But then, no one would understand it as sarcasm coming from a "merican"...
But then, no one would understand it as sarcasm coming from a "merican"...
Uh, is that like a Mexican? :dunce:
LFS tracks not bumpy enough? Are you sure? I mean, just take a gentle stroll around Blackwood, switch to chase view and turn on the forces. You'll see quite a lot of rumbling in the load bars, so saying the tracks are smooth is definitely not true. I'd rather suspect the missing tyre impact noises and general lack of dedicated immersion enhancing things to be the reason for this phenomenon.
What I'm also not too sure of lately is the force feedback. I mean yeah it's great in its core due to being absolutely true to the physics and not containing anything faked or artificial, but sometimes it seems that fine details or even rough details that should be feelable simply aren't. Is it a weird FF coding issue that drains or filters out the "noise"? Are the spikes in FF from rough road or sometimes even rumblestrips simply too short and irregular to register for the FF or for the FF motors to react? Is it maybe a tyre physics issue that means all these irregularities simply aren't transferred to the steering column, either because maybe the flexing tyres are damping out too much, or maybe the self aligning torque is not handled correctly?
I don't know. IMO weight transfer and mechanical trail are portrayed perfectly, but the finesse, the fine detail seems to be missing sometimes. Then at other times you can be truly amazed at how well the tyre physics handle other things, like the difference in turn resistance when standing still between turning normally and turning with the brakes depressed. You can really feel the rubber flex and notice how the stress is relieved from the tyres once you step off the brakes and the wheels can finally turn/roll again.
What I'm also not too sure of lately is the force feedback. I mean yeah it's great in its core due to being absolutely true to the physics and not containing anything faked or artificial, but sometimes it seems that fine details or even rough details that should be feelable simply aren't. Is it a weird FF coding issue that drains or filters out the "noise"? Are the spikes in FF from rough road or sometimes even rumblestrips simply too short and irregular to register for the FF or for the FF motors to react? Is it maybe a tyre physics issue that means all these irregularities simply aren't transferred to the steering column, either because maybe the flexing tyres are damping out too much, or maybe the self aligning torque is not handled correctly?
I don't know. IMO weight transfer and mechanical trail are portrayed perfectly, but the finesse, the fine detail seems to be missing sometimes. Then at other times you can be truly amazed at how well the tyre physics handle other things, like the difference in turn resistance when standing still between turning normally and turning with the brakes depressed. You can really feel the rubber flex and notice how the stress is relieved from the tyres once you step off the brakes and the wheels can finally turn/roll again.
a while ago someone working with usb devices posted something about lag induced by usb stacks and how the constant forces used by lfs have a somewhat slower path (dont really remember the details)
apparently spring force effects are a better method to make the wheel change forces quickly
additionally it could be amplified by some freak synching issues with the the wheel working at 100hz in lfs and 125hz at hardware level
Aston has a bump. LFS has a lot very very small camber changes in corners but not really many bumps. The lack of those small bumps is imho not an issue, the issue is the total lack of elevation changes. Very few of the elevation changes in LFS have any effect on your driving. But that's not really related to the sanitated feel of LFS.
In a way LFS feels like watching a scifi movie with great plot, awful graphics and synth sounds. Not that the graphics in LFS are bad but if you have ever seen a movie where the the actors have been replaced by computer models you know what I mean. It looks and feel artificial and it doesn't really have any feelings.You still get the point of the movie, someof the main points and feeling translate very well but as a whole it is fake. When you watch a movie with real actors you notice all those small facial expressions and small vivid things that make it look believable.
In a way LFS feel better when the engine sound clips because that brings exactly the kind of living feeling into LFS it needs. That being said, the look and feel in LFS can only be touched and bettered by nk pro. Nk pro looks amazing, the sound is 1000x better than LFS' but sadly it doesn't work because it is buggy and has tonnes of small issue. LFS does work and doesn't have those small issues but it still an indie product and that defenately shows in many ways.
LFS defenately doesn't imho need a graphics makeover or any fudged kewl smokey-sparkly stuff. Sparks from ground collisions and dirt would be nice along with cars with a lot more small details though. The main thing would to improve the sounds along with graphical look, if this sanitated feel is something that is going to be improved.
I did notice a huge increase in how attached I felt to the sim when I upgraded to a G25... I also know that the steering geometry setup plays a huge role in what's felt and how strong. Some setups I can barely feel anything other than aligning torque, and some setups magnify things alot. I can still feel the train tracks at SOx when driving over them at 220K in the LX6 with most setups, so I don't think resolution or latency is really a big issue in the end. Some setups I can feel every single time I touch curbs, some setups I can't. Coming into a braking zone on the curbs rattle the heck out of the wheel with almost every setup, and for example the XFR at FEx has the wheel doing things constantly (FWD of course).
Edit: @ Hyper, but AXP is right - check the vertical loads on the tires in forces view, and you can see that there is a ton of variation in the surfaces which you really don't "experience" for some reason. I'm starting to see that the over tidy feeling of LFS is related to ambient things, not the road surface itself.
Edit: @ Hyper, but AXP is right - check the vertical loads on the tires in forces view, and you can see that there is a ton of variation in the surfaces which you really don't "experience" for some reason. I'm starting to see that the over tidy feeling of LFS is related to ambient things, not the road surface itself.
Example of silly collision detection in an old version of LFS (from back in 2004). It's a lot better now.
lfsbmpr.wmv
Well the car model may be rigid, but it definately didn't stay parallel to the road in this case:
gtrspap.wmv
The in air path didn't seem that much different than the real thing (driver was OK):
mercfly.wmv
Tons of variation is a huge exaggaration
Try it yourself. Westhill is smoother than butter, just like Aston or car park are. They are pretty much the same. Although the tire forces don't really show much else than the polygon edges. Maybe so tracks have more roughness but it might be the polygon edges agin, I guess... And to add the already mentioned fact that most of the "bumps" in LFS are as wide as the road...I also found that there is a second bump on Aston
Westhill is definitely not smooth. I had a poor setup for a league race at Westhill and the car was visually bouncing everywhere. Other than the Aston and SO bumps that you can feel in the reaction of the car and the steering, Westhill is probably the next bumpiest that I can see visually with my g-force slider settings that I don't see at tracks such as Fern Bay and Kyoto.
No Jakg they're the exact opposite.
A Merry can, but a Mexi can't
It should be noted that that really weird behaviour is caused by lag and a system of position reporting rather than everybodies PC do the physics for all the cars. Whilst it is CPU intensive LFS just looks so much better for online play
I haven't read this whole thread so please don't flame me, but has the 'Acceleration shifts viewpoint' feature been mentioned here?
Most tracks have a dds road texture file with 'bump' in the name. The width is the same as a normal road texture, which is half of the road.
I'd like to take RBR as an example. For me it is every bit as accurate a number crunching program as LFS, but carries that extra bit of roughness. Of course its roads are much rougher in nature... But even pure tarmac offers a very visceral experience there.
I find RBR's sound really makes it shine, especially the suspension sounds. You can hear very clearly the strong compressions or bottoming out. Also the collision sounds are excellent, as they recorded the sounds smashing up a real old car. Every collision sounds as it should. The transmission/gear change sounds give great impressions of metals banging metals. The turbo whine reminds you the brutal power, too. I remember the echo is properly modeled by using virtual/echoing walls of variable width.
The damage modeling is also top-notch. From experiences of damaging the car, you paint a mental picture about what to expect running into a tree. It is not there when normally driving, but you feel it.
The overall graphics is a lot more detailed. I think if LFS modeled individual curb bumps it'd look a lot more menacing. The shading across different surfaces also contributes to their, well, substance. LFS should probably start using shaders. Oh, and the dynamic reflections (that update every frame) helps with the sense of speed, which (the reflection) is absent in all of LFS and ISI sims and Papy sims...
I agree with what's said about tracks needing more bumps. Not only tracks, but also trackside surfaces. I'm not too worried though, as simulations always start very clean but get dirty as you simulate more and more things.
I find RBR's sound really makes it shine, especially the suspension sounds. You can hear very clearly the strong compressions or bottoming out. Also the collision sounds are excellent, as they recorded the sounds smashing up a real old car. Every collision sounds as it should. The transmission/gear change sounds give great impressions of metals banging metals. The turbo whine reminds you the brutal power, too. I remember the echo is properly modeled by using virtual/echoing walls of variable width.
The damage modeling is also top-notch. From experiences of damaging the car, you paint a mental picture about what to expect running into a tree. It is not there when normally driving, but you feel it.
The overall graphics is a lot more detailed. I think if LFS modeled individual curb bumps it'd look a lot more menacing. The shading across different surfaces also contributes to their, well, substance. LFS should probably start using shaders. Oh, and the dynamic reflections (that update every frame) helps with the sense of speed, which (the reflection) is absent in all of LFS and ISI sims and Papy sims...
I agree with what's said about tracks needing more bumps. Not only tracks, but also trackside surfaces. I'm not too worried though, as simulations always start very clean but get dirty as you simulate more and more things.
I've binned it off a road into woodland, I'd say RBR is about right. branches breaking glass makes a very distinctive sound.
branches breaking glass makes a very distinctive sound.You can't be talking about the Scazzato/synthesized (aka "simulating how engine sounds through cheap onboard mic with horrible distorted wind noise") sound engine in nKp?
Yes I am. It is a bit worn topic with LFS sounds but I think there is a lot that can be done to make the cars sound more real and better. Synth sounds in nk pro sound imho decent. LFS just doesn't. I just did few laps in nk pro and it was quite a refreshing experience. In many ways
Are you sure you aren't mixing it up with the crossfaded/sampled engine in nKp?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5MCc_6HoX5k
If that sounds better than LFS sound in your opinion, then I simply can't understand. Maybe the sound is not so smooth and sanitized like in LFS but that horrible distortion is definitely not making it more real either.
It amuses me how the synth engine in nKp produces so similar sound to onboard vids with cheap mics where the sound is completely distorted because of wind noise. Just compare it...
The crossfaded/sampled engine in nKp is ok (altough sounds somehow like V12 diesel, it's a bit off regarding the engines in those formulas) but no point comparing that to LFS, everyone knows the difference in sampled and synthed sound.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5MCc_6HoX5k
If that sounds better than LFS sound in your opinion, then I simply can't understand. Maybe the sound is not so smooth and sanitized like in LFS but that horrible distortion is definitely not making it more real either.
It amuses me how the synth engine in nKp produces so similar sound to onboard vids with cheap mics where the sound is completely distorted because of wind noise. Just compare it...
The crossfaded/sampled engine in nKp is ok (altough sounds somehow like V12 diesel, it's a bit off regarding the engines in those formulas) but no point comparing that to LFS, everyone knows the difference in sampled and synthed sound.
The crossfade sounds can be really hilarious in nk pro: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bkwBYnIm3l0. And I meant the synth sounds. I don't get those clippings in nk pro, although I haven't even tried it online for months. Iirc nk pro works quite well offline but you get all kind of weird sounds distortions&bugs online. At elast I did back then.
I admit that the sounds in nk pro sound way too much like those crappy onboard videos but in the end the sounds are more credible than the sounds of LFS. It is not about how good it sounds in the end, it is the credibility which makes the sounds good for me.
Scawen said though, that the engine simulation is in need of a makeover before we can get a significant improvement in sounds. Let's hope that that's in the not-too-distant future... so many things need to be updated. 
Those off throttle noises you mean?
I have never heard how it sounds without those clippings, I'm not so sure is there even any specific clipping problem. I don't remember huge discussion over this at the nKp RSCnet forum. I've thought that's just the way it sounds. If there is some kind of hardware prob with the clipping, then it must be pretty bad problem because I guess that's how it sounds for majority of the players...
Don't know how online affects the sound (that video I posted is from offline afaik), I'm one of those who got the "sorry, no win" card regarding online (un)functionality in nkp.
I don't get it. Explain this credibility
Only thing that matters is how it sounds in the end and how accurate it is (feedback).Sounds and graphics - seems a bit off topic, but if you want sounds and graphics comarasons:
Live For Speed:
lfsslzg.wmv
lfsblf1.wmv
Race 07:
r07obc3.wmv
r07bhf31.wmv
Arcade racers like Need For Speed series are hard to beat Carbon:
nfscview.wmv
ncsctccx.wmv
NFS High Stakes (released in 1999):
n4kpcl.wmv
n4raf1.wmv
Live For Speed:
lfsslzg.wmv
lfsblf1.wmv
Race 07:
r07obc3.wmv
r07bhf31.wmv
Arcade racers like Need For Speed series are hard to beat Carbon:
nfscview.wmv
ncsctccx.wmv
NFS High Stakes (released in 1999):
n4kpcl.wmv
n4raf1.wmv
They can afford to spend the time of graphics, because it's aimed at a different demographic of people, bells and whistles graphics over physics.
Jeff, I have to ask: is there any time that you don't have fraps going when playing a driving game? You seem to have an endless supply of video captures from games.
No I mean that the car sounds like a nascar with a 5-litre engine instead of that 1.8 what it is supposed to be... Kinda like putting a 3litre V12 in UF1 and saying it sounds great. It sounds, but where is the credibility? UF's engine is not a V12, it is a 1-litre I4 but it doesn't sound like one. Or it does but barely.
For a UF1 comparison has anyone driven an old VW beetle in real life? Those sound amazing compared to UF1 in LFS
Clipping in LFS is very different than what it is in nk pro. In LFS the sound kinda jams or resonates while in nk pro you get those glitch sounds, kinda like backfiring... In nk pro it happens when you are running fraps on the background or play online, at least for me. Probably it has something to do with cpu load, just a guess though..
Credibility is that an engine sounds like an engine. It doesn't need to sound like a roaring beast. Car engines have various different tones depending what it is doing. In a car the engine gets louder and more aggressive towards the red line but in LFS it just fades away. The LFS car sounds just are not what the real car sounds are, at least what I hear. Ear is of course not a precise intrument but the difference in sound is amazing when you compare a 3-litre engine in LFS and in real life.
LFS too "sanitized"?
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