I got smashed into on at the 1st corner and had to pit for repairs. I worked my way through the field and took it down. Very proud.
The strength of field was very low, but I don't care. :)
Monday, June 30, 2014
4 Things
Three things to report in this little update:
- Grid Autosport is fun
- My best iRacing race result is now a 2nd
- I realized that having ABS enabled in iRacing was costing me half a second a lap
- My Safety Rating dropped back below 2.5
1. Grid Autosport
While it definitely is a Sim-Cade racing game (that is, it blurs the lines between Simulation and Arcade) it is a real blast. The game looks amazing even at lower settings, the AI is challenging by being aggressive but not stupid, the physics engine is forgiving and fun. The cockpit view is a little lack luster, but I've been playing using the zoomed cockpit view (ie: the windscreen fills your vision) and think that it does well. The big upside is that my friends who enjoy less hardcore racing games than iRacing are all into it.
Personally I'll be playing Grid Autosport when I can't commit to a full 30 mins for an iRacing race or I'm not in the mood for 100% focused driving.
2. My 2nd place finish
It could have easily been my first win; stupidity at the 1st corner behind me left me way out in front on my own with something like a 20 second lead. On of the C license guys back in the pack was steadily reeling me in at about a second a lap but I knew if I just played it cool I'd be able to hold on for the win. Alas, a fast lapped rookie made a poor pass on me, even though I'd left him room and called him around and crashed straight into me. The damage I suffered meant that while I could continue driving I was now losing about 3 seconds a lap to the C license guy. He finally got by me with 2 laps left. I was happy to take down 2nd, but it was a case of the one that got away.
3. Bye bye ABS
It was during the race above that I noticed the C license guy catching me was making up a lot of his time in the two heavy breaking sections of the track. I watched the replay and tried to replicate his breaking point and couldn't stop the car as quick as he was. When doing an analysis in iSpeed I could see the ABS kicking in on my laps. I turned it off in game and instantly gained half a second a lap on my best time. I've now worked my PB in the MX5 around summit point down to 1:26.3 and if I can string together my optimal sectors I'll get into the mid 1:25's!
4. Safety Rating 2.49
During the above points, I managed to drop a whole stack of SR points. The decision that Grid Autosport will be what I play when I'm not feeling 100% focused was fueled by 2 back to back races where I completely messed up, spinning off and having huge crashes in iRacing.
Since all this I have gained back some of my lost SR..... and as I was in the process of typing all this out I actually had a race which is worth its own post. So I'll wrap this up and start a new one.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Easy does it....
While my number 1 priority at the moment in iRacing is increasing my Safety Rating so I can progress up to a D license and get away from the crashfest which is rookie racing, I'm also using my time down with the rookies to improve my racing style and ultimately lap times.
I've eeked by SR up to 2.67 and feel confident that I'll make further gains over the weekend as I run more races. I'm barely ever having incidents on my own and am getting better at avoiding all the mess from other people. One thing which I'm definitely going to start doing is just avoiding the warm up session before a race though. I learned this via a couple of harsh lessons by being completely taken out by people and eating a 4x incident before the race has even begun!
On the speed side of things, I've downloaded the iSpeed utility and read through the wonderful Getting Faster, One Second at a Time pdf. I found a lap from someone who was around a second faster than my 1:26.90 around Summit Point and easily spotted a couple of easy gains.
I had been basing my gear selection on this youtube video; MX-5 Tutorial (Summit Point) from Rich Eklund (who is currently ranked in the top 5 in the MX5 series). However, I think my newb skills don't really allow me to translate his exact approach very well. It definitely helped me get down into the 1:26's but through the 3 crucial slow corners where Rich drops down into 2nd gear I simply didn't have the feel of the car required.
The 1:25.80 lap which I used as a comparison used 3rd gear through these slow corners, which I've found helps me in both before and after the apex. Less break locking going in, less wheel spin coming out.
Armed with this I've been able to get down into the 1:26's consistently and when I can string it all together I'm hitting 1:26.2's. Very satisfying.
Grid Autosport Genius TwinWheel F1 Calibration Sensitivity
I eagerly jumped into Grid Autosport only to find that my cheap Genius TwinWheel F1 isn't detected as a wheel, but as a direct input device. While I was able to map everything to the correct buttons / peddles / gear levers, once in game I found that the steering sensitivity was very low. There is no way to calibrate or configure the sensitivity in the control options menu.
I dug around the files and found that in the GRID Autosport\input folder (which for me, playing the game through steam is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\GRID Autosport\input) there is a file called dinput_default.xml. With out the game running, I opened this up and edited the following lines:
<Action id="Steer Left">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
<Axis id="di_slider_0" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Steer Right">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
<Axis id="di_slider_0" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
And changed it to:
<Action id="Steer Left">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.4" />
<Axis id="di_slider_0" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Steer Right">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.4" />
<Axis id="di_slider_0" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
Note that I changed the deadzone from "0.2" to "0.0" and the saturation from "1.0" to "0.4".
I played around with a few options for the saturation and feel that 0.4 worked the best for me. You may need to tweak it a little for your own liking.
After saving the changes I launched the game and then went back to the control options menu and re-selected "choose preset" and picked "Direct Input Device" again. I then had to again configure the buttons how I wanted them, but the wheel sensitivity was perfect in game.
UPDATE: I've now put in about 12 hours of play and another hour or so of tweaking around with the config file. I've found that I have to reselect the config every time I launch the game, so I took the time to understand the button names (because they differ between the config file, the in game display and what windows game device calibration tells me). So here is the complete dinput_default.xml file which I now have in my input folder:
<!-- Default action map for Direct Input -->
<ActionMap name="di_default" device_type="di_default" priority="16">
<!-- In Game Actions -->
<Action id="Accelerate">
<Axis id="di_y_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Brake">
<Axis id="di_y_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Handbrake">
<Axis id="di_button_3" />
</Action>
<Action id="Steer Left">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.5" />
</Action>
<Action id="Steer Right">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.5" />
</Action>
<Action id="Change View">
<Axis id="di_button_11" />
</Action>
<Action id="Gear Up">
<Axis id="di_button_0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Gear Down">
<Axis id="di_button_1" />
</Action>
<Action id="Look Left">
<Axis id="di_button_5" />
</Action>
<Action id="Look Right">
<Axis id="di_button_4" />
</Action>
<Action id="Look Up">
<Axis id="di_z_axis_rotation" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.3" saturation="0.8" />
</Action>
<Action id="Look Down">
<Axis id="di_z_axis_rotation" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.3" saturation="0.8" />
</Action>
<Action id="Look Back">
<Axis id="di_button_6" />
</Action>
<Action id="Pause">
<Axis id="di_button_9" />
</Action>
<Action id="Instant Replay">
<Axis id="di_button_7" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio Car Health">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_left" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio Rival Update">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_down" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio Team Update">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_right" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio Split Time">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_up" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio TeamMate Push">
<Axis id="di_button_10" />
</Action>
<Action id="Radio TeamMate Drop">
<Axis id="di_button_8" />
</Action>
<!-- FE Actions -->
<Action id="Menu Left">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirLower" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_left" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Right">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirUpper" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_right" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Up">
<Axis id="di_y_axis" type="biDirLower" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_up" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Down">
<Axis id="di_y_axis" type="biDirUpper" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_down" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Select">
<Axis id="di_button_0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Back">
<Axis id="di_button_1" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Button3">
<Axis id="di_button_2" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Button4">
<Axis id="di_button_3" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Start Button">
<Axis id="di_button_9" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak Left">
<Axis id="di_z_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak Right">
<Axis id="di_z_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak Up">
<Axis id="di_z_axis_rotation" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak Down">
<Axis id="di_z_axis_rotation" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.2" saturation="1.0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak In">
<Axis id="di_button_7" />
</Action>
<Action id="Fe View Tweak Out">
<Axis id="di_button_6" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Left Shoulder">
<Axis id="di_button_5" />
</Action>
<Action id="Menu Right Shoulder">
<Axis id="di_button_4" />
</Action>
<!-- Replay/Youtube Actions -->
<Action id="Replay Rewind">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirLower" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.5" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_left" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Fast Forward">
<Axis id="di_x_axis" type="biDirUpper" deadzone="0.0" saturation="0.5" />
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_right" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Pause">
<Axis id="di_button_1" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Next Camera">
<Axis id="di_button_11" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Prev Camera">
<Axis id="" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Jump In">
<Axis id="di_button_9" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Exit">
<Axis id="di_button_2" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay UI On Off">
<Axis id="di_button_4" />
</Action>
<Action id="Replay Youtube">
<Axis id="di_button_0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Drag Left">
<Axis id="di_button_4" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Drag Right">
<Axis id="di_button_5" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Speed Up">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_up" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Speed Down">
<Axis id="di_dpad_0_down" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Upload">
<Axis id="di_button_0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Youtube Exit">
<Axis id="di_button_2" />
</Action>
<!-- Spectator Actions -->
<Action id="Spectator Next Camera">
<Axis id="di_button_11" />
</Action>
<Action id="Spectator Previous Camera">
<Axis id="" />
</Action>
<Action id="Spectator UI On Off">
<Axis id="di_button_4" />
</Action>
<Action id="Spectator List On Off">
<Axis id="di_button_0" />
</Action>
<Action id="Cycle Forward On Board Cameras">
<Axis id="" />
</Action>
<Action id="Activate Replay System">
<Axis id="" />
</Action>
</ActionMap>
iRacing Rookies Can Find Their iRating
While looking through my iRacing event results page I realized that it displayed the Strength of Field column even for Time Trial events where you're the only runner. Since the SoF is an average of the iRating of all runners, I'm taking this to be my own personal iRating.
I can see the steady increase in these as I've picked up decent finishes in races.
Currently the SoF for my solo Time Trials is reporting 1039.
It looks like this started at 1180 and during my hideous trials and tribulations as a clueless newb bottomed out at around 940.
Now armed with a clue I'm happy to see it on the rise.
I've even been placed into some of the middle splits for races!
Friday, June 27, 2014
So it begins....
It had been a while since I'd needed to get a fix for my on-again-off-again love of sim racing. I have an old logitech force feedback wheel which I left in storage when I moved from Australia to the US.
With the up coming release of Grid Autosport I decided that it was time to buy a cheap wheel and get ready to give it a bash. I picked up a very cheap Genius TwinWheel F1 Vibration Feedback F1 Racing Wheel from amazon. It was $50 so I figured that I'd easy get my money's worth with just a few solid hours of racing enjoyment.
While waiting the week for Grid Autosport to be released I found a few other games to get my racing blood boiling. I've always been a fan of the SimBin games, so I grabbed RaceRoom Race Experience and put in a few laps. It seemed pretty solid, but it left me wanting some online multiplayer. It was then that I remembered reading about iRacing via the Facebook news feed of one of my friends who races in real life and plays iRacing somewhat seriously.
Oh my. Wow.
Even with my humble setup I was immediately hooked.
Of course I was an idiot and dived directly into a live qualifying session at summit point. I strapped on my mx5 and quickly racked up enough incident points to get kicked out. I managed to set a very poor time (somewhere around 1:34) and felt that I at least learned the track before being booted.
So I lined up for a live race. Obviously I didn't get to complete it before once again being booted for incidents. I was proud that they didn't involve anyone else. Just off tracks and spinning off.
A few time trail sessions later and I felt like I'd actually learned a few lessons. I sliced a second off my qualifying time and finished a race. Not even in last place!
Then I figured that I liked this game enough to actually put in some time away from the wheel and do some study about how the license system worked, watch some guides on how to hustle the mx5 around the summit point track in a faster fashion and..... learn about the safety rating system.
Oh my. What had I done.
My first few hours of newbness had pushed my SR down to 2.11.
I spent some time doing time trials and focused on just completing lap after lap incident free. I slice chunks of time off my qualifying time. I completed more races and scored my 1st couple of podium finishes. Still with more incidents than I'd like, but at least I can honestly claim that most were no fault of my own... well maybe "most" is a strong word. Definitely more than half.
I've managed to eek my SR up to 2.60. I'm pretty proud. I've got my qualifying time in the mx5 at summit point down into the 1:26's and can consistently lap in the 1:28's.
I obviously enjoy iRacing a whole bunch and have been so impressed with the community which has grown around it. So much so I thought I'd start yet another iRacing newb blog.
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