SimRacing.org.uk

(http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p195/goldytops60/2014-07-25_00002_zpsce33c0bf.jpg)

Booking: From 19:00 (BST) (60 mins)
Practice: 20:00 (15 mins)
Qual : 20:15 (15 mins)
Race: 20:30 28 Laps (approx 30 mins)

Cars allowed: BMW Z4 GT3, McLaren MP4-12C GT3, Lotus Evora GTC, Lotus Evora GX.
Track: Silverstone International
Time of Day Setting: 13:00
Weather: Dry
Start: Standing

Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal
Pit-stops: None required

Server: simracing.org.uk
Password: Our usual practise password

All drivers must be booked in to race before booking closes at 20:00 UK time.

SROUK proudly presents a series of weekly fun races using a variety of track/car combos in Assetto Corsa early access. There will be no moderation of events or posting of results but drivers are of course encouraged to uphold our usual standards of excellent driving to ensure maximum enjoyment for all.

Have fun  :)

This race is specifically to test the dynamic track settings and your post race feedback will be appreciated.

What's the track setting going to be?

A practice server is up, for this test the current track settings are

SESSION_START=85
RANDOMNESS=0
LAP_GAIN=10
SESSION_TRANSFER=0

Note that damage, tyre wear and fuel consumption are all set at 100% of the server too.

Nice, look forward to it :)

if you leave session_transfer=0 does it transfer the grip from prac to qual to race or does it restart each session?

I believe this means that each session would start at 85% having had 0% transfer of grip from the previous session. This is a nice simple setting to start our tests and we can explore further options in future races. I think there will be lots of development in this area from AC over the coming weeks and there are also whisperings of more complex tyre modelling being developed  8)

Edit: Just to add that with the server set as above, if we have 10 drivers lapping the grip should build up by 1% each lap so around lap 15 we should be reaching optimal grip levels (optimum being the level at which we have been racing up till now). More drivers = quicker to build up, less drivers = the track will take longer to reach optimum grip.

It's on the wrong Silverstone  ;)

Doh

Hopefully that's fixed now

Just been on the server (with the full GP track) to test out the grip and car, Jester was there too.

Not sure if grip improves in qually over praccy but I pumped in a 2second quicker laptime in qually than I managed in practise!  :o  2:15.1 praccy, 2:13.07 in qualifying sesh  :)
Cars feel properly 'on it' around here and you really have to push to be quick. Great fun  8)

I think you just got more used to the car, track and grip level, the track indication for quali was 85% grip same as pracci.

ive got a server running on a loop.

ChrisR Race Server - simracing.org.uk practice server
password = 12345

10 mins - prac
10 mins - qual
5 lap race.

damage is on, fuel and tyre wear on 100%

ive set it to startgrip to 85% and ive made it so it doesnt transfer over so you can see the changes..

ive done a lot of real life track time and i think that 85% start grip is too low, i will play about with it and see if i can find a value more realistic then i will offer my findings here for consideration.

ive noticed aswell that the track actually rubbers in with a darker line.. it isnt dynamic as the track grip stays the same all over the track but its nice to see.

Lap 1
(http://i904.photobucket.com/albums/ac245/Chrisr1984/lap1_zps539e601e.jpg)

Lap 2
(http://i904.photobucket.com/albums/ac245/Chrisr1984/lap4_zpsccbe76fe.jpg)

That's pretty impressive Chris, hadn't noticed the track visually rubbering up like that but I'll pay more attention next time I practise. Do you need any special settings such as max world detail in order to see that?

Regards the 85% starting grip, it just seemed like a nice figure to start from; not so low as it feels like ice driving but low enough to discern a build up over a few laps. It's early days for this feature and I expect (hope) it to develop into something more sophisticated in the coming weeks.

Cool,  8)  I thought I noticed that too earlier on a couple of corners but thought my eyes were deceiving me! Nice touch. I also thought the track was getting grippier as it rubbered in  :-\ but sounds like it's not dynamic yet, be even better when it is.
Actually, thinking about it, I found the track grip wasn't the same all over the surface. Try going off the racing line and it seemed less grip to me to the point of being noticeable...unless it was a placebo effect! Interesting.

there is an app called car physics and on that it tells you what the track grip is.. there is no difference between on the line and off the line..

my settings are maxed bar HDR so i wouldnt know..

also a setting which felt good to me bearing in mind the tyres were cold was 92%, it may be that you have to add more laps before it adds a % of grip but i shall mess about tomorrow and do more testing.

Don't know how the booking system works but any chance it can be extended into practise? I'm going to be hard pushed to get in before 8 on weds eve  :( whereas I should be good for joining before qually.
If not then just have to see if I can beat the clock. :-\

Gonna jump online for some praccy if either our or Chris' server are up now?

GTL's running now MJ but I'll kick off AC asap

Server was up when I got on thanks  :)

1:10.0 in the Evora GTC. And 1:10.1 in the Mclaren. Only did a handful of laps in each with 30L fuel onboard.

I've been running 1:05's in the Beemer using Eriks Monza setup with a tweak to gearing. Could probably go a little faster with a few tweaks. Didn't notice too much change in grip through a race session no Chris's server but that was only 5 laps with only 3 of us running around and my "feeling" of grip isn't that well established to be honest. Bob was on there and seemed quick in the Lotus and he had me well beaten off the line. Why can't I put it in gear and drop the clutch to get away ? Guess I'll have to practice or my back end will be damaging somebody's front end.  :o

1:05's?! Bugger, I'd best get some practise in  :laugh:

Not a fan of this config, it's missing nearly all the best corners of silverstone!  Left with a collection of Mickey Mouse corners :clown:

Yep 1:05s was my test time for these cars. Only chose the mickey mouse version because it was short and would allow more laps for us to judge track evolution  ;) Feedback on this will be appreciated fellas  :thumbup1:

my server will be up most of the night.

be on there in a mo if anyones about?

err, sorry whats the pw?

bob and sutol are on atm i believe. ;)

so would I be if I could get on  ;)

edit sorry just seen it on page 1..doh!  :-[

hmm, you 1:05 guys sure your practising on the right track grip?  I jumped on Chris' server (which had 100% grip) and put in 1:05's within a few laps in a couple of cars. But then I jumped back into the srouk server at 85% and it was like driving on ice in comparison, I was struggling to get the power down anywhere in the Z3 and it kept oversteering in the faster corners and went back to the 1:10's and 11's  :-\

Yes MJ this is where posting times can get misleading. My times were those set with optimal grip on medium tyres with race fuel after a few laps.

Well what's the point of posting times set on a 100% grip surface when the idea of this race was to get feedback on the lower grip surface  ??? Weirdos  ;) ;D

I'll be in the Evora GTC tonight.

Server up accepting bookings.


Sorry MJ forgot about this  :-[ I think if I know your intentions in advance I can reserve you a place using the entry_list.cfg file. However I'd need to know you magic driver number. I'm sure someone will be along to explain it properly and we can try that in a future event.

have you got the session to transfer the grip ?

For this race there was no grip carry over, each session started at 85%. I'm sure we'll test this at another time.

Not sure what the problem 1st time around was. I managed an out lap without issue then as I started my 1st flying lap the cars in front started to jump around and it seemed to get worse as time passed. Typically the current AC server implementation doesn't help us diagnose the problem. The AC program uses a single core and maxes that core out, even during the booking period when there is no reason for it to. We've successfully run 10 car grids before without any lag issues, and what we saw tonight was not lag IMHO. The cars were not even on the track half the time and at the start of qual, with the cars in the pits, they were jumping wildly all over the shop.

The HZ setting we discussed a bit in chat was set on 15 and when I restarted I did reduce this to 10 but I'm not convinced that was our problem. I thought this setting was more bandwidth related than CPU and when it was all going horribly wrong I connected to the server and the network utilisation was running at around 2Mbps. Hardly straining the server or its network.

Assuming GT doesn't mind I'll go back to the 15Hz value for the next race.

That was a cracking race. Getting a banker lap and then timing a second run to catch the track at its grippiest felt like a new dimension to quali for me. The race was also very absorbing for me especially trying to judge how much speed I dared to carry into T1 as the track evolved. Some great side by side stuff with Chris too who certainly knows his race craft  8)

I wanted to keep the grip low to start with as it was easier to appreciate the change and so we could test how it worked. My own view is that the race started a little too green, but also seemed to change a little too quickly. A higher starting grip and lower build up per lap would probably work better for GTs as I'm sure they don't lay rubber down that quickly in RL.

I propose we try a similar event next week. I don't want to introduce any carry over of grip from session to session or randomness just yet as I believe it will cloud the testing. I think finding realistic levels first and then tweaking is the way to go as I think we'll learn more that way.

Thanks for all who raced and thanks to Pete for rescuing the night with his server juggling  :thumbup1:

Read this on the AC support forum (http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/update-0-21.12363/page-42)


    I am going to assume your 1.5 megs up and 15megs down is in Megabits to figure out what that is in KiloBytes is roughly 10% of the Megabits speed we will ignore the down speed as its not that important when hosting.

    Your upload speed equates to about 187 KiloBytes so I would imagine at default 15Hz with 12 players you are pretty close to the max your upload can handle if you increase the Hz to use more bandwidth you will no doubt have to reduce the players as each player will be using more KiloBytes.

    If look at my sig I have 125Megabits down and 11Megabits up my upload equates to around 1375 KiloBytes.

    This is the table kunos posted, you could try a Hz of 20 but I would start with say 10 players max to see how it handles or just leave it how it is currently as you are probably close to maxxing your upload.

    Clients = Kilobytes /sec upstream

    5 = 23KB/s
    8 = 66KB/s
    10 = 106KB/s
    15 = 247KB/s
    20 = 448KB/s
    25 = 708KB/s
    30 = 1026KB/s

Hope it's in any way helpful.

What exactly are you testing? Im a bit confused..

Starting grip is most realistic at about 90-93% going from my own testing and my own real life experience. Based of starting on a cool dry track.

The gt cars do lay down grip quite fast, the speed of change was probably about right but the starting grip was deffo wrong, but like you say its testing and i can accept that.

I enjoyed the race :)

I've posted there about our problem

Not sure how this warning is manifested on the server but I've not seen it.

With our upload of 12500KB/s we should be able to host 30 cars at 100Hz based on that and still have headroom ;)

It appears there are others seeing the problem we had last night and on better spec machines with faster connections!

http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/teleporting-cars-in-race.12461/

Had a great race too for most of it, fun hustling these beasts around.
We could run a Blancpain style sprint and endurance series with this gt3 class  8)

Had a great chase with Picnic for the first 13 laps glued to his derrière. Only his Z4 power got him out of trouble down the hanger straight every lap! Then on lap 14 I got a tank slapper going into T1 and lost about 8 seconds :(
Had a bit of a lonely end to my race as couldn't claw back that time to guys ahead until the penultimate lap when poor Bob had an off in his Evora allowing me back to 6th.

Loved the way the track rubbered in and cars looked great  8)

 :) :) :)  Twenty six laps, never put a wheel wrong, then two stupid offs on next to last lap ruined my evening. Having said that, the way the grip improved lap after lap and the way the racing line darkened added to the experience. Looked at the replay and ChrisR and Goldtop were on another level. Another ten cars on track would have been much better.  This Assetto Corsa just gets better and better. Thanks for the server and combo, Bob.

Quite a fun race once we got under way. Surprised myself with my qualy efforts and expected to be swamped off the line but got away pretty well and enjoyed being on the tail end of the "quick" guy train for two or three laps. It was a nice sight seeing the line of cars running down the back straight  8). Eventually I started to drop off the pace though but had a sudden surprise when I came across AkiProst and Erik having a bit of what seemed like a gentlemens excuse me close to the end of the lap. It looked like they were both saying "After you.... No, after you" so I just drove through the middle and tried to get a gap before they sorted themselves out  :D Erik eventually caught me and we had a good few laps before Erik worked his way past and I had an off after realising I had made a little too much effort to get the place back so Ilet it run off into the kitty litter. This probably gave picnic the chance to catch up and, again, we had a good few laps before he got past about two or three from the chequered flag. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

As far as the track conditions are concerned, I'm not sure if my skill level is up to perceiving much improvement in the grip. Whatever sim I've raced I've always tended to run consistent lap times from start to finish. I did feel a bit of change last night, nowhere near as radical as rFactor2 gets with it's rubber laying down effect, quite subtle probably which is how I assume it to be until optimum grip is reached.

I have to agree with MJ that these cars seem to provide the most enjoyment for me (although the Cobra does make me smile immensely and I am realtively happy with the feel of the Exos and F1 replicas) but I think I still have a way to go to get a good feel yet where I can do what I imagine I should be doing. I'm not good at braking unless I do it in a straight line, that's where I need practice.

Good fun though and looking forward to the next one.

Can the change in grip level be mentioned in the top post, maybe what its going to be set to so we can practise it?

I thought i'd adapted to the lack of grip in the practise and qually but come the race it felt even worse, the car just seemed slow, i thought maybe my pedals had stopped working. It took a while before the times came down to what i thought i should be doing. Though after a few more offs towards the end i thought i'd park it, though thought i'd drive into the pits to see what would happen, pit stops etc but nothing happened ???

Definitely better cars to drive than last weeks, shame about the track config, i dont think i ever managed the corner on the hanger straight right.

This definitely has promise going forward, but is it going to support long races, pitstops etc?

Good idea, I'll post up next week's race tomorrow evening all being well (GTs again) and include the track conditions.

No pitstops, weather or night racing in v1.0 AFAIK but are all planned for future development.

What's the secret to race starts in AC? It's ridiculous you can't put it in gear on the start line until the lights go green  ???  Yet I notice a lot of you steam off the line quickly while I don't! Do you guys use auto clutch ?

Depends on the shifter used for the car. I use flappy pedal and h-shifter, dependent on what AC gives me to use. With h-shifter I set it in gear and push down the clutch and give some throttle, when the lights go I give more throttle and try to release the clutch gradually. With the flappy-pedal I just give some throttle and when the lights go I flap it in gear (no brakes or clutch).

I would personally not like to race gt's straight away.. There are loads of cars and car combos we can use.

Maybe even some one make races possibly?

Understand that Chris and I have run a few different flavours over these weeks and will do so in future. Modern GTs have a strong following here and AC could eventually be a successor for GTR2 so I want to make sure that we understand these settings and get them right. The following 2 events will be GTs. Next week we'll have the grip for each session starting at 90% and if that goes well the following week we'll look at % transfer of grip from different sessions. Once we're happy with this, other car types will also benefit from racing on "realistic" tracks.

Is there any way the server can be set so that quali doesn't end so quickly (as we do with race sessions)? Would be nice to be able to cross the line with a second to go and then be able to complete a timed lap.

i'm confused as to why it takes so long to test these settings.

we already know to set it at 92%-94%% grip, enable grip transfer at 100% but have gain per lap set to a number where by the time the race starts its at about 97/98% that way the track starts the most realistic for a green track in summer and the buildup during practice and quali still be a challenge. (ill say it again, this is based on my own real life racing experience taking track temps, tyre temps and compounds into consideration) not having grip transfer between sessions is silly, the guys on teamspeak were a little disgruntled about it and it was the reason for 2 dropouts.

could you also add in the P4/5 Competizione into the mix as it is a decent competitor for the GT3's :D

Evidence? Data? You keep coming up with these figures but how do we know these are correct. What "real life racing experience" do you have exactly? Name a RL event where practise, quali and race follow directly after each other and track conditions are retained from one session to another.

I have zero "real life racing experience" so I'm not about to dictate what settings we run based on what I think is correct. The track settings AC provide in their presets seemed far too low and unrealistic to me but how am I to know? They presumably have the data and a real track to test on  ???

15+ trackdays in street cars to single seaters starting from 9am all the way to 5pm in varying weather conditions and temps.
3 seasons of UK time attack with warm-up, practice, qualifying and then a race (with monitored tyre and track temps)
i have done 100's of hours in a real cars, with all sorts of tyres in all sorts of conditions..
ive even built my own track focused racing car (4 seconds slower than a mp4-12c gt3 car on a track we have both been on)

Id like to think that i have an idea of what feels realistic between the game and real life. Kuno's offices sit in the middle of vallelunga racetrack so id like to think they have done their fair share of data aquisition on what feels right and wrong.. tbh the presets feel pretty close to what i think they should be anyway.

the only thing you could add from a gameplay perspective is the amount of time it takes for the track to rubber in which is why i said test what grip_gain is needed to go from starting grip to start of race with 100% transfer rate.

i dont want to argue with you, i just want to drive with lads on different configs/combos and have a laugh.. and im trying to save you literally weeks of testing.

there is a bug atm with the flow control option, it needs to be un-ticked in the launcher.. it would explain why we were getting bouncy cars even tho the hertz were at an acceptable level.

These are the presets that you say feel close to what they should be. Note the session transfer values....

[DUSTY]
SESSION_START=83
SESSION_TRANSFER=50
RANDOMNESS=10
LAP_GAIN=18
DESCRIPTION=A very slippery track, improves fast with more laps.

[OLD]
SESSION_START=86
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=30
LAP_GAIN=50
DESCRIPTION=Old tarmac. Bad grip won't get better soon.
 
[SLOW]
SESSION_START=94
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=15
LAP_GAIN=60
DESCRIPTION=A slow track that doesn't improve much.
 
[GREEN-]
SESSION_START=92
SESSION_TRANSFER=90
RANDOMNESS=20
LAP_GAIN=10
DESCRIPTION=A clean track, gets better with more laps.
 
[FAST]
SESSION_START=97
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=20
LAP_GAIN=20
DESCRIPTION=Very grippy track right from the start.

[OPTIMUM]
SESSION_START=100
SESSION_TRANSFER=100
RANDOMNESS=
LAP_GAIN=1
DESCRIPTION=Perfect track for hotlapping.


But those presets are different to what you are suggesting here....


I can't imagine any track retaining 100% of the grip it builds up over a race weekend. Different tyre compounds from support races will affect that let alone the affect of changing day/night conditions.

Let's see how this setting works out for next week...

SESSION_START=92
SESSION_TRANSFER=90
RANDOMNESS=
LAP_GAIN=10

With 10 cars on track, that should increase grip by 1% per lap and transfer 90% of that increased grip to the following session (which I still think is a bit high for what it's worth). We'll need to monitor how much gain there actually is from the end of one session to the beginning of the next to check if this is actually doing what it's meant to do.

Edit: had to put a - after the GREEN heading as the text editor turned the rest of the post green ::)

I was refering to the green track only.

The thing is.. In ac we are instantly going from practise to qual to race.. So if you did that in real life the grip from the track would remain the same as long as the weather conditions didnt deteriorate etc.

So you would want to transfer the grip at 100%

Anyway, its your server, you do what you want. Ill come back in a couple weeks and see what you have decided to stick at then ill decide if i will keep racing here.

But we are trying to replicate a race weekend, there will be a time gap between each session. I wouldn't be surprised that we might end up with random rain between sessions so sometimes we get a grip transference and sometime not ;) I'm sure the race announcements would be tweaked to include pointer information (rain showers between prac and qual or heavy downpour etc) I'd expect there to be some secrecy in the exact track grip levels if this was adopted. Personally, as I get so little time to do any practice, I'm not keen on widely different options that require practising of each grip/weather possibility.