USA G3: Nurburg

Note to self; next time you unregister from an event, stay out! ;-) Hadn't expected to make this one so I'd unregistered, but then ended up getting home in time. So what the heck, I figure - give it a shot.

Took a few laps to remember the shortcut for the sprint course. Overran it more times than not, but my main issue was nasty FPS and stuttering whenever the pits were in view. Had very little control into T1 as a result, which didn't bode well. (didn't remember it at the time, but looked at the last race here afterwards and it was similar; lots of guys saying they had FPS issues - mine were peaking in the mid-70's in the last corner but dropping into the 20's and stuttering a lot going into T1. Sheesh; was getting 200+ the other night in rF!)

Anyway, I started from 4th and was inside Gregg going into T1, worried about sliding out into him since I was basically a passenger in that section. Didn't help when I got a bit of a push from a Viper in the rear, but it worked out ok for all. So I was away in 4th behind Rob, who'd gotten a monster start to go by me and Gregg. Hung in for a few laps but saw Alex coming in the Viper and moved over since he was obviously going a lot quicker. With Gregg on my tail then, I started obsessing about the FPS and completely missed the chicane looking down trying to hit ctrl-F in the straight leading to it!. Ooops...

Pulled wide to let Gregg by since I'd shortcut the chicane and tried to get refocused - slipped back at first but then managed to get it moving again. Unfortunately, then I got excited when Gregg made a small mistake that put me close again -(queue red mist and inevitable bad result!) Not having the shortcut sussed bit me as I missed my braking spot, went off and knocked the whole front cap off the car. Got going again, but it wouldn't turn so I pitted for repairs.

Came out in last and finished there, or almost finished. Motor expired and locked up downshifting into the last turn on the last lap with the finish in sight. At least had some fun watching the dice between Garret and my teammate John. ;-)

WD to the podium; good run in that Beemer Rob!

My race was defined by my start. I couldn't see the lights and reacted off of Rob. I lost a second or two there. I waited for the revs to come up. Hmmmm, they're not coming up? Blasted! I have the pit speed limiter on! Now that has NEVER happened to me before. This IS my first race on a new rig......
Note to self: check steering wheel mapping.
I knew I could never make up any ground in the Bimmer so held on to the end of the top 10. I had a great battle with John and actually got by him early in the race. I made a mistake late in the race braking into T1 and he got me back. I never had enough to get by him after that and wound up 8th. Nice drive everyone and grats to the podium.

Had a good run with Bill for most of the race. He made a small error towards the end of the race, which allowed me to pass him. I think he would have held me off otherwise. Was a fun race. Congrats to the podium.

That was a surprise podium for me.

I didn't get the best time out of qual 5th spot, I was actually faster in race trim, go figure. But hey, I was happy starting 5th and considering the competition I felt pretty good about it.

I had practiced my starts in the warmup session which seemed to pay off and I got a good launch around Gregg and into 3rd. Wasn't really sure where Steve was but I left some room in T1 just in case.

Alex had made his way around Gregg and was targeting me next. Not much I could do and he made a good pass around me. After that I tried to stay in Contact with Alex but Gregg was also looming, I was a Z3 sandwich. I could see Alex was pushing real hard and eventually I think his tires gave up on him in T1 as he was off in the kitty litter.

So back in 3rd spot with Gregg constantly looming about 2-3 secs back. I think it was the last lap or 2nd to last lap and I locked up going into T1 (forgot to adjust my brake bias to more front with a light fuel load). I was able to stay ahead of Gregg, but he was on me. Going into the chicane Gregg was on the brakes late and killing me, don't know how he was able to do that, but amazing braking Gregg.

I somehow managed to hold him off and held onto 3rd, but I think one more lap and Gregg would have passed me.

Steve, on the fps issue, I've noticed that changing the AA level in the GTR Config to Level 4 seems to have smoothed out the fps considerably for me. Not sure what hardware you have, but I'm running nVidia 8800GTX with the 169.28 Beta drivers.

Thanks for the AA hint, Rob - will mess with it some and see; using an 8800GTX here too. Seems to be an online phenomenon, but I'll have to test offline with some AI and see. 1920X1200 doesn't help I'm sure... ;-)

I only got one lap in for qual. because for some reason my wheel decided it would not work. I finally got that fixed after I restarted my comp. Started six a moved into 3rd. I really wanted to catch second and pushed to hard overheating my rear tires. It was all down hill from there. :(

Steve, you might want to try this link Broadband Speed Test and select San Francisco or Palo Alto as I think these are closer to where R2P servers live.

I just tested San Francisco, my download is 7032Kb/s and my upload is 1055Kb/s and latency is 16ms. This will of course vary thru out the day so you might want to try Palo Alto and even LA to get a good average.

Thanks Rob, I'll have to try that. I usually test with toast.net or speedtest.net and get good results, but I'll have to look at the west coast numbers as I usually test out of Atlanta since it's closest.

This is a bit off topic for a post race report, but FWIW I did a brief Fraps test and it looks more like something to do with drawing the pits area, since whatever the average framerate is, it drops a ton there. Does it offline too:

FRAPS results: GTR2 Nurb Sprint in GT3, taken from in-car view.
timetrial - Avg: 86.050 - Min: 53 - Max: 144
race w/15AI from back of grid - Avg: 51.748 - Min: 22 - Max: 104

In both cases the worst FPS were between the S/F line and the exit of T1; I'm dropping about 80-90 FPS at that spot from max. Even saw worse FPS there in the offline race with no cars in view than I did sitting at the start from the back of the grid with 15 cars in view. Tried dropping the AA level, even turning it off, but it didn't make any significant difference.

I've noted similar FPS issues in GTR2 at other tracks around the pit area, some worse than others. Got to look into that!

I didn't expect much here so I am happy with 6th. I always seem to have trouble with the starting lights here but I got a pretty good start by looking at the guys ahead of me. Had a good battle with Kevin the whole race. He was WAY better on the brakes than I was. I bobbled towards the end and he made a clean pass on me. Then I was just trying to survive and keep my brother behind me!!! I did have a bad frame rate drop one time in the race about 3/4 of the way through but luckily it was quick and didn't affect anything.