SimRacing.org.uk

(https://i.postimg.cc/j2PL65qF/zolder-blancpain.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)

Practise: 19:30 (45 mins)
Qual: 20:15 (15 mins)
Race: 20:30  30mins

Cars allowed:
All gt3 spec cars (not NSX,or porsche cup).

Track: Zolder, Belgium

Time of Day Setting: 14:00
Weather: Dry with a shower expected  ;)
Start: Rolling - 2 by 2 formation by the time we reach last corner/sf straight
Tyre wear: Normal
Fuel consumption: Normal
Pit-stops: Not required

Server track settings: ??

Don't you mean not Super Trofeo and 911 cup?
The NSX may be slow, but it's still a GT3 and is quite pleasent to drive.

It's a bit irrelevant anyways as I've not worked out the car selection stuff, and it's very different from AC, so all cars will be available.

 :( :( :( Until they fix VR, if ever, won't be joining.

Have you tried it recently Bob? VR worked fine for me last time i did try it. But i felt the poor resolution of the rift let down the stunning graphics so i am using my triples. My eyes take far less of a bashing too! The last two patches also had VR related fixes.

Also, generally to all, make sure you have the latest graphics drivers installed. ACC runs super smooth and fast on my pc.

Not fussed what car you choose, if you want a slow one take one  :P But in the interests of a test race its better if we are all in the same car class.

Sorry guys- i can't drive at this night  :(
Have fun!  :)

Might try the Merc as not tried that one yet.

Not sure it's not a rolling start, and again I haven't seen where one might specify this. I assume the real series uses rolling starts?

I will be there tonight. Definitely the Aston for me :)

Unfortunately I cannot enjoy the fancy graphics as I have an old PC, I struggle to get a decent frame rate on AC if I use my triples. I have tried ACC off line in triple screen mode with every graphic setting set to low and it seems to just about cope, i might do tonights race in single screen, then try the next race in triple mode

latest drivers etc. for me ACC in VR is just unusable, tried yesterday with all recommended settings felt sick after 5mins, its a shimmering mess. Runs good on single screen in 4K. The rift is great in AC, PCars2 etc just not in ACC. So will sit out ACC until its fixed, if ever.

This race will still go ahead as planned tonight, I wasn't hosting the test server on our main one so it's still available. I was going to move everything across before the race but for obvious reasons (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=15544.0) can't now.

did wonder whether to put rolling as know the real series uses it. But happy with either, however it wants to do it!  But can we all try going in 2x2 rather than single file. Its always what i hated here in the old days as depending where you qualified you could already be 5-10 secs behind the front guys as soon as they crossed the line!

@bob, guess by the shimmering you mean the crap resolution? if so thats what put me off. I think you can edit the cfg file wherever that is and tweak the sharpness up higher like we did for AC  :-\

Car wise, think i'll go for the F488 or the Pork. Not had time to try any others properly yet.

I'm not even sure the game has an option for standing starts..

By shimmering I suspect Bob is referring to the constant micro freezes that occur at all times in VR, even if you're the only car in a practice session offline.

I might try the 2nd race in VR if they release any performance patches (they've released zero so far), but currently it c***s itself with so much as the 6 cars on track from the start of the career mode.

I'm stuck on a single screen atm. Looks nice but is rubbish Vs AC.

I think it's rolling start only, but those are very exploitable. The game puts you on a speed limiter, but when you leave a gap just before it goes green, the game will give you a higher limiter to catch up, so when the lights go green your speed will be higher and you'll blast straight past everybody.

Also don't forget the speed limiter while pitting, the amount of DQ's I've got online as I flew through the pitlane  :whistling: .

I still find it a bit ambitious to have variable weather and pitstops on the first ACC race here, but I like those conditions, so I don't mind.

I was planning on taking the Merc, but seeing as Simon takes it, I'll try something else, maybe BMW or Bentley.

LOL, you naughty cheat you finding that one out! ;)

Me too, even with the auto pit lane limiter on, which doesn't seem to work unless you've slowed down to the right speed first!
On the subject of DQs...if you do get DQ'd then most of the time you can quit out of the server and rejoin, so DQs aren't going to peturb wreckers because they can just rejoin. I reckon we should turn them off on the server for the time being so we don't lose people accidentally from some minor digression?! Is there something on the server to set what naughty things get which penalties?

You're probably right, we could just do a normal race. Was thinking we can find the bugs in pit stops and other things whilst we're at it, but then I guess one variable at once!

I think the pit limiter only works when you're in first gear too.

I was on the receiving end of that the first time  :P

Zolder has lots of nice strong alcohol around it so I'm planning on forgetting my wallet for this round*

*Bonus point to anyone who gets that reference ;D

A Jaaaaaaag, per chance... :-[

Game froze with 45 seconds to go, had to reset the pc and when it came back, windows felt the need to update... ::)

EDIT: And now I am too late because the server went into the race session...What an amazing introduction to ACC.

Same here, lost connection to the server and now I can't rejoin during the race session

Seems only 4 people survived the cull :(

Were you that SQ fella?


Also lost sound during qually and had to rejoin to get it back, which is weird, as I did numerous races online but never had problems.

Yep. So my normal nickname didn't show up in the chat? On my side all the chat messages looked like e.g.  "Stephan nfsw55 Q." or "Simon Shark75 Gymer"

Didn't spot your chat, so I can't tell, I just noticed you being fast so I guessed it was you.

well that went pretty pants. Only 6 showed up, then only 4 raced and I got dumped to pitlane as I didn't swap my wet qually setup over to a dry one quick enough. What happened to any formation lap? I thought I might catch the tiny pack up with that but it appeared to go straight to race?

I solo hotlapped for 25 mins then had a tail swapping crash that left the car undriveable, had to retire.

Did love the dynamic weather and lighting though, very cool, especially in the race. 8)  Enjoyed the tricky wet qually session too (once I realised my aggressive setup was nasty in the wet and switched to a wet setup  :laugh: )

Oh yes, the quali session was very cool. I opted for slicks for the first lap as the road didn't look that wet, which was a mistake. After I went to the pits again to switch to the wet tires, the rain already increased and I couldn't match Jeff's and Simon's time anymore due to the increased wetness.

Regarding the formation lap: In ACC you can choose between two different types of formation laps. Full formation lap or a short formation lap which starts at the last corner before the s/f line. The server was set up with the second variant so you couldn't catch us from the pitlane.

I just realized that I forgot to plug my lan cabel in so I raced on the wlan connection which probably caused my connection loss.
I hope we'll do another test race soon (I won't be here next wednesday tho, N24H's calling)

Nothing in the sample files I have nor anything in the server handbook about this, got any proper info on how to set it?

At least we have some json result files from each session. Don't seem to contain much data compared to AC, only last lap and fastest lap times are recorded, no incident data. Come on Kunos as least make it as good as AC  ::)

Sorry, no idea ???
The official CP servers are running with the full formation lap, can't say if I already joined a private server with the full f. lap but I'll keep an eye on it.

Really liked the surprising wet qually. I tried slicks at the end of the session as my wets were overheating, but I only lasted 1 corner  ;D.

Is there a reason why you would want anything less than ECU 1, even in the wet?

like nfsw mentioned, loved the way you had a first couple of laps opportunity in qually with a semi dry track that only got wetter as the session went on. Had a great real world feel about it. Also loved the brightening sky as the race progressed, kept admiring it everytime i blatted through t2/t3  ;D
The wet setup worked well in qually too, i was just a bit late switching over to it, even though i put wet tyres on my more aggressive setup first. But i kept getting spat onto the grass with the tweaked dry setup. The wet setup must have increased TC and ABS settings as it was a lot more stable and didnt spin up the wheels.
ACC is definitely a step up from AC for gt racing, they just need to iron out a few kinks.  :) 

A fuller grid of cars would be pretty epic. I am surprised so few ventured on to the server for the test. I didnt even get to race thanks to being dumped in the pitlane.

Did anyone run in VR last night, if so how was it, performance wise.

Well that was interesting. The cars are more lively than they are in AC, which is good imho, although it does depend on the car. The AMG is particularly beastly and twitchy, compared to say the Porsche or the Lexus or the Honda. I haven't tried all the cars yet, so that will be fun.

The start was a failure with loads of people getting disconnected or failing to make the start.

Clearly lots of bugs and features missing from the game and particularly the multiplayer, like chat outside of the car, when you're in the garage, or showing you the race length before you race. It's also not obvious where you are supposed to engage the pit limiter (which I needed cause I was one lap short of fuel at the end!).

I ran with triples and find the HUD layout annoying cause everything useful is displayed at the edge of the edge monitors, e.g. positions, gear, revs, tyres, fuel, etc, there's nothing on the centre screen other than the terrible virtual mirror (warped unadjustable FOV and low quality compared to cockpit mirrors, which in most cars you cant see on triples cause they are off screen like all other games).

At the sign that says 50  :P

I find FOV weird with most racing sims using triples. If you sit in your real car and see how much of the dash, mirrors and doors you can see from your driving seat, you can never seem to emulate that with FOV/screen spread properly. Its always a compromised view.  :-\

As for the chat window, that worked for me for the first time. I could see the chat box on my farthest right edge of my right hand monitor!

I had auto pit limiter on, worked fine.

Simon, yes. GUI and ergonomics are in terrible condition in ACC. It's a biggest shame of game. I really hate it.

LOL, yes, but there are about 3 lines entering the pit lane just to confuse you!

Is the pitlane speed limit really 30mph in real life cause it's almost not moving?! And as usual it seems ridiculously hard to find the exact pixel you need to stop at in the pit box!

I have the FOV at 18 on triples in ACC and then I move the seat back a bit in game, so its fairly close to what I have in AC, with the stretching on the side monitors, which I hate because it makes it harder to judge turn in and apex, but no chance of getting any mirrors on the screen other than virtual which is small and for some reason really low quality compared to the cockpit mirrors and like I said the FOV in the virtual mirror is ridiculous so judging distance is impossible as everything looks far away.

Also, what's with the setup loading/saving UI?! OMG! Save is the default so it's really easy to override existing setups when you want to load. It's just flipping awful. What were they thinking!?

Test race went ok for me, only problem I had was lack of practice and no idea where any of the buttons are! I just used default settings and tried to stay out of everyone elses way

No no! Fanboys sais , it's absolute normally to lost you setups in load- save screen! It's absolutely normally to click million times in car setup spinners, it's very good to search , being in race, pitstop menu from MFD screens and change tires clickbox is really good accessible and challenging! They loved an initiall car choice spinner, when to take your car , you must to see each car in fun sequence first! Very cool UI and disigners win.  :) Will it changed? Not sure! This game is for small childrens too. They loves to see many coloured pictures ans click millions times the mouse!

Does Baikal not like the UI?  ;D

The UI is trash and I have no idea how it got through design fase  ???.

But besides that, it will be hard to go back to AC after this. The feel, graphics and FFB is miles better and the changeable conditions is something I've been wanting back in a sim since ages.

Maybe it's like an aircraft carrier, miss the first cable, then at least you have 2 alternatives left.

According to rule 132 of the Blancpain regulation 2016, the pitlane speed is indeed 50kph.


Didn't this game have fully animated pit crew? All I saw was another stupid box.


I'm more surprised that nobody told them during the development...this might not be the best UI we've ever seen. Were there only yay-nodders in the testing phase?

I've not seen a pit crew member.
I'm also very pleased there was no rain in the race - as I have yet to find the pit menu when driving (not where I think Alexey is suggesting) so I'd have been stuck on slicks throughout.

I also loved the random wet qually, I was lucky and went out on the Wet setup - but only did one lap as my pit chief claimed slicks were better and all 4 tires were red by the end of the first flying lap.
So I loaded a dry setup and went slower as I couldn't get heat into my tires. 3 laps later I started some very believable aquaplaning and sliding as the weather worsened so quit and went back to my wets.
I was quicker than the slicks but as the track had got so much wetter I couldn't improve on my first flying lap.

The race went well given that the Jaaaaaaag turns out to have the worlds longest 1st gear.
I could easily stay with Simon until we reached the fiddly chicanes behind the hill, and the hairpin - in both those locations Simon would just leap away from me as though I was in neutral. I think he very nearly rear ended me at one point while behind me because of this :D

Further into the session and after some tweaking of the TC, ABS and bias I was mostly managing to match his laps times and not really dropping away as I was making considerable time in other areas. But I was pushing very hard to achieve this and eventually put myself into a wall so hard that my car was pretty much totalled.
I fought my way to the end only to discover that autosave for the replays is 'disabled by default' for online races ::)

So I've nothing to watch despite having a good fun scrap for 10 or 15 minutes with Simon at the start :(

My first impression is very mixed as a result.


Didn't try VR this time Bob but intend to next time to see what happens :)

Animated pit crew was introduced with update 0.6 or 0.7 iirc but was later removed due to some issues around it. It should be back anytime soon tho :D

Why is this event still listed under "Forthcoming"?

Because I need to get the results to Dave so he can think about an importer for this shiny new SIM.

:notworthy:

So I've had a bash at a prototype importer. There are some fairly significant holes in the JSON export format currently available, most significantly the lack of anything but cryptic coded car model information, and an impenetrable format for total race time (a very large unsigned 32-bit number). There's no track information either, though that's less critical as the system already knows what it's expecting.

Who is "Stephan Q"? I presume there's a matching forum user - I've set up a guest driver for now.

Thanks Dave  :angel:

Did I read somewhere it's total milli-seconds?

Except I've had several occasions where the AC track reported in the results was different to the layout previously entered in LM2! This wouldn't get picked up I suspect as I often have no idea about the intricacies of track layouts.

You would have thought that as this is at least Kunos' 3rd sim supporting multiplayer the basics from before would be in there  ::)

There's at least an offset of some sort, or the race took weeks. ;) 4294951417 is almost 50 days in milliseconds; the number is too close to 2³² to be a simple total.

Found this in the server manual

Still makes no sense to me  :-\ Although 4294951417 is a signed 32 bit number and of the order of -15 secs, but where's the time to subtract it from?

Session type list is defined as

Value     Session type
0         Practice
4         Qualifying
10        Race

Well that's not right either, the exports contain 0 for both P and Q and 1 for R. :beta1:

This is one of the things in the upcoming patch, maybe it will help:

Added 2nd results json file (via dumpLeaderboards) that contains more information.

Did I map all those cars correctly? I got FMG's Jag but couldn't quite make out who was in what from the posts here.