Topic: Allow Myself to Introduce. . . uh. . . myself. (Read 2386 times)

[SJ]Hooch · « **on:** August 24, 2009, 02:33:20 am »

How cool is this?

I should introduce myself by saying that I answer to "Hooch" both in game and in real life. Put it this way, the story is old enough I have to sit down and think in order to remember how I got the name.

I am a middle-aged, gray-haired, life-long racing maniac. If it has wheels, line her up and let's see what she'll do!

I'm currently a pilot in Aces High II, but the experiences one encounters there are relatively limited. And, stupid me, I failed to explore my first love, racing, in the on-line world when I jumped into that.

And now I find SimJunkies and it looks more fun than a barrel of monkies and absolutely riotous! I would love to be a part of it! But I have some questions in terms of setup as I'm going to pick up some different equipment to make the switch from wings to wheels.

1. I have an HP 9715nr laptop with AMD Turion64 duals and an NVIDIA GeForce 7150/nForce630M, hooked to the internet via a wireless router to a DSL connection. Will this equipment run the games you race and maintain enough connection speed to be competitive?

2. Can you give me a list of game titles I will need to buy in order to participate, and which ones are most important? And also, what pieces of software can be gotten from you guys?

3. What would be the best wheel and pedal setup to get started with, at least until I get a feel for things?

4. Is there anything else I should know or find out about that would help with getting into the online racing world?

I look forward to meeting and racing with you all soon! Until then. . . .

Hello,
Hooch

[SJ]ummagumma · « **Reply #1 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:11:44 am »

Hey Scott, welcome...I am new here as well

cheapest bang for the buck as far as wheel/pedals is probably a logitech Driving Force Pro ( or whatever they call it now ), I've been using one for about 3 years, and aside from spraying electrical contact cleaner in annually, it has been solid.

if you want a clutch pedal, I would get the G25....it's also an allaround better wheel/pedalset, but more expensive

I'm a big fan of GT Legends, cause I'm a 60's car fan....but GTR2, GTR Evolution all have great modern cars to run.

as far as hardware, I ran GTL on a macbook pro just fine...not familiar with the HP specs but you could compare hardware?

hope that helps, I'm sure more will chime in with opinions as well

cheers

[SJ]DenDanger · « **Reply #2 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:32:01 am »

Complete agreement with above.

G-25, GT Legends, GTR2 and GTR Evolution. You can get a copy of GTR2 labelled "GTR2: game of the Year edition" which come packaged with a ccopy of GTL which is good as sometimes GTL is getting harder to find.

Anyways the above 3 games are THE games.

So, we're a barrel of monkeys??? Cool.....

welcome to SimJunkies.

[SJ]CasparGTL · « **Reply #3 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:37:40 am »

Scott, I'll be true with you.
With every line of your post my smile got bigger.
Simjunkies first, than think about what games you need. Darn, that's special.
I welcome you as applicant and I dare say it, because I'm drunk and the smite system (you'l learn and regulars know) doesn't exist anymore, you'lll be Simjunkies material without the slightest thread of doubt.

As far as racing goes, I can only give you info on what I like atm.:
GTL
GTR2, also the fantastic Power&Glory mod.
rFactor, many, many, many a mod. (the league organisers will inform in time what is needed)

Perhaps, though I don't drive it myself atm:
RACE07
GTR-EVO
These sims seem very popular and taken seriously.

Oh darn, before I forget!
Click button on your left top, 'Join Simjunkies'
You need to be confirmed as applicant to join races and get passwords etc..

[SJ]DenDanger · « **Reply #4 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:41:04 am »

And if you get GTR-EVO, Race07 is part of it. Once you have THAT you can get an STCC add on pack which you can get online.

[SJ]CasparGTL · « **Reply #5 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:44:29 am »

Aaaaand, going by the name of Hooch....you should know about our special event on friday night:
ALFATINA!

http://simjunkies.org/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=151&jfile=index.php&board=166.0

Marcus · « **Reply #6 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:47:13 am »

Hi Scott, first off welcome to Simjunkies!

I don't know much about your hardware, so I'll wait for our specialists to comment on that.

As far as games go, I'd say to get GT-Legends or rFactor straight away. My advice is to wait for Race07-GTR Evo. In September Race On! will be released. If you wait and buy it, you will also get all the Race07, GTRE, and STCC content with the new stuff in Race On.

If we can do anything to help you get on the track, let us know.

[SJ]Nodnerb · « **Reply #7 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:54:30 am »

Gidday Hooch and welcome

Looks like a fair bit of information above for you take onboard already, but like Marcus says, any questions just holler

[SJ]Mozza · « **Reply #8 on:** August 24, 2009, 04:11:32 am »

Welcome mate.

Won't overload you with what to get cos it's already been said.
Welcome, Enjoy.

[SJ]Hooch · « **Reply #9 on:** August 24, 2009, 05:10:31 am »

WOW! Two hours and already nine responses!

Thank you all for the information and the warm welcome. I will certainly be using it as a guideline.

Caspar, thank you for the kind words. The games you mentioned were precisely the ones that caught my attention! And, ummagumma, I too am a 60's racing fan. (Sometimes I wonder if I were born 20 years earlier, I might have been in the footnotes of some of those Clark, Hill, Gurney, Moss, or Shelby stories.) But I also love the modern sportscars especially the touring cars.

I am itching to hit the "join" button. But, until I pull all the HW and SW together, it doesn't seem it would be good form to apply for membership and then be a "no show" for several weeks. With my current "funding situation", I will have to grab each of the pieces as money permits. I'm currently watching Ebay where there seems to be some good prices on the games and the wheel setups. And I'm hoping that the release of the new G27 will drive the prices of the G25s down quite a bit more. See? I've been checking. I've also been eyeballing all of my furniture looking for the most suitable "cockpit".

But, all would be for naught if we find that my laptop will struggle with the situation. And that would be unfortunate because I definitely don't have the money to put into that. So, I'm holding myself back when it comes to the "join" button for the time being.

I'm still very excited about racing with you guys (and girls?) and your eager responses have only added to that. For now, I'll have to make do with being on the forums. Until then, I'll watch for input on my HW and keep gathering my nuts.

Thanks again,
Hooch

p.s. Aaaaaaaannnnnd, AlfaTina will be on the top of my agenda! Also, if anyone hears of any cast off copies of the games or wheel sets, by all means let me know.

[SJ]JuneBug · « **Reply #10 on:** August 24, 2009, 06:52:13 am »

Hey Scott, welcome to SJ

[SJ]hendrix · « **Reply #11 on:** August 24, 2009, 07:52:58 am »

Welcome .. before buying games try the demo of rfactor
http://www.rfactor.net/?page=downloads

and here is a demo of race 07
http://www.gamershell.com/download_20923.shtml

see if your machine can run them

fingers crossed .

[SJ]Byron · « **Reply #12 on:** August 24, 2009, 09:11:09 am »

Hi mate

Welcome to SJ. Don't worry about being ready for racing before you sign up for membership - Long as you hang around the forums and make a nuisance of yourself, that's enough to be going on with. So hit that button!

[SJ]Ivan Novi · « **Reply #13 on:** August 24, 2009, 03:58:51 pm »

Hello and welcome to the site m8

Hop in and have some fun....

[SJ]Hooch · « **Reply #14 on:** August 25, 2009, 05:38:25 am »

Thanks, Hendrix! Race 07 came down fine. Also pulled down GTR EVO and have been running it. But had a problem with the rfactor and GTL download -- still working them.

The ones I have look phenomenal! They are really making me itch to get out there! But as good as they look, I genuinely SUCK at driving them with the flight stick.

I have found a problem, but I won't be deterred. Like I said, 07 and EVO demos open and run great, but after several minutes the frame rates drop to less that 1fps. I loaded a copy of SpeedFan and the GPU temperature skyrockets. Which tells me the GPU is adequate but not well enough ventilated -- correct me if I'm wrong.

I've aimed a couple more fans at it, but remember it is a laptop so there's only so much air I can get to it. I'm going to mess with the resolutions to see if I can take some load off, but I don't know. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Hey, Byron, I hit the "join" button. Middle age retardation must be setting in, it took me three times to get the code at the bottom right! Hope you don't judge it on the basis of colorfulness because the third time I was tired of filling it out. The form reset every time I missed the code. If that's a way to weed out the idiots, you almost got me!

Once again, I can't wait to get out there with you guys. GTR EVO w/07 is already on it's way and I'm shopping the rest. All I need is the wheel and to solve the GPU heat problem!

Thanks again, gang!

Hooch

Marcus · « **Reply #15 on:** August 25, 2009, 06:10:13 am »

What type of surface is the laptop sitting on? Make sure it's on a flat hard surface like a wooden table top. Not on carpet or a soft cushion. You might also try elevating it to increase air flow beneath it. Something like this http://pocketnotebookstand.com/ Not that exactly, but maybe build something to raise it off the table.

When I started racing, I used a flight stick. I found that if I set the steering to right and left on the stick, throttle to the throttle axis, and then brakes to rear stick movement, it worked best for me. Good luck getting everything sorted, and welcome to sim racing!

[SJ]Hooch · « **Reply #16 on:** August 25, 2009, 07:07:38 am »

Yep, Marcus. I've got in jacked up on cig boxes on a cool pad on a table top with another fan blowing under it from the back! How's that for "rigged"?

But it was still heating up. So I backed the resolution down one notch to 800X600 and bingo -- she stays cool. I should probably find out how to dust this thing's guts, 'cuz I don't think spraying the garden hose through the grill is gonna work.

Thanks

[SJ]Stein · « **Reply #17 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:15:08 am »

Hi there Hooch, welcome to Simjunkies.

We DO play a couple of flightsims though, so dont throw away your flightgear just yet.. hehe.. Aces High 2.. ehr.. i'll look into that.
You've made quite an impression on the lads here, me not included.. as i'm too sick to judge right now.. have been ejecting stuff from both sides of the diaphragm and i feel rather empty... but you'll grow on me eventually, maybe as fungus, maybe as.. ah nevermind.. hehe

I'm not the brightest bulb of the bunch when it comes to hardware, but my lack of knowledge or fondness concerning Laptops and why ppl need them gives me the following conclusion:

The quickest way to get to the dustbunnies in a laptop is one of these:

Woof ~ Woof

[SJ]Grimwart · « **Reply #18 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:32:45 am »

Of all of the many posts on this forum containing the words butt cheek, knob and grip - that was the most disappointing

[SJ]DenDanger · « **Reply #19 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:42:08 am »

I was gonna say cool it with ice, but thought better of it....

[SJ]GizMoTo · « **Reply #20 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:42:38 am »

Quote from: [SJ]Grimwart on August 25, 2009, 11:32:45 am

Of all of the many posts on this forum containing the words butt cheek, knob and grip - that was the most disappointing

that will teach ya use search with those words

[SJ]TrickyDee · « **Reply #21 on:** August 25, 2009, 12:03:18 pm »

Welcome aboard Hooch

Hope to see you online GTR Evo racing Sunday nights.

As to whoever said that the GTR Evo boys take it serious.........you aint seen me drive

(drive may be over stating my ability)

[SJ]DRokK · « **Reply #22 on:** August 25, 2009, 12:34:16 pm »

Hello and welcome Hooch

Have you considered underclocking your GPU and GFX memory with riva tuner? Also have you tried turning off things like Anti Aliasing, Shadows and running in a lower Direct X.
DX8 is not much different to DX9 in appearance but can save some resources and therefore heat.
Hope that helps.

[SJ]Tornado · « **Reply #23 on:** August 26, 2009, 12:00:29 am »

Welcome and enjoy, many of us are old hats @ the flight sim scene and that mentality is a welcomed one indeed.

I'm currently using a refurbished Logitech Momo Black that i got online for 60$ and almost 3 yrs now no hiccups (knocking on wood)

rFactor and GTLegends are the stuff many of us enjoy the most, again any questions just holler and hope to see ya around.

[SJ]Hooch · « **Reply #24 on:** August 26, 2009, 03:57:47 am »

Drokk, I might need to talk to you! I've turned down my shadows and reflections, but I haven't stepped down the DirectX. And I'm absolutely clueless on the underclocking the GPU and GFX!

Me no savvy how work magic picture box with many button! Acutally, I'm not that bad, but I prefer things I can use a mashy and spanner on.

And, Stein, I have plans down the road for a desktop geared toward gaming, but for now I gotta run what I brung!

Thanks again for the warm welcome and all of your help. Now, I'm going to go worry about what impressions Stein mentioned I was making (and whether I should be afraid of Stein, himself).

Cheers,
Hooch

Author Topic: Allow Myself to Introduce. . . uh. . . myself. (Read 2386 times)