It's been awfully quiet here so I though about posting something off-topic from the outside world.

I visited last weekend Helsinki International Motorshow last weekend. Nothing really special, new & shiny cars and some less-dressed girls - the biggest difference between previous exhibitions was the strong presence of hybrid drive cars. Every singe manufacturer I visited had brought something to the show; Toyota, Citroen, Lexus to mention few. I wish I had some pictures of those but my camera died on me while trying to capture a Red GT2 car - guess which make

Anyway, the reason why I'm writing all this is that in middle of all those cars I spotted something that immediately caught my attention. AD (a Finnish car parts/accessories dealer) had put up a stand with an opportunity to test LFS with Force Dynamics platform. Something that I've hoped to see and live since the first time I laid my eyes on it in Blackhole Motorsports site.

I'm no good in writing reviews in English, but I can say that after the high expectations I had the "motion simulator" was quite a disappointment. I had the chance to test BF1 in Blackwood GP track, which already was kinda sad - and in addition to that the guy who was setting the platform and the game for me was reluctant to give me manual shift gears, so it was automatic then Actually, when I asked for manual gears he smirked at me funnily - and the reason I was about to find in few moments.

My first consern after sitting into that confortable seat - being that I'm not a big fan of the Formula 1 car - was that I didn't actually have that many starts with my desktop PC and wheel, and wasn't sure if I could fix up the braking points on fly. However those conserns vanished after first look into that HUGE screen infront me - I could not see the track as I've used to. That big widescreen display quite close to me "flattened" the view so I felt like I was sitting on the pavement, which in other hand is correct since it was after all BF1. The lights went green and I hit the pedal carefully because I didn't want to spin on the starting line while 10 pairs of eyes behind me were eagerly waiting for just that to happen. But it was hopeless, there was some sort of delay in the throttle pedal or the deadzone was set to cover half of the trajectory - and I found myself struggling to even make that damn car move. And when it finally did start to move the cradle I was sitting in started to do it's work, in other words bounce me around like crashtest dummy. I was closing up the T1 with full throttle and struggled to grasp some idea of where I was and where I was going...

And there it was, the 100m sign where I had decided to hit the breaks few seconds ago. I slammed the brakes and the nose of the cradle violently dropped down, which created a sensation that more or less matched up my idea of slamming the brakes on racing track with high performance car. I tried to see the apex so I would know when to turn in but I could not, the visibility was really poor (maybe it really is, I wouldn't know). Then, suddly I saw it and managed to stay in driving line and hit the gas right where I'm supposed to - and nothing happened!.. What the... I had to floor it to get a proper reponse Maybe the traction control was set funnily or possibly there was indeed some hardware delay in the pedal - in either case, it really made the driving hard and frustrating.

Closing in on the chicane I instinctively tried to use the paddle to shift up, and was reminded by LFS that the gearbox was set to automatic - I was wondering if it would have felt more "right" if I had manual gears while entering that chicane.. right.. left.. right .. the cradle allowed me to feel some sort of G-forces for the first time during the years I've played LFS. By saying some sort I mean that there was the effect and the simulation, but I can't really tell how realistic it was. My experience is limited to some laps with go-karts on indoors track and if I base my opinion on that it was way off. You truly have to test yourself - for me it was as I said, disappointing.

All in all, it was great to finally try it out myself and maybe after some more laps (and tweakups) it could have gotten better. I only got to do 2 laps after standing in line for quite a long time - it was sad that there were no visible "Live For Speed" -logos around because the stand seemed to be popular, would have been good way to promote the game. And yes, I did <1minute laptime - clearly below average I heard, but didn't make me happy


Oh, and don't miss the upcoming patch - keep an eye on the LFS site

Silly noobs always take the fastest car and Blackwood. Would think a road car would have been nicer because those things always have lag and trying to mimic the movement of a F1 car and the forces, just doesn't work. It's not fast enough. I think the Force Dynamics and LFS has come a tradition of some sort on Helsinki Motorshow, it's been there for the last few times iirc. Too bad they don't have any LFS stickers on the devise, don't pay anything for using LFS, well, other than a normal license.

Oh, I hope the red car was something like a F430. Wouldn't mind losing a camera for that one.

Quote from Blackout :

Silly noobs always take the fastest car and Blackwood. Would think a road car would have been nicer because those things always have lag and trying to mimic the movement of a F1 car and the forces, just doesn't work. It's not fast enough. I think the Force Dynamics and LFS has come a tradition of some sort on Helsinki Motorshow, it's been there for the last few times iirc. Too bad they don't have any LFS stickers on the devise, don't pay anything for using LFS, well, other than a normal license.

Yeah, my thoughts exacly - I think I even whined after RAC but the "marshall" didn't pay attention. Maybe he didn't know who I am

Maybe I should mail AD so that next year there will be some promotional stuff in there too. They dragged a lot of people to their stand with LFS and gave nothing back

Quote from Blackout :

Oh, I hope the red car was something like a F430. Wouldn't mind losing a camera for that one.

I knew someone would guess it.. yep, that's the one - I wish they'd let me inside

Shame about the problems you had - the idea is great, but I can picture it not working properly, usually things like that are never configured properly on stalls. They usually get untrained staff.

When I went to London to see the Wii last november, the had Wii tennis set up so you were playing tennis doubles with yourself (so two people on one team, against eachother), which made it impossible to play, therefore making many who played it at the time get a bad impression.

Wow Sami...sounds like you peed them off...heheh!

Only kidding, Speedclub, you make some interesting points there, it's a shame you're not in England where I can take a look.

Quote from SpeedClub :

Our website (seriously under construction): www.speedclub.fi

I can't read a word on the website, but that simulator is something else. The video on the homepage is quite something.

Just watched that video too - looks fun I must say!

just watched the simulator video & all I can do is laugh. What is it trying to simulate WRC? It jerks around like the car is climbing a steep hill, flying through the air, then crashing down on to the ground. F1?

I think they might need to adjust the settings, how much suspension travel has an F1 car got ?? a few meter's or a few millimeter's?

Totaly unrealistic & OTT in my view.

Those movements are needed to provide the simulation of the g-forces. If the simulator only moved slightly, those forces would not be experienced. It's the same for those enclosed simulators of F1 cars, roller coaster rides etc. I think that if you were sitting on the simulator, you'd think very differently Ant.

Quote from anttt69 :

just watched the simulator video & all I can do is laugh. What is it trying to simulate WRC? It jerks around like the car is climbing a steep hill, flying through the air, then crashing down on to the ground. F1?

I think they might need to adjust the settings, how much suspension travel has an F1 car got ?? a few meter's or a few millimeter's?

Totaly unrealistic & OTT in my view.

This post shows a fundamental flaw in your understanding of how the simulator works. Please take a look into it before you try to devalue the work of others.

A LFS players' rig

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001030.html