SimRacing.org.uk

Not sure if this is Round 2 or Round 3. As most of you will know a decision was taken to cancel the Goodwood race due to a mass secreen freeze / disco which took out about half the field. Unfortunately Goodwood looks likely to be consigned to the dodgy track list unless somebody comes up with a fix. We will therefore schedule a replacement fixture at the end of the season at Virginia International Raceway. This track was used on last seasons 67 Division & ran without any problems. We will use the same 65 cars – BT7 & Honda – as were intended for Goodwood.
So Round 3 will stay in England at Brands Hatch & continues with the 65 Mod. The track can be downloaded here brands hatch (http://dixierunners.speedgeezers.net/brands1967/)

Brands requires little introduction but I would point you to a track fix. (I have downloaded & installed it but not actually tested it.) https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=9245.0 

For any new entrants to Spec Racing the format is a little different from other divisions. There will be two Int Short Races, back to back on the same track. For each event there are two chassis available and you should drive both cars - anyone daft enough to use the same car will be disqualified for Race 2. Start with whichever chassis you like. Your choice of chariot is the Brabham BT11 v the Lotus.

There is no handicapping all participants will run in one division. A slight change in moderating procedures from previous seasons:
Unlimited resets are allowed but every Shift R must be followed by a Stop & Go in the pit lane. If you Reset on the last lap a 30 second time penalty will be awarded.
Incidents should be reported in the usual way.
In line with other divisions the races will be subject to full moderation on lap one.
Also please note that qualifying runs are limited to 12 minutes.

Race List = IGOR
Server = UKGPL_T7_2
IP address = 62.149.202.168
Race date = Friday 27-05-2011
Time = 21:00 UK time (21:00 GMT)
Track = Brands Hatch
Race length = Intermediate Short
Variant = 1965
Chassis = BT11 & Lotus 33
Damage Model = Intermediate
Qualifying time = 12 minutes

Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R;group=308;theme=6)

Sorry to spoil it for you, Billy, but VIR is as bad as Goodwood in terms of causing screen freeze, if not worse. I suffered a freeze along with other people at it last season, in the Graduates race. Please choose something else...  :)

I second that. Even though I crashed out in the race, I had a freeze in quali.

Are there plans to run any 69 Xtra races in the specs this season?

Tommie.

I'm installing 69Xtra right now on T7 server. I think it will need some test before plan a season race ;)
Anyway thx Tom and all the 69 Team :)
Ciao

Thanks Hristo & Tommie. I'm not going to ignore another warning about rogue tracks. Next on my list is Laguna Seca - I've done a couple of races there & not aware of any problems.

If you mean Laguna Seca '67 then yeah, it's fine (and great to race at!).

Yes H - Laguna 67.

Vos - just been having a glance through the dodgy track lists & a couple of leagues have blackballed Sandown 68 which is on the Graduates calendar for later in the season.

OK I'll try and remember to look. Shame so many tracks are closed off for online racing...

Yes the Spa Race 69 race will be run with the 69 Extra Mod.

I'm also open to persuasion to change the Zandvoort Race from 67 to 69 Extra - if thats what people want. Not intending to make wholesale changes & its not a vote but post if you'd like to change Zandvoort.

I won't mind that, it would be nice to have more 69 races, especially with the new mod. Hope it's not heavier on graphics though.

Yeah Bill, I'm happy to run an extra 69 Xtra race lol, at Zandy......would be fun.....:)

Would love to try the 69 Extra mod at Zandervoot.

Me too, would like to race the new 69's at Zandvoort. Unfortunately the Spec series isn't very suited to show the diversity of the mod, but it's possible to showcase the different graphical options.

Eagle Climax vs. Matra MS80 :D .

Tommie.

Tom do you know if there'll be a light version for Dedicated Server, it needs double amount of RAM than 66 Mod. and also those client with old pcs and only 1 Gb RAM will be in troubles.
Ciao

Fulvio / Tommie
You chaps obviously understand the computer issues better than me. From what I gather the 69 Extra Mod is a large programme and may cause problems for the server & possibly the capabilities of some drivers machines.
If the Mod will run satisfactorily then I'm happy to run the Spa & the Zandvoort races with 69 Extra BUT I have already cancelled & rescheduled one league race this season & there isn't really room to reschedule another.
Maybe we need some test races first?
If you can let me know if 69 Extra is safe to run as a league race that would be great - either here or by PM. The good news is Spa isn't until 19 August.

I'm happy to set up a test any time on UKGPL3 which despite being an optimised server is fairly lightly built with slow in built graphics and smallish RAM (4Gb with Windows Server 2008).

Let me know and if somebody could point me to the download and instructions that would help as well.

Wouldn't it help if you set up core.ini for minimum graphics (i.e. texture/mip-file size) and also turn off graphic options inside GPL? I mean on the server.

Probably :)

I asked Paul S. on SRMZ forum, and the culprit is the 45 3DO that are always loaded by the server vs. 20 of 66 mod and 7 for other mods.
He will see if he can subsitute the actual 3DO with something lighter. Graphic options and details don't affect a dedicated server.
Ciao

Or maybe not :(

It's still useful to consider the texture size options, unless you mean a dedicated server doesn't load any textures at all (which I doubt).

I personally am not able to run 69X very well... a track like waltglen takes exacly 5 mins to load and i can run it only at 600x480 rezolution or otherwize it crashes while switching rezolutions... idk. Atleast default setups are good...

from the sound of it i think 69x will be a no go for me (p4 with 1Gb ram).

Same spec. here, and it runs ok, with an extra 256mb of graphics in D3D.  I had to turn the detail down to 50%, and if that's not enough help, try lite, or Voodoo track addons.

On my dedicated server I can run GT races in 60fps. But I don't see them!
With this PC it would be impossible to drive GTs  ;D
P3 700 with 384mb Ram and old NV GPU

I have installed and tested on T7 server the last version of Brands67 fixed by Ginetto and reduced for Voodoo/Server by Achim.
Finger crossed  :)

Hristo, a dedicated server has to load in RAM all the 3do cars and textures, but it doesn't show anything. Disabling all the textures and objects in Options doesn't change the amount of RAM needed cause it loads all anyway, infact you can disable/enable textures without exiting from GPL.
Please, can you point to the texture size options are you speaking?

Cookie can you check in Task Manager how much RAM uses GPL on your server once a track is loaded with GT Mod?
Thx

In core.ini, rasterizer section:

TossBiggestMips=0
MaxMipSize=0
MirrorSize= 0
DirectMirrorRendering=1
DrawMethod=2
ZBufferType=2
AnisotropicFiltering= 2
TrilinearFiltering=1
32Bit=1

Do these affect how textures are loaded or only how they're drawn?

Only how they're drawn.
The only option as I see it is to replace the 3do files with something very much smaller in size.

Hi Guys,

I'm pretty confident I've got the oldest PC out of everyone here, yet I actually helped to create the mod ;D . PC Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 Processor
1.80 GHz
512 MB RAM
nVidia GeForce 5200 FX

Yes, it does take me a while to load a track, usually 3 or 4 minutes, then when I'm actually on the track and start to move I get tow or three little hiccups that freeze the screen for 3 or 4 seconds (although the sim keeps on running, you just can't see where you are going) whilst driving through the pitlane. After that I'm fine and the mod runs no different than any other mod in the time it takes to exit the pitlane. And that's with 512 MB RAM, I'm pretty sure nobody has less RAM than me. I can run the mod just fine.

Obviously, for me Montjuic is like driving GPL with a Viewmaster, but the mod isn't worse frame rate wise than the old 1969 mod. The GT mod is certainly much worse for me.

A server test as always a good thing with any new mod, however I'd hazard a guess that Fulvio's server will be just fine. It just takes a while to load the track, but that's it.

Tommie.

I cannot believe how decrepit some of the PC specs are... mind you I do work with them professionally and I have 12 computers of various shades at home (7 PC's). The oldest one is a Toshiba Libretto 50 which is an original Pentium with 128 Mb of RAM and it can't quite run GPL :(

GPL can run very well with a Voodoo video card, because it's greatly optimized to work on 3DFX. I used to have a 300 mhz Celeron with 512 mb ram and Voodoo Banshee, and it ran GPL much better than a 1.2 ghz PC with nVidia card on D3D.

Those are rasterizer specific and affect only how GFX works, not what is loaded in RAM. T7 server hasn't a DX compatible GFX so it works only with OpenGL.
Ciao

Its 538MB RAM used GTs 60fpsV1 at Brands, difficult to see...

Is it the total RAM used or only by GPL? Anyway you're swapping memory on disk, not ideal.
Thx

This action made me look into the PC and I saw that there is a problem: 3 capacitors with swollen heads :o

Now I will set up my other PC Athlon 1800+ with 1GB RAM for server...

PS works fine now!

The RAM used is 572MB total, this means if not running GPL-server there are still 243MB used!

Some great racing tonight.
race 1 saw Hristo run away and myself not quite able to get another 10 yds closer to attack for the whole 12 laps of flat out racing. really enjoyed that one.

2nd race and I did not get a good lap in during qually when i tried H's Brab setup and that showed again when I ran just a fraction wide at T1 on the 2nd lap and dropped about 3 places After  Axel went wide I had several laps pressuring Rocket Ronnie and tried several moves to pass him but he defended them well and held his place.
 Eventually I tried a run up the inside to Druids where I had noticed that he braked earlier than me on previous laps but he closed the door on me ( quite legally, I was not completely alongside him). I thought I had braked hard enough to avoid him, but as we entered the corner his car seemed to wobble and go wide.........."oops!" I thought "I bet that was some warp contact!!".  It seems that it was indeed some perceived contact that nudged him off...Sorry Ronnie, I was enjoying the battle until then and Steve was about to join us I think..it could have been good fun :-\.

After that incident, I got away from Ronnie and Steve and chased down Goran, but his lead was just a little too big and anyway I got Paddock Hill bend wrong again on the last lap, so did not deserve better than 4th :-[

Grats to Hristo, Natan and Goran for the podium and thanks to all for some great fun.

Grats H * 2 and all other podium/finishers. Had some fun tonight.

Race 1: not much to report. Battles with Steve were the highlight - he was quicker but think had a few wobbles which allowed it to be closer then it should of been.

Race 2: I'm sitting on the grid thinking I bet Bill will be pleased, no lap one pile-up in race one. That must of tempted fate as something went on resulting in a car flying across me and a reset and start at the back.
Confession - in the heat of the red mist I just drove on then thought is it a compulsory SnG for that reset? Chief Mod brainfade LOL. Anyway figured yes it was compulsory so pitted and then came out just in front of Jason.
As fate would have it that's where I got my racing kick from - Jason was faster but he couldn't stick a pass on me for a long time. Then the cheeky little wotsit made a pass into Druids - took me by surprise but it was clean and fair. After that I couldn't keep up. Good fun though.

PS: Jason has just confessed to forgetting his SnG so I guess I'll get bumped in front of him anyway but it made for a bit of fun racing for me at the time.

No, I did NOT forget to take it... being the victim of a blatant rear end shunt I thought , well I can't publish what I thought  but the clean version translates as " No I will jolly well not take a penalty stop for this unfortunate incident, caused by my good friend and fellow gentleman racer Fulvio, but I will choose to race on and enjoy my evening."
*insert random swear words as you see fit*

go ahead and DQ me.. the rules are s*!t anyway :D

Anyhow, race one I started at the back having deliberatly spun the car on every qualifying lap... Had a little nudge with Sky at Druids when he regained the track in front of me. I wasn't quite sure where to go to avoid him so I just punted him off instead..  I made many mistakes early on through watching Pribluda instead of the track but it was fun.. and FAST! got well below 1:38 in the BT11 so well pleased with that.

Race two, as documented already, I was punted off at T1 and ended up with my lotus stranded on the bales on the outside of Paddock Hill.. I reset (dead last) and set off to hunt down and tear apart the pack ahead.... this I did with ease up as far as 9th placed Timmy Vosbl0ddy who was fast enough where it mattered to keep me held back... for a few laps anyway! I watched and waited for my moment and like a leopard I pounced when it chance came! Poor Tim didn't know where it came from! i then set about setting some more fast laps but oddly found the Lotus just hasn't got the speed of the BT11! best of 1:38.00 was enough to keep my smiling. Pity the impending DQ is gonna wipe that smile off my sooty, oily face!

Hmmm - Race 1 qualified 9th - well chuffed. Sad really. By T1 I was eleventh :( Never mind. Made a few mistakes pushing where I shouldn't and span about six times. Nonetheless found myself battling Billy in an evil handling little monster. Finished ahead of him for once by not making (too many) mistakes.

Race 2. Horrible. Kept the racing much cleaner but the T1 shenanigans and a SnG put me last and I stayed there. Got some practice trying not to lose too much time whilst being lapped which may (or may not) be useful for Sunday. Anyway - had fun.

Snored on thru the alarm and missed the show entirely... :oops:. :sleep1: :sleep1:..well, it is Saturday morning here after all. Disappointed to miss, and have given said alarm clock a "damn good thrashing"  :2guns: :2guns: for it's timidity in that it just said 'Beep' continuously........instead of Get your ar*e out of the fart sack, it's race day!!!""   :taz:   

Not quite sure how I have that 34.392 as race record in the Cooper as neither the BT11 or Lotus could go quicker than high 34s, but maybe it was slipstream.

Race 1 was a good chase with Evil, who was very quick in some corners, but was mostly losing time in all 3 left handers.

Race 2 provided less pressure, with Nat and Evil dropping back early on and all I had to do was bring it home. Sorry to Billy who I touched on the last lap, but he was a bit indecisive on where to go before T3.

Funny that. I found that whatever I did I just couldn't get the Lotus or the BT11 to go faster than high 34's either ;)

He was referring to laptimes, and not tyre temps, :)

Not a good night by any stretch of the imagination.
Race 1 - I've driven the BT11 for several seasons in the Novices. Found the Lotus much quicker in prcatice so I compromised my Brabham set up. Bad idea - just couldn't get the handling right & span off in places where the car would normally stick.
Rcae 2- Prib was a mess of coloured blocks. Can usually be corrected by disco & reconnect but after three tries I decided I'd have put up with it. Downside was I wouldn't know who was in front or behind & I spent the whole session counting gear changes. Got a shunt when I slowed for the Lpa 1 incident but ran fairly consistently after that until the last lap. Figured out the fast approaching / lapping car had to be H - lost count on my gear changes going into T3 so I eased off but stayed on the racing line. Guess that change of pace confused H & we had a slight coming together.

Hope I get the BT11 sorted out for Aintree.

Results up

Hmmm - kind of figured that. Sarcasm, being the lowest form of wit, is my only refuge! I couldn't do better than high 1:40's and I got nowhere near that in the race. I have not yet figured out how to replicate the banzai style of qually into the race without spinning off lots...

BTW Billy, use the same setup for Aintree - I'd like the company ;D

For me as a newbie in 65s its hard to find the differences of those cars...

First with Lotus went fine for me having nice fights but not enough experience, think I can be satisfied with the result  ;)

Second should go better till my big mistake under pressure in the last corner in lap 4. Beeing best of the rest is my excuse...

All in all great fun these 65s and an opportunity to learn from the more experienced ;D

Cheers Axel

Both races were fun, with Race 1 having close racing with Tim.  I had done no practice at all so it was all a bit of a warm up.  Tim drove well so couldn't get a clean pass unless I were to take a big dive and risk both our races.  Eventually got a bit better drive and got along side, Tim was generous not to try and fight the position, twice after I messed up the first one!

Race 2 was chasing Clive and Ronnie with Fulvio, I think just behind.  Sadly Ronnie had a half spin and I chose the wrong side to go and ended up t-boning his car, which left us too far back from Fulvio and Clive to do anything.  Ronnie drove well under what little pressure I could place on him.  Axel not too far behind kept everything honest.

Some good driving there, including the guys down field who allowed plenty of room when necessary.

You and Ronnie looked pretty close coming round to the pits... I was thinking "C'mon guys - this is about the only place I can accelerate..." Got a bit nervous as the corner unwound and I was on the racing line but I shouldn't have worried. They zoomed past. I thought I'd try and tuck in behind and then nearly lost it at Druids...

Just goes to show - experience isn't everything. I've done 90% of my races in 65's :D

One thing that is worth saying is that it was a totally different experience to driving the Honda. Great fun and whilst I am not threatening a podium anytime yet, I might just produce some midfield results if I can curb my predilection for taking a picnic in the middle of a race!

Really enjoyed the racing last night. To Clive and Steve no hard feelings from me regarding any contact made during passing attempts. In these short blast races in the Spec series I don't see how you can criticize people for having an honest go to get by. Looking forward to the next one. Congrats to the speed merchants up front.

Moderating report now published.