not to forget the writers constant orgasm over his at best mediocore writing
truely a new journalistic low... even for arse standards
not to forget the writers constant orgasm over his at best mediocore writing
truely a new journalistic low... even for arse standards
Yes, when really, the only person that can self-fellate are persons who are really flexible, or myself, becase I'm so frikking awesome!
not to be disgusting or anything, but, i can, i am a swimmer!
Get out!
A real time racing simulation will never be any use in setting a car up IRL. You'd have to model your car perfectly in the sim, which isn't going to happen until you're starting to spend large amounts of time and money. Then you'd have to update the tracks, most of them will already be out of date because small changes are made all the time and levels of grip naturally change over time, testing before an event helps drivers learn what the tracks like.
Most importantly though you've still got to factor in the other elements that are wrong in a sim, tire simulation still isn't very good and no sim has gone away from the rigid body model, which will be essential if results and behaviour will ever be similar enough to actually be useful. That's before you get to the issue of physics exploits and the fact that driving on the computer is not and never will be a substitute for the real thing. Whilst F1 teams do use simulators I doubt they set the car up based on what they get out of the simulator, although I'm sure the effects of different changes being tried is useful and speeds up the rate at which decisions are made in real testing.
Ajp, of course the whole idea behind iRacing is that the advances in physics modelling make an accurate track model more important. I'm sure iRacing has come up with a way to use 'normal' numbers of polygons with some underlying bumps model that comes close to the scanning they did.
It would be rather pointless to scan the tracks in such detail if it was just going to be reduced to a few thousand polies..
Wether they deliver this, well, we'll see. I think you're underestimating the ''room for improvement'' in realism.
It would be rather pointless to scan the tracks in such detail if it was just going to be reduced to a few thousand polies..
Wether they deliver this, well, we'll see. I think you're underestimating the ''room for improvement'' in realism.
Where were the hard questions? They treated it like iRacing were sent from heaven to show us the light of a new dawn in simracing. The attitude ASS should of taken in that interview is 'why do you think you can charge such a huge amount of money for something people can get for £30 with other racing sims?' 
they called their own mag arse for a reason
its only semi redeeming feature is that its free
The multiplayer part is for a niche market, but it's only one half of the equation. The other half, the part that should make the business case, are the spectators.
Picture a cross between Victor's LFS Remote, Becky's STCC movies, and a live race on TV. A race where spectators can choose the camera position, and get expert commentary. With professional drivers and a NASCAR-size audience. And a matching advertising income for the guys who run the show.
That'll never happen though! 
Only F1 and NASCAR are probably profitable, perhaps WRC is.
People simply don't bother watching the other 99% of real racing, and even less will bother looking at a virtual race, no matter how good the action is! How many watch those LFS races commentated by Becky and Tristan? Its well produced, but a 'few hundred' might watch that live, perhaps on youtube a few thousand over time..
This commercializing / big online audience thing was predicted since 1999 when the West Bro's talked about the future of simracing at the European GPL LAN .. Since then nothing has really taken off all THAT seriously.
Only F1 and NASCAR are probably profitable, perhaps WRC is.
People simply don't bother watching the other 99% of real racing, and even less will bother looking at a virtual race, no matter how good the action is! How many watch those LFS races commentated by Becky and Tristan? Its well produced, but a 'few hundred' might watch that live, perhaps on youtube a few thousand over time..
This commercializing / big online audience thing was predicted since 1999 when the West Bro's talked about the future of simracing at the European GPL LAN .. Since then nothing has really taken off all THAT seriously.
Well the problem with that is the only people who really watch broadcasts of sim races are people who already play sim racing games. NASCAR sized audiences? Those people are too busy watching real life motorsport. The price should give everyone an idea of how small their target audience is, which must be the so called 'pro gamers' who play games for a living.
This at least should be taken care of. I think iracing said somewhere that they'll be updating the tracks whenever they change in real Life.
But on the whole, I agree. I doubt that with current computer hardware it would be even possible to simulate a racing environment to such an extent that you could setup your car to an extent that is actually useful in rL. You might get some general ideas of which way to go, though.
According to Becky's site stats, the STCC broadcasts did rinse a good few TB of bandwidth at one time, thanks to some healthy hotlinks from some good motorsports websites, but after the plug was pulled and reinserted on the STCC, I don't think the STCC saw much of a return to its former glory. I do believe, for the very niche thing that it was, it was very healthy for a while. It brought a healthy number of new people to LFS, that had never before thought of sim racing too, so there's a plus in that too.
Hafta agree. I don't think the market is there, though I admit I wish it was, but I really don't think it is. I don't think you can get people enthused about virtual racing like you can about RL racing. What's exciting about real life racing is the sense of immediate danger. It's the peril. The truth is that it will never be present in sim racing.
The STCC changed the fundamental approach to broadcasting sim racing because of its orientation to the viewer and away from the sim racing driver. This was a significant paradigm shift. It sounds like iRacing is going to pursue the STCC-style paradigm, but it will still meet the same hurdles that the STCC met. Those really aren't broadcast quality issues, they're audience issues, and can't be defeated by virtual technology and/or glitzy graphics. It comes down to morbid fascination with danger, and the aforementioned peril - and of course, most fundamentally, the absence of those in anything that's not real but virtual/sim.
One big part of racing for me is the noise. Cars is really loud and, often but not aslayws, sound great. Feeling the rumble of two Panoz V8s racing side by side with the whole grandstand shaking (aha, sweet memories of Le Mans)... is not something you're ever likely to reproduce at home (unless you hate your neighbours).
Also there is the smell. The burning rubber from a spin. The smell of burning brakes at the end of a straight.
Or what about standing by the pits and watching the mechanics jump on the car, people rushing around, the noises of the powertools and wheels rolling around.
Sim racing is FAR removed from real racing and its audience is going to relfect that.
Also there is the smell. The burning rubber from a spin. The smell of burning brakes at the end of a straight.
Or what about standing by the pits and watching the mechanics jump on the car, people rushing around, the noises of the powertools and wheels rolling around.
Sim racing is FAR removed from real racing and its audience is going to relfect that.
But at least some of racesim developers/publishers appreciate their efforts and sometimes reveal new information through them. Some examples: iRacing info in the last issue, Blimey! Games and Virtual Grand Prix 3 in the previous one. This makes AutoSimSport an interesting resource.
You may not like the writing style of some of their authors (this is my feeling too), they may not be all devoted LFS fans, but why there is so much hostility against them here?
They never ever criticise and as a result there preview of nK was spectacularly wrong and the actual product was far worse than the extended marketing blurb we'd read in ASS.
Probably because this community is playing an unfinished game, so we face up to the fact that there a big faults with the game we are playing and we are used to those faults being acknowledged and talked about by players and developers. ASS get the interest from game developers because they know no matter how bad their game is ASS will only focus on the positives, with maybe a sentence at the end pointing out that the only person who can run the game is Bill Gates, on his super secret PC that has more power than the sun.
Show me a GPL mod that looks anywhere near as good as these, let alone twice as good, and I'll eat my G25. Especially the Radical.
Mods with hand painted highlights don't count because they look crap in motion.
those screenshots really show how much a little real time shadowing can improve the look of a sim
the cars and track models dont look all that much better or more detailed than what you see in most other sims
the cars and track models dont look all that much better or more detailed than what you see in most other sims
I can't help but laugh at the floating helmets every time I see them 
There aiming at a niche markets niche, which would be roughly half a bees dick or maybe a poofteenth .
Nothing more needs to be said apart from this....
Nothing more needs to be said apart from this....
Some of it is very nice, but don't you think the cars look like they've been lifted out of a cartoon?
Yeah, reflections and shadows are nice and all, but the cars do look as though they were made out of cheap plastic, which makes it overall somehow look like a scale model scenario. It's just not consistent, imho.
Well, to be honest, I don't really care about how a sim looks, only how it drives, nor do I think that static screenshots are all that interesting, but...
Didn't do any thorough searches - this is just the first that I found while quickly googling at work:
Ok, there are a few jagged polygons and other bits and pieces you can nit pick on ...but GPL still looks great to me (and its free).
Good pic - shows how good even GPL can look. iRacing (and all ISI games as well) has (have) a lot of catching up to do in the graphics department
This thread is closed
iRacing
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