Racing games - GTR, Race07, Rfactor, etc

Isn’t the Corvette not really a GT class car?
I’d go for the Lamborghini, it’s the fastest GT that won’t try to kill you on every corner. The 550 is faster, but hard to drive.

Then I guess it’s just getting better. Unless you are one of those people fast from the start you are always leaving some tenths in every corner. Download some of those ghost car hotlaps and watch what they are doing, don’t get the fastest ones, one just a couple seconds faster will show you what you are doing wrong: braking where you can just lift, a wrong line…

For GTR2 have a look at the magnificent series of “Average Joe Challenges” at RSC. I’ve learned a lot from those: http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=294460

The Corvette is GT class, according to the game.

I just finished Magny-Cours 15th out of 25, beating the usual suspects. I am steadily improving my play, making fewer mistakes as well. I was closer to the car in front of me this time, but still a consistent second per lap slower. Throw in a couple mistakes and I am 30 seconds back.

One thing I was trying to work on was keeping my tire temperatures up. I read in the GTR Engineer’s Handbook that 185-215F (85-100C) is ideal. I run medium rears and soft fronts and the only time I saw those temperatures was in the middle of a sunny day. The car was working great at that point, too! Even when I run soft fronts, sometimes I can’t get enough heat in them. I suppose I need to be driving the car harder, and more consistently at each corner, just barely slipping, to keep the temperatures up? If I had to guess, I think I’m doing that on some corners, but being too easy with it on others.

Also had my first GTR2 driving experience in the wet. That was pretty silly.

You could drive the car harder to get more temp (and maybe speed), but if you are already running softs in 35min races make sure you don’t wear out the tires in search of a few degrees of tire temp. As the races get longer, you have to balence speed vs tire wear vs tire temp.

I actually find myself on the opposite side of the problem than you describe. I’m usually over-temp on the tires or otherwise running them bald because I am overdriving the car. MUST BE SMOOTH!

I run Intercontinental A Karting mod
http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Intercontinental%20A%20Karting

I am not a kart driver myself, and do not want know about realism. I do know the karts drive significantly different than the cars, and provide a good (and frentic) challenge.

A different author updated Intercontinental A and made Formal A but I have not tried it.
http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Formel%20A%20Karting

Is there a simple way to analyze tire wear in GTR2, or do you just need to judge based on lap times and perceived grip? The latter is beyond me at the moment.

I use GTR²-XD mod for GTR2 that puts up a couple of configurable interfaces. One of them shows me real-time tire temps, brake temps, and tire wear (color-coded, no less). Some people may consider it gamey, but it sure makes car set-up tuning faster.

http://www.vitumo.de/

Anyone have any data on the difference in autoshifting and manual shifting in rfactor or GTR2 laptimes? I just (finally) started to manual shift in these racing sims, and other than the extra bit of control, I’m not sure if there is any real difference.

I don’t know about hard data, but in theory someone skilled enough should do better with manual, since they can always make sure they’re in the ideal gear for the best acceleration out of corners, which is where a lot of time is lost or gained. Automatics are also slightly less efficient in transferring power, though I’m not sure if the games are modeling that or not (they might just be treating automatic as “AI-controlled manual”).

I do worse with manual, but that’s just because I still suck at it.

Codemasters says F1 2009 will have a sim mode.

Right, I haven’t read every post in this thread, but I get the jist and just to stop you all from panicking too much… GRID and DiRT are aimed at an arcade audience and they do that very well. F1 has different requirements and will get a completely different treatment from our in-house team, including full on sim options, physics, rules and regs etc. We will also have arcade requirements catered for as well. How this will be split we do not know yet, but split it will be.

Don’t know if they’ll do a good job with it, but it’s promising at least.

I thoroughly enjoyed DiRT when it came out; I hadn’t any previous experience with rallying other than the odd track it Toca3, but the thrill of racing down a bumpy country road (in glorious next gen gfx) was very satisfying. However, quite a few seasoned players complained about the physics, constantly referring to Richard Burns Rally as the perfect model of car handling to beat. I decided to pick it up to see what they were talking about… well, it sure set me straight. This game is [I]hard.

[/I]After finding myself face down in a ditch every other turn, I sucked it up and played through the extensive driving school, learning the tricks of the trade (like left foot braking, scandinavian flick, etc), and more importantly, figuring out what I could or could not do in a “real” car.

Now that I’m somewhat comfortable, I gotta say, the game feels very real. The cars have a definate sense of mass and weight, most noticable when you’re braking (DiRT’s number one concession to reduce frustration) and hitting a sharp turn at speed. The forcefeedback is awesome, the feel of the controls (I have a wheel) just right, and it’s neat to sense individual wheels catch and affect the car’s direction.

That said… the game if very frustrating if you’re out to actually set any records. The courses are merciless! Finishing one without sustaining major damage or getting extensive help from the spectators in righting my overturned vehicle is my measure of success, rather than setting a competitive time. And quite frankly, after an hour of punishment I’m mentally exhausted. I love the realism (and being taught the skills I was kinda sorta indecisively using before), but at the same time, I think DiRT was more fun, just because I can concentrate a little less on technique and more on enjoying the road.

I never run with auto-shift, but on top of what Fugitive said about the ideal gear out of the corners, I guess I’d miss it the most while braking. Many times I’ll downshift early and aggressively to help the brakes or even to cause some oversteer and force the car into a corner.
And in some tracks there are fast corners where you don’t brake or lift, but drop a gear.
T1 at Silverstone (Copse) comes to mind. With current F1 cars you are in 7th gear and throw the car into the corner without lifting, but dropping to 6th so you slow just the right amount and don’t bog down on exit.


In related news I’m loving iRacing. I just prepaid $150 for one year, which gives you $60 in extra cars and tracks. I’m quite stingy, so yeah I find it that good.
Last race a couple hours ago I ran for a bunch of laps behind AJ Allmendinger, who soon was opening a gap by about 1 second every lap. Then a little brainfade lost me two positions but I was grinning all the same.
Real racing drivers > AI

Quick car control question: sometimes it feels like if I downshift in a corner, the C5R will understeer a bit. You’d think it would help transfer weight forward even more. I can’t remember if I encounter this while on the brakes, coasting, or whatever, but am I missing something? Years ago I geeked out on all the concepts and physics behind this stuff, but these days I forget it all.

Well I’m not a super-duper expert, but I’d think that the main effect of downshifting in the middle of a corner in a RWD car is the sudden engine braking on the rear wheels, which will cause oversteer, and if overdone a spin. Is what I expect and what I usually get.
You are right that you’ll be getting weight transfer to the fronts, but in most cases that will even help them grip better, while the rears are having a hard time, unloaded and fighting the engine. Save a replay next time it happens. Or a Motec log.

I should mention that I’ve encountered oversteer on downshifts on the rare occasion that I downshift to 1st gear or too early (especially on accident), but I swear as soon as I flick down a mid-range gear, the car lurches out a little bit. I haven’t been out on the track yet in a real car, but I don’t think I’d really want to downshift in the middle of a turn, but in the game it seems to have an opposite effect. I’ll try to pay more attention to it in my 4th GTR2 race this week, at Hockenheim.

Thanks for the info on autoshifting v manual shifting. I agree with all the advantages mentioned, and would add being able to hold a gear when you want too or need to. For example, with autoshift it will sometimes shift in midturn when your rather wait a few more seconds.

As for Tim’s question, a well set up car at the limit of adhesion should understeer when you add a bit of throttle and oversteer when you lift a bit off the throttle.

In your case I can only think of two explanations. First, if you had the throttle on (50-100% power) but you are WAY out of the powerband before the downshift and then right in the powerband on upshift, and your throttle position remained the same, on downshift you would all of a sudden be making way more power resulting in understeer. The second possibility would be the coast setting on your diff could be way off, but assuming you started with a decent setup this should not be the case.

I’m thinking something like this, but haven’t gotten into GTR2 to play with it some more.

Yesterday I ran a team endurance race, the SSCA 6 hours of Silverstone: 40 teams, mixed field of fast GT cars and even faster Le Mans Prototypes, live timing and a stream with live commentary so the internet can watch you drive like a fool. SimHQ entered four cars, only the one I ended up driving for 2 hours made it to the end in a creditable 10th position as some of the guys running there could be considered almost professionals.

Heres my still-drenched-in-sweat AAR:

After following the Sebring race on PSRTV and the real Le Mans weekend I was all hyped up to run one of these. Except I didn’t have a team/car.

Still I decided to get ready to step in in case someone couldn’t make it. I got rF-Lite and the mod manager setup to have a lab-clean enviroment to work with and set out to learn the car and track. Vikz kept me updated with the setups, downloads and race plans.

Putting practice into this without knowing wether you’ll end up running takes some self-convincing. Still managed to put about 150 laps into it. Not worth much, as even after watching Vikz’s replays and using his setup I was shedding 1 second per sector. I’m just slow at Silverstone in general, and can’t really put those LMPs where I want them always.

Saturday morning I met Vikz in the practice server to try a few driver swaps, still not knowing if I’d be running. As the race start loomed closer I kept hitting F5 to see if I had a new PM. When it came it was bad news. Vikz and Jer had problems with the driver swaps. We had a fast test and apparently Vikz could hand out the car, but not take it back. So Vikz and Doug ended up deciding Vikz would start with a double stint, put the car as close to the front as possible and then hand it to Jer and myself to try and bring it to the end. I was racing, weekly groceries suspended (empty fridge today!).

I was watching the race, monitoring live timing and alert to any calls from TS. The call came earlier than expected. Ktel had computer issues and Steve needed a break after 2 hours of driving.
I set everything up and got ready. Then everything blurs a bit:

Hit the apex… oops missed it, two GTs battling in front, won’t get them in this corner, next will be ok, the next LMP is 10 seconds back, but he’s faster. Gotta pass these guys faster. But don’t crash them… is this slow and fat Porsche racing me? fool… I catch up to the LMP in front as the other is in my tail. We battle as we mix it up with those crazy GT people. I have a few scrapes with the guy I caught… race him clean… race him clean… dam touched him again. Doug’s voice comes on TS… “take it easy, relax…” I finally make a good clean pass on the guy as he gets stuck behind a Corvette… and race control hands out a drive through to me. I hit the top of the wheel, swallow hard and serve it, coming out 20 seconds behind the guy. All the best because I hate his guts now. Now it’s hypnotic. I’m getting tired and the blur is blurrier. One lap, another lap, bad times, lots of traffic, That stupid Porsche again… The other guy… he’s pulling away… how can he? I was faster before. Brit sounding voices come up on TS, can’t decypher the accent over the scream of the engine. I guess the swap is close, look down… sure 4 laps. I remember to disable damage repairs, the car is fine and it’ll cost us a bunch of seconds for nought… Everything works and Steve has it back.

Then dinner and watch the end of it… A fun Saturday.

It’s a testament to sim racing that I couldn’t tell whether you were talking about real racing or online until I got a little bit into your AAR. Especially because I glossed over SSCA and read it as SCCA.

So where can I watch the replay of that race broadcast?

PM sent (big file and don’t want to QT3shdot them).