Houston, we have a (vintage) problem

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Lu ManiaK, Oct 10, 2017.

  1. Lu ManiaK

    Lu ManiaK Registered

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    Hi there. I wanted to start saying what it need to be said. I'm happy and proud of Studio397's work. You did a great work for me. When I thought something "bad" about some mod I've been always wrong...because I tried wrong, drove wrong, worked wrong on my setup. What I'm going to write is also something that is not what you are worked in, so, please, don't feel blamed in what I'm going to write.

    Vintage drive is affected by a lots of problem. These problems are all in the gearbox. In these days I had the possibility to drive a lot of vintage cars online...I need to thanks Mr. Hart, Mr. Carvalho and Mr. Antero for make me understand the problem. Probably I never understood that thing because I use only H&T before first rF2 release. The manual gearbox management is similar to an old generation sim. Worst than the old rFactor1. Ufficial (and not) mods doesn't really need Heel&Toe...even in non-syncronized gearbox like the BT20, F1,F2,F3, Houston G4, G6 and so on. There is also no option for paddle users or H shifter users. When you are braking and downshifting you can do without problems avoiding the blip. You can also do that when you are in the middle of the turn (expecially with the Houstons). If the rear decide to swerve a bit it is a stupid problem...you increase the coast value on the diff and it will be good.

    That is bad. Too bad for a sim like rF2. In this sim we need to have the most hardcore simulation. Up to now this gearbox management is arcade style...or worst, because there's a lot of simcade able to do better. I find inexplicably one fact. The only car that has a quite reasonable gearbox management is the Panoz. But this car had a syncronized gearbox. What the rear do is "right" for a syncronized gearbox. But this kind of "instability", when you downshift, is not alive driving non-syncronized gearbox. Up to now, driving these cars, or worst, doing championship, is absolutely the worst thing using this sim. What we need, so, is something similar to another (italian) sim. Something that can understand what kind of gearbox we are using (paddles or shifter+autoclutch off)...like the old good mods on rFactor1 (Historic GT&Touring cars, F1 '79, DRM etc. etc.). And obviously we need some phisics change in these vintage cars. They have to swerve without control if you drive with H shifter and autoclutch off if you donwshift without H&T. For paddles users the problem doesn't exist...it is enough to create an upgrade on tuning car's settings to create delays between gears and the autoclutch will do the rest.

    Studio397 is working on the GT3 dlc...in the rain effects. What i saw on video is absolute stunning. But, please, take in consideration what I've wrote today. Try by yourself. I don't think it will be an hard or long work make vintage drive better in rF2.
    Cheers.
     
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  2. Pauli Partanen

    Pauli Partanen Registered

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    +1 from me
     
  3. ECAR_Tracks

    ECAR_Tracks Registered

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    rF2 gearbox and clutch modelling have their development abandoned since old days. Even rF1 plus tranny mod used to be much more realistic. It's not only for historic content, it's because is more perceptible on those old cars.
     
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  4. zaphman

    zaphman Registered

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    Know discussion is available elsewhere here, but very good to pop it up again.

    +1 for me
     
  5. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    The sad thing is, that I'm sure it would be a fairly straight forward thing to code. Does anyone know the original author of the 'Grinding Tranny' mod? Maybe he could give some advice, or maybe he's working for KUNOS? ;)

    I'm sure even changing the settings in the HDV could potentially increase the realism, but it would be a 'bodge-fix'.
     
  6. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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    We were told a new transmission model was coming soon after the release of the Howstons, and that was 4 years ago. No 'Grinding Tranny' please :)
     
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  7. Pauli Partanen

    Pauli Partanen Registered

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    Dont think that realistic and different kind of gearbox modeling is "simply" to code. Something like grinding tranny would be quite simple I think.
     
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  8. Lu ManiaK

    Lu ManiaK Registered

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    Grinding tranny mod is not a solution. It is a "mechanism" that forces the simdriver to learn the delay times between shifting. It is not a solution...it will be more and more dangerous for a vintage real simdriver. The best way is the old way in my opinion. 2 different options in tuning cars settings. Paddle shifter and gated shifter. Pre-calculated delays for the 1st one and 0 delays for the 2nd. At the same time, the sim needs to oblige to use the right shifter and disable the other (or we will have the cheaters using paddles with gated shifter option). Then we need physics improvement on historic cars. When H shifter is used it will be needed a decent blip in downshifting or the car must to lose the rear grip. Up to now it is possible avoid this grip loss with a 5% of gas pedal pression.
     
  9. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    Losing the rear downshifting is not a scripted behaviour, it depend on gear lenght , revs, and engine brake. So it's not easy to say we are experiencing a simulation limit or not. But I agree that what is between the engine and the tires must be simulated more accurately. than it is now.
     
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  10. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    For an unloaded engine (e.g. clutch depressed or gearshift lever passing through neutral), that's all it really takes unless the flywheel & clutch are heavy.

    By the way, among the complications for a "proper" transmission model, consider the GT40 Mk I's ZF transmission. Though providing the driver with a normal shift lever, it is a really a sequential gearbox with synchromesh that pre-engages the gear above & below the current gear, thus you can't skip gears (go from 4th to 2nd when downshifting). That ZF was later used in the Pantera, but I don't know if it retained the pre-engagement feature.

    Hewland transmissions (dog boxes) can be shifted up/down without the clutch. Blipping necessary on downshift. Faster downshifts will engage better where slow downshifts will not, kind of the opposite of what you're used to in a street car. Clutch is used to start and avoid stalling.

    And, as Comante already mentioned, the rpms you choose for your downshift matter. Downshifting at low rpms will avoid the problem of the rear tires slipping.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  11. Christopher Snow

    Christopher Snow Registered

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    When I first thought about this carefully back in the GPL days, I realized (when trying to write about it) the problem stems from the simple fact that our H-shifters (and certainly our paddles) never fail to go into whatever gear we are selecting, even if they wouldn't do so as easily--or at all--if they were real gearboxes with real mass and moving (spinning) parts at the other end of whatever linkage we are working through. I agree too that it's a problem, but I don't see any easy or obvious solutions to it--perhaps something like a "FF gearbox" would make things more realistic, better, and even more "fair," but I have my doubts about it being commercially viable. Moreover, in order to enforce real competitive fairness or accuracy it would almost have to be a sealed (hackproof) unit, and except in a LAN setting, it's hard to see such a solution that would be even narrowly (let alone widely) adopted.

    This becomes even more true too, unfortunately, the further we move past the days when most, or at least many road cars sports H-shift gearboxes.

    I have often wished it were different, but, sadly, even good simulations will always be just that. :-/
     
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  12. Lu ManiaK

    Lu ManiaK Registered

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    Just to know...are you american? In that case I can understand why you don't know something about manual transmission...in my country the H shifter is the most used gearbox (99.5% of cars were manual until 10 years ago). We know how it works, we know what is needed to do at drive and someone knows also how old gearbox worked. The old Fiat 500 teached us all...
    I knew about the GT40. But we don't have that car in rF2. The Hewland works like you said...in modern models...like the Andrews gearbox they don't need clutch when you are in movement. Now take a look here ---> http://www.hewlandclassic.com/assets/manuals/dg_300.pdf
    That is the BT20 gearbox. Please read everything.
    Comante said right...low rpms, 5% of pedal gas and you can "probably" downshift in an old racing car with not synchronized gearbox...that is a quite functional move but it is good for strolling in the real world. If you are running like hell you need the torque to help braking the car. So you have to keep high RPMs when you are downshifting for to approach a turn. It is also more easy to put the right RPMs when your target is to stay high with them (in a not synchronized gearbox), when you are downshifting.
    In rF2, Comante's technique, is the best way for to be faster. But now try that...the best simulated mods in rF2 (with H shifter) are the stock cars and the USF2000 National with the 4 gears optional. If you drive how they need to be driven they are more and more faster than using Comante's technique. But in that case is right because these H shifter works exactly like rF2 allows...without clutch.

    Do you know what is the reality? In my country there are 5/6 simdrivers able to drive how these cars are needed to be driven. In the US will be 30 (Empty Box included)...I don't think there will be 200 simdrivers able to do that in the whole world. The simdrivers look at simracing like a "constant"...they think that a good driver is good in every type of motorsport. Absolutely false. It is a lie. A modern driver will be a danger for himself and the others with a vintage car. A vintage driver can't be one of the fastest in modern cars. A F1 champion will be absolutely bad if he tries rally (Raikkonen is the example...and he is finnish). A Touring car driver can't be good in F1 etc etc. Only between mid '80s and mid '90s F1 driver were able to drive everything but it was an exception. Enzo Ferrari once said "there are 20 people in all the world able to run in a Formula 1"...he was right. In USA should know it thanks to Mansell. But it was the past...now also a tiny fat child can drive a F1 or a DTM or a touring car.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  13. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    LOL, way to go with the generalizations! Yes, I'm an American, but I'm just days away from my 55th birthday. I've autocrossed a WIDE variety of cars in my years on this planet and have had the opportunity to sample many kinds of transmissions. I currently own over a dozen cars and only 2 have automatic transmissions. I've owned an 850 Mini with non-synchro first gear and the magic wand shifter. I currently own more old Fiats than is reasonable (around a dozen at last count) and a 20000 lb gross weight moving & storage truck to haul them with. So I do think your generalizations about Americans and simracers are over the top... by now you ought to understand that I have a decent amount of experience with shifting manual transmissions, even in a competition environment.
     
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  14. Lu ManiaK

    Lu ManiaK Registered

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    If I was offensive I'm sorry. It wasn't my purpose.
    I'd like to know (really) what do you think about my last post about the right Hewland's BT20 gearbox and the other points that I was talking about. I didn't drove historics cars on track but i read and saw really a lot. I tried old BMW, Mercs and (once) a 308. If you don't want to die you need to use right technics...expecially on rain and I'm talking about road cars. For race cars I can use a friend's team knowledge. In my country we have a rF2 simdriver called Stefano Gattuso. Real italian GT3 champion...he drives in Blancpain for Ombra racing team. This team drives also vintage series with their cars. If you want, you and other people that will be in disagree in what I wrote, can call them for ask about what is true in older cars about gearbox. They will non bite...I promise.
     
  15. Led566

    Led566 Registered

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    While i agree that we need a more complicated transmission model for vintage mods, i also have to say that in the movie "Ferrari 312B" Paolo Barilla never blip downshifting while driving reasonably fast in Montecarlo. This year he also managed to win the Montecarlo historic grand prix.
    The movie is a docu-film about the restoration of a Ferrari 312B ex Clay Regazzoni.
     
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