The range for the parallel setting should include anti-ackerman range, where the more you steer, the more toe-out you get. Here's a link to a web site with an explanation:

ackerman.html

I'm 54 years old, hope I can still play the game when it's released.

As I previously asked, will there be a version of LFS S3 for play-station 9?

Maybe there should be a pool on the release date of S3, maybe versus other events....

Will S3 be released before the USA pulls it's troops from Afghanastan and Iraq?

Will S3 be released before all new real cars no longer run on gasoline and virtually drive themselves?

Will S3 be released before global warming is no longer an issue because of a nuclear winter?

Quote :

As most of us are here for realism and racing immersion, I see no reason to use some "aided views" - take a look at he nascar 2003 sim. Sit in the car and tell me if your view is blocked. Then I tell you that so is the view of real nascar drivers blocked in the same way. Plus they are wearing helmets and are sitting in shaky places so their vision is more "blocked" than a sim racer's view ever will be.

Which is why in NR2003, and in real life NASCAR racing, the drivers rely on spotters to tell them where the other cars are (when the cars are close). I don't think LFS is planning to add spotters, at least not anytime soon.

Best looking cars I've seen are the RH2004 and Prototype C mods for F1C99-02. Even the brakes glow dynamically. Unfortunately, the cars don't look like they're attached to the track in ISI replays.

edit update: forgot to include a link to a video:

f1chktv.wmv

Best suspension view while driving and in replays that I've seen was in a budget racer (maybe because the movement is exaggerated), Ford Racing 2. Sample videos:

fr2stk.wmv
fr2stk1.wmv

Last edited by JeffR, Wed 4 Oct 2006, 01:02.

So only one proper response to the original post, the when to shift link?

Normally, you change gears when the rear wheel torque in the next higher gear is equal to the rear wheel torque in the current gear. If the rpm drop is great, like from 1st to 2nd gear, when you shift at redline, the next higher gear's torque will be less, but you can spin the engine any faster. For most cars, this is usually close to redline, at least in lower gears, but assuming the shift indicator is correct in LFS, the shift points are significantly lower for some of the cars, indicating relatively low torque and power peaks.

So does this mean that LFS S3 final release won't be ported over to a PlayStation 9?

PC games may remain somewhat popular, but just looking at the shelves of EBGames made it seem pretty dismal. I checked out another Best Buy, and they still have one complete row of PC based games, another half row of edcuational / family stuff, shared with office / os software. Maybe players are expecting more from the games.

Regarding non racing games, the Myst series is done, the Tombraider series is probably done as well. Most of the first person shooters are just sequels, Half Life 2, Quake 4, Doom 3, ... Will Halo 2 ever get released for PC? Star Wars Knights of the Republic 1 and 2 was made (2 was runshed and didn't get a proper ending), and there probably won't be a 3. I don't play the strategy / role playing games, which seem to be popular, so I can't say if their popularity has changed one way or the other.

Racing games for the PC have always been mostly arcade anyway. EA keeps churning out new versions of Need For Speed, but the life span for each new release, at least in terms of online play, gets shorter each time, with the exception of NFS6 - Hot Pursuit 2, which runs on gamespy and seems to have a loyal fan base (not sure why, this was never one of the better NFS games, but it's the only one not shut down by EA except for Most Wanted, limited to 4 players, no chat, so it's like playing against AI, except more of them cheat).

Speaking for myself, there's a bit of burnout, as I rarely play any game online anymore, so I have fun just hot lapping or just messing around with a variety of games. I don't know if there's a general burnt out factor with most players or if the thrill is just gone since computer games have been out for so many years now.

I'm still planning to buy an S3 license when it's close to being released, but that seems like it will be 2 or 3 years away, and I'm wondering how much PC's and consoles will change by then.

I live in Southern California (USA).

At the local EB games, there's about 1/2 shelf for PC games, while there are 2 shelves per console for consol games. At Best Buy, it's just a partial row of games. Then the prices, GTR2 - $19.99, GTLegends - $9.99, Flatout 2 - $29.99 (so much for racing sims over arcade games). Adventure and role playing games are $30 to $40 (for some reason XBOX 360 games are cheaper than the other console games). If this is a trend, I'm wondering how popular pc based racing games will be by the time S3 is released.

Quote :

Proffesional circuit racing = Very skilled drivers
Proffesional drifting on track = Very skilled drivers (just a different skill)

I thought the guy doing donuts on the bicycle (apparently on an icy road) was very skilled; high style points for the drifting and the music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNB7xT3rNE

Quote :

On final note Tiff Needal tried proffesional drifting and ended up snapping the driveshafts on his car which proves drifting does need its own skills.

and stronger drive shafts on the car.

Quote :

Need for Speed has drifting because all the wannabe F&F drivers want to be k00l like in the films! live for Speed has 'drifting' because a real car under the right circumstances will slide in a corner

Drifting exists because it's "cool"; then again, "coolness" could be a factor in just about any competition, except for curling and men's figure skating. Note that most NFS games, inlcluding the last one, Most Wanted, focuses on "exotics". However, with a large fan base of "cool" guys that "customize" Honda Civics and similar cars, with coffee can mufflers, huge decals, neon ..., NFS made two "underground" games, and hollywood made the F&F movies. Note that drifting was in only in the 3rd F&F movie, long after NFS dropped drifting from it's games.

You should watch this "alternate" NFS Underground 1 intro movie:

n7intro.wmv

It's a generation thing, drifting and visual customization of econoboxes attracts a young fan base. Real racing and exotics seem to attract an older fan base.

Quote :

I dont honestly think that Scawen and Co have to do anything just coz Need for Speed has it.

You're apparenlty not aware of the fact that the reason for the long delays between releases of LFS is because the developers are too busy "customizing" their NFS Underground 1 cars for "cool" visual competitions, looking for that perfect combination of neon, decals, and stereo systems on their NFS Civics. They also spend a lot of time on the "developers" version of LFS.

Similar to the directors version (the George Lucas version) of Star Wars Episode 1, where Jar Jar Binx is killled in the first 5 seconds of the movie, there is a "developers" edition of LFS, with motion blur, nitrous oxide, and of course, slicks for all cars.

(I hope no one is taking me seriously here).

Last edited by JeffR, Sun 24 Sep 2006, 01:11.

Live For Speed has to have drifting since Need For Speed had it, so the players that buy Live For Speed thinking it's another version of Need For Speed won't be dissappointed.

In real life, drifting was invented for two reasons. One reason is it gives owners of worn out econoboxes that have little power and handle badly and no business being on a real race track a way to compete. Just install bad tires if the ones on your car aren't bad already, and go drifting. The other reason is to keep repair shops in business fixing the damage done to the cars when they crash.

Personally I'm waiting for drifting to be combined with demolition derby, like drifting on a classic figure eight track.

It's all a conspiracy by big busness. Motocross and BMX were invented to sell replacement parts. Ditto for modern skateboarding competitions (plus it keeps doctors employed, and helps with the supply of organ donors).

Quote :

Quote :

LFS Videos

lfsblfw.wmv

lfsslzg.wmv

I am getting them at about 3.5 KB/sec

Just try again, as server must have be undergoing maintainance (supposed to be 99% up time, so this is rare). I can download stuff from my web page at about 1.4 MB/sec (maxes out the 12mbps download speed of my cable modem). I'm using ipower to host my web page.

Although the sounds in LFS may not be great, the graphics are still nice, a couple of dual view LFS videos (in car on top, chase on bottom):

lfsblfw.wmv

lfsslzg.wmv

Example of classic 60's race style drifting (from a game), look at the bottom half of video:

gplrngs.wmv

Powersliding (also called drifting) in a 2006 Z06, with 505+hp, and a 3rd gear that runs to 125mph, the Z06 can powerslide at 100mph.

z065gs.wmv

Even gutless rear wheel drive econoboxes can drift with the right tires, popular in Japan. Here's a clip where the power to weight ratio is a bit higher though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNB7xT3rNE

Last edited by JeffR, Sat 23 Sep 2006, 02:57.

Originally drifting just meant that all 4 tires were sliding / squirming a bit while cornering, but not a complete slide or spin.

However the term has been abused, and is used to describe hanging the rear end out while cornering.

Regarding rFactor = USA, sim racing is more popular in Europe than it is in the USA, for any game. I'm pretty sure that mosts console, and therefore most console based racing games are sold in the USA. For PC arcade games, it depends on the game. NFS7 - Underground 1, and NFS8 - Underground 2 had more European players online than USA players.

Getting back on topic, some players like the graphics of ISI games:

rfr2005f1.wmv

Last edited by JeffR, Fri 22 Sep 2006, 22:01.

One of the issues between games and real life cars is knowing which way to turn the wheels when the rear end steps out. Induce understeer by turning inwards, or counter steer by turning outwards? In general, induced understeer is used when slowing, since you can't brake and counter steer at the same time (well you can, but you end up facing backwards quickly), and counter-steering is used when accelerating. In very high speed turn where you're flat out on a non-downforce car, keeping the wheels a bit inwards can help stabilize the car, and prevent oversteer. On really quick reacting cars, you can't just counter-steer normally, you have to pulse the wheel outwards then return it quickly, then repeat if needed, since once the car corrects, it does it so quickly that it overcorrects if you're still counter-steering when it starts to corrrect. Since there's not enough time (for a human) to react, you just have to pulse outwards and back and see what happens. I don't know if there are cars in LFS where this is required.

Here are some sample videos:

Extreme example of induced understeer with LFS S1. It's just a demonstration, and not intended to be the fastest way around a turn. It does work in real life in a panic situation where you have to brake heavy while the car is oversteering to avoid an accident (better to have all 4 tires skidding, then a car spinning without any braking inputs).

lx6.wmv

Subtle example of induced understeer and counter steering methods with GPL. Tires are kept inwards when slowing and on the high speed right hand turn near the end of the lap. A lot of counter steering used just after the left 90 degree hairpin. Its' a bit easier to see what's going on in the bottom half / chase view of this video and note the direction that the front tires are pointed. The steering inputs are pretty quick here.

gplrngs.wmv

How not to drive smoothly at Norschleife (real life), "Sliding Stefan Rosers" driving "yellow bird", a 911 RUF Porsche.

nrdprsch1.wmv

Tiff of 5th gear driving the 2006 Z06 Corvette, once he gets to the race track part of the video, he does some serious power sliding at speeds up to 100+mph. You can see him sawing on the wheel quite a bit, but then again, Tiff likes to slide everything, including a real Ferrari F1 race car.

z065g.wmv

Last edited by JeffR, Fri 8 Sep 2006, 18:47.

Quote from axus :

I actually had a comparison picture posted somewhere on the forum...

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=181831#post181831

There's a curve generated entirely by FTire there, which is a little edgy but the general shape of the curve should be noted. And then there is the GTR2 Pirelli curve which makes the word "catastrophe" come to mind.

From that curve the GTR2 tires aren't very forgiving. There's also a "alignment reaction" versus slip angle, which is what the driver feels at the steering wheel (in addition to caster effects), and with that curve, it might explain why the FFB goes to near zero on understeer, but I've always thought it was just a canned effect to act as a driver's aid.

Do you have any curve plots for the tires in LFS?

Quote from axus :

That "radial street tyre curve" looks like nothing I've seen.

The graph at sasco seemed to be aimed at making a point, not in being accurate. The main point is that biay ply racing slicks are a lot more forgiving, and the grip doesn't fall off. The graph from the smithees web site is based on real world data. In this case I was trying to make the point that you don't see a 30% fall off in grip due to slip angle (within reason). I'm guessing that the people who created the data with a 30% fall off based this on the that there is significant fall off in forwards traction if you spin the tires, but this is a different case than slip angle. Just recently, Hoosier released a new series of radial slick that are very forgiving. One thing I'd like to see in LFS is that it keep up with the latest technology in the tires actually being used on race tracks these days. For one thing, have you ever seen a Hoosier DOT racing tire (for classes that don't allow slicks), it only has two small groves in it (FIA F1 class doesn't allow this and spec's a tire with more groves). Go to this page, click on "specs" (left side menu), then scroll down and click on the "M" to see the tire profile: https://www.hoosiertire.com/rrtire.htm. These tires are popular in classes where the cars are restricted to DOT (street legal) tires, and even hot lappers (track day event drivers) use them as well.

Last edited by JeffR, Fri 8 Sep 2006, 16:59.

Quote :

... lat peak ...

Is there a real world source for this data or did someone just create a table or equation? I did a search for some real world data and could only come up with the link below, but it shows graphs from a real race car and it's tires showing that there is little or no fall off in grip versus slip angle, and it depends on the load factor (downforce). I remember some posts by Todd Watson who has researched this stuff quite a bit and he also stated that the loss of grip was minimal or not at all at higher slip angles (within reason).

http://www.smithees-racetech.com.au/ackerman.html

Last edited by JeffR, Thu 7 Sep 2006, 23:00.

Quote :

This is the reason for the strange ISI feeling that the FFB has turned off when you get understeer along with the other shortfalls in its FFB model.

I had the impression that this was an assist to help a player know when the fronts where at the limit. I don't have the impression that this is trying to model reality, but just to make the cars more drivable at the limits, using a fudged FFB to compensate for the lack of feel. There may be a bit of reality to this effect, the reduction in torque at the wheel when slip angle is at or past the limits, but I don't think it's as extreme as it is in GTR.

Last edited by JeffR, Thu 7 Sep 2006, 23:00.

Many racing tires, especially bias ply slicks reach a plateau instead of falling off when past peak slip angle. Here's one link with a generic graph of bias ply slicks versus a street radial:

http://www.sascosports.com/products/tire_info.htm

Modern radial slicks are becoming more forgiving. Hoosier Tire just recently released a radial slick racing tire optional replacement for their bias ply slicks.

I've seen other real data that doesn't show a lot of fall off in lateral grip versus slip angle until the load factor (downforce on the tire) gets high. Will see if I can find the graphs for this again.

Quote :

There will come a time when she goes "Oh! NOW I get it!"

Maybe, depends on how analytical the person is when comparing lap times. A racing game with a ghost feature would help here. Instruction on basic cornering techniques, like when slow in, fast out is actually better (it isn't always), will help more than running dozens of laps never realizing there's a better line or better method. You need the person to be willing to experiment to learn what works well under specific circumstances.

Quote :

What ive found with LFS is that its the only racing sim on the planet where slower more controlled driving = faster lap times.

Beating the reference time for Kyalami in Grand Prix Legends (a very old game) requires a driver sacrifice corner apex speed for better exit speed at a few crucial corners. For any GPL player, because of the relatively quick reference time, going negative at Kyalami requires that the player learn this principal, but it only applies to a few key corners on the track. Just after this section is a kink that requires a player to setup the racing line to be able to take it flat out. Another example is the old Spa, there key to fast times is to setup your racing line so you can take some key corners and a chicane flat out, quite a bit different than the slow in - fast out philosphy that really only applies to specific situations.

Regarding LFS, how many tracks have corners where the player has to really lower corner apex speed in order to be competitive, and how many players learn this from just practice as opposed to learning about it from someone else or in an instructional guide? Likewise, how many LFS tracks teach players learn that fast in is the best method for certain corners (like the end of a straight followed by a low speed section), or corners / kinks that need to be taken flat out?

This is why in real life there are racing schools, and team coaches to assist even high end drivers get the most out of their cars.

You could take a real race car setup to be driven via remote control. The "driver" would drive the race car while viewing a computer screen. The steering wheel force feedback would be identical to what would be felt at the real steering wheel. The sounds would be identical to what a driver would hear in a car (including muffled sounds if earplugs are required because of the noise of the car). The pedals would have the same resistance to movement. This would be the perfect simulator, but it still would present issues compared to actually driving in the car, because you can't feel the forces of acceleration, and the perspective is significantly different. You'd never be as fast and/or consistent via the remote control as you could be in the car. If the goal was to get similar lap times, you would need some changes to make up for the lack of feedback, like changing the audio feedback to exaggerate tire sounds, and throttle, brake, and steering assists; the modified audio sound wouldn't cause too much harm, but the assists could create some bad habits like excessive inputs.

Change this to PC based simulations, and there will be differences in how real cars behave at or beyond the limits and the simulated equivalent, especially on tracks with irregular surfaces. Methods that provide the best lap times in a game, may not apply to a real car. For example, driver induced understeer (steering inwards to avoid or recover from oversteer) only works with certain cars and setups in real life. It works well in Grand Prix Legends, and works somewhat with LFS (although not as well as it did with LFS S1's physics). One thing that is common to games and simulations, is that braking while counter-steering just makes a spin worse, so some habits are good while others are bad.

I think racing sims will teach the basics, if the player is paying attention. For example, in a car well below it's top speed, the typical best line through a 90 degree turn is close to a hyperbola, with the slowest speed at the apex. If the car is near it's top speed (including speed limited by the drag induced by cornering forces), then a near constant speed circular arc is the best path. The length of a high speed section before or after a turn also affect the best path and speed to take in the turn. If the track beyond a turn doesn't allow for much acceleration, it's probably better to focus on speed in the turn to get through the turn quickly. If there's a long high speed section after a turn, then sacrficing corner time for better exit speed should be used. There's nothing inherent in a game or real life that will teach this unless you experiment a lot and learn from it, or learn this information from someone else. If the tracks included in a racing game don't include the type of situations encountered on real tracks, then you never get to learn how to deal with them.

The best racing lines often aren't intuitive, as in this guide for Willow Springs, which also includes the variations for the case of high powered versus low powered cars in the higher speed turns. Turn 3 and just after are examples of extreme hyperbola paths with a large speed variation.

http://jeffareid.net/real/willowwidetrack.gif

Last edited by JeffR, Thu 7 Sep 2006, 00:12.

RIP Steve Irwin. A freak and horrible accident.

Last edited by JeffR, Tue 5 Sep 2006, 18:27.

Quote :

I've watched a few of your videos, you enter corners too fast and loose speed on exits.

Depends on the game. My first sim was Grand Prix Legends, where I relied on lift throttle oversteer to reduce speed but maintain turn in while approaching corner apexes. I still may have been too fast at the apexes, as I noticed I couldn't get on the throttle as quick as the alien drivers in GPL. Kyalami in GPL is one track where you have to take the apexes slower and get on the throttle sooner in order to beat the reference time, something I learned while going negative there. At least I'm within 7% of the aliens on most GPL tracks, and within 5% on other racing sims. My GPL Rank is -12, but half of this is due to an 8:15.32 at Nordschleife where I spent about 4 days wanting to get a sub 8:20 to join the 500 second club. Still negative on all 11 tracks though.

With the newer sims, I'm having to learn proper trail braking, and it's taking a while to feel confident to brake while cornering. My normal setup shares an axis for throttle/brake, so I'm stuck with the coast setting of the differential when braking.

Quote :

Seems like quite an extensive collection though, you apper to have just about every driving game ever conceived.

I started a long time ago, with NFS2, back in 1997. My first online racing was in 1999, with NFS High Stakes and Porsche Unleashed. I'm still fond of the color and night/weather effects in High Stakes:
n4kpcl.wmv
n4dc.wmv

I stopped playing online about a year ago, too busy, and too many games to focus on just one, so now I spend more time offline and make the ocasional video, adding to my collection. Some of the games aren't well known:

world racing 2 - Italy 3
world racing 2 - Drift + Lap time event
world racing 1 - super fast car
ford racing 2 - nascar type cars

The new Z06 Corvette is good for power drifting at 100mph, as shown by Tiff from Fifth Gear:

z065g.wmv

Last edited by JeffR, Tue 5 Sep 2006, 16:36.

This is what you need, a seamless triple panel monitor:

http://www.seamlessdisplay.com/products_radius320.htm

Last edited by JeffR, Tue 5 Sep 2006, 16:39.