AC Multiclass Audi TT/Mazda MX5@Thruxton, Wednesday 23rd March 2022

[Programmer_Rich]

Survived about 4 accidents, saw that Richard had a pc or internet blip.
All in all I got enough of a lead to keep the odds of being caught reasonably low, even though at two thirds distance Richard was hot on my heals. I think the buffer made the Mazda lottery to be in my favour. With the positives and negatives constantly going back and forth.
So for a change of late, last two racesI have had my fair share of good luck, so pleased, it won’t last.
Checked the replay, pretty sure I treated all the Mazdas fairly, so after all the complaints I think I heard , I don’t think I transgressed any rules. Pleased about that.
Well done to Han for the organisation, and a well done Simon, seeing Allan and your name took me back a few years when we had grids of over 40 Mazdas and some did not get in, Simon and Alan were very much up the front then.

So nothing new there then.

PS, there was carnage at the S bend seemingly every lap , with Mazdas all over the place. I hate these chicanes.

Yeah you're right Ernie I had a internet blip when running in 2nd place at the end of the second or third lap.

Unfortunately it probably happened at the worse possible place, the final chicane. From my view at the time Douglas mysterious 'appeared' half on top of me as I came out of the chicane (I'm guessing the missing server updates meant AC assumed he didn't bother slowing down for it! ;-) which caused a perceived collision and spin for me. For Douglas I think he just saw me bouncing around (due to lack of updates to the server) and then in the barrier! Jari was much more unlucky, as only from Colin's replay afterward I saw my car jump backwards into Jari's path (very sorry but obviously not my fault and I had no idea during the race that this had happened - I don't even understand how a lack of updates could see a car 'jump back', normally they appear to just go 'straight on'!).

I think maybe I'm going to have to 'ban' my two boys from internet gaming during race nights (but it obviously won't go down well - wish me luck!) as I've got the best wired internet connection I can to my PC (without a major fibre type upgrade to my house, as certainly no cable available at my address sadly).

That said the drop down to fifth and the fight back to 2nd and the final few lap chasing down Ernie made it an exciting race none the less (but again shame about Jari being an incident victim of my internet glitch).

 

[HF2000]

Yeah you're right Ernie I had a internet blip when running in 2nd place at the end of the second or third lap.

Unfortunately it probably happened at the worse possible place, the final chicane. From my view at the time Douglas mysterious 'appeared' half on top of me as I came out of the chicane (I'm guessing the missing server updates meant AC assumed he didn't bother slowing down for it! ;-) which caused a perceived collision and spin for me. For Douglas I think he just saw me bouncing around (due to lack of updates to the server) and then in the barrier! Jari was much more unlucky, as only from Colin's replay afterward I saw my car jump backwards into Jari's path (very sorry but obviously not my fault and I had no idea during the race that this had happened - I don't even understand how a lack of updates could see a car 'jump back', normally they appear to just go 'straight on'!).

I think maybe I'm going to have to 'ban' my two boys from internet gaming during race nights (but it obviously won't go down well - wish me luck!) as I've got the best wired internet connection I can to my PC (without a major fibre type upgrade to my house, as certainly no cable available at my address sadly).

That said the drop down to fifth and the fight back to 2nd and the final few lap chasing down Ernie made it an exciting race none the less (but again shame about Jari being an incident victim of my internet glitch).

Probably one of the IT gurus (@RasmusP ?) can help you by setting some priority rule for your PC in your homenetwork.

 

[davejevons]

Last night was a minor disaster from my perspective. I couldn't convert what seemed okay pace in practice to a quali time so qualified on the last row. I then spotted that my steering had very distinct notches in it. I tried turning my wheelbase off and on again which removed the notches but I lost all force feedback. I benefitted from lap 1 chaos and gained many places but on the fast back section it became clear I couldn't adjust to the lack of feedback quick enough to be safe, so I parked it in the garage to avoid ruining other people's races. Will try again on Sunday in the Ginetta.

 

[Programmer_Rich]

Probably one of the IT gurus (@RasmusP ?) can help you by setting some priority rule for your PC in your homenetwork.

Thanks for the suggestion Han and I'm always open to advice if @RasmusP or anyone else has any.

That said I do have a pretty good 'TP-LINK DECO P9 Whole Home Powerline Mesh WiFi System AC1200 + AC1000' which my PC is wired to with all the Deco's on the same ring main (plugged directly into the wall sockets without extension cables as required). I've also used the Deco app to set my PC as one of only two 'priority' connections (the other is my work laptop which is always switched off while I'm racing).

 

[HF2000]

Next week event: https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...nurburgring-wednesday-30th-march-2022.226717/

 

[RasmusP]

Thanks for the suggestion Han and I'm always open to advice if @RasmusP or anyone else has any.

That said I do have a pretty good 'TP-LINK DECO P9 Whole Home Powerline Mesh WiFi System AC1200 + AC1000' which my PC is wired to with all the Deco's on the same ring main (plugged directly into the wall sockets without extension cables as required). I've also used the Deco app to set my PC as one of only two 'priority' connections (the other is my work laptop which is always switched off while I'm racing).

That sounds about all that's possible
However it might not have been the Internet connection but some physics lags.
Do you know what your ping is/was to the sgp servers? If the ping is below 100, all should be fine. Package loss is very rare in simracing from my experience since the data doesn't need to be as accurate as an eSports shooter.

Are you using content manager?
If so, you can click "race" instead of "play" or so when in the replay menu and CM will load an AI race with the same cars/tracks/conditions!

Then enable developer apps in CM and activate the two performance apps.
One of them has main_t and "phys_late" in there.
That's the important one.

Do the AI race and take a screenshot.
Physics should be a low percentage, phys_late not counting up quickly (below 10 per lap) and main_t should stay below 90%.
Otherwise everything weird can happen!

 

[Hazzatron19]

I

Yeah you're right Ernie I had a internet blip when running in 2nd place at the end of the second or third lap.

Unfortunately it probably happened at the worse possible place, the final chicane. From my view at the time Douglas mysterious 'appeared' half on top of me as I came out of the chicane (I'm guessing the missing server updates meant AC assumed he didn't bother slowing down for it! ;-) which caused a perceived collision and spin for me. For Douglas I think he just saw me bouncing around (due to lack of updates to the server) and then in the barrier! Jari was much more unlucky, as only from Colin's replay afterward I saw my car jump backwards into Jari's path (very sorry but obviously not my fault and I had no idea during the race that this had happened - I don't even understand how a lack of updates could see a car 'jump back', normally they appear to just go 'straight on'!).

I think maybe I'm going to have to 'ban' my two boys from internet gaming during race nights (but it obviously won't go down well - wish me luck!) as I've got the best wired internet connection I can to my PC (without a major fibre type upgrade to my house, as certainly no cable available at my address sadly).

That said the drop down to fifth and the fight back to 2nd and the final few lap chasing down Ernie made it an exciting race none the less (but again shame about Jari being an incident victim of my internet glitch).

had a good view of that two cars appeared out of nowhere spinning sideways

 

[Shed 17]

My replay won’t work so this is from memory.
A good start and alongside Raul going into the Complex then it looked like someone ahead had unleashed hell with cars everywhere. I seemed to survive and was up to P3. But with Allan and Carsten bearing down on me I knew it wouldn’t be long before they went by.
When they did pass me I could hang on to them but then.................. Bang! It was like an explosion happened and I guess it was the contact that Han mentioned, but whatever it was I accelerated across the grass and into the tyre wall. That was a big impact and not sure if there was a gap but Han waited anyway.
From then on I had a good battle with Taj ( this is becoming a regular thing now) and we are quite closely matched.
I managed to hang on to finish in P4 so probably the best I could have hoped for under the circumstances.
I don’t know what other think but this circuit seems to encourage good side by side racing and I think it would be good to have more single class races here. And like Ernie, I didn’t like the final chicane either but it is what it is.
Well done to the podiums and especially Doug and Simon, thanks Han for organising and for waiting

 

[Douglas Aird]

Yeah you're right Ernie I had a internet blip when running in 2nd place at the end of the second or third lap.

Unfortunately it probably happened at the worse possible place, the final chicane. From my view at the time Douglas mysterious 'appeared' half on top of me as I came out of the chicane (I'm guessing the missing server updates meant AC assumed he didn't bother slowing down for it! ;-) which caused a perceived collision and spin for me. For Douglas I think he just saw me bouncing around (due to lack of updates to the server) and then in the barrier! Jari was much more unlucky, as only from Colin's replay afterward I saw my car jump backwards into Jari's path (very sorry but obviously not my fault and I had no idea during the race that this had happened - I don't even understand how a lack of updates could see a car 'jump back', normally they appear to just go 'straight on'!).

I think maybe I'm going to have to 'ban' my two boys from internet gaming during race nights (but it obviously won't go down well - wish me luck!) as I've got the best wired internet connection I can to my PC (without a major fibre type upgrade to my house, as certainly no cable available at my address sadly).

That said the drop down to fifth and the fight back to 2nd and the final few lap chasing down Ernie made it an exciting race none the less (but again shame about Jari being an incident victim of my internet glitch).

Richard, for me you just vanished I didn't even realise there was a collision from your perspective.

The same thing happened towards the end. I was behind you into the chicane, you disappeared on the exit and about a second later you reappeared behind me and making an overtake! Weird, and I guess I wasn't as unlucky as you with the fallout from the glitches.

 

[RasmusP]

I don’t know what other think but this circuit seems to encourage good side by side racing and I think it would be good to have more single class races here.

You'll eat these words after the ginetta race
But I can imagine that with the Mazda and Audi, the wide track is pretty awesome for going side by side!

 

[Kek700]

I'm just grateful we were not close at that point, another dob of luck.

 

[Programmer_Rich]

That sounds about all that's possible
However it might not have been the Internet connection but some physics lags.
Do you know what your ping is/was to the sgp servers? If the ping is below 100, all should be fine. Package loss is very rare in simracing from my experience since the data doesn't need to be as accurate as an eSports shooter.

Are you using content manager?
If so, you can click "race" instead of "play" or so when in the replay menu and CM will load an AI race with the same cars/tracks/conditions!

Then enable developer apps in CM and activate the two performance apps.
One of them has main_t and "phys_late" in there.
That's the important one.

Do the AI race and take a screenshot.
Physics should be a low percentage, phys_late not counting up quickly (below 10 per lap) and main_t should stay below 90%.
Otherwise everything weird can happen!

Thanks for the suggestion Rasmus and out of interest I'll have a play with that in CM but I'm 90% sure it was an internet connection issue because I did see the ping rise above 100 sadly (my PC isn't the latest spec but it's pretty high end and generally runs at 100fps+ despite me having triple monitors and high AC graphics settings). Normally my ping is below 30 in AC so I suspect I was fighting with my boys who were online for bandwidth (hence I might have to try the boys 'online gaming ban' during my two race nights to see if it avoids a repeat!).

 

[Kek700]

I don’t mean to say the obvious, but I will anyway, is your PC hard wired to your modem?

 

[Programmer_Rich]

I don’t me to say the obvious, but I will anyway, is your PC hard wired to your modem?

The simple answer, is yes hard wired Ernie, thanks. The more complicated answer is yes but via a Deco P9 powerline system to the modem (impossible for me to wire directly to modem as the distance from the master phone socket to the PC is quite high perhaps 20m through both floors and walls).

 

[RasmusP]

Maybe you could limit the bandwidth of your kids' devices?
I don't have much experience with priority handling. Not sure what happens if a lower priority device wants to grab the full bandwidth while the higher priority device only sends a few kb here and there.

 

[Dzul]

There's one simple agreement at my place: wednesday is my online racing night and so all other internet activities are suspended as of 20:00 hrs. The girls are free to choose between playing a board game, reading a book or watching a DVD with a cuppa tea.

 

[Taj Johal]

My race was interesting, fun but also so annoying similar to previous races.

Of course as usual I didn't drive the track just before the race. A quick 20 min session before logging on and hope for the best
Qualied where I expected. Slow but safe start. Cold tyres, low grip, a complex of three turns in quick secession, I thought take it easy and avoid the inevitable carnage. Well the inevitable carnage did happen, exited the complex I think in 3rd, thanks lads
I knew the quick guys would catch up, so it was case of trying to make the best of it while it lasted. So I put my foot down out of the corner...............loads of wheelspin (cold tyres!!!) and spun off

Back onto the track somewhere down the back, head down, get into a rhythm. Unexpectedly the carnage in front of me continued and I slowly moved up the field. Ended up racing with Paul again. Like usual good clean, fair and hard racing But Paul was quicker than me, got me into Church.

Tried to get back into a rhythm again but was slowly being caught from behind. Then at the exit of the chicane I was hit from the side and rammed into the ambulance for a health check. Ended up teleported to the pits, way down again.
Came across NSR 96 spinning at the chicane, he couldn't decide which way to go so I kindly t-boned him There was nothing he or I could do. Then just a couple of laps to the finish.

Half enjoyed the race but also half frustrated. I really need to practice much earlier than 20mins before the race and also learn how to stay out of trouble

Thanks to Han for hosting, see you all on track somewhere soon !!

 

[Neilski]

Some things that come to mind regarding connection/bandwidth issues:

Many years ago I had to leave my ISP at the time (Plusnet) for another one because their traffic management system was destroying my LFS sessions. Gaming packets were prioritised but LFS packets weren't recognised by their systems, despite them trying to fix it, and so it was goodbye. I went to another ISP who promised a total absence of traffic management and was very happy with the results. It's been a long time since then but I wonder if some ISPs are still doing this?

A major killer for bandwidth is downloads. Steam is one of the chief culprits in my experience. Some years ago, while trying to understand how it was totally destroying the internet access for everyone in my house, I realised that it's shockingly aggressive about how it downloads, using many simultaneous connections to the servers. This means that it gets a disproportionate share of the bandwidth. The easy fix is to just ask it to throttle the download speeds (so that's what my kids have been doing for years now).

Gaming itself generally involves a lot of small packets but very low actual bandwidth consumption. If instead, the kids in the house are watching HD streams of other people gaming, that might be killing the link for everyone else

Finally, implementing traffic shaping within your house is certainly possible but (I've never done it myself) the simplest way that doesn't require specialist/expensive hardware probably needs either a Linux-based router with hacked firmware or just a Linux box sitting between the modem and the main router/WiFi access point. (In fact there's probably a way to do it these days with a Raspberry Pi! )

 

[maxilogan]

Hello guys! This must have been a fun race. I tried to do some practice during the week, and registered for the race quite early, only to be realistic and admit that while having some better moments during the past days, my shoulder never stopped aching, and actually worsened between Monday and Tuesday (Sunday home working to be blamed for this), so I decided to stay on the safe side and withdrawn. Addiction is addiction, though, so I had some quick races on Forza 7 on the Xbox using the joypad as a placebo.

I hope to be ok for next week, Nurburgring is a circuit I like and one of the very first ones on which I raced here on RD.

 

[RasmusP]

Hello guys! This must have been a fun race. I tried to do some practice during the week, and registered for the race quite early, only to be realistic and admit that while having some better moments during the past days, my shoulder never stopped aching, and actually worsened between Monday and Tuesday (Sunday home working to be blamed for this), so I decided to stay on the safe side and withdrawn. Addiction is addiction, though, so I had some quick races on Forza 7 on the Xbox using the joypad as a placebo.

I hope to be ok for next week, Nurburgring is a circuit I like and one of the very first ones on which I raced here on RD.

Quick recovery! Shoulder issues can be very annoying.. Hope it's nothing serious?