rec.autos.simulators

What's left to sim?

Steve Simpso

What's left to sim?

by Steve Simpso » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:13:47

FPS has nothing to do with the physics.  There's lots of examples of sims
that have a physics engine which updates independantly of the frame rate.  I
believe the ISI engine games update the physics at up to 400 times per
second.

alex

What's left to sim?

by alex » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:29:06





>> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:10:48 -0000, Peter

>> >That watchamacallit to do with being able to emulate the bumps on the
>> >road.  Yeah,  I forget the name and I'm pressed for time to look it
>> >up. <BG> Unfortunately, we'll need sims that run at 1000fps I'd
>> >guess.  :)

>> High frequency bumps? BTW, the fps don't matter when you're talking
>> physics...

>> Cheers!

>> Remco

> Eh?  Are you saying that simulating high frequency bumps is nothing to
> do with physics?  They certainly would be in my world coz they're going
> to affect how the car behaves. And I thought hfb could not be
> reproduced in an effective enough way because, in the time it takes to
> jump from 1 frame to the next, the car would have travelled too far
> along the track in order to allow for hfb's to be simulated correctly.
> Hence more fps required.

He said that simulating HFB has nothing to do with fps. FPS reflects how
often the image is drawn on the screen. When the time to draw the next
frame arrives, renderer takes the current state from the physics engine
(which may either operate on higher frequency or use continuous model, or
combination of both).

Alex.

ymenar

What's left to sim?

by ymenar » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:41:42


> Hmmm, not sure I follow here, Frank.  What is it about rFactor's
> fantasy test track that makes you think the potential for quality
> recreations of real facilities is in doubt?

I just think it's much more easy to create a fantasy track in terms of # of
details than to recreate meticulously a real track.  You spent lots less
time with data gathering compared to the track designing, so your efforts
can be moved towards more 3d modeling and 2d artistery.  Like time-of-day
dynamics like you told.  But heck like I told lots of times, 5 years ago
with Motorsims you had complete facilities modeling highly detailed by some
companies.  Those tracks had everything, on *and* off the track.  Road
access, parkings, you name it, it was there.  By today's standards the 2d
renderings aren't up to par but still...

Hey they at least gave us a rainbow from time to time at Dover <g>

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

ymenar

What's left to sim?

by ymenar » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:43:12


> FPS has nothing to do with the physics.

pssst, don't tell that to Geoff Crammond ;-P

Btw, what's happened with him?  I guess he's gone back living on his island
with all the ca$h he made cowing a 15 year old game engine.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

Pete

What's left to sim?

by Pete » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 21:27:22







> >> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:10:48 -0000, Peter

> >> >That watchamacallit to do with being able to emulate the bumps on the
> >> >road.  Yeah,  I forget the name and I'm pressed for time to look it
> >> >up. <BG> Unfortunately, we'll need sims that run at 1000fps I'd
> >> >guess.  :)

> >> High frequency bumps? BTW, the fps don't matter when you're talking
> >> physics...

> >> Cheers!

> >> Remco

> > Eh?  Are you saying that simulating high frequency bumps is nothing to
> > do with physics?  They certainly would be in my world coz they're going
> > to affect how the car behaves. And I thought hfb could not be
> > reproduced in an effective enough way because, in the time it takes to
> > jump from 1 frame to the next, the car would have travelled too far
> > along the track in order to allow for hfb's to be simulated correctly.
> > Hence more fps required.

> He said that simulating HFB has nothing to do with fps. FPS reflects how
> often the image is drawn on the screen. When the time to draw the next
> frame arrives, renderer takes the current state from the physics engine
> (which may either operate on higher frequency or use continuous model, or
> combination of both).

> Alex.

Cheers to those who put me straight.  So are HFB's being simulated in
some sims?  I remembered an old discussion here on ras which, after some
google groups research, may have been to do with GPL and some time ago,
that said that pc's weren't fast enough to simulate them.  Has that
changed now?
--
Pete Ives
Remove All_stRESS before sending me an email
Steve Blankenshi

What's left to sim?

by Steve Blankenshi » Wed, 24 Nov 2004 23:25:13



> Cheers to those who put me straight.  So are HFB's being simulated in
> some sims?  I remembered an old discussion here on ras which, after some
> google groups research, may have been to do with GPL and some time ago,
> that said that pc's weren't fast enough to simulate them.  Has that
> changed now?
> --

Yes, in numerous sims.  But for just one (easy to paste) example, here's the
basic track variable stanza from the terrain.ini file in ISI's latest,
rFactor (though similar lines are in its predecessors as well).  Note there
are high-frequency bump length and amplitude values for three different road
surface types.

[TRACKVARS]
RoadDryGrip=1.00
RoadWetGrip=0.80
RoadmetalGrip=0.80
RoadDustGrip=0.90
RoadBumpAmp=0.010
RoadBumpLen=13.0
RumbleDryGrip=0.95
RumbleWetGrip=0.60
RumbleBumpAmp=0.015
RumbleBumpLen=8.0
MiscBumpAmp=0.08
MiscBumpLen=4.0

There are also other stanzas in the file that modify these HF variables as
well as add more for washboard bumps, road cracks, cement patches, dusty
berms, grass, gravel and rumblestrips.

SB

J. Todd Wass

What's left to sim?

by J. Todd Wass » Thu, 25 Nov 2004 02:52:05


>Date: 11/23/2004 6:27 A.M. Central Standard Time







>> >> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:10:48 -0000, Peter

>> >> >That watchamacallit to do with being able to emulate the bumps on the
>> >> >road.  Yeah,  I forget the name and I'm pressed for time to look it
>> >> >up. <BG> Unfortunately, we'll need sims that run at 1000fps I'd
>> >> >guess.  :)

>> >> High frequency bumps? BTW, the fps don't matter when you're talking
>> >> physics...

>> >> Cheers!

>> >> Remco

>> > Eh?  Are you saying that simulating high frequency bumps is nothing to
>> > do with physics?  They certainly would be in my world coz they're going
>> > to affect how the car behaves. And I thought hfb could not be
>> > reproduced in an effective enough way because, in the time it takes to
>> > jump from 1 frame to the next, the car would have travelled too far
>> > along the track in order to allow for hfb's to be simulated correctly.
>> > Hence more fps required.

>> He said that simulating HFB has nothing to do with fps. FPS reflects how
>> often the image is drawn on the screen. When the time to draw the next
>> frame arrives, renderer takes the current state from the physics engine
>> (which may either operate on higher frequency or use continuous model, or
>> combination of both).

>> Alex.

>Cheers to those who put me straight.  So are HFB's being simulated in
>some sims?  I remembered an old discussion here on ras which, after some
>google groups research, may have been to do with GPL and some time ago,
>that said that pc's weren't fast enough to simulate them.  Has that
>changed now?
>--
>Pete Ives
>Remove All_stRESS before sending me an email

Depends really on what you would define to be high frequency.  The frame rate
and physics sampling rate are two seperate things.  If they weren't time would
speed up and slow down right along with the frame rate.  What you do is move
the car several times between each graphics frame that's drawn.  So if you're
"physics frequency" is 300Hz, that means in the code you're actually moving the
car 300 times per second.  I.e., you'd need a frame rate of 300 to see
everything the car is actually doing.  

If your graphics are running at 30 fps, then the car is moving 10 times, then
the graphics are drawn, etc..  So when talking about high frequency bumps it's
not frame rate dependent at all.  Instead, it's about the physics engine
sampling frequency (the 300, not the 30).  

How far can the car go in 1/300th of a second?  If there's a bump smaller than
that then the car will drive right through it without seeing it.  In practice
the car will sort of go through a bump that's quite a bit longer than that, I'd
think at least 4 times the size.

So the smallest bump you'd probably feel consistently at 100mph would be:

With:
1/300 = 0.0033333.... * 4 = .01333333... seconds of travel

100mph = 146.67 ft/sec

146.67 ft/sec * 0.0133333... = 1.95 feet

And that would be a bit inconsistent too, sort of the limit in a way.  I.e., if
there was a bump 2 feet long and you drove "through" it at 100mph you would
definitely hit it every time, but you'd hit it a little differently on each lap
probably.  I.e., a wheel would hit the bump 4 times with as you passed, but you
might hit the peak on one and not another pass.

At 200mph of course you'd be at about 4 feet minimum wavelength then.  Seems
it's worse than I thought.  Granted, if one sat to think about this a bit, this
sort of standard limitation could undoubtedly be overcome :-)

Todd Wasson
Racing Software
http://PerformanceSimulations.com
http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

Byron Forbe

What's left to sim?

by Byron Forbe » Thu, 25 Nov 2004 03:37:46


    Yep. I remember someone from Papy saying how much more accurate the
physics engine in GPL was due to the cpu's of the day allowing 2XXhz (two
hundred and something) running of the physics engine! :)

REDLINE42

What's left to sim?

by REDLINE42 » Thu, 25 Nov 2004 04:47:11


<snip<

Oh Yea? But what would happen if one of the crew members git's sent
a'packin for the weekend? Where would he watch the race from? City 17?

Race15

What's left to sim?

by Race15 » Wed, 01 Dec 2004 06:07:32

In ten years I predict that the West Brothers will have at least one more
update on their website...oh...and buy a new cat.

Mike

Larr

What's left to sim?

by Larr » Tue, 07 Dec 2004 09:21:57

Damage.

-Larry



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