SimRacing.org.uk

Season 31 Privateers Trophy - Round 04 - Spa '67

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1967 season, the UKGPL season will take place on 10 of the 11 original circuits. For the fourth round of the season we continue the European leg at Spa-Francorchamps in the Belgium.

Designed in 1920 the original triangle-shaped course used public roads between the Belgian towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy, and Stavelot. The track was intended to have hosted its inaugural race in August 1921, however the first car race was held at the circuit in 1922. Spa was the fastest road circuit in Europe at the time, and it had a nasty reputation for being dangerous and very fast- it was a circuit known to be one for the brave, and most drivers were frightened of it. The old Spa circuit was unique in that speeds were consistently high with hardly any let-up at all for 3–4 minutes. This made it an extraordinarily difficult mental challenge (& ridiculously easy to crash).

This is the only race in Season 31 where we don’t use am original Papyrus track, but the beautifully crafted Spa '67.

Note the Privateers division is run on Intermediate damage settings. Drivers are permitted 1 Shift R followed by a Stop & Go in the pit lane within 2 laps. Failure to make a stop will result in a 30 second time penalty. If you require a stop & go on the final lap & are unable to complete a time penalty of 15 secs is added.

Race List = iGOR
Server = UKGPL_8
IP = see iGOR
Race date = Sunday262-03-2017
Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT+1)
Track= Spa`67
Race length = 15 laps (50 minutes)
Variant = 1967
60fps patch used   = 60fpsV2newmod
Damage Model =  Intermediate
Qualifying time = 30-45 minutes
Replays Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season31/Grads_Privs/)

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=593&theme=6)

The full time drivers can start to practice as soon as the server is available.  Reserve drivers can also join as soon as the server becomes available but must leave the server with 35 minutes of qualifying left, for a total of 5 minutes; this will allow any remaining full timers to join.  If there is enough space on the grid, the reserve drivers will be able to rejoin when there are 30 mins of qualifying left.  

This Season we don't have a Red Zone. Moderating will be on reported incidents only. If you haven't received a PM about an incident before the link below the results table is removed, you can be sure that you will not appear in the moderator's report.

The chassis token system is explained on the Privateers standings page. Please ensure you choose a chassis that is within your budget, which can be seen by hovering the mouse over your points total in the standings.

Please restrict chat to pit messages including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.

Password: see above (#post_event_password)

this is at the limit of my system, fps in single figures past the pits  :(

Yes, this circuit tests my PC as well, especially on the grid, where FPS can drop into the low 20's. I think the amount of detail and the scenery around the pit area really tests the ability of slower PC's to process the info.

If you use Prib, try turning off most of the data with the "F" keys I find that reduces the central processor load significantly, then maybe use the detail slider in GPL to less than 75%. As a last resort you can opt for fewer trackside objects etc. I know that it is not ideal, but it is impossible to drive GPL at 20 fps ( or even less!) so something has to be sacrificed  :-\

I find that as long as I am very careful for the first lap, when the cars spread out the frame rate slowly crawls up to around 50fps which makes driving tolerable.

If you aren't already using it and your GFX card can cope then OpenGL should help aswell  :)

I get the 'Could not initialize the replay system' error message when I try to start at Spa67. I have raced at this track before without problems and I've just tested other tracks without this occurring.
So it seems to be an isssue just at this track. 'Replay memory override' is set to 180000 in the core ini.

Any suggestions?

Kit: I7 5820/ GTX980ti/ 16Gb DDR4

Hi Michael,
I had this when I originally installed Spa67..

Over at srmz the suggestion was to change the following line in your core.ini (root folder of the GPL install).

[ Replay ]
ReplayMemoryOverride = 128000 ; Replay memory size

This worked for me. Hope it helps.

TTFN
John.

Hi John
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it didn't work for me.

One other thing I've noticed is that both Spa and Spa67 are listed in the GPL/tracks folder only Spa67 appears as on option in the track selection on GEM. Not sure if this is relevant.

I notice the time says 2100 U.K. And 2100 GMT, I would expect that to be 2000 GMT for our overseas drivers to work to. Perhaps one of the mods could just confirm that? 

I came across and installed the 4gb patch on SRMZ which seems to have solved that problem. Now there is only the problem of the G25 playing up again to sort out. I really should just stick to Project Cars (or Flight sims) :cursing:

Well spotted Steve, apologies for that. Yes the race will start 21.00 GMT+1. First post now updated.

W10?
There is a thread at SRMZ about the G25 - W10 driver problem too...

no worries Sam.

What is the issue with the G25 and Windows 10?  I have that combination and works fine.  If you want me to look up settings etc let me know.

!"£$%* Screen freeze sitting a very comfortable 2nd several 100yds behind Cookie and over a mile ahead of 3rd.. !"£$%* again.  >:(

TTFN
John.

Had a little battle with David before crashing out at L'Eau Rouge.  Good luck to everyone still racing.

Too many error better to go to sleep.Is not the right evening.

Are you serious? I know that we don't speak the same language --- I'm a Yank --- but in what counting system isn't 2100 GMT + 1 = 2200 GMT?  :)

Not that it would have made any difference for me, since I spent the last two weeks practicing at the original Papyrus Spa track. Imagine my surprise when two hours --- well, maybe one hour, or maybe three hours --- before the race I tried to log onto the UKGPL track at IGOR and was told that I didn't have the right track installed. Oops. So I went through the drill that others experienced simply trying to overcome the installation issues while thinking to myself, "How different can these two Spas be, really?" I think we all know the answer to that little puzzle.

I'm not Robert Fleurke and I can't learn a track in one lap. Even after the first half-hour offline my 3:26 Cooper times at Spa were still no better than 3:45 laps at the new and improved Spa since I really didn't know where I could put that front tire and not wind up in a hospital. Eventually I wandered over IGOR, logged in, and watched in horror as I repeatedly posted 4:10 laps or worse in what I thought was going to be a 5-lap practice race. OK, I consoled myself. I still have about half an hour before the real qualifying begins.  I staggered through a lap or two in last or next to last place, went off the road into a barn, and disconnected to go to the bathroom and put cotton in my ears to keep the blood from leaking onto the keyboard.

I'm not sure when I realized that I'd actually been in the race.  It might have been when I tried to get back into the server but was greeted by a red "x." So much for that experience. Two weeks from now I'm logging on at noon and I'm not signing off until the server bounces me. And I know that noon everywhere is when both Mickey's big hand and little hand are pointing to "12."

I had practised with most of the chassis, and I found that stability through high speed corners was the key.  The most stable platform for me was the Cooper.  Qualified 6th!  Bimbled around, got up to 5th and then went smack straight into a building at the Masta kink.  Ended up 7th.

I went to plug in an different extension cable to the one I had been using form my wheel and somehow blew the wall socket....now under investigation!

So unfortunately missed the race, however was probably a good thing as I hadn't practiced at all with 67's and was not competitive in 66's here even with practice so I doubt I'd have been much good.

I managed to get the wheel to work and did 20 minutes practice without any problems just before the race. I then closed GPL in order to restart via IGOR only to find the the G25 was again (how can I put this politely?) .. rendered inoperable.
I spent the next half hour trying the various stratagems that have worked in the past (swapping USB sockets, going through the driver update process, closing and restarting the logitech profiler, restarting the PC) but all to no avail - sometimes nothing worked, sometimes just the axes but not the buttons.
I assume this is in someway linked to the mid week W10 update but the effects always seem to be random defying both logic and consistency so it is difficult to pinpoint a cause, much less a cure.

Mod report published.