Radical SR4 192HP vs. Caterham 320HP

Ok, just had an idea that I need to try out. I want to see whether these cars are equal enough around a lap. Just wondering if other people could help out too, the more results the better :).

I need to try tracks without many straights, to see if the Rad pulls away too much or not and I need to try tracks with longer straights to see if the Cat pulls away or not. Also need to try balanced tracks to see what happens there.

If these are balanced, I think it'd be fun to see a league in them, because I don't think there's been a league with these cars before.
 
I could help out with track suggestions. A nice track without many straights would be Knutstorp, perhaps Puebla Special, or possibly Mont-Tremblant North. Some tracks with more straights could be Barcelona, Valencia, Mosport maybe?

Anyway, I might do some testing myself when I can get on later tonight. Thanks for giving me something to do, Jamie. With only one RD event on average per week now, I'm not able to do much RD driving apart from reviews for the front page. :D
 
  • leahcim

My gut reaction would be it's 2 ends of the simbin "physics" extreme.

The radical has near arcade physics and is laughably easy to floor, and the caterham is one of the most extreme examples of simbin's flawed uber-understeer model.

By the by, I drove the 10 year old to MK the other day to buy a new game and it'd been the first time I'd driven after driving hundred of hours in the sim...and it was profound just how wrong sims are.

Even the just the basic visual presentation. I was showing him, telling him to look out the window and did he see the steering wheel without looking down? No. Was half his vision taken up by the wheel and dashboard? No. Any of his vision taken up by it? No. Could he see the roof? No. If I put a helmet on his head, did the helmet start 3 feet away on the windscreen like it does on the monitor? No. Would you sit 3 inches away from your TV so the helmet / wheel drawn would be closer to the right place? Not likely. Would the fact that it would be 40" wide on the TV make you wonder how big Simbin must think the human head is? Has he ever seen a racing car driver in a WTCC car that wasn't wearing a helmet? No...So why don't they draw the helmet then?

And he's 10. Imagine how much chance the 6 footer sat next to him has of seeing the steering wheel under his chin, being held in his hands, if a 10 year old sits high enough to see out the window :)

Then, on crappy road treaded tyres, FWD, tuned by vauxhall to understeer, in the wet, I showed that I had more grip than a fantasy sim race car does at road speeds. I stomped on the pedal round a few bends, and as you'd expect the car just followed the line. I didn't have to saw away at the wheel to, well I dunno, why do sim racers saw away at the wheel like that? Brake with my left foot or slow down or whatever sim fantasy land has decided a mini with slicks that's race prepared on a dry track needs to do because, obviously it has a lot less grip than a road car in the wet :)

Anyway, the radical should trounce it if I'm right and the bumper car / lawn mower TV show you guys are showing is typical. But either way I don't think they're matched....the Caterham is supposedly famous for being too fast to race.
 
My gut reaction would be it's 2 ends of the simbin "physics" extreme.

The radical has near arcade physics and is laughably easy to floor, and the caterham is one of the most extreme examples of simbin's flawed uber-understeer model.

By the by, I drove the 10 year old to MK the other day to buy a new game and it'd been the first time I'd driven after driving hundred of hours in the sim...and it was profound just how wrong sims are.

Even the just the basic visual presentation. I was showing him, telling him to look out the window and did he see the steering wheel without looking down? No. Was half his vision taken up by the wheel and dashboard? No. Any of his vision taken up by it? No. Could he see the roof? No. If I put a helmet on his head, did the helmet start 3 feet away on the windscreen like it does on the monitor? No. Would you sit 3 inches away from your TV so the helmet / wheel drawn would be closer to the right place? Not likely. Would the fact that it would be 40" wide on the TV make you wonder how big Simbin must think the human head is? Has he ever seen a racing car driver in a WTCC car that wasn't wearing a helmet? No...So why don't they draw the helmet then?

And he's 10. Imagine how much chance the 6 footer sat next to him has of seeing the steering wheel under his chin, being held in his hands, if a 10 year old sits high enough to see out the window :)

Then, on crappy road treaded tyres, FWD, tuned by vauxhall to understeer, in the wet, I showed that I had more grip than a fantasy sim race car does at road speeds. I stomped on the pedal round a few bends, and as you'd expect the car just followed the line. I didn't have to saw away at the wheel to, well I dunno, why do sim racers saw away at the wheel like that? Brake with my left foot or slow down or whatever sim fantasy land has decided a mini with slicks that's race prepared on a dry track needs to do because, obviously it has a lot less grip than a road car in the wet :)

Anyway, the radical should trounce it if I'm right and the bumper car / lawn mower TV show you guys are showing is typical. But either way I don't think they're matched....the Caterham is supposedly famous for being too fast to race.

Wow, that comment dis-heartened me a lot.. I always thought I was racing something realistic.. I want to get into racing when I'm older and use sim games to practise since I can't afford to go karting at the moment.

So is it really that bad? =/. I suppose iRacing is the only really real one then?..
 
Don't be disheartened Jamie - the Cats and Rads aren't exactly realistic as it is; the updated physics by RMi should provide at least a bit more realistic of an experience. When it comes to the Caterham, while his comment is true and he makes a good point, the one thing that leahcim didn't take into account is the fact that the 320 is a CONCEPT CAR, and therefore shouldn't be expected to handle realistically. Judging from the high power output, I'd be thinking it has a heavy engine up the front, which would account for the massive understeer. But, we can't know for sure - as mentioned before, it is a concept, and has probably never been driven in real life as it is. :/
 
Then, on crappy road treaded tyres, FWD, tuned by vauxhall to understeer, in the wet, I showed that I had more grip than a fantasy sim race car does at road speeds. I stomped on the pedal round a few bends, and as you'd expect the car just followed the line. I didn't have to saw away at the wheel to, well I dunno, why do sim racers saw away at the wheel like that? Brake with my left foot or slow down or whatever sim fantasy land has decided a mini with slicks that's race prepared on a dry track needs to do because, obviously it has a lot less grip than a road car in the wet :)

Anyway, the radical should trounce it if I'm right and the bumper car / lawn mower TV show you guys are showing is typical. But either way I don't think they're matched....the Caterham is supposedly famous for being too fast to race.

So you have conclusive proof that your Vauxhall handles better than a race car? The other factor is that you mention it was at road speeds - so all race cars are designed to have their grip at that speed are they? Sim racers don't saw away at the wheel, if you do that while simracing no wonder why you think it doesn't feel right. Go and drive it properly and you will find there is no need to do that. Most race cars won't have the dead power steering and understeery setup that the Vauxhall has either which would explain why you had to do sod all with the steering.

Sorry but you cant really argue your point that its nowhere near real life when you have no way of backing it up.
 
  • leahcim

So you have conclusive proof that your Vauxhall handles better than a race car?

No, I was talking about one of many flaws in a game.

Sim racers don't saw away at the wheel

Oh yes they do. e.g look at the latest volvo video from simbin. I'll find you a heap more videos on youtube showing the effect too if you want.

I think it's probably due to the flawed FFB and possibly they are trying to feel grip levels or get around the lack of feedback when the wheel isn't moving, especially in the straight ahead position (which is when it looks like I described - maggie from the simpsons)

Usually the do it yourself steering lock and ffb setup and choice of steering degrees means it doesn't have the same effect that it would in a real car. Real cars turn when you turn the steering by default. This game may if you get the settings straight :)

Sorry but you cant really argue your point that its nowhere near real life when you have no way of backing it up.

I don't need to, because no sane and honest person believes it's anywhere near real life or even could be. That's the wrong question to begin with.
 
  • leahcim

Wow, that comment dis-heartened me a lot.. I always thought I was racing something realistic.. I want to get into racing when I'm older and use sim games to practise since I can't afford to go karting at the moment.

So is it really that bad? =/. I suppose iRacing is the only really real one then?..

You won't learn to race cars sitting in front of a toy wheel playing a game.
Period.

No more than Call of duty will make you a soldier or guitar hero will make you a musician.

Look at it this way, if it's realistic then I'm better than some F1 drivers, some WTCC drivers and...well some people are better than all of them. Think about that after we've all stopped laughing :) Well actually we probably are better than Nelson Piquet, but...

But don't be disheartened. The will and determination to do something, the desire to do it is the thing you have that will let you succeed. Don't lose that.

But, if I were you, and had the youth and talent, I would spend the time you do playing the game doing a part time job instead that might pay for the karting. Ask yourself this, did ayrton and lewis et al play the computer or go karting? Right...but full time it's an expensive hobby I'll grant you.

But if not, enjoy the game for what it is now. There are plenty of opportunities for an adult license holder to spend their hard earned cash to drive their car or something more exotic at tracks. Or even to race.

Unless you win the next GT Academy. But even with that you can see it's far more about the selection process and real driving training than anything they learnt or did when playing GT5.
 
There are more drivers who play sim titles.
Fernando Rees at GC for example. Oh and he's good at it. Don't think you can keep up with him.
However he says and more real drivers (like the Stephen brothers) at GC say the cockpit view is not good. Bonnet cam is more realistic in terms of view.
 
  • leahcim

Actually Lewis Hamilton did a lot of simracing, so that's a bad example :D

No it isn't. Because he plays the guitar too and eats chocolate cake.

It's where you try to conclude that playing the guitar, eating cake or any of the other myriad things he did, aside from spending a little over a decade racing cars on tracks, taught him to race cars, that your argument becomes flawed.

Indeed, if you are going to learn any skills from a computer game that might make you better at racing. E.g some might talk about reaction times or whatever. There's no real evidence that tetris or team fortress 2 won't develop skills better suited to a real life activity like racing driving than a driving game would.

It's only the fact that you wish the game was real that makes you decide to draw parallels with little or no evidence.

Similarly, many people who are interested in things demonstrate that in other areas. So, for example, I have a hat that says "Ginetta" on it and my son has a Formula 3 poster in his bedroom and yes, I have a couple of racing games.

I suspect many sim racers are into motorsport and vice versa. I believe a famous pianist once had a toilet in the shape of a piano...but I also believe he knew that the toilet wasn't a real piano. YMMV with sim racing, but I think I know real from not.

It follows that a small subset will do both or even, as we see in the thread, because motorsport is expensive, especially if you aren't skilled, some will do one activity as a surrogate for their real desire, to do the other.

As I wrote in another post, a lot of motorsport is watched by folk who are far more interested in being on the track themselves than they are watching someone else on it.

This confuses some that they are the same activity. Bert does both. So what? Bert does lots of things. Is going to the toilet like racing a car because Lewis Hamilton does it?

What if he or some other racing driver played Codemasters grid? Would that mean anything? I can find you a quote from a Le Mans driver lauding the realism in the game.

Indeed I believe it makes a few argue because they want it to be real more than they know it actually is to the point where they've elevated one set of computer games over another set. But, to all intents and purposes, many of the games your average sim gamer sneers at, as though his game is real, are no less realistic where it matters.
 

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