Quote from Nick A :

Ok, I didn't realise they were allowing that at the moment but it does make sense. Hopefully they will allow it for one more season, I'm still at noob pace in the Solstice (and still enjoying it )

According to the rules you can't do it though:

"2.9.2.In all cases – except Rookie Series – drivers may “race down,” participating in series primarily intended for drivers at lower license levels.
2.9.3.Rookie Series are open only to rookie license holders."

Yep, that's not in effect currently. But even if they enforce it for next season, you can still race the Advanced cars, afaik, and I'm sure you'll find your proper competition there as well. I'm more or less at noob pace myself (depending on the track), but still found the competition in the Advanced Solstice to be very well suited for great close races. And the more people are in, the more even the fields should get, no matter what pace you're running.

Quote :

Site will be in Maintenance mode at 11 AM EDT (15:00 GMT) for approximately 4 hours for a build roll out. We apologize for the inconvenience.

http://members.iracing.com

Eeek! 4 hours without iRacing, how am I going to survive

Raaaaage

I was nudging time off my pb constantly, this'll break my flow :>

Edit: if I go into offline practice now, the system won't kick me out, or?

Edit2: I win the game, I'm still in practice :P

Yea, it's only the web interface which is down. I just finished a race that started on 15:00 GMT

Anyways, I'm having some problems with Fraps. Everytime I start recording it crashes iRacing, I've tried uninstalling and changing settings with no success. I really wanted to save my first 1.25 lap around Infineon Cup, it was just awesome to finally break that barrier and even on replay I saw couple spots where I lost few tenths.

Patch notes:

Quote :

Release notes for 2008.07.23.02 Build

Graphics

Added a new graphics option, RefreshRateHz, to renderer.ini (located in “My Documents/iRacing” on XP). This setting overrides the full-screen refresh rate used by the simulation. The default value is 0, which allows Direct3D to select a safe refresh rate. Use extreme caution if manually overriding this setting, as an invalid value may cause the simulation to fail to initialize or result in other problems.

Relabeled “Your Card’s Video Memory” advanced graphics option to now read “Utilizable Texture Memory.” In most cases the correct value is 30-100MB less than your card’s video memory. It is almost always a bad idea to increase this value from the original auto-detected setting, as setting it too large often results in a large performance loss.

UI

Mini Chat on Replay screen, Chat Tab now accessible from button in Mini Chat

#42(NP) Chat messages now show full names instead of inscrutable abbreviations.
Chat colors tweaked a bit

Adjusted F3 black box colors, it should be easier to distinguish your car from cars lapping you. The colors are:
Gold: Your car & the pace car
White: Opponent on the same lap as you
Red: Opponent that is lapping you, or has lapped you
Blue: Opponent that you are lapping, or you have lapped

F2 and F3 black boxes now show car numbers as “#123” rather than just “123”

Track length now shown to two decimal places

Several small display errors fixed on the Replay screen


Race Control

Pit lane popup UI was not showing in oval qualifying sessions.

The time limit for "slowing down" after cutting a corner is increased to 20 seconds from 15 seconds.

Fixed the bug where resetting while under the "slow down" condition would result in a lengthy black flag.

Fixed the bug where drivers could get pit entrance penalties when reconnecting to a server.


Physics

Fixed Silver Crown ride height issues for remotes (shouldn't bottom as much).

Changed tallest differential ratios for Late Model so doesn't redline at Lowes.

Brake lights are now transmitted to remote cars for Solstices and Radical (there is of course a delay due to the communications latency, so don't follow someone too deep!)

Engine revs and gear are now transmitted to remote cars, should sound much better.

A correction was made to the aerodynamic forces due to drafting--the cars in front will generally get less of a speed increase from cars behind.

A fix was made to the tire wear code which was causing too much wear on lightly loaded tires.

The Formula Mazda and Radical tires have been reworked; they were not quite correct after the camber fixes in a previous build.

There is now no delay when shifting from Neutral into gear with sequential shifting mode, it is now the same as H-pattern (no advantage at starts).


Tracks

Barber Motorsports Park is now available for purchase

that's a cool set of additions........

the tyre wear might help the solstice advanced on jefferson..... hard not to blow my tyres on 20+ laps there!!

Quote from Crommi :

Yea, it's only the web interface which is down. I just finished a race that started on 15:00 GMT

Anyways, I'm having some problems with Fraps. Everytime I start recording it crashes iRacing, I've tried uninstalling and changing settings with no success. I really wanted to save my first 1.25 lap around Infineon Cup, it was just awesome to finally break that barrier and even on replay I saw couple spots where I lost few tenths.

What are your system specs, and the settings for fraps?
Does it also do this for other applications?

To steal the main idea though, here's a lap I recorded during my practice after the website-shutdown:

http://blip.tv/file/1110397/

It's a mid 1.25, and my first lap under 1.25.7 (I did about 10 of those in one session, infuriatingly enough) however I don't know where I'm losing more than a second. I know that I messed up the hairpin slightly, and that some of my lines were not very smooth, but apart from that I'm not sure how some people can be driving 1.24.1 etc, can anyway tell me where I'm losing the most time? - I might just be missing something.

From what I can tell, you lose a bit on the left-right combo (T3-4?). Being fast through lefthander is not as crucial as getting good line for the apex over crest. Your speed dropped somewhere ~110km/h on top of the hill where good entry should give you smooth line through at 120-130km/h. You got bit loose there due to having to take so tight line over the hill, your car was in center of the track. I just do a very soft tap on brakes to hit late apex on lefthander, allowing me to position the car right on leftside of the track. That let's me take the righthander flatout with little to no wheelspin.

I was quite suprised how easily you can take first corner flatout, I just can't do that without going off the track.


As for Fraps issues, it just started happening last night and It's been working just fine until now. Settings I use are "Half-size", 30FPS, No-sync unselected.
I did some testing with ZD Soft Game Recorder but it doesn't seem to be too reliable. Either it stutters like hell or it records 10-30seconds and then stops.

Specs: C2D E6750, 2GB ram, X1950Pro@XT, Samsung Spinpoint T166 501LJ (500 GB) HDD.

Quote from Jertje :

What are your system specs, and the settings for fraps?
Does it also do this for other applications?

To steal the main idea though, here's a lap I recorded during my practice after the website-shutdown:

http://blip.tv/file/1110397/

It's a mid 1.25, and my first lap under 1.25.7 (I did about 10 of those in one session, infuriatingly enough) however I don't know where I'm losing more than a second. I know that I messed up the hairpin slightly, and that some of my lines were not very smooth, but apart from that I'm not sure how some people can be driving 1.24.1 etc, can anyway tell me where I'm losing the most time? - I might just be missing something.

although I myself am only at 1:25.3, I would say you lose a couple of tenths in the first few turns. the 2nd turn you are a bit slow accelerating out (losing momentum, apex speed looks fine), and the 4th turn before the short straight, you should try to stay closer to the left in the left hander before it, so you can be full throttle for the right hander earlier.

If you would get these a bit faster and not mess up the hairpin, you would be down in 1:24's for sure.

by the way, what tyre pressures were you using? I am with Huttu's setup from their website, which had really low pressures, but raised them 2-3 clicks overall and used 4 ARB at the rear.

edit: beaten by Crommi

Quote from Crommi :

stuff

Hmm, well first of all check if you have enough space on the drive you're recording to - although I suppose you did that already

Other than that, try to untick "No cursor" and try recording without sound and see if the same thing happens. I'm not really sure what else could cause those problems.

Also: thanks for the advice on the lap guys
In all honesty I'm not too fond of the first set of hilly corners - I had a lot of problems there at the start.

As a little bit of extra information: I use Huttu's set from redline, I think it's actually for Infineon full, but it seems to work. Tire pressures are quite low indeed, but I left them there, as well as everything else. I made the rear a bit softer when I started racing there, but now it's all back to full - it helps loads in the faster turns, but makes the car hard to control in the turns where I'm having problems.

Thanks again though, I'll see what I can manage when the service is back up.

Quote from Linsen :

Daniel! You desperately need to work on your SR! You're not gonna advance to Class D if you can't get it above 3.0 by the end of the season. I mean, currently, you're not even allowed to race the Adv. Solstice, and I would imagine that most of us will probably leave the Rookies behind and race at least the adv. if not the skippy in the coming season.

Also, seeing your pace, you'll probably crush the competition in the Rookies next season, as there'll be many new racers coming in...

yeah D: I thought about that last night.

Realized I only have like two or three days of racing left, but that should be plenty. I'm gaining like .1 per clean race, so I just have to put in a few good races between now and july 26th...

I would hate to be stuck in the rookies again next season.

Go for it woman! don't be left behind!

It's up and running again, go go go!

Please excuse my stupid question, and Im not real sure if it has already been asked...but, is it ok to use Iracing with the MoMo, or should I dust off the G25? I guess I really need to ask if there is a "auto clutch" or something similar for those who only have two pedals? Do any of you use the momo for this game? If so, how does it do?

Dont ask why, but I still prefer to use the old momo.

Thanks!

No idea why you would want the momo over the g25...I'd at least give the g25 a try when you get the game. The momo will work fine though. There is an auto clutch mode, auto blip and everything if you want it. At the moment the clutch is pretty unnecessary anyways.

gonna go make some qualifying laps with the solstice in 10 minutes and get some safety rating points

Its not so much that I like the momo better than the G25, its just that we have a pretty small computer desk. When I use the G25, its just not very comfortable and almost takes up the whole front of the desk.

I certainly will try it with both, I was just wondering if the momo was even an option.

Thanks for the replys.

Quote from spanks :

At the moment the clutch is pretty unnecessary anyways.

That's one thing I didn't even know until earlier today. Auto-clutch is a completely useless option right now, as you can shift just fine with it turned off, and probably faster. Needs to be fixed, imho.

garrrrrrrr, made 20 laps...2 offs 1 crash, so 5 incidents. Was hoping for a full clean session, but shit happens.

Gained .04 points, .25 to go!

There were some fast ass people in my session too...

I qualified 6th with a 103.75 1st was 103.2

I don't even know where I could pick up a half a second.

woooooo another race, another .13 to the old safety rating

In a couple hours I hope to have a repeat performance and get above 2.99

I'm at 2.87 right now.

I was grid against some guys that were .1 and .15 faster than my qualifying time....and my qualifying time was my pb from last race. I started 3rd and had a mission...to get out in 1st and drive the wheels off the thing so I could get a lead built up. If they did turn out faster than me I wanted to be out in front where I could do some...strategic driving . I set a new pb, 103.62, with a 66 and 69 before it, and had a comfy lead most of the race.

btw, I saw you linsen ;D

Quote from spanks :

woooooo another race, another .13 to the old safety rating

In a couple hours I hope to have a repeat performance and get above 2.99

I'm at 2.87 right now.

I was grid against some guys that were .1 and .15 faster than me. I started 3rd and had a mission...to get out in 1st and drive the wheels off the thing so I could get a lead built up. I set a new pb, 103.62, with a 66 and 69 before it, and had a comfy lead most of the race.

btw, I saw you linsen ;D

Good race, Daniel! Congrats!

I on the other hand had a quite appalling race. I started 5th and had made it to 3rd place by lap 9. I stayed there for 4 laps until I tried to outbrake some lapper into T1. I overshot the corner and the lapper turned into me.

From there on I limped around the track with a broken suspension in 7th position to fnish in 8th, because I let the guy behind me by. There was no way I could have held him behind, my car was so out of shape. SR went down by 0.02, also.

D: I think I might know the lapped guy you're talking about. He was actually like racing with me and wouldn't let me by. To top it off he was disappearing frequently and reappearing, like more than 15 times in one lap. Its very difficult to go through turn 1 trusting someone who you're lapping, not knowing how good they are...when you can't even see them.

I had to make a pretty difficult pass into turn 1 to get around him as well

He could have made it easier for me to pass him by staying left, but he was pretty much in the middle of the track the whole start/finish straight, so my line into T1 was very tight. Still, if I hadn't overshot the corner under braking, all would probably been good.

Oh, well, better next time.

I just had the strangest race ever.

I start 2nd in car #1, so I know, I must have the highest iRating of the field and only one racer qualified faster than me. I think, well, this is my chance to have my first win ever...

We grid. The guy on 1st jumps the start when the lights pop up. I'm thinking: okay, I don't have to worry about this guy anymore, my 1st win ever is getting closer. Lights turn red ... I jump the start. I'm thinking: Well, you can imagine ... Lights turn green and I get away terribly. But I've given up on the chance of winning this, so I figure, just be clean and don't mess up your SR, and who knows, maybe a couple of people will crash and you might get a decent finish.

I serve my time in the pits and head out again. I'm in 8th now. Could have been worse, I'm thinking. One lap later I cross the finish line in 6th, because two guys in front of me crash or spin or whatever. I get by the mess safely. One lap later I'm in 4th. You know, people spinning etc. I reel off two safe laps an I am gaining on 3rd ... which is where I find myself on lap 7. The guy on 1st obviously spun or crashed, or whatever. I'm still gaining on the guy in front of me. On lap 9 I pass him on the s/f straight, iirc, because he got out of shape through the downhill. I'm thinking: well, let's see if the guy in 1st is much faster than me. He's not. I'm rapidly gaining on him and I'm up his bumper by lap 13 or 14. On lap 15, I get a run on him out of the last turn (again, iirc, it all happened so fast, I tend to forget). I'm on the outside and only a nose in front. I brake late and see him slotting in behind me nicely with a large safety margin. I'm thinking: Bring this home safely and it is in fact your first win ... if a little different than expected. Well, I do. I finish 1st with 0 incidents.

The guy in 1st actually let me by on lap 16, because he desperately needed to get his safety rating above 3.0. He was afraid I'd punt him off like had happened to him in the previous race. Plus, I was quite a bit faster. More than one second on average, actually. And it was certainly not my fastest race ever, tbh. I had an average of 1:05.5 (which was his pb). SoF was a measly 1.337, btw, which explains something. I must have been just the best of the rest.

Somehow, I had hoped my first win to be a little more gratifying and exciting. Well, maybe next time.



Edit: erm, I just realized that this wasn't my first win ever. It was my second. How I could forget that, I don't know, but I guess my first win wasn't all that exciting either.

hey nice job

wins are wins no matter how they come :]

I'm all registered for the 3:00 gmt race in 20 minutes. I need 20 clean laps here and I'll be 3.0 no problem

I wish I could just switch off my competitive side and just cruise here...but I doubt that'll happen. At least I'm feeling pretty consistent today. I think I've found a damn good line around the place, and just gotta keep from roasting the tires early (like lap 8 :shy like I did last time...I'm actually kind of hoping for a weaker field this time around, but am not really expecting it.

wow I'm tired...too much racing today lol. I lost my rhythm on about lap 10, and it was pretty scary at times. I kept running into the inside kerbs and getting sideways, and then my tires wore out...about the same with average lap time though, I guess thats good.

I did run a new pb on lap 4, 103.54, and came in 2nd overall. On lap 9 second place got in the dirt on the outside of turn one...the mistake that ruins your entire race.

Got my safety rating up to 3.42!!!!!!!!! I can now relax and make my eyes stop hurting. I think I stopped blinking or something


I'm glad it finally started pairing me with faster people. Now I get to go play in the advanced solstice and get my ass kicked

edit-- well, I took the plunge. I'm locked in for a year and am currently downloading the skippy, radical, and sears point...I cannot wait. I am seriously addicted to this thing haha.