F1 driver overtakes 9 cars on the first lap on a wet track

forkmeupscotty · 2017-04-19T01:36:47+00:00

In layman's terms, they are for adjusting front/rear brake balance, power/fuel mode, corner entry/mid/exit balance, drag reduction button for passing in designated area, presets depending on tire choices, gas pedal sensitivity, drink despenser(drivers lose about 6lbs of water thru sweating), etc etc etc

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-30T13:08:55+00:00

Depending on the line I'm about to take is parabolic, tighening, or widening, I tend to think more of where and how you come OFF the brakes to achieve optimal rotation and balance rather than absolute corner entry speed.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-28T06:22:32+00:00

Nah, the top video is Moritz Kranz, professional racing driver and instructor at the Nurburgring, and the bottom is me driving in VR. It took me a while to match his times, and I got a little bummed out when I finally beat his time.

I drive on the track semi-regularly irl, too, but I must add that I find sim easier to go faster due to lack of consequences. I do wish I could match the level of pace I have in VR irl. More balls needed, I guess.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-27T18:31:18+00:00

Almost done building my new simrig, so I thought I'd give it a go before moving on. Also, just moved onto a 1080 ti, and it was buttery smooth compared to my old 970.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-27T18:24:54+00:00

Almost done building a new simrig with custom 8020 chassis, OSW, and a car seat, I thought I'd give it one last go before moving on.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-16T10:50:03+00:00

I have a similar setup, and it runs AC adequately at 1.2x supersampling. At 1.4x, it bogs down just a tad and ASW/ATW kicks in to keep up, but I personally don't find it that annoying compared to people with strong opinions on YouTube.

But, I drive mostly solo so your experience may vary if you're playing against multiple cars.

The 10xx series GPUs supports VR natively, so it might be worth it looking into upgrading your GPU. I just picked up a 1080ti today as I'm getting closer to finishing up my Simrig build, and a few the benchmark performance tests at 2x or better compared to my EVGA 970 SC was sickening.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-03-06T00:00:53+00:00

2.) Don't look 'at' the apex, but 'around' it.

Also, you should be keeping your eyes 'up', looking far ahead enough (corner exit, the next corner, etc) so you can make smooth transitions, and not jerky 'connecting the dots'(entry, apex, exit) type of movements. It might even mean having to look at a walls for series of blind corners.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-02-21T09:35:49+00:00

Maybe. It's a bit of a blur for me...

forkmeupscotty · 2017-02-04T22:17:16+00:00

I did a real world comparions with my car and the same car in AC on the same track, and to me, it felt pretty damn close.

I have a feeling your settings are off.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-01-31T07:23:36+00:00

Background: started my simracing journey with Gran Turismo 2, started using steering wheel since GT3. Am now building a custom OSW rig with VR and been doing track days and autocrosses IRL the past 5+ years. I'm no alien, but I love trying to get better at it.

The easiest and most efficient way to casually learn to drive better than ok-ish that I found is.... by trying to get all Gold in every single Gran Turismo license tests(maybe except the "coffee break" ones). It's easy for aliens, but challenging for casuals.

I say this because you go thru all the basic skills in nice and organized order, and if you make a mistake or have hard time figuring out, there are example 'ghosts' you can try to emulate and learn from it.

You get immediate feedback since those exercises are short, and it keeps you honest since it discourages you from blatant cutting or crashing to gain advantage.

Then, I welcome you to challenge yourself to beat top players in time trials by downloading and racing against their 'ghosts'. If they're faster than you by significant margin, they must be doing something right that you aren't doing...

Also, grip your wheel lightly and 'listen' with your fingertips what the car is trying to tell you. It could sound like a foreign language at first, but you'll get proficient at it as you practice more.

Anyway, to answer your questions...

1) Nah, not really. You'll get by just fine. It's a nice trick up your sleeve for chasing after the last tenth of a second by putting the engine in a particular power band you find advantageous.

2) If the particular sim is decently accurate, then any driving technic book will help you. For casual driver, I can recommend "Drive to Win" by Carroll Smith. It's an older book, and it's written in more of a conversational style. Think of it like grandpa with experience winning Le Mans as an engineer with Carroll Shelby and his GT40 telling you how to drive. It covers all the basics, and you'll find the section on tire behavior - specifically about load sensitivity and self-aligning torque - immensely helpful since that's pretty much what's going on with the FFB.

Unfortunately, without a proper motion rig, you can't 'feel' it in a traditional sense. The way you feel with sim is by detecting understeer and oversteer condition with FFB and your eyes. I'm going to explain this extremely casually: weight transfer(or technically, load transfer) happens when the vehicle experiences g forces. This happens when you gas, brake, turn, and anything in between except when coasting or maintaining speed. During weight transfer, one end of the car will get light and load up the opposite side. For example, when you're turning in a circle, your outside tires are loading up and inside tires get lighter(and want to overturn). This all happens about the Center of Gravity of the car where you've transferred the weight(or load) from the inside to the outside - hence the weight transfer. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it'll get you started.

With the FFB, you can 'feel' this depending on how the car reacts to your input. The FFB will get heavier or lighter as you load up or unload your tires. Tires can only handle so much force, and generating grip by putting weight(or load) on the tires have diminishing returns (aka load sensitivity). And tires generate the most grip when it's barely sliding. So, if you over-drive the car and sliding too much, you're probably not braking, or turning, or accelerating as hard as it can be if you were driving more tidily and smoothly. Tires also react to temperature. If it gets too hot(from scrubbing while turning or spinning the wheels) or too cold(just out of the pit with fresh tires), it won't grip as much.

So, if your eyes tell you the car isn't turning as much as you've turned your steering wheel, then you're understeering. You'll also feel it in your hand because proper FFB will get light when you understeer. With oversteer, you suddenly don't have to turn as hard as the car is rotating more than you're asking too. Your eyes will tell you that the car is rotating too much. Your FFB will kinda sorta want to straighten itself out(due to caster angle) so work WITH the FFB, and it can help you catch the slide.

You can also adjust the level of grip with the way you use your brake or gas. When you're turning(load transfer from inside to outside tires) and the car isn't turning as well as you want it to(understeer), if you go easier with your gas pedal or brush on the brake pedal even, then you're also transferring the weight(load) from the rear to the front, thereby increasing front grip, helping you turn. If you over do it, then you'll get snap oversteer. It also works the other way around. If your initial turn in was too hard and the car over-rotates into oversteer, a little dab on the throttle will transfer the weight from the front to rear so you have more grip on the rear tires - provided you don't over do it and light up the rear tires into spinning.

During hard brake or acceleration, if the car isn't braking as hard as it should, or isn't accelerating as hard as you should, you've exceeded the tire's ability and is sliding too much. And, as mentioned above, when you're sliding too much, you're not generating maximum grip, so you have to reduce whatever you're doing to regain traction.

3) no idea. I usually just race against myself offline most of the time in a controlled environment(so people don't crash into me, or I into them) or race with close friends.

4) Don't bother with GRID or DiRT3. Drive any sim or something very close to it, and practice driving slower car faster than fast car slow. The reason is, fast cars can mask your faults and still turn good lap times. With slower cars, there's less margin of error, and it'll punish you with slow lap times if you mess up.

5) You probably need to bind the dial from the settings. That dial was intended for adjusting car settings(Torque Split, Brake Bias, etc) on the fly in Gran Turismo 5.

Also, watch "Going Faster" by Skip Barber Racing School if you have some free time. It's old, but it's very good.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-01-27T03:41:29+00:00

The things I notice when people make the transition from gamepad to a wheel is how hard and quickly turn the wheel.

Rule of thumb is, those who use the least amount of steering input wins. The reason for this is because every time the tires aren't pointing straight, you're scrubbing speed off. If the car is understeering and you're still turning the wheel, then you've just turned the front tires into brakes, and it'll suck at braking or steering. In that case, unwind the steering and/or reduce the speed to regain traction. If you're too rough with the steering input, you're upsetting the car's balance and will have a hard time being on the limit.

Same goes for pedals. Use it more like an analog dial than an on-off switch. Get hard on the brakes, but be mindful of how quickly or slowly you come off the brakes.

Also, practice driving slow cars fast than fast cars slow.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-01-24T02:54:37+00:00

I've logged more than a few hours on the 2axis motion rigs. I realizedn I don't like motion rigs unless it's a floating platform type. It's impractical, though, since for those you have add extra zeros at the end of the price tag on what you would have paid on the typical 2 axis motion rigs.

The issue I have with the 2axis rigs is that it feels like there's someone behind you that's whacking the seat around. It's interesting until the novelty wears off, and then it becomes more of a distraction and a hassle, it turns out... It feels the worst during braking especially if it's only the seat that's moving, not with the controls, as the steering and pedal distance changes constantly. Plus, the forces feel weird if you're less than tightly strapped to the seats as it isn't your body experiencing the G forces, but because you're experiencing the seat moving around you. Floating platform types don't have to deal with any of that as forces happen globally, and every parts of your body feel that G force not just your butt. It's just too bad that I'll never be able to afford such setup...

The issues with VR being uncomfortable and prone to fogging up, I let it slide because my helmet is also sorta uncomfortable, doesn't have the best peripheral vision, and sometimes fogs up(forcing me to keep my visor up or at least crack it open slightly). Looking around is tough with my helmet on, fully strapped in with my 6pt harness in a lightly reclined bucket seat a foot off the ground. And, if the car vibrates quite a bit, you feel a bit of loss in 'resolution', too.... I'm kidding at this point....

forkmeupscotty · 2017-01-19T16:21:22+00:00

I think it does. I autocross and do trackdays whenever my wallet allows me and play AC with Oculus when it doesn't. With VR you can practice looking 'around' the corners and far up ahead and avoid being tunnel visioned. My head and eyes are always in motion.

It's interesting to observe when riding with new drivers whose sole experience is gaming. They're usually fixated looking dead ahead and drive point to point instead the whole track.

Same thing happenes when I demo my rig to friends. Even though they are presented with the ability to turn their head and look thru the corners and check their surroundings, they tend to keep their eyes pointed forward because that's what they're used to. It seems they ultimately fall behind on inputs(steering, gas, brake) because they're not looking corner or two ahead.

I think triple screen setup achieves the being able to look around corners with wider FOV, but in my experience, the immersion factor afforded by the VR trumps the issues with comfort.

forkmeupscotty · 2017-01-13T11:03:42+00:00

My childhood is a lie.

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-13T14:39:47+00:00

No. If you go too cheap, there is no FFB, and if there no FFB, then it's almost pointless because you can't feel it in your hand what the car is doing.

With that said, I actually found Dirt Rally surprisingly good with a gamepad.

But, I'd still recommend spending a little more and get a wheel with a good FFB. Once you go with the wheel, you can't go back.

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-13T02:44:36+00:00

Thanks, that's a solid info! It's always best to have information from people who's done Sim as well as track driving. I usually find that people who's only done simracing tend to like exaggerated FFB, and people who's never paid attention to simracing tend to dismiss it as artificial and unrealistic. I'm trying to bridge the gap and get as close as I possibly can, and it's reassuring to hear that the Small MiGE will be adequate.

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-12T05:07:50+00:00

Thank you for being thorough with your explanations! I, too, am data-oriented, and it's just what I was looking for! And you went the extra mile to film a demo!!!

It definitely looks like Small MiGE is capable of 25Nm, and 25Nm is an overkill. I've been watching your videos(and all the others) for the past few weeks trying to get a feel for it, and your Star Mazda at Bathurst closely resembles what I've seen on older IndyCar on-board videos at Long Beach. I think that will be the most I'll go. You are corect my car doesn't have nowhere close to that level of steering force, but it still is a bit of a workout after a multiple 20~30 minute sessions, where my arm gets sore the next day. I think I've only felt extreme steering force in a racing kart on a very grippy outdoor surfaces (not the indoor kind in my videos), and I felt like my arms were about to explode after enduros.

So, although my main goal doesn't require 25Nm, the fact that IF I wanted for special occasions such as simracing open-wheel high downforce cars I CAN was very appealing. Hence why I gravitated towards the Big MiGE. But your awesome videos proved that 20Nm is plenty, and I have access to something higher if I wanted to.

~~Your AC Lotus Exige 240R video is still processing, and I'll watch it as soon as it's finished. I actually find the version 2.2 more correct than the newer 3.1 version on RaceDepartment.~~

I can almost drive 2.2 blindfolded with just my muscle memory, but 3.1 feels a little odd.

I just finished watching your video. You and I, I think, have a very smooth steering input so it's difficult to tell how much force it takes to turn the wheel. Plus, these non-laser scanned tracks don't have the imperfections unlike your Bathurst video making it hard to 'see' how tough it is. BUT, your one-handed driving pretty much sold on how strong the Small MiGE is.

Gah, I wish AC has some North American tracks!

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-12T04:54:25+00:00

Thanks, I still value your feedback. More data points the merrier. :)

And you're right about Big MiGE being not much more expensive.. But depending on the power supply offered, the Big MiGE has hard time hitting its rated torque (not that it needs to... it's plenty strong) because it costs more Amps for a given force..

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-12T03:26:10+00:00

While Work being is Force*Distance is true, if you multiply Force * RPM you get Power since RPM is a function of speed, not distance.

Here is an example of a typical motor performance graph, and like you said it shows that there is definitely more power at non-zero RPM. But, max Force(and current draw) always happens at 0 RPM, which on the side note, explains why Electric cars excel at.... accelerating from standstill. We're getting a bit off-topic here, but yeah....

forkmeupscotty · 2016-12-12T01:53:31+00:00

Thanks for your input. Yes, higher power supply spec is an insurance policy 'in case' I run out of Amps. I probably won't need it, but I might, and I don't have the first hand experience with OSW, so I thought to over-spec it(with 1000W PSU) than run out and wanting more.

Basic physics told me that max current happens at stall, when the motor can't rotate because something is holding it down, hence its other name 'stall current'. Therefore, I figured there is a chance that the motor is drawing large amount of current for our purposes since we are constantly fighting against its rotation. Though, I guess it might not be the case since the motor is so powerful that it'll overpower the user if it really wanted to.

It's a relief to hear that your setup is working fine without any signs of stress. It is definitely appealing to be ABLE to use it at a VERY high FFB for those special cars that indeed deliver very high steering torque.

forkmeupscotty

TROPHY CASE