Manual clutch functionality

[demerzel]

It is many years ago when Howston G4/G6 was released with non working clutch and no realistic drivetrain.
"There's one issue related to the clutch, it will slip when up-shifting results in improper mismatch of revs, this will be in-place until the new drive-line model comes online (no ETA on this)."
While I have been waiting Howston`s to get updated/fixed pCars,Pcars 2, AMS has been released and iRacing has also been updated to DX11.
No drivetrain no clutch is no simulator so simple is that

Some people around here would be surprised how Pcars 2 and AMS better in a lot of areas than rf2.

 

[RaceNut]

Clutch behavior is certainly something that can be overlooked and before now, it's wasn't uncommon to have pedal-sets limited to two pedals but, today, we not only have access to a wide variety of 3-pedal sets but, advanced clutch-feel as in the HE-pedals. For H-shifter setups, improved clutch-behavior is probably going to receive more interest from Sim-racer's.

 

[Seven Smiles]

The API has enough information to implement a "passive" clutch plugin - it could play a "grinding gears" sound if you got it wrong but it would have no effect on the car, CheckHWControl() doesn't give any control of the driving inputs.

  // Vehicle status
  long mGear;                    // -1=reverse, 0=neutral, 1+=forward gears
  double mEngineRPM;             // engine RPM
  double mClutchRPM;             // clutch RPM

  // Driver input
  double mUnfilteredThrottle;    // ranges  0.0-1.0
  double mUnfilteredClutch;      // ranges  0.0-1.0

  // Filtered input (various adjustments for ... clutch work for semi-automatic shifting, etc.)
  double mFilteredThrottle;      // ranges  0.0-1.0
  double mFilteredClutch;        // ranges  0.0-1.0

  double mEngineTorque;          // current engine torque (including additive torque)
  unsigned char mMaxGears;       // maximum forward gears

 

[Seven Smiles]

'Twas ever thus

• Sneakily over-rides the gear-selected messages coming from DirectX to force the gearbox into neutral

The mod forces the car into neutral with a bit of a hack: your gear shifter is constantly shouting "in gear" to the game, so the mod has to shout "in neutral" louder after you've missed a shift.

http://www.richardjackett.com/grindingtranny

 

[fsuarez79]

Some people around here would be surprised how Pcars 2 and AMS better in a lot of areas than rf2.

Please.....but not the ones that count the most, which are car handling and racing.

 

[Kelju_K]

handling and racing mentioned. the thread is doomed. ill' give it 3-4 pages. what do you guys think?

 

[Emery]

LOL, as soon as yet another thread about clutch/driveline appeared, I knew it was doomed. "Look, is that rain on the windshield?"

 

[Kelju_K]

sure. lol. i dont know what i was thinking? haha! im the fish who didn't see the lure. shame on me!

 

[fsuarez79]

HA! My bad, but I find it insulting when people compare rF2 with PCars2. Please continue on topic, even though I'm sure it's gonna fall on deaf ears anyways.

 

[Lukas Lichten]

HA! My bad, but I find it insulting when people compare rF2 with PCars2. Please continue on topic, even though I'm sure it's gonna fall on deaf ears anyways.

My info of the BalkTorque fell on deaf ears, so we inevitably start talking around each other...

But yeah, this is not the first time the Bad Gearbox Model is "discussed" and it won't be the last one.
Just at some point people will stop talking about it in this thread, the thread slides into obscurity,...
...and then somebody brings up this issue again in a new Thread and the cycle starts again.
And this cycle is fast. I am not that long on the forum, but this is my second one of these.

To say something that is on topic and not a meta analysis of people discussing it:
I said basically everything about the topic already, that rf2 has missed gears, but the issue is that the baulk torque is to high, allowing the gearbox to sync the next gear whil shifting without clutch and without lifting, and only a few mods implement an update with the correct values.
But the reason for this, as Ari explained:

it will slip when up-shifting results in improper mismatch of revs

so that is properly a reason why we have a lot of BaulkTorque

 

[Seven Smiles]

I just thought of another way to take control of shifter inputs that could be better than Grinding Tranny's hack - instead of rF2 being configured to read the shifter USB messages, the plugin reads them and it has a simulated USB device which is configured as the rF2 shifter. So you change gear, the plugin decides when and if the gearchange happens and sends the USB commands to RF2. Theoretically possible but probably beyond my (non-existent) Windows software skills.

 

[FuzzyFassbender]

My info of the BalkTorque fell on deaf ears, so we inevitably start talking around each other...
...
To say something that is on topic and not a meta analysis of people discussing it:
I said basically everything about the topic already, that rf2 has missed gears, but the issue is that the baulk torque is to high, allowing the gearbox to sync the next gear whil shifting without clutch and without lifting, and only a few mods implement an update with the correct values.
But the reason for this, as Ari explained:

so that is properly a reason why we have a lot of BaulkTorque

I might not have understood your explanation of BalkTorque. Are you saying there are some mods that would require proper clutch use? Note, I've not tried many but I can freely shift up/down without clutch in a few of the more recent, highly regarded, mods I've tried - example the latest "F1 Legends" (Ferrari). Is there a mod that I could try?

 

[Leynad]

Of my main sims, AMS, R3E, and AC do a pretty good job at simulating clutch functionality - Project CARS 2 and rF2 do not (they are similar). Will the sim of all sims eventually get a working clutch?

I would like to see this fixed in both titles, because pCars 1 had a working clutch and i wasn't noticing this issue in pCars 2 for many hours. If not using the clutch you get an awkward shift-delay plus h-shifting is faster than sequential in all h-pattern cars i tried, but i noticed just today that lifting the throttle while upshifting does the same even better than the clutch.

I noticed that Raceroom has now a short delay when shifting without clutch in h-pattern cars, but just a few months ago sequential shifting was faster in any car and i was nagging about it in some comment-sections. In AC you should blip manually because auto-blip doesn't work well, but sequential shifting h-pattern-cars doesn't have any cons apart from that and in competitive online-races i'm using my sequential shifter instead of the h-shifter. Cars like the Alfa and Mercedes DTM with 6 gears or Ferrari 312T are more easy to drive with that and you don't want a broken gearbox for a miss-shift anyway. And try out Formula Classic with and without h-shifter & clutch. It's way faster to shift with paddles in in this car and you will loose online-races when doing it accurate.

So a good clutch-function should be at the very least as fast and being a bit faster would be appreciate. In pCars 1 about every car was shifting faster without auto-clutch, even GT3-cars, with the negative side to be able to stall the engine and needing ignition plus engine start to move on.

A former racer of the Porsche 962C was telling, that the later version of the car had optional sequential shifter and ABS, but they hated it because it was adding so much weight "it was like driving with a trailer". And adding weight is IMO a good and simple idea to penalize not authentic driving instead of not allowing it.

 

[FuzzyFassbender]

In Raceroom you can get away with not using the clutch - for a while, but you slowly damage you transmission (with damage on) and eventually will loose the tranny altogether.
For me it's not about if I'm faster to not. If the car IRL was a manual I would like to simulate that - immersion factor

 

[green serpent]

Has anyone noticed with the panoz roadster that if you're not deliberate with the gear change it seems as if the gear doesn't go in and the clutch slips. Does anyone know whats going on there?

 

[Lukas Lichten]

Has anyone noticed with the panoz roadster that if you're not deliberate with the gear change it seems as if the gear doesn't go in and the clutch slips. Does anyone know whats going on there?

Thanks for adding another example for a car with low BalkTorque. This means you have released the clutch too early and or gone to the throttle too fast and with that the gear is not engaged.
Now compared to AMS, were when this happens your geardisplay will display neutral and when you press in the clutch again and it engage it goes to the gear you wanted to engage, rf2 will continue to display the gear that you chose, even though it is not engaged. How do you then now it is not engaged? Ask your revlimiter, because your rpm will be there.

I might not have understood your explanation of BalkTorque. Are you saying there are some mods that would require proper clutch use? Note, I've not tried many but I can freely shift up/down without clutch in a few of the more recent, highly regarded, mods I've tried - example the latest "F1 Legends" (Ferrari). Is there a mod that I could try?

One example that I was not aware was the that green serpent brought up was the panoz roadster, which I have not driven yet.
But I brought up earlier in this thread two mods up that have an upgrade that turn down the BaulkTorque, which is the MarkCorp Group-C, with the Gear Change Upgrade Pedal Full Manual or Shifter, and the Ferrari 312 with the Shift mode Upgrade Realistic/Hardcore.

Now this does not mean rf2 is perfect in terms of clutch and shifting behavior, especial without any gearbox and clutch wear, which still allows you even with low BaulkTorque to go for downshifts without using the clutch, just bliping in the throttle with the right foot while braking with the left.
Also you can in rf2 get away with cars without a semi-auto gearbox (throttle and clutch are automatically controlled at shifts, most modern race cars) with not bliping the throttle. For example the USF 2k Championship for example has a semi-automatic gearbox only for upshifts, but you can drive it without bliping the throttle on downshifts. Usally you would spin doing that, because the rears would lock up as the engine rpm is lower then the relative driveline rpm, which results in you looking the rears.

 

[Ari Antero]

MarkCorp Group-C, with the Gear Change Upgrade Pedal Full Manual or Shifter, and the Ferrari 312 with the Shift mode Upgrade Realistic/Hardcore.

MarkCorp Group-C, Ferrari 312, Mowston G4/G6 and Panoz still have this issue: There's one issue related to the clutch, it will slip when up-shifting results in improper mismatch of revs and rFacor 2 is also lacking proper drivetrain/drive-line model`s .
Unrealistic driving style flat shifting in rFactor 2 gives you a huge average and you are 1-4 secs slower depending which track is used if you are simulating and driving cars with manual gearboxes as those car was driven in RL in rFactor 2.

 

[green serpent]

I just took the Ferrari 312 for a drive with the hardcore/realistic gearbox setting. I have to say it felt a lot more satisfying to drive and changed the way I drove the car completely (for example I was less likely to shift in places that wouldn't make sense IRL.) It also felt like I could shift faster if the revs were right (I don't really know for sure though). As I have mentioned before, the one thing I really don't like in sims is when some canned effect simply stops you from downshifting altogether - IRL you can down shift like a madman IF the revs are matched right (you might get compression lockup or damage the syncromesh, but the point is the gear will go in).

Also, for what it's worth, it is fully possible to drive a manual without a clutch (as you can see by the picture on the left I drive an Alfa, and I have been left without a clutch quite a few times!) I find it much easier to downshift without a clutch than to upshift without a clutch, possibly because it's easier to match the revs on the down shift.

Anyway, if this whole low baulk torque thing is in the sim already and seems to work pretty good, wouldn't it be fairly easy for the devs to update the appropriate content in order to give a more realistic gear change? Or is the whole point that the low baulk torque is more of a canned effect or just an arbitrary number rather than an actual physically working gearbox, so it's better to wait for the real thing?

 

[Ari Antero]

Anyway, if this whole low baulk torque thing is in the sim already and seems to work pretty good,

How can it work good when ISI states that it don`t ?

 

[lbird]

Thanx for mentioning the Ferrari 312 setting, i took it for an extended drive with the hardcore/realistic gearbox setting (missed that option before completely) and i must say it is a start regarding something resembling some clutch feedback. Actually the car is a lot more fun with the realistic model, i managed to put it out of gear quite often in the beginning when upshifting. Still no wear and tear and no specific sound, but i think with the current tools at hand in rf2 this is the closest we may come to a better working clutch at the moment. And credit where credit is due: A big thumps up to ChiefWiggum and Postipate for creating such a beauty. Great job and thank you guys!
Note to studio397: This does NOT mean that the clutch model at the moment is not lacking badly..