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Spinoff : Racing gear shift types
(52 posts, started )
#1 - J.B.
One thing I just noticed. The F08 defaults to paddle script. I know it's a "fantasy" car but FYI F3000 had sequential shifters while the newer GP2 have paddles.

Here's a vid where you can see some downshifting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sef6_25LGw

Other than that the recent patches have been great. :up:
Hi Scawen,

I do not think this is the correct approach to take entirely. I would tend to agree that 7 speed gearboxes such as the BF1 Sauber would be better suited for sequential/paddle shifting but I completely disagree with making this setting hard coded on all single seaters! I believe all of the other single seater models are 6 speeds or less, correct? These work perfectly well in sequential mode and we've in fact been driving in this mode quite a lot using G-25! Also, isn't it possible to alter gear ratios to effectively use 6 gears on the BF1 car as well??

Please please do not limit the usefulness of our G-25 gated shifter!

I would even argue that instead of limitations, you could potentially consider alternative control methods that work concurrently. In one of your competitor's games, we are able to configure both the gated and paddle shifters concurrently as primary and secondary controls and you have the ability to use them interchangeably. This might be a better approach. Either way, I do not think locking out the gated shifter is ever a good idea.

Cheers!

Ear Collector
Logitech


[quote=Scawen;162693]Hello Racers! Here is a new Test Patch U20!


NOTE about H-shifters : Since U11, you cannot use an H shifter on a single seater car. If you have a shifter, LFS automatically sets to sequential when you select a single seater. There are two separate versions of these three settings (one for sequential and one for shifter) : AutoClutch, GCCut, GCBlip. That's because a lot of people may wish to use auto clutch with their paddle shift and manual clutch with their shifter.
Quote from Ear Collector :Hi Scawen,

I do not think this is the correct approach to take entirely. I would tend to agree that 7 speed gearboxes such as the BF1 Sauber would be better suited for sequential/paddle shifting but I completely disagree with making this setting hard coded on all single seaters! I believe all of the other single seater models are 6 speeds or less, correct? These work perfectly well in sequential mode and we've in fact been driving in this mode quite a lot using G-25! Also, isn't it possible to alter gear ratios to effectively use 6 gears on the BF1 car as well??

Please please do not limit the usefulness of our G-25 gated shifter!

Hi Ear Collector.

I know what you mean, and in fact at this moment in time the sequential gearboxes aren't yet implemented as true sequential boxes. In effect, the BF1 has a "road car style" gearbox, but limited to sequential control. So right now, it would be completely valid to allow the use of an H shifter.

But... it's an important part of the near future physics development, to implement them as true sequential gearboxes (like real racing cars and all motorbikes). There are important differences, as one example it's very easy to change gear without the clutch when you use a sequential box, but the gears must all be closer in ratio. Also it is *impossible* to select any gear other than the one above or below the one you are in.

And that leads me to the point I'm going to make. When the true sequential box is implemented, the H-shifter becomes an invalid means of controlling the gearbox. From one point of view it's actually impossible to control a sequential gearbox with an H shifter (i.e. in reality it would have to be an electronic device that then operated the actual sequential shifter). I don't really know why anyone would want to control a modern single seater car with an H shifter - as far as I know that disappeared after the GP Legends style racing cars, and sequential boxes have become the standard all round.

Note that the sequential shift lever style is is no way disabled by the new code. The user is free to use the sequential shift lever. To LFS this is indistingushable from a paddle shifter anyway. And F1 cars in between the GP Legends era and the modern era, did use a sequential stick to operate the sequential gearbox, for several years. [ EDIT - apparently that's not true - see below ] So actually I'm surprised that you don't want to use the sequential stick shifter method, rather than the H shifter.

[ CORRECTION : It seems I was wrong about the history of Formula 1 cars gearboxes and shifting systems. F1 cars apparently never used a sequential stick, and went straight from H-pattern gear stick to the modern paddle shifters. See posts starting here :
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=206218#post206218
Sorry about posting incorrect information about F1 cars in the previous paragraph. ]


The only thing I'm thinking could be possible after sequential boxes are implemented (to allow the use of the H-shifter) is to add a user setting to allow H shifters to fakely control a sequential gearbox, kind of "above" all the true gearbox code. So let's say you were in 6th gear and you selected 2nd gear using your shifter, then it would sequentially go fifth, fourth, third, second, as fast as possible, as if you had been using paddles.

I haven't thought through all the consequences. Though it does seem a bit pointless, and a waste of time to me personally, because it must be a really small minority of people who don't want to use an even vaguely correct type of gearshifter for the car they are using. It seems to me that using the correct controller is part of using a simulation.

Hmm... there is one other possibility, as for some of the GTR cars we have considered having the type of gearbox as a user setting. Note that in this paragraph I am talking about the actual physical simulated gearbox, not the user control method. So for example in a FXO GTR you would have sequential as default, but could select "road style" gearbox as an option. This is based on reality as there are apparently different kinds of gearboxes in use in racing Porsches. I guess we could allow this for the Formula 1 car as well - if you deliberately want to cripple your car by using a road style synchromesh gearbox, then you can do so - and *that* could be the way to allow the use of an H-shifter... though it does really seem a bit unrealistic to allow that option on a F1 car.
#4 - J.B.
Quote from Scawen : [...] as far as I know that disappeared after the GP Legends style racing cars, and sequential boxes have become the standard all round.

[...]

And F1 cars in between the GP Legends era and the modern era, did use a sequential stick to operate the sequential gearbox, for several years.

No, F1's never used sequential gearboxes. They all had H-patterns until Ferrari introduced their semi-automatic, paddle-shifted gearbox in 1989. The other teams caught up in the following years. F3000 cars went from H-pattern to sequential stick in the nineties, Formula 3 in 2001 or 2002 and GP2 used paddles from the beginning in 2005.

No idea what this means for LFS but I couldn't resist the urge to be a wiseguy.
Thanks for correcting me on that.

Do you know why that is? Was it in the rules that they could not use a sequential box? Or was it their choice? They were fitted to motorbikes a very long time ago, so it's not a new invention...

I'm confused about that. I remember watching this amazing lap of Monaco driven by Ayrton Senna, using a stick shifter. I have always believed that was a sequential shifter, not a H-pattern shifter. I guess I'm just wrong about that, but, how do you know for a fact they never used sequential shifters? I believe you but I want to see more evidence before abandoning what I've believed for years. And I want to know *why* they didn't use them.

I'm failing to find any useful information on the web about this, the history of sequential gearboxes seems to be hard to find.
#6 - axus
As I recall, Williams-Renault did use a CVT gearbox for some time - I think it was in the early 90's... so I'd imagine that the rules about gearboxes were not very specific at the time. Whether or not that was the case in the late 80's, I'm not sure.
From what I remember, I always thought that the stick shifters were sequential as well, but if you got any evidence to contrary....
As far as I know, from poking the odd F1 car over the years, they've either used H-shifters or flappy paddles. I don't know why they never bothered with sequential levers, but I don't know of a single team that did.

As for the CVT, I think a few people experimented with them, but they were never developed to a state of competitiveness, but that's not the issue here.

I'll see if I can find about sequential F1s, but I'm 99% sure they were all H-shifters. The famous Senna qualifying at Monaco clip is with an h-shifter. He once (I think that same year) had the knob come off the lever, and it cut through most of his flesh on his palm in a race (on the thread). But again that's not the issue here. I'll see what I can find out.

Edit1: I know CART/IRL use manual sequentials.
#9 - J.B.
Quote from Scawen :Thanks for correcting me on that.

Do you know why that is? Was it in the rules that they could not use a sequential box? Or was it their choice? They were fitted to motorbikes a very long time ago, so it's not a new invention...

I'm confused about that. I remember watching this amazing lap of Monaco driven by Ayrton Senna, using a stick shifter. I have always believed that was a sequential shifter, not a H-pattern shifter. I guess I'm just wrong about that, but, how do you know for a fact they never used sequential shifters? I believe you but I want to see more evidence before abandoning what I've believed for years. And I want to know *why* they didn't use them.

I'm failing to find any useful information on the web about this, the history of sequential gearboxes seems to be hard to find.

No, I don't know why they didn't use sequentials and I haven't been able to find out a lot via google but I don't think it was the rules.

TBH I didn't really know what the mechanical difference between an H-pattern and a sequential gearbox was before I posted here. If howstuffworks.com is to be trusted, the only difference is in the actuation mechanism so I guess when I said F1's never used sequential gearboxes I meant that they never used muscle operated sequential gearboxes, only hydraulic or electro-mechanically operated .

The only reason I could think of is that maybe the downshifts weren't fast enough for the short braking distances? With an H-pattern gears could be skipped when downshifting.

The best proof of H-patterns in F1 I could find are the following videos. Both quite clearly show shifting movements that are not just back and forth and I think also gear skipping before the chicanes. The first is from 1989 and the second from 1990.

http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... _monaco_full_lap.wmv.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... ing_in_Suzuka_GP.mpg.html

I hope rapidshare works for you, they are both available on youtube as well but it's not as easily visible there due to the low resolution.


Quote from axus :As I recall, Williams-Renault did use a CVT gearbox for some time - I think it was in the early 90's... so I'd imagine that the rules about gearboxes were not very specific at the time. Whether or not that was the case in the late 80's, I'm not sure.

They did a single test with it in the car around '93/'94. It was imediately banned afterwards, maybe because of the awful noise a constant rpm F1 probably makes.
Quote from J.B. :No, I don't know why they didn't use sequentials and I haven't been able to find out a lot via google but I don't think it was the rules.

TBH I didn't really know what the mechanical difference between an H-pattern and a sequential gearbox was before I posted here. If howstuffworks.com is to be trusted, the only difference is in the actuation mechanism so I guess when I said F1's never used sequential gearboxes I meant that they never used muscle operated sequential gearboxes, only hydraulic or electro-mechanically operated .

The only reason I could think of is that maybe the downshifts weren't fast enough for the short braking distances? With an H-pattern gears could be skipped when downshifting.

The best proof of H-patterns in F1 I could find are the following videos. Both quite clearly show shifting movements that are not just back and forth and I think also gear skipping before the chicanes. The first is from 1989 and the second from 1990.

http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... _monaco_full_lap.wmv.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... ing_in_Suzuka_GP.mpg.html

I hope rapidshare works for you, they are both available on youtube as well but it's not as easily visible there due to the low resolution.




They did a single test with it in the car around '93/'94. It was imediately banned afterwards, maybe because of the awful noise a constant rpm F1 probably makes.

I was surprised to see that you couldnt use a H Shifter on single Seater cars in the Test Patch. Because I have driven Formula Ford type cars and they all required clutching and shifting with an H kind shifter.
Quote from George Kuyumji :I was surprised to see that you couldnt use a H Shifter on single Seater cars in the Test Patch. Because I have driven Formula Ford type cars and they all required clutching and shifting with an H kind shifter.

Hello! Just wanted to metion that i was also driving formula ford cars. Which look like our formula xr except that thay dont have any wings. And they had a 4 speed h shifter which needed normal clutching between up and downshifts.

After that i drove formula bmw which are nearly the same then the formula xr. There we had a sequential gearbox which needed clutching only at downshifts. at upshifts we only needed to lift off very short. probably you could upshift without lifting but werent allowed to because its not very healthy for the gearboxes .

I also tested an old vw polo cup car (btw which is real crap ) which has had an ordinary 6 speed gearbox and newer ones have sequential boxes.

I dont think that that the bf1 needs a h-shifter gearbox and also the fo8 doesnt need one simply because no one in the real world would drive them with h-shifter (in f1 and f3).

but for other race cars like the formula xr and the gtrs i would love it to have the choice (in the setup) between 2 (or more?) gearboxes.

Just my opinion!
Quote from J.B. :One thing I just noticed. The F08 defaults to paddle script. I know it's a "fantasy" car but FYI F3000 had sequential shifters while the newer GP2 have paddles.

Here's a vid where you can see some downshifting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sef6_25LGw

Other than that the recent patches have been great. :up:

It seys you'rse a demo driver on your profile... so how the hell do you get to drive a FO8 legitimatly? Cracked version heh?
Slightly unrelated.. but related...

Im wishing that there was a key to shift straight to neutral from any gear...

Reasoning is because if I run out of fuel,, I dont want to lock up my rears trying to get to neutral fast on keyboard sequencial. I nead to be able to roll to the pits sometimes!
Try holding in the clutch then. Even if you're using a sequential transmission, the clutch key should still work (does for me at least).
Quote from CodieMorgan :It seys you'rse a demo driver on your profile... so how the hell do you get to drive a FO8 legitimatly? Cracked version heh?

J.B. has been around for AGES (RSC days), and uses a demo account on this forum so that he appears as J.B. I don't actually know what his username is, but I firmly believe he has one (if not, what has he been doing for the last 4 years!). I know flaming demo users is fun, but at least try to work out who is who, and who does what first
Quote from tristancliffe :J.B. has been around for AGES (RSC days), and uses a demo account on this forum so that he appears as J.B. I don't actually know what his username is, but I firmly believe he has one (if not, what has he been doing for the last 4 years!). I know flaming demo users is fun, but at least try to work out who is who, and who does what first

Plus: He has an avatar, which is quite unusual for demo-accounts
Kinda odd eh?
What is? If you're going to go to the trouble of bumping old threads, at least tell us what you are referring to! So, the paddle/sequential shift thing as in the OP, or about JB?
Quote from J.B. :No, I don't know why they didn't use sequentials and I haven't been able to find out a lot via google but I don't think it was the rules.

TBH I didn't really know what the mechanical difference between an H-pattern and a sequential gearbox was before I posted here. If howstuffworks.com is to be trusted, the only difference is in the actuation mechanism so I guess when I said F1's never used sequential gearboxes I meant that they never used muscle operated sequential gearboxes, only hydraulic or electro-mechanically operated .

The only reason I could think of is that maybe the downshifts weren't fast enough for the short braking distances? With an H-pattern gears could be skipped when downshifting.

The best proof of H-patterns in F1 I could find are the following videos. Both quite clearly show shifting movements that are not just back and forth and I think also gear skipping before the chicanes. The first is from 1989 and the second from 1990.

http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... _monaco_full_lap.wmv.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/315 ... ing_in_Suzuka_GP.mpg.html

I hope rapidshare works for you, they are both available on youtube as well but it's not as easily visible there due to the low resolution.




They did a single test with it in the car around '93/'94. It was imediately banned afterwards, maybe because of the awful noise a constant rpm F1 probably makes.

Sorry for quoting an old post, but i felt myself forced to register here just to post this

Actually, they did use Sequential Manual Gearboxes on F1 cars, but it appears that they weren't used for much time. As a example we have the McLaren MP4/5B (1990), the MP4/6 (1991) and the MP4/6B raced early in 1992. The videos you posted are actually from 1989 so the presence of the H-Shifter


Now off to a visual proof.

This is the lap that gave Senna the pole on the 1990 Monaco GP. Clear use of the Sequential Manual Gearbox can be seen here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLb46n_pITo

Moving ahead in time, to 1991. Onboard camera again in Senna's car as he poles his McLaren at Interlagos. The video has subtitles in Brazilian Portuguese, so it covers the critical part for us. But its pretty clear when he brakes for the 1st corner (named Senna's S) that its a SMG in use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWuHUfU9eB0

But as you said, Semi-Automatic Gearboxes were introduced in 1989 by Ferrari. But it was very unreliable. Williams first used it 1991 and it was pretty unreliable too, until midseason when they made a massive upgrade to the car, but it was too late to catch Senna in the points, giving the brazilian his 3rd World Championship

But the 1992 and 1993 domination we know very well, so i won't talk about it here
#20 - J.B.
I've uploaded the two youtube clips you linked to in better quality so you can see his right hand better. I would say the Monaco one is clearly H-shift (right at the beginning you can see him pull back to 5th and then push forward to 6th) while the Interlagos one is hard to tell but IMO also H-Shift.

http://rapidshare.com/files/34642064/clips.rar.html
#21 - J.B.
Quote from herki :Plus: He has an avatar, which is quite unusual for demo-accounts

Yeah, it's funny. At one point I had full S2 privelliges on this account (avatar, sig etc.). Then I lost them during a forum software update. Then after that hacker attack a few months ago my old avatar came back out into the open but I still don't have access to the menus to change or deactivate it.
I watched them earlier and I've convinced both videos are h-shifts. Unless his sequential lever was made from soggy toast.
Quote from Bumpdrafter :This is the lap that gave Senna the pole on the 1990 Monaco GP. Clear use of the Sequential Manual Gearbox can be seen here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLb46n_pITo

That's a H-shifter.
Quote :But its pretty clear when he brakes for the 1st corner (named Senna's S) that its a SMG in use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWuHUfU9eB0

The sound and the video aren't matching, and he is using a stick shifter of some kind, but you can't clearly see if it is a sequential or a H-pattern.
Quote from J.B. :Yeah, it's funny. At one point I had full S2 privelliges on this account (avatar, sig etc.). Then I lost them during a forum software update. Then after that hacker attack a few months ago my old avatar came back out into the open but I still don't have access to the menus to change or deactivate it.

Yeah it's weird. I can add an avatar to any demo account but it won't appear next to posts. There must be some "display avatar" property that I can't see, which is off for most demo accounts. Some accounts, for some unknown reason, have it on, but demo accounts do not have sufficient priveledges to edit their own avatar. I can remove the avatar if you wish, I could try changing it but there's a chance you'll lose it for good.

Your own story is a little more complicated as I too remember you being displayed as S2 licensed at one point. IIRC from posts at the time you said you hadn't paid again so me assume Vic did some meddling, which was overwritten with defaults during a vBulletin udgrade but Vic has never put it back.

/OT
#25 - J.B.
I see. Well I'll just keep the one I've got right now, better than nothing. But thx for looking into it.

Spinoff : Racing gear shift types
(52 posts, started )
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