Quote from IDUI :

From what I gather no one can tell for sure between macro script and manual button clutch from the replays, so any accusations made here were baseless. All the black list and hating talk, it got ridiculous pretty fast here lol.

You can’t prove it via the online hotlap analyzer.
You can speculate the use of it when you see constantly machine-like timed shifts without using AC…
And this is indeed just a speculation…
Most of the drivers that where known to use that macro… only tried to prove that it doesn’t give you any advantage or that also mouse users have other advantages so they are even... not that they don’t use it.
(some common sense is needed here).

And here the most of the discussion was about if its write or wrong to do it…
The use of macro button clutch was known long before and I see noware a blacklist

Quote from chavm481 :

i dont know but it might be improved if it can be.

Are you sure you do not know?? maby you know something.
PLEASE MASTER TELL US MORE!!!

:bananadea
Anyway i am more concerned about how the rear suspension of the real car is transferred to the LFS...

I am not expecting much but the 2d trailing arms at the back are not enough to give not even remotely a close to real feeling for new cars such as Sirocco

Quote from dawguk :

No need to take it so personally. This is a discussion board that everybody is perfectly at liberty to contribute to, whether or not they agree or disagree with each other.

You are the one who find it hard to believe why this tread reached over 10 pages...
Are we that stupid so we need all that pages?
No. It's just people that start this conversation again and again because they get bored to read.

Quote from dawguk :

Speaking of 0 basis, you've just made statements about me that you also have 0 basis for. Enough already ...

Your statements about how we should find other ways than shifting gears fast in order to improve our driving, or how we should count on setup variables before accusing someone for having an unfair advantage, are enough for me to understand that you have no clue on what has been discussed at this thread…
We are not accusing someone just for being faster…
No one said that he is already perfect at anything else and the only way to get a faster lap time is gear changes...

Last edited by kaynd, Thu 28 Aug 2008, 19:33.

I don’t demand from you to read all those 18pages to have a clue on what is being discussed here.
But you could just resist posting…
This topic is that long because people like you post from 0 basis recycling the topic’s discussion again and again…

We talk strictly and only for that small but crucial advantage someone has when using an outside application to macro the button clutch operation with the gear change.

The advantage only in straight acceleration of the consistent-effortless use of the button clutch has been proven here.
(the advantage over normal Autoclutch)

To an average racer that advantage may seem ridiculously small, but it’s there and when the lap time differences come down to 10milisec it’s quite apparent…

If you don’t care just don’t post.

Last edited by kaynd, Thu 28 Aug 2008, 17:35.

Do you think that an inpatient driver on the track will have the patience to read all off this?

There are already well stated - nicely categorized for easy reading, points in LFS wiki manual. But I can tell from the behavior I see, that not many people have read those.

http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Basic_driving_guides
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Advanced_driving_guide
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Clean_Racers_Club_Rules

oh yeah

Quote from george_tsiros :

i go drifting with FXR and knobblies

Quote from hrtburnout :

Same here!

The MRT is good fun too

You slick mod nabs Just put some overinflated R4 and try to drift the XRR

This is not a cheat.
When you have under let’s say 1% of fuel on your tank, anyone else see you drive like that…

My first LFS video Not that I have many more done... just one more. (I guess I lack in inspiration)
1hotlap movie (desperate hotlaping)

Last edited by kaynd, Mon 25 Aug 2008, 11:06.

Closure of a team like Cyber is indeed really sad for the LFS league community.
I have a feel that old experienced racers loose motivation and that’s a big minus for all LFS leagues because lets face it… the only think that keeps leagues alive is competition… not the content of the sim which has stayed almost at the same state for the past 3 years.

Quote from dadge :

for sure he needs an AGP card. i was just pointing out that you linked a PCI card. i pointed that out and you confussed it with PCI-E which i pointed out was different. although you are correct when you say "we" shouldn't believe everything we see on the interweb, but i think you fluked that one.

Click the image. It's clearly a PCIe card, if you can identify the slot structure.
plus I am 100% sure there was no X800 pci card out there... there are many recent cards that made to use the old pci interface just for specific professional use, but not X800.

Also there is no need to take the 512MB version of the 7600GS... that card really doesn't have enough processing power to take advantage of that memory (you need realy realy high resolutions and AA AF to use all that memory in most games).

Last edited by kaynd, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 21:26.

Ati X800 is a competitor of the NV6800 models so yeah it's normal to be 10X faster than a low mid range card of the 5series

Indeed ati cards of that time (NV5 series) where faster.
The only think is that the card you link there is PCIe

Try to search for NV 7600 GS / GT NV 6800 GT U / Ati X800
And for realy low prices NV 6600GT / Ατι 9800pro / xt

I think that a normal price for a 7600GS/GT at ebay is arround 10-15p (or 25p from "buy it now" sellers)

There are a lot cards starting at 0.99p but I think that these are not from serious sellers...

erm you have gone far to low, your processor can utilitize a card around GF 6800.
The NV 5series where not that successful… everything apart the 5800 5900 models is not worth mentioning.

OMG I just saw the e-bay link
This card is seriously overpriced! Go away! (ok 20pounds is almost nothing but that card is a bit less than nothink :P )

Believe it or not but a 7600GS would last exactly the same as an 7900GS in a pc of that age

As for the 2600XT vs 7300GT 7600GS etc well check some reviews to see how an 2600 performs :P it is not about AGP or PCIx it’s just the card’s core not realy designed for gaming performance

Because of the cpu, preformance difference between 7600 & 3850 (or any other better card) will be minimal in any game and completely unnoticeable in LFS

Quote from Dajmin :

I remember my old MX440. It was nice when I got it, but for the money you'd be best missing out the 7300 and picking up something like the HD2600 XT. A little more expensive, but could be worth it in the long term.

There is no Long term with that old of pc config.
Also 2600XT is not any better than 7300GT 7600GS...
DX10 support is just typical... there is nothing DX10 that this card could run.
The only think that worths at that card is HD acceleration.
X1950XT is a way faster card than 2600XT, that would allso be bottlenecked by P4's speed.
(you are going to see enormous difference from the MX400 card whatever card you choose to use)


Just spend the least possible amount of money. (still taking a capable card for LFS... 7300 is the lower limit for todays LFS standards)
If you are not able to build a new pc right now, a cheap AGP 7300 6800 7600 etc will be enough to give you some months of ok game play with your PC

Last edited by kaynd, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 14:40.

Nope no noway no no no!

Not a ~100pound AGP card on such an old pc.
It's going to be completely wasted by the cpu bottlenecking the hole PC performance at any game.

Indeed there are not many things you can do for the cpu.
A cheap agp vga is enough to give some life to that macine but after that you sould not spend anymore money on that and start building a new one.
Decent mid range parts are cheap enough these days so you can build a decent-fast pc for less than 400Quid in total.

mx 440 does not support hardware dx8 so yes it is normal having so low fps.

with the 7300GT you are going to see decent results. (try an 7600GS if it comes at a close price) I hope you know that you are looking for AGP vertions of those cards.

But keep in mind that with that CPU you are not going to have over 20 fps in full grid anyway so you have to be carefull at the race starts.

Quote from Glenn67 :

Fair call

In my defence I was very tired and about to go to bed when I saw your post

Ok for some analytical stuff.

Firstly lets establish some terms we can all use so we understand each other.

In each action of the clutch we will break down the action into three components:

1. Climb - the time it takes to fully engage the clutch.
   
2. Sustain - the time the clutch remains fully engaged.
   
3. Decay - the time it takes for the clutch to disengage and to engage the next gear.
   

Firstly I have only analysed the fastest runs one from each category for you and me. I intend later to analyse the slower runs to double check the results - but don't have time right at this moment.

[...]

Yeah now you are saying something but I am not yet beaten, was I that wrong? Is really there no difference between autoclutch and button clutch?
Yes indeed the time the whole process takes, is 0.2sec in both autoclutch and buttonclutch (rate10)
But there is a little something that makes a difference… in autoclutch mode the clutch disengage happens instantly, leaving the driven wheels with no power at all for 0.1sec, till it begins to engage the engine with the transmition..
Button clutch takes 0.05 to fully disengage the clutch, leaving the driven wheels with no power at all for ~0.05sec.
In both cases clutch engage takes 0.1sec

And a short uber jerky slow motion vid showing the case http://www.box.net/shared/a4mhdcpc8s

(I use different words so a quick explain)

1. Climb - disengage
   
2. Sustain - no power on the driven wheels
   
3. Decay - engage
   

Also because in button clutch mode the engine is less time disengaged from the drivetrain, it has less time to freely rev up (assuming you are flat shifting) before it gets engaged again… so you get less clutch slip and heat.
This is something really important on long races, which bawbag has already mentioned.

Quote from Glenn67 :

And I'm not trying to be contentious by doing this, I'm just trying to approach this in an anylitical manner. (...) So the advantages guys are seeing from the button macro might be related to something else

I am analyzing on the above post why the script is actualy faster even in straight line and you just pass that saying that the advantages must be related to something else...
This is not analytical manner, this is just your opinion because you are not able to separate the clear speed advantage from the driver stability.

[edit]

I did 20runs one after the other, including mistakes and took account only the last 10 where I was more consistent (5AC & 5 BR10) for the average times…
Also I measured the average time between the split and the finish which as I explained it is not affected by my inconsistent starts.
You can see when exactly each run happened by the “last modified” date of the file.

19/7/08
3:16 ->12.89 AC
3:17 ->12.99 AC
3:17 ->12.77 AC
3:17 ->12.79 AC
3:18 ->12.81 AC
3:19 ->12.85 BR10
3:20 ->12.67 BR10
3:20 ->12.85 BR10
3:21 ->12.74 BR10 (with miss shift)
3:21 ->12.64 BR10
3:23 ->12.81 AC
3:23 ->12.88 AC
3:24 ->12.81 AC
3:24 ->12.64 AC
3:25 ->12.69 AC
3:27 ->12.54 BR10
3:27 ->12.62 BR10 (with slight miss shift)
3:28 ->12.75 BR10
3:28 ->12.65 BR10
3:30 ->12.72 BR10


So in order to back up your opinion, you bring some your hand picked results which can be easily guessed from the time difference between the runs.

19/7/2008 11:45 -> autoclutch 12.67
___>>__ 11:56 -> autoclutch 12.66
20/7/2008 12:03 -> Manualclutch 12.61
___>>__ 12:06 -> Manualclutch 12.59
___>>__ 12:19 -> macroclutch 12.64
___>>__ 12:25 -> macroclutch 12.65

In that way I could just use my 12:54 done with manual button clutch and my 12:64 done with autoclutch… and not loose my time trying to explain what I explained at my previews post.

Last edited by kaynd, Sat 19 Jul 2008, 23:06.

Quote from Glenn67 :

And if your are very practised at starts and are tuned in (i.e. not in a daze ) you can actually be suprisingly consistent. My best runs of a serries of 5 will always be within 0.00 - 0.03 range of my possible best.

spr it or it didn't happen...

Quote from Glenn67 :

While it may only be 3 gear changes that is the amount on average between sectors on BL1 for example where I was under the impression myself that 0.1
per sector difference was possible because of a macro. But now I doubt it.

There is no comparison between the speed gain that benefits UF1 and eg FXO or RB4... also there is no comparison between the speeds that you have to change gear on a track and on drag strip.

The faster the car goes the more resistance is caused by aerodynamics and rolling resistance. Having a fast shift in high speed is way more beneficial than having a fast shift at 60km/h

Quote from Glenn67 :

And as for 0.1 - 0.2 difference in lap time, imo it is quite achievable at the top level. It happens all the time that is why records don't stay static for long periods of time on say BL1 which is hotlaped to death. Most people get stuck in a certain range because their brains are telling them there is no more time to be found on this combo. Now if you set a macro for gear changes and are of the belief that it is faster then I do definately believe that it is possible for that individual to go out and get a new pb or lap record. That is a phenomenon that is well documented in many rl highest level sports.

It is not achievable that easily by the same person after a really small amount of laps...
But anyway this depends on how close to the actual combo's lap time limit, is the current wr.
After the resent hotlap chart reset (patch Y) it's normal that the WR's are not so hard to beat.

Quote from Glenn67 :

So at this stage I remain unconviced it actually is any faster.

It is faster anyway... it is illogical to think that been able to reduce the time that the car stays with no power by shifting faster, has no speed gain.





Well even if I believe that a short drag strip is not the proper environment to measure accurately the speed gain cause of the use of uber fast clutch, I did some testing with the UFR using the default hard track set.
I have attached the replays for so you can judge them.

I did 5runs with auto clutch, then 5 runs with manual clutch (button rate 10) operated by my hand… because I am not at the place where I have my G25 to test with the profiler... so I am using the mouse.
Then again 5runs with auto clutch and another set of 5 runs with manual clutch.

Using my hand instead of an external script gives me much less consistency and of course still the script must be faster than my finger taping the clutch key a split of a tenth sec before changing gear.

Not counting the first 10 runs when I am still learning the rhythm of the start lights.

The average time at the 5 final runs with autoclutch is 12.76 and with button clutch is 12.65… more than one tenth difference at 400meters… (But I know that this is not so accurate)

The average time between the split and the finish is 4.342sec with autoclutch and 4.324sec with button clutch… at that part you shift only one gear… This is a more accurate measure because it depends only on the car's acceleration and it is not affected by my ability to start consistently when the lights go green.
Having a 0.2 tenth of a sec advantage at 200meters is more than enough. (For the UFR... other cars will show different speed gain)

The speed gain is more than obvious just by using the button clutch by hand… imagine having a script do it for you.

Last edited by kaynd, Sat 19 Jul 2008, 14:56.

Does really LFS allow these kind of settings been done via insim? Didn’t know that… Well there should be a restriction to that also... there is no point to invert an axis without being at the proper game menu.

Quote from BigTime :

But that was the reason I brought it up... The fact is LFS allows auto clutch, and unless you use an axis for the clutch, you should leave it on auto... That is, if it gives you an unfair advantage to use a button clutch.

Yes but there is another solution, just as effective.
Restricting the clutch button rate to autoclutch standards is enough.
As I said earlier, clutch is one of the car’s controls, no need to explain why you may need to use it manually, whatever the controller you have.

Quote from Glenn67 :

Hmm... I just did some more investigation and I'm not convinced it actually is any faster.

I did four different types of tests on the drag strip with the UF1 (with a random race set) chose the UF1 as it will give the least wheel spin and suffer the most from lag between gear changes.

Test 1 - paddle gears and auto clutch Best run 1st split 11:21 final time 17:49
Test 2 - used keyboard gear and button clutch seperately and totally manual Best run 1st split 11:23 final 17:52
Test 3 - macro gear/clutch Best run 1st split 11:22 final 11:50
Test 4 - clutch on axis paddle gears Best run 1st split 11:25 Final 17:53
# used button control rate of 10 for all tests.

So it is not conclusive that it is faster,

That testing is not so accurate as it sounds, since the "take off" when the lights go green is not anymore automatic, the times on drag strip are depending a lot on reaction times… and just 400meters of acceleration are not enough to show clear advantage regardless your reaction time which is something not standard.
And after all.. you pick the wrong cars [edit] the default BF1 auto clutch is faster than the button clutch. (Don’t know where I show you refer to BF1 times. I must have illusions :schwitz [/edit]
As for the UF1… well only 4 shifts and with a already asthmatic engine. (There is not that much difference if you are on or off the throttle :tilt

Faster shifts always help and that’s a fact.
You have to be really consistent to actually measure the difference.
Also I have no reason not to take account Worm’s measures, because I know how hard it is to improve your time by one tenth when you are close to the combo’s lap time limit

Last edited by kaynd, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 19:39.

Quote from BigTime :

Hugo and me where having a conversation earlier and I was wondering... How many times have you seen a button clutch in real life? :cry:

If all your going to say is that this is a game then please understand that this is a simulator, not NFS.

Buttons instead of proper axis controls are there so you can drive in a way without having a wheel & analog pedals...
That doesn't mean that LFS is not a simulator... you can fit a real car with several servo control systems and drive it with a mouse or keys... it's just not practical in real life.

The problem is not the existence of the button... it's just have to be slower so it doesn't give an unrealistic advantage that also overcomes gearbox restrictions.