rec.autos.simulators

Every once in a while I go download every demo that looks interesting to me and try them all out. Got about ten yesterday and three started looking pretty good. I will probably buy Arena and SCGT. Swedish Touring Car Championship, on the other hand, I won't buy. Oddly enough, it is the one I want most.

I was very impressed with the STCC playable demo. I am what could be considered a hard-core sim enthusiast. Always on the prowl for a new game. STCC's graphics blew me away right from the start. The track layout and curb and surface textures are very well done. The sounds are excellent. (Not usually so in games.) The physics - very much acceptable. A fun car to race around. I would buy it right now except for three minor errors which make it unenjoyable.

1. Forgivable - the AI are far too slow. Patchable, I would hope.

2. Forgivable - no tire sound in understeer. Even with the excuse that in real life you don't hear understeer skidding, (which is a false statement) in sim land we need to use sight and sound in unrealistic ways to compensate for lack of stimuli in other areas.

3. Unforgivable - no deadzone and slope settings. While the brake and throttle slopes are usable, the steering is hideous. The slope looks like this on my machine:
100-100-100-100-100-95-40-35-25-02-01-00-00-CENTER-00-00-01.... You get the point? I turn the wheel, the car doesn't turn. I turn some more, the car spins. This leads to anxiety and a complete lack of confidence. Thus, anticipation is moot. Either end of the spectrum would be slightly playable or at least adjustable with CTFJ3. But at this point it is too aggravating to try playing with.

When are these clowns gonna learn?! All proper racing games should have complete controller adjustment. For an example, pick up Geoff Crammonds Grand Prix II. At the very least, all games should have controller screens that detailed. Without it, anyone who owns a wheel is off the list. Even the great GPL fell short in this area. I had to physically rebuild my pedals to make it playable. At least there's no deadzone. As far as I'm concerned anything with a deazone is garbage. MGPRS with Crammonds Advanced Controller Settings would probably be a really good game. But for a little effort, most companies will ruin a perfectly good title...  :-(  

Too bad.... I would love to own STCC if it were a proper racing game.

--

Mark "Deadzones are the most hideous disaster in racing games." Jeangerard
New Mexico USA

SNIP

SNIP

It struck me the other day what a nice controller setup screen Viper
Racing has. (I'm back to playing that ol' game >again<).

It has settings for deadzone and range for all three axis. PLUS it has
a nice feedback "thermometer" that allows you to see that you get the
full throw for throttle/gas. Hit the throttle and the adjust range so
that the thermometer just hits the top end.
The only thing lacking is a better linearity adjustment. Now it's just
a checkbox for Non-linear steering on/off.

/petern

It just amazes me... some of the decisions manufacturers make. :-)

--
Mark Jeangerard
www.soundchaserweb.com
New Mexico USA

--
Mark Jeangerard
www.soundchaserweb.com
New Mexico USA

Bad controls happen in real cars too (all the time<sigh>) and even in race
cars.  I was just at a race shop where they were building a new throttle
pedal & linkage for the racing version of a very well known high powered
sports car.  The original equipment throttle pedal and linkage was so bad
(kept the driver from putting the power down smoothly, etc.) that the new
arrangement was worth a _lot_ in lap time.

Part of the problem (imo) is that people are very adaptable, and if the
drivers just "adapt" to the bad controls to the point where they can "get
by", then there is never any feedback to the designers to do a better job.

One place where real thought often goes into designing the controls is in
aircraft, especially military aircraft.

-- Doug

                Milliken Research Associates Inc.

-Chris-

PS:  Have you ever played GPL?  I'd be curious to know what your
perception of its vehicle dynamics is.

-Chris-

Yes... I've had exerienced that myself. The turbo MR2 and early turbo 300ZX
come to mind. Impossible to heel toe either.

I got an answer from the STCC people:

<on deadzone and slope>
3. Yeah, sorry about that, we didn't think it was that important. We thought
people used external programs like CTFJ3 or setup programs that came with
their controller. Not sure why CTFJ3 doesn't work for you, we're making a
very similar system for Rally Masters, checkout:
http://www.simracingnews.com/rallymasters for info about the game.

Regards,
      / Vidar Nygren
      Programmer
      Digital Illusions CE AB, P.o. Box 53160, S-400 15 Gothenburg Sweden

(CTFJ3 doesn't work because my slope is like this:
100-100-100-100-100-95-40-35-25-02-01-00-00-CENTER-00-00-01.... )

That makes me think that they used one controller in testing. (sigh)

Every once in a while I go download every demo that looks interesting to me
and try them all out. Got about ten yesterday and three started looking
pretty good. I will probably buy Arena and SCGT. Swedish Touring Car
Championship, on the other hand, I won't buy. Oddly enough, it is the one I
want most.

I was very impressed with the STCC playable demo. I am what could be
considered a hard-core sim enthusiast. Always on the prowl for a new game.
STCC's graphics blew me away right from the start. The track layout and curb
and surface textures are very well done. The sounds are excellent. (Not
usually so in games.) The physics - very much acceptable. A fun car to race
around. I would buy it right now except for three minor errors which make it
unenjoyable.

1. Forgivable - the AI are far too slow. Patchable, I would hope.

2. Forgivable - no tire sound in understeer. Even with the excuse that in
real life you don't hear understeer skidding, (which is a false statement)
in sim land we need to use sight and sound in unrealistic ways to compensate
for lack of stimuli in other areas.

3. Unforgivable - no deadzone and slope settings. While the brake and
throttle slopes are usable, the steering is hideous. The slope looks like
this on my machine:
100-100-100-100-100-95-40-35-25-02-01-00-00-CENTER-00-00-01.... You get the
point? I turn the wheel, the car doesn't turn. I turn some more, the car
spins. This leads to anxiety and a complete lack of confidence. Thus,
anticipation is moot. Either end of the spectrum would be slightly playable
or at least adjustable with CTFJ3. But at this point it is too aggravating
to try playing with.

When are these clowns gonna learn?! All proper racing games should have
complete controller adjustment. For an example, pick up Geoff Crammonds
Grand Prix II. At the very least, all games should have controller screens
that detailed. Without it, anyone who owns a wheel is off the list. Even the
great GPL fell short in this area. I had to physically rebuild my pedals to
make it playable. At least there's no deadzone. As far as I'm concerned
anything with a deazone is garbage. MGPRS with Crammonds Advanced Controller
Settings would probably be a really good game. But for a little effort, most
companies will ruin a perfectly good title...

Too bad.... I would love to own STCC if it were a proper racing game.

--

Mark "Deadzones are the most hideous disaster in racing games." Jeangerard
New Mexico USA

Greetings,

Gregor

For some time, I'd been having a fine time running ICR2 and GP2. Then,
to make this machine more suitable for musical work here, I had to ditch
the trusty old SB16 and I installed a Creative Labs/Ensoniq AudioPCI
card. Sadly, this meant no more DOS sims.

I have a TM NASCAR Sprint wheel, which I use in "paddle mode" (since the
physical setup here isn't practical for setting up pedals, this was a
good solution). It worked great in my Past Era of DOS with the sims I
mentioned. Wanting a racing sim of some sort, I looked around and found
NASCAR 1999 for $20. Not quite what I wanted, but cool, especially once
I found and set up the TPTCC patch and converted ICR2 tracks to NR1999.
The wheel works very well with that sim.

I thought SCGT sounded great, and when I found it cheap at a local
store, I was psyched. Took it home, installed it, almost puked. Was VERY
glad I bought it cheap. It has good things about it, but the worst of
the things that made me blow it off. I could NOT find any way of setting
the control response in the game setup that would make it drivable. No
matter how I set the sliders, it was like I had this big dead zone in
the center of the steering, until I'd get to a certain wheel angle, then
ZIP, the car would dart to the side. I gave up in disgust.

I'd been checking stores here and there for a copy of CART racing, the
w95 version of ICR2, and about a week ago I suddenly noticed on one of
the sim websites an update patch to turn ICR2 into the w95 version. Hey!
Yes! Great! I downloaded and ran the patch and it looked like I was set
other than the funky palette problems with my converted tracks (N1
Atlanta and ICR1 Indy). Then I realized, wait, the steering isn't right.
I tried recalibrating, but over a large angle in the center of the
steering range, there was no response. Nothing. I'd turn the wheel and
get nothing until suddenly it would kick in and dart. Whine and moan and
*** and back to NR1999/TPTCC again, which has no such problems.

I could think it was a problem with the wheel itself or maybe (since I
had changed soundcards) the gameport itself on the AudioPCI, except that
NR1999 works fine. I thought perhaps maybe it was just the difference in
the physics model and that the stockcar/touring car physics masked a
problem that showed up with the more precise and nimble
indycar/champcar, but going out on the track and experimenting showed
that, no, in fact there was clean smooth response to my steering inputs
in the very center of the steering range.

I'm stumped. Any clues, anyone?

Thanks,
JLE

[Dead zone steering problems snipped]

See if you can't get hold of a copy of DXtweak.exe.  It is a little
program that will enable you to set your dead zone settings in
directx.  I used it to set my dead zones to zero and I was completely
amazed at how much more control I had in GPL.  You may be experiencing
the same kind of problem.

-Chris-

PS:  I'm sorry, but I don't have the link to where I picked it up.  I
know it's out there, though.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

--
Ian Parker

UKGPL League http://www.racesimcentral.net/
==

Andre

JLE