real life, are the things you feel in LFS too, it's just that you hold a plastic wheel, with FF motors, that is connected to the desk, instead of the steering columng, BUT, the FF motors have enough power to reproduce the same amount of force that a real wheel would give you. Ok, it's not exactly the same, but when i tried the G25, and it's two FF motors, the effect was very very similiar to a real car.
So, it's not that different after all..
#92 - JTbo
Quote from Boris Lozac :When you think about this, it is not entirely true.
The materials are different, but the action you do with the real wheel and the PC wheel are the same.
I am talking about racing now, and the situations where you don't have to turn your wheel more than 270 degrees. So, i don't count countersteering, drifting etc, because it is very hard to reproduce the same effects and forces that real wheel gives you in that situation.
So, you are driving at normal racing speeds, going in ideal racing line, without sudden movements. So, the things you would feel in real life, are the things you feel in LFS too, it's just that you hold a plastic wheel, with FF motors, that is connected to the desk, instead of the steering columng, BUT, the FF motors have enough power to reproduce the same amount of force that a real wheel would give you. Ok, it's not exactly the same, but when i tried the G25, and it's two FF motors, the effect was very very similiar to a real car.
So, it's not that different after all..

If you use wheel with 270 degrees, you would need to use steering lock of 9 degrees in street car to get similar range of steering that you have in use.

270 degrees = 0.75 turns lock to lock and if we estimate road car to have fast steering with 3 turns lock to lock and to have 36 degrees of steering angle we get that 0.75 turns is 9 degrees of lock.

It is not about forces, but how much easier it is to catch tail for example, when you have ultra fast steering.
Quote from JTbo :It is not about forces, but how much easier it is to catch tail for example, when you have ultra fast steering.

Well, ok, but you could modify a car to have this kind of lock and steering.
Or you could forget about 270 degrees, i was just using that because my Momo has it. Take DFP or G25 for example, and than tell me what is so different to the real wheel, and why we could never compare sims with real life. It really IS comparable, as i explained in previous post, you are not getting any other extra feedback from a real car, than you do with G25(again not taking countersteering and drifting in count).
You are doing everything you do with the real steering wheel, aren't you? and the feedback is pretty much similiar, isn't it?
But than again, every car has a different steering wheel, and every one of them behaves differently, some give better feeling for the driver, some less, but let's say that you find a car with a wheel that behaves similiarly to G25.. what don't you get with G25, that you do with the real wheel?
People are underestimating sims and PC steering wheels.
#94 - JTbo
What you see is very different, small display at front of you gives quite small window to game world, what it was 25-30 degrees that it covers? Anyway you miss lot of information again, awareness of direction car is going is much better IRL, even with 3 monitors it is quite small area that it covers.

Even with G25 or DFP at 900 degrees mode you still have very very fast steering 2.5 turns from lock to lock, street cars have usually much more, my car has 4.8 turns from lock to lock, rather impossible to make it feel perfectly right, either too easy or then tires won't turn enough to keep same angle in drift.
Also if I set my DFP to feel enough heavy like real car it will be that damn heavy also when moving, also it will become so slow that driving becomes impossible, have to keep forces almost off to get even little like real steering, real steering don't have lag or if it has car will fail MOT

Then feeling in you arse, that is rather important, who has really good motion simulator at home? This and sound will give more information than steering.

Also at least with DFP forces are far from real, also wheel is so sluggishly slow that even I can feel it, here G25 I hear is much better, but I doubt very much that if it is like real steering of car, sure it gives you information, a lot, but still far from real.

Also what you hear all little pieces of information there is very far from real, sound equipment alone limits this greatly and no single sim has convinced me with sounds, there sure is lot of information but very different from real life. LFS engine sounds are rather good in how they respond to throttle but sound itself needs of course work, tire sounds are like hammer compared to precision instrument.

You can't really focus only to driving around, sim needs to handle also situations where you are about to loose control and when you loose control, also drifting, if sim can't do these it is not very good, imo.

If controller does makes these other situations too easy it should be noticed, why to make sim work not right if user has controller that is not right, is sim even a sim if there is false simulation to get feeling right with some controller that is not capable to turn enough? (all pc wheels) I think sim have to simulate things right and users should know what causes too easy behavior.

Changing steering lock is dirty hack around problem, currently only one we do have that does not cost house and kids, it is as good as setting fov to 30 degrees. It is cheating to use more fov as it is cheating and not realistic to use more steering lock, but still I do both, because I like to enjoy from game
I never said anything about other aspects that separates the sim from real world , i only said that steering feel is very similiar to real life.
And as i see, you haven't tried G25. BELIEVE ME, it's a different world compared to Momo and DFP. I was shocked really, how good it feels, like the wheel is connected with the steering column, and that i have tires somewhere behind a desk. I was about to cry when i saw how better and more real it is compared to my Momo, that i bought just months ago, so i didn't had the hart to buy G25 that soon..

Anyway, yes, the steering degree is still not like in real life, but very close.
Driving a FWD car, within normal limits, like you would in RL, maybe bit more agressively, you have very similiar feeling like in a real car.
Those two FF motors in G25 really give you some serious force, very, very real force.
#96 - JJ72
Quote from JTbo :Even with G25 or DFP at 900 degrees mode you still have very very fast steering 2.5 turns from lock to lock, street cars have usually much more, my car has 4.8 turns from lock to lock, rather impossible to make it feel perfectly right, either too easy or then tires won't turn enough to keep same angle in drift.

You'll get 2.5 turns on a Honda S2000 or a alfa romeo, I can't really understand why street car needs so much lock, indeed if you want to prepare a track car you would surely want to install a quicker steering rack.
#97 - JTbo
Quote from JJ72 :You'll get 2.5 turns on a Honda S2000 or a alfa romeo, I can't really understand why street car needs so much lock, indeed if you want to prepare a track car you would surely want to install a quicker steering rack.

Sure, you can fit also fiber hood, remove back seat and install roll cage etc.

But point is that when your PC wheel has less turns than car you are sim driving you can't complain sim being too easy as you will have huge help from super fast steering, like with momo or when using for example 480 degrees with dfp or G25.
#98 - JJ72
sorry, how do you know how many turns the car we are sim driving are supposed to have?

judging from the virtual dummy in the cockpit the cars in LFS has really really little lock indeed.
Collision detection when hitting a barrier is different to calculating the cars dynamics when driving it.

It will currently pong the car into oblivion because that's the only way it can use the energy it's been given. The mesh that makes up the car has no spring/torsion/tensile properties at the moment so the whole thing acts like a rigid body, so it's like dropping a pool ball on a tiled floor. It will bounce.

But I'd sooner this, which shows a unified consistant physical world, than an easy line of code to stop it happening. I'd rather it be solved completely indirectly when the damage model of the car is finished, than a line of code to explicitly stop the scenario from occuring, which would be easy, but one step away from "simulation". Which is what it's all about.

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG