...the old saying really holds true. Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast.

I was just racing the Lambo around Elkhart Lake tonight. I was trying to push like hell in qualifying but only wound up 3rd on the grid with a time a couple tenths above my PB for the track. I was able to take the lead by the end of lap three and just cruised. I wasn't pushing at all but I was definitely in a zone.

When I checked the lap chart at the end of the race I found I had beaten my PB on seven laps and set a new PB 1.5 seconds under my previous one!

So so much of competition driving is mental. If you're stuck at a plateau, just try relaxing. Focus, but relax.

Oh, and before anyone else does, to myself.

 

x 1,000

Smoothness prevails over jerkiness. It's very hard for me to drive smooth... I try but I can't help trying to push it to the limit.... have to remind myself to be smooth...

 

btw Billiam is it time to set up some GTR Time Trials?

 

so true....I remember i ran a 1mintute 26 sec lap in Laguna Seca back in GT3 with only a 318whp DC2, NA. It was so sweet. I just kept beating my old times by driving more smootly throughout all the tracks.

 

Since it would very likely just be you and I, I don't know if it's worth taking up the space here. We could do trials via PM's I suppose. I guess at a minimum we could trade PB values. On the other hand, maybe if we kept up GTR exposure others would join in.

 

lol I suppose. Yeah that would be my first interest - to get more people interested and into this game. With so many owning the DFP, I don't see why not - all you need is a capable computer and the game... with just 2 people though, you're right, I dunno...

The game is quite taxing on the computer, I have a relatively capable machine, but by today's standard's not really. It's a 2.2GHz with 512MB RAMBUS (remember them?), WDC 120GB 8MB cache HD, and a Radeon 9800 Pro. And the game sometimes crawls when you are starting out of the pits, with the more complex tracks. I'm running it at 1280x1024 - maybe I should try lowering that a bit...

But, I think it would be best to have like 1GB of RAM and 3GHz+ processor, along with one of the newer graphics cards and a Raptor drive. Isn't it insane how new games make what used to be screaming machines slow? It's really insane. I mean, really.

 

Some things you may want to consider for your GTR performance:

1) There is/was some sort of issue with ATI cards. I don't have one so I didn't read that much about it. I think it was known as the "1 fps bug" if you want to poke around the GTR forum at RSC.

2) Try running 32 bit color if you aren't already. I saw several mentions that ATI cards run noticeably slower in 16 bit than 32 bit. Makes little sense I know, but I saw at least four or five people that agreed with this sentiment.

3) Try to stick with tracks that use mostly DDS graphics files and not BMP's. DDS is the "native" texture format for GTR's rendering engine. It can use BMP's but there's a performance hit. Not really sure how big thought. This may only be true for the major textures such as tarmac, grass, buildings, etc... I don't know. Point is, if you see only BMP's, it's going to be a slower track.

4) On my machine the biggest performance hit is definitely the number of cars on the screen. It doesn't matter if it's in the cockpit or external replay cams. The more cars on the screen, the slower the fps. I'm pretty sure that the game not only renders the additional cars, but that it's also calculating their physics and driver AI any time they're visible. You may want to tweak the max cars visible setting(s) to see if you notice any difference.

For reference my system is an Athlon64 3400+, 1GB of DDR 400, 128MB 6800GT (AGP), and mirrored 120GB WD SATA drives. I don't have any frame rates memorized, but I run 1024x768x32 and the only times the fps ever seems slow in GTR is when there's more than 15 or so cars visible on the screen. That's pretty rare from within the cockpit.

 

damn... you have a sweet and very capable machine. I do notice best performance in open practice with 3 cars, lol. For race weekend I have opponent cars set to 15. I think I need to lower my resolution, and also consider your point about BMP tracks - and also the ATI issue - damn. It did feel like about 1fps, lol... But damn this game makes me wanna upgrade some stuff.... :banghead:

 

Remeber that there's two different settings. You set the number of opponent cars in the race weekend "Summary" screen but you set the max cars visible in the graphics options. For tweaking performance, I'd definitely recommend playing witht the max cars visible setting.

My next thing to research is if you can somehow customize which cars the game selects to fill the field. If I choose a small-ish field sometimes the grid will be a bunch of Vipers & Moslers with no Ferraris or Lambos. Same thing with an all NGT field. Sometimes I'll get a grid with a bunch of Porsche Supercup cars and very few GT3 RS's or f360's. In both cases it doesn't make for much of a challenge as I end up blowing their doors off.

Have you developed any favorite engine sounds yet? For external sounds I gotta go with the 550. For in-car, though, I am thoroughly addicted to the sound of the Corvette. For some reason, the teeth-rattling sound of the big V8 overlaid with the whine of the straight cut gears just seems absolutely spot-on to me! I don't think any of the NGT cars sound bad, but none of them really float my boat.

 

oh right so that is the setting to mess with - so I guess you are saying I can leave the max cars the same, at like 33 or whatever, just change the max cars visiible. The other thing is I notice the tracks load considerably faster during open practice, most definitely because of the fewer cars. This was also the case with the previous GTR. I will try messing with that setting too. It's been a while since I've had to mess with this sheit, my computer had no trouble with the older games so I ran most games at 100% detail and everything.

interesting.. if you find out more about how to do it let me know. I have not got to the point that I'm competitive with any of the AI unfortunately... what do you have their difficulty set to? I have it set to "Real"... should I set it to something else? They pretty much blow me away at this point, and I haven't played any track for long enough to get really good at it...

lol when you said have I developed any engine sounds yet, I thought you meant like actually modified the sound - which I have done with the old GTR - you could actually modify the wav files - I think I used to do it with some other game too. I just didn't like what the car sounded like so I edited the sound to my liking... also I had raised the rev limit on the car to like 10k or something so it sounded crazy. I think I increased the pitch of the sound and it ended up sounding similar to an F1 car at the upper rpm's lol.... I've always loved that customizability of PC games... sure you can do it with GameShark and hybrids and such on PS2 but it just ain't as easy. Hell I don't even have a GameShark for my PS2...

I haven't played the new GTR enough to determine any favorites. I do like the F575 though - and I had nothing against the C5R. I had the Sportscar Racing mod for the old GTR, if had the R8, the Cadillac LMP900, Panoz LMP's, and other such cars - and those cars had some wicked sounds... my fav was the Cadillac. I think I am officially rambling...

 

I'm almost certain that's normal. F1-2002, F1 Challenge, and all of the various mods for them have been the same way. I just always assumed it had something to do with the timing and scoring for a race.

There's two settings for the AI: a percentage slider for strength and an aggression setting where you choose from timid/clean/real/angry/psychotic. I've left the aggression setting at "clean" since I first got the game and have been bumping up the strength slider as I get better. I only run individual races so I usually tweak the strength setting to what I feel will give me a good challenge for front of the pack. My settings vary depending on how much seat time I have at the track I'm running. Usually it's somewhere between 93% and 96% with a couple of exceptions where I can challenge between 97% and 100%. The AI that came with Limerock is pretty slow. I've won there easily with the strength setting at 104% I think I should bump my aggression setting up to "real." I've noticed that I seem to be able to pull away from cars a bit too quickly once I get around them.

If I have enough energy tonight I might see if Fraps can capture audio only. I've been up since 3am though so I don't know if I'd even be able to hold a car on the track at my current level of consciousness.

 

ok it's the opposite for me... the AI does this to me, lol. and I'm in a F575... .... I have it set to Real, don't know what the percentage sliders are set to... I suppose I should check those. They are at whatever the default is, seeing how I didn't change em.

I love how realistic everything is in this game. Once I entered a multiplayer race at Magny-Cours. I hit the first turn and get pwned. I notice all aids are off for this race. Including ABS. Talk about ownage. But after a lap or two I was modulating the brakes to the point that the car was drivable.

And I love that one little jump at Lime Rock where you can get air - and if you take it without feathering the throttle you will wipe out when you land...

I do wish more people would get this game and try it out...

 

Billiam I hung out with some friends at a bar in Chicago tonight - and met a couple of new people - it turned out 2 of them were GTR freaks - and play online. Anyway so we exchanged screen names and I think we will be racing or at least trying to race online some time. Maybe you could join in too.

btw they told me that Imola 4.0 was released a few days ago.

http://www.stevelife.com/news.htm

needless to say it was weird hearing GTR news from like, OTHER people. :P

 

So you're getting GTR news from other people now, eh? You slut.


Seriously though, I'm up for giving online a shot with some other local peeps. Please keep me in the loop if you would be so kind.

For now it's off to the NHRA race in Joliet...