43 replies to this topic

[grego]

John Woods, on Mar 12 2010 - 07:36 PM, said:

Now, Grego, I think maybe you are fishing a bit to see what I might bite on. Or whether I myself might have bitten off a little too much. How can I imagine what you missed?.
There is no anticipation or really totally mind blowing flash of cosmic insight involved. The first insight was to transcend the idea of driving a car and start thinking about what is really happening, which is driving a computer. This was a flash of insight that did indeed occur when cresting the ridge on Nurburgring, and I remember it very distinctly. It instantly changed how I looked at everything. Since then, my assumption has been that creating a pretense of driving a Lotus or Ferrari interferes with the real experience, as any witness can confirm, which is we are driving computers. This brought me to drastically changing my driver view, all my setups, and how I thought about what I am doing when driving. As I recall, this was a pretty rapid and linear progression coincident with major drops in laptimes on all tracks. So I don't know for sure which of these changes were more the cause of what I consider getting way better much faster than before. An interest in finding out is part of the reason for opening this discussion.

Nope, John, no mirrors, not trappdoors, no trick questions.
While understanding exactly what you say, eg : """ This brought me to drastically changing my driver view, all my setups""""" So, how did you actually changed a driver setup, and a driver view ???
Heck , anything that makes me go from positive to negative is welcome.
Actually i'd go as far as pretending i was driving a sausage or a banana if this helps me out of my current drivings style which really "BLOWS"
Eg. in Watglen, 65 mode my best laptime with the fer512 is 1.11: 45 thats is about 3 lightyears away from the lap record of about 55 seconds......................

[John Woods]

Well, well, very good question, Grego. Thank you. Sorry, I am surprized in a way because you get right to it. Thank you.
First, I submit that all variables, from MS game controller, core.ini FFB settings, FOVed setting, GPLSA driver head variables, on through the GPL Options screens to the car setups menu are "virtual car setup variables" that directly effect perception, and consequently how the user determines what inputs to apply to change the display as intended. Also, the real driver's seating postion and distance to the display are setup variables.
Second, using GEM+v1.4.31 selecting "rollbar view" and using CarCamEdit.exe I modify rollbar view to present a display view as if the virtual driver's POV is the real driver's POV. So the virtual camera projecting driver view seems where my head is when I am sitting in the race console. This way, I am not mentally translating what an imaginary driver shown on the display is supposedly seeing into what I am actually seeing, which is a monitor. I want the monitor to look like a window of what I would actually be focusing on if I were really sitting in a race car. Using default driver view, I found I was focusing on an area of the monitor that was about 3-inches by 5-inches in the center of the screen. So at first all I wanted to do was enlarge that area. Then I found that moving POV front and back seems to effect car setup, so it is possible to tune it in just like any other variable.
Third, doing this creates an entirely unique race console. No one else's setups, and none from before, will work as they did. It requires starting over. I now rely on what BrunoB has taught me. ("New simple evolutionary setup method," available at www.bhmotorsports.com/developer/3040. However, I don't think any of this should necessarily be considered a recipe for anyone else. Its just what I've done.

Early on aliens convinced me I would never come close to their level of performance, and I was never so dedicated to that aspect of enjoying GPL. I consider myself a "Touring Driver" that is also pretty fast, very steady, but not really fast like the fifteen or so percent of all GPLers who can beat my best lap times on original tracks. It was always too much fun to just cruise around on the latest tracks and a few standards and go negative by coincidence of perseverance. I haven't ran the '65 mod, I don't know how it compares with my 1:05.xx at Glen67, but I would not look to me for coaching.

Edited by John Woods, Mar 14 2010 - 09:12 AM.

[sky]

grego, on Mar 12 2010 - 07:50 PM, said:

Heck , anything that makes me go from positive to negative is welcome.
Actually i'd go as far as pretending i was driving a sausage or a banana if this helps me out of my current drivings style which really "BLOWS"
Eg. in Watglen, 65 mode my best laptime with the fer512 is 1.11: 45 thats is about 3 lightyears away from the lap record of about 55 seconds......................

unless i'm utterly mistaken your watkins time of 1:11 is actually pretty good, not stellar, but then again i am only at 1:11 dead in the 65 fez either. oh and the world record for a 65 at the glen (ferrari) is at 1:08.137 with the bench being 1:09.587. don't know where you got the 55 sec thing. even in the '69s the fastest laptime is just under 1 minute at 59.x seconds in the brabham, all others are at 1:0x minute(s)

never compare the '67 times with a '65 car - unless you're talking targa
that aside i find the '65s to be quite a tough bench to go negative.

[grego]

sky, on Mar 12 2010 - 09:50 PM, said:

grego, on Mar 12 2010 - 07:50 PM, said:

Heck , anything that makes me go from positive to negative is welcome.
Actually i'd go as far as pretending i was driving a sausage or a banana if this helps me out of my current drivings style which really "BLOWS"
Eg. in Watglen, 65 mode my best laptime with the fer512 is 1.11: 45 thats is about 3 lightyears away from the lap record of about 55 seconds......................

unless i'm utterly mistaken your watkins time of 1:11 is actually pretty good, not stellar, but then again i am only at 1:11 dead in the 65 fez either. oh and the world record for a 65 at the glen (ferrari) is at 1:08.137 with the bench being 1:09.587. don't know where you got the 55 sec thing. even in the '69s the fastest laptime is just under 1 minute at 59.x seconds in the brabham, all others are at 1:0x minute(s)

never compare the '67 times with a '65 car - unless you're talking targa
that aside i find the '65s to be quite a tough bench to go negative.

There ye go, Sky, I am managing to confuse facts again.
So, as i press green buttons from gem into gpl, then it shows me the loverly pic of the (even more loverly) lotus and a header: """"" 1965 world champs etc.....""""
pressing more green buttons get me onto the watglen track and there , top left, is a big banner with the circuit and it says US Grand prix
Watkins Glen circuit
Track record 55.52 seconds

Now only I realise that maybe Surtees might have made the track record in something completely different rather than with a 1965 F1......................He might have done it on a flying sausage................
Silly me
Nevertheless, thanks for putting me straight, again.
Now i don't have to feel like a complete turd for being 16 seconds slower than Surtees.

[grego]

Gotcha John.
Yes , I can see that sitting "inside the car" feeling might improve things a lot.
It's not something i have yet approached, maybe later.
For me the important thing seems to be the concentration factor. The better the concentration , the more i seem to get "absorbed by the simulation", then i really drive the car.
I heard that some players actually have a proper mock up of a car and darken the room, put a helmet on and gloves etc etc.
While i never can see myself doing that, i can completely relate to what they are trying to achieve: 100% Simulation !

cheers

[sky]

no worries grego. i have a track somewhere showing someone's trackrecord of 8 secs. not that likely i'd say. and no, it's not a quarter mile dragstrip either , so whatever the ingame gpl screen says - it's not what you should aim for. oh also, i noticed that once i fiddled with the ai strength settings in gem - i had them set to 0.5 or so originally (FOOL!) - they were doing laptimes and speeds i couldn't match (in the '69s) even with no wings and incredible gear ratios. i was 20 kph slower in reims! small wonder they were faster than the actual records. and once they beat me to pulp in a race, their laptimes would stick as the laprecords on the track page. bummer. so i had to wipe them all again, after adjusting the ai speed to something sensible lol. might be what happened in your case to. ai going at 125% speed or something could probably pull a 55sec lap at the glen.

john, i'll try the cockpit cam file too once i'm back home (in 2 weeks). i've experimented a bit with fov stuff in the game before i left. but that was at a time where i couldn't get anything done after dropping like 50secs of my rank in a week or so lol. i had really low fov and also some fov up to 90ish i think, but without changing the camera position. and of course, if i could a)fford it or b)e bothered enough to actually build one, i'd prefer a mockup cockpit and a projector & screen to go with it to get the immersion going - a helmet and gloves and a matching overall (one of the gp originals remakes of the steve mc queen gulf jacket) now that's a bit over the top. the jacket might work, but gloves & helmet, nah.
seeing remco's setup in the unofficial beamer thread (it's called something else, like 200hz screen or so) in action.. wow nice! that got the envy levels up

[Paddy the Irishman]

Quote from Grego :- " objects ......... also travel into two different direction at the same time."

That is exactly what I feel is happening when I am trying to improve my laptimes

[grego]

[quote name='Paddy the Irishman' date='13 March 2010 - 10:41 PM' timestamp='1268476860' post='43561']
Quote from Grego :- " objects ......... also travel into two different direction at the same time."

That is [u]exactly[/u] what I feel is happening when I am trying to improve my laptimes :rolleyes:quote}

That's perfectly normal, you and the car are moving forward, and the trees and the spectators are moving backwards.............................
WARNING: Do not drink a couple of whiskeys and then look into the rear mirrors as you drive, you'll experience the universe expanding :lol:
Now, something completely different : Ever done any psychedelics ?

[Paddy the Irishman]

Strangely, or perhaps not, my fastest lap at Monza was one afternoon after a lunch which included two glasses of wine and a liqueur.  
Perhaps I was more relaxed.....

[grego]

Paddy the Irishman, on Mar 13 2010 - 04:55 AM, said:

Strangely, or perhaps not, my fastest lap at Monza was one afternoon after a lunch which included two glasses of wine and a liqueur.
Perhaps I was more relaxed.....

I think you might be right here with the relaxing bit. Of course all people have their own way of achieving this .
I find that i am also doing better when i am relaxed rather than being all "tensed up"
Cool, calm and collected.

[John Woods]

Confidence...because you know the technology
Courage...because you believe the technology
Calm Down...the technology will do the work
Concentrate...let the technology "happen."

Pedal to the metal.

[sky]

the thing with putting too much pressure on yourself is you're probably spending half the time thinking "try not to hit that wall this time", "brake earlier there","don't mess abo.. ach blast". at lest that's what happens to me all the time. i'm really at my best when i don't exactly think about what i'm doing but just do it. as soon as i start consciously thinking about what it is i am doing and how, it goes tit's up. every time.

[benzman]

sky, on Mar 13 2010 - 04:54 PM, said:

the thing with putting too much pressure on yourself is you're probably spending half the time thinking "try not to hit that wall this time", "brake earlier there","don't mess abo.. ach blast". at lest that's what happens to me all the time. i'm really at my best when i don't exactly think about what i'm doing but just do it. as soon as i start consciously thinking about what it is i am doing and how, it goes tit's up. every time.

This is probably why, when you check your times you find that your fastest lap wasn't the one you thought it would be.

[John Woods]

grego, on Mar 12 2010 - 04:20 PM, said:

quote But the real world is actually objectively there and there is external cause, whereas the virtual world is not actually objectively there, the user is the cause, (given the online caveat), and changes in virtual reality are the effect. Is the virtual world aposteriori, unlike Plato's cave, as the effect of conception is the cause of perception? end quote.

While I can greatly appreciate where you are heading with this, both old Tantric Bhuddist texts AND now any scientist that emerges itself into quantum physics will disagree with you on just about every level.
Platos cave with its assumption of "virtual world" versus "real world " is kinda obselete.

Now we are dealing with Quantum realms, where objects can paradoxically be in two places at the same time.
There, on a subatomic level, objects can not only be in two places at the same time but also travel into two different direction at the same time.


where are we heading with all this ?
I don't know but if i think about it too long i get a head ache

There was a theory back in the 1800s I think was called the Fitzgerald-Lorenz Contraction, that I recall had to do with the math of two straws traveling at each other, (way beyond my interest or diligence to master), which at that time was considered critical to understanding the nature of the Universe.  Thinking about your references led me to considering whether the interface of virtual reality and reality are not similar to both the idea of two exactly similar straws traveling through space and subatomic particles being in two places traveling in different directions. Strikes me there are lots of symetries.
Plato's guys in a cave is valid within the range of physiological perception and analysis of consequent conception of what a particular dataset of perception means. Its what humans do, not "what is."

Edited by John Woods, Mar 14 2010 - 10:49 AM.

[grego]

[/quote]
There was a theory back in the 1800s I think was called the Fitzgerald-Lorenz Contraction, that I recall had to do with the math of two straws traveling at each other, (way beyond my interest or diligence to master), which at that time was considered critical to understanding the nature of the Universe. Thinking about your references led me to considering whether the interface of virtual reality and reality are not similar to both the idea of two exactly similar straws traveling through space and subatomic particles being in two places traveling in different directions. Strikes me there are lots of symetries.
Plato's guys in a cave is valid within the range of physiological perception and analysis of consequent conception of what a particular dataset of perception means. Its what humans do, not "what is."
[/quote]

hhhhmmmm,yes, ahh, hmmm(scratching beard)...............hhhhmmm. Virtual reality versus reality OR realities........
May I ask if you have ever seen the movie titled : """"What the "BLEEP" Do We Know !? """"
That one will either twist your noggin or straighten it out
Still, highly recommendable