App AI-based Virtual Race Engineer incl. automated Pitstop Handling

The most notable feature of this week's release is the possibility to specify the frequency with that the Spotter supplies information during a session. Many other, more minor changes are documented in the Release Notes.

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This time we have improvements in the session handling of the "Practice Center", the Spotter informs differently about unsafe drivers ahead or behind and there is a new info component available in the "System Monitor", which informs in detail about car damage. This data is also available in the integration plugin and can therefore be used in SimHub, for example. Not yet visible on the outside are many preparations for the new GPT based architecture of the standard Race Assistants.

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This is the first release in a series of upcoming releases, which will introduce GPT technology for the standard Assistants (Engineer, ...). The first release will allow you to send the speech of an Assistant to an LLM, for example ChatGPT, for rephrasing. This will introduce interesting variations in the spoken messages of the Assistants, making the conversation much more natural.

All these upcoming changes will be optional, since using a GPT service for speech processing will introduce a bit of additional latency into the conversation, and it might also impose some costs depnding on the chosen provider. Therefore, you can continue to use the assistants as usual without using GPT services.

To activate the new AI functionalities, you can choose between several methods to integrate a GPT service, even by running an LLM locally on your PC, if your system is powerful enough.



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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-570
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The integration of GPT technology for the Race Assistants has made another big step this week. You can use an LLM now to support a much broader understanding of voice commands, even when they are far off the originally defined grammer. Example:

The command grammar requires you to say to the Engineer: "Can you prepare a pitstop?" When the GPT command processing is active, you can formulate this question almost in any way, for example: "I need to come to the pit. Can you prepare everything?"

Beside many other changes that are mentioned in the Release Notes, support has been added for the Mustang GT3 in ACC.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-571
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Release 5.7.2 is the most important and groundbreaking release in a long time. With this release we complete the integration of GPT technology into the standard Race Assistants (Engineer, Strategist and Spotter). All Assistants therefore have a fluent understanding of natural language and can answer all questions in their area, provided the GPT conversation booster has been activated for the respective assistant. As promised, this feature is completely optional as using a GPT service may incur some costs or require a very powerful system, if an LLM is run locally. If the GPT conversation amplifier is not configured, everything works as before, but I'm sure you don't want to miss the new possibilities.



We will have a live coaching session in our Discord on Monday, 20th May, 19:00 CEST. I will explain all the new stuff and there will also be a live presentation.

As always, there are a few more changes. For more information, see the release notes.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-572
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This week brings a lot of fine-tuning in several areas:

- The instructions for the GPT-based conversation booster of the Assistants can now be edited.
- The "Race Center" now knows how to handle first lap pitstops after an incident correctly.
- The Spotter can tell you in qualifcation, whether the car in front of you or behind you is on a timed lap.
- The AI Driving Coach now has full access to the telemetry information of the car.
- The workflow for the team manager (configuration of teams, drivers and sessions in the Team Server) has been streamlined.
- And many more...

As always, please take a look at the Release Notes for details. And you want to take a look at this video. It is a recording of our last coaching session, were I gave an introduction incl. demo for the new GPT-based conversational capabilities of the Assistants.



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Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-573
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This week is also all about the new AI functions of the Assistants. It is particularly helpful that the available models of a GPT service provider are now displayed directly during configuration. The integration with GPT4All is now stable after the 2.8 release of this excellent open source project and Ollama is now also supported as a further option for running LLMs locally on the PC. This means that a large selection of commercial providers, such as OpenAI or Mistral AI, is now available, as well as open source models that can run locally on your computer.

As always, check out the Release Notes for more details and other improvements.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-574
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Things are moving fast these days when it comes to AI applications. Two major improvements this week:

1. The Strategist and the Spotter learned a new voice command, with which you can get information about the pitting of other drivers.
2. The knowledge transfer from the rule engine to the LLM has been improved for all Assistants. Much more complex questions are now possible, for example you can ask the Engineer: "Can you tell me the air temperature and the tyre pressures we have chosen for the last pitstop?"

Here are some short recordings with conversations with the Engineer and the Strategist and even between those two. Please note, that some functionality demonstrated here are not yet available in the 5.7.5 but will be released with 5.7.6 end of next week.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bqfs...ey=33t4j70e3fuetosklvo2peoya&st=3jr0bvs2&dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zza3...ey=5nbo5q1qz0xdvsdgdibk652dq&st=x1a00y5c&dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/o3ej...ey=qozaqvqjfhy6tiysvhs6ojkn4&st=n3mkcrw1&dl=1

And you can check the Release Notes for many other improvements, as always.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-575
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Another big step for the Assistants: If they are connected to a GPT service, the LLM can now trigger any action inside Simulator Controller. A handful of actions are predefined and you can define your own ones, but this requires some serious technical skills.



Actions can be triggered as a result of your conversation with the Assistant, but the LLM can also decide to trigger an action on its own.

I will now have a summer break. Supoort and minor functional additions will be secured during this time, but since no on-track testing is possible until end of July, there will be no major updates.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-576
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The big, fat summer release is here. Three major changes are waiting for you to explore.

1. It is now possible to integrate an LLM using an external GPT service into the reasoning process of the Race Assistants. This will potentially make them much smarter in handling unforeseen situations and you can define your own types of events and actions to be executed by the LLM.



2. Full support in all applications for a very nice looking dark UI theme.



3. The documentation has been extensively reorganized, rewritten and extended. Details can be found in the Release Notes.

We will have a live seminar / coaching session for the new LLM capabilities in our Discord on 29th July at 19:00 CEST. Don't miss that.

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Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-580
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This week we made a lot of small improvements to the recently introduced features. Of particular note is the advanced handling of pit stop situations through an LLM, including a comprehensive understanding of the available tire compounds and their use for different weather conditions. Additionally, the event and action editor UI has been improved in many aspects.

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Download: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller#latest-release-build
Release Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Release-Notes
Update Notes: https://github.com/SeriousOldMan/Simulator-Controller/wiki/Update-Notes#release-581
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Thanks for the updates Advanced handling of pit stops through LLM sounds great Its crucial to understand the different tire compounds depending on weather conditions The improvements in the event and action editor UI are also welcome making navigation easierI'm glad the developers are listening to the community and making these changes Can we expect more detailed descriptions of these features in future notes?

Greetings, Andrew

 

Hi Andrew,

the posts here are always a very brief summary. More details are in the Release Notes and of course in the > 400 pages of documentation for thhis software.

 

I'm pretty sure it was a spam bot with an AI-generated response.

 

finally got this working, spotter etc, but in terms of recognition its pretty bad, in quite environment like pit its about 30% success rate it detects me, in louder environemts like actually racing maybe only 10%, have to keep repeating, for comparison id say CrewCHief recorgnises me 100% in quite environs and about half the time in loud environs. I also setup an api key and tied it to my responders so maybe its just lagging out, should i test without the ai api assigned?

 

Some questions:

1. You are using a room microphone, for example from a webcam, or are you using a headset?
2. Which recognition method are you using: a. Server, b. Desktop, c. Azure, or d. Google?

Azure voice recognition is almost perfect and even understands incomplete commands. You can improve recognition even further by attaching an GPT service to the Assistant, but I recommend to start without it. Normally, recognition quality using Azure is 100% if the microphone is leveled correctly.

 

Headset mic but audio on speakers
desktop
ive googled for setting up Azure Recogniton but coming up empty, od since it should be in my azure portal with my web servers etc, but nada. There is a speech service i setup but thats not it. got a direct link?

 

1. Desktop is not bad. I think, your Mic level is too high, so that the "noise" from the speakers is really a problem. But: Server and Desktop requires you to follow the grammar exactly, since it is a pattern-based recognition.

2. Azure: That is the correct service. Make sure, that your endpoint is correct as stated in the documentation. The endpoint shown in the Azure portal is unfortunately not complete.

From my documentation:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Important: Sometimes Azure shows only the main URL for the endpoint in the "Keys and Endpoint" area of the Azure Portal. It will then look like this:

https://westeurope.api.cognitive.microsoft.com/

Using only this URL will not work as an endpoint for the token issuer. Always append the subpart for the token issuer to the URL like this:

https://westeurope.api.cognitive.microsoft.com/sts/v1.0/issuetoken

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ok got Azure setup, but, made no difference to the success rate of them hearing me, it did make a big difference to how long it takes them to respond when they do hear, previously on Windows sound was within a second or so, now it can take up to 20 seconds for him to respond and only with, "busy" thoughth, "talk to me later" is the best response i get from him. The spotter voice is good though but with the delay is way off the mark, ill revert to a differnt voice engine and play some more , i was getting normal response previously, just the issue with them not hearing me often enough.

If it helps running i9 900kf/ 3080ti / 64gb ram SSD etc, a reasonably beefy machine spec,
my ttl to the voice server in EastUS is 217ms (its not offerening me an australian one)
Game tested was assetto corsa
Mic is Logitech Wireless Headset (tried full gain, half gain, ~10% gain, similar results)

Im happy with CC, as it works well enough was mostly interested in seeing the AI part of this, ill check back again in a few more releases.

 

Hi, that sounds weird. I can offer you a video session in our Discord to sort this out. Join our Discord and send me a PM and we will arrange a date...