SimRacing.org.uk

Look here (http://srmz.net/index.php?s=7ba7a7296588abf145c3cf2e25da89ef&showtopic=11810)  :thumbup2:

Been waiting for this for ages! (Although I will make a real effort to finish off the 67 Works moderations first!).
One question - can someone clarify the track updates. Do any of them actually change the physical track space? Or, other words does it make a difference if I just leave the tracks as they are, with no update. For example I would not want to change Zandvoort if it has to be changed back for the next  67 race. I guess Monaco is different as the 55 version uses the proper chicane, so its a different track to Monaco 67?

Great news! Have been looking forward to trying out this mod for a long time  :).

No, nothing is physicaly changed in the tracks!

You can use Monaco or Zandy or Nurby as it is...

Monza 10 k has haybales in the Parabolica that change the physics off track ;D

Which cars handle the best / are easier to learn with? Or are they all a challenge?

I did a few laps at Monacane in the Gordini. I can report that although it does not handle well and fails to provide even the illusion of speed, its most remarkable feature is the complete absence of brakes. I cannot imagine this car being seen on the podium very often.   ::)

As with all years in GPL, the cars are made to imitate reality.  Some handle a bit better - some go a bit faster - some brake slightly better. ::)  Some laps on a fast track, and some on a tight track, will soon tell you what works best on what track type.  And if you get online, you can compare with other cars.  Learning can be part of the fun . 8)

I wonder if I didn't speak too harshly about the Gordini's brakes. This clever and beautifully designed mod has a brake fade feature with a status indicator light. It is entirely possible that I went deep into the red early on, never gave the brakes time to recover --- Monaco will do that, I've learned --- and  end up blaming the car for the driver's lead foot. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that. Sigh.

Missed this coming out. I know what I'm doing while the Gf is at badminton this weekend then  ;D

 :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:

Never has so much been owed, by the many, to the few, who toiled for so long to bring us this mod  :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Now all I have to do is learn how to drive ( and stop!!) these machines.  :-\

Have been eagerly awaiting for the 55 mod for some time. Out of the box it looked wonderful. I decided on the Maserati 250f at Aintree, just to get a feel. Stirling Moss set  a 2.00 lap in 1955. I can get an F2 car around about 1.50, so the 55 cars will be slower. I knew about the brake fade feature so I was very sparing with the braking. Nevertheless I can get no more than 2 laps before the brakes are shot. Overall I feeling rather deflated this morning

You're doing better than me Bill. I had a quick blast around Aintree last night and managed half a lap before cooking the brakes  :o. I found throwing the car into corners scrubbed more speed off than braking itself  ;D. Plenty more practice required me thinks.

We have a sim, not a game, so if the real life drivers had to contend with such brake fade then we should too. I trust the wonderful modders to have made it all as accurate as possible. The Gordini even has a dashboard clock with working minute and second hands.
The brakes do come back at Monza with braking zones placed far apart.
The times to aim for seem difficult, as they should be.
Around Monza the default setup top speed is about 150mph. What laptimes are we managing at this stage?
2.53 at Monza, 2.05 at Aintree in Maserati/Lancia for me.
Can we have a race soon please to see how bad we all are?

The only track I have "attacked" so far was Zandvoort when I jumped on a server with Robert Fleurke, Martin Hunt and an old acquaintance, Will Tway, who was tempted back by the 55 mod.

A short qually and race in the Lancia and I was breaking the 1:40 laptime with a setup that still needs some considerable work. First impressions are that these will be great fun to race, with the added twist of that brake fade, IMHO a stroke of genius!! although I was heard to be doubting the programmer's ancestry on the approach to Tarzan on several laps!!!

Just my opinion after one evening at Zandvoort.......
Tried a couple of other cars offline afterwards and:-

The Merc W196 was very smooth and a joy to drive, also dipping under 1:40 after just a couple of laps. Much more to come with what has to be the alpha car.

 The Vanwall felt OK, but the 4 speed gearbox felt like a handicap? and I just got that down to 1:40.5 ish.

The Gordini felt like maybe one of the weaker cars and the Connaught might be a challenge too, but being the masochist that I am I might just have to drag these up to speed  ;).

The Lancia, with a few tweaks to the setup, felt very balanced and predictable and a joy to drive.

Still have the 250F and the Ferraris to try, plus the aero W196 on faster tracks, but I expect them to be at the quick end of the group.

Early days for assessing how to handle the brake fade, but it certainly focuses the mind when the brakes start off OK, and just when you think that all will be OK and you can hit the apex, the retardation vanishes and the barriers invite you into their warm embrace LOL ....huge fun!!

Tonight 20:00 UK time there will be an open Groundhog 55 mod race (60fpsV2newmod) at Buenos Aires!

As we have a full schedule of races already operational for UKGPL on Sundays and Tuesdays, could this be a good time to ressurrect the BREASTS races for the 1955 mod???

The Breasts forum is already here and available ( more importantly it is not in use for anything else!) , and we have a few servers between the members which might be available for other evenings.

If 55 enthusiasts could post over at BREASTS to indicate the preferred evening for 55 races, we might be able to cobble a non championship series together??


Edit:-  just noticed that Groundhog are running a race this evening

will the Groundhog race be on IGOR?

Guys, Aintree is the home track for Ukgpl, but the toughest for cars using drum brakes.  Spa 67 is made for these cars!  Nurburgring once your setup and brakes are sorted,  and many other tracks are waiting, old and new.  We Online racers are all skilled enough to make realistic laptimes, after some practice.  Spare parts are not a problem. ;D

EDIT :  Breasts for 55's - seems a good idea.  I'll be interested when I've a landline available again.

Yes

look here : http://freeleo.hu/weekly/?page=Race%20info&race=201705040

Installed it this evening and have spent the last 2 hours trying to beat Fangio around Monacane 8) (Target 1:41.2)
The Gordini is hilariously bad - If the brakes aren't on fire then the engine is  ;D That managed a 1:45.xx after 45 minutes of work (damn that clock!) but has so much underdog character I already love it :ninja:

The W196 was wonderful, thanks (I assume) to the independent rear suspension you can chuck it about loads which allows you to save the brakes for when you really need them - a must at Monaco - as a result I got it to nearly half a second off Fangios lap record with a 1:41.9  :angel:

3rd effort was the Vanwall - the brakes are deffinatly better than the other 2, but I haven't got it behaving quite how I want it too yet. Which means I'm actually using the brakes far more than I was in the Merc. This has actually been killing my laptimes as I'm currently stuck with 1:44's due to fade (The Merc will lap consistently in the mid/high '42s with no issues, provided you go smoothly and only brake hard 2 or 3 times a lap).
Oddly I'm also suffering big time on rear tire temps in the Vanwall. Might take it back to default and start again...

I'll try to give them all a go over the weekend but also have to pick a GT3 for the next AC season pretty sharpish - 1st world problems eh?

Bit the bullet and gave in. Vanwall at Zandvoort's interesting... after 10 laps or so testing brake fade, lines and stopping distances on the default setup got it down to 1:43.5. Not tried anything else yet but the Gordini sounds like fun! ;D

So..
Testing at monacane has now been wrapped up with all cars tested to fiery destruction  ;D

Aside from spotting a typo and discovering that my target was actually 1:41 dead I have never-the-less thrashed Fangio, Moss et al at their own game here.
There are only 2 real surprises I think here.
1st being how slow the Vanwall was (I've had 3 goes at it and improved the setup each time, but it still just eats its brakes and cooks tyres here).
2nd was just how much faster the Merc was Vs the rest of the field! I expected it to be fast, but over a second faster!? :o

Anyway, times in reverse order to help Mods etc out:

Gordini T16          :1:44.62
Vanwall VW 55     : 1:43.55
Merc W196SL       : 1:42.42
Connaught type B : 1:41.78
Maserati 250F      : 1:41.77
Ferrari 625          : 1:41.44
Ferrari 555ss        : 1:41.32
Lancia D50          : 1:41.06
Merc W196          : 1:39.97

All times are qualifying laps in the truest sense as they will literally have no brakes left after stopping for Gasworks (and I've developed a technique to help get around that particular problem ;)) and will have had a slow cool-down lap immediatly prior to the hot lap to give the best braking effort.
For all of these times you can expect to add half a second to a second for actual race pace..

Only cars I've suffered engine failure on so far are the Gordini (at least 2 new engines), and the Ferrari 625 - although the later was as a result of missing a gear entering the tunnel.

Monacane is a bigger challenge than the actual track, as the chicane is slightly too tight, but a good test of drum brake mastery.  8) Casual Online traffic may pick up, as more figure out best braking technique, as was necessary back in those days.

A mistake everyone will make, is to assume the Vanwall is the version later driven by Moss.  This earlier one was less successful.  But the artist insisted it should have the darker green, of the more famous '56-7, to help it's camouflage.

You mean never use the brakes?  ;D

Also what do you mean by Monacane is too tight? Did the track author over do it and make it too tight as opposed to papy's too open effort?

The Monaco chicane was a high speed challenge, but not flat out.  There's been huge interest in getting a good GPL reproduction made, with conclusions as per my memories of live broadcasts : http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=7920  We've been waiting years, for an enhanced version of the track to be completed . . . . 'Monaco Rocks' 3.

Brakes are a whole new factor in pre-60's racing.  Laptimes were, and are greatly affected by their use and abuse.  :o

My utmost respect to those who can drive this mod. I really can't get to grips with the brake fade feature. If a patch becomes available that disables this function I might be tempted back but for now I'm putting these toys back in their box. Don't wish to take anything away from the development teams superb achievement but it doesn't work with my limited abilities.

Billy, the simple version is simply to  brake less through working out where on the track functional brakes will have the biggest impact on your times.
At Monaco this would be the hairpin at Mirabau, the hairpin at the station,  and of course Gazometre.
For all other sections you back off earlier and either coast into, or slide around corners to save brakes.  This will actually improve your laptimes by several seconds over consecutive laps.
Only on a qualifying lap will it benefit you to use the brakes more in order to extract time.
You still need to learn brake points but just don't think of them as you would when driving a 'modern' car. Keep at it, but take it slower. Also avoid hard breaking as that will generate extra heat.

*edit: As an after note - I'm careful not to heel & toe as much as I would normally as I actually want the rears to try and lock because it's free braking ;)

Seeing as everyone is talking about it, I also installed for a quick turn.

To me, seemed kind of similar to driving the Lola T260 [although I guess the 55 cars may be easier to drive over grass, back to the track!].

But after a bunch of practice laps and a 15lap event against the AI at Monaco - it just left me frustrated.  Needed a few resets to get around the resulting handling issues.

From where I'm sitting - anything under 1:50 round there is good going!

However,  if there's sufficient novice runners, then I may be tempted - but I clearly need to perch on a few shoulders for some laps to get an idea of what is required to not bounce round any given track.

I'm aware the problem is me - not the mod.   But good luck everyone; I'm sure you can tame it!

Cheers,
Dave.

I can echo Tim's comments Bill. Although I would suggest tha Monaco would not be the ideal circuit to learn about these cars. Zandvoort might be better where you can practice only braking for the 2 hairpins and getting used to coaxing the cars through all of the other bends with downshifts and little 4 wheel drifting.

As a rough guide I found that the darker tarmac approaching any corner is where you need to get OFF the gas and dab the brakes. Trail braking ( where you keep a little pressure on the acceleraor to prevent the rear wheels locking) does not work for these cars. You just have to accept that they are much, much slower into the corners and I find that I often have to persuade them into the apex with a late downshift that steps the rear wheels out.

It seems to me that anyone who is a right foot braker should be at an advantage in these cars...just brake much earlier and much more gently, and in short dabs rather than a long period of pressure, which only seems to generate more heat, more quickly. Concentrate on getting out of the corner as smoothly as you can and maybe try a few laps WITHOUT using the brakes, forget laptimes, just get a feel for how downshifts can retard the car and don't be afraid to use 1st gear if you need to  ;)
I would predict that many people are doing plenty of practice with these cars, but when we get into the heat of battle in real races there are going to be a host of rear end shunt incidents for the moderators.

I am hoping to set up a race series under the old BREASTS banner, just for fun so that allcomers can have a crack at this new mod before we have a championship series next season. But I need someone to help with a server  ::).

Just to be pedantic Clive - trail braking is merely continuing to use the brakes into a corner, using them to assist in the turn and carry/shed speed further/quicker.
Throttle use in my books comes under the next level of difficulty (Left foot braking) and is something I struggle with terribly both in sims and in real life - unless I'm in a kart where it's totally natural  :-\

Otherwise all good advice. I'll look into recording a lap or 2 of Monaco at race speeds at some point if it helps people.
The combined problems at my end are a distinct lack of disk space for me at the moment, and the fact I'll have to record it live for the brake indicator to work.
As odd as it may seem, I'm rubbish at driving hard when I'm being watched/recording and normally record replays for that reason. So it will likely take some time for me to put a good 3/4 laps in without a horrendous shunt!

Agreed.

You dare not follow directly behind anyone into the braking zone because you don't know what state his brakes are in!  He may back off much earlier than you expect.

Monza10k seems fun for these cars but I'm yet to do two consecutive laps of Monaco.  No brakes at the gasworks.  :(

Lookup 'reverse entry' on youtube  ;)

Do Groundhog races have a password?

As far as I know Jani does not use a password for his groundhog races, and as it looks like he has got an open series up and running I am going to shelve the BREASTS option for the moment and support the Groundhog races.

Me too!

I finished my first proper race (Monaco) with all the original wheels on the car!  A lap down but I did finish!  Naturally, I was stone blind motherless last but I reached the end and didn't cause anyone else too much trouble.

The "fadeometer" changed from green to red on lap one and never looked back so I did 19 laps with no brakes.

I can also testify that red cars are a lot easier to spot in the mirrors than any other colour!  Twice I pulled over to let a red car past and a green one shot through ahead of it!

Indy should be a tad easier.  I hope!   ;D

I'm a tad rusty on the GPL diff adjustment but I've tried everything from 30/30 to 85/85 and they all feel the same!   ???

Clive the ramp angles say nothing without the clutches...
For me only the locking percentage counts!
You can find it shown in the setup manager, the tighter the corners the less lock is needed.

Video highlights of 1st Groundhog race :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yAEjp0jpOM   :)

Please ignor this, I'm trying to figure out how to get the track files to my brother as SRMZ seem to have gone to sleep on him.


www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/aintree_full_v2.zip (http://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/aintree_full_v2.zip)

www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/GPL_Buenos Aires 1955 n. 2_v1.00.zip (http://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/GPL_Buenos Aires 1955 n. 2_v1.00.zip)


https://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/monza10k_v1full.zip (http://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/monza10k_v1full.zip)

https://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/spa67.zip (http://www.planet-venom.co.uk/gpl/GPL55/spa67.zip)

Same old GPL.   >:(

Looks like I shall have to uninstall and start again.  After trying to switch off the 60fps patch to join a server it has reverted to its original problem of not being able to run the 55mod.

With everything set on 55, it still starts the 67 original, if anything.  Usually it just states that there is a GEM Error and I have to force a shutdown.

When I tried to reinstall GEM it appeared that GPL.exe had vanished.

Not a happy lad at the minute!

It looks as though my excursion into 1955, well the second one, might be shorter than planned.

Having uninstalled everything I now can't get the thing to install itself properly.  When trying to launch GPL for the first time it hangs at the Papyrus window.  Same thing happens when I try to install GPL from the disc but the disc works ok on another pc.

GPL once again took me to the very edge of declaring that I would never look at another racing sim ever again, before it suddenly started to work!


All I need now is for someone to tell me why my otherwise perfectly reliable sound system shuts down in the middle of GPL sessions?

It did it on the last lap on my race last week and has just done it again when practicing off-line.  Last week was 60fps and this week I have not yet been brave enough to try that.  ???

Oh, and lst week was Monaco and this week was Indianapolis.

Clive - if you can fix all of that & work out how to make the 55 cars brakes work after a couple of dabs on the pedal do let me know.

There is an issue where sounds can change if you go off track that I used to have but I think there was a fix for it.

Have a look under Sound in this thread
http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=3714

Everything is working but it's a bugger trying to drive with all my fingers crossed!

As for the big issue of slowing down for the corners, you just have to rewrite your concept of brakes!  LOL

I have even followed Evil's advice and started to set gear ratios for their retardation effect rather than any consideration of acceleration.   ;D

Tomorrow night's Groundhog race is Indianapolis (just turning left ) and the brakes will only be called upon to avoid any stray cars.  So not the same issue as Monaco, which was insane!

I have also managed to do some laps of Buenos Aires and figured out a regime of "lift and coast" that leaves me with brakes at the two main slowing down points.

I am convinced that the advice regarding the technique of chucking it sideways to scrub off speed is absolutely spot on,.......................if I could only just fathom out a setup that lets the darn thing do it!!!!

Many thanks, I did find an old post by John Roberts who suggested that this issue is caused when the sound card gets hijacked by something else.  I've made sure that the screen saver isn't trying to chip in.  I also installed EndItAll but couldn't see any obvious culprit.

Is this a case of losing all sound, but GPL is otherwise running fine?
I've certainly had something similar where all sound is lost because some other program/service has taken focus from GPL [maybe it's popped up a Windows notification or similar which is not visible with GPL running].  In which case, I find clicking the mouse typically restores sound again.

Cheers,
Dave.

Ah! Thanks Dave, I shall try that if it happens again.

I left it running for some time yesterday, after having shut down the screen saver, and it didn't happen then.

Cheers

There is no substitute for years of practice..................... ::)

Swapping the diff angles would be a good starting point, that and massively shunting the brakes rear-wards were part of my favoured setup for Monaco :)

Cheers Tim,

That's the direction that I took once I had found my trusty diff lock sheet!  ;D

I probably over did the brake bias thing as I then smashed backwards into all the straw-bales and Armco.

Once I had GPL working again I spent a few hours trying to make the Merc SL do Indianapolis without melting the front right.  Think that I ended up with 60/85 and two clutches.  Brakes didn't come into it.

However, this was all a waste of time as the rotten thing wouldn't let me join the server due to a bandwidth mismatch error.  I then modified the core.ini, which I'm told is no longer necessary these days, but after a while GEM and GPL fell out with each other and I was left in the same position as my first attempt of installation, in that GEM would only launch the '67 version, no matter what it said it was going to do.

Axel suggested I try a new clean install but since that will be the third new, clean install, I probably need to have a few sleeps and some anger management therapy before attempting that.

Just a thought.  ::)

For my second install I had to use the 2004 Demo and that has its core.ini named as CORE.INI.  Could that have prevented the server fro accessing it?

I forget when I purchased my GPL disc or how many installations it has been used for but my current system has decided that it isn't genuine!  It worked on my first attempt to install the 55mod too!

You appreciate that the guidelines for conduct on this forum do not allow me to adequately express my frustrations!   ::)

SECONDS OUT ROUND#3

Hmmmmm.........

It appears to be my wheel and pedals that cause the problem? 

I re-downloaded GEM and installed it over the previous copy.
Then went from GEM to iGOR and tried to join the Mybroga server, which was running 55mod at 36fps.  This gave the same bandwidth error as the Groundhog Server on 60fps.
However, if I disconnect my wheel and pedals it allowed me in.  Driving these things with a keyboard is going to be tricky!  ::)

I was able to get back to iGOR using control/alt/del and after shutting everything down I was able to start the 55mod at 36fps off-line, with my wheel.

This means that I can now do all the practice that I want but cannot join a server to race anyone!  >:(

Any ideas?

My wheel is a G25 and pedals connect via a separate USB Bodnar interface.

When you open the iGOR join dialog there are some optionschecked at the bottom...

Have you tried to change the wheel related ones? as they are obsolete imo!

Cheers

Will have a look.

I've messed with the FF setings but still no change.

Also, if I start GPL55 from GEM and then try to join via the IP the I still get the same result.  :(  So it probably isn't iGOR that is the problem.

Have you looked for firewall or AV not blocking ?

I ticked "stop blocking" early on in this process but it is all getting a bit hazey as to when and which installation it was.  I will investigate.

I think that the steering wheel might be a red herring.  If I persist with the attempt to connect past the point where I can't calibrate anything it still gave a client/server mismatch.

I have tried switching off both AV and Firewall but the result is still the same.

Maybe you must allow the igor.exe and the mod (gplc55).exe explicit in your firewall and AV.

As it works offline this is the only option left imo.


PS

is there any other .exe involved for the bodnar module?

I'll have a look at the Bodnar bit.

One other symptom of this install is that I have no information above or below the part with the image on.

Last week's, which did allow me on-line, had all sorts of stuff, albeit in a font that was so small that I couldn't read it without crashing!

You have no pribluda?

It is very good for online racing and you can tweak it to your likes.

(https://picload.org/image/rigrwoil/gplc662017-03-1815-10-34-67-1..jpg)

None of that info at present.

Is this because the present install used the Demo?

Also I appear to have the following gpl executables in my gpl folder:

gplc55.exe
gplc67.exe
gplc67c55.exe
gplc67c67.exe

Wasn't expecting the last two.   ???

Tried to install pribluda but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Neither me  :o :o

Must something going very wrong...

The original gpl.exe has to be untouched in the main folder! it is the base for all the mod exes!

Try my UK exe (https://www.sendspace.com/file/kd9kg4)  ;)

Replace yours in main folder, delete all mod.exe and let GEM+ build new mod.exes

Your .exe produced a GEM Error to start with but is now running off-line.

However, it has reproduced both of those strange .exe files again.

:offtopic:
I joined a 36 fps server, with 60fps still checked by mistake, every time I got the flicker, I think its 8 seconds or so, my brakes re-set. I test this more, its difficult to over heat brakes in 8 seconds but I managed it ;), flicker and red to greed instantly.  ???

Axel's first piece of advice proved to be spot on!  Namely re-install the whole thing.

Not without trauma mind!  The pc decided that my disc was ok after all and I was able to install gpl but couldn't run it to create a driver profile.  It just hung on the Papyrus window at 640 x 480 resolution.  So I imported my profile from the previous install, having rubbed out all the pre-GEM stuff.

That let me run in '67.

However, when I tried to install the '55 mod it caused GEM to hang and gave a GEM+2 Error message. 

I eventually rebooted the pc and attempted the same things but with the wheel unplugged.

That seems to have done the trick.

I can now enjoy the '55 mod at 36fps.

Not been brave enough to try 60fps yet.  I need some fun first and Spa67 provides that in spades!   ;D

Many thanks.  :thumbup1:

   

Against all odds, I now appear to have 55gpl running Spa67 at 60fps nominally. It dips as low as 33fps whilst it tries to draw every tree in Belgium but it is running.

It appeared that to invoke the 60pfs patch without getting a GEM+2 Error I had first to run the '67 cars at 60fps. Then it allowed me to switch to the correct patch for '55. 

I seem to have another issue now :-(
I can't calibrate my pedals and thus I'm not sure that I'm getting full chat.
The pedals are separate (via Bodnar interface) and GPL assigns them to axes 5, 6 and 7. But GPL only allows calibration of the wheel on Axis 0 and then the pedals on 1, 2 and 3.

Any ideas?

I have no idea how your Bodnar interface works, but on my "calibration" screen there are 2 pages, with axis 5,6 &7 on page 2.

I have a conventional G25 wheel and pedals and, as you say, it only gives me the option to calibrate the pedals on 2,3,4. Axis 5,6&7 are currently greyed out, but I have no idea if they would become active under your pedal setup?

But the fact that they are there, suggests that they should be usable although I have no idea how to turn them on ( or off!)...maybe somewhere deep within the Logitech software/Sierra software there is a line or two of code?


Just looked on my laptop where I have a virgin GPL install without G25 Logitech software and there is no second page in the calibration section???? so I am guessing ( OK a wild stab in the dark! ) that it is the G25 install that triggers the extra axis???

Before you assign any axis in GPL you first have to calibrate all of them.

This helps me sometimes when there is something wrong in GPL  ;)

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!!!


Been fighting this for weeks and never noticed that second page.  Doh!

Thanks Evil.

And thanks Axel,

All a bit academic as the darn thing has stopped working with the 60fps patches again.  Works in 36fps but just gives an error message as soon as I put a tick in a box for 60fps and try to start GPL.

If I ever get it running again can I create copies of the .exe files and call them something like gplc67-60 and gplc55-60, then just run from those?  Similarly with the 36fps versions?

Yes you can, as long as you keep them in the main folder ;)

You just have to keep the file names with a max of 8 letters as in old dos version.

Great!  Thanks Axel.

I shall make back up copies of the working files too, so that I can replace them when it goes dicky.

My cup runneth over.   ::)

After a little black magic, and having sacrificed a squirel, GPL is running again in 60fps.

I have also turned down the hardware acceleration on the sound car in the hope that it may stop it giving up on me half way through a race.

All ready for Zandvoort on Thursday.


P.S.  It was only a grey one!   ;)

Haha

Racing these beasts, with one eye on the brake status, is a hoot!

For me, qually and race approach are totally different.  You often have enough brake performance for a one-off flying lap but you then have to develop a brake management strategy that will allow you to run continuous laps. 

Racing needs everyone to be very mindful of the fact that you, or the bloke you are fighting, may not be able to stop!

If you are putting pressure on the bloke in front when going into a braking zone you have to take account of the fact that one or both of you is going to go straight on when you reach the corner and there is not a blind thing that you can do about it!  Try not to be on the outside!  ;-)

I'm currently enjoying Axel's Fun-Liga FUNL season and last night was a blast at Monza 10K.

I found myself at a loose end last night and jumped into the Funliga race too.  TBH I have not had time to spend getting into these cars as much as I would have liked, so I opted for the Lancia as I had a setup that worked at Zandvoort. Changed the gearing a little and did my first laps around Monza 10k in a 55 car......................... ;D ;D ;D ;D great fun.
This must be one of the easiest tracks for the brake fade problems because I found that the brakes always recovered before I needed them again. Even so I still managed to exhaust what little I had at Parabolica on lap2 and went straight through the pack and into the gravel....sorry to anyone that got affected  ::).

Effectively that was my race over, as I had no-one to slipstream and unless the leading pack tripped over each other there was no hope of catching them. At the end I discovered that I had way too much fuel and was beginning to get the drifting through Lesmos right.

As Clive Loynes says, these cars are immense fun and maybe they do encourage drivers to have a little more awareness of where cars are around them, especially in the braking zones!!  lol

LOL

Yes, lap two at Parabolica is the critical point.  It's when you find out if you have been too heavy on the brakes up to that point for continuous lapping.

Are we going to do any UKGPL races in the off season? I race Assetto Corsa on Wednesdays so can't join you lot  :(

I stumbled across a 55 race at Aintree on Monday evening, which I think may have been hosted by LBGPL.

Does anyone know if further races are planned by that league?

I hope there are some more fun races with the 55's before UKGPL starts the new season...and things get more serious for some drivers.

Maybe anyone with any knowledge of open fun races can post here so that we can crowd bomb those events. ( see how I am "down with the kids" and know all the trendy jargon??  ::) ).

Wasting your time mate.  Nobody called Clive can do trendy!   ::)

But a good idea.  There is a lot to learn when it comes to racing the '55 cars and then even more to be gained from racing them on-line against humans.

I find that my well honed brake strategy from training or off-line racing goes straight out of the window as soon as racing starts on-line.

Word!

Word??  :blink: not sure I understand, that is the problem with me and trendy speaks.

Anyhoo, Wed evening 55 race at Funliga was good. I took the Connaught, just because ........ and scared myself by putting myself on the front row of the grid. Everyone must have been asleep at the start because I found myself with a 50 mtr lead before T2 and it just stretched until YY extricated himself from the pack and closed me down.
He definitely had better brakes/was better on the brakes and I struggled to stay with him until I changed my lines etc through a few corners. Then I began to close the gap and was just about within range to "have a go" when I blew the engine and lost touch with the leading Vanwall.

After that, I was trying different braking points and  lines into T1 and found yet another combination that did not work, stuffing the car into the fence and dropping to 3rd place. Another unforced error put me back to 4th and it became obvious that the gearing needed some modification to get the lap times down to the 1:41's.
 
After I blew the engine again I parked it and walked back to the pits.......but with the knowledge that the Connaught can be made to lap quite quickly  ;D

Word! = True, yes.

I was looking forward to their training race here but it all turned nasty on me.  During practice I couldn't put a decent lap together because the fps kept dropping to below 10. I thought that it might have been connected with people entering and leaving the server as they were in and out like they were stuck in a revolving door!

However, the start went well and I was up to second behind Evil, helped no end by Axel parking his Lancia on the apex of T2.  This also allowed Evil to escape!   At the start of the second lap, the slow frame rate hit just as I was entering T1. I thought that I had coped with it but the guy behind thought otherwise as he rammed into me on the exit.  

Decided that the others were better off without me and quit but I had ensured that Evil had a decent lead by wiping out the front end of the chasing pack!  ;-)

This was the first time that this ultra low frame rate had struck and previously I would have said that Buenos Aires was one of the least demanding tracks. :-(

Hope Sunday proves to be a tad better.

Whatever the problem is, I've still got it.  :-(

I joined a 36fps server this evening and a couple of things were evident:

1  Sitting in pits but not moving the frame rate was the same in the 36fps version as it is in the 60fps version.  Namely about 22fps.  Which is not good.

2  It appeared that the single figure frame rate attack was still associated with other drivers entering or leaving.  I noticed 5fps as I entered the field.  When I looked at the chat pad it showed almost a page of connect and dissconnect messages for the other guy on the server.  He appeared to still be in there and hadn't been in and out as it suggested.

Any ideas?  I'm getting bored with off-line hot lapping.  :-(

At SRMZ there is a thread about reducing the stutters caused by the messages
Editing the gplshift.ini helped,
and using the "no letterbox" patch + uncheck the chat in GPL.
OpenGLV2 or Direct3DV2 ?
Wich GPU and driver do you use?

Thanks Axel, I shall investigate.

Not had the chance to do anything yet but the system is as follows:-

CPU: AMD Athlon 64X2 5400+

Motherboard: Pegatron Computer INC. M2N-VM1394
Mobo Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 560 Rev A2
Southbridge:  NVIDIA nForce 630a Rev A2

Memory: DDR2 Dual Channel 4 GBytes

GPU: NVIDIA Quadro 600

I use Direct3DV2 but I don't seem to have gplshift or no-letterbox patches.

This is a very low end system for the modern tracks...
Use the Openharwaremonitor (http://openhardwaremonitor.org/) plot to see what happens when racing.

First you have to make shure that the CPU does not use any eco downthrottling.
You could use the PhenomMsrTweaker v1.2 (http://phenommsrtweake.sourceforge.net/) to handle it.

Same has to be made for the GPU, set a profile for GPL...


 

I have the hardware monitor running but the Phenommrstweak says:
"This installation package is not supported by this processor type.  Contact your product vendor."
when I try to install it.  Have I got the wrong download?

No, the CPU seems not supported...

So you should try to disable "Cool & Quiet" in the bios to run the CPU in full speed.

I think that I have already done that but I will check.

You can check it by running a 0-race with some AI's,
then look in the HWmonitor plot for the CPU and GPU frequencies and load during the race.

Well it says "Disabled" in the BIOS.

What is an "0-race"?

I tried reducing the screen resolution to 1440x900 and changed GEM to match but it didn't seem to make any difference to the fps figure when in the pit lane at Spa67.

0-race is a single race in GEM (german language)

You should do one and record the CPU and GPU behaviour in the plot and show it here like this
https://picload.org/view/rwdwogwr/hwm.jpg.html

PS

TBH, I am pretty shure that your hardware is way too week for tracks like Spa67 and 60fps anyway...
GPL is special, it wants a fast bus connection CPU to GPU, 90% of the graphics load is done by the CPU!

I guess I knew that the system wasn't up to it but I can manage if it only drops to around 30fps.  It's when I get to single figures that I'm in trouble!

So far the trick of displaying anything on the hardware monitor plot is a complete mystery!  I can look at the values on the "Gadget" but can't plot anything.  :-(

Go to View -> check "show plot"
Options - plot location - bottom

Then you get checkboxes for load, clocks and temps of CPU and GPU

FWIW Clive, regarding the 55's. As Axel says GPL relies heavily on the CPU for its graphics performance and it all comes down to the motherboard and main processor and if you have not got the grunt there, then you are going to struggle. I might try some of the checks that Axel has suggested to see if I can squeeze a little more life out of my creaking equipment.

Spa 67 ( and most other circuits with a high graphic content ) causes my system to seriously struggle at the start of the race and for most of Lap 1, or until the field spreads out.
At Spa 67, I usually get 20-24 FPS during qually just sitting in the pit lane  and  only 10-12 FPS on the grid and through Eau Rouge. That makes a little stressful as cars simply jump about until things string out a little. Even after several laps I know I won't see 60 FPS at anytime during the race, usually my best is around 50, maybe 55 if the track is empty ahead. My only hope is to qualify close to the front and hope to reduce the number of cars visible ahead.

If we start talking the GT's or Can Ams in GPL, then 8 FPS on the grid is quite normal for my system. and even running in a 60fps race I will be lucky to see 36fps at any point.

I am seriously contemplating a new PC as mine is about 10yrs old now. 2.3Ghz with 2 Gb ram. A Hard disk that is full does not help either as I constantly have to delete stuff to maintain the Windows XP swap file size

I have upgraded the graphics card to a Nvidia 56** and at some point I put in a larger PSU.
Basically, I have been putting Band Aids over the problems and this has been highlighted now that I run some GTL races where they expect 120FPS as normal and I am getting as low as 30 FPS in places.

Good to know that you are suffering too!   ::)

I have managed to run the hardware monitor and plot the results now but on my first attempt the computer crashed just after Masta on the out lap.

You can set a fixed size for that.

Once you have you can defrag so as much of it is contiguous on the drive as possible which helps with performance.

I usually set it to double the amount of RAM.

Sometimes it helps to use a program like CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner) to delete all not used files.

I've done some more testing and it appears to me that the system in't great but it is working well enough until something hijacks the CPU.  I have now observed it happening off-line as well as on-line.

I have tried shutting down everything that I can but it still happens.  I'm just going to do a virus and malware sweep to see if it finds a bug!

Something else which happens over time with older systems that have had numerous system upgrades is the system files and page file can become heavily fragmented. Many system files are in use for most tasks and a normal defrag can't touch these as it ignores files in use.

One solution is to do a boot defrag before windows is loaded There is a link on the MS support page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/pagedefrag

Alternatively Piriform's defraggler also supports this. (Piriform are the guys who develop ccleaner).

Might be worth investigating to see if it helps. Miners suggestion regarding a fixed page file is also a really good tweak which can help if your system is struggling to keep up.

TTFN
John.
 

Thanks John I shall look at that.  I have a feeling that it is the Avast virus protection that keeps chipping in.  There doesn't seem to be any way of stopping it short of a complete uninstall!

I also found that my graphics driver needed an update.

The end result so far is that I haven't managed to have it running long enough to establish if the low fps bout has been dispensed with as the blue screen of death hits before a lap of Spa67.

I've really upset it good and proper!

I run Advanced System Care to shut the pc down and a registry defrag is a part of that.   

I found: "Avast is a resource whore, an okay antivirus but there are better ones out there. "

I have Avira free (https://www.avira.com/en/free-antivirus-windows) for years and no problems.

I switched from Avast to Avira as you suggested and saw an immediate improvement.  Off-line and sat in the pit lane at Spar67 gave around 30fps instead of 22 and on the move I spotted a full 60fps after Eau Rouge.  I nearly fell off my chair!

The rotten thing timed its last crash to perfection and I was not quite able to make the start at Buenos Aires.  I continued swapping things about as I had doubts about the RAM.  In the midst of this I noticed, having shut it down, that the CPU cooling fan was moving in short bursts in time with the blinking on and off of the green light on the motherboard.  Not a good sign I thought.

I removed the power supply and tested it with a little gizmo that I have.  This showed that there was no -5v supply.  I'm hoping that, if the PSU has been on its way out, that this will have been the cause of my woes but I won't know this until tomorrow.

I may possibly be back in business!

When I first installed the new PSU, the pc would not boot.  It just sat there looking at me.

I then swapped back to the original RAM that came with the motherboard and hey presto it is up and running.  Looks like my original RAM has been iffy.

I've done half a dozen laps of Spa67 off-line at 60fps (more like 25 to 50fps in my case) and another couple on-line at 36fps without issue.

So long as I don't louse anything up in the meantime I may make Buenos Aires!

woohoo!!!!    ;D ;D ;D

Don't think that the sound card is doing me ant favours but 1:42.698 in Training mode is my best so far with the 250F.

Race pace will drop from that so that I can keep some Ferodo in hand!

For XP a soundcard is good to have, but maybe the driver isn't the best possible...
Make shure that the onboard sound is disabled in bios!

Can you give me the name of the soundcard, or the soundchip?

Now I already know that you are not going to like this ;-)

Written on the card itself it says SB0220, Soundblaster Live.

The plug n play couldn't find a driver so I searched for and installed a SB0220 driver.

It's running on this but the device is recognised by XP as an EMU10Kx Audio [DC00].
If I look at the hardware it calls it a Creative EMU10K1 Audio Processor (WDM).
The installed driver is version 5.12.1.296

I shall check the bios tomorrow.

I have several SB-live cards myself...

For me the best XP driver allways was this one (https://www.sendspace.com/file/4ylxhk),
first use the driver only, if there are problems try the patch.

There are also alternative KX project drivers available  ;)

First you have to clean the registry from all former Creative drivers, that is the worst job ::)

Not sure that I want to do anything until after tonight's race, unless you think that the effect will be staggering.

Not sure how to go about cleaning out all other Creative drivers from the registry.

For me, GPL has always required a lap to get itself sorted.  During that lap there are several glitches on both sound and video.  After that lap things run smoothly.  Well reasonably so anyway.

I just testet it with my SB-live!5.1

Make the HW acceleration like this:

(https://picload.org/infonail/rwaplwcw/sb.jpg)

https://picload.org/view/rwaplwcw/sb.jpg.html

If there are old or other Creative drivers, the app will give you the choice to delete it ;)

You gave me a nasty fright there Axel.   ;D

Part way through the installation I have the Blue Screen of Death again!

Have decided that I will leave it as it is for now.

Also, I tried turning down the hardware acceleration by a further notch as you suggested.  I didn't detect any difference so I have put it back to standard acceleration.

I don't know if my sound is playing up or if the Maseratti actually has a missfire at the top end?   ;D

The tanoy sound track as I pass the pits seems to cause problems and sounds distorted?  This is not new.  It always has.

Hope to see you on track tonight and many thanks for your efforts.

Put these files (https://www.sendspace.com/file/52j655) in the BA track folder and you will have a quiet pit..

PS
One thing I remember is that the SB-cards are sensible with the IRQ sharing, if you have a free PCI slot left, try to move the card ;)

The OS must be on the edge if an install causes a BSOD,
if you use CCleaner look not to have any unnecessary programs running with autostart.

Thanks Axel.

The pit didn't seem to cause me any issues last night, but I think that the system caved in when I was trying to worry Will into an error and then had Tristan trying to do the same to me!  It went into slow jerky motion and whilst I was trying to accelerate out of the first hairpin I obviously didn't move as expected and Tristan hit me.  Not his fault.
As soon as the cars spaced out a bit there was no problem.  Strange as the start was fine.  Perhaps there is something else still chipping in.  I was running in Advanced System Care's speed boosted mode which shuts down unwanted programmes and releases RAM.  So they say.

As you say, we are right on the edge.  Does Avira have a "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" setting?  Even when the pc is idle, about 40% of the RAM is taken up.

Avira does not use RAM if not scanning...

To me it seems that something else is running in the background.
When all RAM is full it will write on HDD and this will extremely slow your PC down.
You know that XP 32 can only handle 3.2GB Ram.

I suppose to use CCleaner and stop all autostart programs exept the essentials like sound + avira + GPU.

My server:
(http://www.bilder-upload.eu/thumb/d1829b-1502373502.jpg) (http://www.bilder-upload.eu/show.php?file=d1829b-1502373502.jpg)

I downloaded the free version of CCleaner but it didn't look like that and so far as I could tell it was yet another "monitor" that would be running.

I did a test run at Monaco after having manually closed everything I could find and that was ok, although I did get some strange colours in the left mirror when sat in the pits.  In training it mostly ran between 60 and 45fps.

I shall try that approach with Spa67 and try the hardware monitor again to see if it sheds any light on where it is falling short.

I only have 2Gb of RAM after discarding the sticks that wouldn't boot.

What happened to you at Buenos Aires?

Yes my CCleaner is an old version, but turn off the monitoring and the autostart.

2GB is too short for Spa67 for shure, and the data will be written in the pagefile.sys on the HDD!

Try to clean the contacts of the 4GB RAM to get it working anyhow...

At BA I had made a mistake in setup that caused an overheating of the brakes (too much front brake bias)
 it helped in quali but killed my brakes in the race ::)

I know what you mean about qually setups.  I try to build the setup for racing and then make adjustment in my brain, regarding how I drive it, for qually.

I will follow your advice regards CCleaner and will also try cleaning the RAM contacts.  Is there a way of testing the RAM?  I used to have a memory tester on a floppy disc but now I don't have a floppy drive!

You can use any bootable USB-stick with memtest ;)

If you download a "Clonezilla live" iso and put it on USB you can run memtest (http://clonezilla.org/screenshots/?in_path=/00_Clonezilla) , this is a very small linux tool.

I never do quali setups, so I use the same for race...

I'm now on my second PSU since the race on Wednesday!

That's two that I've done in in the past week.  Each one fails in the same manner, that is to say that, when the pc is turned off, I notice that the cpu fan keeps moving in short bursts and that the green light on the motherboard blinks on and off in time with it.  It will not boot in this state.

When I use my testing gizmo on the power supply it shows that the 3.3v rail has failed when I plug in the SATA connection.

The two units that have failed have not been top-end units and may just not have been up to the hammering that GPL is giving the cpu.  My son-in-law, who has looked at the failed units with more than a little disdain, has provided me with a better PSU and I'm hoping that this one will see me through tonight's race.  Being at Monaco I won't be very long!   ;D

I have cleaned up the old RAM but not yet summoned up the courage to try it for fear of blowing something else!

Well I put the extra RAM in, the pc accepted it and the PSU is still running.   :thumbup2:

On the face of it Monaco was a great leap forward but I still had a slow frame rate attack at about mid distance.  The difference was that this time there was nobody about to run into me whilst my pc had a hissy-fit!  It only lasts three or four seconds but it can be fatal.

I think that it is clear that something is running in the background.  Probably a scheduled activity designed to mess up my racing!

You were threatening to get too good, too soon, so I had to slow you down somehow........................ ::)

Ah, its obviously the Bristol Virus!

@Axel, I have run the hardware monitor and this is what two laps of Monaco did to it.  I'm going to repeat the test with the side taken off the case.

(http://www.Planet-Venom.co.uk/gpl/55mod/PlayroomCPU.jpg)

Yes, this are way to high CPU temperatures, good is to have 50°C stable at max load.
All above 55° is dangerous for the CPU!
Seems it throttles down when overheating  ::)

Maybe some dust in the cooler...

Look if all fans are running  ;)

I think that the low fps issue is a separate thing to the cpu running a tad warm.  I think that the temperature indicates that it is drawing a lot of current and that this is destroying the PSUs.

I still think that the slowmo attackes are the result of another programme hijacking the cpu.  If it were temperature related, I would have thought that once it has reached the critical temperature it isn't going to get any better but the slowmo just lasts a few seconds and is gone!

Running a three lap training session with the side panel removed resulted in a max temperature of 60 C.  But I can't remember if the original test was on-line.

Think better cpu cooling is needed.

I've had a dig around in Avira and found that it was set to do an automatic update every 2hrs.  I can't remember exactly when I booted up the machine before the race but 2hrs could take me to about ten laps in, which is when the fps dropped to single figures.

It is now set to 4hrs.

Yes I have set it to 6hrs and do manually force an update when I start the PC before a race  ;)

PS

I just did some investigation about the CPU specs and found it, seems your temperatures are quite normal :
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%20X2%205400+%20-%20ADO5400IAA5DO%20(ADO5400DOBOX).html

Look if it is possible to reduce the VCore a little to ~1,3V

Thanks Axel, I must try to find out which variant I actually have.  I think that CPUID will do that.