Real Racing In the Virtual World 170
zebadee writes "The BBC has a story about a company aiming to pit gamers against the professionals. iOpener Media has a patented system that sucks in real-time GPS data from racing events and pumps it out to compatible games consoles and PCs. This means you can race in real-time against the like of Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. The company also claims to have an AI that solves the problem of overtaking and crashes." It would be great to see this applied to historical events and other game domains, too -- like trying to beat Amundsen to the South Pole, using best-known weather data.
I'm pretty sure... (Score:5, Informative)
According to the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], they are planning a game which will allow people to compete virtually along with actual racers.
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And it's easy to beat Lewis Hamilton. Just make it out the pitlane in one piece.
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Sounds pretty pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
The virtual world racers have no such risks.
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Re:Sounds pretty pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sounds pretty pointless (Score:4, Informative)
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When the Linux sponsored car crashed it got quite a lot time on web based media, if they had managed to kill the driver in the process they would have gained additional airtime - but this time on TV broad casted around the world for all major channels.
Yes this is a sick thing, but thats how the world works.
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Re:Sounds pretty pointless (Score:5, Funny)
One of my favorite quotes from a driving instructor/professional driver was "If the driver doesn't come back with just the steering wheel once in a while, the rest of the team thinks he's not trying hard enough."
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Solved, I win. THats brain power in action. Now, to just retrofit all those Ps3s, xboxes and pcs with a mechanism to break the disk and trick people into buying it...
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Re:Sounds pretty pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike games, and street racing, in professional race conditions, drivers are usually going as fast as they can go without losing control. The question is more about control (holding the line, maintaining ideal friction during turns), and efficiency (drafting, tire wear, fuel). Its really not about going faster. They're pushing the car as hard as they can.
In my limited race track experience the gas pedal is usually floored, except when the brakes are floored. And choosing when to switch from one to the other is part of holding the line. The only exception is through tight S-curves - where you are still going as fast as you can go while holding the line go without your wheels losing traction.
There is rarely a situation where a driver could be going faster, and not be immediately involved in an accident.
Risk analysis is a factor, to be sure, but good professional drivers are pretty good at getting right up against the edge of losing control without going over.
Personally I think the vast majority of gamers will lose to the pros everytime if the simulation is any good. It is much harder to gauge where the control line is in a video game... you don't have the g-force feedback, nor the feel of the tires that you'd have in real life. A pro driver can tell the difference without even trying between wet track, dry track, tell his air pressure is off, how worn his tires are, how warm his tires are, and how tight a turn he can take at what speed without slipping more than 10-15% based on all that
For the gamers to stand a chance the simulations will have to be markedly more forgiving than the real world... and that sort of defeats the point.
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Re:Sounds pretty pointless (Score:5, Interesting)
A racer interested in self preservation usually only reduces his speed by about 5%-10% of what is theoretically possible. Most motorcycle racers use lines that provide space to recover if they exceed traction limits, usually at the cost of position or lap times. Most racers use a delayed apex line that allows the driver to get on the throttle hard and early. If the vehicle does start to go out of control, there is usually plenty of room to recover.
Because exceeding the limits can be recovered, and because it usually reduces lap times, I highly doubt that being able to run near maximum speed would provide a significant advantage. After all, a casual gamer is just as likely as a racer to botch a corner and go off-line. If doing so hurts lap times badly enough, there is not a real advantage in getting so close to the edge.
The biggest advantage a simulated racer will have is that simulations tend to be a little watered down from reality, and are usually more predictable. Top gear had an excellent video on the matter, where Jeremy Clarkson attempted to beat his GT4 time in reality using the same car (Acura NSX) and course (Laguna Seca.) I'm sure you can find the video on YouTube.
Jeremy Clarkson video... (Score:5, Informative)
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top gear didn't go for some decent driving sim
What else would you suggest? Have you even played GT4 with a steering wheel setup, driving aids off, physics set to professional/simulation/whatever? I've not really played 4 but I played 1, 2, 3 and 5 and they all seem pretty good. The lap time on the game was about 4 seconds faster than he managed on the track IIRC. And even then it was because he was too scared to go quickly at that really bad chicane on Laguna Seca (which obviously is a lot easier to take quickly in a computer game like Gran Turismo be
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Any of the several PC racing sims: rFactor [rfactor.net], Live for Speed [lfs.net], or anything by SimBin [simbin.se], such as GT Legends or one of the GTR or WTCC Race games.
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BTW before you slag GT4 any more, go read http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article552096.ece [timesonline.co.uk] , I just found it. For someone who really has
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GT4, TOCA, Gran Turismo 2 are not racing sims. They are arcade games. There are two ways to tell if a game is a real sim or not. If ANY music at all plays while you are on the track, it isn't a sim. If you have to "unlock" cars or tracks, it isn't a sim. I'll throw in a third and fourth. If yo
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complete with the inability to break traction with too much throttle or too hard on the brakes
I was playing with my G25 a few weeks ago (I've since loaned it to a friend and been playing other games on my PS3 so I only played it for about half a day..), and it seemed fine. Did you switch the settings to 'simulation', and turn down the traction control, etc? The default settings are obviously set up just for people having fun, but I found it more difficult to control the traction and not lock the wheels in braking etc when I turned the ABS off, it all seemed quite realistic to me. I had a race again
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I was always amazed at how well Jeremy Clarkson did on GT4 with the joystick controller. I find most cars uncontrollable on it. The steering wheel controller, on the other hand...
The limits of GT4's car physics models are clear. But they're modeled a lot. This is, after all, a game. Not a NASA simulator.
...laura who has yet to do a clean lap of Laguna Seca
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yeah, it's a bit more realistic than your average racer, but i really find it too bad that top gear didn't go for some decent driving sim... those half sim, half arcade games on consoles aren't even close to being a sim...
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Yay generalizations! (Score:2)
On the other hand, fearing death and intelligence are pretty much completely unrelated IMO.
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Re:In real time? Sounds awfully complicated... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:In real time? Sounds awfully complicated... (Score:5, Interesting)
P.S. Lewis Hamilton, please stop crashing.
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More like Red light means stop, mmmkay???
What would *really* be cool (Score:4, Funny)
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Should be somewhat easier to beat them (Score:2)
All kinds of games!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Or how about, Poll Chasing With the Best: On the Trail With Barak and Hillary.
Or Across the Ocean With Thor Heyerdahl: The Rowing Game.
Maybe from historical data we can recreate the spreading pattern of the black plague. Across Europe: A Flea's Tale.
The potential is limitless.
everyone has unique tastes (Score:2)
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Revisit "historical events". (Score:5, Funny)
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P.S. Anybody know the conversion factor from parsecs to hours?
Re:Revisit "historical events". (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you Anonymous Coward for saving me.
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Were you raped by Jar Jar Binks as a child or something?
That's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life (Score:5, Interesting)
The possibilities are interesting, but the most exciting idea you can think of is a game where you spend 3+ months riding behind sled dogs across the Antarctic tundra? Sounds like Penn & Teller's Desert Bus [wikipedia.org].
I mean, don't get me wrong, Roald Amundsen was an interesting guy with a great story, but that doesn't mean it would make a good videogame.
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WarioWare (Score:2)
it should work well on the Wii (Score:2)
Well, that sounds like it would work perfectly with a wiimote.
Plus, they've already done something like that to Conker [wikipedia.org]. A cutesy, kids' games squirrel turned into a serial-cussing, heavy-drinking, shit-dodging maniac. (And I mean, really, dodging dollops of feces.) Apparently just to make a point that Nintendo isn't a kiddies-only company any more, and now publishes that kind of stuff too. And as a bonus, why wait for deviant fanfic to rape your childhood memories and favourite characters,
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South Pole Position (Score:2)
Re:South Pole Position (Score:4, Funny)
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How would this work... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not really that hard when you think about it.
Worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you cannot replicate exactly
1) the track itself, the bumps, kerbs, asphalt, track layout
2) track conditions at the time the gps data for the "real" racers cars, ambient temp, track temp, rubber laid down by previous sessions, debris etc.
3) car setup (good luck getting real time telemtry of all the parameters of the car from the real F1 teams), this would reveal too much information to competitors
These 3 factors combine to change grip and ultimately laptimes.
As anyone who has raced competitively online will tell you - lap times in the virtual world is incomparable to real world runs with the same cars, same track. As a small example, some of the best line sim race drivers in the world are doing = 1.17 laptimes on the '02 version of silverstone in F1C. While the fastest lap in the real world was a 1:18.9.
Almost 2s difference. Which is huge. This is one example of many. The only way this situation can be rectified is by making a hyper realisitc simulation that has never been seen before or, start fudging grip, engine power and other statistics. Which by the way the article says it won't do because "it defeats the point". Yeah right.
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Funny)
Games just aren't reality. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rkdWkAs9qmo [youtube.com]
He points out that no matter how realistic a game is, it is just not a real-life experience:
"The one thing I've learned today... is that you can have the skill to get this car around here in 1:40, and it could do 1:40... [but] it's that part of your brain that makes you frightened."
Of course, games are essentially there to entertain, and I'm sure that a lot of people will enjoy racing against the professionals from the comfort of their own couch. But just because you can play Guitar Hero and have a blast of a time doing so, it doesn't necessarily mean you can play the guitar.
Aly =]
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I see a big hole (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, this is making me think of the old Captain Power toys where you could wave the fighter at the screen while the show was on and your ship would "explode" (pop apart due to springs) if it got "hit" by an enemy robot. The funny thing is, those Captain Power toys would be entirely kick-ass today with our gaming systems and 3D controllers. The fighters were held by pistol grips with the part. For a modern version, make the pistol grip a detachable mount containing the electronics for a wireless controller for a system like Wii or the 360. The fighter part can be a stand-alone toy that can also be mounted atop the controller when playing the video game. From there, the fighter's attitude would control the action on the screen. The toy would respond to what's going on with appropriate vibration, lights, and sound effects. When sufficiently damaged, the whole thing can sproing apart just like Captain Planet's fighters did. And to really merchandise the situation, the game itself would have full storylines to go with each fighter and presumably the character that goes along with it. So you beat the game once with the blue fighter, that's nice, but the red fighter has a full story arc to play through as well. The game is included in the box with the fighter, essentially the same game each time but with different cinematics to go with the new character.
Something like this would be very successful.
Go Speed Racist Go! (Score:5, Funny)
He's a bigot on wheels, he's a bigot
and he's gonna be hatin' on someone.
He's a racist so don't let him meet your friends,
If you do they might not talk to you again,
And when people are the wrong color
Or come from the wrong place,
You bet your life Speed Racist
will get all red-faced,
Go Speed Racist
Go Speed Racist
Go Speed Racist, Go!
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I haven't laughed 'til I cried in quite a while.
Thanks
Race to the South Pole (Score:3, Funny)
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The thing I loved about that game was that it took a few seconds of loading, a few clicks, and then you were racing (s/racing/crashing into other cars/). A bit longer if you wanted to tinker with your car settings but you probably already had those saved anyway.
Console games these days take ages to load up, ages to flip between screens, and ages to rest
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How good is that AI? (Score:2)
Maybe something other than Formula One ... (Score:2)
So why not use delayed telemetry? And maybe use endurance racing instead of formula racing? Most endurance races have different classes of vehicles, so you're constantly "fighting" traffic (especially if you're in the fastest classes), gamewise you could have to earn your way up from GT2 to GT1 to LMP2 to LMP1 (to use Le Mans standards).
Le Mans alone would
chessgames.com has been doing this for a while (Score:3, Interesting)
You can play against chess champions of centuries past or the modern day. (you have to pay to play against historical players, you can replay historical chess matches for free).
I think this is an awesome idea for games.
Of course, the constraint is a limited number of games where this is applicable (for example, it wouldn't make any sense to play against the replayed opening moves of a Halo 3 match...)
-J_Tom_Moon_79
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It's not unlike bots in CS:S... If you play the same bots on the s
Realism sucks. (Score:2)
game? (Score:2)
That may take some time.
*I* want to race Max Mosley (Score:3, Funny)
"This fantastic result was a complete team effort. We really spanked the competition today."
Virtual Racing (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember a company here in Dundee ran a website that had virtual horse racing. You could buy a virtual horse, train it, buy virtual food, race against other horses and get monery back for winning. They even had a full time employee whose role was purely to commentate on the races.
It was so successful that a totally separate company set up in the US just to buy virtual horses and race them and they made a profit.
That was at least 4 years ago.
In danger of being a little off topic, but kind of thought it was interesting.
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Actually, with real horses, probably not, no. Unless you happen to find another "Red Rum" of course.
Like any other gambling site it would be run in favour of the owner but if people could get good enough they could make a bit of a profit. Of course so few people would get good enough at it that the site owner would make money.
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Re:Sports entertainment on slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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