Quote from sinbad :

It was my understanding that zero castor actually should equal no straightening force. Positive angle equals straightening/stability, whereas a negative angle would be the opposite.

I wonder what the force straightening the steering is, in nKpro, if you set zero castor.

Of course I may well be wrong.

There is aligning torque arising solely from the tyre's flexibility; that thing is self-aligning torque; that thing I feel in nKPro.

Says wiki:
"Self aligning torque, also known as the aligning torque, SAT or Mz, is the torque that a tire creates as it rolls along that tends to steer it, ie rotate it around its vertical axis. Even if the slip angle and camber are zero, and the road is flat, this torque may still be generated due to assymetries in the tire's construction. Typically for a producion tire this torque reaches a maximum at 2-4 degrees of slip (this figure is very dependent on a lot of things) and falls to zero as the tire reaches its maximum lateral force capability."

You don't feel anything in LFS that resembles "...this torque reaches a maximum at 2-4 degrees of slip and falls to zero as the tire reaches its maximum lateral force capability."

I was just playing with the new nKPro demo, and figured I could test its tyre modelling by setting the castor to zero. Well, it was what I expected: pure self aligning torque coming through the FFB. But then I went back to LFS and put castor to minimum on the FBMW, I got nothing from the FFB! If LFS truly does honestly transmit tyre forces through FFB, it probably means that self-aligning torque is not in LFS? I thought this torque would come naturally with LFS's "physical" modelling of the tyres.

Running with castor of course works, but I'm a bit disappointed.

Maybe driving LFS could be part of your physical therapy?

Quote from tikshow :

like that?

That's one drunk photographer.

I had probably wanted a smallish full hd monitor/TV for Christmas. But the truth is, I don't know when I ceased expecting Christmas gifts.

My Yamaha 150cc bike. Nothing special really, but it's my bike and I love it.

Quote from mcman :

Now, the processor that stores these numbers is designed to keep numbers of only a maximum expected size. If the encoding system feeds more counts above this number then it looses counts/stops working. I do not know what this number is, but I am fairly sure that if you feed 900 degrees worth of counts to the device it will not keep track.

I've played with this sensor before. If you rotate past 120 degrees in one direction, the reading stops increasing. But as soon as you unwind it back, the reading starts decreasing as if from 120 degrees. So if you rotate 150 degrees in one direction, the new center will be moved to 30 degrees, and the opposite end will be -90 degrees.

I believe this is more a driver design, though, instead of hard/firmware limit. But gearing down the optical disk should be necessary if you don't touch other things.

24? Fiancée? God I'm 25 and it's like 5 years until marriage for me. I envy you.

Merry Christmas

Quote from Tonttula :

Hello everyone.

I was wondering something i noticed today when i got my G25 i have the auto clutch off but when i shift up without using the clutch at all the gear stays at neutral then goes to he upper gear im shifting to i dont know if this happens in the sequential mode is this normal or is something wrong with my setups or is the shifter.. broken?

LFS simulates the mechanics very well. To pull out of the current gear, the torque must be close to zero so you lift throttle and it goes to neutral. To get into the next gear, the engine rpm must match that gear's rpm so it stays in neutral until engine rpm drops to match.

Quote from jonny dank :

the 4870 looks nice, 1g, but with an HDMI adapter how can it pass sound, doesn't it have to be straight out of the card for that(HDMI carries great sound by the way).

The 4850 that I have has integrated sound. Its DVI output contains 7.1 sound that's carried by HDMI, if you use the included adapter. I had to install a separate Ati sound driver (not in Catalyst) and select a different sound device in control panel.

I suspect the 4870 does the same. One cable to plasma TV is how I play.

Quote from obsolum :

Alright, I gotta ask: what does the "wheel turn compensation" setting do exactly? I've got it set to whatever value it defaults to, but I'd like to know what difference it makes if you have it set to 1 or 0. Is it like BBMan said, that it makes the wheel actually lock on the right angle in different cars? Or something else?

WTC=1 means hardware wheel and the virtual wheel match exactly:
only near center if hardware wheel has lower rotation range than virtual wheel has, or
at all angles if hardware wheel has more rotation range than virtual wheel has.

WTC=0 means the virtual wheel always steers in proportion to the hardware wheel. They match only if the hardware wheel's rotation range equals that of the virtual wheel, which may be different from car to car.

Quote from Dajmin :

The thing LFS would benefit from more than anything if you're looking at a decent rally mode, is stages which change as you drive over them. A little like the new Sega Rally's deformable roads, so that you can't rely on a groove being there when you get to a track section, and something that can throw you wildly off course if you hit a ridge. Especially if we're talking random order staggered starts. That way it'll be just interesting enough to keep people on their toes, even if they have memorised the corners.

That, and random animal crossings, variable weather, dynamic dirt/rock on road, co-driver mistakes, cumulative mechanical trouble.... There's a lot to keep rallying from becoming hot lapping. Me, I just like to drive through scenery anyway, so even CMR is bearable....

Quote from Hyperactive :

Imho, if we really would get a more powerful FZ5 I'd like to see it rear wheel drive as well. Somewhere between 500 and 600 is good for me

Isn't that the FZR?

I think the entire point of making 911 turbo a 4WD is reducing the danger of the rear losing traction, and entering the dreaded fishtail. Honestly, I don't think any high powered, rear-engined car would do well with only RWD, at least when we talk about "sports/super cars" instead of "race cars".

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

4WD FZ5? Sounds silly to me, no way! What's next? 4WD XRT?

Two-word argument? Sounds silly to me. What's next? One word?

Quote from Crommi :

I just don't see the point when there already is a 4WD car in that group for those weird people who like them.

Last time I checked, there isn't any other car in FZ50's group and certainly no 4WD there. Besides, keep your discrimination elsewhere.

Quote from felplacerad :

Wrong! It says it is resembling a Porsche 911. There's quite a difference.

Flat-six placed behind the rear axle for a 40:60 weight distribution? Looking past skin deep it is quite based on the 911.

An FZTurbo would be nice if it's made 4WD, considering the 911 turbo is. I dunno, make the FZ50/FZT like GT3/Turbo? Could be cool, but I was just thinking a simple 4WD option would be easier as the turbo modeling isn't quite right yet.

Quote from Bladerunner :

Nah...its the way the harness is pushing them around, just makes them look bigger!

Wasn't real jet engines anyway, was from model airplanes..
I'll bet they write it into a future James Bond movie though...just the sort of gadget 007 would like

Your car doesn't have a real engine either, compared to this thing called Veyron. Of course those are real jets! Just smaller ones.

I like how the wing looks cool while being functional.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yeah, then they could make ANOTHER racing rehash in a day, pretend F1 drivers have said it was amazing, and sell it for £30 to the mugs that still buy Sinbin [intentional] games.

At least Codemasters games are remotely enjoyable, and not the festering crap that comes out of Sinbin.

Codie games are non-playable with a steering wheel, or at least severely handicapped compared to using a gamepad. For that reason alone Simbin titles are 100x more enjoyable for me.

Still, I'd much prefer either a nKp or LFS based F1 sim.

I wasn't really thinking a new car, but more like an option in the garage that lets you choose 4WD which perhaps comes with a weight penalty.

Left paddle = clutch, right paddle = handbrake. It worked for me when I had a DFP, and I H&T with that config.

Quote from Mustafur :

I hope to god it doesn't handle like EAs F1 games they were epic bad.

Then you haven't played codie's RD3, whose open wheel racing is epic bad squared. EA's F1 actually is quite playable (after 2 FFB tweaks).

Since the FZ50 is based on the 911 which comes in 4WD variants , how about a 4WD option for the FZ50?

The real 911 is special where it uses a viscous central diff so that it normally behaves as a RWD (due to slightly lower rear axle speed by design). But when the rears spin, torque goes to the front to induce understeer or at least 4 wheel drift. I think it'd have swift lift-off oversteer, good rear traction on corner exit, and docile powersliding.

I don't think this characteristic (rear-engined 4WD) had been simulated anywhere before?

Quote from der butz :

Thrustmaster Rally GT pro is THE alternative. Much sturdier than the dfp, better bearings than a momo AND the dfp, half the price of the g25, steering as smooth as the g25, less crappy under installation/calibration, more silent and easier to set up than ALL the others.
And totally forgotten by a logitech fanboy community.

greetz

der butz

If I remember correctly, that wheel uses a pot for the steering axis, while all Logitech wheels use digital sensors. The DFP already started using ball bearing, which outlasts its pedal set greatly.

I do like the RGT's additional analogue paddles very much.

Last edited by yoyoML, Wed 16 Apr 2008, 11:54.

There's a DFP successor coming recently, which supposedly fixed the rather fragile pedals in the DFP. Perhaps look at it first?

I remember when I switched from MOMO (240) to DFP (900), set to 540 degrees and tried RBR on a tarmac stage. I had always found the Subaru to be understeering, but was surprised that with only a larger rotation the car went from understeering to oversteering. It turned out I was always steering too quickly with a small rotation, even with heavily non-linear steering.

I can't say you "need" big rotations, but choosing between 240 degrees and 900 degrees (variable), big rotation is just so much more appealing.

Quote from Dannz :

I just have my wheel at 900 degrees and use the amount of lock it automatically gives you for individual cars, I find it a really handy feature how lfs does that for you.

You could set it to 720 instead, since the automatic range won't exceed 720 in any car. I hope LFS incorporates variable FFB lock, which will be perfect for the G25...

I think it's quite enough if each car were split in the middle (front vs rear) then joined together using a spring/damper ball joint. However, I'm not sure if the required frequency will be too high. I guess it'd be a bit better than RoR, since about the same force is applied on two 600kg pieces instead of 10kg nodes.