Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

If Tristan likes the PCC porsches I'll have to buy a hat and eat it..

Just what I was thinking

Quote from wien :

Tried changing it and that's only the selection colour. What I'm after is the colour behind toolbars and on menus in "legacy" windows applications. (see attachment)

Ahh yeah, see what you mean - it can be changed but you need to get into editing the aero theme, http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showforum=41 is a pretty good place to start.

Quote from wien :

The only thing missing now is an option for changing that damn baby-blue toolbar/menu colour in Aero. Why on earth would they hard-code something like that?

It's not hardcoded, you can change it...

Right click desktop > Personalize > Window Colour and Appearance > Open classic appearance properties > Advanced > Selected Items > Colour 1

Quote from Bob Smith :

XP using only 43MB of RAM? I assuming that must be running no drivers? Just installing the ATI driver bloatware bumps my memory usage by 60MB or so (that's a guess from memory so don't shoot me if I'm wrong). Then throw on firewall and av and I'm happy if I'm at 250MB used by boot.

Yeah, that's the XP SP2 + IE6 vhd image from microsoft running with only required services

Quote from J.B. :

What does it mean? I thought Virtual memory was pagefile.sys not real RAM?

It's rather complicated and a little beyond my capabilities to explain before at least my 3rd coffee of the morning!

http://shsc.info/WindowsMemoryManagement

That's about the best description of windows memory management I could find with a quick google, hope it helps.

Quote from J.B. :

I recently had the same problem where RAM was full but Taskmanager processes didn't add up. In my case MS Virtual PC was the culprit. I guess you just need to close the programs one by one to see which one is using all the RAM.

Check post #4 above... the total shows virtual memory i.e. pagefile use, you can turn on that column in the process list

Quote from NitroNitrous :

Try to optimize your OS . This is my XP in one of my computers. Be sure it´s 100% functional. And of course, use another browser.

Bah, that's using at least 20Mb too much

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

I"m puzzled!

Go to View > Select Columns and turn on Virtual Memory Size, all will become clear

Leo Bodnar has written a 'parking lot' FFB plugin for rFactor which simulates the heavy steering when stopped and at very low speeds, so it's definitely possible to do with FFB and current wheels, without any oscillation.

I've also noticed that in both LFS and rFactor (with RealFeel) if you hold the brakes on whilst stationary the steering becomes heavier. In rFactor how much heavier the steering becomes depends on the scrub radius, possibly the same in LFS?

Last edited by TechAde, Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:44. Reason : grammar corrections

All this talk of Botswana makes the wonderful memories of my time there come flooding back. My avatar pic was taken at Mmopane Raceway, on the outskirts of Gaborone.

I've attached a few more pics taken the same day.

Thanks BuddhaBing, I look forward to giving it a run

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Ade, understandable thought; but nope, I wanted the game..umm sim to be the same. So it would *desire* the same thing from the steeringwheel. The G25 just had either 300, 600 or 900 degrees of steering to do. The sim didn't change, just the wheel. So ideally the car reaction would be the same, just the G25 having to turn more / quicker in order to keep up with the sim.

My head is now going round in circles, one minute agreeing the next disagreeing... more coffee!

Edit: Coffee worked, I'll shut up now

Last edited by TechAde, Fri, 7 Dec 2007 10:06.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

The point was to see if there are any differences in how 'stable' and 'quick' the FF is in 300, 600 and 900 modes. When the sim is kept the same, it will *desire* the same thing from the wheel in these three wheel settings, so if different things happen, the wheel must be the cause.

There may be something you haven't thought of - if you want the wheel to react in the same way at 300, 600 and 900 degrees won't you need to alter your in-game (oops, sim!) steering lock as well as the wheel rotation? e.g. if you used 15 degrees at 300 then you should use 30 @ 600 and 45 @ 900?

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

That would make 4 that bought rFactor because of me? I'm really thankfull that the 'hardest crowd to please' (LFS players about rFactor) actually find it drivable and fun!

*Cough* carFactory *Cough*
*Cough* RealFeel *Cough*
*Cough* *Cough*

I promised myself I wouldn't get into any of these rFactor v LFS discussions but just for Tristan I'll make an exception

Quote from tristancliffe :

Please tell me which plugins to make it look and feel realistic (other than one car, the 'Vette, and the real-feel plugin).

Look: Le Mans '79 & Nordschleife v2.0

Feel: The Powertec and Caterbusa from the current Caterham release by Major Parts & Cubits. Better off waiting til the release of the next version though in which they've all had the carFactory treatment. JTbo's Volvo is also very good. Things can only get better, as they say.

Quote from tristancliffe :

1. Looks horrid in each though

Subjective, I think it looks better than LFS. Being able to race through dawn, dusk and night-time with working headlights is another big plus for me.

Quote from tristancliffe :

2. Might be good netcode, but only ever 2.3 people online at any given moment

Untrue. Right now there are 180 people online and this is about the quietest time. Probably not as many as many as LFS but quite a few more than 2.3.

Quote from tristancliffe :

3. Large modding community, but only 3 or 4 that have a clue what they're doing

Nah, at least 5 or 6

Quote from tristancliffe :

4. Leagues getting better (I'll take your word for it - I wouldn't want to have to use rFactors physics in a competitive (i.e. for points) race situation.

Subjective again, I would and do and thoroughly enjoy it with the right cars and respectful racers. The physics issue is a mod issue not a core physics engine issue.

Quote from tristancliffe :

5. Isn't this, the dev corner, the same point as number 3?

Possibly

Quote from tristancliffe :

Is there anyway of editing the graphics, to reduce the saturation, and try and get it looking even vaguely realistic? Perhaps some ini/ply editing? Or will I have to edit my graphics card settings?

You can try playing around with the following values in the track .gdb:

SunriseAmbientRGB = (76,51,51)
SunriseDirectionalRGB = (229,204,178)
SunriseFogRGB = (68,118,155)
SunriseFogIn = 0.0
SunriseFogOut = 1950.0
SunriseFogDensity = 0.5

DayAmbientRGB = (98,94,77)
DayDirectionalRGB = (242,229,216)
DayFogRGB = (255,255,255)
DayFogIn = 100.0
DayFogOut = 2500.0
DayFogDensity = 0.2

SunsetAmbientRGB = (76,51,51)
SunsetDirectionalRGB = (178,178,127)
SunsetFogRGB = (60,68,85)
SunsetFogIn = 100.0
SunsetFogOut = 1800.0
SunsetFogDensity = 0.5

NightAmbientRGB = (5,6,12)
NightDirectionalRGB = (10,12,20)
NightFogRGB = (4,7,19)
NightFogIn = 120.0
NightFogOut = 1200.0
NightFogDensity = 0.5

And the following values in the track .scn:

AmbientColor=(100, 109, 136)

FogMode=LINEAR FogIn=(2000.00) FogOut=(10000.00) FogDensity=(0.20) FogColor=(190, 198, 213)

(These are from VirtuaLM's Le Mans '79, possibly the best looking track available for rFactor with regards lighting & colour saturation)

Last edited by TechAde, Wed, 5 Sep 2007 11:43. Reason : Beaten to it!

Quote from DeKo :

imo, the race caterhams in rfactor are better than those. imo, those just feel dead and they arent at all fun to drive. the race caterham really is.

The next release of MajorParts/Cubits Caterhams is just around the corner, in which they have all had the carFactory treatment (not just the Caterbusa and Powertec as in the current release). I start a championship in the new R500 on Saturday and I can honestly say I've never looked forward to a championship so much

The Race converted Caterhams are surprisingly good though, must admit. My biggest issue with them is the lack of PneumaticTrail in the tyres. This means hardly any tyre feedback with RealFeel. Try adding PneumaticTrail=12e-6 to each compound in the .tbc and they get even better

Tristan: To get the best out of RealFeel try increasing SteeringDamper to 11500 (i.e. remove damping) and SmoothingLevel to 0 (i.e. remove smoothing) if you haven't already.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

I'll do some skidpadding and see how much grip is lost when steering 34 degrees.. But first, labour.. bah

Labour? The C6 is having a baby??

Quote from kangaloosh :

to my knowledge there is no Sim on the market that ships with a wind-tunnel ;-)

Welcome to the other side Chris

Did you intentionally miss out the word 'yet' in that statement?

Quote from ajp71 :

No because these forums offer a far more civilised helpful discussion of rFactor where one doesn't instantly get shot down for pointing out something isn't quite perfect becasue obviously if the model looks super good and somebody spends their time for free they must produce a faultless work of art.

Have you even read any of the 24 page RealFeel thread at RSC?

Quote from BuddhaBing :

My only slight niggle is that the force feedback feels a bit notchy around the centre.

I'm not noticed that with my G25 - what MaxForce, SteeringDamper and Overall Effects Strength are you using? Are you using the [ForceFeedback] section from the controller.ini included with RealFeel?

With the G25 I find I can run with no damper (i.e. set SteeringDamper to the same as SteerForceInputMax) which makes it more direct and connected than with damping.

SteerForceInputMax is an interesting one. The default (in controller.ini) is 11500 (i.e. force sent to the wheel must be in the range -11500 to 11500) but I have discovered you can increase this as far as 65535. You must then set the same in the RealFeel.ini (so you get forces in the correct range) and set SteeringDamper also to 65535 (no damping, changes in force as high as 65535 are allowed through to the wheel).

This effectively gives the FFB system around 6 times more fidelity. On a DFP you would probably be hard pushed to tell the difference but with the G25 I'm almost sure it feels smoother. There is a caveat with this if you want to use any of the default FFB effects as they will still only output up to 11500 force and hence hardly be noticeable on the wheel (I'd say that's a good thing:P).

Quote from Platinum pete :

It only works on the cars that have been designed around it though.

As Shotglass pointed out, that's not entirely true. As in real life any errors in the suspension geometry that would cause strange forces on the steering will do the same when using the RealFeel plugin. Use the plugin with suspension geometry and tyres that work well and the result feels extremely similar to LFS (i.e. good ).

The way the plugin works is very simple - it takes the SteeringArmForce provided by the physics engine and applies it to the FFB. The most complicated parts of the plugin are the code to read & write the ini file, check for hotkeys and provide speech feedback to hotkey presses. The FFB code itself is a simple bit of maths.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

The Caterham mod is actually the first one I tried with RFP, because I heard it worked so well. I'll try the suggestions you made and hopefully they'll help.

The Caterham mod yes, but you also have to pick the right cars within the mod - only the Powertec and Caterbusa have suspension designed by Kangaloosh in carFactory. The others will need the force reversed.

If you don't feel what you should with the Powertec and Caterbusa at default values then there's probably something amiss in your controller.ini or control panel settings - the ReadMe should help you out there.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Essentially, the front tires always feel like they're balancing on a knife edge, and the slightest touch to turn the wheel to either side makes them flop over that way quite dramatically.

Whilst out on track use RightCtrl+Numpad8 to reverse the direction of force. This is dependant on whether the car has the steering rack infront of or behind the front wheels.

This effect could also be caused by negative caster.

That said, you shouldn't need to do that with the Caterbusa and Powertec Caterhams, the defaults should be fine (and caster is locked at 0). Those are the only 2 cars released to date that I have tried and would wholeheartedly recommend with RealFeel. IronFly's M3 e46 Street is also pretty good, though not quite spot on (however IronFly is working on fixing it up).

Sorry again to litter the LFS forum with rFactor babble - that said there do seem to be a number of us who enjoy both, so I don't feel too bad

Quote from Speed Soro :

Techade, I'm one of the many who had follow your work with RFP on the RSC forum, and if I had one word to describe your initiative it would be "fantastic".

Thank you

Quote from Speed Soro :

But I still cannot feel the same response that I feel with LFS.

Then I'd say something isn't quite setup correctly at your end. There are so many parameters (car setup, realfeel ini, controller.ini, windows controller settings) that will affect what you feel it, if one of them isn't set correctly it can destroy the feel entirely. If you'd like to post all the gory details over at RSC I'll do my best to help