rec.autos.simulators

This is how you do it.  Smooth and Faaaaasssst.  No more slideways craziness.
The man's an artist.

Still slow, but less so

Steve B.

I agree that the cars are extremely difficult to control as the drivers
of that era were able to do.  I have yet to visit Mansell's page and see
his recent hotlaps that have been said to be closer to what we would
expect from good (no, great) drivers.

But - this is a "Racing Simulation" not a "Game".  I knew what I was
getting into when I bought it.  It's the challenge that keeps me coming
back.

Devon

<snip>
% Can they follow the lines, be as smooth as the AI, AND still match the AI's
% lap times, especially in qualifying? Can they do it lap after lap? I would
% expect after all these months that they could. If you just use the drive
% line as a reference point, it's easy to see people are drifting in turns,
% swirving along the straights, and basically loose all over the track.  Even
% if the line wasn't there, you can see where mistakes are being made. They
% make up for the control mistakes by being quicker on the throttle, and with
% their braking.These are people who have been driving the game for 5 months
% already, and I know they have a high talent level.

<snip>

I hear where you are coming from and I understand.  I was beginning to
wonder if I could ever hope to make these "high times" being posted and
still "drive" in a "sane" manner.  After some minor tweaking of the
setup, I can now come within a second and a half of the AI's best times
at Monza.  While I am not as "smooth" and "perfect" as the AI, their
method of attacking the track is what I am aiming for.  I have always
found the "hotlap" replays to be rather NFS in approach and fine for
hotlaps, but nothing that could be used for racing.  The keys I have
found to coming close to driving smooth is two-fold...

1)  Maximum frame rate along with consitent frame rate.  This is the
first key.  I am running a PII 300 with a Voodoo2 12mb card and find
that it is necessary to drop down to 512x384 with a few graphics turned
off to keep my frame rate high and consitent enough to race with the AI.

2)  Controller precision...  Get the best you can get (along with
controller card).  While I don't have the "cream of the crop"
(Thrustmaster NASCAR Pro w/ACM), it is vital to have acceleration and
braking on separate axes.

Now if I can only master the art of braking I would be that much closer
to my goal...  While the brake on the TM NASCAR Pro is stiff, it doesn't
have the real feel of a real brake, but I am re-training my left foot
(but it is *** when I switch back to my street car <G>).

Also, one must realize that the AI are driving with the feedback of all
of the senses us humans are missing in the sim....

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I guess it boils down to, I don't give a ***that "average-joes"
"non-simmers" won't/can't enjoy the beauty of GPL.  While I agree with
your observations (and to a lesser degree your comments), I enjoy the
the challenge presented to me by GPL.  And my goal is to drive it
as smooth (and fast) as I can possibily can.  Just because others want
to toss their car around and make the HotLap Top 10, doesn't deter me
from enjoying the shear beauty of GPL.  And I am getting smoother (and
faster) now that I can tune the car to my driving style.

I actually believe that GPL offers the physics to drive the car smooth
and fast (one must develop the talent for it -- just like in real life
racing).  This just raises the *sim* bar a few notches higher (which is
a damn good thing in my book).

Other software houses will continue to make "arcade/sim" racing sims, so
the "commoner" should feel too left out.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

David G Fisher
DmndDave

If it gets real bad I break my engine because I jammed my car into gear
by just lifting off the accelerator and didn't push in the clutch.  
Currently it's the other way around, though.  I sometimes step on my
brake while lifting on the accelerator and shifting in GPL ;)

Devon

Steve, could you post Dave's URL? I never have seen his site and hear it's
pretty good.

Thanks

-don

"To race is to live, everything else is just waiting." - Rudi Caracciola

I have always left foot braked in these sim, but I've yet to have a
problem switching back to normal mode in the car. Maybe I've yet to
sim-race, then hop out in the car.

I can't imagine right foot braking. I'd lose so much precision and
timing, and the ability the brake and control the throttle at the same
time (v. important in GPL I believe).

But then I now know of a couple of demons with a CH Flightstick Pro
(Hi Mike, Hi Joachim!) which until I see them in action, I just can't
comprehend.

Stuart

--
Stuart Booth
Somewhere in Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Note: My email address is in disguise! Remove trailing Z

Kurt

http://www.fan.net.au/~mansell/

have fun!

Trips

Is it possible that GPL requires ff in order to drive the cars smooth? If
so, and the developers felt that current ff really wasn't good enough to be
included in the sim, then shouldn't they have fudged GPL in some way to
compensate until ff technology is advanced enough? Have other developers
done this? GPL's physics model can be absolutely perfect in it's accuracy,
but without the real world feedback necessary to drive a car, then what we
are experiencing is possibly more unrealistic than a physics model which has
been fudged.

It's not about "gameplay", it's about realism. Sims are supposed to be
realistic. So far, I haven't seen realistic driving, just fast. As a matter
of fact, I've seen some replays in the past few days which the driver is
very, very fast, and I'm surprised how the cars look because it would be
impossible for them to ever be driven that way in real life. Is that
accurate or realistic? I'm going to concentrate on being smooth and fast in
GPL, and I'm hoping I can do it (and see others do it as well). If not, I
think I'll be very disappointed sometime in the future.

David G Fisher
DmndDave

That seems to be what we see from the Achim Trensz's, Doug Arnao's and
Dave Mansell's of the world - fast, smooth, but taking risks that no
real-life driver would. A real world driving style is developed by
taking a corner slowly and building speed until you _feel_ that you
couldn't take it faster without too much risk. We develop a style
exactly the reverse of that - hurl the car into a corner and crash
massively, then slow down progressively until we KNOW that we are
taking that corner as fast as we can with that setup. Of course the
resultant speeds and styles will be different.

Unless a sim can address the above somehow (and even more difficult,
still be saleable) I don't think we can ever be fast in the same way
the real drivers were/are. I used to be ***y quick around Bristol in
an Indycar, but I doubt any real world driver would ever risk his life
in the oversteering twitchy car I used to do it.

As far as I can see the cars are already smooth, it's just the lines
taken that are different. FF would be really nice to have, but not
necessary in order to be smooth.

Sims are supposed to make money - that means it has to be about
gameplay. Focussing on realism alone could well guarantee a perfectly
accurate flop.

I disagree. I don't think anyone _would_ do that in real life, but
certainly people could. It's respect for life and limb that precludes
it. Look at Dave's 3:17 at Spa - how many times did he virtually die
before he achieved that? Even in a race I attack Masta at 170mph+ all
the way through - damned if I would do that if there was a chance I
would kill myself. Gilles Villeneuve once described qualifying - if
you need a fast time in the closing seconds of qualifying sometimes
you shut out the fear and push the boundaries of what you and the car
are capable of, and accept this huge risk. The real drivers know there
is a level of performance beyond what they are comfortably prepared to
reach for - we drive in this "forbidden zone" all the time.

I've always disliked this aspect of sim-racing since it brings
everything back to time - if you are prepared to try over, and over,
and over you will eventually set a totally unfeasible time. Not an
impossible time, because the physics of the car in both real world and
sim can achieve it. But an unrealistic time nevertheless, because no
driver would take the Masta Kink sideways, tyres smoking at 170mph+ as
I often see Achim Trensz doing! :-)

Cheers!
John

Steve B.

End Thought:  I wonder what the AI drivers would look like if you dialed their
speed up to DM's level?  I'll have to give that one a whirl sometime.

Is that all that's left to complain about?

--
Pat Dotson
IMPACT Motorsports
http://www.impactmotorsports.com/pd.html