Well now I have; rather odd results below.
With F&R brakes mapped to separate buttons(!!) on a Wingman Formula:
1. You CAN apply throttle and brakes simultaneously this way, though it
won't allow it with separate axes on an analogue basis.
2. You cannot lock the front wheel on pavement when upright, but it will
lift the rear off the ground. You can lock it in the grass, with the
expected result. OOF! You can also lowside with too much front brake in a
turn.
3. You can wheelie, hit the front brake while the wheel's up, drop the nose,
and nothing bad happens. Still can't lock it. Hmmmm....
4. If you slam on the front brake only with the throttle wide open, the bike
will slow to a stop, doing a nose wheelie, and the rear wheel will come to a
stop while it's still airborne(with throttle still pegged and no rear
brake). Uh-oh.....
5. You can slide the rear using a separate input easily. However, it's
canned. You CANNOT lock the rear and keep it locked without falling, even
with the bike upright and pointed straight . It's fairly easy to do on a
real bike, even from pretty high speed. In the game, the bike goes sideways
and then down, regardless of input, and not always in the direction it
should, given the lean. And if you do a straight-line nose wheelie with
front brake only, then hit the rear brake while the back wheel's in the
air, the rear end will kick sideways just like when it's sliding on the
ground. Now THAT'S a new one..... :-(
With F&R brakes mapped to brake pedal (combined axes):
1. No more sliding the rear into corners, or anywhere else, for that
matter, even on the grass. It DOES seem to stop a touch quicker than using
front-only, so there must be some sort of preset brake bias when both are
mapped to the same input. I'd wondered about that, since I'd guess a lot of
players will have them mapped that way. It must be about 90/10 or so. An
adjustable bias, perhaps via an INI file setting, would be a nice addition
for the retail version, and would help you get a bit more use from the rear
brake with combined inputs. There was actually a real aftermarket
mechanical setup like that some years back with adjustable bias via the
linkage, operated from the foot pedal.
A couple of final, brake-free bits:
1. I've noticed a sudden slowdown in my framerate at times, usually
mid-race. It starts out butter-smooth(C450/V3), then at some point it'll
suddenly drop, remaining slow for the rest of the race. The game doesn't
drop out of real time(good!), doesn't appear to be paging to my HD, and it
seems I have to quit the game and restart to cure it. Anyone else seen
this?
2. Using the helmet-cam (view 4), the perspective has too much lean in the
corners. The viewpoint moves side-to-side with the rider as it should, but
while he keeps his head pretty level(watch him in view 2), YOUR view is way
too tilted. Dialing that back a bit in the retail would help.
Oh well, enough of this silly knob-twisting; I need a beer. Still a fun
demo, but getting less sim-ish by the minute.
Cheers,
Steve B.
