The Xeon 2ghz won't do it these days. With a better gfx card you will have the same framerates, or thereabout, but you can run at your monitors 'real' resolution so that would be nice..

I think I'd save some more $ and eventually buy a whole new system based on the new Core 2 Duo processor and a nice 7900GT type gfx card..

Edit: it wouldn't matter if you'd have 16 xeon 2ghz cpus as games always only use ONE core.

Niggle mode: In GPL you do get the arm to actually change gear visibly, it just doesn't play back on replays.

That's a good point, LFS engines are a bit weak sounding when not having the pedal to the metal and this can make it seem like 'not much is happening' even though you're going beyond the limits of the car.

So with this mod the engine sound is mapped on speed and not revs?!? So you can't hear when you're revving or having loads of wheelspin? illepall

Wazza!

I came across this dutch place, but they have an english site as well:

http://www.metaalwinkel.nl/en/

So I'm assuming they can send just about everywhere.


Its a really good source of hardware: countless types of steel / stainless / aluminium, loads of sheet material etc etc! They don't mind small quantities and the price I requested for some aluminium tube was very competitive.

Shipping might be quite a bit but it can be very hard to find nice materials at the local hardware store.. This might be the ideal sollution in those cases..

N

Edit: I have no 'real' experience with them yet, just nice and friendly people over the mail..

I just drive the lx6.. most of the time I'm going "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGG" from the insane speeds anyway, not an engine can win from that..

Slightly off topic, indeed, I find all engine sounds 'good' but the lx4 has some sort of nasty type sound that is very unpleasant to the ears!

I've always used normal front tyres on most road cars but since the last physics update it wasn't quite good. Last sunday I started with the lx6 with super fronts and it wasn't bad at all!

The 'bite' of the tyres, as if they grip too much at low slip angles, used to launch me into oversteer, imo, way too easily and quickly. So I've been thinking and set parallel steer to 0, lowered caster and been playing with toe. That helped quite a bit.

What I don't yet understand is that I was 10 secs slower than the WR! I will try to improve a bit more but I find it strange that I had no trouble being fast in some sims yet far off in LFS. (it was Fern Bay Black btw so at least there are nearly 3 minutes in a lap..) For one there is a big difference in braking. As it seems 'hotlappers' tune the braking so that it just not locks up. I heel and toe (which I'm not great at) plus my brakes can lock up..

But I always say that before you can properly judge something you have to not suck at it so I'll have to hardcore some tracktime in and see where I end up..

I do think though that while LFS is the best sim, its not perfect of course. So if LFS would behave 'better' with 'unrealistic' toe values, I'd still use it knowing that the sim itself is of course a compromise in many ways..

I looked at the 'nap mod' physics.. "New Advanced Physics"..

Well.. I looked at the lateral tyre curve.. It isn't advanced there.. The grip peak is the same as 90% of all ISI curves, peaking at 6.2 degrees. If you look at the graph there is less dropoff which seems more right than most ISI curves, but calling that advanced is not right..

However, the curve has two peaks, which is strange..

However, the creator doesn't seem to understand how the lateral 'step' size works in ISI (it takes the SIN of the value) so the SIN can't be bigger than 1 (mathematic limit) ASIN 1 = 90 degrees and surely a lateral grip curve can't exceed 90 degrees.. you can't have 'more lateral angle' than 90 degrees, as that is as sideways as the tyre can work!

So what happens, if you translate the lateral curve to DEGREES, you see the peak at 6.2degs (as all isi sims, just about) then dropping to somewhere between 80 and 90% at 90 degrees slip... Now this second peak in the curve, happens way beyond 90 degrees slip and is thus disregarded by the sim as it can't take the SIN of >1!!

Now I ask you.. Someone makes 'new advanced' physics, somehow introducing a second peak in the lateral tyre curve, driving, and believing it is the best thing.... not knowing that this whole thing is disregarded as its beyond 90 degrees?? the A in NAP sounds more like Amateur..

The result is not that good either, its still ISI.. you can make it somewhat better with the grip curves that have less drop off but things are still weird. Snap back is VERY violent and the drive isn't convincing imo..

In the simracing / modding scene the quality of tracks and cars is graphically often substandard.. but the physics stuff is often far far worse! :/

Yeah absolutely! What I mean is many companies releasing 'alpha' software would probably have loads of bugs in it, barely managing to install let alone run.. And LFS is more stable than many 'final' software.

Alpha, beta, release.. Does never reflect the 'finishedness' of software. Its just the stamp the developer slams on the box.

I find the comparisson a bit strange especially as the writer is pretty knowledgable. Both sims differ greatly in the core physics engines, even if they'd have exactly the same car setup parameters, they would still be very different to drive. Actually I'd say they are eachothers opposites, with the 'truth' more inclined towards LFS, but not reached yet..

I think you need a dual DVI gfx card which basically means some 'new' one (7xxx nvidia range can have them and the x1900 cards probably)..

Ah ok.. I meant worrying because it seemed to imply the current LFS tyres are very near to the final tyres as far as Scawen is concerned and I am hot totally happy with them. The tyre deformations, heat and wear per 1/48th of the tyre.. its by no means a simple model..

I'm certainly not saying that they're a quick and dirty job! I don't think I'm a 'bad' driver. I'm not crashing a lot, I'm just noticing its easy to get oversteer with not overly wild steering even in 3rd / 4th gear at times where in real life you see drivers really trying to throw the car into a turn.. and once that fails its understeer. With LFS you can dial in oversteer very easily. Anyway thats my opinion. With some tweaking to the setup and normal fronts I reckon its the best sim available. The hardware is far more accurate and responsive than commercially available wheels as well.

So its good, but not there yet. Also the tyres seem to loose grip in a too linear way with temperature whereas I believe real rubber has a more constant grip with rising temperature until you really get over a certain temp.

I'd say LFS is a bit of a raw diamond. Huge potential but not 'great' yet for physics realism. So I hope we'll see many physics improvements before we get a new graphics engine!

Quote :

not this again

according to todd (and i take his word for it) the force combining has come a long way since p and apparently is pretty good as it is
the slip angle curves are already as forgiving and realistic as they can be
and if anything the longitudinal slip curves will become less forgiving in the next patch (as they appear to be a little too forgivin right now)
so if anything the rwds will become harder to drive

I hope soon it'll be the last time I have to say that.. Its not so much about easy / hard to drive. Its not too 'hard', as sliding is quite easy to catch, its imo unrealistic that fairly gentle wheel movements can send cars in to oversteer. I enjoy LFS with normal front tyres fitted and super rears but there is a fair way to go before the car behaviour is realistic. Be that due to tyre issues or problems elsewhere in the physics.

I do find it a bit worrying where Scawen says a lot of time was spent on the tyres making them 'realistic' which isn't true yet. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy the odd 'test drive' in LFS but the road RWD cars with super front and super rear tyres just are not there yet.

Should Scawen feel differently (i.e. this is how it will stay) that would be a dissapointment.

I think LFS has 'environment mapping' or what's it called.. I think that was a dx7 effect?

Yeah I sold those force sensor brake kits.. Well the g25 pedals look quite strong but there are two possible issues:

1) space
The loadcells are 13x3x3cm ish, and I doubt thats easily made to fit.

2) force
I doubt you can mount the loadcell on the logitech 'base' directly with it having enough strength.

Plus you'd really need a race frame. For loadcell pedals to 'work' realistically you'd really want to be pushing at least 20kg which is mostly impossible or at least very uncomfortable from an office chair..

The reason I advocate against the use of FF is that it becomes a really subjective thing instead of just simple objective force.

Another problem is that there is 'clipping' going on pretty soon. I recall that setting FF to '100%' in the drivers and then also 100% in a sim does NOT mean that the max force possible in the sim will be 100%.. It can be that when the sim says '50%' the actual force feedback sent to the wheel is 100%. This means that every force higher than 50 simulation % will not feel different.

People use different damping / force numbers for their logitech wheels, plus different rotation angles. Then there are a few wheel brands and generations.

So where FF should be just one type and 'feel', there are hundreds of actually experienced different force feedback experiences going on.

I still believe that using FF and 'realistic' wheel rotation (dfp) make for a truly unrealistic experience.. I am however a realism freak. I am quite annoyed with simulations not really 'revoluting' to a new level since 1998, and also that the controls people use are not realistic in many ways. At this rate we'll never have a realistic sim experience

and looking at how great todays limited realism experiences can be.. I want more! better! etc

Technically FF is really NOT capable of providing realistic forces, wheel 'friction' and wheel turning speeds. For fact, real car wheels turn a lot faster and sometimes provide a much stronger force. This means that more often than not, an FF wheel (current generation logitech) WILL NOT give you the feedback that the sim wants to give.

My conclusion is then, since it can't do anywhere remotely realistic ff, that you deliberatly handicap yourself if you choose to use an FF wheel. The G25 looks to be better and might actually get close to 'acceptable', the point where it actually makes sense to use FF, even though it still won't deliver the force and speed of most real cars.

What I find strange is, even though road cars have very grippy tyres now (1.2G) and are harder to spin in a straight line, it takes the effort of a feather to make cars oversteer with ever so slight steering thrown in. There is a big error / bug / wrong data somwhere imo.

While tyre deformation in LFS is certainly a great thing to see, I don't agree that, based on the BF1 pic, its 'realistic'. It seems sidewalls can move inward/outward a bit extreme if you look at the front left on that pic. It doesn't seem to be like real life where its almost as if the sidewalls run on the tarmac and the actual contact patch is bigger.

Its hard to say but it seems in LFS tyres deform 'linear' from top to tarmac and IRL deformation gets more severe and complex near the tarmac.

It pleases me to see sanity in this threat.. err thread Logitech sofar makes unacceptable toys if you look at a pure performance perspective, and drifting with a DFP makes the wheel handicap your performanec as it is about 10 times too slow.

If you 'can' drift with a 900deg. DFP, fine, but it doesn't have much to do with the real thing. The g25 will be a step up, lets hope the step is as big as it seems..

I have noticed this too. GPL and N200x have it as well. First I thought it was some hidden 'yaw steering help' scheme but it turned out to be a spring programmed between your wheel input and the steering of the car. It seems to be in LFS since the BF1 patch / update. With Papyrus it was claimed to have something to do with improving force feedback.

I don't see it as a problem, actually it would be quite realistic to have some elasticity in the steering rack.

Not entirely sure but you might be able to draw a reasonable grip / slip curve if you start with high brake force in the car setup, perhaps with a 100% front bias, then brake 100% .. it will lock up.. then reduce brake strength until you start to not quite lock up.. With the telemetry program I think you can find the stop distance and wheelspin etc? Changing the available brake torque in small steps should be more accurate than trying to brake at the optimum 'manually'?