SimRacing.org.uk

Grid/server capacity: 28

Practice: ~19:20 (60 mins)
Qualifying: 20:20 (20 mins)
Race: 20:40 (40 laps)

Track: Lime Rock Park (No Chicane) Download this (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3358.msg81636#post_limerock)

Cars allowed: American 1970's V8's pack Download this (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3358.msg54518#post_american_v8)
                            AMC Javelin
                            Camaro Z28
                            Dodge Challenger RT71
                            Ford XB Falcon GT
                            Plymouth SC 'Cuda
                            Pontiac Firebird

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Start: STANDING
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal

Server: simracing.org.uk Mondays
Password: see above (#post_event_password)

Notes:
(1) It's best if all drivers can make sure they are connected before the Qualifying session as drivers on track during qualifying will not see cars that join after they are on track until they go back to the garage.
(2) Please make sure you are fully aware of the SimRacing.org.uk Rules.
(3) The AI control should be turned off so that you have control of the car at all times, including pitting. Your player file should therefore read
Autopit="0"
Force Autopit Off="1" // Forces autopit always off
No AI Control="1" // AI never has control over car
If you still finding pitting problematic, experience tells us that its less to do with positioning and more to do with approach speed. A slow approach to pit crew chief has proved most reliable.

Special Notes: Free choice of car.

I think this is the first 1-lane racetrack I've seen...  ;D

Did some brief track familiarisation yesterday and went online to make sure I was using the right track version.  Had some rather bad stutter online, but not offline.  Anyone else experience this ?

Cheers,
Erling

Not tried it myself but this is an old track that we have used many, many times in the past, and never had a problem.

Strange; I must test some more.

Btw, noticed when I downloaded the track, that Loch Rannoch is also available for GTL.  Used to be a favorite of mine, in TOCA Race Driver 2, before I went to GTL and never looked back :-)   Have you considered using it in one of our series Tony ? (Have no idea if the GTL version is any good)

Cheers,
Erling

Yes, Loch Rannoch has been used a few times in GTL.

https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&location=155&circuit=0

Ah yes, remember the jump from TOCA  :)   Hope you'll use it again in the future.

Cheers,
Erling

Hi Erling, i had similar problems at the Imsa race last week. Do you have Avast 2015 installed? If yes, try to shut it off during racing..
I will download the track tomorrow and give it a spin too. See whats what.

Hi Postal.  Thanks for the suggestion, but no, I'm on Norton AV, which normally isn't a problem - in that regards at least. It automatically enters 'discrete mode' when it detects a program running in fullscreen, but guess I must experiment some more.  Strange that it so far only happened online.

Cheers,
Erling

Indeed. i had stutter problems last race at Road Atlanta, but there where people having other issues too. I raced P&G at Donington last week without problems and also was online practicing this weeks combo at Charade. Also no problems (well, not with the pc anyway..).
Checked if your connection is set to ISDN?

Well, the plot thickens  ???

Went straight online when I came home, and stutter wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday - only noteworthy in the 2nd to last corner.

Connection was set to Cable/DSL. Tried ISDN, but if anything it made it slightly worse.  Then checked offline. Still a little better, but some slight stutter in the same corner.

Next I deactivated my anti virus (with GTL still running). Then went online, and now the bad stutter of yesterday was back!  So not the AV that's the culprit.

Wondered if testing offline before going online could cause it - would be consistent with yesterday too.  Restarted GTL, went online and had the moderate stutter.  Restarted again, went offline testing and then online, but still had only the moderate stutter. Bit of a mystery really..  :blink:

Cheers,
Erling

Perhaps it might be worth a fiddle with the graphic settings. To start with I would recommend taking the shadows setting down one click.

Lobby shows Monday track as Donnington Park GP, not Lime Rock ::) ???

Perhaps you need to install Lime Rock Bill  ;)

Lime Rock installed and used offline a number of times, will try uninstalling and re-installing later.

Lime Rock!!  ;) installed now,  in the absence of a Lime Rock Park file I used the first Lime Rock file I saw ie Lime Rock Mountain.  Must learn to read better or put my specs on.   :wheelchair: :oops:

Now have track which I now recognize as having raced here on a number of precious occasions.  :rockon:  Problem solved thanks Tony. :whistling: :notworthy:

Downloaded and installed this track yesterday evening. Went online for some laps and was running fine thanks.

Funnily while fiddeling with the graphic settings to tailor to my new screen resolution i found my framerate improved enabling the AA level at the config program. Seems my current GPU (radeon X800) really outperforms the CPU (Athlon XP2000+).

That's quite old kit Postal. I have an XP2000 with an Nvidia 6600GT that I used to use, but was retired to being a samba server
years ago  ::) the X800 will likely cope with more than the xp2000 can throw at it. This game is single threaded so dual core
doesn't help you.  :'(

Matt, where do you have the single threaded info from ?

I have for years been using a 'set affinity' program to start GTL, which should supposedly make it use more than one thread, but maybe that is superfluous ?

One the other hand, I'm not sure this old game is even maxing out one thread of a newer CPU, so may not be necessary at all (but with Postal's older hardware, it could perhaps make a difference ?)

Cheers,
Erling

This utility is helpfull too https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=12160.msg218224#msg218224

You can just say i have an ancient machine Matt. i wont take it personally! I know about the single core thingy. So i got me the fastest XP processor my Mobo would accept and overclocked it. Added some extra RAM memory and the X800 GPU. Was nice to do some pc improvemend myself. It will have to last just one more season as i am looking into buying a new(-ish) wheel first.
So yes in my case these settings can have substantial effect on framerate.

Chortle.
My comment about old machinery was more that I do try to not use tracks where the frame rate becomes undrivable
on older systems. I sometimes wonder if i need to.

@Erling: Have a look at this screen capture. it shows a spike as taskmgr starts, then a lap at Pau, followed by selecting a different track
and car, then a lap at Groen(something)ring in a yank tank. You can see that when on track the game maxes out one core
and between tracks it is just "busy" The other core is doing some background stuff, possibly network or disk access, but is not
running the on track game as such.

If you fire up a dedicated server on a 4 core system (our server is 4 core) then it only every uses one CPU, and it goes to 100%
as soon as anyone joins, however fast the hardware is.

I don't know how microsoft CPU affinity works, but in VMware if you set CPU affinity it always a bad idea because it forces the thread (vCPU
in that case) to have to run on one physical core, and share it with other threads, even if other cores come free.
ftp://phspok.dyndns-web/com/GTL1Core01.jpg (ftp://phspok.dyndns-web.com/GTL1Core01.jpg)

Interesting info Matt.  Think I'll try a test myself when I'm actually 'driving' in the game - playing back replays barely registers on the CPU usage.

With regards to stutters, I've discovered that it's apparently car-dependant.  My initial testing was done with the Challenger, and it stutters - it's even noticeable in replays.  Some of the other cars tested later does not have this problem; the graphics being completely smooth - again visible in replays.  Of course your mileage may vary, but it's the case for me.

Cheers,
Erling

No stuttering for me in any car.

Hi Guys. Just though I would say a quick hello. Have just joined up and am aiming to be ready for tomorrows race. Am racing as ccstevecc. My driving is hopefully better than using forums so I hope this message appears in the right place.

Steve

Sorry guys, but i can't join tomorrow night.
Is the birthday of my father and we will celebrate until late.

Have fun guys!

Jose (senyorlobo)

Is anyone able to help.

I am having trouble with pitting at Lime Rock. I suspect I have Autopit on, although I cannot bring the car into the pit box. Instead it parks itself about 20 yards further down the pitlane with no option of a board coming up.

I have read the post 6 November about the "player profile" reading Autopit=0 and Force Autopit=1, but I do not know where to find this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Steve, you shouldn't need a pit stop in this race. Also please read this post https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=11812.msg212761#msg212761

Your .plr file can be found under GTL/UserData/your name/your name.PLR

Thanks for the info and will check out the .plr location later.

BTW have you tried to join our online track yet?

Welcome Steve.
 Provided that you put enough fuel in, and don't sustain any damage during the race you won't have to do a pitstop. Avoiding pitstops is essential for me as my pitcrew are most unreliable and my race has ended whilst sitting in pitlane in about 90% of my visits there!!  If you want advice on pitstops.....do NOT ask me  lol!!


I only took a look at Lime Rock in GTL last night, thinking that I knew this track from GPL and so did not need to worry too much. I now understand Erling's comments!!!  

This GTL version has about 50% of the width of tarmac found in GPL. I think that there will be a few paint samples exchanged and maybe even a few door handles??  ::)

Yes and it all runs smoothly this end. Just the problem with the pitlane so it will be a no-stop race for me (there, giving away tactics before the race has begun!). I did find my .plr file but have not yet found the right program to open it and make those amendments you suggested earlier. Something for me to work on.

Thanks for the "advice" Clive. The problems I have with my .plr file means I will have to put in 40+ lapsworth of fuel on this one. Like you though, I've  always tried to avoid stop strategies unless racing on the longest of tracks.

Although I've downloaded quite a few tracks over the years, Lime Rock isn't one of them, so I've had to do a "crash" course the last few evenings to get to know its ways. Regarding the width, I was wondering which version was the more accurate but the narrow track will concentrate the mind, hopefully.

Steve, use any text editor e.g. Windows Notepad, Windows Wordpad, Windows Office etc etc. If you have Windows installed you already have Notepad.

A bit disappointing one for me - unable to match times from free practice.
Ran out of fuel around lap 32 and got 2 s & g penalties  :( but i really
like this track.

Good to see some new faces  :)

Lime Rock V8 Report (http://www.gt-legends.eu/UKGTL/Report/V8/LimeRock/index.html) (http://www.gt-legends.dk/GTLDK/images/smilies/this.gif)(http://www.gt-legends.dk/GTLDK/images/smilies/final.gif)

Cheers Pelle  :thumbup1:

Replay and results now posted.

Could marcfvs please fill in the drivers details in their profile.

A fine race  ;D for me
made up for my rubbish drive at Laguna.
I made a poor start but made a cheeky zoom up the inside of Erling into T1, managed to not cause a traffic jam
didn't feel any contact, but had to go up the grass to not trade paint, but it stuck, so off we went
Marc went wobbly after a bit and I nipped past, was sort of hangin on to Pelle's coat tails from a distance when he went off on the
last turn, then he did it again when he caught me up, after that with his pit stop i was concentrating on keeping
Erling and Marc at bay to the finish.

I enjoyed the race. Some interesting racing in the lower half of the field early on. Then I got separated from the guys in front by two recovering fast drivers and once gaped didn't have the pace to catch up. The race got very lonely for me and so became a bit of a cruise. :sleep1: The only other cars I saw were when I got lapped or lapped other drivers. I still managed to wreck the tyres.

I nearly made a faux pas on the last bend of the last lap when trying to be accommodating and let a driver past who had caught and seemed to want to lap me. I put a wheel off the track and ended up spinning into the Armco giving the driver behind a scare I'm sure and nearly taking him out. :scared: Sorry about that. So my previously unmarked car is now booked into the body shop. :oops:

Grats to winner and podiums. :clap:

Like to know what happened to Postal. And why Roger couldn't join the server?

Hope all the new drivers had a good evening. Great to have you all with us. Please join us again.

This was an enjoyable race on a great track.  Nice to see some new drivers and to have a large grid.  :)

Thought 3rd was home in quali, so cursed when Matt bested my time.  Cursed again when I saw Clive right behind me; knew he would jump me at the start, and sure enough, the wily b... did so, relegating me to 5Th..  ;)   He was courteous enough to hand me back 4th a couple of laps later, when he spun in the hairpin - and delayed my pursuer too, so much obliged Mr Evil  ;D

Tried hard to stay with the lead group, and at the same time slowly worked up a gap to cars behind me.  Borrowed 3rd briefly when Pelle went off. He was soon back, passing me at the end of the straight.  Borrowed 3rd again, when he fell off in exactly the same place some laps later  ;)  Knew it was more permanent this time, when I saw a pit message from him soon after.

Chased after Marc in 2nd, but made it harder for myself when I went wide in the hairpin, losing some 5 secs.  Later inherited 2nd, when he fell off in the same place as Pelle (what is it with that corner..  :D).  Couldn't catch Matt up front, but naturally very chuffed with 2nd, given the company.

Thanks to those I lapped for helping me past; traffic was a real issue on this narrow track, if you happened to catch people at the wrong place.

Grats to Matt, Marc and all who finished.  Happy to see Bill complete another race - hopefully he will soon have confidence in his PC restored.

Cheers,
Erling

Will certainly be at Mallory next week.

For family reasons its been a while since I was racing online. I was one of the "more sober?" drivers back in 2008 on Pelle's RDD server for a few years. Plenty of offline racing since then, but it comes a poor second to the buzz online gives you.

BTW, I think the match stats, spread sheets etc are fantastic. I wasn't expecting any of that when I joined.

Just a quick heads up to those who don't have an utility called XD installed. Get it!

It will provide on-screen fuel usage, tyre wear, race position and other fun stuff. Easy to install and modify to suit your requirements.

Find it here http://www.vitumo.de/

The next race in this series is at Sebring which will provide a huge contrast to the narrow, twisty Lime Rock circuit. We'll get to see how fast these brutes will go on those long straights and also be reminded of how poor the brakes are when you reach the end of those straights  :oops:

Erling mentioned lapped drivers... It's not worth incident reports
But, I assume it was a question of not knowing whether the guy trying to pass was
for position or not, but I was pretty severely blocked more than once while trying
to lap Huggy. For anyone who has trouble working out whether you are being lapped
or passed perhaps watch the top right list of race order and the gaps it shows
If someone has just zoomed up behind you and the next place back from you
is 10 secs, then it's not him, it's one of the leaders  ::)

Ta.

Don't think you get to see the race order unless you have XD installed, so there's another good reason for getting it before the next race.

EDIT: All though your pitboard will give you relative times at least once a lap.

They have brakes ??   ;D


With regards to lapping and XD; personally I have turned the positions display off, to unclutter my display.  I do keep an eye on the pitboard though, which shows the gap to the car behind (if any..  8)).  If in doubt about a car, I'll turn on the IFF (player tags) - if I'm not mistaken, it shows the position alongside the name of the driver.

Cheers,
Erling

Do you have a button assigned for rear viewing then? How can you see the tags of a driver behind you otherwise? They don't appear in the mirrors do they?

Yes I do; there's a 4-way view button on my DFP wheel, which I use to look behind me; and no, I don't have tags in my mirror either.

Cheers,
Erling

Yep

All that as well  :) Name tags are good, XD is helpful. I assumed everyone is using XD and name tags
and has a virtual rear view mirror, but that may not be the case.  :-\

Great great great track, yesterday seems a drifting track, not normal race.

Is the fisrt time to race in V8 league and the cars are very funny.

Thanks all for the race !!!

Good job Matt and Erling

So sorry about that mate; I spent the whole race trying to shake off Steve, and because the name tags don't show up in mirror images, and the time gap lettering is very small, I kept thinking he was right on my tail, and it turned out to be you! I don't think you were the only one, so apologies all round, I figured I was fighting for position :( .  The gap shown was frequently 1.5 - 2 secs (as far as I could tell). It's not such a problem in rFactor with it's large linear display and bigger text. Oh, and using the "look back" buttons here just made me go off the track... Anyway, as I'm so far off the pace, and to be honest these races are about 10 - 15 laps too long for an old fart like me, I don't think I'll be doing any more; it's not like I only just started simracing, so I think after some 6 years doing it online it's probably likely I won't get a whole lot faster...  However I will say I think these mods, and the way you guys run the races are both excellent, all the best and thanks.   Paul H.

Watched the replay, great racing guys, wish I could have joined you.  Grats to the podium and to all.  Tough track for the big iron.  Wife is progressing in therapy but they say it will be a long grind.  Have been doing a little driving on the Memorial track to learn it. Better be back for that one I hope.  That is one weird track, has everything in one little bundle!

Have fun Oldgeezer///Bob M.

Grats Matt, my concentration was not 100% today to tease you more  ;D
...& Grats to Erling & MaiPor  :thumbup2:...& Grats to all of us  :laugh:

T'last, I have lost count of how many times - 4 or 5 maybe - I lost it & had a walk out in the grass + a pitstop cost a minute...I never got the most out of  ::)
...but I had fun, especially the battle for 7th place - who said this track was narrow...Huggy, Misnoimis & I could run 3 wide  :thumbup1:
@Huggy: The best way to be good...is to run online (I've never driven GTL offline)...download XD files & you are ready for the next race  ;)

Welcome to the new drivers, which may have already seen the link to XD, but another thing I use 'Advanced Setup'...for me it is just as important as XD
Thanks to TEAM-GTLDK, we did really well  :punk:

Edit:Oops, I forgot one thing - I said my concentration was not 100% & also lost a race Sunday at Spa...but one thing I was finished, a skin to GT40  :P
A little fun when I built it, I came to big problems...& had to be helped here from UK
(http://www.gt-legends.eu/Fun/Pictures/Ford_GT40/6PB_GT40_LScg_Final12.gif)

Would be sad to see you go Paul :(  If you're enjoying yourself, then please consider sticking with us - anyone can make a mistake, so not reason enough to retire IMHO.  

Personally, I almost always only look back, when I'm on a straight section of track, as it's indeed too risky in the curvy sections.  

With regards to the readability of XD's displays; are you aware that you can scale the sizes to fit your screen resolution (and more or less worn eyeballs  ;)) ?.  I run on a 27" monitor with relatively high resolution, and thus had to make  XD's 'tech display' a little bigger, as I otherwise wouldn't be able to read the values at a quick glance.  You can change this - and the placement too I think, in the .ini file for XD (IIRC; am not at home right now so can't check).

Cheers,
Erling

I did almost zero preparation for this race and it showed! ::)  I knew the circuit layout from GPL and so did not even d/load the track file until Sunday evening, when i discovered that it was the "narrow" version.

I also skimped on car preparation and used the same chassis and setup as I used at Laguna Seca, which was probably not the best idea I ever had.

So, most of my preparation was during practice and qually last night where the choice of car and gear ratios proved to be a problem. The Laguna Seca gearing gave me good terminal velocity at the end of the straight, but was "off the cam" elsewhere on the track, but dropping the final drive by a notch made the twisty bits quicker and ran out of revs half way down the straight.....what a dilemma!! I had to opt for the longer gearing just to be sure that I did not trash the engine.

I did indeed jump Erling off the grid   ;D   and almost squeezed past Matt into T1 ( yes it was me not Erling  ;D ) but he was having none of that and stuffed his car down the inside forcing me wide and stealing one of my door mirrors.  lol.

The race from then on was great fun and trying to engineer a pass on another car was proved real challenge on such a narrow track, requiring a mistake from the intended victim. By half distance it was clear that i was carrying far too much fuel, but not enough rubber  :-\ and Doni was becoming very troublesome as he seemed to find some extra pace in his car. He did get past when I ran wide but returned the position a few laps later with a spin at T1.
I hoped to sneak away and hold Doni at bay, but he was relentless and by the time he caught me with 10 laps to go my car was driving  on the wheel rims. I think I finished the race with about 1 pixel of red showing on the rears and maybe 2 pixels on the front right ( The front left had evaporated at half distance!!).
Try as I might I could not go faster, and Doni took advantage of my lack of grip to pass me and hold the place to the flag.

Grats to Matt and the podium and specail thanks to all of those who were lapped and had to spend as much time looking in their mirrors as looking ahead on such a short circuit.

Please don't be put off by my comments Paul, you are most welcome here, we need all the drivers we can get  ;D
I just wanted to raise awareness.

I’d also say stick with it Paul if you enjoy it. I’m sure most of us have made this kind of mistake at some time. When I was behind you you’re driving looked fine. Personally I find XD and the rear view (not virtual) mirror a great help in these situations. It does take a little skill on some tracks to let someone pass safely.

I think what we want is more midfield to rear end of field drivers for the fast guys and aliens to overtake. Lapping slower cars is part of motor racing.
 
I’m sure for us slower mortals having someone to race against helps drivers improve plus the fact it’s a lot more fun.  ;)

Definitely stick with it if you enjoy it.  I usually finish races as the last runner - I'm way off the pace on most tracks but I enjoy it and these days spend too much time with one eye on my "virtual mirror".  I intend to continue as long as I'm enjoying my racing and not causing problems to other drivers!  ::)

No computer probs and new PBs all round.  ;D

Paul, you definitely must stay. We have drivers of all skill/age levels and it would be an awful shame if you felt you were not welcome here. I do appreciate that the longer races can get tiring but we offer various length events so do please try and attend the shorter races.
As for small text in XD.

Excerpt from XD.ini file

; MoTeC HUD Scale
; Note: Only the MoTeC-Display can manually be scaled.
; Everything else is scaled automatically according to your screen resolution
; If the MoTeC display is set to tab-mode, the other info is also scaled (Session-Info/Standings)
; Value given in percentage
; 100(%) Scale = 1024x768 = 1:1 = No Transformation
; 0 = Disable scaling
Scale=100

Not played with this but I would guess that if you changed the scale value e.g. up it to 120 then see how it looks and adjust accordingly.

That's correct Tony - I have Scale set to 150, which makes it sufficiently big in my case.

Cheers,
Erling

Hi Guys, good to see you all had a blast monday evening.
In qually i couldnt get the Cuda to do the laptimes of the frontrunners, however it was fun and stable enough so was looking forward to race the midfielders. Took it easy the first corners, then at the back of the track i pushed the button for rear view look to see what kind of gap i had to Eifelblitz, but that made my pc freeze up for a whole second. Then i found myself in the barrier and on my roof. !@#$%^&* Race over..

So it looks my pc problems are not quite over yet. Strange though as i don't experience it like that with the P&G races. I have GTL also installed on my laptop now, which has an i3 processor. I will see if that goes better)

@Paul, like Bill says. If you enjoy it, stick around. With growing grids again there is always someone to race you. We are all here to have some racing-fun, you're invited too.

Hi Tony, I understand that your message is because I don't select my nationality, is correct ??

My country not appears on the list, I am not a Spanish person, I am a Catalan person.  :yes:

I know that Catalonia is inside Spain but my heart is in Catalonia, Spain not represents me  ;)

We will see if we can sort that for you

...& now for something completely different:

Happy Birthday Tony  :jumpjoy:

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement, and I assure phspok, it wasn't your post putting me off, I realised myself that I had screwed up a couple of times, so fair comment on your part. It is really more down to the length of the races; I manage to cope with races of 30 minutes or preferably a bit less, reasonably well - luckily there are quite a few of those  over at Race2Play - but 40 minutes plus gets me to the stage where my concentration starts to crack, and the longer the race, the further behind I am at the finish, and the more ragged my driving. I thought that this series and the 50s Sprint one were the shortest available, and Monday evenings suit my week so went for those. I'll see how I feel when the next rounds come up, and thanks again for the positive response, chaps. 
    On a more practical note, I tried the "scale up" trick, Tony, but it seems only works on the MoTec display, which I don't really make use of - in fact I would disable that part of the HUD - not the standings and race info, those are linked to screen resolution. I have no idea what the line in the ini file that says "If the MoTeC display is set to tab-mode, the other info is also scaled (Session-Info/Standings)" means, but it is those two sets of data that I could do with being able to follow more easily, and which might help me be more aware of how far behind someone is.  And a happy birthday from me too, Tony,  thanks for the heads up on the...er...heads up anyway  :D.

I'll second that  :jumpjoy: :jumpjoy:

Cheers,
Erling

Yup! me too!!

:jumpjoy: :jumpjoy: :jumpjoy:

All the best, Tony  :punk:

Happy birthday Tony!  ;D

To Tony

Happy Birthday  :balloon: :jumpjoy:

From misnoimis

Thanks Guys

Many thanks and happy birthday !!!

Thanks for all the planning involved with the series and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

oldgeezer///Bob M