rec.autos.simulators

   Jim

Please this has been a fact for years.  Re-read what I said.  The Papyrus
_old_ game engine does not support the usage of acceleration and braking at
the same time.  It's a fact.  What you see, even with separate axis, is not
like GPL.

Smash the brake pedal at 100%, and try to rev'up.  You won't be able,
because the old game engine can't model usage of both at the same time.
Hope it helps ;)

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

LOL... I don't want to out-smart you.  Think whatever you think.  Do you
want me to give you information by Papyrus employees about that to tell you
your wrong?

What you do is simply let go the acceleration when you tap the brake.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

This didn't sound right, so I tested your theory last night at California.
(I have an Interact V3 wheel with pedals on a single axis.)  If I come off
Turn 2 at 175mph and hold the gas to the floor, adding brake pedal stops my
acceleration once I have it depressed about half-way.  If I depress the
brake about 75% (with the gas still full on), the car will start slowing
down.  So I'm not sure what you mean about N3 not supporting use of gas and
brake at the same time.

The same is true on restarts, while the gas is depressed about 1/3 to
maintain the pace speed, depressing the brake about 10% will quickly drop
the speed a couple mph.  I use this method because when I let off the gas a
little, I don't immediately re-find the exact throttle position I had before
and I end up with a slight lurching effect.  By using the brake, my throttle
position doesn't change and I have better control over the distance between
me and the car in front.

The "lurching" effect of letting off the gas and getting back on it is a
much bigger problem in GPL, where leaning the car forward or back too much
can put you off the track.  If I encounter slightly slower traffic in the
corner, I feel like I have much better control of the car by adding a little
brake than I do by getting out of and into the gas.

   Although, you seem very confident in your knowledge, I have found
this confidence does not always reflect true knowledge in newsgroups,
none the less I performed the following test.
    Disclaimer: This is with my pedals, which are, granted, home made.
Your results may differ.

   Coming down the front stretch at Daytona, applying brakes fully at
the start/finish line.

   1) Releasing accelerator and then applying brake. Stopped fully, just
past the end of the pit wall.

   2) Applying brake fully, while holding accelerator down. Came to an
almost full stop about halfway through turn two, at which time the car
went into a smoky burn out and burned a couple of doughnuts.

   Perhaps the Papy employee who spoke to you, was not as knowledgeable
as he led you to believe?

   JIm

Your slowing not because the game sees the application of brake but because it
sees a reduction in throttle, and compression braking is slowing your car.

Just know that your NOT adding brake, the game only sees it as a reduction of
throttle.  Smooth throttle control is KEY to gpl, single or dual axis pedals.
To progress in gpl I'd suggest focusing on control the throttle with the
throttle.

--
Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.

Can somebody please back me up here? Randy?  Eric? Michael? Richard?
anybody? ;-)

I totally know and understand what you have wrote and that I've snipped.
It's true, but that means nothing about the point that Im trying to reach.
There is no simulated effect of acceleration and brake at the same time in
Papyrus's old game engine, whatever you have a single or seperate axis.
They only tried at their best to simulate the effect, and only with the new
game engine in GPL have they achieved it.  What you are doing with 2) is
simply braking at about 40% of your potential braking power (since it's not
fully linear).  When you finally stop on the track, you will of course start
spinning the tyres, because Papyrus has a canned effect under 30mph for
that.

Single axis :

100%brake <---------------o-------------->100%gas
the "o" is neutral position, the same as if you have no feet on any pedal at
that moment. (0% gas, 0% brake).  If per example you are at 100% gas and
press your brake pedal halfway, you will find yourself at 50% of
acceleration

Double axis :

100% brake <--------------o
                                  o---------------->100% gas

Double axis does the same effect.  You just have seperate axis, and there is
a calculation that regroups them in the software.  The only difference is
that there is a couple of different effects and linearity is not fully there
like a single axis.  If you are 100% gas and you press your brake pedal, you
will probably feel nothing until you are halfway of your pedal travel.  Then
you will start having the brake effect, since the linearity made you go in
the braking zone (not anymore the acceleration zone).

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

"What you are doing with 2) is

Which was the point of this thread, in case you missed it. By applying
the brake whilst holding the throttle, the braking effect is reduced,
allowing a finer adjustment of speed, whilst in the draft :)

Thank you for making my point.

Jim

I guess we're saying the same thing.  In your example above, when I'm at
100% gas and I want to slow down, I could either let off the gas halfway or
press the brake halfway.  Either movement will have the effect of bringing
us to 50% acceleration on the scale above.  So the choice of which you do
can be based on other factors. In my case, I know by feel where I want the
throttle, and if I need to temporarily slow down, I can leave the throttle
where it is and apply as much brake as I need.  Once I'm done with whatever
made me want to slow down, I can release the brake and be right where I need
to be.

When you said Papy didn't simulate acceleration and brake at the same time,
I thought you were saying that the brake would have no effect until the gas
was fully released, and vice versa.  This clearly isn't the case.

Well yes, they try to simulate it to the maximum that the old game engine
can do.

You can't realistically push the brake fully, then think that you can rev-up
the engine with the throttle.  But having a seperate axis won't give you
much advantage than the fraction of a second it takes to go from 100-0%
neutral compared to 100%-0% gas and then going into braking mode.

You can't do any throttle action at the same time than doing a braking
action.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

I think you've both reached the conclusion that you are talking about
slightly different things - and are therefore both correct ;-)

Following is based on observation only (so may be incorrect <g>) and
repeats much that has already been said - just trying to provide a
reasonably definitive explanation.

With single axis pedals, simultaneously applying both brake and pedal will
result in a single electrical input reaching the sim (any sim) and can only
be interpreted as such. When at full throttle, applying the brake produces
a similar effect to lifting - the exact characteristics will depend on how
the potentiometers are balanced and for some pedals it might provide finer
control to lift, in others finer adjustment can be made by tapping the
brake.

With pedals on separate axes, two electrical inputs reach the sim and it is
now up to the program to interpret these. Sims such as GPL and GP2 take
both inputs and feed them into the physics engine - i.e. they allow true
simultaneous application and, hence, better car control. Sims like N3
pre-process the inputs before they reach the physics engine. In N3's case
then for all pedals I've tried, if you have the throttle pressed then it
completely ignores the brake input until it reaches a certain value - at
which point it ignores the throttle input (the only exception I've noted is
with the canned wheel spin routine below 25mph). However, some people have
reported different results (e.g. Jim in this thread) which presumably means
that it depends on something a bit more - e.g. the behaviour might be
different depending on which actual axes are being used.

Cheers,
Richard

Jim, you said earlier that your pedals were "foot switches". By this, do
you mean that they are digital (on/off) or are they analogue? If the
latter, could you please say what axes they are wired to - the behaviour
you describe isn't what I get (at least from memory - don't have N3
installed right now).

Cheers,
Richard

"Richard Walker" <> With pedals on separate axes, two electrical inputs
reach the sim and it is

   I tried the test at Daytona again, this time simply lifting off the
gas at the start finish line. The car came to a stop near the exit of
turn 4, nearly a lap later.

   So we have, Lifting off the gas and braking stops just past the end
of pit wall. Braking while holding the gas, stopping near the center of
turn two. Lifting off the gas, stopping near the exit of turn 4.

   Obviously N3 can see both brake and accelerator at the same time, if
the pedals are configured in a certain way.

   Unfortunately, the denizens of R.A.S seem hung up admitting that any
other sim than thier beloved GPL, might be capable of this.

   Quite frankly, I don't car how pedal usage in N3 compares to GPL,
Cart Precision Racing or Whacky Wheels, for that matter.

   My grandkids all thought Whacky Wheels was God's gift to racing sims,
but I would not bore everyone by rubbing everyone's face in it, on every
post made to this group.

   To me it smacks of, MY FAVORITE SIM RuLeZ. YOUR'S SuCkS DooD.

   Jim

No need to be so defensive Jim. I've nothing against N3 (other than being
so similar to N2 I've gotten a little bored with it - whilst TEN was around
I did far more racing with N2 than any other sim, including GPL). I'm just
trying to find out what's happenning.

Anyway, I reinstalled N3 & did a bit of testing. With accelerator on
joystick 2 Y axis, brake on joystick 1 Y axis, I get the following results
(at Dega, each time braking / lifting at the s/f line)

Lift, no braking - comes to rest in turn 4
Lift, brake      - comes to rest just after 76 sign before turn 1
No lift, brake   - comes to rest (other than canned donuts) just after 76
sign before turn 1

So - I hope you agree - that with this particular setup it appears that
only one input is being processed.

Bearing in mind your earlier reference to your pedals being "foot
switches", I then configured the gas & brake to the wheel's buttons and in
this case if I don't lift whilst braking the car comes to a rest (canned
donuts) at the exit of turn 2. This matches what you reported. In this
configuration, the sim has to do a certain amount of pre-processing of the
inputs or the car would be completely undrivable. Presumably when both are
pressed it pre-processes them to provide about 50% braking, a sensible
solution.

I still have found no evidence that N3's physics engine (which after all is
essentially the same one as N2, N1, ICR2 & ICR1 - all excellent sims btw
<g>) can actually process dual inputs as dual inputs. That's not a value
judgement on this or any other sim - just experimental evidence.

Cheers,
Richard