SimRacing.org.uk

Opportunity to grow those side-burns again once more for some GTL fun, ALL SimRacing.co.uk members welcome.

Would like to also turn this into a test of the driver limit of the SimRacing.co.uk GTL server. For GTR our driver limit is 24 (hardware limited), we'd like to see if it's the same for GTL or whether we can squeeze more of it (or less :-\).

Date: Sunday 8th January

Practice: 8:15pm (30 mins)
Qual: 8:45pm (20 mins)
Race: 9:05pm (23 laps) - STANDING START - Ford Escorts ONLY
(23 laps is about 30 minutes)

Track: Donington Park National
Race Time Of Day Setting: 08:00

Server: SimRacing.org.uk(UKGTL)
Password: usual practice password (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2929)

This will be run using the 1.1 patch!

Excellent, two GTL races in a week ;D

Cool....back to my golden youth in the days of sideways escort driving, before the Dark side brought out speed bumps, speed cameras and crap traffic control road layouts.....halcyon days 8)

Looking forward to this one.

Great car, will try to make it :)

hopefully be there, cheers,

Cods

Hey guys :)

What's GTL like?

Worth buying?

Dan

Oh yes! :D ;D ;D ;D

I'm going to announce this one to all the members to try and make it at least a 24 driver test of GTL which we haven't managed yet.

Count me in ;D

Hopefully have my upgrade completed by then, so it will be a good chance for me to test that with a large grid too ;D

Hi hope to see you all there .cheers gerald

Count me in, so long as I remember the date.

Will see if the RSms guys might like to join as well, Will that be ok Admin?

I'll try and show for the test.

I'm in, but my God the Escorts...gonna have to practice with those, not my favourit.
BTW: My online name is: [RSms]Ruskus

LOL, should have known the Escort would have attracted you lot . hehehe  ;D

 ;D I should be able to make it, see you there!

I'll try to make it for the test.

Cant make it guys I'm working 12 hr nights( Fri,sat,sun) bummer  :'( oh well I look forward to the next  :D

oops.

I do not know what you mean Leuven ;D. Will it be ok to let them know about this then? If you have enough guys from simracing to do this test then I do not have a problem if they can not join.

Cheers

The fun races are open to all simracing.org members BigG, feel free to invite others to join. Please do so by asking them to register on this forum. Please don't pass on race details and passwords directly. This helps us keep track of who is racing and avoid any confusion with our rules and starting procedures.

It's difficult to say how many will turn up for this, and we don't know how many the server will support.

I'll be there, missed the last couple of GTL nights .... and now I get to participate in 2 in quick succession! Woo!

love the escorts, good call. will be there!!!

Testing is allways useful, so I'll attend.   :)

There's another question, though. I was practicing for E-types at least two hours, fussing as I made little progress, until I discovered there were more than one types of this car (I bought the heaviest, lol). Bought the lighter one, made some laps with it, feels better, lap times came to 1:16. So I decided to show up for the race. And then what? One race of 10 laps, whats the point?  ???

The second race there were 10 ppl, after that there were 4 left, so I left as well.

One race, 10 laps, go. That's the interest in UKGTL.

And, of course, I'll participate even in that single race, 'cause of you, lot!  ;D

I'm in if that's ok with you lot, sorry for not making more effort !!

RS

We had 21 for the first race and about 14 at the start of the second, that's quite a lot of interest. Personally, I like short sprints for the fun races, because it gives us time to have a second race with a random grid afterwards. With such a short track maybe a few more laps would have been a good idea.

The point of the fun races is enjoyment and for us to learn a bit more about the game so we can plan the league.

I thought it was odd that we started with so many last night (probably the best attented fun race i have seen since i joined the league) and it was great to have a busy grid and track, but then everyone just disapeared really quickly ???

Was it the car/track combo ? Interesting to note that the mini fun race kept everyone glued to their pc's for about 4 races followed by 2 stang races after and yet everyone deserted this one after the first race :-\
I personally didnt enjoy driving the Jag around Dijon but thats cos i missed the whole praccy sesh again thru having controller problems and having to restart my pc....am i the only one suffering this? It is occuring at 2 out of 3 online events now, only in GTL (works fine in GTR), i either lose pedals completely or i get 2/3rds throttle. >:(

I think the Escort at Doni should be a very popular combination and really looking forward to it. 8)

I agree, 21 is ok. But, like Mark said, everybody just dissapeared. This seems more a politeness and "lets try it" than real interest to me. I hope it's the car, 'cause this track can be real fun with another car - Cortina, for example.

Don't wanna create bad atmosfere, so I'll quit yawning. I'm looking forward to Porsches.

Fun races are always like that - without championship aspirations to motivate we never get as solid a turnout for fun races.

I also lose all the controls from time to time Mark. Think this is a known problem with GTL, turning the force-feedback on and off fixes it, have you tried this?

As for losing the top of the throttle, I had this problem a lot with my Momo pedals. They would send a spike reading to the controller whioch would screw-up the auto calibration. The high reading could never be repeated, so I didn't get full throttle. Try checking the calibration in the windows game control settings to confirm this. With the Momo, I could reset the calibration and get full throttle again by unplugging the pedal calble and plugging it back in again.

Judging by the various fun race threads there is huge interest in GTL. 21 is a great turnout for a fun race, considering that quite a few of our GTR regulars don't have GTL yet. Mind you, I was also a bit disappointed with last night's race, there was too much contact for my liking. We've had more successful races, possibly the car/track combination wasn't the best for close safe racing. It was difficult to hold a line and stop the Jags from sliding sideways into each other.

Noobs lack experience, not thier fault, and not complaining, just means we have to work to support them a bit more. It's essential to attract new members, to refresh the ranks of those leaving, and support newer games, such as GTL.

I think, if possible we should concider moderating some of these, to increase understanding of what is, and what isn't acceptable and/or stupid. I know the early moderation of some the pre-S1 GTR races helped me know end.

Fozz

Thanks aagram, will try those things out next time as its getting very annoying and keeps costing me the praccy seshs just to get running properly.
This is all after a complete xp re-install/format too so shouldnt be a driver conflict.

Excellent point Fozz. I think those pre-S1 moderated fun races knocked most of the rough edges off me before the season started, they were an enormous help.

Pops

Aye, same here.

FWIW, I'd be happy to help out with a bit of ad hoc moderation if required, I know it's a lot of work.

There's a fix on Logitech's site to cure their pedal woes.
Alternatively [ALT] + F  resets the FF from in car while driving (GTL only), although it does nothing for pedal calibration I'd guess.

Particularly without reports, which aren't probably going to be too forthcoming for fun races, particularly from the ones that have yet to learn our ways.

I don't want to do moderation but if you want me to go through a race for incidents and report times to a Moderator I will.

Well, I wasn't engaged really in pre-S1 process, so I learned during S1, which (mostly) Fozzmeister can confirm as I punted him off at least twice. I try harder now, but he's faster nowadays and harder to catch into the rear.  :P

I'll try harder in GTL and maybe we can make contacts that we can get away with.  :)

We'll sort something out for the officially unofficial Season 0 events when they begin. Right now we're focussed more on technical issues.

IMPORTANT - I've increased the distance to 23 laps (which is about 30 mins, or 28 if you're Gregor Huttu). If there are lots turning up should make it better this way and we also get to test a longer race distance which is quite important. It will also be a change (which is a good as a rest) from our really short sprints.

Not totally decided yet, but this may be the last GTL fun race before we try some mini championships to nail down a GTL championship/s format (the officialy unofficial season 0).

Woo!  Roll on the mini-championships of official unofficialness (??).  I'll most certainly be signing up for that.

Nice, longer races. I hope I get past T1  ;)

Is that a mini championship OR a Mini Championship?  ;D

Hmm, thanks aagram and Mo for the pedal problem pointers. Have now found it is doing the 2/3rd throttle in GTR too >:(....weird as it used to be fine. Have found aagrams trick of disconnecting then re-connecting the pedals plug into the steering mount restores my full throttle. The bizzarre thing is i had to do it between every session of a quick race in GTR yesterday to get my full throttle working, so guess i will now have to get in the habit of checking it all the time ::)
Will investigate the logitech sites 'pedal fix'....bloody computers ???

I believe the key problem is bending in the plastic, and you can get to a higher number than possible without bending, so you drive on 98% throttle. I'd personally use DXTweak2 to set the throttle maximum slightly lower, so you can always get 100%, the tiny loss resolution is of virtually no consequence.

Fozz

For those who don't remember UKGTR Season 0, we ran a set of races as an unofficial championship, with no registration, but with incidents reviewed by me as chief moderator. The purpose was twofold; firstly, to iron out technical issues with the server and results and scoring system, and secondly, to help drivers understand what is expected and accepted in terms of driving standards.

At the end of Season 0, the results were removed from the league's database and any penalties handed out are wiped clean.

We will do the same for both GTL and rFactor before starting official seasons for those sims.

Will the server be available for (pre)fun multiplayer practicing?  :)

LOL, I just saw your post tom after I put the server up, so YES!

HEH! Ok, telepathy works! Hope to see some ppl there. I'll go now and later after 8 p.m.  :)

Out of interest, what settings will the server be running tonight? I only ask because 23 laps in an Escort will probably end in no-one finishing, they have a tendancy to blow up between 10 - 15 laps. We tried a 10 lap race last night with timescaled mechanical failures and no Escorts finished which probably means we all have to race with at least auto-clutch on as the rev limit cannot be changed.

I just thought you would like to know this, maybe even turn off the mechanical failures, I don't know, whatever you decide it will be fun i'm sure, might even have to take that big welly boot off my right foot.....!!

RS

23 laps which is about 30 mins at Donington National, mechanicals will be fine as we run "Normal Mechanical Failures" (No timescaling). Same goes for fuel use and tyre wear, all on "Normal" rather than timescaled.

As with any racing simulation from GPL, Nascar to GTR and GTL, if the engine is constantly red lined both accelerating and decelerating the engine isn't going to be happy. Running with auto-clutch off can be done, again like GPL the driver will need to remove his foot from the gas whilst changing gear (same as reality).

I'm for auto-clutch ON.

I drove on UKGTL server yesterday, more than 25 laps strait, with engine light red when switching gears up. No problem, no sign of tyre wear. Times were about 1:18 on average, so the pace was quite high. Ehm, at least I hope so...  :-\

Autoclutch off gets my vote, it's probably faster to shift manually in these cars and sounds great. IIRC escort doesn't need much of a blip to downshift ..

Hey RS. :) So you got your pedals sorted huh? Well I hope so, my DFP pedals are bad but not as bad as RevA ones.. thinking about getting that Thrustmaster RGT wheel to tie me over till I get some proper ones!!

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what are the implications of having auto-clutch off for starting?  I've got visions of stalling 4 times before even getting going.... (I've always run with auto-clutch turned on so I really haven't got a clue as to how it will affect me)./

None, providing you allow the revs to get high enough before engaging first, but without spinning the wheels ;)

It is obviously better if you have a manual clutch for pulling away, but not essential. Just make sure you match the revs when both up shifting and downshifting (lift & blip) and you'll be surprised how much better it seems once you get the hang of it  ;D

Jam's spot on- manually shifting is much more enjoyable, if you've the patiience to survive the fairly frustrating learning period!


That said, don't worry, simracing.org aren't about to suddenly turn autoshifting off for tonight and insist everyone shifts manually  :)

What's with all this autoclutch on/off discussion. I use autoclutch because I don't have a clutch pedal. If someone wants to use manual clutch he can use it but I wouldn't want manual clutch to be forced for everyone.

I'll probably join you tonight just to test my frame rates in the online traffic. I expect a slide show but will give it a try anyway.

Good to see you're still around Mat, see you later

I have manual clutch with my DFP wheel. But I only use (just like everybody else I guess) the clutch at the start, and blip while shifting. My clutch is my left paddle behind the wheel.

We have always allowed Auto Clutch for GTR I see no reason to change that for GTL or rFactor.
People can choose whether to turn it on or off.

Too many ppl. A rare problem, but proves I was wrong. There is a lot of interest in GTL, at least in an Escort RS and the least in E-type so far. 

I went out, hope you were able to find the limit of drivers. There'll be other races.  :)

See ya all on track. 

Well first time we had more than 19 people (35 we had when I was there). Unforunately it shows the limits of the server hardware to be the same as GTR (24 drivers) so for future races we'll cap it at 24. CPU was maxed out at 100% as usual, networking bandwidth was still only 13% utiliised.

Sorry for the problems, but we never had more than 19 at once before on GTL and didn't know what the limit for our server was.

Shame, was looking forward to some Escort fun too:   :-[

I'll stick up my 6 driver server for any stragglers that want a small race with me.

Hmm, I'm having trouble getting into your server. Is it still up Shark?

Edit: Never mind. Got in already  ;D

It was an important test, at least we know what the server limits are now.

Unfortunately we had a late joiner and there were 25 on the start line. There was a bit of warp, and I got taken out on the 1st lap when a car suddenly stopped dead in front of me. Was having fun working my way back through the pack and set a new PB of 1:18.4, until I spun and hit a barrier hard.

Thanks for the excellent turn-out. Very impressived by the times being set at the sharp end of the grid.

Great fun. Slidey little buggers those Escorts and the engine sound was really beginning to grate on my ears towards the end!

Plenty of Q2 chat from the new faces though. Don't know whether this carried on into the race because I just turned chat off. Also regular pit exits without looking that ruined two of my hotlaps :( I know this is a bit "belt and braces" but perhaps we could add a couple of lines in caps to each race event post that mention the rules for these regular issues. Don't mean to sound hostile guys, there were some great, clean, spirited new drivers tonight and hope to see you all again but, particularly with just driving straight out onto the track without looking, there's no excuse.

First of all a big appologie to Matjaz for taking you off on lap 22.  I got a bit over exicited and messed up,  I did wait for you but you left, please accepte my applogies.

On to the race, wow what an intense experience.
Qualed in 9th I think, with a new pb.
Managed to get up to 4th at one stage with some great battles along the way with Rich and Madds, really good stuff.
New I had no chance of finishing where I was as I could see a couple of the faster guys catching me.
Had a very frantic last few laps with some very close racing, again great stuff until I knocked Matjaz off.
Finished in 6th, should really have been 7th.

Tonight was the most fun I've had online with GTL.  It was looking like a bit of a dud when 35 people were logged on, but when it dropped down to 25 it was business as usual.

Started 16th (I think) and got up to 11th before locking the brakes on T1 in lap 20 and hitting the wall hard....still managed the 2 remaining laps and finished a whisker ahead of the guy behind me (I forget where I finished).

Loads of overtaking, and was all clean from what I saw.  Took a second of my qualy time in the race, so well happy with that.

Another cracking evening's racing, cheers all.

Looks like I'm in a minority here, hate the GTL Escorts compared with the GTR mod we raced somewhile ago. Alright I've not raced that for ages now but from memory those cars felt more alive and communicative. I certainly enjoyed racing them, but not these  :'( Tonight I had no feel for what was going to happen under braking. I either locked a wheel or the car refused to slow down. Couldn't find a happy medium.

Yea speeding on pit lane and not looking in mirrors before exiting is totally disrespectful. I use look behind and even look behind + look left/right if the exit is off cente.

Good racing in Escort, had some good racing with a few other cars - turned in on someone cause my nose was infront!! Spun round and stalled it, couldn't start it for about three minutes lol!! Got a 1m17.8 somehow though so not bad.

At practice and qualification I was starting to get a bit afraid about the pings. But at the start it was all well.
In qualification  I drove a 1:16.9xx, but I had some problems with people not showing up in display, so I had to rejoin, losing the time  :-\. After rejoin I only had 3 mins left and couldn't get that 16 out anymore so I qualified 3rd behind Franky and S!d. Just like in the Jaguar, my start didn't fail me and I overtook them taking first place.
It were 23 intense laps with Franky behind me a couple of seconds. I was afraid of blowing up my car in the race so I was shortshifting alot. The most difficult thing lapping people. Most of them got  out of the way (thanks for that), but some didn't move or crasht infront of me.
After 23 laps I was glad to finish in first, knowing that this Escort is not my favourite.
See you next test/race.

Started dead last because I was reconnecting and setting up my graphic. I turned everything to low with dx7 and in the race I still got 20 - 30 fps which is not enough for me. I tried to do some battles and I'm sure I would have enjoyed if it wasn't for the bad fps. Still I managed to climb to 6th place before I got hit from behind. No big deal Greg but I decided to exit because the race was nearly over and I saw enough to say that GTL is a bit to demanding for my PC at the moment. But boy this game can provide some fascinating racing.

Hey Matjaz have u tried disabling all trackside characters in .plr.. also low player and opponent detail, medium shadows, and medium track detail make quite a difference!!

They aren't my favorite car either Picnic, I find them unpredictable under braking.

I should have practiced more, but I must say after racing the porsche mod on rFactor the escorts seemed a little "dead" and "disconnected" tonight

Great minds and all that Jam- was just thinking the same.

Why couldn't you post this two minutes sooner?  :'(

Went to practice Spa instead.

Thx for putting up the "mini" server Shark.

Got to agree with some others, not to impressed with the escort. It was all understeer and not half as much fun as old GTR mod. I wondered if it just felt odd after too much PCC but I also had a short race in the mini and that felt so much more connected. For me, that has been pretty typical of the rather underwhelming 76er's and I will be sticking to rather better 65's for any league, if I get in.

Shame I missed your server Shark. Had done a few laps prep for that race
Thought it was better to let our guests race and so I dropped out. (1 brownie point please ;))

I think the 76 cars feel odd too, but I think that's more that that was 70s GT cars for you, too much power and not enough grip.

The 76 cars seem to need much more in the way of setting up the car to make them driveable than any of the 65 cars or in fact GTR cars which all drove out the box (Porsche's excluded).

I think there's more to it than that. I suspect that the suspension design is more complex than the '65 cars, which means that there's more grip but more complex characteristics, plus the '76 cars have a certain amount of aerodynamicly generated grip which always makes things less predictable.

Of the 76 cars, I like the two Porsches and the lower powered BMW CSL, I find them easy to drive on the default setups. The rest are a bit unruly.

Thanks guys for letting us join last night, I had an OK race ran 2nd for some time whilst towing Franky around behind me, I was trying to save the engine but it appeared to me that everyone else was thrashing them and no failures...hmm oh well I know next time. Franky later overtook me and what seem to me, almost stopped to go through the chicane, well I was commited to take the chicane at normal speed so I had to swerve to miss him ending up in the tyres. manage to come back on still in 3rd but S!d was much faster for some reason, maybe it was thew rubber in my radiator grill...... Made a few more mistakes and ended up 5th in the end.

I would like to congratulate Ruskus on his win, shame we couldn't of had that one two for RS Motorsport :)

On the point of the Escort I think it is a bit more life like than the GTR Escort, I admit they were more fun in GTR but not very realistic, they were more like rally cars.... I've had one and you don't drive it like that !!!

As for PCC, very nice mod but I really don't like the rFactor FFB, whilst you have a lot of feed back when you have grip, when you loose grip it is awful, the cars swap ends with no warning..... I think they are still way behind GTL/GTR in the respect.....This is only my opinion.

Thanks again for the hosting, it was well good :)

I wonder Dave, if you have a moment would you mind sending me you sever spec as we have been looking into getting our own server and I would be interest to know if the package we are looking at will be enough...

Thanks again

RS

PM'ing you RS

Glad to hear there was some good racing, i didn't mind droping out, still learning on all games at the moment.

quick question(should probably post elsewhere or google)

I run the non-dx dedicated server for GTR on a spare machine and it works well (my mini-server), is there an equivalent i can use for GTL?  Practising with AI is getting frustrating (there isn't a level between am and semi-pro?)

Sorry I didn't make it guys - tried to connect, but it wouldn't go through, so I gave up and went to bed! (been doing too much work recently). I guess I tried to join when the server was struggling with the load, perhaps.

It's not as good as GTL and GTR I agree. The new unreleased patch has lots of new FF tweaks available apparently, but not sure that's the answer, I mean how long does one want to spend ****ing about the FF to get what you get out the box with GTL/GTR. However I do like the PCC cars, the physics underneath some a lot more alive than GTR's Porsches.


Yes. There is only one GTL dedicated server and it's noDX/noCD straight out of the box.

You can tweak the AI levels to get them right in your .plr. Lot's of people say Semi Pro is too slow and Pro too fast. I run at Pro level now after tweaking the AI to be a bit slower, they're just right for me now. Look for the following in your .plr file and reduce by 100th until you get the speed you want.

AI Brake Power Usage="0.98000" // Fraction of theoretical brake power that AI attempt to use
AI Brake Grip Usage="0.97000" // Fraction of theoretical brake grip that AI attempt to use
AI Corner Grip Usage="0.93000" // Fraction of theoretical cornering grip that AI attempt to use

Hi I tried to drive with the default settings it was undriverble for me . I ended up in the barriers with understeer.That Escort when run in mod saloons cornered like it was on rails.Similar to how it is with the aids on in novice mode. cheers gerald

Thanks for that Shark, i'll load GTL on my server machine and try it.  I hope to run small practice sessions for the UKGTL season 0, if the main server is being used for something else.

Unless you want to practice alone, let us know the timing and the magic word.  ;D

Sorry could not make it, arsing with PC and a shed loads of other stuff happening that weekend made it an impossibility.