rec.autos.simulators

Every now and then I try to play a race game. With every game I tried I
found it very hard to even drive slowly and just cruise along the track.
I slip, bump into walls and am very happy its just a sim.
I found that with all those games i was only able to steer hard left or
hard right. No incremental steering at all. This was true for PC games,
but I tried some gameconsole games as well. Of course my kids just drive
and race as if they were born behind the wheel of a virtual racecar.
With pc games I tried keyboard and joystick, never bought a
wteeringwheel. With the consolegames I used the regular pads.

Seeing that those games are almost pieces of art, beautiful moddeled,
chosing betweeen different tires or whatever fancy things to do, I am
very surprised that I never saw a game that enabled me to steer a little
to the left or right, which is a basic part of the art of cardriving.
The latest game I tried is a demo of race driver 2 (very recent game)

Hopelessly trying to catch up with my kids ;),

Gerard

   What kind of controller are you using?
dh

Andi.

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Remove only one zero to reply.

   Subjects Andi?  By the time I've opened the post, :) I've forgotten the
subject....Uhmmmwhat was your name again?

   So...thanks to whatshisname...we can see what your problem is.  TUrning
a keyboard does not work very well.  Get a good wheel or at least a
joystick.  Otherwise make very small quick taps on the turning keys.

dave ........h.......

Since the kb or most gamepads cant be setup as analog devices, how is the
game supposed to know when you want to turn a little or alot.  Since kb's
aren't touch sensitive, its very hard to use them as steering and or
throttle/brake device period.  TO play any sims these days, you really need
a decent analog joystick at a bare minimum to even attempt them.  I've been
driving with a wheel for about 6 years now, and I can't imagine going back
to even a joystick let alone a kb.

Gerard

                                           <ultra snip>

I thought of flight simulators having a progressive turn when using a
keyboard.
Only problem is a steering wheel should respond as quickly and as much as
you're able to turn it, whereas flight has air forcing resistance.
Perhaps a small piece of software by use of a toggle switch to enable
incremental turning?
As long as the steering wheel makers don't complain....
Ideal as a back up if the wheel quits unexpectantly.
just a thought... :-)

Oh, well THAT'S different.  The original post sounded like you didn't *have* a
joystick or wheel.  If you have a joystick, but it's not working in the game
I'm sure someone can help you with that.  Is it not recognized at all, or does
it just not give correct values?

Eldred
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As a matter of fact I really was expecting the sim to be programmed in
such a way that the left-right keys would do incremental steering, just
like in the flightsim I play. But indeed you need to be kinda quick
pressing left/right multiple times to make a hard r/l turn. On the other
hand: you only make hard turns when driving kinda slow.

Thanks again to all who took the time to answer a newbie question

Gerard

There was also a steering wheel that would clamp on a mouse to steer (still
have a picture of one hidden somewhere on my HD)

Really, you can buy a cheap racing wheel for under 20 bucks.  Keyboard
racing is USELESS and will always be.

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But in the end - if you REALLY wanna enjoy racing games you GOTTA have a
steering wheel :-)