eRacing & the World's Fastest Gamer Competition

[janbonator]

 

This thread is for the petrol heads of the community. I know you are aplenty.

Virtual motorsports or eRacing has grown tremendously over the past years along with most other competitive gaming. We're seeing prize pools with seven digit figures, but really what stands out to me is not the money, but other "offline" opportunities that one may achieve through online racing. For example, with the latest Gran Turismo, Nissan organized a competition format from which they recruited online talents to drive their factory cars on the race tracks around the world. Now, the prestigious F1 team McLaren has launched a new competition called the World's Fastest Gamer. The eventual finals will be played on a variety of platforms and games with the winner eventually securing a one-year contract with McLaren Honda as their official simulator driver, working with the development of their race car projects.

I'll be literally sweating my ass off over the summer practicing - and I'm looking for company. Even though deep down the nature of the sport is that of the transcendent individual - man and the machine - but it doesn't mean all practice needs to or should be done alone. Last autumn we had some 15 players or so from this community racing in an F1 2016 league, and I really enjoyed it. So, I know there are a lot of you out there, and if you're looking for company for online races, or would be interested in co-creating a league for one of these games: F1 2016, Dirt Rally and Assetto Corsa, hit me up with a message or an invite! I'm always happy to help with anything, be it setups or just general tips for racing.

See you on the track. Bwoah.

Edited May 5, 2017 by janbonator

[OxtreeLAT]

49 minutes ago, janbonator said:

Bwoah.

Honestly what are we doing here? Racing or ping pong?

[janbonator]

23 minutes ago, OxtreeLAT said:

Honestly what are we doing here? Racing or ping pong?

Haha, you pretty much summed up our by-gone, controversial F1 league. For that I'll leave you another gem:

"Woah! There's a giant lizard on the track! Yeah, I'm not joking! Out of Turn 3."

Max still races online in a team called Redline Racing.

Edited May 5, 2017 by janbonator

[Snapuster]

5 hours ago, OxtreeLAT said:

Honestly what are we doing here? Racing or ping pong?

Yeah? You know what, here's a message for Charlie. Fuck off, honestly, fuck off!

Also rip the legendary F1 2016 league. ;_;

[janbonator]

Looks like there's some interest for an F1 2016 league! Drop a message here or in private if you'd be initially interested to join. No assists and 25% races - the only house rule is you have to have fun!

 

I thought I'll be answering some questions publicly in this thread, as some of them are themes that appear often. First up is camera angles and FOV i.e. Field of View, which is probably the most overlooked aspect by simracers and even game developers, until recently.

A game can never have 'correct' FOV settings by default, because the correct FOV always depends on the user's setup - the size of the monitor(s) and the distance to it from one's eyes. FOV literally means what you can see on your screen and depending on the game it can be adjusted horizontally and vertically. Here's two screenshots illustrating what FOV means:

FOV 35 degrees

FOV 100 degrees

As is quite evident in these screenshots from rFactor, FOV makes a big difference to the driving experience. People have a natural inclination to use way too large FOV settings, because it allows them to increase their spatial awareness; it can be intimidating to drive at 300km/h inches away from other cars when you can't see them. There is a significant problem, however. A large FOV setting causes a fish-eye effect, distorting the image horizontally and/or vertically. So, while one may see the apex better, the problem is that the visual cues are that of a warped matrix, making it all too easy to miss that apex nevertheless. The human brain is tremendous in its capability to adapt and it will do so to any camera settings really with enough practice. It should be well worth considering if you want to pick up bad habits though. If you 'master' a racing sim using incorrect FOV settings, you will most likely see a hard time transitioning to another sim with different camera settings.

An illustration of different FOV settings in one picture

In the picture above you see several rectangles marking different FOV settings. Notice how evident the warping is on the 125 settings; the mirrors are hugely out of proportion, and the same effect applies to all corners on the race track of course. The optimal settings depend on the size of your monitor and your distance to it, but most likely from the options in this particular image the FOV setting of 55 is closest to optimal, but it may be still too large. With a 24' monitor and a FOV of 55, one would need to place the screen 23' or 58.5 centimeters away from one's eyes. Some games only have sliders and no exact degrees to adjust, especially on consoles. You'll just need to figure out the approximately right placement with a few simple calculations. I'll leave some links for further reference.

Sim Racing 101 : Field of View - Seeing is Believing (Ep7)

Screen size and FOV comparison

A great guide with integrated FOV-calculators

 

Did I make any sense? Oh, and all of this of course applies to a variety of games, but it's not even remotely as important in other games as it is in racing sims. In FPS games for example, you might be just happy to put it at 90 and enjoy your wide vision and spatial awareness; some warping at the edges isn't as bad when all the aiming happens in the middle of the screen.

[janbonator]

New F1 2016 league is about to begin!

Happy to see there's a lot of interest for a new F1 league. The objective is to start within two weeks time and to have a minimum of 15 cars on the grid. Full season, no assists, 50% races. Qualification format needs to be discussed and decided upon. Initially I've thought of Sunday as race day.

Confirmed community members joining if parameters above are met:

@Anbtbl, @Crisu_rottis, @Erkki, @janbonator, @Joonas Paatiala, @jursti89, @Nampa77

Status open:

@Anenthran, @FaithVvanco, @Snapster

Furthermore we have some guys joining who are not members here yet.

There's still room for more racers. Would be fantastic to have a full grid! Drop a message in this thread, or send me a pm here or on PS4 if you have any questions or would be interested in joining.

[Nampa77]

Can join! When i have bought new controller

[janbonator]

14 hours ago, Nampa77 said:

Can join! When i have bought new controller

Haha, NHL can be even wearier than a Honda engine.