rec.autos.simulators

Couldn't get the car in gear.  My home built h-shifter and 3 pedals were
all mapped correctly but I couldn't get the car in gear.  Popped back
and for through menus looking for something I missed, didn't change
anything, went back into the car and it worked.  Only problem now is
that I don't have neutral.  For my shifter neutral is when no gear
buttons are pushed.  Not sure how to enable that.  If you know, pass the
secret on to me (I think GTR had a check box for this.)

In the car I turned my head to see how my TrackIR was working.  It
wasn't.  Wanting to experience the first drive with the TrackIR I went
back to the menus.  There is nothing in there or in the readme about the
TrackIR.  I found the answer at RSC.  You have to map a button to
something called "hardware plug in" (or something like that).  That
button them must be pressed the first time you get into the car to
enable TrackIR.  Not a good design.

You can save your control setup (a good thing), but you have to load it
each time (a bad thing).  I can't see how to make it the default.

I chose the default car and it felt well (but way low on power).  That's
ok because it is good for learning.  As in another post I read, at first
it is not evident from the cars handling if this is a front drive car or
  a rear drive car.  I am going to keep my eye on this as I try other
cars and  get more familiar with the sim.  In LFS for example, the
difference between front and rear drive cars is very obvious.

I did a race of all GT3 cars and had no problems with the AI cars.
Unfortunately the default in a race is to have all car classes in the
race.  This is very hard for the AI to handle.  To give the AI a fair
chance to be judge, race cars of the same class (until/if this gets
fixed in a patch.)

I must say I like the graphics (using DX9) and I really like the shadows
and lighting.  One thing I don't like is that the cars in the rear view
mirror look like they are floating above the track.

So far I am pleased, but the initial setup was very frustrating.  Off to
drive some more.

Russell

    rotfl

    But I think I know what he means!   An "O" needs to be changed to a "0",
right?   Or, better still, an "oh" needs to be changed to a zero.

    I'll tell you this, if you can change a zero to a naught then you must
have been given a *** transfusion with some of Albert Einsteins ***! :)

Would love to know what this is if anyone finds it, there is a check box in
GTR and GTL for this (and N2003!) but when I spoke to Gjon about it he said
that as far as he knew this was not possible and I have had to map a
different button to Neutral.

He did say it would be added in a future update though.

But if there is a controller.ini switch then that might do it, maybe I will
do some hunting tonight..

Jon.

____________________________________________________________________________

Gear Select Button Hold="1" // Enable this option if using a gear select
device that holds down a joystick button while in a gear and releases
all buttons in neutral (such as the Act-Labs USB Shifter)

_____________________________________________________________________________

I have an Act-Labs and it works just fine!

I have neutral now, thanks.

After playing around more today, here are a few other things.

You can't recalibrate your controls during a race.  My brake lost
calibration and all I could do was exit the race (DNF) and recalibrate it.

It appears that you can't chat unless you are in the car.  Someone said
they thought this might be a server setting.  So in the above case I
wanted to tell the others what happened (when they finished racing) and
why I got a DNF.  Unfortunately there was no way for me to chat with them.

The AI keep racing after the checkered flag.  Someone said they got a
DNF for not returning to the pits after a race.  I don't know if that is
just on line or on line and off.  After the checkered I'd rather not
have to race the AI back to the pits.  If I can hit escape and not DNF,
then I'll just do that.

On my Logitech DFP, I can't use the POV to scroll through the LCD
options.  The cursor seams to jump all over the place.  Same happens if
I assign the POV selecting the LCD screens.  Not sure why.

Does an off track put dirt on the tires?  Is flat spotting modeled?  I
think the answer is no to both, but I am bot sure.  There is suspension
damage though.

Hitting the restart button restarts the race, but if you had damage, you
still have it.  Going to the race screen and pressing the on screen
restart button, restarts with the car completely repaired.

With the TrackIR and using the same setting I use in other sims, I can't
fully see out the sides of the car.  Don't know if that is just as far
as you can look or if it can be adjusted.  It makes for a bigger blind
spot though.

When I pit, the damage doesn't get fixed and I am not sure how or if you
can set up a pit stop on the fly to tell them what to do.

The trainers are a lot of fun!

Russell

You can chat outside the car, it's just not obvious how you do it.  In
the lower left of the monitor screen there is a box labelled chat, at
the bottom of that, there is a dark coloured band, click there and you
can type chat messages.

As I said, not obvious, took me a while to discover this.

Peter

Just to clarify, not the light coloured box labeled chat but the dark
coloured band below.

Peter