Box Box Box - Sim Racing Players Club [Now Hype Train Enabled!]

[brownninja97]

 

this wasnt expected. 

[chaozbandit]

 

this wasnt expected. 

 

Neither was this:

 

 

My jimmies were pretty rustled afterwards.

 

I don't know how the glitcher did because I ragequit immediately, lol.

[brownninja97]

Neither was this:

 

 

 

My jimmies were pretty rustled afterwards.

 

I don't know how the glitcher did because I ragequit immediately, lol.

how do people even have fun by doing that, challenge is where you get the excitement from. 

[brownninja97]

 

first glitch ive encountered. luckily everything returned to normal when i got out of the pits.

[chaozbandit]

 

first glitch ive encountered. luckily everything returned to normal when i got out of the pits.

 

It's not a glitch, it's the way SMS handles ghosting. Specifically in the pits, all cars are ghosted until they reach the commitment line where players take full control and the cars become material. What is trippy at first is that your AI driver will drive out of your garage, but pause or brake to maintain a safe distance to the car in front (pit-order when leaving is determined in game by whichever player pressed "Drive" first and the in-game distance between the car and the pit garage in question). While realistic, it doesn't stop cars from phasing through you and is merely a measure of adjusting speed/position.

 

Another issue you may come across is the way the game handles qualifying, which is where the larger bug occurs. If a player puts up a time but then proceeds to leave, and/or rejoin the session, the server will still spawn that player's car on the grid even though it will not be manually controlled during the race. Worse off, this "carcass" is not ghosted and can cause chaos both at the start and after the first lap. If you`re lucky, then it will be physical and you can avoid it; most of the time however it`s invisible and it`s a game of RNG at the start, plus trying not to get rammed from behind.

 

On the point of the carcass on the grid, and only when the session is at the cap for max players, the game will spawn these extra vehicles on pre-existing grid spots. If there is a player in that position, they will either be spawned below the carcass and slowly be crushed or spawn above the carcass and slide off, at which point the game will instantly disqualify said player (DNF) and not even give them the control to start the race, essentially turning them into a carcass themselves.

 

In short: drive the hell out of your car to get as far front of the grid as possible so you don't have to deal with any of this, and be super cautious at the start regardless of the conditions.

[MEC-777]

 

 

first glitch ive encountered. luckily everything returned to normal when i got out of the pits.

 

Happens all the time to me in the pits. Especially when there are a lot of other players on track.

[brownninja97]

 

Indycar is out in Assetto corsa, its a paymod but URD's quality is so good its pretty much official content, this and project cars dlc should shut me up until the 14/15th when like 5 AC mods come out and with the new dlc arriving.

[chaozbandit]

 

Hey guys! Back again for the week 2 round up, although it's probably a few days late by the time it goes up. In case you've forgotten, I’ve chosen the Audi R8 LMS Ultra as my weapon of choice and I’ve opted to team up with Zach (aka zip.plummer, who you may have seen online) as my teammate, with both cars running the Pedace #17 and #19 liveries respectively. Both of us are running unique setups and other than the pseudo team-nature, with the points structure and all, everything is relatively independent - although we will develop race strategies and exchange set up information from time to time.

 

Unfortunately since I was recovering from my rally weekend, I missed the roll-call from Zach asking if he wanted to practice, so it`s a solo session for this week. Don`t expect blisteringly quick lap times in this one because, as mentioned prior, I had largely forgotten everything regarding this track. Even worse, it was a night race so I had to quickly get my bearings and learn not only the racing line for a faster car, but also re-learn what braking points I could use and what backups were available if the boards get taken out. So nothing too interesting to say about this session, as it was more or less just me making a fool of myself while desperately preparing myself for whatever I could come across - or as the parents say, what goes bump in the night.

 

Donington Park GP is a not a very smooth circuit, however it does feature a lot of elevation change as the track snakes its way through Castle Donington. Here, it`s about managing tires - especially important because there isn't much room to correct in the event of an error, and you risk damaging your tires on the dirt and gravel. Ideally you'd want to have a softer suspension all round (ironically I didn't follow this) so as to not upset the car under acceleration, and then set your tire pressures accordingly. Do be careful though, too low pressures will keep them at operating temp but increase wear, while conversely high pressures will reduce grip. Since the layout is so twisty and pretty fast, there is a high load on the rear tires; at the same time, there are a lot of fast right handers so the left side tires will get worn down quicker. 

 

Adding those two facts together means that the front tires will always be colder, so drop the pressures to address understeer; the right left tire will also get worn down the quickest, so that will be your limiting factor when it comes to pit window (if you are using soft compound tires). I had filled up the car with 120L of fuel to see if I could save time in the pit stop, and turns out I can - at an average of 2.3L per lap, 95-100L should be enough to get me to the end of the 40 lap race with a comfortable safety margin. Pace wise I was struggling to manage 1m31s to 1m32s laps, so going into the race the following day I wasn't too keen on my performance.

 

 

Oh man, this race… where do I start? If I were to sum up the hour of night-racing that I endured, I would probably relate it to the classical phrase “Could have, Should have, Didn’t.” As you’ll see if you do watch (and bless you if you do), my pace actually wasn’t that bad and I could have finished higher than I did, but because of my sloppy driving and the badly set-up car, it all culminated in my #17 entry falling down the leaderboard. But still now we’ve endured both night and rain racing, and moving forward these will be valuable experiences I can factor into the coming races (hopefully); but first, let’s examine the play-by-play.

 

Above: A rocket launch (but not a jump start) from the #17, advancing 8 positions up the field to P12, behind teammate.

 

 

The start went better than expected: I had only recently begun using a new launching technique and so far it’s paying off, though it catches a lot of people off-guard (basically using the game’s auto-clutch launch instead of slipping the clutch manually). After managing the wheelspin and taking the advice from last week about not moving inside, I swung left and put half the car off-track (technically legal by AOR rules) and tried my best to take out any of the track-side boards that people use as reference points. Nearly missed my own braking point and licked up, managing to just keep the car on the short run-off as I slotted behind Flo; this next collision is my bad, as I stuck my nose in too deep and clipped Flo’s right rear wheel, which sent my car into the in-field immediately. The resulting off-track dropped me to P20, basically negating my amazing start and placing me back where I qualified.

 

 

After that little ordeal I tried to keep up with the mid pack as they continued to weave through the park, snaking through the darkness as each link slowly separated and the faster guys left us. I eventually made it back up to Flo when he made contact with me, in the same fashion as before, although this time it was in a tighter right hander - I'm not exactly sure what happened. AOR has rules against dive bombing, and while that's not what I did, I still left him enough room to make the turn without touching me, yet he still turned in as if he didn't know I was coming up. Not going to bring it to the stewards, but I still feel like he should have given me more room instead of sending me back into the gravel.

 

The next few laps were relatively uneventful; I was able to claw my way back up to P15 after some guys went off-track and managed to keep my P15 pace for at least 10 laps. However, the car was not easy to drive despite this fact; this was still using my hard-suspension baseline setup and as such it was bouncing all over the place while traversing Donington's countless bumps and hulls. Attacking curbs to try to make up time would often send the car flying (flat skid) and into a gravel-y fate. The front end wasn't particularly confidence inspiring either, despite my best efforts to add rear aero to address the understeer; it felt fine in 3rd and 4th gear, but there was horrible understeer in 2nd gear (end of lap) and in 5th gear, you needed a very violent flick to get the thing to turn in (beginning of lap) but then you'd have to be careful not to flick too hard and avoid the grass (feathering the throttle helped a bit). To add to the fire, some of the guys were probably more aggressive than they should have been, which is a recipe for disaster on such a tight track. 

 

Case in point, the two guys in the white wireframe R8s (custom livery, both are on the same team); while Adrenaline was the better of the two and was smart enough to cut through the traffic, Cekeli was less so and was making contact with other dirvers at the back of the field. Adrenaline ended up lapping me in the race as I continued to struggle with the car, while Cekeli ended up rage-quitting around the halfway point. Or so that's what I'd like to think, it could have been a network error.

 

Above: I got very acquainted with the gravel around this place.

 

But come L16 and I started to face some issues. Still fighting the car, I had now come to accept that my set-up was terrible and I was going to have to man it out. But that lapse in concentration was enough for me to lose the rear end slightly and do a half-spin coming onto the back straight; I didn’t realize it at first, but as I was recovering I had gotten lapped by 3ddi3. I know the man is quick, but to start lapping the back-markers before half-distance shows an impressive pace. But with P1 now past me, the inevitable wave of blue flag calls was imminent.

 

Do you remember that rap-remix that people made of S. Vettel’s blue flag calls to his pit engineers? Yeah, that’s what 75% of my radio chatter was, and I unfortunately was on the receiving end of those calls most of the time. Let’s just say from L19 onwards, I had heard my fair share of “Blue flag, let the leaders through” and I really need to bind the “Shut up, I know what I’m doing” response to my Crew Chief onto my wheel.

 

 

Above: Exploring the darkness that is night

 

Still working away at my own pace, I began to settle into a rhythm, or at least whatever I could manage to string together given the constant blue flags and not wanting to hold them back too much. One useful feature of the Crew Chief is that, given the tire degradation from the telemetry, he gives you a rough estimate of your tire life. On the GT3 soft slicks I had on my car, he told me that I was good until approximately L34, however my testing has shown significant drop-off in tire performance past L30 as this track is punishing on the left side, particularly the left rear. Some guys opted to not use softs and put on either the medium or hard compounds, since 95-105L of fuel was enough to get you to the end and avoid pitting, however the downside is that you are on the slower tire right from the bat – anywhere from 2-5 seconds, or otherwise the same pace as an amateur like myself LoL.

 

Speaking of pits, we seem to be encountering slight bugs every week. Last week was the AI crashing into pit walls, compounded by the “pit is occupied” from the race engineer if you enter without announcing first. This week was more of the same, particularly of the latter, with one poor chap (Nesterowicz) having announced to put on 4 separate occasions only to have his car drive down the length of the pit lane without changing tires. Shame, really hope this doesn’t persist for the duration of the league because I can already here some drivers losing motivation.

 

Above: Getting artsy during the one-stop.

 

Come L20 and the car was really starting to feel loose; completely missing my braking point for the last portion of the esses, I decided to straight-line it over the hill and through the gravel to get it back on track rather than risk spinning. While it saved me a bit of time, it pretty much destroyed my tires and made my pit-window (estimated L22-25) even more crucial. However as I was busy being a lawnmower, Erti managed to catch up and overtake me for P15. Struggling to keep the car under control with dirty tires, I pushed as much as I could but ultimately decided that I would be losing more time by continuing than I would if I just stopped for fresh rubber.

 

Pitted on L22 for minor damage and new Soft slicks, however forgetting that we were progressing further into the night time I had forgotten to drop the pressures in my tires. While this wasn’t a particular issue on the rears, especially with the great balls of fire that are the rear brakes on the R8, it was worrying on the fronts because I would be left with drastically less grip than when we started. To make matters worse, Adrenaline had now caught up in one of the other R8s and overtaken me for P16.

 

Above: The R8 flamethrower, unchanged from last week.

 

Getting right back into it, I tried my best to dump some heat into the tires for some decent outlaps. Unfortunately, the exhaustion of having to focus at night had gotten the better of me and I almost immediately sent it off-track into the gravel pits. In fact, nearly the identical spot I lawnmowered the car the first time, so rendering any chances I had of making up time with fresh tires null and voidl. After recovering, I had spun on L25 after dirtying tires coming onto the back straight and lost P17 to Duchi.

 

I knew it was going to happen eventually, and on L26 Zach lapped me; I saw him coming in my rear view mirror and kept as much of an inside line as possible, so as to give him the corner, however I cut too much and the BS cut track system cut in. While it is fair in some instances, the way SMS programmed it to cut all power means that if you have any sort of steering angle and excess speed, you will almost always lose the back end of the car no matter what. What’s worse is that you can’t even recover because the penalty disables your throttle, which means if there is another car (say, your teammate) beside you, there is a good likelihood you’ll hit them.

 

Almost immediately after Zach laps me, I get lapped by 3ddi3 again – you guessed it, coming onto the back straight. He narrowly clips my front and, and while I would have appreciated some more room from the race leader, I knew I was now 2 laps down and in no position to retaliate. That being said, I was somehow able to manage to keep pace with him for a lap or two but ultimately backed down so as to not ruin both our races. The gap to Duchi ahead (P17) was now closing but I knew it would be next to impossible to close it with all the blue flags (go figure) so I settled in for the long term.

 

Almost immediately after, on L27, Zach must have missed his braking point because he spun halfway into the esses and was backwards by the time I passed him. It must have happened in front of 3ddi3 because he slowed down immediately, and I nearly crashed as well because it was all so sudden. But who am I to talk, because I also spun on L28 after getting another cut track and with the BS cut track penalty, as described above, I simply couldn`t save the car. Zach re-lapped me and was shown as P10, so unofficially we were good for points. Or at least one of us was.

 

Above: There’s always a chicane. Always.

 

There was a note in the pre-race briefing about exiting the pits; since some drivers use the pit-out as extra track to better set up for Turn 1, there is little to no time to react to somebody exiting the pits and you will almost always send both cars into the gravel trap. However, for those without mics, they are unable to call “pit-out” and not wanting to send half the car into the gravel to let people past like I do, they instead opt to PARK the car (for whatever STUPID) reason at the end of the exit as if there was a yield sign. This act, while conservative, is extremely dangerous since part of the car will always be on the racing line and if you were following another car, you might not catch it (since it looks like a regular exit). This sent me into the gravel, unsurprisingly.

 

At the end of L29 I had a RUF come up behind me. Coming into the last two corners, I had a bit of a slide on the rear end and tapped the brakes to control the slide. Being in the middle of a switchback I had anticipated him being on the inside, since the slide had made me go wide, but for whatever reason he was on the outside and was caught out by my braking. By no means did I intend on brake checking him, as it was an unintentional slide, but coming onto the front straight he seemed to think so and promptly did the same to me.

 

Above: A dab of oppo whilst chasing the above RUF.

 

By now the gap to Duchi was a stable 20s (would later grow to 30s) and the gap to Dabbo was 20s or so, however I didn’t expect a challenge from him anytime soon since he was half watching the football game (this guy). Shortly after, Flo overtook me, and made me wonder where I could have been had I not been so sloppy and he not spun me out. I didn’t have a chance at challenging him, because of the lack of temperature in the front tires, which meant understeer everywhere. Not that it mattered, because Flo spun right in front of me on L31 for what felt like the 3^rd time this race, only he collected Ronald (P14) as he tried to pass.

 

Minor confrontation with another RUF (now promoted to P12) on L31, who backed off for whatever reason even though I was a back-marker – which made no sense because if I had passed him, I would have had to yield when he was close regardless, but he just seemed to fall further and further behind… I guess his tires were shot, or something. It`s now the final stage of the race, and I imagine the leaders are getting fed up with the back-markers (excluding myself) as there`s a call on L32 over TS that was vaguely “Hello back-markers, can you move, thank you” followed by “back off please” when they tried to make up time.

 

At this point exhaustion is still settling in, and Flo passes me yet again; I spun coming onto the front straight this time, with Zach (now P13) flashing away as he lapped me… again. My teammate has lapped me twice. Embarrassing. Too add to the lightening of the mood as the laps counted down, Gxbbs (one of the better guys in this tier) finally got a cut track penalty and everybody just kind of chucked over TS.

 

Come to think of it, the Pro tier did pretty well in not taking out any of the brake markers, compared to the Elite guys who took some out pretty much immediately. Well, at least until L35/L36 when some buffoon managed to take out the second marker coming into the chicane. This was a particular issue for me, as it’s the one area of track where I could make up some good time, but without that marker I would easily go straight off into the gravel. And guess what I did. Yup, without that marker I went straight into the back of GA78’s RUF on L37, damaging my right front suspension. Not that it mattered because I only had to endure one and a bit laps, finishing my race at 38 laps completed and in P18 - +2 out of a possible +5 from my starting P20.

 

All in all, it was a decent performance on my part with a very hard to drive car. While yes, I did throw away a P16 potential finish and valuable points of the the team, the dry did reveal inherent faults in the way I set my car up and I can now fully address the one Mazy provided. Expect me to be online quite often to fast-track the setup and get myself familiar with the essentially new car. As for hardware performance, the new CPU OC is keeping me well above 30 fps with 24 entities being rendered, though part of it has to do with the single 290 and 1080p60 resolution at high settings. Hopefully a second 290 will help bring the detail back, in addition to the AMD specific DS9X AA.

[MEC-777]

@chaozbandit - You post some of the longest single posts I've ever seen, lol. Very interesting to read (when I have the time), none-the-less.  

 

If you ever want to practice with someone to chase/follow, just let me know. I'm game to just "run laps" in practice mode. Been getting more familiar with the RUF and still enjoy the M4 GT3 cars. Not sure if I can match your pace after all the practice you've had, but I can say I've been known to be able to stay fairly consistent and make few mistakes (when I put my mind to it ). 

 

I admire your perseverance and I'm certain you'll improve as the season moves on. I can't imagine doing a race in the dark like that with others who've been doing this much longer. Donington has some tricky corners that I've yet to figure out the correct lines in day light, let alone in the dark! So yeah, I think you're doing a great job thus far.  

 

The only time I've done races this long before is in F1 2013 where I was working on a full season with full length races (78 laps of Monaco was a complete mess, lol). It was then, I gained a whole new level of respect for these drivers. I'm sweating buckets, my wrists are aching, I'm trying to maintain as fast of pace as possible while managing tire wear and I'm sitting in an air conditioned room, not feeling any of the high G-forces they actually feel. Crazy. It takes a lot out of you and is not easy to stay focused.

 

So, let me get something straight. I'm not sure I read this right. You're saying in this league you race in, people purposely take out the braking marker signs so others will not be able to see their mark? If that's the case, no offense, but I wouldn't want to race with them. Such a thing would never be tolerated in real racing. If they feel that is necessary to do to "get ahead" or somewhat handicap the competition, that's just poor sportsmanship, IMO. Win based on pure skill, not dirty moves. If you're ok with it, by all means. But I wouldn't stand for that. Just my take on it. I guess you then have to find other permanent braking markers?

[chaozbandit]

@MEC-777 lol the Donington post-race writeup was done mostly in transit between Waterloo and Toronto... 2 hours each way on Go Transit, plus one hour each way on the TTC - I had a fair bit of time doing to write it up haha

 

Haha you're right when you say I've done a lot of practice, but to be frank - racing solely GT3 cars gets boring if thats all you do, and despite the competition I'm just as happy messing around in the old (and lower) formula cars. That said, all the other guys in my tier have had years of sim racing experience (the oldest guy is in his late 30s, IIRC) so I'm already at a disadvantage. So bring on the 98Ts!

 

Thanks! After changing my car set-up entirely and using a derivation of the one Mazy posted, I can say I'm a lot more confident in the car now. I don't have to fight it as much as I used to, and there's a lot more mechanical grip in the rear end so I can drop the aero for better acceleration on some tracks. On average I'm 1-2 seconds faster, depending on track, with the new car than I was with the old one but I'm lapping more consistently; I'm actually finding the limits of performance more easily now, and started to play with things like the gearbox settings and diffs on top of adjusting tires and pressures like I already do. The more current footage isn't up yet, but these were the first two races I did after changing over:

 

 

At first I was amazed at how close I was staying to the guy in front (who was in a RUF, not an SLS, darn replay system) and even though I still don't know Silverstone that well, the car never felt hard to drive and I could easily adjust my lines with the throttle. The Road America was a test of drafting and top speed, though it didn't go so well because the time of day (sunset) pretty much blinded me coming onto the straight lol. The R8 maxes out at 280 km/h at the stock top speed ratios, but it reaches it much quicker than It used to.

 

Ah F1.. I remember when I had F1 2012, and I was inspired to do full-length races after watching the one guy put up his play-throughs on YT (he was pretty good and moved through the various F1 games, though I can't seem to remember his YT channel atm,,, oops). The old V8 cars were astoundingly quick and demanded the highest levels of concentration just to maintain your pace, let alone not destroy the tires - hard to believe that the same guys from that era (most of them at least) are now driving the even torquier V6 cars, some of which say can create even higher sustained G-loads despite being slightly easier to drive at times (depending on who you talk to). The F1 race in Montreal this year, everyone from the mid-pack all the way up to the front was super consistent and pushing their way to traffic - then Kimi comes around the hairpin and spins the car, a small mistake but one that only took a split second lapse in concentration. Huge respect for this bunch - especially with young blood like Verstappen constantly showing up the vets.

 

I don't think it's a case of people doing it on purpose - but there's not exactly a defined rule in the AOR book that says you can't take them out, and there was a general understanding in both tiers going into the race that we would all try our best not to do it. If anything, the ones that were gone were probably accidents - you know how it is, racing in a pack or against another car, especially on a tight track like Donington where your line-of-sight can easily be blocked - it's not too far out there to say it was an honest mistake going too wide or going for a pass / adhering to blue flags. Stupid mistakes yes, but stuff like this always happens in racing. I think in Tier 2, only the one coming into the chicane at the end of the race was taken out so it wasn't too bad, but I watched some of the footage from Tier 1 and I saw multiple missing all over the place - and these guys are supposed to be 2-3 seconds faster than us, on average. So yeah, you do have to be more cautious but at the same time there aren't many other visual references you can go by in the dark - maybe brake a bit earlier or use muscle memory to line up the car with an appropriate spot given the car's condition, but not much beyond that.

 

In other news, this just dropped and OH MY I WANT IT SO BADLY. Supposedly the game is out of Early Access on the PC....

 

[brownninja97]

 

 

Next dlc, was hoping that 90s btcc car. Only care about the rs01 in this pack,

[chaozbandit]

 

 

Next dlc, was hoping that 90s btcc car. Only care about the rs01 in this pack,

 

Welp I was going to post a huge DLC update later on, but this crosses that off the list. The BTCC car is being pushed back but no official word, and as far as and WMD members know, there is no update other than "coming later;" there is also no indication of it being cancelled, and most likely it is being held back for a BTCC pack later in 2016, or possibly another old vs new / historic car DLC.

 

The RS275 is the most hardcore version of the current Megane, and is an update to the RS265 already in the game; IRL, it holds the title for second fastest FWD production car around the Ring at 7:54, second only to the new Civic Type R. No word on the FR3.5 car, but it is most likely similar to the 2014 version that VS modelled for AC. Not mentioned officially, but it is likely that the 5th car in the Renault pack is the Alpine A442B. One theory about why is that the A442B is listed under an Alpine banner, but is still a Renault vehicle, whereas the rest of the cars in the announcement are part of Renault Sport.

 

The free car for the month is the Radical RXC Turbo, most likely placed under the Road A/B category and not LMP3 as some people are speculating.

 

Proof: SMS updated the website a few weeks ago with six mysterious question marks. If you look at where they are placed, five are under the R banner and one under the F. With news of the Renault pack and of the next free car, that rules out the sole F and four of the R cars - the files for the A442B are already in the game as of Patch 6.0, and with the Laguna not officially confirmed, that pretty much accounts for the last car.

 

 

The DLC drops December 22nd. More info can be found on the Renault Sport website: http://www.renaultsport.com/Renault-Sport-Car-Pack-coming-soon-on-Project-Cars-video-game.html

[MEC-777]

Uploaded the battle between @bcredeur97 and I from the other nigh. The Zakspeed Capri and Audi 90 GTO were fairly close-matched, the Audi being a bit faster (hence why he's all over me right from the start). I spun the tires and overheated them going up the hill after the sharp right-hander and had to back off. Couldn't quite catch up to the mighty Audi after that.

 

After re-watching the race a couple times, I now realize how many times I shut the door and cut him off. Sorry man! The mirrors don't always show where someone is behind or beside you and you don't always have time to look left, right or back to check. I tried to get the crew chief spotter mod to work, but couldn't. (@chaozbandit, perhaps you could help me get that working some time? PS - have you figured out the no-post issue?)

 

Anyways, here's the vid. Enjoy.

 

[chaozbandit]

Uploaded the battle between @bcredeur97 and I from the other nigh. The Zakspeed Capri and Audi 90 GTO were fairly close-matched, the Audi being a bit faster (hence why he's all over me right from the start). I spun the tires and overheated them going up the hill after the sharp right-hander and had to back off. Couldn't quite catch up to the mighty Audi after that.

 

After re-watching the race a couple times, I now realize how many times I shut the door and cut him off. Sorry man! The mirrors don't always show where someone is behind or beside you and you don't always have time to look left, right or back to check. I tried to get the crew chief spotter mod to work, but couldn't. (@chaozbandit, perhaps you could help me get that working some time? PS - have you figured out the no-post issue?)

 

Anyways, here's the vid. Enjoy.

 

~~

 

Like many other apps, Crew Chief makes use of pCars UDP or "Shared Memory" feature, which basically provides telemetric and vehicle positioning photo to external apps. Everything from temps, pressures, lap positions, deltas to players, and as you know positions relative to other cars, is made available as live data. To enable it, navigate to the Visual menu in Options and go to the Hardware tab; toggle Shared Memory from "No" to "Yes," (its the weirdest place to put it, but it works) Open up the crew chief application, select pCars x64, start app; if you hear "radio check" prior to starting you game or any other notification after the game has been started, then you know it's working. Crew Chief can be turned on or off at any point in time and will have no impact on your game, other than alt+tab.

 

 

I have figured out the no-POST but the news is pretty grim. The pump on the Swiftech H220 (early retail unit) has finally gone and it may have taken out the CPU_FAN header with it, but I am not 100% certain about damage on the board atm. Everything else in the system appears to be fine though; FX8350 is still within reasonable temps, 290 still works, RAM is brand new, etc. Luckily I'm planning on moving to another case come January so I guess it couldn't have happened at a better time. Finally moving out of my 5-year old CM690 II (custom painted too :c) to a Define R5; purchased a Corsair H110i GT to replace the now defunct H220 and have decided to go with 140mm Noctua NF-A14s all round, with two of them being LTT specials and the other four being iPPC 3K units. Also swapping out my Lamptron FC5v2 for a CW611 (36W over 6 channels). Cherry on the top is an intel 520 series SSD, 500 GB, that I picked up for $150 (CanadaComputers isn't total garbage for once!). So yeah... a few changes come January! Also on the backburner is a PSU sleeving job and a custom tempered glass side panel, similar to what I did on my CM690 II.

 

Unfortunately even though I have the H110i GT in my possession now, I don't have the stock AM3+ mounting bracket for the CVF-Z so I can't mount it on the board in time for today's AOR race @ Zolder. To make matters worse, my teammate is also doing overtime at his workplace so no points for us this week. :'(

[brownninja97]

Would you guys mind screenshotting your driver profile networks, im curious.

[chaozbandit]

Would you guys mind screenshotting your driver profile networks, im curious.

 

If you're curious about the hours spent and where, my profile got reset twice so mine isnt an accurate representation lol

[bcredeur97]

If you're curious about the hours spent and where, my profile got reset twice so mine isnt an accurate representation lol

mine got reset once as well! 

 

 

 

Uploaded the battle between @bcredeur97 and I from the other nigh. The Zakspeed Capri and Audi 90 GTO were fairly close-matched, the Audi being a bit faster (hence why he's all over me right from the start). I spun the tires and overheated them going up the hill after the sharp right-hander and had to back off. Couldn't quite catch up to the mighty Audi after that.

 

After re-watching the race a couple times, I now realize how many times I shut the door and cut him off. Sorry man! The mirrors don't always show where someone is behind or beside you and you don't always have time to look left, right or back to check. I tried to get the crew chief spotter mod to work, but couldn't. (@chaozbandit, perhaps you could help me get that working some time? PS - have you figured out the no-post issue?)

 

Anyways, here's the vid. Enjoy.

 

ohhh yes that was great. You didn't really cut me off much lol

 

that time I hit the back of you... I didn't hit you on my end. The lag is real. lol

 

But yeah that was a fun one  

[chaozbandit]

Still in the midst of getting the rig back in working order; fresh installs of both W7 and W10, with the migration of my game and editing libraries over to new 850 Evos. Optimistic that content will be going up later tonight, or at best between stability tests. In the meantime, here`s EmptyBox giving his thoughts on iRacing going into 2016. For those who don't know, this update primarily introduces the officially licensed McLaren-Honda MP4-30 F1 Hybrid as well as their own version of a laser-scanned Nurburgring Nordshleife. 

 

To summarize...

 

New dynamic track modelling: just as it sounds, the iRacing engine will now render more elements associated with cars and how they interact with the track, specifically off the racing line; the "popcorn effects" model will now render elements such as grass, dirt, gravel, and rubber marbles as the tires traverse off-line and these rendered objects will also be able to interact with car bodies. On the note of tires, graining and off-line reduced grip (via marbling) is also now simulated although not visually presented to the player. The dynamic system has also introduced sparking along the track surface (similar to popcorn effects) as well as improved tire smoke / burnout handling. Select cars have also had the updated Version 6 tire model applied to them, along with applicable chassis tweaks.

 

MP4-30: as someone who has seen and heard this car in action (Montreal / Canadian GP 2015) I can say that they definitely got the audio spot-on, although this is to be expected with McLaren themselves providing data to the iRacing engineers. The on-throttle acceleration, lift-off flutter of the turbos (and MGU-K keeping the turbines spooled), the quick and raspy downshifts (part of the chassis tweaks above include improved exhaust backfire handling) - it's all there, and exactly as I remember it in Montreal. Visually, and given the limitations of iRacing's engine, it is as true to life as it can be and appears pretty damn accurate in terms of detail. While I can't comment on how it drives, for obvious reasons, EB does confirm that the car is fun to drive and handles as you would expect a current generation F1 entry to perform; this coming from a guy who pretty prefers the DW12 IndyCars over anything, is an accomplishment in itself if it has given him the desire to drive it online. In terms of in-car assists and what you can adjust, it's all there and I'd compare it to F1 2012/2013 - fuel maps, brake / diff balance, etc. - all present and free for you to tinker with.

 

If it wasn't for the extensively long progression and licensing system, I'd be inclined to give the 2016 season a shot - especially come black friday (2016) when the seasons pass (for a year) is only $50. But until then, I'll be keeping an eye on these quarterly updates. While these are nice additions to the iRacing engine, they aren't exactly critical physics changes and are more aesthetic more than anything. One might even argue that, in terms of various aspects of the dynamic track model, both Assetto Corsa and Project CARS beat iRacing to the punch - the former with off-line environment simulation and the latter with tire graining (wear) and marbling on track.

 

 

And as controversial as they are, it was only a matter of time before someone compared it to Kunos' own laser-scanned model.

 

[brownninja97]

I going around my friend's house on monday to try the iracing verison, we have the same wheel and he has both versions so im gonna try it out. 

 

His feedback so far though(says he has 30-40 laps in it)

 

• feedback is the same on the track, only differences are down to characteristics that you would feel in each game anyways.
• Iracing has a lot more of a shaky camera on nurburgring compared to assetto corsa
• Iracing has more crap outside of the track like buildings etc
• Iracing has more graffiti on the track surface
• Grass in assetto corsa looks way better
• assetto corsa's version is harder(down to opinion id say)
• the track looks way better in assetto corsa's version
• Karusel feels more defined in AC
• GP track feels horrible on Iracing, assetto corsa's version is a little less horrible
• he wants to murder the creator of the chicane
• He prefers Assetto corsa's version which is very surprising as he pretty much only plays Rfactor 2 and AC is the antichrist to that community.

Personally I think granturismo 4 has the best version still. 

[brownninja97]

 

my first reaction was to type. "aww its cute" and then i read that a year ago i typed the same damn thing. lol

[terrytek]

you totally forgot live for speed. it's actually a pretty good game, and it's got a good modding base. if only i can get my cheapo thrustmaster wheel to use the brake and throttle right. it's stuck on full throttle even if i haven't floored the pedal physically.

[bcredeur97]

I going around my friend's house on monday to try the iracing verison, we have the same wheel and he has both versions so im gonna try it out. 

 

His feedback so far though(says he has 30-40 laps in it)

 

• feedback is the same on the track, only differences are down to characteristics that you would feel in each game anyways.
• Iracing has a lot more of a shaky camera on nurburgring compared to assetto corsa
• Iracing has more crap outside of the track like buildings etc
• Iracing has more graffiti on the track surface
• Grass in assetto corsa looks way better
• assetto corsa's version is harder(down to opinion id say)
• the track looks way better in assetto corsa's version
• Karusel feels more defined in AC
• GP track feels horrible on Iracing, assetto corsa's version is a little less horrible
• he wants to murder the creator of the chicane
• He prefers Assetto corsa's version which is very surprising as he pretty much only plays Rfactor 2 and AC is the antichrist to that community.

Personally I think granturismo 4 has the best version still. 

gran turismo 4?? haha too bad the physics weren't the best. That was the game I played and learned what the Nurburgring even was. I ran it hundreds if not thousands of times in that game, whenever I went to project cars the ring felt more realistic. 

I have tried it in assetto corsa and I liked the feedback and such better from the road compared to project cars (I tried at a friends home -- I still dont have AC lol) But I still don't know which one is truly better.

[bcredeur97]

you totally forgot live for speed. it's actually a pretty good game, and it's got a good modding base. if only i can get my cheapo thrustmaster wheel to use the brake and throttle right. it's stuck on full throttle even if i haven't floored the pedal physically.

Never heard of it. You sure it's a (proper) sim?

[terrytek]

Never heard of it. You sure it's a (proper) sim?

yes. even though there aren't real cars and real tracks, there are mods available for it. the only real cars are the formula bmw cars.

[brownninja97]

gran turismo 4?? haha too bad the physics weren't the best. That was the game I played and learned what the Nurburgring even was. I ran it hundreds if not thousands of times in that game, whenever I went to project cars the ring felt more realistic. 

I have tried it in assetto corsa and I liked the feedback and such better from the road compared to project cars (I tried at a friends home -- I still dont have AC lol) But I still don't know which one is truly better.

granturismo thing was a joke

 

actually most people i know tried nords in gt4 first out of anything.