AC Multiclass Audi TT/Mazda MX5 @ Silverstone, Wednesday 14th July 2021

[PeyePete]

No problem on the bump Douglas. Had a fun race, but I could see that Thomas and Douglas were faster than me and they were battling each other right behind me, so I ran wide at stowe to give them room to pass. After reading the posts, I just realized the difference in speed.... I forgot all about P2P, ran the whole race without using it. Next weeek I'll put a sticker on the TV screen.

 

[Douglas Aird]

No problem on the bump Douglas. Had a fun race, but I could see that Thomas and Douglas were faster than me and they were battling each other right behind me, so I ran wide at stowe to give them room to pass. After reading the posts, I just realized the difference in speed.... I forgot all about P2P, ran the whole race without using it. Next weeek I'll put a sticker on the TV screen.

Lol, yes indeed, you handed the rest of the field a competitive advantage.

 

[Kek700]

Nothing on TV, just looked at the replay, I was a bleeding lot luckier in this race than I first thought i was.

Very gentlemanly of you @HF2000 to wait for Tim and let him repass after the unfortunate Audi skirmish.

 

[Dzul]

Did anyone else had / saw glitches?

I had a decent qualy and a good start (held my place) until Village... I saw the pack bunch up so I went early on the brakes and stayed on the inside. It was hectic and I only noticed half a lap later that I'd lost a place to @Programmer_Rich. I kept the pack in sight, found a rythm and started to close in with Richard. At some point I had a better exit at Chapel and seemed I had a chance to pass on the Hangar Straight but you reach the speed-ceiling of the Audi quite quickly so I couldn't quite "pass", not even with the magic button. I stayed within striking distance for a few laps, getting close but unable to make a real move. At some point my Jim (CrewChief) told me that "we were faster at Village" so I planned for it... but my tyres didn't cooperate. I managed to brake a tad late and even trail-brake into the right handler but lost grip and went straight, at slow speed but still without control of the car, and so I hit Richard and half spun his car. Sorry about that again mate.

A few laps later I managed to close in again but after exiting Copse suddenly Richard's car glitched, it went through the geometry of the track and reappeared in front of my bumper. I managed to back off but allowed him to open the gap again through the MBC section. When I caught up with him again I tried to make a move again on the sector Jim said "we were faster". Got close his bumper but I misjudged the exit at Aintree and touched the sausage "wall" (can't call that a kerbstone) and that was it... the gap went above 5 seconds, I had little laps left and I kept making little mistakes trying to close that gap with old tyres. I did manage my fastest lap at the end of the race.

It was fun, but I don't think I can say I like the Audi more than I like the Mazda.
I missed being able to toss the car around.

Thanks again for the race chaps and for organising it Han!

 

[a_murel]

I love to race with you guys!!! and it was not to bad to drive the audi and had some good laps and some really bad laps because I didnt had my best performance last night, if I look at myself.

The Audi is fun to drive, when having the good setup, you will be able to throw it around on the track... But! (there is always a But ) You have to have a lot of overspeed to overtake or gain at your front runner because the "ceiling" of the car is easily reached due to the weight of the car and front wheel drive.

Congratulations to the guy in front of the Audi pack (dont remember his name) he was a league on his own! I did a 2.14.1 really pushing and fully focussed, but then he did a 2.12.8!!! Congratulations to him again.

This made me thinking... Would it be an idea to have a race with standard setups mandatory?
It's not all in the setup ofcourse but maybe it will get us all closer together?

Just a thought, and thank you Han for hosting!

 

[HF2000]

I love to race with you guys!!! and it was not to bad to drive the audi and had some good laps and some really bad laps because I didnt had my best performance last night, if I look at myself.

The Audi is fun to drive, when having the good setup, you will be able to throw it around on the track... But! (there is always a But ) You have to have a lot of overspeed to overtake or gain at your front runner because the "ceiling" of the car is easily reached due to the weight of the car and front wheel drive.

Congratulations to the guy in front of the Audi pack (dont remember his name) he was a league on his own! I did a 2.14.1 really pushing and fully focussed, but then he did a 2.12.8!!! Congratulations to him again.

This made me thinking... Would it be an idea to have a race with standard setups mandatory?
It's not all in the setup ofcourse but maybe it will get us all closer together?

Just a thought, and thank you Han for hosting!

Hi Andre,

Thanks for your suggestion. I appreciate it if you think along with me and give feedback to make the events more interesting.

As for your idea of using default setups, I can't force it, so it should be a gentlemen's chord. Personally, I think that by adjusting the set-up you can adapt the car to your own driving style and which will contribute maybe more to close together. Also in finding the best setup for your style, it will help you a lot to understand the physics of racing.

Incidentally, the limited setup options for the Audi and Mazda (compared to the GT3s) were an important factor for me in choosing these types, so that new drivers with slower lap times can focus on driving rather than looking go to the best setup.

But I'm certainly willing to try your idea and that's why I'd like to hear the opinions of others.

 

[JamKart22]

Hi Andre,

Thanks for your suggestion. I appreciate it if you think along with me and give feedback to make the events more interesting.

As for your idea of using default setups, I can't force it, so it should be a gentlemen's chord. Personally, I think that by adjusting the set-up you can adapt the car to your own driving style and which will contribute maybe more to close together. Also in finding the best setup for your style, it will help you a lot to understand the physics of racing.

Incidentally, the limited setup options for the Audi and Mazda (compared to the GT3s) were an important factor for me in choosing these types, so that new riders with slower lap times can focus on driving rather than looking go to the best setup.

But I'm certainly willing to try your idea and that's why I'd like to hear the opinions of others.

I'd still like the ability to change tyre pressure but happy to give it a go. As someone who doesn't change much anyway it would be good to see how close I would be to someone on the same setup. This would dispel the myth that some magic setup makes you much quicker I benefited in the last race by putting more practice in and doing a number of AI races.

 

[Dzul]

I like the idea of a "standard setup" race(s). Of course we'll need to adjust fuel (P/Q/R). But I think adjusting tyre pressure and perhaps the wing on the Audi should be ok as well. The rest can be left on default... could that be "standard" enough?

 

[HF2000]

Guys,

First feedback looks positive.
Tonight you will have the opportunity to race with cars with the same setup apart from fuel and tyre pressure. They are street cars with no other setup options.

I can organize as a new experiment an event with only one street car so there's no gentlemen's chord needed and everyone drives the same car with the same setup. What do you think of that idea?

 

[a_murel]

I'd still like the ability to change tyre pressure but happy to give it a go. As someone who doesn't change much anyway it would be good to see how close I would be to someone on the same setup. This would dispel the myth that some magic setup makes you much quicker I benefited in the last race by putting more practice in and doing a number of AI races.

Guys,

First feedback looks positive.
Tonight you will have the opportunity to race with cars with the same setup apart from fuel and tyre pressure. They are street cars with no other setup options.

I can organize as a new experiment an event with only one street car so there's no gentlemen's chord needed and everyone drives the same car with the same setup. What do you think of that idea?

Sounds good!

and I like to add to that with in memory the race we had on the Austria national track, because the cars are not so powerfull, to do this on a short track?

BTW, thanx Han for being so open minded!

 

[HF2000]

Sounds good!

and I like to add to that with in memory the race we had on the Austria national track, because the cars are not so powerfull, to do this on a short track?

BTW, thanx Han for being so open minded!

Guys,

I'd like to use the Tuesday or the Thursday for these incidental experimental events so that we can continue the succesfull multiclass on Wednesday. On other days there's already an AC event on Racedepartment scheduled and we don't want internal competition.
Saturdaynight is also available but I'm using that for non optional social events as spending time with my wife !

 

[RasmusP]

Did anyone else had / saw glitches?

I had a decent qualy and a good start (held my place) until Village... I saw the pack bunch up so I went early on the brakes and stayed on the inside. It was hectic and I only noticed half a lap later that I'd lost a place to @Programmer_Rich. I kept the pack in sight, found a rythm and started to close in with Richard. At some point I had a better exit at Chapel and seemed I had a chance to pass on the Hangar Straight but you reach the speed-ceiling of the Audi quite quickly so I couldn't quite "pass", not even with the magic button. I stayed within striking distance for a few laps, getting close but unable to make a real move. At some point my Jim (CrewChief) told me that "we were faster at Village" so I planned for it... but my tyres didn't cooperate. I managed to brake a tad late and even trail-brake into the right handler but lost grip and went straight, at slow speed but still without control of the car, and so I hit Richard and half spun his car. Sorry about that again mate.

A few laps later I managed to close in again but after exiting Copse suddenly Richard's car glitched, it went through the geometry of the track and reappeared in front of my bumper. I managed to back off but allowed him to open the gap again through the MBC section. When I caught up with him again I tried to make a move again on the sector Jim said "we were faster". Got close his bumper but I misjudged the exit at Aintree and touched the sausage "wall" (can't call that a kerbstone) and that was it... the gap went above 5 seconds, I had little laps left and I kept making little mistakes trying to close that gap with old tyres. I did manage my fastest lap at the end of the race.

It was fun, but I don't think I can say I like the Audi more than I like the Mazda.
I missed being able to toss the car around.

Thanks again for the race chaps and for organising it Han!

This can have the following reasons:
- Richard's internet dropping for a moment
- Richard's physics calculations having issues
- the same for your own computer

You can't do much about internet issues, apart from not streaming Netflix while racing (like my partner likes to do...).

To make sure it's not your own physics, you need to do an ai race with maximum opponents and enable the performance app (fps symbol).
You'll see "main_t" and "physics_late" in that app.

If main_t gets above 98%, you can h get issues. If physics_late is counting up more than about 10 per lap, you definitely have issues.
Colin once had this.. It was counting up into multiple thousands per lap

Both of these mean that your CPU is not keeping up with AC so you can get anything from stuttering to completely insane stuff.

 

[Douglas Aird]

I had one major stutter and a few minor ones. I put it down to connections as my PC is plenty powerful enough (and I know Rauls PC is the same).

 

[RasmusP]

I had one major stutter and a few minor ones. I put it down to connections as my PC is plenty powerful enough (and I know Rauls PC is the same).

Might be, might not be, might be fluid on your computer but your car doing weird stuff for others.
But yes, if you have more than 4 cores, it shouldn't be settings or cpu

In general though:

You can provoke the main_t and phys_late issue even with very powerful CPUs.
It depends on how the application threads are mixed.
Depending on settings, session config, background stuff or general issues, you can have a wild mix of fps, main_t, phys_late and stuttering.

The rendering load is variable, the physics load is the same no matter the settings (more or less).

Having a quick check won't hurt and can be done during warm-up of the event, while others guide you through the 5 clicks that need to be done.

 

[Dzul]

To make sure it's not your own physics, you need to do an ai race with maximum opponents and enable the performance app (fps symbol).
You'll see "main_t" and "physics_late" in that app.

If main_t gets above 98%, you can h get issues. If physics_late is counting up more than about 10 per lap, you definitely have issues.
Colin once had this.. It was counting up into multiple thousands per lap

Both of these mean that your CPU is not keeping up with AC so you can get anything from stuttering to completely insane stuff.

My PC packs a decent punch (4 cores / RTX card) and I use wired internet so I'm assuming the glitch was not on my side. However, doing a check doesn't hurt, just to be sure. I'm going to check the replay as well, wonder if it registered there.

Thanks for the detailed info @RasmusP !

 

[Kek700]

I noticed a big FPS drop at Silverstone last night when sitting in the pits.
Which at the time I thought was strange.?

Setups , Han, Tim and myself had virtually the same lap times, I bet there was a big difference in setups.

You can have something setup wrong, ie tyre pressures, you can have something that makes the car too unstable, causing you to be off the accelerator instead of on it.
You can have a car that is too stiff, giving too much understeer, and on and on.

You cannot have a setup that makes the car faster.

Okay, to much unwanted wing, to much traction control, too much toe in and toe out causing too much speed loss on the straights.
Incorrect damper settings , causing bad mid corner traction. The list goes on.

I’ll get that all correct, give my setup to an alien and the first thing they will do is undo all my hard work and go 2 seconds quicker.

PS
The car needs to match the circuit, one setup for one circuit will probably not work so well on another.
Example, I quite often run very little wing on one circuit, then on another circuit, run a lot of wing.
So you just cannot grab a setup that is fast, they don’t exist.
I must apologise for the waffle, I have my , I’m bored hat on.

 

[RasmusP]

Edit:
You have 8 cores with your 3700x. Signature won't show on the mobile site so I couldn't see it earlier.
You should definitely be fine and neither have MAIN_T going above 98% nor have any PHY_LATE counts higher than 20.

For the quick check:

The app is called "render stats":
the graphics stats is a "developer app" and isn't needed to check for issues.

I'm going to check the replay as well, wonder if it registered there.

This probably won't show anything. The only thing that wouldn't show in the replay is fps stuttering. But if the world was moving normally and only one car jumping around, then it's a physics or internet issue and the error will be written into the replay position data.

Can be fun to watch it again though
(Replay from someone else, when I had a BSOD)

 

[Douglas Aird]

My cpu is an i5 8600k, so 6 threads. Gpu is AMD 6800 and RAM is 16GB DDR4 3200.

It's driving triples at 5760x1080 but I get 100+ fps generally in AC.

I am also on cable broadband and directly wired to the router.

I generally don't get stuttering in AC races so last night was a surprise. Hopefully a one off.

 

[Douglas Aird]

Any news on the track for next week?

Silverstone National would get my vote (if it was a democracy).

 

[HF2000]

Any news on the track for next week?

Silverstone National would get my vote (if it was a democracy).

Yes, I will post it tomorrow. Not Silverstone National but I think you will like it.