Another Go

I don’t think this will last long. I’m having another go with the PSVR. It’s a virtual reality set for the Playstation. The last time I used one I felt sick almost immediately and got cold sweats. I expect the same to happen again, but this time I have a plan. I am going to keep working at it and try and overcome the sickness.

The other night I set it up and then tried a few of the simpler, slower, non-moving experiences and I coped quite well with that. As I felt good I went on to have a go at driving in Gran Turismo. I did a couple of laps of an oval in a slow car and felt OK. I then managed a few more laps in the same car around Brands Hatch GP circuit. By that point I was tired and starting to get very slight cold sweats. I stopped.

I reckon, that with time and sensible use I might be able to play it enough to be happy with the financial costs. It will take time.

The principle reason that made me get a PSVR again is that I should be able to hook it into the PC and get the flight sim working in VR. This will be an amazing improvement to the sim. This should be reasonably simple so I am going to wait for a time when I have a whole day uninterrupted to do this. I find that setting things up on the PC either take twenty minutes or four hours. There isn’t really an in-between.

October 13 2018October 15 2018

Sub 540 Seconds

I’ve been trying to keep my hand-in with the Nurburgring racing circuit. I’ve been trying to race it a couple of times a week. Most tracks don’t take that long to get back in the swing of things, but given that this one is 14km or so long it takes an age to get used to it. While racing my lovely Porsche around I noticed that my times for the 24 Hour circuit were getting close to nine minutes and so I’ve been playing with the aim of beating that.

Here’s the proof I finally did:

Look for the fastest lap time in purple in the bottom right hand corner. I’m quite happy.

This is the gorgeous beast that I achieved that time in:

July 28 2018August 1 2018

Timing

I’m currently working through the tests and track challenges on Gran Turismo. This is largely due to a corrupted save file that lost my 400 or so cars. So, I decided to start again. It amused me that one of my sector times was:

I was then amused even more when I was typing in “The Devil’s Coming” into the WordPress media file editor the following tweet appeared in my desktop side bar.

pic.twitter.com/E3xvdUGZqa

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 28 July 2018

The guy’s a lying prick. Ha ha.

July 21 2018

Gutted

I’m not happy. I’ve been playing Gran Turismo Sport for about six months. I had an issue in the past where my cars disappeared from the garage and I managed to fix that one using a cloud save that hadn’t updated in over a week.

This week it happened again. I remember the game crashed while moving through the menu GUI and I restarted the PS4. Then, I reloaded the game and it worked fine. I had all the cars and I completed the daily workout. I saved the game and then exited the program. Finally, because I thought it was all working well I copied the save game file to a USB stick. After that I watched some Netflix on the PS4 and so I think the PS4 transferred my save file to the PS Plus cloud save.

Next time I go to play the game all my cars, just less that 400, had gone from the garage. Only the DLC ones were visible. So, I try copying the save file form the USB stick, but that one is corrupted. Then I look at the cloud save file but that one is bad.

So, I restore the PS4 using a back up external hard drive from two months ago. That made no difference even though an old version of the save file was there. I think the GT server file must be buggered too.

My final test was to delete the entire game. Rebuild the PS4 database and then reinstall the game with its 60GB of download and then copy the two month old save file from the system restore from the USB stick, I had copied it across earlier.

Nope. Fuck you went the game. You can’t have any of that shit.

So. No cars in the garage but all my progress saved. I am currently pondering starting again from fresh. A complete new game. It’s OK. I’ll have to complete every lesson and test again and also all the circuit experience but maybe that will be fun.

Maybe.

June 30 2018

BB Not 8

Here’s a replay of a recent online race I took part in on Gran Tursimo. I qualified third and then managed to win.

It was a good race although nothing too strenuous. It’s best to qualify as high as possible because there’s normally a massive shunt-scene at the first corner if you are lower down. My general method for online racing is to try and steer clear of other cars and take a wider line in corners if there are cars around me. There have been many times that I have been driving well and then some wanker punts me off! He gets a slow down penalty of 4 seconds and I end up at the back of the field. I hate that!

May 7 2018May 7 2018

Blancpain

Part Two Of

“The Weekend Of Noise”

I spent a few delightful hours at Brands Hatch over the weekend to watch the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Races. I do like this type of car. I think I have grown out of F1, it’s not that interesting and full of masses of bullshit. I prefer the “honesty” of GT and Le Mans Prototype type racing. This closed-wheel racing seems more fun and spectacular. I know these cars don’t really bear much more than a passing resemblance to their road-going cousins but I like the look, sound and overall racing of these vehicles.

The first part of the WEEKEND OF NOISE was a trip to Norwich for Thrashersaurus. This was the second part of the weekend and my ears were still ringing from seeing Xentrix play the Brickmakers.

The day started with a free pitwalk and a chance to get close to the cars and drivers. Hence the above picture.

Anyway, the first race watched was the GT 4 European Series with many cars on the grid it was pretty good but there was a number of safety car periods and this stifled the racing somewhat, but it did mean there was a good lot of close racing.

I did like the KTM cars which had a lovely rear end.

After that was the first of the sprint races for the GT series and the hour of racing included a pitstop and driver change. It was an impressive sight and good fun to watch. The weather was perfect, lovely and sunny. You know it’s summer when the circuit commentators are reminding spectators to put on plenty of sunscreen.

The beginning of the race was a rolling start and I captured it here:

As I watched the race from the Brabham Straight I got to see the podium celebrations:

It was a good day with plenty of noise and ice cream.

It’s very nice being back at Brands Hatch. It’s the place I spend an awful lot of 2004 and 2005, almost every Sunday. Not sure I could have that commitment again but a couple of times a year seems a good start.

Just because I can, I decided to have a go racing a similar race to the GT series on Gran Turismo and, just because I like most of you, I have uploaded that replay on to YouTube. Enjoy (or not).

May 1 2018May 1 2018

Racing Miles

Having looked recently at the energy I use in the house and while driving I thought I’d turn my attention to not-real things. Specifically my racing life within the game Gran Turismo Sport.

Here is a collection of my pink cars taken in Hawaii. I like the photo mode in the game but it’s not the be all and end all for me. I have seen some people comment that the car editing and photomode tend to be their favourite parts but not me. I like racing the cars and the other aspects of the game are incidental.

There’s a page of achievements that encourages you to play more:

The row of pink is lacking as that is online racing and it’s quite unlikely I’ll get those filled up. Unless I find “that one race” I won’t get many pole positions, I need to find “that one race” and play it over and over.

So, the achievements page will give actual figures and from that I can work out my average speed and fuel consumption.

So, my average speed is 96 miles per hour. Given that some tracks are quite twisty I think that’s a pretty good speed. Even more so that I have spent the time to complete all the licence tests and every track experience. I do tend to race in group 3 or 4 cars as I find them the most fun.

I have used 8,567 litres of fuel within the game to race 9,242 miles. So, I’ve done that maths and that gives:

4.86 miles per gallon

I have no idea how this fits with real racing cars. We can have an estimate I think. Current F1 cars have a tank that can hold 100kg of fuel which is about 125 litres. F1 race distance is mandated at at least 305km. I’ll do the maths for you again and the fuel consumption turns out to be around:

6.8 miles per gallon

I guess that this all seems reasonable. A high fuel consumption within the game that matches the real life is probably closely worked into the game and I’m happy with the figures the game has produced.

I don’t like the use of miles per gallon as we should, by all rights, in this country use the standard of litres per 100km as the rest of the EU does but people don’t really want to change, especially those old weirdos in power and the media.

My current GT Sport Profile:

Current Driver Profile

March 24 2018

MV 22B

I spent real money on a computer game add-in. Like I really pressed the “buy” button with the full knowledge that it was going to cost me money. However, I think it was worth it. I have spend actual £ on an F-18, and F-35 and now a MV22B Osprey.

There are real ospreys that fly over Lake Bassenthwaite in the Lake District and now I have my own [made from steel, although more likely carbon fibre as it’s a very expensive aircraft].

What a lovely looking beast. I haven’t managed a successful landing yet. But I will keep trying.

March 6 2018

Correction

In this picture from yesterday’s communication I noticed that the author has named Graham Hill. The downhill section from Druids to Graham Hill Bend.

By John Chapman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

This naming is incorrect. While that section of track is informally called Graham Hill it is not named anything officially.

The corner is most definitely named Graham Hill Bend but the downhill section is name-less. It is occasionally and informally referred to as Graham Hill, but clearly should be called Graham Hill Hill if it was going to be named correctly.

March 5 2018

Corners Not Mastered

Here, just for fun, is a list of corners I still strugglw with in Gran Turismo Sport. I can’t consistently take these corners in a manner that makes me feel I’m getting the lowest lap time.