There are also keyboard shortcuts for increasing and decreasing convergence to help tweak for personal taste...

In the NVidia control panel, select Stereoscopic 3D -> Set up stereoscopic 3D -> Set Keyboard Shortcuts

Then show advanced in-game controls, Select Enable advanced in-game settings:

CTRL+F5 = Decrease Convergence
CTRL+F6 = Increase Convergence
CTRL+F7 = Save in-game changes
CTRL+F11 = Cycle Frustrum Adjustment (?)

As far as sound goes... yes the engine and exhaust sounds are 'accurate' in that they were recorded for each vehicle under various loads/RPM ranges. They did a good job on transitions between the different recordings so you can't hear any obvious sample changes.

One gripe I have is that there's little depth to the sounds. I play in cockpit view and it does an OK job with sound deadening in various cars, but I find the low frequency sounds (which normally get transmitted to the cabin regardless of how much dampening material you've got) are suppressed just as much as the high frequency sounds.

If I could be so bold as to compare the sound with LFS... when I turn up my subwoofer on my PC and drop the volume a bit, it's far more realistic than if I do the same with GT5. In LFS, the subwoofer amplifies the low-tones to the point where I can get my desk shaking in the GTR cars (this is what I consider APPROPRIATE frequency response). In GT5, since the sound dampening isn't mathematically calculated (it's recorded from the cockpit from my understanding), you're at the mercy of the sampling and it results in a hollow, boring experience. A simple boost to the samples' low-frequency end in cockpit views would help tremendously.

Tyres... don't get me started. They use a generic high-pitched squeal for EVERYTHING... LFS has a great scrub sound that lets you know when you're pushing your tyres just right... retaining grip yet right on the limit. GT5 just starts fading in this ultra-annoying squeal that provides absolutely no valuable information to the driver and quickly becomes tiresome. Then again, I find myself driving better just to avoid the noise

GT5 certainly steps up the visuals in their quest for beauty, but there's equal beauty in sound and they need to step up in that department.

I bought this and hooked up my G25 to it.

1080i doesn't do this game justice. It was designed for 1080p, anything lower and you get AA artifacts and rough edges. That said, you don't notice it too much when you're actually driving.

Physics wise, while it doesn't hold up to the likes of LFS or rFactor with RealFeel, it's a giant leap from previous GT releases. I don't get quite the same level of detailed Force Feedback that I do in LFS, but it's decent and doesn't immediately seem like canned effects.

As for the actual racing, I'm enjoying it way more than Forza 2... the races have well-matched groups of cars, and you can't just slap on some power-enhancing part, magically remain in the same class and dominate a race. I really enjoy that you can't just get around being a lousy driver with mods That said, the AI is bland, predictable and timid. I've yet to jump online since I'm still mastering the tracks, but I'm sure it'll be much more interesting!

As for PC release, there's no reason a PC couldn't run this game. The PS3 isn't necessarily very powerful... the developers simply utilize those nifty vector processing Cell processors packed into the PS3. With NVidia's 8000-series cards attaining PhysX processing onboard, I'm pretty sure any decent gaming rig out in 2009 (when we can expect a PC release) will probably do a better job graphics AND physics-wise than current gen consoles.

Do whatever works for you... personally, I tried using a button for clutch when my pedal snapped and I hated it.

Pick up a Logitech G25 Wheel, Shifter and Pedals set if you've got cash to spare.

I love the RAC... it's one of my favorite cars in LFS simply because it IS hard to drive and I derive great joy from SURVIVING a lap, let alone posting a good time.

It's nimble, light, and has an excellent power to weight ratio. It's hard to find configs for the RAC simply because the nuances of each drivers style makes any one config useless.

I've spent countless laps and track configs fine tuning my general RAC config for MY driving style. I prefer not to have a stiff block of wood for a suspension in the RAC as the understeer gets stupid. I made it slightly softer than the default 'race' config and increased the rear camber a touch. It keeps the back end in check under cornering + throttle a little better. The downside is that keeping the car's balance in check when manouevering around gets a little tricky and fishtailing is a little easy to do.

But I digress. RAC = Awesome.

Alright, here's a review for all of you.

Just for some background, my previous wheels were as follows:

Act-Labs Force RS /w Perf Pedals & GPL Shifter
Logitech Driving Force Pro (tossed their pedals, kept my Perf Peds & Shifter)

Now I have my hands on the Logitech G25 wheel, here are my initial impressions:

First of all, I was expecting the wheel diameter to be bigger based on what everyone has been going on about. Yes, it's maybe 1/4 of an inch bigger than the DFP, but I'm pretty sure my leather-wrapped Act-Labs wheel was even bigger than this one. Not that I'm disappointed, it's a great, sporty quick steering wheel nonetheless.

Force Feedback, excellent. This wheels' FFB is to the DFP as the DFP was to my Act-Labs wheel. It's a great step up and it's much tighter and quieter than the DFP. Like most people, I've left the Wingman settings at 100%, turned off Centering Force and I have LFS set around 48% Force and it feels great.

Tracking, excellent. There's no more center play, or directional play in the wheel like there used to be on the DFP. The new crazy system they use to take the slack up and make their optical tracking thing super-precise works great.

Pedals, OK. I find my feet rub together when I'm on the clutch & brake. I still think in terms of layout the Act-Labs Performance Pedals are better. The feel of the pedals is good, and the method they use to provide resistance on the brake & clutch seems to me like it will be a little more durable than the failure-laden Act-Labs products.

Shifter, Awesome. I don't care what everyone else says that this shifter is weird to use, or you have button pressing issues, etc. When you're racing, why are you trying to hit all these buttons?! My focus is on steering and shifting. The shifter gates are small and quick. It took me only 15 minutes last night to get the feel down. You can slam it around and it responds excellently. The push down reverse is pretty cool as well, if not a little infuriating when you're trying to back out of a spill, but hey, that's racing. My only complaint about the shifter is the footprint under the desk. Usually I have my mouse beside the keyboard on the tray, this shifter takes up that entire space where my mouse was, forcing me to move my mouse up onto the main part of my desk. A small sacrifice if you ask me.

Overall quality: Supreme. Logitech pulled out a lot of stops on this product, and they're starting to compete with the big boys like ECCI with this regular consumer-minded kit. The brushed steel is a nice touch and the hand-wrapped leather, although not original (Act-Labs did this first), the quality is above and beyond what anyone else has come up with so far.

See you all on the track

There's far too many great racers out there to mention specifically. I don't play a lot anymore, however the following are the groups who I enjoy racing with the most:

The [dSRC] crew are a great bunch to drive with, very welcoming and friendly, and the servers are often excellently admined.

and

[CORE] is very competitive, a lot of skilled drivers, and though I'm often the slowest one there, they all drive with respect and courtesy.

and honorable mentions to CHOPS HQ Canada and [SRC]'s racing servers (especially the stunt one) for just being plain fun places to drive

I wish North America would get more Euro models of cars... the styling in and out is just superior to the versions that get manufactured here.

Personally, I don't own, since insurance is prohibitively expensive for a young single male (last quote, $4000 CAD/annum), so I simply rent when I need to get out of town. I usually spend the occasional weekend with the following:

2002 Pontiac Grand AM V6
http://www.familycar.com/RoadTests/PontiacGrandAm/photos.htm

Edit: The car shown is a 2dr, I normally request the 4dr model so my buddies aren't climbing over the seats :P

Last edited by T.K.Jode, Mon, 21 Nov 2005 17:33.

I'm having the same issue, which drivers are you using aimbottle?

Also, a note to others who may be having the same problem: Your computer will eventually recover... press the Windows key on your keyboard and wait a minute or so... it's better than risking Windows going all flaky and corrupt due to cached-writes not making it to the hard drive Also, don't try and go back into LFS... just close it and restart it.

3 server-side settings for pitting:

Allow instant-pit
Instant-Pit when stopped (or 5km/hr)
No instant-pitting (must drive to pits)

2 Server-side settings for spectating:

Allow instant-spectate
Instant-spectate when pitted

3 Server-side settings for rejoining (2 exist already)

Allow instant-rejoin
Rejoin after specified delay
No mid-race join


I think that'd facilitate just about everyone's requirements, and would make for some interesting combinations (I'd run: Pit when stopped, Instant-spectate when pitted, Rejoin after delay)

This thread is all well and nice, but those who participate in post-race-crashage don't care and nothing is going to stop them.

Tristan has the right idea... find yourself a secure area (Parc Ferme) where nobody can hit you, and proceed there after you've finished the race... if you want to be realistic (which I'm sure all of the people complaining about this do), you should be following this standard FIA procedure for your own protection. Parking trackside is illegal, and you do so at your own risk (and furthermore, your own expense).

People who have to manually shift to first gear will be at a disadvantage to people with shifters (like myself), who already start a race the same way everyone already does (1st gear, clutch down).

If stalling were to be introduced, I think a more sophisticated Clutch-Helper would also have to be developed to make sure the AWDs/heavy cars don't bottom out for the mouse/kb/clutchless players. Already the FXR is hard to take off with without setting the 1st gear ratio to something ridiculous.

If it were done properly, and is balanced and fair for all control sets, I'm all for it.

I gave a no, for the same reason that sinbad mentioned: People's equipment varies too much. A setup that works excellent with a wheel may alienate the KB and Mouse drivers. Someone driving with a DFP in 900deg mode may find a car with 20deg steering lock entirely undriveable.

These are things you don't want to find out in lap 1.

The things that most racers tweak for extra performance that are usually restricted in most race leagues are already unmodifiable (eg. intakes, exhaust manifolds, turbos/superchargers, body aero adjustments, etc, etc, etc).

The only things I would find acceptable to restrict at this time would be:
- Tyre Types
- Passengers (require co-driver for rallycross)

There's really not a whole lot that we can change that would disqualify you from a league race... we've got it pretty good, all same-type cars have the exact same base specs and the exact same body, there's not a whole lot else that you could realistically restrict, aside from possibly some suspension values. Restricting 'Ride Height' doesn't cut it, because 'Ride Height' isn't a REAL value in real life, it's the sum of a bunch of different suspension adjustments made-easy in LFS, and restricting THAT would toss all your other good suspension values to the wind.

That's my 0.02

We all know that LFS' collision model is unrefined... I'd imagine there are some nice vector-collision algorithms cooked up on Scawens codenboxen simmering for implementation in the future.

The way it seems, to me at least, is that the car is 'allowed' to exist in the same space as another object, whereas that will eventually need to be changed... I think when a collision is detected, the game should calculate the 'impact point' based on the two last known vectors and velocities of the object, THEN determine the force, elasticity, deformation, etc... I think that'd save on a lot of the magic rocket rides into the atmosphere. Lagging cars is another matter to handle, since they're so unweildly at times. I think the game does this for 'physics objects' at the moment.. like the tyres and cones, but the static objects, I dunno.

Still, the implementation is solid (though has these quirks), it's a hojillion times better than most games out there.... Anyone play NFS: Porsche Unleased on a LAN? Anyone manage to snap a road sign into the air and have it land on the guy behind you?

50lb road sign + 2000lb car @ 200km/hr = CAR STOP DEAD IN IT'S TRACKS?!

Yeah :P I started hitting every road sign I could after that one!!!

Last edited by T.K.Jode, Tue, 18 Oct 2005 21:11.

Hooray, 1st from Toronto!

Has anyone else noticed that leaving the car idle will not use ANY fuel?

I left a FXR sitting for 30-40 minutes... not even a .1% change.

Quote from Takumi_Project.d :

i look at the tacho but pretty much never look at the speedo at all! its funny, generally people ask you "how fast do you take this corner at?" and i have absolutely no idea. i just know what gear i take it at and roughly what the revs sound like at that time!

i look at the shift light as i am changing through gears on a long straight but thats about it

Hah, I used to look at the speedo too until I started listening to the engine and being aware of what gear I'm in. Let's your eyes focus on more important things... like that pile up in T1 :P

SYS: Shuttle SN95G5 V3
CPU: AMD64 3200+
MEM: 512MB PC-3200 DDR (Hopefully 1GB Dual-Chan soon)
DSK: 80GB Maxtor IDE
DVD: 4x CD/DVD+-RW
GPU: BFG GeForce 6800GT OC 256MB AGP
DIS: BenQ 19" LCD @ 1280x1024@60Hz (Cheap monitor, better color @ 60hz)
SND: nForce3 Audio 5.1 Optical Out/Digital Out
---
OS: WindowsXP Pro
NET: 3.0Mbit Downstream/1.0Mbit Upstream Cable Internet
---
WHL: Logitech Driving Force Pro
SFT: ACT-LABS USB GPL Shifter
PED: ACT-LABS Performance Pedals /w Clutch
LFS: S2 Licensed
---
SET: 16x AF, 8x FSAA, VSync On, Highest Quality Mode, Color Vibrance increased a bit
FPS: 50-62FPS
ENV: Chassis: 50 Celcius, CPU: 58 Celcius (under load), Fan Set to Low

Driving on left side of car, with the top up. I think this applies to both LX4 and LX6

outside camera view
turn wheel to the left and right, and a bit of the drivers elbow pokes through the sides

With some creative calibration, or possibly DXTweak2, you can have the clutch behave exactly like a real car.

My setup has a very small deadzone at the start (less than 1/2 inch)
Then it engages for about 1 1/2 inches
Then the last inch is another deadzone.

I love how each class of car in LFS has different clutch throws... the GTi and XR have longer clutches, where the GTR cars have very short clutches. Starting the FXO GTR off the line with an analog clutch can be an art :P

Edit: I'd like to see the devs implement some deadzone management in the calibration screen.... when I do my 'creative calibration', I have to feather the clutch to the exact start and end engagement zones that I want after hitting "Recalibrate", then lock the calibration after that. It'd be nice if I could just let everything auto-calibrate then assign minimum, maximum, and deadzones beyond that.

Last edited by T.K.Jode, Tue, 13 Sep 2005 14:35.

I made a suggestion back on RSC a while back, and I think it was somewhat regarded as a pretty decent idea for solving the wrecker problem:

I personally think that a racer's reputation should be recorded, the same way Personal Bests are. When you hit another car during a race, your reputation should drop (proportional to the amount of damage you caused).

I think the receiving end should have the option to forgive the incident, if it was indeed a genuine mistake (much like BattleField 2's team killing forgive/punish system). If the player chooses to punish, their reputation takes a hit.

When your rep drops below a certain point, you must race cleanly offline to regain your reputation.

Repeat offenders should be flagged and reviewed... if their rep drops enough times, it would make sense to revoke their license.

Any thoughts?

felplacerad : Very good point! I agree with your suggestion 100%

I love the track horn idea!!

I also fully support that the drivers be at the keyboard. To be realistic, the race could start with engines off, and you would be required to start your engine within a few seconds of an on screen prompt before the countdown starts. If the countdown starts and your engine isn't on, you get removed from the grid. No more AFK dead cars on the road!


Developers! START YOUR IMPLEMENTING :P

Interesting thread, I think I will toss in my 2 cents....

I've driven only a handful of cars in my life, and I'd like to think I know a thing or two about the dynamics of understeer and oversteer, and possibly how they apply to LFS.

I've found that the amount the wheel loosens up when understeering varies car to car slightly. There's still a definite FEELING to it, almost as though you've just driven over something slippery. The amount of bucking the wheel does is extremely dependent on the road surface, of which LFS's is utterly flat for the sake of argument.

I think everyone will agree that when you're understeering, your front wheels are not rotating at the rate which the road is passing under you... on top of that the road is not moving paralell to the wheel's preferred axis of travel. This means that a small perpendicular force is being applied to the side of the wheel, while at the same time, the usual forces that apply on the axis of travel are reduced (which is what causes that loose feeling).

Depending on the weight of the car, the amount of weight transfer during understeering, and more importantly the inclination on the steering assembly on the actual wheels, more or less of that force is translated to the wheel. An inclination perfectly centered on the wheel, you will feel very little, but an inclination slightly off-centre (normal for sports cars) will translate more of that perpendicular force caused by sliding the fronts to the steering column.

Now that we've lost the ability to adjust the inclination value for the cars, it's hard to test to see if this would give us more or less feel. I've found that in S1 that different inclinations send more or less road forces to the wheel. Driving in the dirt with higher inclination would give me sore arms sending the RB4 through the rally courses.

In real life, I'll equate this to driving my mom's old Pontiac Sunbird vs her Pontiac Grand Am. The Sunbird was a smaller car, but fairly heavy, and had a very tight steering column. Road forces were translated relatively well to the steering column, despite the power steering and everything. When I'd understeer (usually in the rain or snow) the steering column would loosen slightly, but it was still tight enough as the wheels were still trying to follow the road as much as possible. The Grand Am, on the other hand, is a larger heavy car with a little more power, but is much easier ride in terms of the steering column. I've found that understeering this car made a larger difference, possibly due to a different inclination on the steering assembly (possibly something else), where the wheel turns to nothing and it feels like I'm in mid-air (kinda scary the first time it happens).


So it's my humble opinion that the understeer feedback (or lack of force on the wheel, rather) is due to the static inclination set per car.

Personally, in LFS, when I'm sliding under coasting, I can feel the wheels slowly start to regain grip as it slows down, and this is how I can gauge when I can snap the wheel back into place. I've got a DFP running in 900 degree mode, and even then it's quite a quick ramp-up to full grip, so it's possible that on the MOMO's with a much smaller lock, that you're hardly even feeling it. And if you're going straight and you turn to lock instantly at 120mph, you're just going to have a wicked perpendicular force on the sides of the wheels... even at only 30 degrees lock, it's a much higher force than any lack of grip on the preferred axis of travel for the wheel, so don't be surprised if it doesn't go 'light' because the sidewalls are getting the workout of their life and all that perpendicular force is getting sent to the steering column.


That's my best diagnosis

How about: "Drivers, START YOUR ENGINES!!!"
Followed by 10 seconds before the countdown?

The thing that always kills me is if someone hits me at the end of the previous race, my DFP goes flying all over the place, race restarts, and I don't know which way my damn wheels are pointing... 3 seconds isn't enough to gather myself, figure out where I'm steering, and get ready for the race. 10 seconds would give me enough time to run back from the kitchen and figure everything out :P

Although it'd suck for all those Turn 1 restarts Waiting 3 seconds to restart, waiting 10 seconds for the countdown, lights, go, OOPS, ANOTHER TURN 1 RESTART! *frustrating*

Had the exact same problem here, and it's mostly gone away, however it still happens once in a blue moon now.

System Specs:
AMD64 3200+
Shuttle SN95G5 V3
nForce 3 Ultra chipset
BFG GeForce 6800GT OC
512MB DDR Memory (cheap stuff)

Here's some steps I took to alleviate the problem:

Updated Video Drivers ( Though sometimes newest isn't best, if you have the newest, roll back a few versions and try )
AGP Write Combining : DISABLE ( This is done in your BIOS, this caused EVERY game to seize up on me. )

Disabled Power Saving and Screen Saver (if you have a wheel and pedals, chances are you may not be touching the keyboard/mouse for a while during a race, and hard drive spinups can cause massive IO blocking)

Clean up your startup programs!!
- No MSN Messenger or any instant messenger for that matter
- No Auto-updaters, Nothing that refreshes more than once a minute (eg. Samurize, MotherBoard Monitor, etc)
- NO STEAM!!! (grrr, resource hog!)

A couple of things I did in LFS that helped at one point, but don't seem to make a difference now:
- Removed Checkpoint/Split time display from screen (seemed to lock up when I went over splits, but not always)
- Enabled VSync and FPS Lock at the rate closest to VSync (what's the point of going beyond 75fps when you're just going to get tearing?)
- Changed Analog Input smoothing to a non-zero value (reaching for straws here)
- Nudged up the Sound delay/buffer setting ( I've had apps freeze up by setting the sound buffer too small )
- Tried running the game in a window the size of the desktop


Things that had no effect even though you think they should have:
- Minimum Sleep setting
- Visual Quality settings, both in LFS and in Video card settings


Note about AMD64 chips and temperature issues:
- LFS is a very mathematically intensive game, and when I first built my system, it ran fairly warm ( in the 52 - 58 degree range ). When LFS is doing very intense calculations (eg. calculating split times for all drivers, AI, damage) it's quite possible that the CPU is getting too hot and experiences a short thermal shutdown. I switched to a silver thermal compound, and my CPU runs in the 44-48 degree range, and it hasn't happened since I switched it a few weeks back.

The characteristics of the lockup actually seem like a thermal shutdown... still video image, looping clipped sound buffer, no hard drive activity, unresponsive inputs (my wheel would constantly apply whatever force it was last fed), inability to ALT-TAB, or CTRL-ALT-DEL, no response to Num Lock/Caps Lock change. It's pretty tough to seize up a system that much, and still have it recover a very short period of time later.

One of the things I tried while troubleshooting was loading up MotherBoard Monitor 5 and watching my CPU temp (updating as fast as possible), and also having the video card temperature on display from the Display properties panel ( not everyone has this ) while playing LFS in a window filling the desktop as much as possible. See if your CPU is getting significantly warmer while playing... thermal shutdown usually occurs at 80 degrees, if your CPU is ramping up slowly while you play, then there is probably a thermal issue (a little increase is normal from idle temps, but if it's still increasing steadily after 10-15 degrees, then there's DEFINATELY a problem. There's no reason for a CPU to go beyond 65-70 degrees)

That's all I can think of spewing out right now :P Good luck!

Last edited by T.K.Jode, Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:58.