Comment by djaychela | Hacker News Reader

Comment by djaychela | Hacker News Reader

It's definitely not circuit racing, but I had some experience in Rally driving for about 10 years. Did mostly gravel stuff, and did the UK WRC round 4 times in a self built car. Definitely low budget (and low talent!) stuff, but I think I have some experience and know how a car should handle on a loose surface.

I've never found a rally driving game that handles like a real car. The physics always seems off - in Dirt Rally (the last one I tried seriously, and the one that everyone raved about), the car still seems to have the old physics of pivoting around the centre of the car, but whatever, it's miles off. The mini cooper in there is about the same power and weight as the Skoda Felicia that I drove, but it behaves nothing like it. I wish it did, as I no longer have the money or time to do anything like this, and if it felt anything like the real thing I'd have a fun hobby to take part it. But I always get hugely frustrated when I can't get anywhere near what I used to be able to do - place the car with precision on the road, get a good rhythm up and start to flow, and don't seem to be able to adjust to the way the cars handle in these games. I'm sure some of it is that you can't feel what's going on - through the seat, steering wheel and pedals - in the way that you can in the real thing, but I think there's more to it than that.

Forza was pretty different - even playing it using just controllers showed that it was handling much like a car would on track (I've done some tarmac rallying as well, so I'm used to the limit on tarmac as well as gravel), but I'm not really interested in circuit racing, alas!

The biggest missing factor in sim drifting versus real drifting, which I suspect is part of the issue in rally too, is not being able to detect that moment just before countersteer is required, as you can't feel when the rear of the car starts coming around. It means you have to preempt from experience when it happens rather than actually feeling it. With practice people get good at it, but sim drifters will often end up over rotating in a real car at first. They tend to hold onto the wheel too long while letting the rear of the car come around.

For what it's worth, my real car pivots pretty much where my seat is positioned, it feels surreal sometimes, ironically like I am in a video game.

I think it comes down to equipment. A good racing wheel can already give you a feeling of understeering. I just got started with entry-level stuff, but supposedly a Fanatec wheel + good seat + buttkicker (vibration generator) can get you a long way. Then you have motion platforms at €3k+ to get to the next level :)

Richard Burns Rally is often touted as the closest to reality. I know Nikolai Gryazin (WRC2) plays fairly often - he actually used it to practice the Czech stage Semetin before going on to win it in real life: https://m.rally-base.com/2019/barum-czech-rally-zlin-2019/?s...

Seconded. I enjoyed rally games at one point and found this one the most realistic (not that I actually did any rally). Also very hard. I had to use low-power cars only to be able to control them. There's something relaxing about driving a long track alone, even in a game.

Before I'd actually done any real driving, I thought Gran Turismo 4 with a Logitech wheel and pedals was the real deal.

Then I started driving and realized it's not quite there. It certainly taught me about proper corner entry, but not the visceral parts of it.

Even good simulators are like those "virtual rollercoasters". Not quite the same.

And like you said, it's very much the "I can't feel it in the seat, I can't feel the vibration difference in the pedals, frame and wheels".

If you're paying attention when driving on snow and ice, you can "feel" when the back of the car is "light" without actually kicking it out. You don't get that in these sims.

I understand what you mean. There's an incredible amount of tactile information in the real world, and I can't help feeling that there's probably almost as much information flowing in as audio or visual (that we as humans can process at any one instant), but I have been unable to find anything to back up my wild hypothesis.

People ask me why I like driving with the windows down when I can, and I tell them it's so I can hear my blindspot.

I don't think it occurs to most people that auditory queues are just as useful when driving as visual ones.

People have used stimulus arrays attached to the back to "replace" eyesight. It would be interesting to compare the number of nerves coming from the different senses, and how much neuronal area the senses get as the signals are aggregated.

Obligatory - Also navigator excitement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-voINFkCg

Thank you for sharing!

Have a look at DRAG https://store.steampowered.com/app/773840/DRAG/ because not having the traditional "centre of the car" physics is there entral proposition. It's developed by someone who frequents our hacker space and his team. I talked with him about his game and his plans, though I did not play it, because I don't care at all for racing games.

I always found rally games to be a bit off too. The only one I found to be acurate was a Peugeot 205 rear wheel drive car in whatever the playstation rally game du jour was 15 years ago (I want to say Colin McRae?)

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