Hi again, Niels. Nothing essential to disagree about in your last post. As I said, I haven't tried HistoriX's Porsches yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll like them judging from your other work. Allow me though to insist that PCCFrance is a decent mod, as long as you spend sometime with it

About the rfactor tyres, do we have a clue how to check their optimal temp?

PS1. F1RST3 is just a client (Tyka's predecessor) for managing leagues, races, servers, members, teams, etc, etc.

PS2. Sean just happend to be the racer everyone wanted to beat on F1RST3 rf leagues for a couple (or more) seasons and along with the fact he's pretty damn talented in rl pcc (also a friend of Lewis Hamilton, if my memory serves me well) were the reasons I used him in my arguments.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Real porsche drivers also thought the first 911 mod (with 60% front weight..) was realistic.

I quite like the historic GT porsche 911s from the GTC76 class (2004 has the 2.8RSR / 3.0RSR and 2005 has the 2.4S). The rear weight really works..

Mind you I made those cars so I'm biased. And right.. hahahaa

I haven't tried them yet, Niels (only escort rs, mini and abarth so far). But I will surely do. Your escort rocks, btw!

What is the first 911 mod you mentioned above? The key difference between other real life drivers and Sean Edwards, is that Sean has also won 2 or 3 consecutive seasons on F1RST3 with rfactor! This season he doesn't participate in any rfactor league, though. On one of the linked pages I provided above, he says he wasn't 100% happy with the mod and suggested some improvements that were most probably included, but he's wondering why EnduRacers rushed to release the mod. But still, a good mode imho (I tried it on Nordschleife, Varano, Watkings Glen and Brianza)

And now a technical quetsion if you don't mind. Do you happen to know a way of knowing what is the optimal tyre temprature in rfactor? It must be somewhere between 80 and 100 degrees, depending on the car but I haven't found a way to know for sure (in LFS for example you see the optimal tire temp in the car's setup screen).

Well, i know for a fact that Sean Edwards (who besides his specialized real life experience is also an rfactor enthusiast, having won lots of leagues on F1RST3) was actively involved in this mod.
The mod may have its flaws, but still it is well worth a place in any rfactor installation, imho.

PS. I meant modern Porsche's, not historic

It's much better than PCC2007 though, especially on the limit! It's the only decent Porsche on rfactor so far, with handling that points to a Porsche (instead of a... hovercraft )

Last edited by migf1, Tue, 1 Jul 2008 22:42.

You certainly did something really wrong in that... installation!

Quote from J@tko :

OK, so if I do buy rFactor, what are the 'must have' cars/tracks/mods/whatever?

* Historic GT & Touring Cars: it needs the GTL disk on your drive in order to get installed... also, read the manual and install it as Stand Alone and set the G25 settings as noted in there (it comes realfeel ready)

* Porsche Carrera Cup France (NOT the PCC2007): if you're experiencing loose nose on high speeds, increase the caster in the car's setup page. If you lose the tail during braking, increase the front brake bias.

* ETCS2007 (feels crap with RealFeel but I didin't have the time to tweak it so I'm playing it with the default force-feedback)

PS. For the friend asking why his force feedback plays in reverse, make sure you set ingame the ffb-strength to a NEGATIVE percentage... e.g -80%)

It is sometimes, depending on the car. It needs tweaking too to get it feel right. On the other hand, it can be set with different settings for each car... so if you invest some time to get it where you want for one car, it won't affect the handling of the other cars! It also comes with a console, so you can watch the spikes and the rest of your force-feedback in orfer to make it suit you best. You can always copy & paste your final settings to another car's section in RealFeelPlugin.ini if you want to

Quote from tl8roy :

[snip]

However that said I drove terrible in rFactor because of my racing wheel, when I got LFS, the wheel was perfect for it.

Yeap, that's the main drawback of rf. You need a G25 and you need it correctly set too (both ingame and in the drivers... utlimetely, in realfeel also)! Although, it is also car dependant.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

One of the major differenced I've found between rFactor and LFS is that in rFactor, I've *never* been able to get in an online game. Well, once for about a minute, but it kicked me out.

It sounds like you either suffer a version conflict (track, mod and/or the sim itself) or you tried with a cracked version of the sim.

As Becky already wrote, GTL and GTR2 are derivatives of rfactor (and GTR from EA F1Ch) and not the other way around.

The key word is "immersion". rfactor is way more immersive than LFS and with the proper mods, realfeel ffb and a G25 it can even beat LFS in many areas, including handling!

You can't easily beat the experience of driving, full manually, an 1976 escort rs or a Porsche GT3 RSR on "the Mother"!

Last edited by migf1, Tue, 1 Jul 2008 10:39.

This happens when you make a stand alone installation with rfactor-lite and remove all the default files. Just go to Race Series and select the Historic GT&Touring Cars mod! Close and re-run the game... you'll be all set

PS. Due to an error in the manual, read also this post

As I have already commented on rfc, this mod is the best thing happend to both rfactor and GTL for a long-long time. It looks (and most probably is) the mother of all mods, on any platfrom! A sim within a sim (AI and damage are not working correctly yet, but they're on to them as I read).

A true piece of art! Niels, accept and pass my maximum respect to all the HistoriX team and a big "thank you". Superb sounds, awsome 3d models, great physics (for an ISI engine, anyway ), amazing selection of cars, realfeel ready!

A must have, for every simer!

Last edited by migf1, Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:46.

GTR2 is a classy offline sim, but it needs a G25 wheel and a lot of fiddling with the force-feedback settings. I remember what a bad impression it gave me the first time I tried it using an old Formula Force wheel and how thrilled I was when I bought a G25, set it correctly and tested GTR2 again. But it sucks online!

I'm still having some offline fun with GTR2, when I'm fed up with LFS. I also run rfactor ocasionally (which, btw, has pretty good netcode)

Would it be possible to add a column showing the number of pit-stops the racers have done so far during the race? (0,1,... etc)?

It all depends on the team i guess, since not all the teams have the same motivation and/or basis.

Schemes like the GVRteam, which are a community first (tag [GVRc]) and then a racing team (tag: [GVR]), meaning they consist of hundreds of members and feature huge amounts of simming/LFS content in their online services, besides the actual racing team itself, are well worth to join.

Mostly because you can also fullfill any of your simming needs locally (from simple hardware questions to practising on populated servers of fellow countrymen every night) along with your -if you choose- independent quests internationally.

Last edited by migf1, Mon, 12 May 2008 14:37.

LRA embed in LFSW! Thumbs up and thanks!

Quote from anttt69 :

You've said nothing, infact you never even bothered to answer my question. Futhermore you accuse me of being unwise & stupid.

FYI: Current OLFSL rules state that the racing line must be taken as layed out by the track. You have no argument & I find your response both rude & offensive.

Ok then, I'm sorry I tried to help fixing the rules' ambiguity for the future.

Quote from Kamrock :

Yea, this certainly doesn't make a cheater out of these guys, as to the letter of the rules it's not quite clear whether it's allowed, I personally translated it as "only drive on the track part of the track" but I'm not a hot-lapper and as such wouldn't have noticed that the apron there is allowed by HLVC.

+1
Most hotlappers already know that the apron is allowed by HLVC on KY2. On top of that all the previous years OLFSL's quals where done via hotlapping, and I think that's the reason why the rules still state that HLVC is the norm. It must have slipped the OLFSL stuff attention to change them (if they ever intended to change them, that is).

Quote :

It's an odd one, I guess because the FBM is quite low powered and the track is primarily made for much higher speeds? What sort of times are we speaking? How much does this save? /I am away from the LFS PC/

In my testings, it may give 1 to 2 tenths but not easily... you really have to try, being very-very careful and steady with your lines, otherwise you end-up with worst laptimes. But Rocabiliz also tested it and found out that it doesn't improve his laptimes, on the contrary he said the apron was ruining his laptimes.
(it's all written above btw)

PS. @anttt: I have already said how, I have even quoted it in my previous post. Current OLFSL rules state that the racing lines are dictated by HLVC validity.

Quote from anttt69 :

Thats not a loophole, thats wishful thinking.
The apron is not part of the track so using is against the rules.

I don't know why you are so aggressive, I don't even know if you have even tried using the apron to judge for youself whether it helps you or not to improve your laptimes.

Accusing me for "wishful thinking", although I supported what I said, although I have suggested to use layouts in tonight's races, although I DO NOT take part in the OLFSL, although I suggested ways to close the loophole, is not really a wise argument, not even a smart one.

I think there's a loophole in the OLFSL rules, which state that HLVC is the norm of what is being considered valid and which not valid.

Quote from OLFSL Rules :

The driving line must be taken as laid out by the track. With this in mind, you must try to keep at least 2 wheels on the track at all times and not hit any of the cones, tires, barrels or walls . You'll find that this is the same as the HLCV system you must follow while hotlapping.

Using the apron gives a perfectly valid HLVC lap, so according to the posted OLFSL rules it shouldn't be a problem for anyone using it. Actually a few world records have been done that way without ever being a problem or question about that since the very early days of S2, as far as I know. On the other hand, using the apron is not the obvious thing to do and the presence of the yellow line along the apron unconcioulsy dictates not to cross it.

So, there's a certain ambiguity about this in OLFSL and "cheating" is not exactly the right word to use. In OWRL for example, there is a separate paragraph in the rules, especially for the case of KY2, stating that using the apron is not allowed.

That's why I said this is a loophole in the current OLFSL rules. Because typically using the apron is not forbidden by the posted rules (they state that HLVC is the norm).

My suggestion for the future would be for OLFSL to use layouts in the qual/race servers, blocking parts of the track which should not be used, even if they give a perfectly valid HLVC hotlap. Even tonight, during the races. This would be clear crystall to everyone

As for the apron in KY2, I think that it needs a lot of practice and effort to take advantage of it. If it is not done properly, it yields in worst laptimes. If it is done properly, it can give 1 to 2 tenths at the best. I've tried it both ways and I found out that laptimes below 1.46.4xx are equally hard to get achieved, whether using the apron or not.
On the other hand, I read that smart guys (and certainly more gifted than me drive-wise) like Rocabiliz, tried both ways and stated that the apron didn't help them improve their (out of this planet) laptimes.

At the end of the day, I dunno if it helps or not. I used to think it could help just a little bit after a lot practising, but Rocabiliz says otherwise. It could be that I didn't try really hard both ways, or that my (lesser) driving skills are not enough for judging correctly.

Last edited by migf1, Sun, 4 May 2008 12:29.

I also agree that setups is an imperative element in motorsports, although I'm not good at all in creatring them (i'm a driving monkey ). Fortunately there are a lot of gifted guys who happily share their setups in the LFS community, for which we thank them greatfully

A "forced equal setups" option wouldn't harm though (rfactor already has such an option) but it would be equally 'unfair', since not everyone uses the same controllers nor has the same driving style

@Dudles:
thanks for the tip about the PgDn/Up notions, although I'm pretty sure they are not listed anywhere, neither in ver 0.12 nor in ver 0.17 docs.


@1303s_vortech:
A pretty cool set of instruments. Thanks for sharing!

LFS already stores custom camera settings, seperately for each car. There's also a nice little utitlity that lets you configure and save 4 more custom cameras for each car, it is called FlipCams.

Free Camera on the other hand does not save its settings.

Quote from RocksGt :

I absolutely disagree.

With a decent setup it's just in the driver's hands to enter in bench times (103% of the WR). A WR setup just give you the final tenths, but it's the driver the one that pushes the times to a WR pace.

Sure, but what does this have to do with the question which of the 3 GTR cars is the most difficult to drive?

Quote from Daviticus :

For some reason my gauge location save function [ctrl+home] isn't working. I'll get the gauges where I want them to be [via ctrl+arrow keys] and when I press ctrl+home they go back to the default location [which is halfway cutoff on the bottom of my screen].

I've manually modified the gauges.ini files of a couple cars, but it's just too tedious, and I know something's not working right. I've checked all folders to make sure they're not Read-Only, thinking that was the problem, but to no avail.

Any suggestions guys?

I have the exact same problem and I found that version 0.17 is responsible for this. If you use only ver 0.12 then ctrl+home saves the last position.

Also, while ver 0.12 makes a "Gauges" folder with separate car subfolders in it ("GaugeCAR"), ver 0.17 makes a "GuagesFXR" folder NEXT to "Gauges" and I doubt it works at all. You end up with 2 "GaugesFXR" folders, one inside "Gauges" (from ver 0.12) and one next to "Gauges" (from ver 0.17). If you replace the former with the latter (or just extract ver 0.17's "GaugesFXR" inside the existing "Gauges") then the whole thing gets screwed up.

On anothet note, I never managed to understand how that "Alt cycles through gauges" feature works!

Finally, it could be really useful to have a way to resize the gauges ingame, instead of manualy tweaking so many lines in the ini file (the scale stuff).

This mod seriously needs decent documentation (and a decent graphical front-end, ingame or not).

Edit:
Forgot to mention that for me the mod works without openning the insim port 29999 (or any port at all) upon calling LFS. Just setting Outgauge Mode to 1 (or 2 if u also need them in the replays) in LFS's cfg.txt is enough.

Last edited by migf1, Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:57.