Is sim racing a level play for all?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lgel, Nov 18, 2014.

  1. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    How do affect your lap times those factors ?
    - CPU
    - GPU
    - HD or SSD
    - RAM
    - High end steering wheel
    - Internet connection bandwith, micro cuts, latency
    - Dedicated PC to RF2 vs multi-use PC

    And yes I know a good sim racer with a low end gear will beat hands down a mediocre with a top end setup.
    But look at most quick laps posted on Youtube very often with the lowest graphic settings.

    Cheers and have fun racing.
     
  2. wgeuze

    wgeuze Registered

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    It never is to be honest. However I personally can say, a better rig doesn't necessarily make me faster, if anything more consistent over a race distance.
     
  3. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    It is not a faster PC its having the right settings to match your paricular PC.


    I can tell you first hand 1000 of laps at Monza in a F3 if I run settings a little too high no way in the world I will run my best laps.

    Settings to run 60 fps+ for eye candy :p I can lap good.

    Settings to run 100+ fps I can do a lap record.
     
  4. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    Sure but not everyone knows that, and new comers to hardcore PC sim have a tendency to despair seeing their lap times. In the past after a fresh install of my PC my lap times went 2 seconds down (same settings) and would slowly increase as my PC instalation was aging.

    Thanks.
     
  5. WiZPER

    WiZPER Registered

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    A friend of mine has been driving from most competitors using a notebook with a G25 plugged in...
     
  6. matf1

    matf1 Registered

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    Durge, you nailed it. It can feel good at 60, but it's so much harder to really take it to the edge, especially online where there is added latency.
    Dropping settings from high to medium can make the sim look a bit average but seriously, all the races I've had over the last few weeks have been freaking insane... You know Durge, you were there for some.

    You absolutely cannot race at that level unless you are maxing out your PCs performance. The very minimum has to be 90fps and it is achievable for most PCs running this software.
     
  7. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    Just look at 4K benchtests now Mat

    Full settings the latest shooters and games with top end cards tests pull 60fps which on the surface sounds decent.

    Thing is they always mention in the conclusions they are " okay to play " never great.

    ;)

    P.S.

    Yeah like you say it feels good at 60fps but on the same game tests if they reduced settings to hit higher fps everything would free up.

    You would not get the surges of data bottle necking transfer rather a smooth even flow your system can mange.

    Where that sweet spot is depends on your settings your hardware and will then be impacted depending on your perception of what is best for you. ;)


    That's my theory and I sticking to it. lol ;)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 18, 2014
  8. matf1

    matf1 Registered

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    I may be talking out of the proverbial here... but I'm sure I read in one of the FFB threads that the sim updates at 90hz (correction it's 100Hz)
    So if the sim updates at 100 and you run at 60, how do you think that would affect the force feedback? I'd be guessing you are missing out on 40% of the available detail.

    To address OP:
    All of the hardware needs to be a certain spec to achieve what I wrote above. Everyone's PC will be different, so only they can know the weak parts.

    - High end steering wheel
    Not important, pedals extremely important.

    - Internet connection bandwith, micro cuts, latency
    Should not affect lap times unless you warp or are off-put by a micro cut. Do not race around others like this though, no good can come of it.

    - Dedicated PC to RF2 vs multi-use PC
    Depends how powerful it is.
    Mine runs Rf2 120fps solid and has programming, editing, movie apps by the bucketload installed, plus steam, battlenet etc. It's just an i5 2500k at stock speeds.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 18, 2014
  9. TechAde

    TechAde Registered

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    This is incorrect. FFB is updated at 400Hz, the same as the main physics loop.

    This can be turned down in the controller file for wheels that can't handle a 400Hz update rate, with the following entry:

    "Skip updates":0,
    "Skip updates#":"Apparently some drivers can't handle a quick FFB update rate, so use this hack to skip the given number of updates (0=full update rate, 1=half, 2=one-third, 3=one-quarter, etc.)",
     
  10. matf1

    matf1 Registered

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    Excellent, thanks for clearing that up both of you :)

    Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
     
  11. Ashes

    Ashes Registered

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    Wish I hadn't seen this thread. Gives me excuses for slow lap time, with my avg fps being around 40
     
  12. P.S.R.

    P.S.R. Registered

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    Well damnit I've been ignoring this lag topic because I get stuttering with my gtx 760 unless I use video sync. I've tried FPS cap but doesn't work. What else can I try?
     
  13. matf1

    matf1 Registered

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    Still the same on low settings? What do you mean by FPS lock not working?

    Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
     
  14. DrR1pper

    DrR1pper Registered

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    My 2 pennies worth...

    FFB

    Having FFB does not mean better necessarily. If you're wheel has too slow a transcient response, too large an initial ffb deadzone and too low an ffb torque output (i.e. below some optimal value for all 3) then you would/could be better off using the wheel without ffb. There are a number of really great sim drivers who do exactly this for the above reasons and it all comes down to the ffb providing delayed/false information about the car's handling. This can negatively affect your driving performance, worse than without any ffb at all.

    Which is the minimal ffb wheel to buy to have more of the pro's of ffb vs it's potential con's? I'm not sure, but if i had to guess i would say that even a t500 doesn't cut it.

    T500, CSW, G25, etc. Using Belts/Gears, you lose detail in the ffb. It also takes much longer to see the same percentage change in force from these ffb wheels vs a direct drive wheel (e.g. bodhnar, no gears/belts, hence 1:1 transmission ratio) because belt/gear ffb wheels have a transmission ratio (e.g. g25 is 20:1 i think) to increase the output torque from it's tiny ffb motor, this also means the tiny motor has to spin up to 20 times faster to achieve the same percentage change in output torque. Well, it's no suprise that taking 20 times longer means the ffb has a slower transient response (i.e. ffb lag) and this also is a massive contributor to numbing out ffb details.

    Best wheel to get that's available atm is most likely the bodhnar. I'm waiting for the AccurForce wheel and have already signed up for the pre-order waiting list. Cheaper than the bodhnar and with some other added benefits that make it a more attractive alternative to me also. Also supposedly just as powerful if not more, according to SimXperience.

    CPU

    All the tests that have been conducted over the last 1-2 months seem to indicated, CPU is really not an issue. If you have the latest gen i3/i5/i7 cpu's, you would need to downclock the speed to 2.0Ghz or lower before seeing the fps performance become CPU bottlenecked. Having said all that, having a CPU with PCI-e 3.0 support vs 2.0 and with anything greater than say a GTX 670, you will start to see an increase in fps performance. The better the graphics card relative to the GTX 670, the greater the fps performance increase in rf2 from using it in PCI-e 3.0 vs 2.0.

    GPU

    The main driver being performance is almost entirely graphics card related. And if you don't have a faster card you will have to play with lower gfx settings or have worse fps performance. Nothing more to it. Achieving a minimal fps that is your monitors native refresh rate is always the best. It will be as smooth as can be and if you can lock fps to your refresh rate you will get rid of screen tearing (but this is just for aesthetic purposes...maybe you don't notice them or don't care about them).

    Vsync helps remove this screen tearing and can help smoothen out the render and remove any microstutters. But be careful of which vsync option you are using and all vsync options induce some amount of input lag, some much more than others. For instance, the vsync: "video" option in rf2 inducing a hefty 200ms input lag which is enough to mess with your consistency and peak performance to a significant level. Regular vsync as found in the nvidia control panel has a significant lower input lag but will not be as smoothing as vsync: "video" in rf2. Also, if you fps dips below your native resolution with regular vsync (e.g. say your monitor refresh is 60hz = 60fps locked with regular vsync whenever ingame fps is 60fps or greater) to say between 30-59fps, then your fps will suddenly lock to 30fps. However the alternative nvidia vsync option called adaptive vsync has all the benefits of regular vsync except if fps falls below your refresh rate, the fps is not locked to half your native. I.e. it's a form of selective vsync.

    I use adaptive vsync on mine for rf2 because it offers the least amount of input lag (and an amount that i think is acceptable) and i have a 120hz monitor that helps reduce that input lag. If i had a 60hz monitor, maybe i would not use it since the difference is double the input lag.

    HD/SSD/RAM

    Not important to on track performance.

    Internet

    Only negative thing i have experienced was in my old flat with an internet connection that was faulty. My ping was much higher than should be an constantly changing (something was faulty with my line to the exchange). In rf2 this caused my car to act like the only bumper car on the track. If a driver even kissed my car on the track, it would send me flying and they would be left untouched. But this was a freak incident, not something you need to worry about unless it's happening to you and if it is you won't miss it.
     
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  15. hammer666

    hammer666 Registered

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    I know I've read from a couple of top leagues racers that they turn their graphics down as low/ugly as they can go to get maximum fps.
    I guess anyone can do that, even with an onboard gfx chip.

    I used to do the same in Quake3 when I played competitively. Not just for max fps (or locking at 125fps in the case of Quake3) but because the eye candy is a distraction from the objective of winning.
    So if winning is your priority, then you maybe need to do the same.
     
  16. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    I'd say being comfortable superseeds all other factors, as long as you can run at a minimum ~30 FPS.
     
  17. SimonV6

    SimonV6 Registered

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    Eye candy fro practicing, fps for racing :) or huge PC and have them both ;)

    same in real club racing though, there will always be someone with better equipment, that you know you could beat if you only had the same money to spend, which Is why I only do track days :)
     
  18. ErnieDaOage

    ErnieDaOage Registered

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    For me a fluid game expierience is much more worth than eyecandy. I for myself keep my frames at 60 because i have only a 60hz screen and i set it up with the most demanding track and car combo so that i know everything else will work fine. I don't know how people in these forums can claim that 45fps at the start of a race is enough, when i get stutters falling below 58.
    Your internet connection and bandwidth is one of those factors which are in online games since the beginning of it. Thats also why a lot of tournament finals in diffrent games are gonna be played at a lanparty to minimize the lag. And surely better hardware will also make you a better racer, BUT it won't happen without practice and maybe you are loosing a couple of seconds when you switch to new gear because you are not used to it. Its the same with most things in life you can try first to achieve the best with what you got and if you are not satisfied anymore you can upgrade something and see if its worth the money for your enjoyment.
     
  19. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    Pracitce and understand how vehicle dynamics work. In terms of pure laptime and consistency - and if the FFB can be set up to work with the car physics in order to give you FFB cues for what is happening regarding some very specific threshold grip situations (eg. being extremely close to tyre lock-up but without actually locking up) - then you just need to practice.

    I can do top 5 GTL Rank and rF Rank laptimes with old Logitech wheels - like a Logi Momo - and plastic pedals worth less than the plastic cup I drink out of. I can do those top 5 GTL Rank laptimes in any car (of the ones I've tried which is all the TC and GT 60s cars) no matter matter how different they are from one-another (Mustang, Lotus Elan, Renault Alpine, TVR Griffith, Merc 300SL, etc.) or the track type (twisty, long sweepers, hard braking w/ chicanes, etc.).

    Anyone telling you that you need high-end wheels with more torque or faster spin rates is only partially correct, depending on if the particular piece of software is good at giving you threshold grip FFB cues or not - FFB effects are essentially just a host of effects (like jolts, vibrations of different types like sine, square, etc., spin, stop, resistance, wiggle, etc. etc.) and even a cheapo wheel can produce those effects in order to give you cues about the game and what is happening. It is essentially up to the software maker to use all those FFB settings and implement how their software uses it. This is exactly why I can drive those sims so fast, consistently, and confidently and know exactly what state of slip/grip I am in all the time, because I can tune those game's FFB to send just the right effects (for me) to my particular wheel in order to make me understand and feel the cars threshold grip moments perfectly (sadly this is not available with rF2 as it realies 90% on just a pure and dynamic steering-rack-forces-only sort of setting rather than hardcoded things like "make wheel do this when at 5% degrees of lateral front tyre slip, make wheel do that when the car chassis jolts from a bad downshift-blip, make wheel do this when car starts getting extremely close to tyre lock-up but not quite locked up yet, etc.). This is the reason some people can do so well with cheapo wheels and pedals on certain sims depending on how the FFB works in that particular piece of software.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 18, 2014
  20. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    30 fps in rfactor2 depends how you get to that 30fps and on what system you use ???? .

    If you have a PC runs rF2 at 120fps smooth no AA and you ramp up settings to drop Fps to 30 ???

    It will run like a dog ???

    :confused:

    30fps is not smooth in RF2 wtf ? this is rF2 not GTR2 ?



    PS.

    I feel some of the problem is with sim optimization, not a actual bottleneck more like slowdown of data when pushed.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 18, 2014

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