THE REALITY OF SIM RACING.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Highlandwalker, Dec 11, 2019.

  1. Highlandwalker

    Highlandwalker Registered

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    May not apply to RF2 so much because most errors get sorted but worth a listen none the less.
     
  2. mantasisg

    mantasisg Registered

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    He does always make some good points. But always lots of stuff I disagree. Some stuff does apply as good source for a discussion. Generally his polemics often lacks critical thoughts about other sides of the problems, but perhaps thats on purpose for stronger effect.

    As for example ability to practice tracks for thousands of laps in simracing, as it was mentioned in the beginning. A good topic.

    I participated in one serious league once, and there were some guys who indeed did ran insane amount of laps to qualify. And there were one guy that is racing (and winning) IRL and he didn't want to join for same reason. He did have same argument, that he would never drive that many laps, and thus he can not be as much competitive as others.

    In my opinion you just can not prevent anyone for practicing insane amount of time for particular combo, so you just have to accept that someone might be faster because he devoted so much more time on a certain car or car/track combo.. Of course that is a downside for those who are the hardest racers in their heart, and for them only winning is acceptable. Then I suppose they will have to do dozens and dozens laps everyday for same combo to prepare for upcoming race and get better prequalification laptime. At this point simracer will probably fall into this hole of commitment to win, when it will stop being enjoyable and will become more like a work and grinding, well of course till the laptime will be improved i guess, thats rewarding.

    Personally my main satisfaction is to participate and racing itself. But it does get annoying if you somehow gone through pre-qualification that went for two weeks, and then you have no chance to get higher than the back end because others did so much more laps before the main race.

    At the highest competitive level I see this as a problem indeed, when you know that you will have to spend hell of a time polishing up to thousandth of a second for best possible laptime. Though perhaps some would find it their thing. Personally I don't like to do that (but I couldn't reach the top anyway, so whatever :D).
     
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  3. Highlandwalker

    Highlandwalker Registered

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    I found the part about finding bugs in certain sims and taking an unfair advantage the more interesting part of the video.
     
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  4. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    For a few years I joined a championship that to try to avoid the "thousands laps problem" enacted a Random selection of the track just minutes before qualification time. This had ups and downs : the track pool was quite large, no way to even have loaded every track at least once, but to some extents it widened the fork between veterans and newcomers even more : people were requested to practice the track , qualify, and race in a very short order. Accidents due not knowing the track and pushing hard were common. But I think a middle ground between knowing the whole championship trackpack months in advance and discovering it only after entering the server can be found.
    About the bugs one that affect both RF1 and unfortunately RF2 and that can be exploited to gain is the magical downshifting that allowed some mods to use gear change more than brakes to enter turns.
    For league racing I'm a fan of fixed setup : this help keeping the competion on the driving skill more than the engineering, with just 1 or 2 parameters to suit a little driving style (like front aero and braking power).
    Unfortunately there will always be highly competitive people that will exploit every method to win even if it's openly cheating, not much you can do, they will find a way.
     
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  5. mr.Sw1tchblade

    mr.Sw1tchblade Registered

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    I like this one
     
  6. mantasisg

    mantasisg Registered

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    Video bove summarised:

    "Sim physics bad. Don't talk physics. I don't understand physics, no one does. But I want cars to handle real. Cars doesn't handle real, and I don't understand physics, but understand car handling. So don't talk about physics, but make handle the cars the way I think it would be realistic." - Austin

    I don't really think he understands car handling very well from physics point of view, but he sure does from driver point of view. But those two refference points are essentially different.
     
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  7. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    A cloud based competition system could police the thousand lap issue one would think. Something built into the game,(HINT S397) Log all laps driven by an individual at each track. This database would have to include every kind of car to prevent F1 simmers from taking a Kart (or F2 for example) to the same venue. the league could clearly list the maximum number of laps allowed in a known time period before the race, drivers who exceed the set limit could either have penalties or disqualifications issued. (remember I'm the dictator type of League admin)
    Another thought just popped into my head. Top tier racing all have sims for the real drivers to practice on these days. In such a case, i.e. F1, I would not be surprised that they drive hundreds of sim laps in preparation for every race. Clearly though, as we drop down from F1, such options would not be financially feasible. So.....league by league, case by case I guess.
     
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  8. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Wind. Immediately the perfect lap changes every time and everyone has to leave a little room or risk crashing.
     
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  9. philmcqueen

    philmcqueen Registered

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    The consistancy is the key ....
    I run in the past a league, where the rules for the qual was to make 5 laps in a pre-qualification and we took the average of this 5 lap in a row.

    Also the main thing to think of constantly is not your place on the track but where are and the other car around you will do, react....Anticipation is also part of the master knowledges......etc etc....
     
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  10. Sonicviz

    Sonicviz Registered

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    >>THE REALITY OF SIM RACING.

    I though the OP video link was pretty interesting.

    Wouldn't an easy way to negate the track practice OCD drivers be by implementing random weather for the race duration (obviously only for sims that support it properly like ACC)? That should sort them out, and equalize OCD vs driver drivers.

    As to the exploits, that could be tackled on a wider simracing community basis, possibly by having an open source website/wiki that lists all known sim exploits so anyone invested in some way in a competition can make sure exploits are nullified as much as they can be.

    That's not the point he was making at all.
    He does go on a bit, but the point he was making was about devs losing complete credibility by posting in depth physics posts (especially when hyping "unique fizzicks feature(s) never been done before") while ridiculous physics bugs (iRacing traction rolling/PC MC720s++) completely subvert their claim to "best real world fizziks evah".

    Transcript:
    09:29 and that kind of summarizes why I feel
    09:31 these physics essays and these form
    09:33 essays and this physics wanker II is
    09:35 becoming extremely redundant because you
    09:37 can write as much as you want about how
    09:40 your game calculates or simulate certain
    09:41 things that no other sim dev has even
    09:43 tried to replicate in the past but if I
    09:45 jump in and the cars are traction
    09:47 rolling or half-million-dollar supercars
    09:49 handle like a 70s Cadillac and all
    09:51 season tires everything you've written
    09:54 up to that point and your physics wank
    09:55 reposts is completely redundant 100%
    English (auto-generated)

    I like the physics posts myself and read them (as I'm a developer & it's useful info) but he's right about hugely obvious bugs puncturing the physics hype bubble in one short ugly pop.

    It's funny, I just tried the McLaren 720s in PC2 the other day for the first time and was shaking my head at how bad it is - even by bad PC2 car standards. PC2 is like that though, it's a car lottery going from the sublime to the ridiculous depending what you pick. rFactor2 720s and ACC 720s implementations otoh are on a completely different level, and they were my benchmark for comparing the pC2 version.

    If a dev does do physics posts (and they should continue - I disagree with AO on that) they should stick to objective technical descriptions of implementation details (IP issues aside) and actively avoid any marketing bs. Keep it tight.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
  11. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Registered

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    Any software exploits present
    makes the whole competition void
     
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  12. Yzangard

    Yzangard Registered

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    I don't understand the problem with being able to practice a lot, it won't make you any better at driving actually, it will make you better at memorising the track and the car behaviour, which is not a bad thing. To get better at driving you need to test many cars on many tracks to develop your senses and get used to react instinctively to what is happening while memorising car and track will just develop your muscle and reaction memories. Real drivers are using simulators on a daily basis as well for obvious reasons, why simracers shouldn't ?

    For the "longer races part", iRacing is scheduling dozens of races on a daily basis that are 30mn+ long, with pit stops and stuff. I won't deal with endurance series that are up to 24h long...

    Some subjects are interesting but not all of them, far from that.
     
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  13. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    Easy explained : The problem of practicing a lot in a open setup environment is to arrive at the day of the race with the most perfect car for the track. What would you think if in a championship supposed to be on equal cars someone would show up with a Red Bull while you are driving a Toro Rosso? Yeah they are similar, but guess who has more chances to win.
    But the problem is not even who would win, that for most is barely important, the problem is that after few laps they are so ahead that you actually are alone on the track : with the "otaku" ahead and the more or less casual players behind. And while you can't make slow people go faster... you can at least try to make ungodly fast people a bit slower.
     
  14. Yzangard

    Yzangard Registered

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    As long as I can understand that having a PERFECT setup (there is no such thing actually) could be a tiny advantage against a slightly not as good one, I really am sure that a setup won't change a Toro Rosso to a Red Bull F1 car, so your comparison is flawed if you allow me to say this.

    Even with a perfect setup (which depends on the driver to begin with), you won't be much faster, it will maybe grant you 1 to 3 tenth per lap in perfect conditions, which won't happen anyway. Of course, if you compare someone with perfect setup (...) and someone with base setup...but if you didn't even create a setup, why do you enter the race to begin with ?

    I still fail to see where the problem is, of course the guy with more practice will have a tiny advantage but it won't turn a poor pilot into a Senna clone, to say the least.
     
  15. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    No, your estimation of the difference between a setup tailored in weeks of works on a specific track is underestimated, but obviously is track dependent.
    About your question why not bothering to create a setup for a track: easy, many people can sing, but few of them can write songs. The same apply for people that play simulators: we are not real pilots, or engineers, we play because we like it, because is fun, when we have time. This mean that often we don't want to waste time to create a setup that could be invested in racing.
    I know, there are people that can refine a setup in a matter of minutes, other that like to make setups more than to actually use them.
    Oh and if you are asking yourself, this discussion does not apply to me, I'm a 2 / 4 seconds slower than most humans (on fixed setups) , but despite that I still like to race. In a open setup environment my lag could really increase even more, especially considering how poor base setups often are.
     
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  16. Yzangard

    Yzangard Registered

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    No I didn't underestimated the impact of a "perfect" setup and a "not that perfect" one. Once again, if you compare perfect setup with no setup at all, of course it is different but I ask again : why do you enter a race you are not prepared for at all ?

    So because some of us can't create their own setup nobody should be allowed to ? I'm sorry but preparation is part of the race, you can't just come here and say "some ppl can't create a setup so you are forbidden to", this is nonsense.

    That being said, I play iRacing as well and there are series with fixed setup (SPEC series), the problem is solved.
     
  17. Sonicviz

    Sonicviz Registered

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    Marcel Offermans talks about live weather during a race in this video (starting about 12:18) which should throw the cat among the pigeons. That doesn't actually have to be real life live though, it can be a scripted progression put together by the race admins to make it completely random.
     
  18. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    I dont understand that either. Ppl talk like majority of drivers will do this when in reality is a extremely small part of the userbase that has skills and enough time to do that, you make a server only for them and the rest of us (majority) will just drive slow even if we do 10000 laps a week lol
    Same thing goes for locked setups, just a few whiners complaining because they are too lazy to study it and this is again something that will affect a very small % of the userbase.


    As for the thread, title is about reality of competitive simracing, something that doesnt bother most of the user base in all sims in the market.
     
  19. Alex72

    Alex72 Registered

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    If its racing for money and fame i can understand if people take advantage of them but personally i couldnt do that when racing outside of E-sport or some price winning comp. I want to drive for the experience - not to always win at any cost. I want to have fun and enjoy myself. Of course some of the things he mention like exploits should be patched out. Just weird if they let such things slide like all tires outside or setup weirdness.
     
  20. David Wright

    David Wright Registered

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    The 720S in PC2 is a road car. I'm not sure the GT3 version in ACC and rF2 is really a good benchmark.
     

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