Count me in! Just heard about the race from Hallen. I'll help in any way I can. I'm not that fast, but I just ran a very solid race in the XRR last weekend for OLFSL...

[lota]tgrand[/lota]

Last edited by tgrand, Wed 23 May 2007, 18:56. Reason : fixed sig

Stats from today's tuneup races are available here:

http://www.nassaracing.com/NASSA/stats/tuneup060903.htm

Hi, just letting everyone know - we're on track to start race 2 on time:

Qualifying for Race 2 begins @ 18:45 GMT with the Race starting @ 19:05.

Well, here are my thoughts about the issue of the layout...

1) It would've been better to reveal the layout earlier. But, as racers, shouldn't we be able to adapt to changing conditions? I didn't think it was that big of a change anyway because none of the objects were on the track or right near the edge. They were all well off the track, as far as I can remember.

2) It's totally impractical for the hosts to police each driver and make sure they stay on the track, even after the fact with replays. Also, during the race, their actions affect all of the other drivers who are trying to drive correctly. Using a custom layout like this seems like the best and most practical solution to me to discourage people from driving off the track.

3) You guys are in serious need of some upgrades. My PC is a 2.8GHz P4, 1GB RAM, 9800 Pro. It's almost 3 years old now and wasn't top of the line when I built it. It's probably going to suffer horribly when Oblivion comes out at the end of this month. But still it's enough to run LFS comfortably at 1600x1200 with 4xAA, 8xAF, even for the Skilldriving Challenge which had hundreds of objects on the track. The number of objects introduced by this layout was relatively small. It seems hard to believe that it would have a significant impact on framerate.

I think what hurt framerate this time around, at least for me, was having a lot of cars near each other all kicking up dust. Dust is a killer. It eats up fillrate like crazy. I think at one point I had 4 or 5 cars right in front of me, lots of dust in the air, and the framerate got down to the 20's maybe, but thankfully it was still plenty drivable. Most of the time it was around 40-60.

If anyone really thinks the layout is what hurt their FPS, I suggest they post FPS numbers when racing alone (single player or empty multi server) with and without the layout loaded.

Quote from HeerBommel :

I learned the lesson in the previous OLFSL race. Could it be caused by applying the limiter too early at high speed? A realistic feature of the game?

I remembered that happening to you in the last race and thought it was interesting that it happened to me this time. In my case, I think it was hardware failure rather than the game. I'd say about half the time, when I hit my pit limiter button, it goes on and back off. So I'm used to it, and I watch for the green light. And I know I saw that green light this time. But what puzzles me is how I could've missed the light going out right away, because it happens really fast. My eyes must've shifted away immediately after seeing the green light show up.

It would be incredibly useful if there was a threshold in LFS that could filter out these extraneous events. For example, I pressed the pit limiter button. Now, for the next 50 or 100 milliseconds, ignore any events from that button. I used to have this problem when I used buttons to shift, and sometimes it would be so bad that I'd push the downshift button once and go from 5th gear to 2nd. Ouch. Good thing the paddles on my wheel work more reliably (for now).

I originally planned on driving the FZR, but that idea went out the window once I found out the FXR could do the race on only two stops. I knew it made more sense to go for a higher pool... go for the points... but the idea of winning with pit strategy was too attractive. Also, the FXR had the added advantage of being easier to drive, which was good because I really wanted to finish the race in one piece.

Somehow I managed to get through the race without making any big mistakes. Eventually it became clear that I could easily do 13 laps on one set of tires without being much slower than the rest of the guys (except for the crazy-fast leader), and it would be a big enough advantage to finish in second place easily. Then, on my last pit stop, I went over the speed limit just after entering the pits. I had turned my limiter on, but due to all the buttons on my wheel being worn out, the button press had registered twice.. so the limiter went on and back off. Lesson learned: Don't trust that pit limiter!

I was wondering if I could still stay ahead even with the drive through penalty. For a little while at the end, I thought HeerBommel was going to catch me. But it turned out to just be the leader coming to lap me.

Very exciting race, and although it was my longest ever, it still didn't seem too long. I was expecting my legs to be more sore. Big thanks to the hosts and fellow racers for making it happen.

[NASSA] Osoi

I'll be there as well.

[NASSA] Osoi

Wow.. That is simply beautiful. I am in awe.

Two questions, if I may:

1) Have you had any trouble with friction or squeaking with the gas pedal?

2) What software do you use for the shifter?

By the way, Solar Hydro: LFS runs really well on an LCD. I switched to a Dell 2001FP (20", 16ms) a few months ago and there are absolutely no problems with ghosting or anything.

Last edited by tgrand, Thu 8 Dec 2005, 01:32.

Heh, that was quite a race. I was trying very hard to catch up, and praying that I could get by without contact. That last corner was like a miracle. And even still, I barely crossed the line ahead.

We've raced together a bit in the past, but this season I think you've always been in faster pools. Now I'll be trying extra hard to catch up to your hotlaps so maybe we can race again someday.

Thanks for some great racing, HeerBommel!

[NASSA] Osoi

Take a look at lap time stability in pools 1 and 2 versus 3, 4, and 5. Quite a shocker.