Has RF2 reached a level of sophisitcation above 99 % of it's users?

Haha, I remember seeing some dude with a laptime on youtube, Morgan Morand I think. I spent bloody days fixated on trying to beat his time. This was real early on. I think I got to within .1 of his time, insane stuff though.
Just had default setup with less fuel though. I reckon I must have learnt heaps doing that though, just focusing everything on getting that bit faster, figuring out what I could try or do with the car. I just couldn't hack it though, so I saw he did a Spa lap IIIRC...and so began the next "challenge".

A car that can teach you so much on both a twisty/tight track and a flat out track. So much to be learnt in regards to loading and proper brake usage. Now anything seems easy to control lol!
Ahh, the old days of hotlapping for fun...XD

 

http://simhqmotorsports.com/rfactor-2-stock-cars/ There is some info about CPM.

 

Dear devilsadvocate

In my OP I said I was myself overwhelmed by RF2.

If you are interested read in the new DW12 thread my findings based on some facts.
I don't say wether it works or no, WIP in progress, but my RF2 time is finished now (travelling).
Hoped some guys not overwhelmed by the complexity of RF2 would help in our evaluation of what part of the TGM is available at the moment, with more than "feels great, the best tire model in my opinion".
Cheers.

 

My humble opinion on the matter is that it has become LESS complicated than it was when I first started playing back in Dec '13.

There is no longer a need to futz around with the controller json file in order to get good FFB, for instance.

At this point it does seem pretty plug and play. Friends of mine who disliked earlier demo builds, due to the amount of tweeking needed, have come back and tried the most recent builds and are finally buying the game.

 

Funny I just realized that 3 out of four major milestones in my sim racing career have been with this car...

- Deciding to dedicate myself to development of skills, knowledge and experience

- First time driving ~500 laps practicing only (not including setup testing) preparing for league race

- First ~500 lap setup testing for league race

The other major milestone cannot be attributed to this car for obvious reasons and that is when I challenged myself to try to make rF1 cars that I didn't like feel good through setup changes just to see how much could be done and was amazing how much better cars could feel than stock setups...including stock ISI cars. I deliberately tried to find a car that I couldn't make feel good thru quick 5 minutes changes and couldn't. Caster being a major factor of course.

 

I have no idea what's missing, I don't have access to ISI's source code in order to pick apart and analyze thousands of lines of coding, even if I did, it would be way over my head. I do know however - if I recall correctly - that ISi has stated that it's a work in progress. We also know that RF2 in general is a work in progress and I doubt the overall tyre model (not just the "CPM") is finalized. There have been updates to the tyre model throughout RF2's life so there's no reason to think what we have now is 100% final.

 

re the stuff earlier in the thread, ive never touched anything in the files outside of stm (which i only just noticed yesterday is no longer required, w2g isi!). im not sure why people do tbh, & id probably rather keep it that way. i stepped away for a bit during a practice of urd cars at silverstone & i think it wouldve been seen as a live event to anyone passing by.

idk whats intimidating about rf2, my only gripe is setups being difficult to work with but i can concede its just the most hardcore sim out there & thats the cost. for new users i think the main thing is to realize the importance of real road, which they wont have any experience with/even realize exists, the other important stuff like tire management you learn as you go.

i think the hardcore users on this board who fiddle with this stuff dont represent the majority (although with such a niche product its not easy to say for sure). i feel like /among its users/ though, rf2 isnt too abstruse. for singleplayer race experiences i tend to use it along with stock car extreme at the moment, with rf2 being rarer simply bc its more difficult & bc of the real-road i like the idea of a natural race weekend.

 

No, I don't want to play mind games, you bring some facts you have experienced, more than feels good. We still have a long road to go, but we are going in the right direction.
Thanks.

 

I don't ask you anything about programing. Could you answer any of the questions I asked hexa in my reply to his post? They are relative to tire behaviour.
Thanks and cheers.

 

I have no idea bout the issue of suspension not being able to handle aero loads and the tire pressure issue. I also don't disregard or not believe anything you're saying. All I'm saying is that we're fairly certain ISI hasn't ceased work on the tyre model (including the "CPM") and therefore maybe everything is still not behaving as correctly as ISI intends for. You can't dismiss the fact that the tyre model is still being worked on.

 

Please don't mix it all.

I have said that many mods released have flaws in their physics and that very few notice or dare to report to the modder (not ISI made).
Never said DW12 had flawed physics, never said neither that actual TGM was flawed.

I expressed my surprise that in this forum where anything can be debated to death, where so many experienced simracers abound, that after a major release of a very important feature, we have been unable to give a good feedback about the new DW12 and the TGM, other than vague comments.

So I ask, has anyone been able to setup a DW12, on a given ISI track, let's say Sao Paolo, and obtain plausible tire temps playing with suspension geometry and aero?

Myself before leaving reached a relatively good setting for front axle, not for rear, but I am not presumptuous enough to pretend I am the ultimate tuner and that TGM doesn't work as it should. Yes now camber affects distribution of heat around tire.

I noticed that pressures took 10 laps to reach equilibrium when temps were stabilized in about 5 laps, and I was surprised, as I am not a race engineer I asked if that was normal, and still no one has given a reply.

Made a few questions about pressure limit, and no one answered.

So it made me think that RF2 is too sophisticated for us (me included).

Cheers.

 

Too boring the idea to read the whole thread, but how are you misuring the tire temp?

I think that the current HUD doesnt represent very well the actual tire behaviour, in the temps.
The reason is that it is very approximative to divide the tread in three sections, beeing each one 33.3% periodic of the entire tread.
I dont know how to explain in english, but i think it is an intuitive concept.

Much better to check the TGM window, which, even if it doesnt read the "temp numbers", it is a most precise tool to check the temp along the tire tread.

 

I used Motec. See DW12 post if you are interested.
Cheers.

 

Reading things here, visuals and handling are not mutually exclusive, you know? Different developers have different strengths and weaknesses.

 

I see your point and am not alone in desiring that a person or blog or just more members here rise up and take us to the next level.
My own experiences, much like yours I suspect, while substantial are holistically incomplete. I'm always hungry for more knowledge but these skills are so deep.

My first real test of this car was last night at Portugal GP.
Could I get my temps perfect? Well I didn't attempt to do that but my temps were reasonable and consistent.

Since data has been subjective in rF2s past, I've come to rely on feel much more than reading the data.
Generally ballpark is good enough for the racing I do. If I were racing for money, I'd be looking a lot closer. For now some highlights of some observations from me, I guess won't hurt?

Turn 1: Heavy braking to 3rd then coming off the pedal past the apex of the turn and down to 2nd.
When the tyres are not up to temperature, the inside front locks, sliding feels like it is on hard compounds.
As we get temp in, I'm braking at 90m in the race and 80m in qually, using around 40cm of the inside curb and letting it run out, taking care to not run too deep up the exit curb.
Compression feels natural and if the braking is set correctly, that will be the limit rather than the tyre. 120kg of Pressure seemed the best compromise.
It doesn't entirely feel like the tyre is filled with air to me? Do they model a different gas for this series perhaps? It's a little difficult to explain but it's characteristics are a very stiff feeling sidewall on an otherwise normal feeling tread.

So braking at 80m requires precision and this tyre allowed this lap after lap. It was early in the braking phase I'd lose the apex if at all.
Down to 3rd Gear and the initial turn in is just starting to pinch the not so loaded inside. Likewise, I can feel the grip dissipating as the heat increases... balancing that with slight trail braking until the front left is on the way back to full grip.
Suspension has settled and and we are in the final phase of the four wheel slide. Minor correction to align the wheels and down to 75% throttle. It's possible to floor it here and it will stick, but only so long as conditions are ideal.
A bit too much wear on one corner, or heat for that matter. A bit too early, a bit of wash or unsettled suspension and it will spool up and spit you out as I'd expect it to do in real life(an embarrassing accident I'll not go into here)


All in all these tyres give me confidence to push to the edge of my abilities and at that level, everything is subconscious.

The difference between the Palatov CPM and the Dallara CPM would be a much better discussion than NON-CPM/CPM for me, as that shows us the breadth of scope possible using this technology.

 

I just tried a quick google and a discussion between track day enthusiasts suggested it would take a "session or two" for tyre pressures to stabilise. One guy mentioned bleeding the tyres to bring them back down every time he came into the pits. So it seems plausible.

If any of us fully understood or were able to validate what the tyre model is doing we'd probably be well advised to become employed developing a tyre model. ISI are the experts here, they are employed by professionals to provide a simulation engine that behaves as realistically as current hardware can run in real time, so I tend to pretty much ignore passionate complaints about overall behaviour not being right by users who have basically no knowledge in comparison.

Yes, that does mean it's hard for us as gamers/racers to know how it's right and how it's wrong, and even to get the most out of it. Large professional teams have large teams of professional engineers all trying to solve the same puzzle, so as games get closer to reality it's just going to be harder to keep up with it.

But the best and most completely realistic sim out there (ie, real life) is full of enthusiasts going out and having a blast just like the track day guys I found with google. So we can always do the same with rF2. It's getting too sophisticated to understand and master, but will never be too sophisticated to use.


*One final note: you mention some mods behaving obviously unrealistically, and I agree. On one hand I see obvious mistakes and think it's lazy, on the other it's a lot of work to get a mod up and running. So I think there has to be a certain amount of understanding that as things get more realistic and harder to work with there will tend to be some fudged figures just to get something working. For me that still doesn't excuse basic errors that should have been set correctly as a base, just like I can't stand it when tracks are scratch built and then a sector timing object doesn't cover the entire track width (as an example).

 

The argument can't be made on the world in the game being 100% correct or simulated, because neither is the case. Tires are very good but I find it hard to believe they won't be further developed and other areas that affect a plethora of things, exact pressures being one of them.

 

Thanks Lazza & matf1, you understand fully the meaning of my original post.

The discussion about tires is really complex, but this complexity shouldn't deter us of trying to assess the results of the new tire model at the moment. Tire temps and their distribution should guide us to a correct geometry setup (suspension) and initial pressures. Having a car with correct setup should bring better lap times and more tire durability.

I thought a little more about the facts I have seen (tire pressures take at least 10 laps to stabilize), even if tire temps look stabilized after five laps. The heat from the tire must be exchanged between the tire (carcass and thread) and the air inside (Nitrogen for a racing tire), air is an excellent isolation (Nitrogen chosen to be even better), so it is to be expected that the gas inside the tire will heat at a much slower pace than the tire itself.

Some questions I arose in the post about the new DW12 are still in the air, must we wait until 10 laps to observe temps for geometry setup? Yes in my opinion, because only then will the tire have reached it's final pressure.

Does initial pressure influence final pressure after 10 laps, and speed of pressure stabilization itself?

Hope someone will go on a little further, I can't at the moment.

Cheers.

 

If don't know exact what lookup tables are used for but if include interactions with multiple variables like tire temps then that would surely seem to mind boggling to accomplish.

 

+1 I much rather put my faith into a team of Devs like ISI to get it right than to either question it myself or as some with questionable experience at best claim its totally wrong.