5th Gear..Coulthard V's Plato

[wanacoop]

Sorry if this has been posted already(as I had it saved on BT Vision)

But I just watched Coulthard V Plato in the Redbull F1 simulator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP1PLXuZ6mk&fea...

Good little battle that, you could see how much each of them wanted to win!

[vescaegg]

The physics on the simulator may be immense, but the graphics look like they are from ten years ago!

[webby74]

excellent, the look of total confusion on platos face when he realised he was on the wrong side of the wall. priceless!!

[SpeedMattersNot]

vescaegg said:

The physics on the simulator may be immense, but the graphics look like they are from ten years ago!

Very much the case with simulators.

All the computer power is used to calculate all the variables. There's no real benefit to concentrating on shadows and circuit details other than purely physical ones.

[Cragglea1]

Its impressive to watch and see when they are concentrating how little they blink.

[Asterix]

I thought they used a 'professional' uprated version of rFactor?

[DangerousMike]

i'd sacrifice the graphics for a good simulation and a big hydraulic cockpit thing.

[sirtyro]

Do they still consider the Mclaren simulator to be the best (in terms of simulation)? You never see it on TV or in magazines and I wondered if they were just very protective over it!? Williams and now RedBull have both shown theirs before.

[RobM77]

Cragglea1 said:

Its impressive to watch and see when they are concentrating how little they blink.

That's an interesting point actually. I had trouble using contact lenses for racing because they require your blink rate to go up, whereas when racing your blink rate goes down. I never noticed till I tried wearing contacts

[vescaegg]

I read somewhere that mclarens simulator cost £50million. It must be rediculous if it actually did cost that much! Or they got ripped off....

[Britcar David]

Bedazzled said:

I can understand that the physics are the important thing but those graphics are appalling, it must reduce the feeling of realism for the drivers. They should hire someone from the rFactor modding community or bolt on some decent graphics from commercial software, I expect they could afford it. I love the cockpit and hydraulics though!

As mentioned above it is rFactor that is used, the 'Pro' version. The graphics are as good as you will get on any rFactor track but when they are blown up so large they are never going to look as good as they do on a 19" monitor.

[ajprice]

vescaegg said:

The physics on the simulator may be immense, but the graphics look like they are from ten years ago!

They asked Polyphony for the Gran Turismo 5 graphics engine but they're still waiting

[wildman0609]

vescaegg said:

I read somewhere that mclarens simulator cost £50million. It must be rediculous if it actually did cost that much! Or they got ripped off....

I'm sure most of the cost goes into developing the physics, they don't just use them for driver development they can work out car set up from them, which I think is quite amazing.

[Some Gump]

Why would they care wat the grandstands look like? The drivers will be looking from apex to apex, and ignoring the rest. Making it full of eye candy would add very little in productivity terms...

[tim-b]

Some Gump said:

Why would they care wat the grandstands look like? The drivers will be looking from apex to apex, and ignoring the rest. Making it full of eye candy would add very little in productivity terms...

I agree to a point, but I guess a more realistic/detailed track would help in making/spotting braking points etc.

[williamp]

wildman0609 said:

vescaegg said:

I read somewhere that mclarens simulator cost £50million. It must be rediculous if it actually did cost that much! Or they got ripped off....

I'm sure most of the cost goes into developing the physics, they don't just use them for driver development they can work out car set up from them, which I think is quite amazing.

I would imagien they would also want to dissuade the supplier from supplying too many other companies, so might have bought the company. They did this with a catering comany- they found one almost to their standard, so bought it, installed a proper chef and now its upto their standards.

[Fire99]

Fair play to Plato. Good to see the genuine concentration and even the obligitory bead of sweat.
An excellent racer IMO.

[matt frost]

Pretty embarrassing for Coulthard - can he have been trying? The time was well and truly shocking, over 5 seconds off of Red Bull actual 2010 qually pace.

[anonymous-user]

wildman0609 said:

I'm sure most of the cost goes into developing the physics, they don't just use them for driver development they can work out car set up from them, which I think is quite amazing.

It's true that they use these simulators to evaluate certain aspects of car setup, with the driver in the loop, but most of the detailed setup is done either from mathematical modelling (i.e. pure simulation without a human driver input) and actual track testing. The main use of theses simulators is driver training (eg. learning new steering wheel functions) and a bit of pre-race track familiarity - particularly for new circuits. It's usually the test driver that spends most time in them as real track testing opportunities for them are diminishing. They also make great PR.

[fomb]

If these sims are anything like the flight sims I've been in the quality of the graphics isn't really that important. You're spending more time about the detail of what you're doing rather than spotting the shadows etc.