rec.autos.simulators

But I have an issue.  It seems to me that feeling the edge of traction
is more difficult than with GPL, NR2003, or the old GTR.  Either I'm
stuck like glue or I'm off the track.  3.4 P4, MOMO Force (the original
one), 9800pro,

Is it me?  More realistic physics?  Opinions?

             Bob

So, after trying several cars at my favorite circuit (Spa), I found that
the car that has the best "feel" for me is the (NGT) Ferrari 360 Modena.
  If you haven't tried NGT, give it a whirl.

I would be curious to hear opinions about which GT-class car feels
closest to the 360 Modena, though......  I'd like to try a GT again, but
have neither the time nor inclination to tweak.

I think it's partly setup and it's partly the car.  If you want to slide
around in a GT car, I'd say give the Lambo a spin.  That thing has great
throttle oversteer and makes for some nice mini-slides coming out of fast
sweepers.  It also helps a great deal to up the scrubbing volume.  I can
certainly see how folks can run the cars very close to the edge (I can't),
but it requires very good command of the pedals.  I've found that small
movements can make a huge difference between going fast and going off, and
from the little I played of the GPL demo, it's more forgiving of
(relatively) larger movements.

Alan

James

Same here, maybe the OP should play with the ge-force slider to see if
it improves the feel for him.

Cheers, uwe

--
GPG Fingerprint:  2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F  67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

dave henrie

No doubt you'll get a range of opinions, but I'd say what you're noticing is
a combination of GTR's (accurate) lack of loud tire-slip sounds, in concert
with the exaggerated bumpiness of the track surfaces and the remaining
low-speed grip issues with that generation of ISI-based tire model.

Qualifier - I only have the latest demo to go by.  But if you crank the
telemetry data sampling rate up all the way and take a good look at the
suspension travel and damper velocities it appears there's something funky
going on in there.  I've seen instances of the suspension oscillating
through a 12cm range (+/-6) in .05-second intervals in fairly low-speed
sections of Spa, and that just looks off to me.  Think about it; up and down
6cm, or 2& 1/4 inches, 20 times per second.  That's a jackhammer on
turbo-mode, not a shock absorber.  It's either some crazy bump modeling in
the track surface or an oscillation developing in the physics model.

The result is the grip tend to come and go in a kind of chattering, staccato
fashion, and at low speed it tends to be sudden.  Does tend to convey a
bumpy track surface, but hey; I've been around spa on 21mm bike tires at
120psi with NO suspension and it just aint THAT bumpy... ;-)  You can tweak
the tire sounds in the PLR file to give yourself a bit more feedback at
early slip levels if you like.

        Could be.  I wasn't comparing it to ISI sims.

         Yep.

           That was my biggest problem.  Impatient, I started to use
the sim and set the controller (MOMO Force) up, but left off cosmetic
details like a driver name.  When, after a relatively few laps, I
changed the name I lost all the controller settings.  That fixed,
things (at least with the Lamborghini) are substantially better. The
edge is still harder to find than with GPL or NASCAR2003, but to a
degree that I'm willing to believe it's (at least mostly) modern tires.
 At least now I can get feedback about what I'm doing wrong :-).

            Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

Seriously though, till I came to grips with the diff I felt similar to you
about GTR.  After finally investing some time learning the diff I wonder how
on earth I ever turned a decent lap prior.  It made all the difference.
Makes me wish I would have spent more time setting up GPL.

The edge IS more difficult to find than in NR2003.  But that aint saying
much ;)

GTR takes a bunch of skill to turn consistent laps and even more to be
consistently fast.

Another big help is to adjust your sounds so skidding/road noise and tire
noise all up to 200%.  I even turn down the other sounds a bit just to focus
the tire sounds even more.

Mitch

The feedback from GTR (if you have the right hardware) is so far ahead of
any other sim out there it still stuns me every time I read this type of
comment.

Oh well...

Marc
.

I remain unconvinced that pure physics simulation is enough without some
form of motion system, hence a magic feel factor needs to be present to
replace the missing motion.

Also the missing RL feel makes simulating with racing slicks potentially
harder than RL, so another reason some prefer the more forgiving nature of
60s tyres.

Arguably the upcoming mods for GPL will be a match for anything new in the
feel factor states. Of course it will lack all those other features like
dynamic weather, pitstops and component wear, yet for sheer feel it is still
at the top of the tree for many.

Cheers
Tony

           I think Tony has nailed it.  GPL, either by accident or by
design, has a feel which somewhat compensates for the limitations of a
computer sim.  While GTR is more clinically correct, it has less feel
than the real thing, because some feedback loops are just not there.

            BTW, I raced the real thing (Showroom Stock and Formula
Ford) for ten years.  And GTR has still bounced GPL off the top of my
list because of the fantastic AI opposition and equal or better variety
of car characteristics.