rec.autos.simulators

Andrew

Most of us,  ( by far not all, so no hate mail, ok? ), turn steering wheels
off anyways. If you've a got driving wheel on your desk,  the one on the
screen is kinda redundant, no? If you've got a joystick, well, maybe. At
least for while until you get used to it it acts as a check on what your
control inputs are actually doing in the game.

The bigger issue is that the in car***pit, apart from the lack of a wheel
is really sucky. That's ok, there are beatiful patches galore available. You
could get your money's worth out if it at its current going rate just by the
entertainment value of playing with the add ons. HUNDREDS of cars.

Now, there are those here that know I'm no big fan of SCGT, and I'm
*personally* sorry I bought it, but I'm one of them hard core realsim fans
who insists on realistic physics. SCGT won't give you that. It WILL give you
at least hours of fun "play" time however, and if that's what you're after,
at today's prices, I'd say you can't go wrong.

dave henrie

My current carset
2 Audi A8r's
2 BMW LMR's
1 Chrysler Oreca Reynard
1 GT2 Corvette
3 GT2Chrysler Vipers
1 Dams Lola-Judd
2 Cadillac LMP's
1 McLaren GT1 keeps popping in
1 Momo Ferrari 333sp...love the sound
1 Riley & Scott Judd
3 GT2 Porches
2 Panoz LMR Spyder Roadsters

Running 16 cars they tend to vary which of the above
are in the field.  Fire up Hockenheim and you have a mini Le Mans

Name one closed car sim besides the Nascar seires that has better
physics? I'll expect you will say Viper racing, but acording to
Gamesdomain SCGT has better physics. I don't know myself, just thought
you would like to know someone else's opinion though.
--
Nos

--
Regards,
Bruce Kennewell,
Canberra, Australia.
---------------------------

--
Regards,
Bruce Kennewell,
Canberra, Australia.
---------------------------

--
Regards,
Bruce Kennewell,
Canberra, Australia.
---------------------------

MMMMM.... coffee...

Andrew

The problem here is that the NASCAR modifiers are all pretty well
concentrating on sedans. So, there are touring cars of various ilk, but
other than a years old Ford GT40 nothing that really rows my boat. To drive
my beloved McLaren M8D I do have to turn to  SCGT. The same goes for the
Lotus Cortina, the Morris/Austin Mini and the Porsche 550. All of this is
just graphics though.

You are also cheating by restricting it to tin tops. We all know exactly why
you did this. :) So, let me throw you a curve and say that MGPRS2 is more
realistic. Hey, what if I came up with a bunch of tin top "skins" for, you
know, that unnamed open wheel game that you don't want me bring into the
picture. And then there's always ICR2 with the GTP patch. Wish we had one of
these for NASCAR. Come to think of it, the next CART game really ought to be
NASCAR with a CART model. I mean really, NASCAR 3 with a couple of tracks
and an open wheel car IS ICR3!SOMEBODY out there hack this up for me, ok?

Viper Racing is more realistic. Games Domain is wrong. They are, of course,
entitiled to their opinion. Their opinion in this case though is an opinion
at least in part concerning facts. They got their facts wrong. To the extent
that they got their facts wrong their opinion is wrong. Their testing and
decision procedure was really kind of odd. They got odd results.  They
didn't include GPL and F12000 because the cars weren't like what I've got in
my driveway? What the hell do they know about what I've got in my driveway?
I should think they'd have to discount ALL the games on that score. Who
among us has "Moby Dick" in their driveway? Or  a NASCAR car? And if they
think the Escort in RC is like the one in their driveway, boy, are they out
to lunch. They also have certain opinions about the handling of cars that
they obviously havn't driven. I've OWNED a 356.  They have no idea how to
properly drive a FWD car. I turn donuts in my CRX. Their test would be
*entirely dependent on setup* and yet they provide no setup information. The
F3 in GPL is an impressively good model of the Miata in my driveway, and the
F2 is similarly impressive when it comes to my Maserati.  Heck, the F1 isn't
even a bad rendition of a really hot Mustang GT.

I could go for PAGES about the problems with Games Domain's "test." I can
sum it all up though by simply pointing out that they thought Midtown
Madness was surprisingly realistic. Fun? Yes. Realistic? Yeah, right Sparky.

NFS5 is more realistic. NFS5 has the model that I believe ISI were shooting
for, but didn't achieve.  It is an order of magnitude above SCGT. NFS5 has
realistic enough physics that I intend to buy it, in a year or two. For $10.

Dirt Track Racing. Hey, they're tin tops, and you didn't say, "No dirt." DTR
is great.

I can't speak for RC since I've only played the demo and I understand in the
full game you can tweak it to be far more realistic. The demo left me colder
than the NFS5 demo did. And I LOVE hot little front drivers.

And what is the basis of my opinions? Where do I get off slaming Games
Domain so hard? Just who do I think I am?

I think I'm a physicist, with experience in designing automotive chassis,
experience in gathering telemetry data and using it to build computer
generated models (although not games), experience actually DRIVING a number
of the cars modeled in these games, experience as a racing engineer, driver
coach and possesser of a shelf full of racing trophies that I've earned
myself.

I think my creds hold up.

Now, I could write a multi-page analysis of SCGT and what's wrong with it,
 boy am *I* going to get more E-mail from Dave Henrie :)  ), but I'll focus
on a couple of key issues.

Note that I * am talking here about SCGT with the 1.5 patch AND the Advanced
Options editor with the settings at slick grass and simulation.* The
unpatched version without the AoE is so arcade as to not even be worth
discussing in this forum.

There is a lot of talk about the AI model being too slow. Anyone with sim
experience who dedicates themselves to SCGT for a week will find that at the
end of that period they are finishing races two and three laps up on second
place in a 20 minute race. This is not realism. It isn't even much  fun. At
least not for me. There is a patch to let you speed up the AI to be
competitive with a human driver. BUT, if you look at the AI qualifying times
you'll discover that they are completely in line with the times turned by
real cars on real tracks! It is the player car physics that are at fault,
not AI. When I first played SCGT I thought the suspension model was totally
bogus. The cars roll around like stuck whales. It wasn't for some time that
I realized that this was an effect of the above problem. The tire grip is
way too high, even on the simulation setting, and hence you are cornering at
g forces way above what the actually achieve. This puts loads on the
suspension that are also realistic, hence that chassis roll.

I've found a fix for this. Take a car. Put HARD tires on it. Buy all
options, set all suspension settings to full hard, lower the car  as far as
you can, then DISABLE modified cars! Disabling modified cars dosn't actually
disable all modifications. It disables all POWER modifications. It leaves
suspension mods in place.

Now you have a reasonalby realistic handling car that, in the hands of the
best drivers, will match the times of the best real drivers. Unfortunately,
you also now have a "sim" with limited setup functions. Wing angles and
gears. That's it. Of course that also means you don't have to play with
settings much, and many sim players arn't techies and just like to drive.
For them this is a viable stratagy.

Now I'll get to my biggest beef. The rotational model. It's just plain
screwy. The cars over rotate around their vertical axis. This effect becomes
WORSE with low power cars. So much so that it isn't really possible to
realistic driving feel with any car much under 175 hp. Dave Robinson puts
the figure at 200, so I'm being generous.

This over rotation happens WITHOUT sliding the tires. This is why the effect
becomes more prominant at *lower* horsepower. You can go around a corner
with the tires tracking on rails and STILL have to apply opposite lock to
hold the car. What's more, this rotation is grossly underdamped.

It feels like the rotational model is based on driving an axle through the
car, and that axle has a coil spring on it. The cars then rotate according
to the forces impossed by this spring, inaccurately limited by the tires,
the car rotates MORE than the tires do. This is weird. This is wrong. The
forces on a car are impossed BY the tires.

I can drive NASCAR 3, jump into GPL, jump into MGPRS2, jump into NFS5, even
jump into DTR and THEN jump into a REAL high perfomance car and make little
adjustment to my driving between them. No more so than I would have to by
jumping into different models of real car.

If I then jump into SCGT I will be off the track at least a couple of times
in the first lap. I find I have to be willing to devote about 15 minutes
just to get used to the peculiar physical world represented there.

To be fair, Dave Robinson  prefers SCGT over GPL because he feels the grip
level and handling are more akin to his real autocross car. This may well
be, but  a competitive autocrosser is a very specialized beastie.

Now, you may feel I've been a bit harsh on you personally. I'm sorry, I
can't help that. Much of that is due to the medium. We arn't having a
friendly chat in a pub over this issue, we're posting to each other. The
warm, human feelings get delted by the process.

SOME of it though, is that you set yourself up for it by your "ground
rules." :)

Now, note that I DID reccomend the game. It CAN be fun. Obviously most
people DO find it fun.  To reverse the usual phrase in this ng, it ain't no
CPR or AMA Superbike, and that's a GOOD thing. And while I'm sorry I bought
the game, it IS still an icon on my  desktop.

It will  go away though if someone starts popping out sports car bodies for
GPL and NASCAR.

Regards,

                 Kevin F. Gavitt

Well the problem here is with some of the tracks.  Road Atlanta for example
seems to missing a turn in the esses or the turns are not near tight
enough.  Its close enough to be fun to drive tho.  What I have noticed was
that the defensiveness of the drivers is a bit too high and they slow down
a bit too much.  I am working on this and also allowed mods to let them run
when you run your car stock.  I should have it down after a while, and Road
Atlanta is the track I am working on it at since its probly the worst track
for AI.  Since I autocross and well we do not encounter competitors on
course I am not super concerned about it.  Also running the league races I
just try to live with them since everyone else I am racing has to live with
them too.  

read more »

--
l8er
ronny

Your mouse has moved. Windows must be restarted for the change
to take effect. Reboot now?
          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Hehe...no offense taken. I'm actually impressed with myself for being
able to get you to spend at least two hours typing up such a lengthy
reply.
;-)

P.S. Guess I better go order myself a copy of Nascar Acceleration
pack.

--
Nos

80 words a minute. I typed flat out. That was a first draft. You'll have to
work harder to get me to spend two hours on a reply.

You CAN do it if you get me in the right mood and hit the right button
though. :)

Dave Robinson's caveat is correct about the NASCAR series. There really is
only one handling model. Drive one car in NASCAR and you've driven, well,
all three. That's it.

Other than that I really do feel it's the best overall sim other than GPL,
and if you arn't into ovals, and I'm not myself particularly, you can always
use the old "Noonan magic" to add road courses.