Be Excellent To Each Other

Have you had the chance to give the non-karting sections a go yet, and if you have, what do you reckon? I'm itching to give it another go, but the bruising from last week's idiot-class election night fall is still too painful in the seat I have (one of these - adding that pic might not have worked, I'll probably find out in a minute).

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but are there no workarounds / adaptors for older wheels? It's not as if the bastards are cheap to replace).

Oooh, I want me one of those!

I can recommend it. although it was a bit expensive for what it is in terms of materials (around 200 Euros over here, which is hard to translate into pounds, as the GBP/EUR rate seems to be different every time I look, although it might have settled down now the election is over). What was harder over here was finding an online supplier - it's simply called the Playseat Challenge, so a quick google should let you know what the situation is in the UK, asssuming you are there.

Biggest advantage for me was the way you can fold it up in a minute or so and stuff it in a handy corner or cupboard, without removing the wheel or pedals, using just a bit of the 30 miles or so
of Velcro they supply with it. Boy does it have a lot of Velcro. That's what I meant when I said it's a bit expensive for what it is, but it was the only option I could find for using a wheel in the living room.

I think they say it's designed for users up to something like 6 ft 2 and 120 kilos. I'm 6ft one and just over 90 (kilos not years). It's a bit of a squeeze, but surprisingly comfortable and stable, especially considering it seems to be made out of roughly 50% metal and 50% Velcro. Maybe not for everyone (certainly one for the Velcro fetishists, though), but an interesting option if you're a bit short of space and don't have a dedicated games room in the west wing of your castle.

Plenty of reviews online, if you're interested.

Oh, and the lack of adjustabilty might be an issue for some. You can tilt the wheel, but not move it backwards and forwards, you can move the pedals back and forth to souit the lenghth of your legs and preferred driving position. Everything else that's adjustable involves...guess what...playing around with strips of Velcro.

For comparison, I've got one of these:

...

I can't remember what it's called. GAYWOOD!

Wheelstand Pro. http://wheelstandpro.com/

Yeah I had one of those for a while, I want one with a seat built in though

I've done a load of laps in a good variety of cars and they all feel good. I also found some settings for the controller which made it a lot nicer to drive. Also I was encouraged by looking at the time trial times, it seems that there are lots of competitive players using pads rather than wheels. And I love that when you do some time trial laps and view the replay it shows the ghost car as well so you can see exactly where you are losing time.

Overall it's just bloody brilliant this game, the cars just feel real and connected to the ground in a way which they haven't in any console game I played since Race Pro.

Ah right, cheers, looks like I have some really good stuff to look forward to. Apparently you can jump into almost any car whenever you fancy - I just wanted to finish the Kart season first and it seems to be almost endless (to be fair, partly because I keep restarting after making massive fuck ups on certain corner combinations). But I'm even finding the Karts strangely addictive. I'm surprised not many people seem to have bought this compared to Drive Club. I think it was only you, me and Dr Zoidberg on my list.

The ghost feature is going to be right up my street as well. Drive Club had it, but so far this already seems like the better game by miles.

I had to google Race Pro, by the way, as I'd never heard of it. No idea how I managed to miss it at the time.

Just in case you consider the one I bought and described, I have to warn you it's a "seat" in the loosest possible sense of the word. Think more comfy deckchair than racing cockpit. It was the ability to fold it away that really decided it for me. Some people might find it fairly narrow as well, but it does the job perfectly in my case.

Having researched I'm probably going to go for the full geek out and get a playseat with the proper seat built in

Makes perfect sense to me if you have the space and the cash handy - everyone deserves the odd treat now and then

Anything particular in mind? (I enjoy looking at the toys as well, even the ones well outside my budget).

Nothing in particular, i'll just check ebay at the time and get whatever some idiot has bought and is now realising they really don't need

That sounds dangerously like tempting fate, especially if the thing ends up back on ebay at the beginning of June at half the price you paid for it

I’m pretty sure that’s how Trooper rolls.

Really? When do you reckon he'll get bored with that country mansion he picked up the other month? I have a fully-functional old NDS Lite, sorry, I mean "rare and priceless classic console" - fantastic piece of kit- in the basement somewhere. I'll do a straight swap if he agrees to leave the snooker table in the games room. I'll even fully charge it and pay all the postage (for the DS, not the mansion, that would just be silly).

Well I decided to reinstall this post fixing my PC. What a difference ! it's now running jammed to 60 FPS with the highest settings and FXAA. I don't bother using MSAA because at 4k you simply don't need it.

I decided to start off at the complete noob end so I've got my arse in a go kart ATM. It's absolutely brilliant though, great fun ! they don't half go some too ! Graphics are lovely, right down to the bit where the sun gets in your eyes and you can't see where you're going

Looks great to me on the PS4. Might be my eyesight, but I'm not getting the feeling I'm missing any extra graphic bonuses a higher resolution etc could offer. As for the "sun in your eyes" thing, I'd personally prefer a clear view of the track. If anything, I'm struggling with all the settings available to fiddle with (the force feedback options alone confuse the hell out of me - I've read tutorials and watched youtube videos, but don't feel any the wiser). Still a great game, though.

If I could name one personal moan off the top of my head, it's lap times being invalidated for having half an inch of one tyre off the track for a fraction of a second. Maybe it's a bit too simmy for the likes of me.

Just on the off-chance that anyone has any ideas they can share...much as I love it, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting as much out of this game as I could/should be. Apart from the obvious possibilty I might just be a bit shitter at driving games than I suspected, I'm still having trouble calibrating the steering wheel (Thrustmaster T300RS on PS4). The on-screen instructions for calibrating the wheel seem less than completely clear to me. Again, bearing in mind I've googled this subject to death and may simply be a bit of a thickie when it comes to this sort of thing, whatever I do, it never seems to feel quite right. I'd like to be more specific, but it's a bit tricky (one thing I noticed after my last attempt at calibration was that I appeared to be having to turn the wheel further to make left turns than rights, for example). I'm English, despite my location, so I really should be able to get the basics, even though the advanced force feedback options may as well be in Portuguese for all the sense they make to me. I've no idea if anyone else has exactly this wheel and is doing any better with it, but it can't do any harm asking.

Can't help with that I'm afraid other than to suggest that by now there should be some decent setups posted for that wheel on the different forums which are covering this game in detail. I'd register on one of those and ask for some help there if I were you.

I have to say I'm bloody loving it so far. It's my favourite racing game for years despite the fact that it is in many ways completely fucking stupid. For instance, time trials. The time trials are only based on class not individual cars. So if you set a time on a track in a Formula Rookie car and then alter in a Formula A (Formula 1) car then the slower time will be overwritten since they are both "Open Wheel". What this means that in practice is that for the purposes of time trials 90% of the cars are completely useless since they aren't the fastest in their class.

Loads of other little bugs and glitches are apparent too but none of it matters because the racing is generally amazing. There are also rumblings that there might be some good news forthcoming on the Logitech wheel support. Although I'm enjoying it plenty with the pad.

No probs and cheers for the swift reply. Like I say, I have already googled the subject to death without any success so far, but I'll keep trying.

Now that you mention pads, it looked like some of the best times being put up were on pads rather than wheels. I'm tempted to give the pad a go, but after spending a bloody fortune on that wheel, I'd at least like to get the basics sorted (you know, in the sense of just being able to set it up properly, rather than finding the perfect settings for each and every car).

I know what you mean about the bugs and glitches (the time trial thing sounds particularly daft), but I think a fair bit can be fixed in time with patches. After months of Drive Club, which started off as one big sackful of bugs and glitches with a game vaguely attached somewhere, they did make a fair bit of effort to improve it, so I hope and suspect it won't be any different with Project Cars.

Quick upload from last night. Such a good game this.

Is that on PS4 playing with a pad? How do control where you are looking?

By cheating, you can still look around in replay mode. Although you can use the other stick to around while driving but it's a bit of a handful when you're doing the gears at the same time.

Just a quick note to you. Mark. I think I've found the solution to the wheel problem - not from a forum but a more unlikely source (a youtube comment, of all places). I'd be more than happy to share it if anyone has the same calibration problem with the t300rs wheel. It's made the game way more fun. My other thought that I might just be a bit shit at racing games looks like being true, all the same. In career mode, I'm still stuck in the kart series. I take it I might eventually get some other offers at some point if I improve a bit more?