NGT Sprint Cup - Season 1, Round 4, Brno - Aug 2nd

[popabawa]

after letting all the leaders thru, I let As-Here thru thinking he was ahead of me, but he wasnt, and then he was - d`oh!!!

Been there, done that! 

I fixed that problem by mapping the 'look behind' button to my steering wheel, then it's easy to check the position of whoever is behind you (as long as you have the 'tab' pressed).

Pops

[PaulW]

To finish first (or 10th!) first you must finish!

Just a thought- have you tried turning the steering wheel off Paul? Not having to draw that might give you a few extra frames.

[Paul968]

Yep - tried that. Tyf gave me a few ideas too, but I really just need more CPU horsepower than an XP 1600. It's mainly when there are lots of cars on the server that I get problems - I had a 2.00 something in qual on Monday night on the server, but there were much fewer drivers then.

thx for the suggestion anyway

Paul

[Woodee]

2.00??? Where was I losing 7 seconds in my Porsche GT3!

[PaulW]

2.00 is insane! Have you a replay of a lap near that time? I'm interested in just how differently you're driving to gain 4 seconds on my best time 

[Mike Wrightson]

I was a bit nervous of Brno before the race, but now it counts as one of my favourite circuits!  It's quite technical but has a great flow to it.

I was taking it relatively easy in the opening couple of laps until the tyre temps stabilised, then I could start speeding up when the grip really appeared   The tyres lasted really well, no apparent problems with excessive wear, still had good grip at the end from my medium-medium Dunlops (really nice tyre, love them!)

Paul, I can try and reproduce my 2:01.6 from qually if you want

[Paul968]

Here you go :

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.harrington/Brno%20360%20HL%202004.Vcr

I expect if you ask nicely, Mat has a sub 2 minute lap tucked away somewhere 

[Simon Gymer]

2.00 is insane! Have you a replay of a lap near that time? I'm interested in just how differently you're driving to gain 4 seconds on my best time 

I watched Paul in qualifying and he uses a hell of a lot of curb, brakes exceedingly late getting the back end ever so slightly out (I expect you're running a more than normal rear brake bias Paul? most of the really fast drivers usually do) enough to point the car in a better direction for the exit. It looked on the ragged edge to me which is probably why I can never be that fast as I'm quite a smooth driver. Hey if you can do it that's how to drive really fast.

If you've ever seen any of the real aliens of GPL you'll know what I mean by the whole rear brake bias thing and a sort of style that is really hard to master.

It's not a style most people can drive as you'll often end up spinning it a lot and you do have to tone it back a certain degree for racing over qualifying otherwise you risk losing it too easily.

[Simon Gymer]

Yep - tried that. Tyf gave me a few ideas too, but I really just need more CPU horsepower than an XP 1600. It's mainly when there are lots of cars on the server that I get problems - I had a 2.00 something in qual on Monday night on the server, but there were much fewer drivers then.

Yeah an XP 1600 is not enough for GTR's CPU hungry algorithms.

Other than the graphics options which I'm sure you're quite aware of what to change, have you tried turning off the MOTEC logging, which is more of an issue when you have lots of cars cause of the extra it has to log to disk? (Can be done by deleting the paths to the motec stuf in your plr file)

[PaulW]

Cheers guys.

[Rob Bywater "Kerb Crawlers"]

after letting all the leaders thru, I let As-Here thru thinking he was ahead of me, but he wasnt, and then he was - d`oh!!!

Been there, done that! 

I fixed that problem by mapping the 'look behind' button to my steering wheel, then it's easy to check the position of whoever is behind you (as long as you have the 'tab' pressed).

Pops

Yep got that button mapped to my steering wheel as well - just not confident enough to look behind me, even though it will only be briefly, and keep it in a straight line. I can hear the pit voice already "its the splitter, the splitters gone".

Cheers

Rob

[Don]

Yep got that button mapped to my steering wheel as well - just not confident enough to look behind me, even though it will only be briefly, and keep it in a straight line. I can hear the pit voice already "its the splitter, the splitters gone".

Cheers

Rob

Think you will have to get used to looking behind, don't know how I would manage without it (I also have look left and right mapped as well). The mirror in my opnion just isn't good enough.
Don.

[popabawa]

Think you will have to get used to looking behind, don't know how I would manage without it (I also have look left and right mapped as well). The mirror in my opnion just isn't good enough.
Don.

Yup, it's pretty much a necessity I think.

It's something to have a practice with - try it out on the really long straights at first though!

[Paul968]

I watched Paul in qualifying and he uses a hell of a lot of curb, brakes exceedingly late getting the back end ever so slightly out (I expect you're running a more than normal rear brake bias Paul? most of the really fast drivers usually do) enough to point the car in a better direction for the exit. It looked on the ragged edge to me which is probably why I can never be that fast as I'm quite a smooth driver. Hey if you can do it that's how to drive really fast.

I'm not sure that rear bias and late braking is that important. I run about 55 on the bias, but as an experiment I put it forward to 60 and tried to do a lap without late, heavy braking and without any significant trail braking in fact in some of the twisty bits I just didn't brake but lifted instead. The result was far from perfect (not braking meant I slid wide at one point, which must have cost a few tenths) but still quite competitive - 2.02.0.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.harrington/Brno%20Light%20Brake%202020.Vcr

You can see some corners where the brake lights are on part way after turn in, but this is more a case of trying to come off the brakes smoothly rather than any overt attempt to trail brake. Sure, in qual I'm pushing for every tenth by braking later, trail braking, etc, but its other things which really make the difference IMO.

Paul

[Matjaz Plotajs]

I have a shitty PC myself as well so I have a button assigned to switch off the Motec display (tyre, brake tempreatures...) from which I gain 20+ FPS. I still have a nice and simple HUD display of revs and gear. Here is the way to have a HUD visible in the cockpit:

In the file name_driver.plr search the follow options:

HUD="2" // 0=none, 1=Full, 2=Minimal (when enabled)
Minimal HUD="1" // Whether minimal HUD is included when cycling through HUDs
Minimal HUD Position="1" // 0=left, 1=centre, 2=right

Allow HUD in cockpit="1"
1 is enabled, 0 is disable

There is a button (Controller - Extra - Toggle HUD) and if you press it after you have modified your .plr file you can have a HUD visible in your cocpit. By pressing the Toggle HUD button you can cycle through:

- no HUD

- minimal HUD (this one is my favourite and I use it all the time)



- full HUD (to much information and to big if you ask me)




All the rest (tyre temperature, brakes, time...) can be used when you need it. Just turn on your Motec display and then turn it off when you don't need it. It works fine for me. For most of the time in the race I use only minimal HUD and if I wan't to know other information I turn on my Motec display and then turn it off.


P.S.  Hm... just realized that this league permits driving from non cockpit camera as well. I always drive from cockpit only so this is what I do to improve my frame rate. I switch off my Motec display (tyre, brake temperature...) and switch on a minimal  HUD display for the revs and gear information.