rec.autos.simulators

Hi all,
Well as you are probably well aware by now I have become totally immersed
in this ol' GPL online thing and just can't get enough of it. After my
first attempts on Sunday night when I stayed up until 3:30am I decided I
just had to take a couple of days off work to try it out some more and duly
spent much of Monday and Tuesday 'at the races...'. Unfortunately reality
dawned on me this morning and I had to go into work despite my desperation
for another online fix.

My initial worries that I would cause problems and spoil things for other
racers has proven totally unfounded as my connection has been pretty good
and my racing has yet to take anyone out of the proceedings. As such I
would urge any others with similar concerns who have yet to take the plunge
to dive on in... Everyone I have come across so far has been more than
willing to help and offer advice (much like on here really) and are only
too happy to welcome more online racers aboard.

I do still have a couple of questions that I hope people here can answer so
please bear with me for a while longer.

The main thing I find frustrating is not knowing if people are
disconnecting themselves from a race or if they are just losing their
connection to the server. Up to now I have completed every race I have
started unless discoed for reasons beyond my control. Is this what most
people do or is it a case of people losing interest (maybe after a spin has
left them too far behind) and therefore deliberately dropping out to try to
find another race that offers them a better chance of winning. I have
actually enjoyed my time online even when well behind the leading pack and
running on my own as I get a great feeling of satisfaction at just seeing
how much I can close the gap on those ahead.

What sort of percentage of the races they join would people on here say
they are getting discoed from ??? I think I have lost my connection on
maybe 4 or 5 occasions out of roughly 25-30 times I have connected to a
server. Would this be about right or is there something I could do to try
to improve this. One of these disconnections actually came during a race I
was really enjoying at Monza, unfortunately as I steamed out of the
Parabolica somebody was coming towards me at full pelt in the wrong
direction... full on impact and immediate disconnection.. now that's what I
call a crash. Thankfully this is the only time I have come across one of
these idiots.

A few of the races are for specific class of car only... when you join one
of these races do you automatically get placed in the correct class of car
or do I have to do something at my end so that I am in the correct class of
car for the race. I tried to join a GP3 race yesterday but it would not let
me connect. Wasn't sure if this was perhaps because I didn't have GPL set
up correctly to enable me to drive the GP3 class of car. Before joining I
did create a new player in my GPL\Players directory and changed the
'rating' to what I thought the GP3 car should be, maybe I got it wrong.

Do the fps shown using ALT-F not report the correct numbers whilst
online... I have noticed that the numbers shown are lower than I would
normally get and yet everything seems to be running ultra smoothly.

Do the races carry on regardless of how many people are running in them.
For example I was having a go around Kyalami and the other drivers dropped
out before the race started. Should I then also drop out or is it OK to just
run around on my own for a practice. On this occasion I just carried on as
I thought I might as well use the time to try to learn the track a bit
better but
I won't in future if that's not the done thing. If I hadn't been there would
the
race have just stopped and reset to start a new session.

Finally, is there a known problem with system freezes on occasion when
trying to connect to a server. So far  there have been about 3 times when I
have tried to join a race only to get the 'Connection Timed Out' message
and then after a couple of further attempts to connect to it everything
just freezes and I am forced to reboot the PC (totally frozen, ctrl-alt-del
not working either). It's not a huge problem whilst it is only happening so
infrequently but if there is anything I can do to minimize the chances of
it happening I would be grateful if you would let me know.

Well, if anyone has read this far down many thanks for your time...
hopefully I will soon have all the answers to my many questions and you can
all breathe a sigh of relief.

TIA

Peter Hooper

Hi Peter,

This is one of the things that made me loose me interest in on-line racing.
I really think that a lot off people just disconnect and go to another race
when they realise they can't win or fight for victory anymore in a race.
I always keep on racing, trying to catch the driver in front of me even if
it is for 5th or 6th place.
I keep an eye on the guy with the sign board and when I see that my
advantage to the driver behind me is getting bigger, I feel great until I
see the final results of the race and I realise I'm the last guy to finish
with 15 disconnections behind me!

It would be much more fun for slower drivers if more people stayed in the
race. Even if you can't win anymore and you are fast, try to finish as high
as possible and give the slower drivers the chance to have at least a small
fight with you.

Another thing what happened to me a few times is when peope who retired are
still following the race and giving comments. Of course, it's easy for them
to see when the leaders are approaching a slower car and then they start
yelling to the backmarker: go home! go out of the way! etc. They'd better
stayed in their cars and went on with the race!

Anyway,
have a great time on-line... perhaps I'll meet you one day in Francorchamps!

danny

Good for you, keep finishing no matter what. You will progress much faster,  
get in way more racing, and learn things that can only be learned from the back
of the pack. Some people argue that they are paying for every minute of dialup
time, winning is what's important to them, and if there's no chance of a decent
result they will move on. I'm not going to criticize if that's there thing.

Right on, and it can be way more fun having a close race with another car for
whatever posistion, than driving by yourself in the lead.

Not much, except that if there's a choice go for the race with the lowest ping.

 One of these disconnections actually came during a race I

When you click JOIN, the window that comes up has drop down menus to let you
choose your car. If there are class/car restrictions you can only choose within
them.

It was probably password restricted, or a track you don't have installed. Do
some reading in VROC help on what all that info in the race list means.

Odd, usually your online fps is higher.

Yes, no, yes. If it's a dedicated server it's likely the host is not there and
it's going to run the race regardless. Again, read up on server types in VROC.

Sometimes it can take six attempts and then suddenly you connect, keep trying.
Lockups are an ugly little reality, welcome to online racing Peter.

--
Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.

Some peeps do disconnect if they crash early on or fall way behind.
Personally, If I enter a race, I want to carry on until the race
finishes, even if I'm last! You can always find a challenge, even if you
are at the back. Trying to close the gap on those in front, trying to
avoid being lapped, or just trying to stay on the tarmac!!

8-)

Obviously, sometimes you get disconnected by the server, or by a clock
smash or high ping, etc, these are determined by net traffic, and you
cannot do much to stop them, except optimise your pc for on-line ***.

There are many good websites that give tips on optimising your PC for
on-line (and GPL in particular) ***. One of which is mine (Well I
think its good anyway!) see sig below for the url, go to the GPL
section...

I think the fps you get when on-line racing are usually slightly lower
than when you are racing offline (unless you have a *very* fast pc), as
the pc has some extra work to do when on-line. So most peeps do turn off
a few graphic details, or turn down the no' of sounds etc to try and
improve on-line fps. If you can maintain the max 36fps for most of the
time when on-line, then GPL should play ok. If it drops significantly
lower than 36 for any length of time, you want to try and tweak the
options. High FPS is *KEY* to decent on-line ***.

One of the best ways to see if your connection is ok, is to switch to
the in-car view of the servers host, if his car is jumping around all
over the place, you probably have a bad connection, if his car looks ok,
you probably have a good connection.

8-)

*Peter* -  http://www.racesimcentral.net/~peterpc/home.html