SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: Sim Racing Tips - Getting the Most Out of Your Virtual Racing Hobby

Just a quick note here on race-related gaming peripherals, namely Natural Point's TrackIR. This handy piece of kit has ever-increasing application to all sorts of simulation types, and racing titles are no exception. If you have a Track IR, you'll want to explore how to integrate it into your racing titles. Looking ahead into corners is a huge capability, and may improve your lap times, as well as add to your immersion. For more info on Track IR utilization in racing sims, check out SimHQ's article on the subject, and take a look at rFactor implementation in this video clip.

Driver Profiles

Some titles allow the player to drive multiple types and classes of race car. GTR allows you to drive three classes of race cars — more if you install one of the LeMans Prototype mods. GTL allows you to drive an even wider variety of vintage race cars from various eras. Other titles like rFactor or F1 Challenge offer a variety of mods that recreate several categories of car type. The issue at hand is that in many cases, each type of car or mod may perform better with different utilization of racing wheel "HOTAS" switchology, or demand different settings for controller response or calibration.

NSR NBS Richmond	GPL
GT40 and Vette	GTL Porsche

To optimize your games for these situations, you can create separate user profiles for each class of vehicle or mod, as required. For example, in rFactor you might want a profile optimized for Formula 1S cars, and another for the Porsche Carrera Challenge mod. With the open wheel cars, you might use the wheel's paddle shifters to change gears, whereas with the PCC mod utilizing the stick shifter would be more appropriate. You also might have different force feedback, graphics, sound or driving aid settings for various classes of car. The process to rapidly build multiple user profiles is quite simple: Once you've built your first user profile and established all the generic game settings that you prefer, exit the game and enter the game directory and find your profile folder. Now make copies of it, renaming them slightly (e.g., Chunx PCC is my Porsche Carrera Challenge profile). Once you've created a copy profile folder and renamed it, rename the .plr file to match that of the folder.

Now reenter the game, and adjust your new class-specific profile to meet the specific needs of the car type it will represent. This simple technique removes the need to constantly reconfigure settings when switching between mods or classes of car. It also eliminates any need to build a profile that is merely a compromise of settings that attempts to satisfy all classes at once.

Kenseth

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