'71 VWSC @Buenos Aires Post Race Data and Discussion

Well, my luck seems to be just completely gone or something. I cannot believe what happened last night.

For a couple months now, I've been having very random and intermittent phantom button presses on my wheel. Typically it's happened just after I fire everything up and start driving...usually will happen once, then doesn't happen again until I've disconnected everything and reconnected and started again. And, it's been very random and sometimes will go weeks without happening, so it's been quite hard to track down exactly what is causing it.
Yesterday, I got in practice early, and was hoping for a good race. I had 0 instances of this issue in many hours of practice the last few days. Had none yesterday...until suddenly I did. And of course, it happened on lap 1, and of course, worst possible case. Was heading into one of the right handers when suddenly all the buttons on my wheel pressed at the same time (so it also looks off to the side for a split second, disorienting me somewhat)....and, apparently it'd slipped into neutral, and when I got my bearing back a split second later and started to react to the fact I was flying into the corner in neutral...I somehow managed to engage REVERSE..which blocked the rears, tossed me in a spin and stalled the engine. WTF!

Luckily, no one hit me and I sat at the edge of the track until all had went past, refired the car and tried to continue onwards.
I made it about another half lap...still fuming over the wheel issue, I was completely disoriented and I ended up missing the second part of T3...just completely drove through it, damn near ran straight over top of @martin Rossi . I'm sorry for that, Martin...it was not intentional and I had already lost control of the car.
Little more luck, and I managed not to hit Rossi, but I did see him swerve off track so I know I caused issues.
I spun on the big curbing track left of T3 and slid back onto the
track...where I ended up hitting (I think it was) Tony Boynton@tony , who I think I heard was already having a bit of troubles...and so I ended up piling that on. Very sorry about that, Tony.
There was also a red Alfa that I think hit me before I managed to escape off track..I think that was aaron page.....Aaron, if that was you, I'm very sorry for what any/all troubles I caused.

And, if anyone else was involved, I'm very sorry.
And so I guess, to close this wall of text.....time to go strip this wheel and figure out what is causing this issue. This was the first time it had affected me in a race, and now it's affecting others...that's completely unacceptable to me. So hopefully I tear this thing down, identify some issue, fix it...because if not, myself and Thrustmaster have some talking to do! I want to love this wheel, I really do. And in many ways it's a great wheel. But these little nagging issues (and a few others I've had with it) and really starting to wear on me.

Congrats to everyone that finished and to the winners of their classes.
My race went well after I got my 2 spins out of the way. My first spin was at the hairpin, I wheel hopped and it came around, the second time I hit that GIANT curb in the S's sector three. Luckily no one else was involved.
The rest of the race was fairly uneventful. I was worried about my fuel strategy because it seemed I was using more in race than in practice. It's hard to do math and drive 180mph so on my final pit I just filled the tank.
Thanks for the race everyone and I hope to see everyone next week at Daytona and this Saturday at Buenos over at CMS Saturdays.

There is weather plugin that is causing the darkness. It's not a problem on your end. I wasn't aware of it until last night so there is nothing in the series post about it, sorry. I turned the brightness up on my monitor a little. It helped.

I thought my monitor cable was loose because there is no gradual transition between clouds and sun.

While were sharing game and PC problems like a bunch of hypochondriacs comparing health problems on the front porch, I just want to say I did not purposely wreck into the barrier late in the race, as it might appear. I was actually having a pretty good race and then the same old problem that occasionally popped up in AMS last season decided to rears its ugly head going into T1 around lap 48. That's right, all inputs are instantaneously locked and I cannot do anything but a hard boot to reset in a fresh session. This seems so random that it is completely puzzling that everything worked fine for more than an hour before happening. IRRC, I can at least exit the car in AMS with a mouse click. But that does not work in rF2 (at least not with current key mappings). Any attempt to change anything with wheels, pedals, shifters or keyboards is not recognized when this happens. And they are all USB devices plugged into different plugs.

I did add some new cars and tracks to my racing sims during the holidays and not one failure of this type occurred while playing offline (and not logged into Discord). Speaking of Discord (if there ever was an appropriate name for an App.), last time I had this issue in the last MCR Race sessions in AU, I rebooted and came back to the second race without incident. The difference then was I did not restart Discord for the second race. Hmmm... that is probably my biggest lead for chasing down the flippant input gone awry issue. So, don't be surprised if I do not join Discord for the next few events until I can get this random input lock-up thing sorted.

I also noticed some weird gamma issues in the race last night. It was random and didn't happen very often. But I noticed the sky brightness flashing dark to bright and back fairly quickly when snaking through the last sector turns and when rounding T2. Not sure whether it was my GPU trying to keep up or some other wonkiness with the track and server stability.

Most rF2 cars I drive have default FFB that borders on overkill, unless your want an arm work out. But the Lola Mk3b seemed kinda meek by comparison with just a few tweaks. I'll have to play with it more. I'm just wondering if there are more Real Feel type capabilities available in the game or not. I will post this question in the rF2 thread Aaron started just to keep things in a central location for rF2 help.

Also want to appologize for spinning out in front of one of the 917s late in qually. Probably was either Jon or Tony. I know it wasn't Peter because the car was multi-colored as opposd to banana yellow. Would have said something if it wasn't qually and I wasn't still familiarizing myself with the new interface. Hope it didn't ruin a good lap. Luckily, these long races rely more on pit strategy and your long game conserving the car.

Thanks to all that gave it a go in Argentina! I hope last night's MNRL long event does not discourage anyone. Would love to see good turnouts as much as possible. It really makes the event more fun (especially long races on long tracks). I'm sure we can work through any game and PC issues together as long as you can make the events.

See you at Daytona.

Hey Guys, that was a a real challenging event to say the least. 100 minutes is a loonnngg time, Not sure if I have 2.4 hours in me. What time is the bathroom break!

I was getting the dark screen issues as well, very hard to see, not sure how night racing at Daytona will fair.

I was happy to finish in the top ten even if I was the last car running, forgot to cancel the "do not repair" when I stopped for a splash & dash which turned out to be a splash and have a coffee.

I like the idea of having the different class of drivers but I think there might be a better way to do it. I know I'm not a pro driver but I'm far from an amateur, most of us are not amateurs, geez, we've all been sim racing for eons. In my case I'm just a shitty sim racer, although sometimes I get lucky.

This is the way we do it in our Lucky Dog Racing (Real Endurance racing) series. We run a 1 hour qualifying session. The times are split into 3 classes. This puts the high horsepower cars up front, low horsepower and new drivers at the back. The races start with class A at the front, C bringing up the rear. Seems to be working well. The slower guys are comfortable starting at the back racing with people that have comparable times. This is done at every race and generally its always the same cars in the same classes.

Not sure how much effort this would require to sort out after qualifying but it would group drivers with similar times together and an opportunity to win a class they actually have a chance in.

Anyway its all good, and the racing was awsum, see you next time

Cheers,

Pete

Regarding the 'dark screen' issues....it was a combination of things.
1 - in latest builds of rF2, a lot of shaders have changed...they still haven't 100% sorted this transition from light to darker conditions (especially late afternoon, and our practice session was late afternoon)
The sun is at a very low angle, and combined with the clouds coming in/out, you get this sort of jarring transition from light to darker conditions with less contrast, and it can become hard to see, even with good monitor settings.
The real weather plugin updates every 3 minutes...and sometimes the transition from sunny, to clouds coming over, is a bit abrupt....this is not on your end, it's just a game issue atm.

Darkness is fine...it's just that transition that can be a bit problematic. Daytona should be fine, though there will be instruction for those not familiar...a few graphics things that will be recommended, but I'll go over that in the pre race thread so i don't have to repeat it again.

As for the classes, did you read up on how we are classing the cars here?

"Purists" are using a plugin that simulates gearbox (essentially, it's the way AMS does it, where you can get locked out of gears for not shifting/heel toeing properly.
"Pros" are possibly using H pattern (but not the plugin, hence no gearbox issues for them) or maybe they are using paddles, but simply have the auto clutch feature turned off.
"Ams" are using auto clutch, and any other aides available if they so choose. It does not mean they are amateur sim racers per say.

So we're really classing ourselves here. And you are free to move up to "pro" (if you can turn off auto clutch)

I think, in the end, this way, we are giving everyone a chance to run where they feel comfortable and against those they feel competitive against, and it usually ends up playing out that way. There are multiple classes, and then we have seniors class as well. And we're also giving points to those that complete 50% of the race or more (so if you can't do those big long ones through and through, just try to make it half way, there's still something in it to be had!)

Jason, I'll give the Discord deal another try, but I'll create a g-mail (or whatever) account that won't interfere with my personal correspondence. I remember that I had real trouble setting up the account initially, but once I figured out what I was doing wrong I realized that I just needed to take time to READ the instructions! If I accomplish that I will re-read the series instructions that state how to access the MNRL via Discord. I don't own a mic, but once I've joined in I should hear any instructions.

btw, I saw absolutely no raindrops on my screen in practice or race, so I do appreciate your advice on tuning on the visor (wherever I might find that option!).

No, that's not even possible anymore, and even if it was we wouldn't be doing that.
Dx9 has long been deprecated and a lot of the newer rF2 content won't even function with it.

What is your graphics setting for 'opponents cars'?

Hi Jason, well I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to continue participating because I can't compete in this way with the dx11, my general configuration is low to be able to have good fps

Great, and thanks Joe but my biggest problem is the flashing of the cars which makes me lose reference to where the opposite car is and due to direct x