As a couple of people have mentioned, the field of view makes a big difference in the feel of what you are doing. In a real car, with your 180 degree FOV, 80mph feels really, really fast, but if you drive along at 80mph in any LFS car, even the UF1, you just don't get the impression of speeds as much because the FOV is so limited. Hence, when you reach the point at which the car starts to get out of shape you feel like you are doing about half the speed you actually are.
A good example is those 'Police! Camera! Action!' programmes on TV. If you watch them in a 120mph chase from the point of view of the camera car it doesn't look fast at all because the camera only has around a 30 degree FOV. If I was shown the footage but not told the speed, I'd think it was only around 40mph, wheras if you were in the car it would be a real white-knuckle ride.
I think every possible thing just can't be explained with lack of seat of the pants feeling.... LFS also has very good visual, aural (tyre noise) clues and FFB. Impression of speed is the most obvious thing, actually funny sloooow 100 km/h feels, but that applies to every other sim too. Why deny something that even Scawen has admitted? Maybe not yet completely in Patch Y but some day, I would gladly get rid of that fundamental "icy" feeling and cars acting super gently over the limit. Those who now explains all this with that you don't feel it in your ass, wouldn't?
I think, feeling the car going sideways is a matter of habbit. Of course, one can't feel tyres approaching the limit, as IRL, but with experience you can get an understanding of where the limit actually is.
To improve the visual component, the in-game FOV should be closer to the FOV of the screen in your eyes. Try a big monitor or a fresnel lens, which was discussed in this forum. A very different feeling: like everything is of real size.
Also, of course, the real world is full of very small details. Aircraft pilots say, when they land, the eyes catch very small things on or near the runway: flowers, grass, features of asphalt. Sims still really lack this.
Well I wasn't expecting so many to chip in, but that's good because it helped me to study the game more seriously. I hadn't realised I was using A1 instead of AI - laughed like a drain at the UK references to the A1 roadworks and surfaces etc. - driven up and down that road a few times . . .
Did a quick d/load and install of the latest X Patch version just in case my upgraded-from-demo game wasn't the same one (I think they're identical) but one tip I observed was changing FOV from the default 90 to 55 - I found 55 restricted the view just too much and I upped it to 70 so it looks and feels more like my own real life in-car view and the driving experience has changed quite dramatically. I have a 17" iiyama CRT which isn't exactly the biggest one available (!) - hope to upgrade my whole system soon, but I favour the steering view whereby if I turn to the left my view slightly moves with it, as that's what I'd probably be doing in real life. The staring straight ahead view I found a bit too limiting and I was losing any peripheral vision that would help with situational awareness. I have a TIR3Pro that I use for combat flight simming (my main game interest) and I'm wondering if this game supports NaturalPoint software. To be able to look around properly and if it had 6DOF support as well so I could lean forward or to the side, sit up and down to alter my views, that would be even better in anticipating other drivers etc.
Someone mentioned the default FOV being so wide angle that one's sense of speed is distorted and they're right - adjusting it has restored a far more realistic sense of speed and I can now judge my cornering way more accurately than before. Thanks for the advice, folks. Driving the LX4 is now far more enjoyable - I still lose it on the odd bend every now and then but I'm actually keeping up with AI in Pro mode now and even beat some of them in Quick mode, despite their superhuman skills, which I find encouraging. I still wish they wouldn't simply hurtle into my bum at every opportunity, though, sending me spinning into the nearest wall . . .
I also changed tyres to Michelin roadsports and that made a difference in road grip - either that or I just think the tyres grip better now and that's why I'm driving more successfully feeling more confident I won't lose it quite so easily. Think I'll upgrade to an S2 licence now and try out the other cars and tracks.
Well, did you beat them in the first weeks of having LFS?
@choxaway: Nice to hear your driving experience has already vastly improved since you started this thread . Regarding tyre brands, I'm afraid it's all psychological at the moment, as the differences between brands like Michelin or Evostar are only of graphical nature. Also yes, LFS supports the full 6DOF of Track IR!
"Doh!" to the first answer and "Great!" to the second.
Any idea how I activate TrackIR in the game - don't recall seeing it listed in any of the options, but then at my age, the old eyes and brain ain't wot they once wos . . . :drunk:
I think grip levels are about right. If you look at the fastest LFS times they seem pretty close to real life when you compare similar powered vehicles on similar circuits of the same length.
What you don't have in LFS is the feel of the G force or the car actually rotating when it starts to break grip. This is maybe why you are struggling. All these inputs come from sound and vision in LFS instead and this takes some time to get used to.
Stick at it. If you feel the same way after a couple of months then maybe it's juts not for you.
Might be that you already had the latest version, did you download it from the official website if you still remember? There has been not tyre physics changes since April 2006, so I think it's most likely that you already had the latest version.
How this makes any sense?
You could have read the second page too... he already bought S2.
IIRC Scawen mentioned somewhere that the low-speed-grip is currently a real problem, IMO above 100km/h everything seems quite realistic. We'll see what Patch Y brings
Compare what when we don't have real circuits? You can have exactly same lenght tracks but how comparing those makes sense when the tracks are otherwise totally different... You said "on similar circuits of the same length", if you really meant autocross then it's a different thing...
OK - already figured it out and what a difference it makes to the driving experience! Apart from being able to lean forwards and back, shift in my seat to a higher or lower position, lean to the right to see past the front wheel, quickly glance over my shoulders eaither way to check the other drivers (when they sit in a mirror's blind spot), anticipate the bends by looking ahead and to the side before turning the wheel - just as I do in reality. But the really neat touch is that these same directional and seating positional changes can also be done whilst watching the inside-of-car view replays afterwards. My virtual self's still driving but I can observe everything from the same position without having to watch where I'm going. Makes it quite revealing as to what the AI's actually doing when they get a bit close and also what a lunatic driver I can be at times - quite an eye opener.
Also now bought the S2 licence and having a blast with the new cars and tracks. The Formula XR grips just as I imagine the real thing might (never driven one of course) and really enjoy driving this round the town circuits - actually won two races at Pro level against six AI demons. Quite chuffed with myself.
I'm already anticipating new circuits in the future - do we know if any others are under development - LeMans, Monte Carlo, Silverstone maybe - any full rallycross dirt tracks as an alternative to the hard surfaces? The possibilties are endless . . . ?
No, we don't know of any other track development beyond some updates to current tracks. Anything else we say here on the forum is pure speculation or wishing
As far as the grip goes, it was covered pretty well in this thread.
I had never driven a car to the limit when I started driving LFS. It was good, but I thought that the cars understeered to easily and the back end would step out too easily.
After actually driving my car on the track, and actually putting a car on or near the limit of adhesion, I can say with more confidence that LFS is very close to being correct. Even with my paltry 170hp in a 3200lb car, I can get the back to step out if I pinch corner exits while applying too much power. I can get the car to understeer through corners. I even had my instructors compliment me on recovering a slide even though I hadn't even realized I had reacted. My muscles just responded appropriately. I attribute this in part to LFS.
You really can't evaluate LFS at the limit by comparing it to street driving. Unless you are a total moron, you just don't put your car on the limit and hold it there on real roads. If you take your car to a track day, once you get used to the g forces, you will start to feel subtle things that you can easily correlate to how LFS behaves.
Jeez Gentlefoot, what tracks, what times? Even if we had perfectly moddeled Silverstone for example, even then you couldn't tell how realistic the sim is by comparing the lap times, there is just so many variables that differs in sim and real life to make judgment on lap times, and your statement is so apsurd, "similiar tracks, similiar cars"
Ofcourse you can. Look at how rain affects qualifying times in any real world event. It can be as much as 10 seconds. Now if the level of grip in LFS really was as low as it might feel to a new player, then the times would be A LOT slower than real life times.
Lydden hill is a 1 mile long circuit as is FE Club. It is also similar in layout. If you take a road car around Lydden it takes about 47 seconds in my Golf. This has 170 bhp and runs on yoko AO48s and has uprated suspension and is stripped out. In standard form I was about 4 seconds slower. WR in XFG around FE Club is 49.4 seconds.
In the wet this class of car is about 5 seconds a lap slower (a massive margin around a 1 mile course). This is what I'm talking about
Well I don't get your point What track in LFS has similar track profile config than any real life track? Even "similar" wouldn't be enough because would have to exactly same track profile. Different track = different amount of corners, in different angles... it's just different. If you get similar times on two different tracks then it's just coincidence.
Even in games that has real life tracks, comparing the track time is still kinda useless because the virtual track will never be accurate enough, bumps etc, not even talking about dirt and different grip levels on the real life track. Of course if the time is pretty close, it tells that there is lots of things right in the game but that doesn't tell much about the tyre physics. Maybe the laser scanning that iRacing will use will be accurate enough but that's another story.
When has Scawen commented on lateral behaviour in recent post physics patch history? The only thing he's mentioned is the obvious issues with longitudinal behaviour - and in this case there is too much under certain circumstances (excessive slip), so you may be worse off after patch Y
Please explain why a car would not act gently over the limit. It's not a train, and there are no tracks to fall off of. What is it in your mind that generates a large transient blast that sends you off into the distance with little or no warning? I don't comprehend this point of view, except by those who've been wrongly "trained" by ISI bs (not saying this is you BTW, just that the myth of rapidly declining lateral slip curves irritates me - as it goes against even simple common sense)
If you're cornering, the car obviously wants to continue in a straight line. Of course, you're asking it not to through steering input, and all the tires are responsible for coaxing the car to change direction. If you slowly approach the limits of the tire's adhesion, which happens to already be under a relatively "high slip condition", what on Earth makes anyone think they will "suddenly break loose"? They will simply begin to slip a little more, and provide slightly less adhesion because they are a little past their peak slip angle.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, I don't know.
The biggest problem still is locked differentials, and that in turn is due to longitudinal grip, and especially combining long & lat grip. FWD on throttle oversteer is plain silly, I don't care about the setup - it's just fundamentally not going to happen IRL; at least not with a car that's already on the limit of lateral adhesion.
I agree. For me LFS feels very dead with these movements disabled. With them at least a little bit of the "felt" G forces are visualized.
(Though, steer-look makes me feel dizzy)
