Real-time F1 racing from your sofa

[roost89]

I was wondering what you lot thought of this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7440658.stm

A company is designing a game that runs in real-time with an F1 race. So you yourself could race the top-flight while a race is going on or after the race is over.

[modbaraban]

"If Hamilton is driving behind you he can't see you [in the game], so he would drive right through you," explained Mr Lurling.

"So the AI takes over at that point and you see a very realistic overtaking."

And that pretty much renders the whole thnig not worth the development efforts (in case of F1 gaming/simracing in particular).
The thing is that, according to the story, any car driven by a real driver would be immediately and permanently switched to AI mode after being influenced in any way by the gamer's car. And that actually means that when you start the race, the whole field behind you switches to AI control, assuming that you don't run into anyone ahead of you. That happens because you cannot start in an identical manner to a driver that you substituted. So if you happen to be on pole position, the whole field will become AI controlled right at the start, and the only way to avaid the starting issue completely is to choose the role of a driver who starts from the pits (if there is one in the race), or start from the pits driving an 'additional' car.

On the other hand the idea can be handy for types of racing where cars don't interact in any way, like drag racing, or rally... though a properly hardcore next gen rally sim should simulate changes in road surface conditions after every car's run, as it's a very significant factor in real races. So rally is out of the equasion as well i.e. cars do interact altering the road surface for each other.

That's how I see it from simracer's point of view. Having that implemented in a racing sim would be something like having sci-fi holographic readouts in a car stereo that can't play CDs or MP3s and only plays this. i.e. there are far more important (and easier to achieve) things to add to racing simulators that the involvment of knob-tweaking Lewis Hamilton in your race

PS:

"If Hamilton is driving behind you he can't see you [in the game], so he would drive right through you,"

Isn't that exactly what he tried to do in Canada?

[checkered]

"If Hamilton is driving behind you he can't see you [in the game], so he would drive right through you."

Wow, such uncanny

realism! But seriously, this has been a long time in coming (which is why I'm slightly surprised at the suggestion that some of this has been patented) and I guess will be realised in one form or another some day. I'm thinking that for the time being, trying to incorporate AI interactions in a real time affair is a tall order. IMO the racing interface is less realistic that way, compared to driving an "immaterial" car through the field at least. But I guess this comes down to the debate of "games" vs. "simulations". Either of those can make use of augmented reality.

[Ciro Pabón]

FIA announced the game more or less two years ago, it seems they're finishing the software. Maybe Modbaraban remembers it. As far as I remember, back then we did not realize the "transparency" of your car to real drivers that Checkered mentions.

Even with that problem, I still think is kind of cool. If the thing has some realism in the simulation, the hopes of overtaking Hamilton or blocking his moves are nil after all, at least for me.

Besides, you could try to drive exactly in "Hamilton's place".

[roost89]

It sounds very uncanny, I think it may have been a dig haha. But yeah, it sounds very very cool! I can see it working much better in Quali for Free Practice than the actual race. At least then it's more like a time-trial.

They could knock you out if you don't beat the target times. That'd make it quite intersting! It'd be interesting to know where our nerve gave in.