rec.autos.simulators

Wow! Sims really have come far in the past few years..

: for a sim... but I use a Thrustmaster T2 wheel and pedals, and I can't
: for the life of me steer CPR. It irritates me, because there is so
: much potential in this sim. But even breathing on the brakes locks the
: wheels up, and no matter where I slide the little non-linear steering
: and speed-proportional steering widgets, there is simply no place
: where steering is manageable.

Is the T2 a force feedback wheel? I can well imagine how CART PR would be
almost impossible to steer without the feedback - the limits of grip are
so marginal that all your decisions about control are heavily based on the
what the wheel is doing - you can feel it beginning to go light as you
oversteer. I drive it with all aids off, and the steering set to
twitchiest - with feedback you can throw the thing around like a go-kart.

I use an SC&T "ultimate per4mer force feedback". Apparently it's
reviewed as being the most powerful "arms out of sockets" wheel around,
but it's just the job for CPR. While I accept that the other drivers in
race-mode *are* homicidal, spoiling it as a racer, for me it's streets
ahead of anything else as a sim for lap-time whittling and car control.

I agree about CPR's brakes though, they are hard not to lock, but not as
annoying as Monaco GP's wheelspin :)

My take on the whole thing is, that you couldn't hope to drive a real
racecar with a keyboard or with no mechanical feedback through the wheel,
and the better a sim gets (with all aids off) the same will be true.

Which is probably why I'm so hopeless at GPL. Anyone know of any
force-feedback available for that yet? :)

ian

<...>

Maybe it is the controller... but then, the T2 isn't exactly an
unusual controller for simmers.  

Well, if there is a way to monitor tire temps, I'd be willing to plug
in my old CH pedals and either the joystick or my flight yoke...
otherwise, it is just too much hassle, since that would put it out of
the realm of serious sim for me. Meanwhile GPL, ICR2, N2, GP2 all work
fine with the T2.

Well, this is a good point. Perhaps CPR was indeed designed with force
feedback as the default mode, and without it I'd need a steering aid.

But this means CPR designers didn't do their job fully, IMO.

<...>

Well, I think feedback in all it's forms is the way of the future for
sims. But I also think that the best sims do OK without wheel
feedback.

Here's an question: with serious sims that support FF, are people with
FF turned on doing better or worse times than people with it turned
off? I mean in the broad sense, categorically.

I put it like that because there is a problem with FF- and that is
when it comes to online competition. If one or the other has an
advantage, competitive people are going to favor the advantage. And
I've heard some people say that racing with FF on in a sim they knew
well actually made their lap times worse. And, of course, you can't
enforce that all racers will have FF on if it turns out there is an
advantage to having it off!

I don't know the answers; interested in what you guys know.

Well, you raise a thorny issue. Papy says current FF technology with
current hardware wasn't "good enough" for them, in so many words. This
makes some very angry, some thinking Papy is just lazy. I fthe speed
of their patches and bug fixes, etc, are any indication... maybe they
laziness isn't out of the question ;-). But I also do sort of see
Papy's point- GPL is the top-eschalon, cream-of-the-crop, cutting edge
of commerical sim, IMO, and FF is just now becoming a norm, and wasn't
totally standardized yet as to hardware and implementation. I think
the hardware and protocol of FF needed to be written in stone a bit
more in the marketplace before GPL could have used it. I assume N3
will have it, though, now that FF is the norm.

That said, if GPL had FF support, I'd go buy a FF wheel. I really
don't see them putting in in after the thought, though. That isn't
their way ;-)

: Here's an question: with serious sims that support FF, are people with
: FF turned on doing better or worse times than people with it turned
: off? I mean in the broad sense, categorically.

Well, I'd be stuffed at CPR, when my wheel doesn't kick in properly I'm
all over the shop.

: I've heard some people say that racing with FF on in a sim they knew
: well actually made their lap times worse. And, of course, you can't
: enforce that all racers will have FF on if it turns out there is an
: advantage to having it off!

Quite, even if theoretically you get more info on handling, thus should go
a few seconds faster with feedback, what you're *used* to is going to
count for far more than that. Then there's the many games where badly
implemented FF might be fun, but will hinder performance.

: That said, if GPL had FF support, I'd go buy a FF wheel. I really
: don't see them putting in in after the thought, though. That isn't
: their way ;-)

They're probably right too, FF does need to be written utterly tied into
the physics engine if it's to work as more than a WHAM BUMP arcade style.
Sounds like a patch programming nightmare to me, no wonder I've never been
happy with any post release FF patch yet :)

...but when you can *feel* things like the weight redistribution as you
break and turn by the change in front wheel grip - that's magic, and
that's what CPR does so well.

:
< snip >
: Perhaps CPR was indeed designed with force
: feedback as the default mode, and without it I'd need a steering aid.
:
: But this means CPR designers didn't do their job fully, IMO.

Agreed, it did occur to me when I first went through the menus that many
people are playing without wheels, let alone feedback, and that the
absence of adequate aids would utterly ruin the game for them.  That's a
hell of an oversight considering the amount of time they put into the
program - I mean, did any of them actually even *try* the thing with a
keyboard?  :)

ian

I've never used force feedback, but CART works fine for me...

I'd probably do the same!