Quote from George Kuyumji :

Thats right.

Big part besides of the sense of speed is how the car is setted up. Setups in LFS are often very loose compared to normal Road cars. I'm just wondering what type of wheel and pedals are you using? There are big differences in Pedals, there are plastic ones which measure the amount of braking applied by the way the pedal traveled, or more expensive pedals that feel alot better and work by the amount of force applied to it.

Using M/soft FFB2 wheel and pedals, which I realise isn't exactly state of the art by today's standards but I've become used to them over a couple of years.

Quote from AndroidXP :

How replays are saved depends a bit on how you set up LFS, but this section of the LFS Manual explains it quite nicely.

Once the setup is saved ingame, you can go to "<LFS install dir>/data/spr" for single player replays (respectively to "<LFS install dir>/data/mpr" for multiplayer ones), find the replay in question and attach it to a post here in the forum. To do that, first click on "new reply" like you normally do, scroll down a bit to the "Additional Options" and there you find a button named "Manage Attachments". That opens a popup window in which you can browse to the replay you located earlier and upload it to the forums by pressing the "upload" button. Once this is done, you can close the popup and continue writing your post as normal.

Thanks for the info.

Quote from George Kuyumji :

I have driven alot of Road Cars and Formula cars on and over the limit and I do think the amount of Grip in LFS is quite good.

What has been mentioned before is quite true, that with the common field of view most are using, the sense of speed is not coming across. If you drive in your car and take both hands to cover what you see at the sides, and only look at a small portion of the view in front, like you do in LFS, you get the impression that your going much slower than you do.
That leads to corners beeing taken to fast and the impression that the car has to low Grip.

Choxaway, an included Replay in your opening Post would have been nice, you could take the car on a lap at the limit, then post the Replay and say at which corners you would expect the car to have more Grip. Because then, when reviewing and analysing the drive one can take a better look at the speeds and the amount of steering.
I have driven a Lotus Caterham the type of car you mentioned in your opening Post, I would consider the amount of Grip in the LX4 pretty accurate, not perfect by any means but not very far off.

Hi George,
I agree with your point concerning restricted views - it's also a bit like looking forward through a zoom lens on a camera whereby the foreshortened image totally eliminates a true sense of speed, whereas the same camera at its wide angle setting will dramatically increase that feeling of speed - something I notice a lot when viewing TV footage of a race from the camera mounted on the driver's helmet. In order to take in a wider FOV, the tiny camera's set at quite a wide angle and the car appears to travel much faster as a result.

I found that altering my FOV to about 60 gave me a more natural - or should I say equivalent to a real - driving view forward and sense of speed but as you say, it's like wearing blinkers and the speed sensation is thus reduced. It's only since setting up my TIRPro enabling me to look about me as I would in reality, thus removing the blinkers but still in the correct driving position in the car, that I found a much happier state of affairs where I can judge my speeds and anticipate corners in a more realistic manner. With a virtual driver in place, when I look around I can see 'my' shoulders where they should be and I'm not located too far forward or back in the virtual seat. The huge advantage of TIR3 is that I can quickly glance round, sit higher or crouch down a bit, lean left or right slightly as though anticipating centrifugal force, albeit not actually there, in much the same way as if driving a real car.

I wish I had one of those rumble seats (someone raving about these in the flight sim forums) whereby the force feedback that I enjoy with my M/Soft FFB2 wheel and pedals is similarly transmitted to the seat and gives the flyer (or in this case driver) feedback from the virtual wheels. Maybe the vibration coming back from the road surface might impart some sense of weight to the cars and sideways momentum when turning hence the old 'flying by the seat of your pants' expression.

One problem when approaching corners is that when braking there's no feeling of weight beneath your body or being forced sideways by gravity etc, which may well be why I initially had so much difficulty feeling my way around the track. I still think the Caterham-types appear underweight and skittish, when I would have thought their body weight or mass would, in conjunction with their low height, wide tracking and fat wheels, give them more grip on the bends - particularly being dry weather.
Likewise, come out of a bend too fast and when the back starts to go, I would normally counter this with a touch of opposite steer but do that in these cars and they take on a life of their own swinging back and forth until a total spin results. I seriously believe decent tyres on such fat wheels wouldn't react so violently but it's only my impression, never having raced the real thing.

As to your first point, having only just bought the game, I had no idea I could keep the playbacks and access them other than immediately after a race, how long they remain recorded and stored - and where to gain access to them again another day.

Quote from KanseiDneova :

When you press Alt+Tab, it windows out whatever you are in. Start up LFS, when you are gonna test sounds, stick the car in neutral, and alt tab out of the game. Save which ever sound you want, and then, click the button on your windows taskbar to bring LFS back up. Rinse and repeat.

Cheers,
Matt.

Thanks Matt - just me being a bit dense.:dunce:
I'll start testing some sounds.

Quote from sinbad :

I don't use steer-look, or in fact lateral movement either because I find it harder to be sure which way the car is pointing. I use the up/down and forward/backward head movement though, it just seems more lively. It's generally turned down from default because in the formula cars you sometimes find yourself staring at a screen full of footwell if you go through a compression at high speed

Current setting:
1g head tilt 1.00degree
1g lat shift 0.000
1g forward 0.018
1g vert 0.007

My apologies for another newbie question, but do these adjustments only work if you drive with a fixed view forward? In other words, as I use TIR3Pro that allows me to look wherever I want, would these adjustments you list still be relevant or have any effect?

Quote from KanseiDneova :

Alt-Tabbin'

Cheers,
Matt.

Sorry - don't get it . . .

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm new to the game. All the sounds posted here are to be downloaded and installed into the game - fine. I now understand how to access them within the game but is there no facility for samples to be played on this forum?
It seems very long winded to d'load, install, crank up the game, edit, continue etc if only to find I don't like that sound and have to reload the original or another alternative and try again. There are so many available, judging by the number being posted here, and if they could be heard on site here we could flip through them selecting those we particularly like before d/loading and installing them. Or have I missed something very basic?

Quote from choxaway :

"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:

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 . . . ?

Quote from AndroidXP :

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:

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.

Quote from LFSn00b :

Downloding the S2 "add-on" doesn't need the S2 license, you can still use your S1 license in the S2 add-on.

My fault for not being familiar with the terminology - I have only released the amount of tracks and cars I can drive with my S1 licence - I'll need an S2 licence to release the remainder. It would have been simpler if they'd named the two sections perhaps Phase 1 and 2 to avoid the multiple use of 'S' - being new to this game, I was rather muddled.

Having originally played the demo and found the roadholding on the one circuit on offer a bit tricky, I assumed it was just me getting used to the game. The dirt track roadholding seemed quite authentic (I've done a very small amount of off-road go-karting as well as some tarmac races) but having just paid for and installed the S1 release (presume Patch X is this latest release and don't need to install that over the top?) I have to question the grip of any of the cars on offer.
I currently drive a fast sports car and at my age (59) am reasonably experienced at handling all manner of cars on assorted surfaces. On dry tarmac, most of the cars in the game should grip very well going round bends - the single seater and some of the two seaters (look like the Lotus or Caterham 7) should grip these surfaces with ease. Their wide wheelbase, fat wheels and low centre of gravity should allow them to whip through bends with hardly a twitch provided one isn't overly heavy on the throttle, but these cars twitch and spin off as if they were running on slicks on wet roads - and even under these circumstances the real cars would have way more grip than those in the game do in the dry.

I've read threads where those in the know say one should drive much slower, accelerate extremely delicately through and out of bends, but I do that in real life and know I can safely rely on my car to grip and hold the road. Not so in the game - you'd think we were driving on snow and ice.
Whilst I'm having a whinge, I realise work is being done on upgrading the A1 so that it doesn't ram into me at every opportunity as though I were invisible (at least I hope that's what the developers are doing), but the merest touch from an A1 car, and mine leaps into the air or develops an interest in revolving on the spot as though it weighs about two pounds instead of the several hundred of the real vehicle. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the A1 cars had the same problems but drive into or nudge one of them and they barely twitch a muscle and continue on their way unaffected as though I don't exist. How come their cars don't weigh two pounds as well?

I don't play any games online but I assume those who play against other human drivers find everyone suffering from similar lack of grip - at least that puts them all on an even footing and thus makes the races fairer. I also presume it's only the A1 that have superglue on their tyres. The roadholding issues need to be attended to if this is ever going to be remotely realistic. We need to play this game on a level setting - either our cars all grip the road and drive realistically or none of them do - I wish the developers would make up their minds.

Despite my moans, I still enjoy the overall driving experience, the realistic sense of speed and the 'normality' of the graphics - skies, trees, roadside rendering that don't look as cartoon-like as some games, but I feel disinclined to pay for and download the S2 add-on until I can see some increased sense of reality kicking into this game. For now I'll just have to deal with the A1's concrete fast cars and hope things improve with later patches.
What is interesting, though, is that after several intense sessions playing the game, when I later jump into my own car and head off into the hills, I find I'm taking bends way more cautiously than before . . .

Quote from CSU1 :

just make sure you dont brake too early with AI behind you :ambulance

Only just got the game and am convinced the A1 are superhumans with solid cars. They barely nudge me and I'm spinning like a lunatic but if I ram their backends (was by accident at first but now I'm getting peeved), they just carry on as though nothing's happened.
Whilst I'm at it, I drive a fast sports car and think I know how to take a bend without too much danger but these cars have the road holding abilities of a bag of worms. On dry roads and with slicks, they should all grip like #### to a shovel but even the single seater's pretty rubbish at taking sharp bends, whilst the A1 guys zip round them with hardly a twitch.
Any plans for these issues to be sorted in a patch as this is now beginning to seriously annoy?:arge: