For years I've been tired of playing all my racing games with the stock handheld PS3 controller, so I bit the bullet today and ordered a Logitech G27 wheel. I've been on cusp of buying a wheel since the G25 was released, and I'm excited to pick it up after I get off work today.

I also decided to pick up a Virtual Racing Chassis (VRC), though they're on back order and it looks like it might be awhile before I'll receive it. I'll figure out something with the wheel in the meantime!

I know some of you guys use cockpits, a few of which are home made. I contemplated that route, but after doing a lot of research, I decided that it was worth spending my money on the VRC. So to you cockpit / wheel users, what setups are you using? How are you enjoying them, and what kind of improvement did you see in your times after making the move?

I don't know if you guys spotted this over on GTPlanet or not, but someone got a hold of a copy of the February 2010 issue of PlayStation Magazine. It contains an article on upcoming features in GT5. From GTPlanet:

* 1,000+ vehicles
* All vehicles have modeled cockpits (170 premium cars will have interior damage modeling)
* All vehicles will have both physical and mechanical damage modeling
* Indy (IRL) cars and tracks
* NASCAR cars and track
* Up to 16 players online
* High-definition video uploads directly to YouTube
* Multi-display rendering
* Head-tracking
* Full weather and night racing on all tracks
* Night/Day on all tracks

The damage modeling is going to be pretty interesting!

Source: http://www.gtplanet.net/night-racing-weather-indy-cars-irl-confirmed-for-gt5/

Well there goes a decade! I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I hope your 2010 is a great one.

This year will mark the release of another major game in the GT franchise, and as we all know, that's a rare event! This also means some potentially big changes for GTVault. The version of GTVault that is in use today was launched in August 2005, just after the release of GT4. The Internet in general, and socially driven sites in particular, have changed so much since then. I have to put a lot of thought and planning into the direction of GTVault, and I want to make it a place that you enjoy in the coming decade as much as you did the last. So, I ask this of everyone:

What do you want out of GTVault in 2010 and beyond?

I've been using Firefox since it was a wee 1.x product. It has served me well, but in the past couple of years I've noticed that under heavy load (15+ tabs / 20+ extensions active), it really bogs down and memory consumption becomes an issue. I understand that some of this is due to my usage patterns and poorly written extensions, but I'm not the only one complaining about it. Sure, there are a lot of advanced tweaks to help remedy the situation, though I have come to really appreciate software that you don't have to tweak on a continual basis.

I develop websites for a living, so it's in my best interest to keep up on browsers. I have a MacBook Pro and use Safari from time to time. It's a solid browser, but I don't find myself going back to it habitually. Same with Opera; it's cool, but I didn't see a major need to change my go-to browser.

That said, I've been using Google Chrome since the first preview releases came out. Central to the things I like about Chrome are its sandbox architecture, spawning a new child process for each tab in play. As a result, Chrome does a really good job of keeping a tab gone awry from hijacking the entire browser. On top of that, my experience is that JavaScript heavy (e.g. Web 2.0) sites, say Remember The Milk, perform noticeably faster in Chrome.

I live for the myriad extensions available from 3rd party developers in Firefox. One thing I didn't like about Chrome early on was its lack of extensibility in this regard. This, however, has been remedied in more recent builds of Chrome. I'm excited to finally see the Chrome extension community is really taking hold. Almost all the major extensions that I consider absolutely crucial are now available for Chrome.

Checking my stats, 49% of gtvault.com users prefer using Firefox, to only 39% using Internet Explorer. I can't say how happy I am that GTVault users are ahead of the worldwide alternative browser adoption curve. Chrome comes in at 5%, and for being such a young browser, that's pretty promising, although that's considerably behind the worldwide trend of 8% (which our Firefox usage partially makes up for!). I still have Firefox open and use it all the time, as the breadth and depth of its extension community is without compare. Regardless, I find myself using Chrome more and more for daily surfing.

So, who out there is using Chrome? If so, do you like it? If not, you should really give it a try!

The new GT demo went live a few days ago, what do you guys think?
My best times so far have put me in the top 800 people.

Normal Time - 1'52.171
Tuned Time - 1'39.037
Combined Time - 3'31.208

Last but not least I'd like to take the opportunity to say.....
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

News will be coming in fast and strong - soon - with the TGS starting in a few days, so you can add the info here as it comes in.

SONY has started putting a few official and regional GT forums live on the web, with a few Asian ones and the US one first out of the gate.

Find yours here. Find the US one here.



Basic GT5 details and news from TGS/2009:

Copied & Pasted from the G4 blog. (with a post edit)

- Released March 31st, 2010, for Japan, "to achieve a suitable scale and quality"
- World-wide releases are unknown, at this time

- GT PSP unlocks GT5 cars
- Cars: Over 950, and the newest hybrid and electric cars
- Over 20 locations and 70 tracks, including: the Alps, Nurburgring, Southern Italy, Tokyo
- Physics: new physics, damage & roll-overs, movable objects on the track
- Arcade Mode: Single Player, split-screen two player
- GT Mode: World Map, My Garage, Car Dealer, Tuning Shop, Championship Race, and License Test
- Online: Open Lobby, Text/Voice Chat, Private Room, On-line Photo Album, On-line Replay Album, and you can export replays to YouTube
- Photo Mode: Photo Drive, Photo Stage - significant improvements
- GT TV: Improved UI, export of videos to PSP, and progressive downloading
- Lots of awesome spark effects

Since TGS:

- according to IGN, the damage engine we see in action in demos is only a couple of months old
- all cars have some damage including internal, with street cars getting cosmetic damage and (some?) race cars getting full damage
- GT PSP development held up GT5 development

Im sure Kerr would have liked to have made this post but I'll do it on his behalf as I didn't want to let this moment pass without a mention.

GTvault has now hit a new milestone of 20,000 Total Tuners with over 7000 total setups. Thanks to kerr for keeping the site going and thanks to all of you who have contributed to the site over the past 9 years. Long may it continue with the release of GT5

As some of you may know GamesCon started this week in Germany. Its basically the Euro edition of E3 that runs in the US where Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo show of there latest hardware and software.

Sony showed of there new PS3 slim which is retailing at £250 here in the UK on the 1st September 2009 which is the same price as the new PSP GO. The PS3 slim will have a 120GN HardDrive but will NOT have BC support for your PS2 games.

Also at the event was GT-PSP which was being played from the in car view of a clio at the ring and GT5 was also on show for people to play. Still no confirmation of a release date but I'd expect us to see it by the end of the year.

For more info and some fantastic video clips of all things GT check out www.gtplanet.net
Also be sure to check out www.eurogamer.net for other news from the show.

As some of you may know E3 was on recently and Polyphony have a brand new never seen before trailer.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2uQ2ayvvWY
WRC, NASCAR & damage, cool looking pit crews & the cars look as nice as ever!

For more information visit gtplanet.net

Let me start off by saying that the following statements are my personal opinions, everyone probably isn't going to agree with everything I say.*

Race Pro testing conditions - Professional mode only, all assists off, manual gears and M$ wheel. The way it should be played

GRAPHICS-
Race Pro is grainy at best, a little jaggy, and the reflections and glare are straight out of last gen Forza. However when the road conditions are changed to rainy the water effects on the windows look quite impressive. In car view is rather nice tho and I think Forza 3 needs to have this as well.

DAMAGE-
I think SimBin could have done a better job with damage for a few reasons. When you SLAM into the back of another car (I mean really SLAM) you don't hear crunching/breaking of anything, and you can't even tell you hit him. Second, you can't pull up telemetry or a damage report to see how bad the damage actually is. The RB button toggles the HUD, they should have made it pull up telemetry. Overall, damage LOOKS okay but it could have been improved.

PHYSICS MODEL-
The cars drive really nice, watching a replay I could see the AI car in front of me moving around under heavy braking at which point I dived up the inside only to run wide and be retaken. (That was turn 1 at Laguna Seca) Assists - Not only can you turn on/off ABS, TCS, and STM, you can set them to Low, Med, or High.

TUNING-
The lack of telemetry data makes tuning a drivers task, and assumes you have tuning knowledge to be effective. EVERYTHING is independent, from tire pressure, spring pressure, bump, rebound, you name it, it can be independently tuned .

OVERALL-
I like it. It's not going to win any beauty awards but the core simulation itself will be very rewarding for those who put the time behind the wheel.

OTHER KEY FEATURES OF NOTE-
- Race Pro has realistic sounding/looking back-fires, and tailpipe flames.
- Race Pro has much better camera replay angles.
- Race Pro has no telemetry feedback data.
- Race Pro has some nice cockpit interior views.