◆ SNAIL [Spec] Racing - Currently Recruiting for GT7 - JOIN TODAY!!Open 

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Was thinking about this last night for a bit and went hunting google images for some pictures to illustrate what I was thinking about.

GT6 operates online in either a Star (Fixed Host) or Mesh (Non Fixed Host) network. It doesn't matter whether it's friends only or not. I'm uncertain why, once racers are connected to each other, a PSN connection is required, but it apparently is.

The star network looks like this.

starnetwork1.png



This is only with 6 drivers in the room. It is dependent more on the host's bandwidth and connection reliability. Double the peers and you double the load on the host's connection. From a network standpoint, so long as the host has a huge and reliable network pipe, this is probably the best. The problem with it, and why we don't use it for SNAIL races is, if the host gets DCed from PSN or their internet connection fails, the room disappears entirely and has to be rebuilt. Imagine getting to the end of a race and the host gets dced, just before or even after everyone has crossed the finish line. The results would be dependent on the memories of the drivers in the race, and no replays would be available for review and there would be nothing to pull from for our data collection efforts.

The mesh network, which looks like this, and is how I imagined it in my head,

meshnetwork1.gif

If someone want's to, they can count all those lines. If they really want to go all out, add 7 more peers and connect lines from each of those 7 to all the others. It won't just add 7 more lines.

The only real advantage this has over the star topology is the room not disappearing if the host gets disconnected from either the PSN or the internet. Instead, hosting responsibilities get passed to the next peer that connected initially.

From a networking standpoint, this topology relies on everyone having a stable connection that's up to the task of passing data to each and every other peer, simultaneously with all other peers doing the same. If any one connection can't carry the load of all of it, the room as a whole will suffer. It won't matter much if one connection has astronomical rates to a single ping or packet loss testing server, what matters here is that every connection is reliable to the other. If even one punks out, every other connection will notice and be affected to one degree or another. Something else to keep in mind, every one of those lines between peers will have in the neighborhood of 30 or more physical devices, routers, switches and modems, between them.

The fragility of the mesh was evident last night in D3. JLBowler has one of the strongest connections in the league according to his pingtest.net and speedtest.net results. I'm not sure what Rednose58's test results are, but I noticed a catastrophic lag event during a race and it recorded it for the replay. Shortly after that event, JLBowler's car started doing the lag dance, jumping around on track and smoking tires where he wouldn't normally be. I suspect the only reason JLBowler didn't experience something catastrophic is because of his beefy connection rates. The fact that our host was about as geographically distant from JL and still be in the same country, as he was, exacerbated the problem. It's also entirely possible that my own connection contributed to what I witnessed during the race. I wasn't the only one who noticed it however. It was also evident, the farther away from Rednose he got, the more stable he appeared on screen. This basically tells me GT6's extrapolation coding required less and less data from Rednose's PS3 as their distance increased.

It still boggles me why a PSN connection has to be maintained, once all the peers are connected, but it appears it must, at least at the moment.

It behooves every SNAIL to make sure your connection to everyone else in your division is as stable and large as you can possibly make it. A good result from a testing site to a server that is only 50 miles away, does not mean it's a good connection for GT6 gaming. If we all really wanted to be sure about our connections, we would test to the nearest server to each of our division mates.

I know there are folks in SNAIL that know more about networking than I, @dabneyd , @ExoSphere64 and probably several others, and can either explain better or poke holes in what I'm trying to get across here. I hope.

Food for thought folks.
 
I'm done with D1. It's not worth it for me to sign on and race 3 out of 6 races alone, and spend the other 3 staring at my rear view as the other drivers run circles around me. I enjoyed all the combos...I just don't have the finesse to run those lap times with the amount of time given to prepare....and I'm just getting in the way.
 
I'm done with D1. It's not worth it for me to sign on and race 3 out of 6 races alone, and spend the other 3 staring at my rear view as the other drivers run circles around me. I enjoyed all the combos...I just don't have the finesse to run those lap times with the amount of time given to prepare....and I'm just getting in the way.
Lol, that's fkd up...
 
I'm done with D1. It's not worth it for me to sign on and race 3 out of 6 races alone, and spend the other 3 staring at my rear view as the other drivers run circles around me. I enjoyed all the combos...I just don't have the finesse to run those lap times with the amount of time given to prepare....and I'm just getting in the way.

Don't give up just yet, racing in d1 is tuff on everyone in d1
When I got promoted to d1 it was tuff for me to keep up with some of the
Fast guys but I stuck with it and now it's starting to pay off
 
I'm done with D1. It's not worth it for me to sign on and race 3 out of 6 races alone, and spend the other 3 staring at my rear view as the other drivers run circles around me. I enjoyed all the combos...I just don't have the finesse to run those lap times with the amount of time given to prepare....and I'm just getting in the way.

Try getting lapped in D8.
 
Don't give up just yet, racing in d1 is tuff on everyone in d1
When I got promoted to d1 it was tuff for me to keep up with some of the
Fast guys but I stuck with it and now it's starting to pay off
Thanks for the support but I just don't have the time to invest in it. I have other hobbies and with summer around the corner I'd rather be outside than in front of the TV practicing. I enjoy signing on Sunday nights and I usually have maybe an hour or so to prepare during the week....but that isn't going to be enough for me to shave 4 seconds off my lap times on a track like Rome. I ran more laps on that track than any other combo and I felt like I was on the wrong tires the entire race (I wasn't, I checked). Maybe I'll give D1 a shot again in the future when I upgrade my wheel...but right now it's too overwhelming and quite simply...not fun.
 
We don't keep age data. It would be nice to have a list of actual birthdays, if anyone wants to share that data.

An ol' what?
That was a partial post that ....VANISHED....so this is where it went. I was going to suggest a senior (OLD:P) division for those who can remember wearing bell bottoms (and were not in the Navy at the time ), those who drove sports cars and pony cars between 1965 and 1972 in the year they were made, and who can remember where they were when JFK was assassinated ,and or when We first landed on the moon.
 
That was a partial post that ....VANISHED....so this is where it went. I was going to suggest a senior (OLD:P) division for those who can remember wearing bell bottoms (and were not in the Navy at the time ), those who drove sports cars and pony cars between 1965 and 1972 in the year they were made, and who can remember where they were when JFK was assassinated ,and or when We first landed on the moon.

Just the seniors, huh? :lol:
 
Try getting lapped in D8.
That is just what happened to me in GTP_WRS which was my first series. Most of those gents are VERY fast and everyone races together...I gained notoriety by being invited to a virtual come to Jesus meeting with a bunch of them who wanted to explain to that my overtaking maneuvers were not supported by physics.:dunce:
Then I was kindly tutored and I still get lapped occasionally but I'm now finding people to race with. I joined SNAIL to get "seat time" and I love it...I am in three series and all are great but this is the best for honest to God wheel to wheel racing with people I can actually race with....and not have to tune my car !
Here in S.N.A.I.L I have been the grateful recipient of tutoring from all Divisions including my own. Don't sweat it....it will come....yeah driving with your rearview mirror sucks...but here there is ALWAYS going to be someone in the mirror.
 
W

We could call it OLD CARS and OLD(er) DRIVERS. As some of the guys in private practice sessions can attest when mics are on....I enjoy lapping with 50s and 60s folk and rock (real rock...not drug induced noise LOL.) playing in the background.... Driving is FUN....enjoy it.
ill just say i do the opposite, i lean my seat back and blast my rap music :P
 
SNAIL geriatric division?
In my previous profession It never occured to me that we Could actually live long enough to retire....hell at 30 you were a dinosaur....and...a few of us are almost immortal after all. We all thought we were immortal...we had to. Just like Hunt and Lauda....
 
Thanks for the support but I just don't have the time to invest in it. I have other hobbies and with summer around the corner I'd rather be outside than in front of the TV practicing. I enjoy signing on Sunday nights and I usually have maybe an hour or so to prepare during the week....but that isn't going to be enough for me to shave 4 seconds off my lap times on a track like Rome. I ran more laps on that track than any other combo and I felt like I was on the wrong tires the entire race (I wasn't, I checked). Maybe I'll give D1 a shot again in the future when I upgrade my wheel...but right now it's too overwhelming and quite simply...not fun.

@chuyler1 Would there be any way to move into a division that could be a good balance of your ability with low practice time and the level of the drivers in that division? Not only could this still be fun for you, but maybe it would be fun for those in that division as well. For example, it might provide a unique opportunity for the drivers who might be pushing hard and practicing long hours to be on the same level as you are with low hours because it might provide some lessons such as how you might be relaxing more to achieve your times with more fluidity; or any of the other possible interesting contrasts (how you rely on quickly applying your knowledge of a track, a car's handling characteristics, and your knowledge of how to go through similar corners). You might enjoy a little more teaching and the appreciation that comes with that.

Just some ideas.
 
Don't know how much time I'll have to practice later in the week (Exams :yuck:), so I have a stupid or maybe unanswerable question to ask: Do we know for sure which combo will be sticking around for sure for May 4th?
 
Thoroughly enjoyed my first race on Sunday. It's one thing to do fast laps on a time trial. It's a whole different ball game with 14 other racers competing for a corner on the track! All in all great racing!
 
@chuyler1, I've raced with you before and... You're fast, meaning, you have talent. When a person has above average talent like you do, since you smoked D4, 3 and 2, the only practice you need is 15 minutes to adapt to a new car and another ten to realize that car's breaking points and throttle acceptance.
My talent level is lower than yours, it's only fairly D3 compatible and the only practice I got before Sunday races was 1 hour before Sunday races and guess what... I got a 5th place overall, 2 points away from 2nd.
I know D1 is kinda out of this world, that's why everybody calls you aliens but I also know that you are fast as hell and talented and all you need is to program your chip for they're pace, enter in a practice room for 20 minutes and instead of getting on track, just "watch" and follow DGAF, Russ, Slopoke or whoever D1'er is practicing there.
You have no idea of how much I improved my driving and got D3 fit just by watching faster guys doing laps around the track... not following them in my car.... just on "watch" mode.
Go for it Chuyler... You can do it.
 
Don't know how much time I'll have to practice later in the week (Exams :yuck:), so I have a stupid or maybe unanswerable question to ask: Do we know for sure which combo will be sticking around for sure for May 4th?

My guess would be the BRZ combo based on voting results that were shaping up just after racing last night. It seemed pretty clear the combos that people liked the least was the toyota on rome and the GT-R on Indy. The latter because is takes so much input work compared to many others, and the former because it takes a lot of work to find time (faster laps) maybe due to the relatively low power of the car and treachery of the track (walls...).
 
D3 data has been entered to the Results Doc for 4/27/14

Pole Lap Honors:
Round 1 (2000GT @ Rome): @LeoStrop 1:27.277
Round 2 (BRZ GT300 @ Grand Valley): @LeoStrop 1:56.474
Round 3 (GTR GT3 @ Indy Road Course): @Dragonwhisky 1:29.766

Fast Lap honors:
Round 1 Race 1 : @dabneyd 1:27.538
Round 1 Race 2 : @dabneyd 1:27.233

Round 2 Race 1 : @dabneyd 1:54.738
Round 2 Race 2 : @dabneyd 1:54.933

Round 3 Race 1 : @vincentq4 1:29.393
Round 3 Race 2 : @vincentq4 1:29.726

Total Times/Wins:
Round 1 Race 1 : @dabneyd 10:29.828
Round 1 Race 2 : @LeoStrop 10:32.464

Round 2 Race 1 : @LeoStrop 11:42.188
Round 2 Race 2 : @JoeW 11:48.717

Round 3 Race 1 : @Dragonwhisky 10:36.977
Round 3 Race 2 : @intoflatlines 10:47.709

It was a very fun night in D3. We had some more new faces which made things interesting, and racing was generally pretty close. @dabneyd had a particularly dominant night with 4x fast laps and 5x podium finishes, and he ran away with the points for the night. After him, there were only 2 points between 2nd and 5th place! We had 14 racers overall so it was quite an action-packed night, especially the reverse grid races. Almost everyone got on the podium at least once, which is great!

Thanks to @nmcp1 for the nice layout!
 
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