OverTake.gg
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iRacing Review
- Thread starter OverTake.gg
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Allan Paterson you are generalizing a lot in your posts. There are not "a lot of negativity" around here. Maybe some rough comments in this thread but you must be able to deal with that. Everybody has right to their own opinion.
The "opinions" as you stated are also not from many people with a few hours of testing, some of them have probably more mileage under their belt than you and me.
The "opinions" as you stated are also not from many people with a few hours of testing, some of them have probably more mileage under their belt than you and me.
Right, I think we're on the same page here.
Agreed, 0.5% is patently ridiculous.
Of course, I was referring to the % of drivers for whom the fast qualifying laps actually make a difference to race results, not the number who complain. Based both on who is consistent enough to exploit that first flyer, consistent enough to capitalize on the starting position without getting passed by faster drivers in the race, and who even qualify in the first place. The percentage of complaints is always going to be much higher, such is the racing sim community
I'm looking forward to non-stop complaints once cold tires do have less grip (not to mention stuff like changing conditions for races) about the increase in first lap incidents. In theory drivers will learn to back off a bit to start, but we all know that isn't going to happen
Apologies, amended my second ever post here to "some".
Whilst I've got your attention as a new guy here why is iRacing in a sub Forum as it has been commercially available for 5 years but two other products which are not yet commercially available have front page Forums. I was wondering why that was?
Right, I think we're on the same page here.
Agreed, 0.5% is patently ridiculous.
Of course, I was referring to the % of drivers for whom the fast qualifying laps actually make a difference to race results, not the number who complain. Based both on who is consistent enough to exploit that first flyer, consistent enough to capitalize on the starting position without getting passed by faster drivers in the race, and who even qualify in the first place. The percentage of complaints is always going to be much higher, such is the racing sim community
Agreed, we're on the same page here (or perhaps half a page distanced).
I'm looking forward to non-stop complaints once cold tires do have less grip (not to mention stuff like changing conditions for races) about the increase in first lap incidents. In theory drivers will learn to back off a bit to start, but we all know that isn't going to happen
Do you remember when the pre-release 2.0 came out? It had some issues, true, but if I remember correctly, many many liked it. A lot. I spent then some 50 hours comparing (practice testing) the only car that had the pre-release NTM with the other cars. It was a huge difference i handling.
Then - the first customers came out complaining they weren't as fast as they were before (basically, they threw the cars into most corners and got away with it before).
As things really improve and iR comes closer and closer to realism, there'll be dissatisfied people.
Allan Paterson it is normally a more or less inactive forum apart from this discussion going on from time to time and with the exception of one pro league we dont organize any online races for iRacing.
Okay I understand how many races do you organise for Assetto Corsa, I might buy it?
No counter point at all, sir. The "tongue in cheek" excuse is only that, and a poor one at that.
The "usual suspects" you refer to are also some of the people who posted on the telemetry threads and called attention of the devs to some issues. But as usual, extremists do nothing but disrupt any attempt at conveying the existence of problems.
One thing has nothing to do with the other. It is funny, albeit a bit odd, that you keep repeating this "having fun" argument ad-nausea. Yes, we all have fun, but whereas some will accept there are issues that need discussion, some simply and blindly refuse any discussion.
It is as if looking at these issues might somehow ruin the fun you have, so those that point them out are a "small number", "usual suspects", people who can't "have fun". That much is obvious, mate: your type of "having fun" seems to be very fragile.
No counter point at all, sir. The "tongue in cheek" excuse is only that, and a poor one at that.
The "usual suspects" you refer to are also some of the people who posted on the telemetry threads and called attention of the devs to some issues. But as usual, extremists do nothing but disrupt any attempt at conveying the existence of problems.
One thing has nothing to do with the other. It is funny, albeit a bit odd, that you keep repeating this "having fun" argument ad-nausea. Yes, we all have fun, but whereas some will accept there are issues that need discussion, some simply and blindly refuse any discussion.
It is as if looking at these issues might somehow ruin the fun you have, so those that point them out are a "small number", "usual suspects", people who can't "have fun". That much is obvious, mate: your type of "having fun" seems to be very fragile.
"Mate" it is obvious you and I have differing views, mine is half full, yours is have empty (actually nearely empty) but you insist I accept your view? I think the ongoing increasing membership and participation support my view more than yours. If membership and participation were declining you would have some validity. My validity comes from the fact that "the most expensive sim in the world" has an increasing membership and participation. I will stick with my fragility whilst totally accepting there is work to be done on the tyre and other aspects of iRacing, I am not a blind fan.
Looking forward to your response.
By the way it is not that expensive, a fraction of the cost I (and my sponsors) paid for competitive RL motorsport in the UK from 1985 to 1999 annually
I wish iRacing had been around then I might have made it beyond club racing (doubtful).Do I remember? Still happens
I think when the Late Model drivers started complaining they couldn't arc the cars into the corners, gotta get the braking done in a straight line.But yeah, that's why I don't put too much stock into how many people are 'complaining' (or fully satisfied, for that matter). I think Dave actually nailed it in one of his old posts, that when the number of "it feels really good" posts start to approximately equal the "it feels like crap" posts, they're probably pretty close.
As a Vette driver, I beg to disagree. Might be different for the F1, but the tin tops at least don't have this issue
No, sir. I insist on nothing. Your views, as made clear by your "assertion" that my view is "have empty/nearly empty", are often extremist. If we point out that Eric's claims are exaggerated, there you are supporting the view we are saying iRacing is lying - when actually no one said they did that. When someone says the tire model has problems, there you are again transforming the "has problems" into "being bad" modelling.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention since 2.0 came out to what some of us are saying, so for your benefit:
- iRacing is a good sim
- iRacing is a great service, no doubt the best
- other than due to life's circumstances, I and many others would probably be supporting iRacing and giving them our money, in spite of what we find wrong with it
- the tire model (OTM and NTM-vx.xx) is iRacing's achiles' heel, and will remain so for a while.
Do you accept this? Probably not, and simply I don't care. But maybe you should think twice before posting that the TM only receives complaints from 0.5% of iRacers, for that is simply not true.
Yeah, you persist in this. No, increasing membership, as has been said here, may be a consequence of several factors. Nothing to do with how good the TM (the main issue I point out) or how bad. Probably a lot to do with how good the service is. Probably a lot to do with the quality of tracks. Probably a lot to do with the big names (from the Nascar side of things, mainly) professing their acknowledgement of iRacing's "spot on tracks". Probably a lot to do with the SR, iRatings, the ladder experience. All positive aspects of iRacing, which probably suffice for now for keeping people interested.
Your views (only a negligible minority complain of the NTM) are not supported by facts, nor by our collective experiences - regardless of people agreeing or not with existing problems.
Sincerely hope so, it's not how you come across in your posts (NG and iR forums).
By the way it is not that expensive, a fraction of the cost I (and my sponsors) paid for competitive RL motorsport in the UK from 1985 to 1999 annually
It depends, sir. Sometimes...people want but can't.
As a Vette driver, I beg to disagree. Might be different for the F1, but the tin tops at least don't have this issue
Actually, a few days ago, I tried again the C6r, the Ford GT, the Mustang and the Ford Falcon: great improvement to the C6r and a little bit to the Ford GT, but the issue remains pretty much alive. The Mustang is slightly (really slightly) better, and the Falcon is laughable. The Cadillac and the MP4-12C were much more fun than I had anticipated, but the issues (described elsewhere at length by one of the aliens) with both cars are obviously similar to all other cars.
So, no, actually the tin-tops (including the C6r, with which I set a personal record at Road Atlanta, not too distant from the aliens world record) do suffer from this. Some improved significantly, others slightly, in general though same old story.
I'm not saying they are perfect, I was merely responding to DewCrew88 who said you had to do special tricks with your driving to be fast, which is false.
I drive this car like I would a real car, no GPL sliding, right foot braking/heel and toe, my own setup... Usually am within 0.1 to 0.5 off the WR's depending on the track (Although some are hard to judge due to different builds), currently leading Proto/GT Open in the Vette.
Yeah, the cars don't seem to require doing much that you wouldn't do with an actual car (though you can drive them hard since nothing can break mechanically on the car, hit those curbs all you want). It's mostly a few examples where odd setups end up most effective (not necessarily a new problem) and not always being able to save the car when you start to lose it, particularly on the short sidewall slicks. Matt Bell mentioned as much in his discussions, that the 12C should be easier to drive than his Grand-Am car (it's designed for amateurs) yet he has more trouble saving it than in reality.
I disagree, and find these comments in contradiction with what you have said not long ago (a couple of weeks, iirc).
Anyway, at NG's iRacing forum some iracers have been recently describing what they see others do and what they do themselves with these cars. The contrast with RL is obvious and that is what Dewcrew88 has pointed out many times in the past. The TM is better than it was for the C6r, but by no means driving it is how GT cars actually drive. Obviously, this is also my opinion, but one that RL pro drivers have shared again and again (and showed exactly how not to drive).
LOL I see that as usual Bakkster took the opportunity to (once more) assert these cars "handle like real life cars do". I am astonished someone would stand by that, but that is people for ya.
Don't take it farther than I meant. Definitely don't behave right at high slips, nor at operational temps. There's a ton wrong.LOL I see that as usual Bakkster took the opportunity to (once more) assert these cars "handle like real life cars do". I am astonished someone would stand by that, but that is people for ya.
What I should have said was: for the most part, particularly in the lower power road cars (because that's where my experience is), the cars don't seem to require wildly inaccurate driving styles to be fast.
I'm sure there's bound to be debate over whether the cold tires is an inaccurate driving style, but when I compare to the OTM style with (for example) the Mustang in which you hung the tail out to set fast laps, the NTM feels like driving a race car on rubber tires, instead of an arcade racer or hovercraft.
Don't take that to mean I think it feels like the right car, from discussions with SRF racers it seems the real car understeers while the iRacing SRF has been a bucket of oversteer since I first drove it. Same with the tires, they feel like real rubber tires now (I like that the inside tire skips across the pavement in the Kia when I botch a corner), they sometimes feel like bad tires but tires nonetheless.
IMO, it's work mostly to make the tires accurate to the real world tire's behavior, rather than to make them like tires in the first place. Take that for what you will, whether that means they're halfway there or hopelessly awful.
We do have a disagreement in degree, but your assessment is clearer now and fair enough.
Hmm...Agreed.
Fair enough. Definitely, given how collisions, suspensions (and probably aeros) have advanced, tire physics is the only thing holding back iR. Maybe not enough to ruin Allan's "fun factor" for most, but relevant enough to be dealt with ASAP.
I understand.
Well, definitely some people don't see it this way, but for DK's model to work, all of his assumptions (tire structure/construction, thermodynamic modelling, dynamic contact patch with a certain y number of elements oriented in this and that way and at certain specific positions, considering a number of physical constants and constraints) MUST be proven right and work flawlessly. The feeling I have on whether it will all work or not is the same thing I am told from people within the tire industry and race engineering, We shall see, miracles do happen.
Well, suspension physics need some work, too. There is no fast bump/rebound because the fixed 360Hz physics rate isn't enough to handle faster shocks without instability. That's another key to these cars, especially ones like the NASCAR stock cars where VERY stiff slow rebound is used to seal the splitter to the ground. I've hoped for a while that iRacing would figure a way to add a few more iterations to the shock calculations per clock tick for everything else, of the various considerations that's probably one of the easier to implement (mainly because it's just a matter of implementation like many others have done before, not new ground like the NTM).
But I agree on that assessment, the racing is definitely enjoyable for the most part, especially now that a lot of the cars don't snap spin at every glance (and the improvements making their way to the cars that do will revitalize them, as well). But that doesn't mean they can rest on their laurels, being fun doesn't mean it's accurate yet.
I wouldn't say flawlessly, just well enough. Every tire model makes some assumptions, they just need to be accurate enough to result in believable behavior. There's always error, it's about getting that error below the threshold where it's noticable. If we're setting fast laps on lap 6 instead of 7, or we lose 8% grip at huge slip angles instead of 6% or the tire tread lasts 71 laps when it should last 75, that's probably close enough.
The big debate, I think, is over whether people think DK can pull it off or not, with sub debate over how long it will take him. That colors discussion about where it is now and how happy people are with it. Personally, I keep seeing it get better, and haven't seen it stop... yet. N5TM is long overdue, we will see what we get out of the tires then. Will it be the last iteration fixing bugs? I doubt it, but it will almost certainly be closer. How many more iterations (over how many years) before they start work on flat spots and the track surface model? Nobody knows, but that seems to be the constant argument over the NTM. Not how is it to drive now, but how will it be to drive next year. Some place all their eggs on next year, others expect it to be identical to today.
Given that not only multibody code but other things were brought from NR2003 - I don't recall if, back then, there was criticism of this as well? NR2003 had, if I recall correctly, a tick-rate under 300 Hz (VHPA author admitted a 288 Hz rate), and probably even lower for tires.
Anyway, you don't need to up the tick-rate - just, as you suggest, iterate suspensions 2 times faster, even possibly decoupling the suspensions and running them at higher tick rates. As I see it, at 400 to 500 Hz you have more than enough to run reasonably "accurate" suspensions, and if at certain intervals you temporarily up the tick-rate then the results should be quite satisfactory. There is more than one strategy for this, I just can't easily accept the current tick-rate as the sole limiting factor for this.
But still, tires are the weakest link of the simulated elements. Obviously, can't say much about aeros - all we have is what we have available in the "garage" section, which is, at least for me, both insufficient and not revealing enough about the internals of aerodynamics. ISR TV had a piece at the development headquarters and they said (then) aeros were undergoing a big rework. Hope so.
Yes, and that is what my contention has always been, even at iR forums, even under all the flaming that usually ensued as soon as someone wrote a serious analysis of things that were not quite right yet. If all that iR (or AC or rF2) is revolves around fun (the notorious fun factor that seems to supersede everything else for some people), then why is it that we have to spend 10 times what we spend with a console game such as GT5? Want fun, stick with console gaming, fun enough I'm sure. Want to experience seriously realistic virtual racing? Then, regardless of not being perfect, NKP, Race07, GTR2, rFactor and iR should be exactly what you (we all) are looking for.
Ah, but it is nonetheless a requirement. With semi-empiric models, or especially those that bring together MF and physically based modelling, you are sure to get some results because we have data for that (what tire companies sell, per set, at a very high cost). Maybe not easy per se, or immediately successful because of it, but having that data (tire parameters, raw data points from which to extrapolate curves) makes it possible to derive the behaviour.
Ah, but...most tests do not go beyond certain slip ranges? Or they don't explore the relation between pressure variation with heat, degradation and load? And what about speed, extreme camber angles and dirt on the test platform? Well, it is doable and it has been done (often enough) in the past: perform specific (and costly) tests, thereby extending the range of data to allow for a more comprehensive behaviour envelope - which makes it usable (with little speculation) for racing simulation purposes. There is and always will be data noise and conditions that may not be quite "spot on", but if race engineers are satisfied with it then I can only accept its validity.
What type of data (and collected by whom and how, under what circumstances ) does DK (or AJ from C.A.R.S.) have to validate his own model? What output will it conform to? Problem is, a lot of iR zealots are under the impression that because DK is building (or has built) a theoretical/physically based model, then the tires will behave like...real tires, just like that, as if by magic. Very few dare ask the right questions. It is akin to expect some computer genius to spend years reading books and staring at the night sky and watch balls go up and down and...suddenly, this computer genius comes up with a new theory of gravitation that will allow for accurate predictions. How? Oh, he uses a few constants, a few planets and stars, considers the influence of this and that....and voilá. Hmmm....
As I said before, things are not what they seem. It may glitter, but it may not be gold.
Then, why change from semi-empirical to his "full physical"?
The only way to dismiss tire company data (which we use in MF related models) is...to build a real tire. Build one from the ground up, collect all the data as it is being built, perform all sorts of tests and build models from it. But then, you will only have ONE type of tire available for your models. Different companies have different construction strategies and tech, even the tires from the same brand and series are different from one another, let alone tires from different brands and compounds.
I have my opinion on this. I discussed this at length with people that know a lot more than I do, and people from within the industry. The end result of all these "physical tire models" that rely on their own assumptions solely, we're sure, will be no more valid than the tire model ISIMotor2 uses, or NKP's, or even LFS's. But hey, that is my opinion (and theirs) only.
You can learn some more aero info by looking at telemetry. When was the ISR piece filmed? The 'new aero model' I remember was actually released close to 2 years ago.
Speaking specifically about iRacing, the safety rating and structure is a differentiator. As are things like only fully licensed content, laser scanned tracks, and flag signals (rare to find in consoles).
But of course, you're right, the goal is always more realism. It's always a balancing act for each person, is it fun enough and realistic enough to justify the time put in?
Right, but with the empirical models we still see some models getting great reviews (AC) and others being panned (pCARS). The methodology for filling in the blanks is theory unto itself, and as developers get better at it we get better modeled behavior.
It's those things the tire manufacturers don't test for (camber, curbing, high slip, etc) that make or break a sim. Just because race teams and manufacturers use the data effectively doesn't make it suitable for a sim. You're right that it's a known data set, but the fact no in development sims use Pacejka models anymore should tell us something. Making sure that your model matches the SHAPES of the Pacejka curves is still worthwhile, but nobody just uses the Pacejka coefficients for modern sims anymore, not even adding carcass movements and other effects on top (at least, not that I'm aware of). iRacing isn't alone in using the manufacturer data as a reference alone, rather than a direct input to the model.
We know DK went to CalSpan.
www.iracing.com/the-sticking-points-in-modeling-tires/
You're right, it won't be like magic, at least not until the model is sorted out. Ideally in the future they should (dangerous word) be able to grab the actual rubber/carcass formulas from the manufacturers, plug the data in, and have full tires, rather than grabbing the manufacturer's Pacejka data and extrapolating for the edge cases. I've thought for a while that they really need a tire manufacturer partnership to fully realize the model, or at the very least to hire a proper tire engineer so DK doesn't have to do the tire constructions as well as the background math. Someone who knows how to build a proper race tire with practical knowledge, rather than DK who's doing all his learning through books. Remember, I think the tires feel like poorly designed tires
The stated goal was to be able to build tires without complete tire tests being done on them. If the manufacturer doesn't have the data or doesn't want to part with it, for example. And, of course, it's a bit more methodical for making your predictions of unknown behavior that the test data won't produce (more educated guesses about how particular rubber compounds or belt constructions will behave under/overinflated, high cambers, bouncing, and at high slips).
One example I like is that of something like the Cadillac and Kia. Both are on the spec Pirelli tires for the series, the only difference are the dimensions. For an empirical model, you need two sets of data because the tires are, for all intents and purposes, completely unique. With the physical model, they can build the first set of tires to dimension and work on them to match the collected data as best they can. When they add the second car on tires with different dimensions, any deviations from that car's data can be used to improve the tire and the model for BOTH cars simultaneously (if one car reveals issues that aren't apparent on the other, for example). Say they add a second car from either class, the tire dimensions are part of the performance balance so having a well sorted physical model is going to be beneficial toward making sure the cars stay balanced. To a similar extent, stuff like multiple compounds or the potential Pirelli switch in F1 between steel and kevlar belts is easier to model without needing to wait for data off the tire tester (which, again, doesn't include anything from high slip angles, does belt material affect high slip behavior? My understanding is yes!).
Or, perhaps the simple answer is, because DK is looking for a challenge
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