rec.autos.simulators

"Nick"wrote ...
<snip>
I sure haven't seen it before. Maybe I missed it cos I was moving house
about then. It shows a couple of cars for 3 1/2 minutes on a track. Filmed
with a movie camera on a pc screen. "Replay" is displayed constantly (until
the end?)

My impression was that cars (and other graphics) looked great, but they were
being driven very cautiously. There was zero impression of aggressive
driving - even when driving resulted in car going off the track. Could have
been a real handful to drive hence a cautious approach to this leaked view.

thanks for the link
Tony

Heh heh. But seriously, that is a behaviour I have never seen in a sim
before, but you see it a lot in NASCAR, the Aussie V8 series and other such
championships (I suppose WSC cars might do it as well :-). Just as the rear
of the car lightens and regains grip - it doesn't leave the road, but it's
just enough to loosen it up and start drifting. The effect I mean is when
the tyres regain grip and suddenly stop sliding, and you see these light,
stiffly sprung cars tweaking back onto line. It means not only is the tyre
grip modelled realistically, but the suspension is fully modelled as a whole
bunch of wishbones with varying arm-lengths and so on, rather than just a
spring/damper. I don't know if GPL is as detailed as this, as (1) it is
difficult to tell with an open wheeler (very low CoG), and (2) it is
extremely difficult to find a place on the GPL circuits which will loosen
the car up just enough to exhibit this behaviour. It is an extremely subtle
effect, and maybe it is my racing background (rather than sim
programming/playing) that I notice this kind of stuff.

Nick.