rFactor 2: Gasoline Alley 3PA Content Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

rFactor 2 modding duo Gilles Benoit and Bill Guillaume have released a new Third Party Affiliate (3PA) mod depicting the legendary 1960's era Indy Racing scene - entitled Gasoline Alley.

Created by Gilles Benoit and Bill Guillaume with the help of former Indy driver Len Sutton and racing historian Gordon Eliot White, Gasoline Alley has been updated and improved from the original rFactor 1 version to reach the standards expected of 3PA content.

With further support from ISI providing physics tweaks and tyres, Gasoline Alley should make a compelling addition to the base rF2 content.

Car description :

• Speed: top 186 mph Texas (1963), end of Indy straights : 170 mph, Indy turns : +-140 mph
• Weight without driver and fuel: +-1600 lbs, 60% to the left
• Fuel: Methanol, 60 us gal. spiked with nitromethane
• Engine: 256 cu. In., 4 cyl. Offy, +-500 lbs, 2 speed, estimated +-400hp, running at 6000 rpm (ref1 p.84), fuel consumption 1 us gal/3.0 mile, exterior oil tank +-15 quarts
• Rigid front/rear axles with torsion bars
• Wheelbase: modeled at 96 in.
• Tires: Bias ply Firestones, front 7.60×16 (nominal), rear 8×18 (nominal), 50 psi, threads were showing after 51-52 laps at Indy, wear pattern on all four tires = inside of corner, described as noisy
• Pit stops: All four tires, 40 to 60 us gal. in 20 sec., every 51-52 laps

"Indy racing is part of the US culture, and in the early 1960s A.J. Watson dominated the manufacturing of the cars, at a time when Formula One machines were just starting to influence design. Watson’s history goes back to 1950 when, as a mechanic, he built his own car for the Indy 500 which Dick Rathmann drove. In 1954 Watson got his break with the John Zink Jnr team, and a year later his modified version of the Frank Kurtis-built roadster won the Indy 500. This 1960 example is typical of his racers, with a basic chassis with front/rear solid axles but torsion bar suspension that could be tweaked by the driver while going along. The Offenhauser Sprint and Champ car engine was offset to the left to make the car turn naturally in that direction, and gearbox only needed two speeds due to the massive torque available low down, plus the car’s light weight."

Head on over to the RaceDepartment rFactor 2 forum for news and discussion items and why not pick up a mod or two in our rF2 Mods section?

Don't forget racing other sim racers is fun, and in rFactor 2 the best place to do that is right here in the rFactor 2 Racing Club! Check it out today for good, clean, hard racing on a regular basis.

Have you picked up Gasoline Alley yet? How doe's it fair alongside some of the other top mods and ISI's own content? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Hsmmer]

They are fun and scary to drive

I bet most that complain about this couldn't get past Eau Rouge on a flying lap. lool


It is made for men to drive ...............not for a bunch of pantywaists to look at.

Yes they are FUN mate

And they make good 3PA , it is free ? what a load of whiners lol
they do not appeal to you do not download ?
But without driving them to then bash them ?
They don't have a leg to stand on.

If rF2 drove like AC I would never have brought it.
If AC looked like rF2 and drove like rF2 I would.

That is how little graphics matter to some over physics.

 

[Szymon Olizarowicz]

I bet most that complain about this couldn't get past Eau Rouge on a flying lap

oh yeah, the standard 'you only complain coz u bad' argument. In terms of legitimacy it's up there with classics like 'you only care about graphics' when people have the audacity to point out that content from 2016 shouldn't look like something from early 2000s. Oh wait, you used that retarded notion in the later part of your post...

Really, what it boils down to is an incredibly childish attitude that can be summed up as 'you don't understand sim racing liike I do! u bad!'. It's the reason why official ISI forums are overrun with fanboys and haters, and anyone with a bit of sense has stopped contributing to discussion years ago.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

400 hp in a soap box with bicycle wheels. Lots of fun.

 

[Ari Antero]

Tessellation has little impact in sims where you view most objects from a distance of 10+ meters, you will not be close enough to see the effect. Reflections and lighting improvements sound very non-specific. Depth of perception (DoF) is disabled on purpose in rF2, it could be done in DX9 as well, it's done in Crysis 1. Texture resolution has nothing to do with DX11. Multi-threaded rendering, maybe. I see no "huge" benefits and as the pCars video comparison showed, it's mostly placebo.

You don`t see any huge benefits in that pCars video, did you look fps cain (-+100 fps)on the top of that video?
If it makes you happy we can just agree that rFactor2 is best looking sim there is and it is wasted time from Microsoft to spend more time to development of DX , we have DX9 and everything else is just placebo.

 

[thatmotorfreak]

Honestly I don't know who to trust anymore after reading all of this thread.

Still too stubborn to buy AC (even with the MX5 Cup in the latest DLC), but I'm just underwhelmed with how little there is to download for rF2, in comparison to AC and even rF1.

 

[Matt Orr]

Trust no one and make your own thoughts. That usually works.

 

[yusupov]

very difficult not to rely on the opinions of others when (like me) youre completely ignorant of oval racing -- modern-day, much less 1960s era.

ISI improved over the past couple years with offering pre-set setups & some general tips with most of their cars, but i didnt see anything of the sort for this one. i just know that the default setup certainly seems to be completely undriveable around indy, which is the one place i wouldve assumed it either be set for or have a pre-set available.

re the suggested difficulty % in rf2/isimotor, i am most certainly a below average simracer & find 95% to be a very tough challenge, & use as a good benchmark for a realistically achievable average laptime. i dont have the consistency of the AI or the average racer, so im a little faster at my fastest, & slower pretty much any other time. 90% is simply too slow for me; might be useful in a gaming environment but not for exploring your limits. from very brief testing on ovals i find if anything the difficulty should be increased...

 

[Emery]

The default setup understeers, building up heat in the right front tire, which causes loss of grip, etc. If you give it a finnish flick, then it's possible to drive it through the corner with the tail hanging slightly out.

Alternatively, just increase rear spring rate so the setup will oversteer. Remember, though, that the differential is welded/locked, so there are other methods that work better, but at least it's a start. Some day, I hope someone writes a bit of guide for tuning these primitive oxcart suspensions (beam axles at both ends of the car, welded differential, no downforce) so they turn left more willingly... I'm out of my depth on tuning for ovals.

 

[Gilles Thewall]

Bonjour,

You can find Bill Indianapolis setup in the main mas file or here :

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7915C12734ABD655!3740&authkey=!ABgJggdAw80hGYk&ithint=file,svm

Cheers !
Gilles

 

[Bill Guillaume]

That setup is not the fastest. But an easily driven setup. Tweak from there. Ease of the throttle into the turns to set it. Then power out with a light foot.

 

[Hsmmer]

oh yeah, the standard 'you only complain coz u bad' argument.

lol

Mate, it is true lots of people do it, I see it in online rooms ALL the time.

Example all the negative comments on the Howston Dissenter.

Because those types could not drive it for crap so they blamed the car !

But this MOD they do not even drive ! ? they just whinge about nothing ! ?


Go play your F1 manager on a phone.

 

[randMracer]

Amazing...is this pissin' contest still going on?

I read this thread last night and decided to give it a go to see what all the whining was about. Well, it's not the best rF2 mod I've ever downloaded and it's not the worst, but it was free, so there's not really much to say here. Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the logic of getting something for free and then complaining about it. If it doesn't tickle your fancy, then move on to something else, simple.

Instead of wasting time complaining about something that was created by someone else. Use all that wasted energy and learn how to create your own mods.

Why bash someone for giving back to the community? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Gevatter]

Sure, and why complain about others complaining, instead of just, you know, moving on

So, I tried the mod out, aaaand... yeah, nothing special. As much as I like the idea, and appreciate the time and effort spent by the modders, I'm not a fan of oval racing to begin with, and on racetracks, for me there are more interesting historic cars to drive.

I may give it some more time, but with my ongoing FFB problems in rFactor 2 I'd rather go back to my new and shiny AC Mazda MX5 Cup car

 

[Gilles Thewall]

A little bit of history !

The Gasoline Alley project started when I stumbled on this picture https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7915C12734ABD655!3741&authkey=!APwBGVwwaENDlSM&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpghttps://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7915C12734ABD655!3741&authkey=!APwBGVwwaENDlSM&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg a long time ago. I found the car beautiful (they didn’t shine like that in 1960 !) and thought that it would be great if we could simrace it. Now I have been editing for a long time (N2, GPL, N3, etc.) for The Pits but in those days we had to reverse engineer all those files formats, build tools, then recompile, etc. Papyrus didn't help so we were restricted in what we could do though we did nice things with David Noonan's great tools. On the other hand ISI offered full help and support so as I wanted more to edit than build tools I went with ISI for sim edition. They supported me with all my questions for all those years !

BTW in that tradition rF2 Gasoline Alley is fully open ! Unpack the mas files and you have it all, 3D modeling, physics, textures !

So I began to buy books and do research on those roadsters and found Gordon Eliott White (racing historian-Bonneville racer) and the late Len Sutton (2nd place Indy 500 roadster racer) to help me with the project. The more I read and saw videos the more respect I had for these designers, racers and teams. When they crashed the deformable structure in those cars were the driver. Fire (methanol) protection was nil and they raced like crazy. Team managers didn't want to be friends to drivers. They lost so many.

I then modeled rF1 Gasoline alley (thanks again to all who helped !) and released it in 2007. Bill did is own Usac mod for rF1. Converting Gasoline Alley to rF2 started in 2012 (but I stopped it a full year) and really took off when I asked Bill to help. He loves those cars and all those historic details. This is why you can see the faces of most of the real drivers that were painted by Bill. All the parts that we thought should be remodeled/retextured between the two versions were redone.
Our goal was to offer the possibility to simrace a full Indy 500 1960 historic field without the need of the latest video card or computer. We also wanted to offer many upgrades (see the Tuning window) to suit the simracers (helmets, rollbar, oil tank, exhaust, etc.). BTW you can easily adjust rims, dash, chassis, etc. with small textures files <100Ko in the teams folder. I do like the dark colored rims !
Because we wanted these cars to raced at Indy with a full field of 33 cars we had to do a lot of work on the LODs as you can see cars a long way at Indy. The roadsters are at approx. 30% of the ISI Cobras on polygon count. Through the project we had to redo modeling and textures as shaders evolved.It's easier for me to model a car with millions of polygons but it won't run smoothly with a full 33 cars field. Same for the textures if we use 4096*4096 textures on every part and same impact for the choice of shaders. It’s all in the respect of the project goal and the balance you have to keep to achieve it.

We kept our goal to offer a full field of roadsters for everyone for free.

I did one mistake by not retesting the AI after receiving the latest tires from Michael and the updated Indy track.They were perfect at 89-90% and now they seems too fast. We will collect all comments for a few weeks, adjust a few things and upload a patch.

Like always we learned a lot on editing from this project and this is why I do it. To learn editing/modding techniques and to be able to do better. I also found a friend and I'm proud of the tribute we did for these racers.

It's just an experience and goodtimes we offer. Surely for us and hopefully for you if you want it !

Cheers !
Gilles

 

[randMracer]

Sure, and why complain about others complaining, instead of just, you know, moving on

So, I tried the mod out, aaaand... yeah, nothing special. As much as I like the idea, and appreciate the time and effort spent by the modders, I'm not a fan of oval racing to begin with, and on racetracks, for me there are more interesting historic cars to drive.

I may give it some more time, but with my ongoing FFB problems in rFactor 2 I'd rather go back to my new and shiny AC Mazda MX5 Cup car

So what was the point of your comment? Basically we gather that you can't figure out how to fix your FFB issues in rF2 and you don't like oval racing or the car. Then you completely go off topic and bring up AC. Awesome post, keep up the good work.

 

[RoboCop69]

Thanks@Gilles and Bill for these cars.
The more i drive them the more i like and understand them, and im usally not an oval guy or interested in such old chariots. Also appreciate the effort to keep the lap-times somehow realistic.

 

[jlnprssnr]

Why are you all talking DX9 vs DX11, when DX12 is what we really want? Besides all improvements in lighing, shaders etc. (Which I think *are* nice in DX11), it brings some reallly useful stuff like huge optimizations for CPU heavy scenarios, shared VRAM for dual GPU setups and even mixed dual GPU setups with one AMD and one Nvidia card or one dedicated GPU and your integrated Intel chip!

I think both Reiza and Raceroom are planning to go this route, not wasting more ressources on improving their current graphics engines and instead switching to a DX12 one with build in VR support in the future.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

Why are you all talking DX9 vs DX11, when DX12 is what we really want?

I have seen more support for Dx11 and even Vulkan for the freedom from MicroSoft, and being free. DX12 is Windows 10 only, and that is a big no-no for a sizable population.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Why are you all talking DX9 vs DX11, when DX12 is what we really want? Besides all improvements in lighing, shaders etc. (Which I think *are* nice in DX11), it brings some reallly useful stuff like huge optimizations for CPU heavy scenarios, shared VRAM for dual GPU setups and even mixed dual GPU setups with one AMD and one Nvidia card or one dedicated GPU and your integrated Intel chip!

Transition to native DX12 app is not gonna happen on any current released sim, simply because they can't just remove Windows 7 support, with probably over half of the rigs currently running that OS.

 

[randMracer]

Transition to native DX12 app is not gonna happen on any current released sim, simply because they can't just remove Windows 7 support, with probably over half of the rigs currently running that OS.

In theory what you say is true, but apparently Microsoft has other plans with Win 7. In case you haven't been keeping up with the tech news, Microsoft is using dirty tactics to force users into upgrading to Windows 10. There are tons of articles with people waking up to find Windows 10 installed on their machine while they were asleep.

Apparently the forced upgrade trigger was hidden in one of the auto updates. Personally I have automatic updates turned off and I will pick and choose, after research, which ones I want to allow.

Here is one article, but do a search and you'll see the outrage at Microsoft for doing this.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3073...dows-10-pop-up-tricks-you-into-upgrading.html