A quick tour of the Nürburgring Nordschleife

My record was a joke referring to 7.30 hours when walking along the course summer 1985.

I have zero interest in watching, playing with, discussing video games, they will never even begin to replicate the truth, only real driving interests me. I work all day on a computer the last thing I want to dow with my leisure time is to spend it there.

 

If that were the case, real drivers wouldn't be using them as a tool to learn a track. Fact is real F1 drivers and champions use them.

And just for the record: I have done Skip Barber and driven various racecars including F1.

 

+1, Video games have reached the point of almost being a realistic substitute for being on the track. The displays and graphics of the games are so life-like that you can no longer see the difference between cars in the game and their real-life counterparts. The physics of the games have improved vastly also. The video games are only going to get exponentially better in the next few years and one day (far away) you may even see Formula One being run on simulators instead of the racetrack.

Can you tell the difference?
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I made a split screen video with the Stuck in car footage around the Ring and my own footage from the game. Via video editing I was able to synchronize the footage (slightly slowing down my own feed). The pics look basically identical.

 

I'd love to see it. Were you using the same cars in both?

 

Ok, here is the scoop:

Derek Bell footage is from the (fantastic) video "In car 956". He drives a 956 on famous race tracks. His time at the ring was 6:41, while not going flat out and talking to the camera.

My own lap was in a 962 in Forza. I did the lap in 7:42, which really is embarrassing...

Stuck footage is from the video in discussion. He did the lap in 6:49 in a BMW M3 GTR. I did the same in a BMW M3 GTR in GT4 in 6:39 (hurray!). Split screen with the red/white car is the Stuck comparison, the other split screen is 956 vs 962 speed synchronized.

I also did a similar video with the recent Pagani Zonda F footage. But unfortunately that version of the Pagani isn't in any of the games. I only found a Zonda CR in Forza II, which looks cool but AFAIK is slower. Plus the original footage is a vantage point behind the driver, a perspective you can't get in the games (why would you?) and so the visual comparison falls short.

PS: The lap timing is what I got back based on video analysis on my system. It might be a bit off from what the official sources say. I made sure the laps in the footage were compatible to the laps done in the games so I might have cut some pieces off.
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To each his own.

 

Yes I think that would be very wise...

 

I disagree. The boundaries between real and virtual racing are getting closer and I find it immensely fascinating to compare the two and see where those limits have melted and where not. Real racing will always be dangerous and costly, a component that virtual racing (luckily) lacks. But if your life and likelihood isn't on the table, you go at things differently.

However the visual and audible sensations of virtual racing are getting closer and closer to the real deal. You can't feel the seat of your pants, but good games and their hardware give you other clues that your brain learns to read: Steering wheels with force feedback tell you when the car starts to over or understeer, acoustic signals (screetching tires) underline that and eventually you also start to learn visually how certain turn in angles aren't correct because you're coming in too fast and the car goes sideways.

Video games or shall we call them "simulators" as they are named by virtual aircraft/space pilots can at the very least teach you operational procedures and (in racing more important) the ideal line around a track, the braking zones, the acceleration areas etc. Something not to be underestimated as I have seen in real life driving with folks on tracks who have never seen it and their line showed that. I have mentioned this many times before as it is such a good example to illustrate this: When driving the USGP track at Indy the car in front of me while performance wise a lot better than mine was relatively easy for me to catch as the driver made blatant mistakes taking the wrong line through the infield.
The operational procedures I have also had the luck to experience when I drove my first F1 with paddle shifters. The way the car worked was exactly the same my setup at home did.

I'm not the only one fascinated by examining the parallels and differences between virtual and real racing:

- I read an entire book (forgot the title, but got it somewhere in my racing library) that compares the two.
- When Forza came out, Popular Mechanics did a nice real life to virtual comparison using a "video kid" driver versus Sebastian Bourdais. Needless to say that Bourdais won in real life, but the "kid" got pretty close in certain areas.
- We have the countless anecdotes of F1 drivers using virtual racing to learn their way around new tracks. Villeneuve did it in his first year in F1 and friends of mine flying in 1st class to the inaugural Chinese GP told me the same story: Next to them were a couple of F1 drivers learning the track on their laptop computers. And of course in a more recent story we watched in awe the arrival of super talent Lewis Hamilton who honed his skills on McLaren's simulator. While that machine is light years ahead of PC games through its hydraulic support and fine tuning, it still shares a lot of common ground with them.
- And who could forget the "Top Gear" episode where Clarkson compares his virtual skills of driving a NSX around Laguna Seca with the real thing? Yes, he too did better in the virtual world for obvious reasons, but it wasn't that unrealistic, that he completely dismissed it as a game. And that's the point.

 

Thank you for your interesting well thought out post but I remain unconvinced.

best regards,

Marc

 

I appreciate your polite comment.

I understand that only the real deal does it for you. Still I think even you could benefit from a good game by simply learning a new track and its ideal line. That's what the pros do and that's what I have done in the past and I plan on learning the Ring by heart before I visit it for the first time later this year.

PS: The original reason for doing the split screen comparison as shown in the pics below was to verify that the current games actually acurately reflect the track. They don't really show you the elevation changes, but based on what I've seen from the video comparison (and from what I've read from other sources) the track is accurately modeled.

 

There is A LOT of vertical travel at the Ring LOL!

Summer 85 I went round in a Peugeotr305 station wagon I was four wheel drifting, easy with skinny tires quite low speeds and at one point over a brow the bicycle I had in the back hit the ceiling: good fun

 

Rest assured that as a moderator of the racing forum I'm fairly familiar with the rules and options I have at my disposal...

And if you had actually paid attention you would have noticed that my post #56 below comments on the very lap this thread is about.

 

The physics of GT4 are quite good compared to FM2, although the eye-candy and the damage model tips me into playing FM2 more often. I'll buy a PS3 when GT5 Prologue is available from GoGamer.com.

I've received very good feedback from Summer BMW Ring School folks who've "practiced virtually" and received high marks because of their familiarity of the course gained from tutelage on the consoles.

Not to stray too far OT, but I had a chance to play the iRacing.com simulation at Moroso this past weekend and it's going to be even better than the consoles, especially for the US tracks. For serious driver training, the technology is really coming of age. Bringing my XBox360 to Sebring specifically to work with clients before the 12-Hour.

 

You just made my day. Thanks!

 

With the way that technology is advancing don't be surprised in 20 years when tracks like the "real" 'Ring become phased out and simulators are used. Look at Gran Turismo 1 ten years ago and then look at GT5, the progress that we've made is incredible and the progress that will be made in our lifetimes (well, my life time) could see me racing the 'Ring in a virtual hologram.

 

No secret why the military, Boeing, F1 teams and the like spend so much money and time on developing and using simulators.

They're just tools, nothing more, nothing less. They're not substitutions for the real thing. For training however, they can supply "experience," that edge that allows them to win in real life. YMMV.

 

Yep, that was a neat promo from Microsoft Game Studios. The pro driver was actually Gunnar Jeanette, a Porsche GT prodigy, playing against a "tuner" beta-tester who was the "video kid." It was done at Road Atlanta and it was key for me to begin seeing how these inexpensive, readily available simulations could be quite realistic and useful as training tools.

The Turn 10 Studio Blog has some pretty good stuff on it.

And yes, I lost weeks of work in 1997 when the original Gran Turismo came out...

 

You're right, it wasn't Bourdais. Just double checked the article, which I kept in my permanent racing collection.

But Bourdais did a similar article somewhere else (probably in RACER). I'm pretty sure of it, but can't find it. Anyhow.

 

Latest Road & Track had a sidebar from multi-time National Champion Don Knowles on the value of simulations in training. As one of the head instructors at GM Proving Grounds, his responsibility is to get engineers trained for testing the Z-06 and the upcoming ZR-1 at the 'Ring. One of these days, Don and I are going to go at it, virtually that is...

 

Why all the animosity about video games vs. real life?

After all, this is the internet, it's not real life either. Is the only place for us to talk about tracks at the track? Maybe in the lounge?

I dunno why it should matter if we co-mingle conversations here about real and simulated, they are both interesting topics that need each other for reference.

No track snob here, no sir. I've never tracked a car. Never had one that would make much of a track car until now. I wish I could find a program that has the track I've joined on it, so I could at least become familiar with it prior to sticking my nervous ass out on the track itself.

DM

 

That would be true if Forza 2's Nurburgring didn't look so off compared to the real deal.
Not to mention the fact that in technical terms, neither GT4 or Forza 2 are as real as dynamics go because I highly doubt a 2nd gen. NSX-R is capable of 239Mph with only 711 horses & a subtle aftermarket bumper as it is in Forza 2.

If you want realism, check your PC. GTR2 & LFS are fantastic, and I'm sure we're all looking forward to Blimey!'s Ferrari game.

 

+1!

rFactor's not bad either. iRacing rocks. Release date 5/08.