rec.autos.simulators

I think it originated from the simmods forum.

http://www.racesimcentral.net/
ct=ST&f=27&t=8232&st=60

Jone

Achim

...

Get defensive much?

Well if he makes the same points you've been making he *must*know what he's
talking about, seeing as you know everything about everything ;)

    Malcolm posts here as well, just ask him :)

rms

  Would those flaws be like the lack of proper Vipers in every sim?
:)
dave henrie
(waiting for The Nurburgring for the f1 2k2 mods so I can properly destroy
said Viper)
dave henrie

Achim

...

Larry

And Goy isn't totally off-base when he says that it would be neet to see a
Aussie-V8 sim.  I've been watching those races during the season down-time,
and it's pretty enjoyable.

Although F1 looks to be a comical and fun experience next year as well :)

Man, those Aussie-V8 races have some TOUGH rules!

Larry

He says that GTR2002 and GPL are good, and I agree with him.  He says
NH may be even better (IIRC) which I can't comment on as I only
dabbled with the demo - it never was released over here.

If it's the same as the post that was made at simmods (which I'm
pretty sure it is) I don't understand what sim fans are enthusing
over.  I've asked maxx to expand on the vague areas of "unrealness"
that he refers to over in those forums and seriously look forward to
his reply.  It's just that, and of course I'm paraphrasing, "no sim
can yet be used as a total instructional tool for race drivers" is
stating the bleedin obvious as far as I'm concerned ;-)

It was a *long* post, I'll give him that, and kudos to maxx for having
a stab.  I just thought word/content ratio was off!

Best regards,

Mark
Reading, UK

I posted in the morning.  I should *never* do that - I'm usually more
than a tad cranky before noon...

I didn't mean to have a go at maxx (although that's how it came off),
I'm more baffled by what appeared to me as fawning over his post in
the simmods forum.  Fairly interesting and overly long but
frustratingly skirting around issues that I would have liked him to
dig into a bit more...

Regards,

Mark
Reading, UK

Hi everyone, thanks for all your comments. It's been a hectic
week and I've only just got in and read them all. I will
respond to each in the next few hours but I just wanted to
clarify the situation.

The text was a post on the GTR2002 forum following
my response to a thread "Have any GTR drivers raced
in real life" - I has so responded. Some people probably
knew of me and a coupld asked how REAListic I thought
GTR2002 was - I also had about dozen email around the
same time from buddies asking a similat question.

This was on Jan 2nd. Over the next 3 weeks I made
odd notes in an open .txt file until I had a fairly
complete post. I felt is neccasary to elaborate on, and
clarify most of the comments, otherwise it could have
started a heated discussion and I would ahve been
answering doxens of posts saying "what do you mean
by that?", "I an get my car to do that", "what did you
mean by that?" - you know the score from many posts
seen here.

I posted the final piece to the same thread on
Sunday (I think) and have since been responding
to questions and comments for a number of hours
each day, not only in that forum but elsewhere
where it has been picked up.

In some of those posts I perhaps do expland on
things I say a little more, plus the discussion broadens.

Also, at this time BHMS contacted me and wanted to
use the initial post as an "Article" on their site, I agreed
although it was never written "AS" an article. This also
received many responses which I again tried to respond
to.

I would suggest anyone particularly interested in this
subject check out the varoius threads, the GTR one
is perhaps the fuller but there is also quite a big
thread at the West Racing forum. I have even posted
on this subkect to my "Racers" forum at 10 Tenths
which is where most real life racers read and post to.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALSO : I have not finisged yet. I hear the cries for
"tell me specifics" well I am going to try and respond,
including a video/GTR replay comparison of a GT type
car at Mugello and the GTR 550 at Mugello. This all
tales time to prepare so please bear with me.

I will generaly post new stuff to the GTR forum although
anything significant I will try and announce here also.

I am still responding to posts in all forums.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are the links

GTR2002 forum post :

http://makeashorterlink.com/?U2DA52B43

West Racing forum post :

http://makeashorterlink.com/?R1FA21B43

BHMS Article (comments at the bottom)

http://www.bhmotorsports.com/article/106

BTW, sorry to not share this with my r.a.s. buddies bit it got
kinda out of hand, plus I figured most of you guys would pick
up the posts at the various sim related forums on the web.

Cheers

Maxx

As far as I know, I was one of the first ones on here who stated that I
thought the high speed handling of the GPL cars was convincing, but not the
low speed. Well, I've changed my mind since then. It's been over 25 years
since I've done any real racing, but I have done it. After watching some of
my GPL replays and watching the speed I was going around 90 corners,
hairpins, etc., I've come to the conclusion that it's a lack of the sense of
speed while driving (under 60mph, for example), not the traction, that
doesn't feel right. Aside from vibrating my back and feet and thowing me to
one side of my chair, I don't know if it's even possible to give that
feeling in a sim. Comparing some of the corners I used to take in one of the
(many) sports cars I used to have (Fiat/Abarth X 1/9) to the corner speeds
in GPL, has convinced me of this even more.

He also mentioned tire squeal. I'm not sure that it isn't modelled right in
GPL. I believe they still used bias belted tires back in '67 and it didn't
take much to get them squealing, especailly in a 4 wheel drift or losing it
in a corner. In fact, even after radial tires were introduced, a lot of race
car drivers preferred bias belted because they gave more warning of when the
car was losing traction. The loss was more gradual than radial tires. The
other thing is that Malcolm hasn't raced an F1 car from that period so,
while he can draw on racing experience in general, he can't really say how
these particular cars handled.

I agree with a lot of the Nascar stuff he said, so there's no fun in writing
about that here.

He did mention, briefly, that the sims try to give you a 'feel' for real
racing. I think that's a key point. A physics model is, after all, a model.
In any kind of modeling, certain liberties have to be taken to make the
model convincing, even though they are not accurate. Let's take the old
model railroad example again. Let's say I'm modeling an HO scale railroad on
a 10 x12 foot table and I want to show a train in the mountains that's a
mile away. I have a problem because I only have 10 feet to do this. If I
reduce that train to N scale, it's perceived as being way off in the
distance. It certainly isn't accurate, but it's convincing and definitely
helps the experience.The same principle applies to the stone around the
track. If I model 1" stone in HO scale it's perceived as being a smooth,
flat surface. If I model it at 5", the texture shows and it 'looks' more
real. Of course, a person with a keen eye can tell that the HO scale track
laborer is trying to rake stones the size of the palm of his hand. At least
it's better than having him rake something you can't see.

Since we can't model a lot of the sensations you get in real racing,
sometime liberties have to be taken to give you the 'feel' that more is
happening and make the experience appear to be real. Otherwise it might just
be bland. We all know that spinning into a corner and crashing in a GPL car
is not going to feel the same as doing it in a real F1 car. Your heart may
be a little faster, but you won't get that sick feeling just before you
crash.

So, I didn't agree with everything he said, but I think Malcolm did an
admirable job trying to answer a question that wasn't phrased properly. He
did make it clear when he was looking at it from a training point of view
and when he was looking at it from a sim racer's viewpoint.

Perhaps the question should have been 'which sims leave you with the best
overall impression of real life racing?'

--
Slot

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

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