Quote from Flotch :

omg, I feel even older when I remind this too

Flotch the crazy Frenchman Ah the good memories of our hotlap battles. Do you remember the BF1 Rallyx hotlaps? You even dominated weird combos like these :P

Hey everyone, it's been a while, just thought I'd drop by again.
I guess I never really said goodbye before I quit. I really enjoyed LFS for many many years, LFS used to be a big part of my life back then, but there comes a time when you've got to move on.
I doubt I'd be of much use right now, my steering wheel has certainly been collecting a lot of dust during the years. Some occasional karting laps are all that's left of my racing addiction
I've been playing a lot of Path of Exile and Wurm Online lately, as well as many other short-lived games in the years before. Also, Real Life has been keeping me busy.

That's just how life goes, you grow older and things come and go. Reminiscing about the good old times sometimes gives me a warm and fuzzy feelings, but some things aren't gonna come back. One of the big lessions in life

I'm well on my way to grandpahood with sentences like these, huh? :P

Quote from Alkanphel :

I believe biggie's the only one who can stand hours and hourse of hotlapping. I myself would rather beat other people than the clock.

Well, I suppose this image of mine is hard to get rid of Indeed I used to do a lot of hotlapping some years back. It's not like that now. I haven't put nearly as much effort into the current S2 WRs as I used to with the S1 WRs. Recently I've kind of turned my back on LFS a bit due to other interests.

Just to explain my point of view on hotlapping/racing: I've always liked hotlapping ever since I played my first racing games. It's always been interesting to me how far you can push a car on a certain track and just how quick you could go.
I respect everyone to whom racing is everything and hotlapping is nothing, my personal preference is just the other way round.

Quote from duke_toaster :

Big Brother :vomit:

First season was kinda interesting. For everything that followed, I agree. And as you might have guessed, I somehow got turned away by all the fake hype and marketing crap they tried to pull off.

Quote from duke_toaster :

Maybe Biggie might appear in the next series if they get nearer to the bottom of the list

I don't think so... at least not in this universe

Quote from JTbo :

Whom big brother's house? Who left?

I like music from first one, not from singing, remind me from Eine Kleine Satellit that I like, I doubt that many have heard from that however.

Second one is really horrible, they can't sing at all, so really great for this thread

Well, in Germany the concept of Big Brother in the first season was to vote for the most unpopular inhabitant to leave the house.

I've heard and seen that there is (or used to be) Big Brother on TV in almost any country of this world... I'm wondering if they used the same marketing concept, exploited the inhabitants' popularity and "composed" some kind of alibi-music to make the most cash possible.

My contribution to the general amusement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xEKKorXpc4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdgAlGhn-Ak

This crap I remember even after all those years...

Oh and by the way: how did other countries deal with the inhabitants of their Big Brother houses after they left? Were they also given streamlined songs & careers to make money with them? That's how it used to be in Germany back then anyway...

In fact, I did just that. See this posting:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=292791#post292791

However, my soundcard driver doesn't have a built-in equalizer so I cannot change the sound signature on the fly. Even then I wouldn't like it very much since all of the other sounds coming from the soundcard (especially music) would sound horrible when everything is optimized for LFS.
I think it might be best to include that EQ setting into the LFS sound generation, don't you think?

So there's a difference indeed! I'm using a Terratec Aureon 5.1 Sky and incl. latest drivers.
My sound lag is set to 0.10 for Patch V and used to be 0.20 for U9.

Sorry to spoil the party, but I'm not so sure if we're hearing quite the same sounds. Are there significant differences between soundcards or something?
Imo, the RAC is one of the weakest new sounds, next to the RB4. In fact, it sounds almost exactly like the RB4.

- RAC Sound comparison
- RB4 Sound comparison

I still like the old sounds much more. They are much more balanced and there's more fullness to them.
The LX6 sounds a little better than those two above but it's not so much an improvement over the old sound than a sidestep, a different flavour:

- LX6 Sound comparison

Quote from RaceDoctor :

Am I the only one who thinks the new car sounds sound too alike to a vacuum cleaner?

I wouldn't say it in such a sarcastic way, but anyway.... hear for yourselves:
I've created a few sample sound files with direct comparisons between old and new sound. Those are the exact same laps played twice in full length - switches happen every few seconds, while the other sound continues to run silently in the background.


- FXO Sound comparison
- RAC Sound comparison
- RB4 Sound comparison
- LX6 Sound comparison
- FXR Sound comparison

First of all: Thanks for your continuous hard work Scawen! I appreciate your efforts very much.
So, I've now tried U35 + U36 sounds myself and while some of them are "good", some are barely "okay" and there's a few I really don't like at all.
I don't want to sound ungrateful or like I was up for a rant, but I just want to give my honest (and hopefully constructive) criticism on the new sounds. I may also emphasize that this is strongly "imo" and since I've come straight from U9, I think my ears are fresh enough to be able to evaluate the new sounds critically.
Mind you, I've still been using U9 up to now and I've never had any real complaints about those sounds so far. Plenty of information, crisp skid sounds providing vital feedback to make up for missing g-forces from the car.
Now hearing the changes in the recent versions for the first time, I must say that indeed the muffling irritates my ears quite a bit. I've read through most of the thread and I've seen many people complain about the sounds being too muffled, which some say has significantly improved in U36. Can't say I agree, to me it sounds pretty much wrong and unnatural. Anyway, ultimately the only relevant comparison is before (old sound system) - after (new sounds system).
I'm now gonna write up my opinion on each of the cars I've tested:

RB4: One of the worst imo. I had the feeling that it doesn't really sound like a car engine - there's a kind of "nasal" sound to it that makes it sound almost funny. It sounds like someone trying to speak while squeezing their nose (http://www.jyi.org/articleimages/278/img0.jpg)
XRT: Basically similar in tone compared to the RB4. Not quite that annoying, but also very "nasal" and hollow sounding.
FXO: Also similar to the former two. Appears to have lost some of the grunt and character it used to have. There very nice "roar" at low revs seems to be is gone now. Also the turbo sound (~17-18 KHz "tweeting") during full throttle becomes quite annoying and fatiguing after a short period of time. (maybe I should use very bad headphones instead which aren't able to reproduce that noise )
LX4: Sounds very much like the XRT.
LX6: Much of the "raspiness" from U9 is gone. Very smooth and sine-like. Sounds okay but worse than U9 imo.
FZ5: Pretty good but a little too smooth and muffled.
FXR: One of the few I think sounds better than before. There's some nice harmonics going on and it sounds more like a car than any of the others. A little less raspy than before but overall gains a lot from the added gear whine.
FZR: Nice tone but overall too muffled. Could be improved with a little more raspiness/distortion like it used to have.
XRR: Reminds me of the XRT very much - with a little more midbass and gear whine. Sounds almost the same except for that.
BF1: Nice in a certain way and certainly closer to being realistic - but too tame and quiet. TC sound is very good, except for a little too much bass (as has been mentioned before)
FO8: I'm a bit undecided on this one. Sounds okay, but I'd say that up to 7k rpm this is how the road cars should sound. Doesn't sound too much like a high-powered single seater race car.

Conclusion: overall I feel kind of irritated by the new muffled sounds. A lot of feedback is lost compared to U9 when the skid sounds (and even scrub sounds just before the tires were about to lose grip) were clearly audible. Actually it's necessary for virtual drivers to compensate for not feeling the g-forces. One can do that by looking at the speedo and listening to the sounds (skid + engine). Both of which have been made less useful - while this may be more realistic, it doesn't really help to compensate for what's missing.

Also, it's somehow like ears lack a point of reference now - I don't feel like I'm sitting in the car, I just wanna wake up and remove the damn pillow from my ears!
Alright, I've never heard tires squealing hard from inside a real car but what's most important here is that LFS sounds good. And I'm safe to say that this doesn't sound so good to my ears.

Most of the new sounds appear to have lost character too - character that made the cars seem more different from one another. Now in U35 I almost instantly had the feeling: "ah well, this is the same synthesizer generating the sounds for all cars, just with a few small mods here and there" while before they sounded less alike.

No love for #8 or #7 so far? I think these sound pretty decent too and should be "fairly easy" to implement.

About #3: if I had known before that everyone digs it so much, I'd have noted exactly how I did it. Unfortunately I can't seem to reproduce it anymore (originating from the base sound)

Quote from (SaM) :

Gentlemen, start your engines! For those that haven't noticed, a starting engine sound has now been added. Try it out by shutting down the engine with I and restarting it.

I've played a little with the sound SaM posted and I think I've managed to somewhat improve it. I've basically bumped up the mids&highs (> 1.5 KHz) a lot to get rid of the "in-helmet" feeling. Then I've added more deep bass (80-160 Hz), while making the midbass (200-400 Hz) frequencies a little quieter in comparison to the other parts of the spectrum. The ~400 Hz frequencies (400 Hz = telephone tone) seemed way too loud to my ears before.

I've attached two proper sound samples and also a screenshot of the EQ settings for "lfs_sound8". This might help Scawen when making possible sound tweaks.
"lfs_sound3" is the result of playing a bit more with various filters. While that sound is obviously very much distorted, I thought it had a very nice flavour to it during the full throttle phase
It consists of two layers of the engine sound (1 of the layers tweaked with a very odd filter) with a slight offset of ~1 millisecond.
This would surely be too complicated to reproduce from within LFS, but I thought someone else might enjoy hearing it.

Please note that I've tested these sounds on a fairly high-end system (Sennheiser HD650s + good sound cards), so I can't say how well the sounds work on lesser systems.

Quote from AndyC :

Nicely said Biggie although I would have to disagree with the less war, crime etc. comment.

Mhhh, I must say I saw that coming since I didn't really elaborate that comment enough. Didn't want to make my post even longer than it is already
No way around this now... so.....

Well, sure this won't cure all of our problems, as I said:

Quote from biggie :

I don't wanna claim it would solve all of our problems which it doesn't.

But just assume for a moment that we all suddenly had a change of mind and would begin to see the people around us not as total strangers but as precious individuals.
Imagine for a moment that people would acknowledge each other by getting closer to each other and approaching each other with a sense of love instead of general scepticism and distrust.
Imagine that even the politicians would find what's left of their human nature somewhere deep inside - do you really think that they would be able to order people to go to war or perform murders in their interest?
Someone with true love and a sense of caring for others in their heart could NEVER do this. I'm sure there would be a fundamental change of course in their policies if they would let themselves be lead primarily by their best intentions for ALL the people in this world and not only the citizens of their country.
Obviously this is so highly hypothetical and very far from reality. The world is what it is and its long-time conventions and structures won't be changed easily.
This won't affect all those disturbed maniacs out there either - those whose minds just function in a different way. What about the psychopaths who have an entirely different perspective on life and death. Some of them wouldn't even give a damn about being hugged or being nice to others. This wouldn't affect many criminals or otherwise narrow-minded people either. You cannot make up for years of lacking education and for the damage that their parents might have caused them.

This topic is so complex (talk about the entire world and the flaws of the human race, eh? ) that I cannot even begin to claim that this campaign will help to cure the cancer in the hearts of many. I was merely talking in idealistic terms while I must sadly confess that my ideals differ from reality very much.
In my imagination, if that sense of love and appreciation for others really were an integral part of our souls, there wouldn't be so many ugly things around. Hugging others is a part (and a start) of acknowleding others and spreading the love and good intentions within you.
But ultimately all this "change the world thingy" is just wishful thinking :/

It still doesn't prevent us from being a good example to other people and even the slightest bit of consideration and thought might make a huge different altogether. And of course this shouldn't keep you from doing what you think is right. You can't do any better than spreading positive vibes

Quote from george_tsiros :

...

Quote from Slidaaaa :

The way you talk just tells me you cryed watching it,dont be ashamed, you are still a man..

That's probably true. And I think he's not only a man, but most of all he's still a human being - being human includes male and female of course (ya rly!). In the end we are all just people with the same needs and wants...

I totally love this video and imo it's nothing short of ingenious. It almost brought me to tears the first time I watched it. Anybody give this guy a medal or something...
Because what he shows us is that it doesn't take much to achieve something good. With you heart in the right place and a little bit of unconventional thinking a lot can be achieved.
In the world of today I sometimes get sick of all that elbow-mentality and impersonality among us. Sometimes all we are is profit-making, heartless, robotic and self-focussed entities who seem to have been blinded by the obligations and constraints of our society... some of us seem to have forgotten to be true to what we ultimately are: human.
This video is a manifestation of humanity which tells me that maybe not all hope is lost for us. I may add for those who don't seem to have gotten the point of this video (and drifted off the the gay/blabla/silly-stuff) that this video has absolutely NOTHING to do with sexual desires or any particular affection to people of certain genders, it's just "taking people for what they are" and giving love back to the universe.
I'm sure that any of you will agree with me that loving the people and the world around you is the best thing you can do. Being hostile and fierce to others will only come back to you eventually.

If only more people (and I'm thinking of especially high-ranking politicians (just imagine GWB hugging Iraqis...)) would do things like these there would be less wars, less crime, less hatred and more understanding for the people who sometimes seem alien to us. Quite frequently all this is nothing but stupid preconceptions.
I don't wanna claim it would solve all of our problems which it doesn't. And hugging people isn't really a magic spell, but it certainly would help to make the world better place than it is now. Did you know that making other people feel good will make you feel good too? It's almost a vicious circle really

I just wish I had the courage to follow in his footsteps and do something like that video myself...

Oh and please be sure to view my attachment, too.

(it doesn't take THAT much squeezing though )

Quote from SladiVadi :

You should go to a shop and try some headphones.
Also high impedance cans (300Ohms) need a proper (external) amp to sound good.
I can recommend Sennheiser HD650s. Descent bass (more compared to HD600) and very detailed sound.

The HD650s are indeed high impedance cans but they still sound good out of my CDP's headphone jack "unamped" - on a regular basis I'm using a dedicated headphone amp + high quality soundcard though.
They will still blow you away unamped if you've never heard true hifi sound before and you could surely live happily with that sound forever (if you never wonder if there's even more), but clearly the cans are capable of things much beyond this.
Then again the OP was asking for cans for less than 50 pounds... I could go on and rave of the finest audiophile headphones when he actually just wants a reasonably cheap pair for gaming.
So you don't NEED an amp, you can do just fine without, but some people go as far as to spend another $1000 on amps, DACs and aftermarket cables to get the most out of the HD650s. When going down the Grado SR-60 road I suggested, you certainly won't need one.

Quote from TyresHot :

Sennheiser, AKG, Beyerdynamic wont be bad choices..

Don't forget Audio Technica and Stax! :P
And yet, all of these brands have a focus on real audiophile equipment. Something which is clearly uncalled for in this thread. There are low-end models but not many of them are a really good bang for the buck. There are some really crappy Sennheiser low-end phones out there for example...

Quote from Rtsbasic :

I'm looking into purchasing some decent headphones, primarily for gaming use on my PC & PS2 when everyones in bed, and was wondering if anybody could recommend a good set? Main requirements would be having better sound quality than my £8 ones, good cable length (so I don't have to sit right next to the telly for the PS2, seen wireless ones but no idea if they're any good or not), and not too pricey - around £50 or so is my upper limit. I've heard of directionional ones that apparently "fake" surround sound, are these any good? Any and all advise/suggestions appreciated.
Cheers.

Well, I personally own a pair of Grado SR-60s and Sennheiser HD650s. While the latter is WAY out of your price range, the former is definitely a "big bad bang for the buck" headphone (imo).
These can without a doubt be considered an "entry-level high end" headphone at a very humble price.
The SR-60s work well without any decent amplification and I promise that you will be delighted with the sound of these at first. They have some very nice and punchy bass and quite remarkable resolution overall.... so I think you'll like them... if, yes if, you're not too much bothered with: their brightness (sibilance), their relatively low comfort (start to become uncomfortable after 2-3 hours of usage for me), their lack of soundstage (some say it's bad for gaming, I personally wouldn't know) and their poor isolation.
I may add that some people who own much more expensive (and supposedly higher-quality) gear have kept their Grado SR-60s because they're simply fun - despite being less refined and resolving. I think it says a lot

I just did a search and you might wanna watch these auctions on ebay (hope you can stretch your budget another few pounds because they're really worth it):
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GRADO-SR ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Grado-Pr ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GRADO-SR ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If you're more out for a very low-budget purchase, I've heard a lot of positive comments (from respectable people who know what they're talking about) on the Koss KSC75's and I suppose you'll find it hard to believe that they go for only ~9 Pounds new:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Koss-5 ... ie=UTF8&s=electronics
Most people I know say that they sound better than just about anything up to 5-6 times their price, so you might wanna have an eye on them.

So when you say that you wanna do gaming/listen to music while people are in bed, does that mean they'll sleep in the same room? If so, you cannot go for anything else but closed phones and the above cans might not suit you at all.
But if there's at least a door in between, you shouldn't worry too much.

However, in order to give you proper recommendations, it would be helpful to know what your sonic preferences are: mids, highs, lows? Soundstage? A more relaxing sound, or rather somewhat engaging? Are you sensitive to any parts of the sound spectrum? Would you even care to listen to music with these at all?

Quote from Bob Smith :

£140? That's not insane at all. Grados are insane.

Ah, that's nuffin' either!
http://www.audiocubes2.com/cat ... h_SRM-007t_Amplifier.html

Oh, it gets better. Only $7999, dead cheap. That's some ~$10000 discount compared to their original pricing almost two decades back:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1179025

Quote from duke_toaster :

Am I the only person that thinks a £8 pair is perfectly functional

Functional, yes. Decent sounding? Well, that's highly subjective. Until you've heard something better you'll probably think you're doing okay. But you won't believe how much is in your recordings that crappy headphones simply hide from you. Better headphones make you experience music in a totally new way. Been there, done that.
It really depends on your preference and if you're someone to whom music and the ultimate enjoyment of it is important or not. To me, music and good sound IS important, that's why I'm willing to throw a bit more cash in that direction than most people would

Last edited by biggie, Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:23.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Exodus made an interesting point to me the other day: I was surprised that he was running twice as much camber as me, but the insides of his tyres were running cooler than mine. He pointed out that reducing camber reduces available grip in the turns, which can cause wheels to slip and generate more heat. My setup was certainly doing that. So while too much camber can cause the insides to cook because only a small part of the tyre is doing most of the work of accelerating and braking, too little camber can cook the whole tyre during cornering.

... what I said

Quote from biggie :

You should really try my new set again. Because of your low pressures and your relatively low camber settings, the tires deform quite a lot during cornering. You should aim for keeping the contact patch even during the corner. Imo, you're clearly running too little camber. More camber helps you deal with extreme situations a little when the car is "tilted" even more because of clipping a curb. You can think of driving over inside curbs as adding "more positive camber to the outside wheels".

Oh and how's your progress coming? If you're feeling stuck you might wanna come back to this thread and ask for counseling

Quote from DaveWS :

Biggie, If you don't mind me asking, how many laps on average of experience with a combo does it take for you to set a WR?

Hard to say really... it mostly depends on the setup and the popularity of the combo. I spend 50-80% of my time tweaking setups to my liking, so most of the time is spent not doing actual "hot laps" because I can't/don't want to focus on my driving yet.
I haven't spent much time on most of my current WRs though, maybe up to 20-60 minutes each. Given I have a good set from the start and the combo is not that popular, it sometimes takes me 15-20 minutes only (like FE1 XRT).
There are a few more pushed WRs on which I spent much more time. But it's hard to make a generalization.

Quote from 96 GTS :

I think if you reread his post, he's saying the exact same thing you are, once you master the LX6, the LX4 is easy. I agree with this, by the way.

Nono, he was saying you first need to be able to control the LX6 - and only when you can do that, you will have what it takes to master the LX4.

Quote from Alles :

i think if you want to go fast with lX4 then you need to 1st figure out LX6

I was trying to say that I have a different opinion on that, meaning that you can be fast in the LX4 without ever having mastered the "beast" LX6.

Of course this implies that once you succeed in controlling the LX6, you'll have an easy time controlling the LX4. Probably that's what we all agree on.

Quote from Alles :

hehe, well untill then ill try to get faster, had better split by few tenths allready but screwed it illepall

Hope you don't mind me doing the dirty work for you
Dirty is the right word btw, that lap was certainly crap, 1:44 definitely possible. I've attached my set for anyone who wants to try it.

Quote from Alles :

More of a challenge to me is LX6, i think if you want to go fast with lX4 then you need to 1st figure out LX6, thats what i did

Well, uh, in my opinion it's the other way round. Being able to control the LX6 means you can control the more forgiving LX4. On the other hand, being able to control the small amount of power of the LX4 doesn't mean you have enough sensitivity in your right foot to control the untamed force of the LX6

Quote from Shotglass :

wow i really should start to use afs more or rather at all
btw do you talk about yourself in 3rd person often ? and would you mind if i refer to you as julius from now on ?

It would seem you haven't heard about it yet, but that was the other half of my split personality writing the article. The other (biggie-) half and the author half are only barely acquainted. Hope that explains why the author half used the third person perspective. Of course this must be the biggie half writing at this post at the moment.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Biggie... I am amazed - thank you so much for this! I didn't realise quite how much analysis could be done using Analyse for Speed. I'll reply to a few points, but really, I am so pleased that you 1) Showed me such a comprehensive comparison of our laps. That really is amazing. And 2) Showed me how much information can be taken using this application. This is exactly the sort of feedback I was hoping for when I started this thread, and I couldn't hope for a better-qualified respondent than yourself. I've saved your analysis page offline in case it ever disappears because it's just sheer racing technique awesomeness. Thank you again!
[...]
It really blew me away. I've looked at it but I didn't realise how closely you could analyse each corner. I am quite dumbfounded by it all.

You're welcome! I didn't quite anticipate that kind "impact" on you but I'm glad it turned out to be like this
I really liked doing it though, and it even taught me something too. I think it was really a helpful and efficient way to show you some of the theories about the ideal line which would have been hard to express with words.
AFS is really an awesome tool. It can really help in getting an understanding for what's fast and what isn't. Split times can be totally inconclusive sometimes... however, looking at the speedo at the apex will give you a good indication of how you're doing even WHILE you're still racing.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I'm beginning to think I just don't react fast enough to be able to make a consistent corner entry each time.

It's not so much about reaction, most of it is anticipation, improvisation talent (when you deviate from your usual line) and a some kind of... let me call it... "mental connection" to the car. Pushing a sim car to its limits can only work well if you're not bothered by making control inputs and how they affect the virtual car. You should be perfectly familiar with the perception of speed and have an understanding of the current state your car is in (weight transfer, tire slip, etc.).
Talking about myself, when I've been driving for some time it's almost as if I'm not turning a wheel anymore, as if I'm not pressing the pedals anymore... I'm ONE with the car and I've learned to anticipate what it'll do next, so I can catch slides even before they occur. It also works a lot in combination with sound.
That's the point when you can REALLY start to push the limits - as opposed to when you have the feeling of having to fight your car. If that's the case, you're more preoccupied with the techiques of driving itself rather than concentrating on the essentials of driving fast. Could I take this corner a little faster? Could I brake a little later? Where would it be smart to back off a little to gain a bigger advantage at a later part of the track? It's all those little nuances you only have time to think about when driving itself doesn't bother you too much.
That's also why I spend a great deal of time making a setup pleasant to me, so that I don't have to concentrate on fighting the deficiencies of my setup all the time.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The rest of sector one and the chicane / uphill to the left-hander is especially valuable to me, because that's the part of the circuit I am most diappointed with. I always feel like I lose time there. But my biggest problem is maintaining speed through the final left-hand turn onto the "long bend". I release the accelerator because if I don't, I end up in the wall on the outside due to the bump on the exit. This is the most difficult part of the lap for me.

I know what you mean, that corner is really tricky because of the bumps and the following part. It's necessary to turn quite hard while driving over a few nasty bumps and this sometimes just exceeds the rear right tire grip. However, you should try to focus on what I demonstrated in my analysis. Try to keep step on the throttle as early as possible and STAY on it. That means you'll have to take a relatively straight line not to lose the rear end. The "long bend" and the following straight are essential for good lap times, so you should adjust your lines according to it.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I think my clutch might be the advantage here. My tyre pressures are very low - lower than yours - but I do shift up quickly. It's interesting to see that this difference is visible under analysis. I also have slightly more aggressive diff. settings (I think 50% power compared to your 37% power - it's a bit too late to check at the moment), but I don't know if that makes much of a difference. I'm not very technically-minded.

Might be. I'm not so sure myself, you also took a slightly different line. Still, the lower tire pressures should ultimately make you SLOWER on the straight, not faster. So it's quite likely that the clutch has a part in it.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

1) I knew I was on a fast lap, and didn't want to mess up the final corner. "PB Split Syndrome" in full effect!

I know that all too well. I remember a time back in S1 when I was fighting to enter new seconds with the RB4. On SO4 I remember doing each and every time from 1:57.1x down to 1:57.00 (some even several times), but never could get a 1:56.xx - even though I had splits for 1:56.7x. Grr....

Quote from thisnameistaken :

2) I have had trouble with this corner. If I take it any tighter I worry about putting wheels on the blue/white striped kerb, which is slippery and causes oversteer. This leads to me having to accelerate later because my line is wider, and I have to avoid the wall on the exit. It's a bit hard to line this corner up because I'm in right-hand drive mode (I can't do left-hand drive - it's too weird for me).

You should really try my new set again. Because of your low pressures and your relatively low camber settings, the tires deform quite a lot during cornering. You should aim for keeping the contact patch even during the corner. Imo, you're clearly running too little camber. More camber helps you deal with extreme situations a little when the car is "tilted" even more because of clipping a curb. You can think of driving over inside curbs as adding "more positive camber to the outside wheels".

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Overall: Sector one, in my opinion, you are overdriving the car. Yes it's funny that I should say that because you're clearly still in control, but it looks completely insane. From the first split I think I'm being too cautious because I know I have a good first split (for me).
[...]
See, I would've described it as "driving like a complete lunatic". I don't think his car is ever pointing in the right direction during the first sector, and he's still taking better lines than me.

Let me quote this:

Quote :

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!

You have to get kind of outta control. But just barely. That's the so called limit
If you observe closely, my "drifting" or sliding in the first split is never excessive and doesn't cause me to lose speed. In fact that's just the limit of traction which looks (and sounds) like I was sliding and losing time, which I am not.
The "slide" in approach to the 2nd 90° right hander just before the end of split one is used to 1.) decrease speed progressively 2.) keep the weight shifted in a proper way not to overload the front tires 3.) be able to position the car precisely for acceleration out of the corner.
That's the big advantage of RWD's, you can steer them quite nicely with the throttle. I suppose you could do okay without this technique, but I'm sure you'd need quite a different setup and would still be a little slower overall.
I may add what were my initial thoughts when watching your replay: "gentle", "calm", "tamed" and "respectful". While the car would surely love you for being so gentle with it, the clock would slap you all over the place and question you why you didn't push the car a little harder
Try to think of your car as a...... an annoying politician or something. Someone's butt you'd really love to kick
If that's any help... imo, you need to show a bit more aggressiveness.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I am still turning in too early (a bad habit I have) at nearly every corner, and I'm still a bit scared of bumps on the exit (anybody have any setup advice? Rear rebound? Rear ARB?). And I'm not apexing properly on a lot of corners. This seems to be my biggest problem and I think it will be the hardest thing to fix, but I will try!

This would indicate that you're not using a setup that suits you too well. I have a way of making my setups suit my driving style, not changing my driving style to suit the setups. I'm quite sure you'd do better with a less understeering set, because I found it quite understeering when I tried it too.
So, back to your original statement: If you're scared of bumps at the exit, you could always try lowering the ARBs' stiffness because they appear to worsen the effects of one-sided bumps. Then you might try a lower diff power setting, since this makes the car a little more forgiving on throttle. A little more rear toe-in might help too. And of course using higher pressures at the front than in the rear. This will help giving you more precision during turn in and will give the rear tires more overall grip (since the pressures are lower than those in the front tires).
I'm not sure which set you're using at the moment, but I'm sure I could apply some appropriate tweaks for you if you could tell me exactly what bothers you about this set. Which corners? Under braking, acceleration, coasting... whatever. Just try to explain as thoroughly as possible.

Quote from AndroidXP :

While Biggie's analysis is ofcourse 100% correct, there's so much more than knowing the theory. From that analysis you can mainly learn a) smoother/different lines and b) early on the throttle.

However, trying to copy the "start throttle here" points is complete nonsense. For the early throttle to work, you have to set the car into the corner in a very specific way - I'm sure that's second nature for Biggie, but not for us struggling with getting below 1:50.

I agree. You'd have to use the exact same set I used. Even then you might discover that you find that set unbearable. To each his own, but ultimately you'd have to find a set that suits you perfectly. It's only then that you can truly start chasing the limits.


Sooo, this turned out to be quite a bunch of text. I hope you can draw some conclusions from it. Take my advice, think about it, but please do also consider very critically what the others suggest. This is all just my way of driving and making setups. You might find you're someone to go fast in a totally different way.

Quote from Blackout :

Whaat? It's not like I was trying to take all the cookies and milk of the world is it? Don't worry

Uh... I was implying a crash... of course I was being terribly serious.

Btw. I don't mind you taking my cookies, you can also have all the milk you want

Quote from Blackout :

Nice presentation you got there! Got to try this combo myself and see what happens :P

:hbomb:

:ambulance

:nurse:

@Kev: Okay, so I've had some fun today doing an analysis of our two laps. It's really interesting to fathom where the difference in laptime comes from, but I think I've learned something from that too.

The result can be viewed here:

Kev/biggie lap comparison and analysis

(oh and, please don't let yourself be distracted by the domain, I often use my domain + webspace for some entirely unrelated stuff )

I hope it gives you some insight into what you're doing wrong. Notice how often I've diagnosed you with "running-wide-itis", so you might wanna change your driving style or setup (I tend to work it out with my setups ) a bit to become ultimately faster. It seems to me there's too much understeer in your old set and that you could go much faster with a more responsive set.

However, feel free to draw your own conclusions. This is just MY interpretation/analysis, you might see things differently.