LFS and rFactor, why are we so blessed? (long)

[aceracer]

No, this is not another flame war, no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again. Let me make this clear from the start: I own both rFactor and LFS, licensed copies, and I think they are both stunning. And I wouldn't want to be without either of them. Each one does a lot of things right. Actually I believe that if we take the best of the two and iron out the very few things both are not so good at we will have the perfect racing sim with no need to look anywhere else again. Why are we so blessed? :)

So this thread is what I "like" about both of these games and why I get frustrated about little details with both of them (never enough not to think how extremely good they both are). I hope the resulting conversation can slo help the devs of both games make them better. I will post this on both LFS and rFactor boards.


1) the phyisics model and realism, the most important aspect of any racing sim.


This is where opinions differ the most and where most discussions start, where fans of either game knock each other. My opinion: Both are incredibly good, both have some obvious shortcomings. But let me make this very clear: None are so incorrect that even a hardcore supporter of either camp could resonably say the other is so much worse.

Lets start with rFactor which seems to get most of the bashing from LFS fans here: Yes, there are some serious "snap oversteer" and "driftability" questions here. I will get into a little more detail below.

However there are a number of mods which have been created with the datasheets of real world racing teams, have been test driven by the pilots themselves. These pilots affirm that the experience is as close and as "real" as it gets if racing in front of your PC. They affirm that they have learnt things in the sim which they could take to the track and implement in real life in terms of handling on a particular track and car setup. Now this is an amazing testament for "mods" created by dedicated race fans. Incredible stuff! And it also means that the physics engine and realism can't be that far off! On the contrary, spot on in many cases.

I think much of the criticism come from the lack of driftability of touring cars in rFactor. I agree, it's driven me nut's too, as I tried to create setups for my cars which allow for "naturally controllable drifts" and I have found it extremely difficult. It is possible, but not as "natural" as it should be. LFS does an immense job here and drifting around with the RWD cars is awesome fun!

Which does not mean it's necessarily more realistic, at least not for all cars! If you look at many highly tuned modern day race cars, especially F1 and high end touring car racers, you will notice that they are not driven with any visible oversteer. Bar very few instances (I remember David Coulthard (of all people, lol) coming out of the last chicane at Monza sideways and catching the drift) modern race cars have "snap oversteer". They are sucked to the ground by aerodynamics to such an extent that it creates the same effect like these rubbery suction heads: Either they are sucked firmly to the surface (in this case the road) or once they lose adherence, they're gone. And there's no way to recover your rear end once it's stepped out. Now I've heard many racing drivers make this analogy. And this to the best of my knowledge is correctly simulated in rFactor.

However, and I fully agree with the LFS crowd here, there is a major problem with snap oversteer in cars which should not have it. And LFS simulates this brilliantly. Take a BMW M3 for example, rear wheel drive, fairly soft setup compared to a throroughbread race car, yet a drift is really difficult to catch. Comparable cars in LFS are a joy to throw around and their behaviour is simulated more accurately.

Having said that, I am catching drifts with high powered race cars in LFS which I would have no hope in catching in a real car, so maybe LFS is even too forgiving here. Fun, yes, completely realistic, maybe not. Many say it is to do with the "grip curve" of the tyre model. It is too steep in rFactor so that the line between recovery and losing the rear is too fine. Which to me makes sense, and would then also mean that it's tweakable in both sims.

On the other hand I find that in some cases the handling in rFactor is more direct, more aggressive and faster. I find it sometimes gives me more immersion in the game as I get a lot more stressed and have to make a lot more corrections at the wheel while LFS often feels somewhat slower and limousine-like. I often feel faster in rFactor and more on the edge of the limits... whether it's then more realistic or not I hoestly cannot say.

But then we sit in front of our PCs with plastic steering wheels which (in most cases) have at most a 240º rotation, this surely must affect the handling of the cars in such a way that we really cannot tell how accurate or not the simulation in any particular case is. We'll have to trust real life race pilots, and they detect and incredible amount of accuracy in both sims but also some flaws, in both!

Conclusion: Both amazing, both as accurate as it gets, LFS somewhat less frustrating in some instances and more fun while rFactor sometimes thrills me more and gives me sweatier palms (in some cases also of fruntration).


2) Netplay: Both sims have amazing netcode. I have often read that LFS has the best netcode in the industry. Frankly, I haven't experienced this. I think what is meant is that LFS can be played fine with a 56k modem, while probably no other sim can. And this really is amazing!


I do have to say however, on my ADSL line rFactor plays more cleanly. The first time I connected I couldn't believe it: There was no difference whatsoever between offline and online. No jitter, no cars jumping about, no back and forth, nothing. As if they were bots. I was amazed, I'd never seen anything like it. And I still believe it's the smoothest netplay I've ever experienced in any game. I'm not sure how they do it, but ping does not seem to matter. I have a guy in front of me with ping 180 and I sit right on his bumper and nothing happens, we both run along smoothly ... for laps ... simply incredible! In LFS I've had my share of lag crashes.

In LFS you may be able to play with a modem, but I get quite a few jitters, lag collisions, cars jumping about or cars disappearing.

Now having said that, I play a LOT more LFS online racing than rFactor (because of issues I will address later in this post) but frankly, on a broadband connection I've never had a better experience.

3) Multiplayer: I play most of my online racing with LFS. Why? It's simply so much fun, competitve, varied and there's a good game on most times a day. So what is it in rFactor that keeps my away if in general I enjoy the game so much?

I'm not sure what rFactor hosts are thinking when they specify 1 hour practice session!! And what people are thinking who never vote to advance to the next session. Bottom line: In rFactor you actually never get to race other people! All you ever do is sit in practice session lapping on your own and wait for the time to pass. If you're lucky in 1 hour you get to have two races. And then at the first corner some bum takes you out, you go through another half hour practise session until the next race where you get taken out again. How stupid is that?? I really don't understand it.

In LFS you connect and all you ever do is race! In an hour I do between 5 - 10 races depending on circuit and number of laps. And when the race ends people vote for the next to start. And if they don't it will start again automatically in no time (in most cases)

Now I'm not even against practice and qualifying, on the cotrary, I enjoy it. But please: 1 hour practice, another 30 mins quali, for a five lap race? That's just silly. And it is the main reason why I do not play rFactor online anymore at all. And I do 90% of my racing online, which is now LFS. I want to race, not sit around and look at my pitboard. (and believe me, this is not a rant after a bad night I had, I have played rFactor online extensively for weeks, and it was always the same, on many many servers)


4) Connecting to a race: There has to be a way to implement what's best from both games here, come on. In rFactor I can't connect to a server when a race is on. So from the few populated servers, half get eliminated because the race is on. Silly! Let me at least connect, go to the pits, set up my car and I'll be ready when the next race (erh, practise session) starts! But don't shut people out.

In LFS it's the other extreme: People connect straight into races. So while you're on the lead lap, some monkey who just joined rolls out of the pits and straight into your racing line. Or is on cold tyres and doesn't move over. That's also silly! There has to be a compromise here.

In rFactor I feel much more immersed in the race weekend. I see my car in the pits and when I'm done I drive out of the pits. I always feel either on the track or in the pits. In LFS there first few times I had no idea where I was. So my car is in the pits but I can't actually do anything here. Ah, I have to hit escape first. But then I'm taken completely out of the context. When I connect I can "join" or go to the "garage". No, I should join and land right in the garage, and then when I'm ready drive out of the garage. And when I joined a race I didn't even know I was in the race.

Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it :)


5) Pitboard/Damage/Repair

In LFS I never know what state my car is in. What's broken and should I repair it during the pitstop? In rFactor I can consult this at any time during the race and take these decisions. Actually the whole flipping through the LCD screen with all info on race, standings and state of your car I really enjoy in rFactor and miss in LFS.


6) How come in LFS my car flies 30 feet into the air and spins 45 times before landing as a complete wreck when I hit some barriers at a given angle at 30 mph? There must be something wrong there, no need to be a real life pilot to know that :)


7) Force Feedback:

Many people knock rFactor FF for being simply bad and inaccurate. Homestly I can't really argue with that. I find both rFactor and LFS perfectly driveable. What I do notice is thast LFS seems much smoother. For example when I cross tramlines on some tracks I it, and in rFactor my wheel would rattle and shake. Same with some rumble strips. And maybe LFS gives more accurate information about what your ar really does, even if in this smoother maner. I find I can drive fine with both and I know there are people with more detailed knowledge about this. So I'll stop here with my non expert opinions on this topic :)


8) Load times


Biiig plus for LFS: This is also what I also enjoyed so much about Quake 3. You are in there almost immediately. This saved me literally hours when for example configuring my steering wheel. I spent hours on this alone with rFactor while I breezed through it in LFS.

When I get the itch to race I'm connected and in the pits before I had time to lock my wheel to the desk. I love that!


9) Menus/Guis


Big minus for both: Frankly I found both confusing at the start but as time goes by I guess you get used to their oddities. But I can imagine beginners being thrown out by both, lol :)


10) Content/Modability


I think ISI have done a very smart thing here. No real racer can tell me that it's not absolutely thrilling to take the 1979 F1 Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve and throw it around the legenday Nordschleife. It makes every race fans heart beat higher, no matter how much of a FFS fanboy you are. Now look at all the cars and tracks available for rFactor, or look at just the ones which are absolutely stunning. More than I will ever have the free time to try! And simply mind blowing.

Opening their source code to the mod community has added neverending quality content to this sim.

I do not undertsand why the LFS devs do not want to grant this to their audience. It takes nothing away from how brilliant LFS is, but it does mean that I cannot do without rFactor, that's for sure. I do not want to miss out on this...


11) AI/Offline racing


I'm not too bothered about this, I do most of my racing online and this review is about the multiplayer games. However a quick mention: I have had some enjoyable races with some of the rFactor cars on some tracks, not too shabby at all. Abismal on other tracks with different cars,so it's a bit hit and miss. Choose your mod and difficulty level right and you can have some fun.

LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...


Conclusion:

Right, this has been long, I'll keep this short. I love both. I would cry tears of joy if I had an rFactor with the playability, online gaming drift physics of LFS. I would be similarly emotional about a LFS with as much top quality content in terms of tracks and cars as rFactor.

For now, I'll take the best of both worlds in the hope that some day both combine.

aceracer

[(-Mark-)]

'LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...'

personally i play alot of offline racing... also people that lose internet connection may be looking to race, but can only race offline

[sgt.flippy]

Those first few sentences are used a lot, and mostly end up being wrong. This always ends up in a discussion :tilt: I don't even read this because I probably already know what's in it. Both games seem great (I only have LFS), and there is really no point in discussing these two. They're rivals, both with there pros and cons, both have their community. This kind of thread has come up more than once, and I always wonder why anyone would write such a long text, probably knowing it won't make a difference and a big chance it'll get locked because it did end up in a flame war.

But I don't wanna break down your hard work in writing this, so I guess it's a good read for some people :thumb:

[AndroidXP]

No, this is not another flame war, no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again.
Then why did you do exactly that? If there is any purpose of this thread, then it is discussion about "LFS vs rFactor". If you just wanted to share your experience, maybe a blog entry or something like that would've been a better idea, not a thread on a discussion forum.
I will post this on both LFS and rFactor boards.This might not be such a good idea. :x

[JTbo]

I like them both, if I would have to give up one I could not decide, just too good they are, just bit different way :)

[George Kuyumji]

I dont think were blessed at all. Compared to other PC Genres its a shame how little the Race Sim Genre has moved forward in the last years or the last century for that matter, GPL is still considered by most as among the best Race Sims today, it is nearly 10 years old.

What good stuff has come out since then? NASCAR Racing 2003, and LFS are only worth mentioning.
The other Sim netkarPro isnt really a finished Program and all those fancy cars and tracks are worth nothing when they are based on the ISI Physic Engine.

Compared to Shooter Games, or Flight Simulations the progress of Racing Simulations in the last couple of years is a disgrace. The lack of Products in the Sim Genre is because there are just too few people interested in Simulation Racing. A Arcade Racer Game sells more than any Sim.

And because the opening Thread mentioned how real drivers comment on Sims, forget about it, the opinion about a Sim from most real life Racers are not worth much, because they dont know anything about a Sim, they dont know what can be Simulated, what has been Simulated, most of them dont know anything about it. Its like if I would jump into the Ferraris new 2007 F1 car, make a few laps and then tell them if it is any good or not. I just couldnt compare it to last years car.

I have met Alexander Wurz some years ago and asked him what he believed was the most realistic F1 Simulation, he said "the best Simulation is F1 World Grand Prix", F1 World Grand Prix is a frigging Nintendo 64 Game ! But because he had nothing to compare it to he seriously thought a Nintendo 64 Game was the best Simulation available. So dont take it to seriously if any real driver states his opinion about a Sim, most of them have simply no idea what Sims are on the Market.

But there are some real Racers who do Sim Racing, like Montoya and Villeneuve who have said several times that they do Simulation Racing, they both like GPL, Dale Earnhardt Junior is a NASCAR Racing 2003 driver, he does even Race Online regularly, he has his own NR03 Homepage with Setups and such. So there are some real life Racers who have a clue about Sims, but most of them just dont know about whats there. Here is a nice Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79l31B_O3Yc) about real Racer doing Sim Racing by the way.

[MauroDiaz]

Aceracer,

I've enjoyed your post, thanks for that. I disagree with everybody else who found it was a bad idea to post it. If people cannot read and either:

1) ignore you post altogether
2) comment with further opinions

then, I don't know why I waste my time checking this forum out... Every day is the same.... people critisizing others for the posts... how boring!... tha'ts why I'll never find myself as part of this community...

...anyway... sry for this... back to my silence now....

[richo]

Its all objective , i hear what your saying about the state of Sim racing compared to FPS and your dead right yet not one of the bleeding edge games
has anywere near the number of active players that Counter Strike does,the BF1942/2/2142 are close i guess but i would bet more guys play CS1.6 than all of them combined (no real factual statistics invovled).

And CS1.6 is not a pretty game so it must come back to gameplay, it always does in the end.Game play wise LFS is right up there, imho its the pick of the bunch in all the factors that count,easy to install even easier to play online and the racing online is awesome from the point of view you can play with some pretty nasty pings and not upset everyone around you.

Ive got both games and i really like some things from rfactor,yet the online experience of LFS on the most parts is out of this world compared to anything else available atm , so yes we are blessed:thumb:

[aceracer]

Thanks Mauro (por el apollo :) and thanks George for your comments, this is the sort of feedback I'm looking for. I don't mind my arguments being slammed, but slammed by knowledgeable counter arguments.

Anyone who is bored by my post,feel free not to read :)

This is an account of my experiences with both games. I've written up stuff I've not seen in other posts as well as stuff other people have said. I'm just looking for what other people's experienmces are with the issues raised.

Whether some find my post relevant or not I don't care about. I care about what those who do find it relevant have to say :)

So thanks for any more comments on my thoughts

aceracer

[thisnameistaken]

I don't know why I waste my time checking this forum out... Every day is the same.... people critisizing others for the posts...

Forums are for discussion, they tend to attract people with opposing views. If you don't like hearing people disagree then a forum is probably not the sort of place you should hang out.

[(-Mark-)]

everyone has different points of view, so there will always be discussions.

[JTbo]

Well, what I read from your comments to some issues, I would say that those are caused mostly because of limitations of input devices and lack of proper feedback. Also at some rate weird physics in rFactor, experience varies from mod to mod.

But I have mentioned this in other thread, if your steering wheel turns 2.5 turns from lock to lock (900 degrees), real cars have ~3-4 turns, my car has for example 4.8 turns, then you are still having ultra fast steering compared to real life car, also you are not getting any sideways pulling and you can use controls as you like even gears you can shift where it would not be possible in real car, then you have also very small screen compared to what is your real vision range.

With all these limitation you can forget about saying what feels real and what does not.

Now I have seen how some use even less steering lock and say something is too easy to catch, their argument is completely invalid, imo.

But still I like both games, for different reasons and I feel they both have something to offer, neither is for everyone, but one should drive what fits best for him.

[axus]

I can't say I agree with you on the point about "race cars being impossible to catch". I've done my fair share of research on the matter. Race cars are harder to drift than road cars? Yes. Impossible? Far from it. Why?

Racing tyres have generally stiffer sidewalls so they peak at lower slip angles. Therefore upto that point they gain grip really quickly. After that the curve levels off and it feels as if they have lost grip, where as they have merely stopped gaining grip.

On top of that, race cars run on racing rubber which is very heat sensetive compared to normal road tyres (different compounds, I know this from one Todd Wasson so I don't think I have the right to go into too much detail as he makes his living from this type of thing - not that he's passed on his infinte supplys of tyre wisdom to me :p). Anyway, road tyres are hardly affected by temperature at all until they hit some insane temperature. Temperature effect is apparently exaggerated in LFS for road tyres a lot.

And then you also have aerodynamics. You'll find that most wings will lose a significant proportion of their downforce with the increase of yaw angle. I know very little on this matter though.

Lastly, the fact that race car drivers don't drift doesn't mean they can't - it's just slower than going around normally so they avoid it as much as possible. As you pointed out, there have been a number of incidents where F1 cars have recovered from notable slides. :)

[Boris Lozac]

Good post there aceracer.
As people already said, these kinds of threads always end up in flaming, because we are like that, praising our own horse, so to say :).
But we could try and keep this thread without some hardcore fanboy comments.

Personally, with my experience with rFactor, i am not impressed by it's netcode, ok, maybe that's not the right word, maybe the netcode is good, but with the online experience i am not impressed at all.
As you probably know, rFactor doesn't have that good graphic suspension movement, so the cars around you look wierd, cartoonish, and doesn't get me immersed if you know what i mean.
Maybe rFactor can handle 3 times more players on the server than LFS, but that doesn't mean anything to me, if i don't get immersed in the race.
In LFS, although cars dissaper sometimes because of the lag, the whole experience is somehow real, and you can feel that the cars are there, you can feel that they are rigid, while in rFactor, it's like the cars are Holograms, you know, like you can go through them, they don't look real moving on the track, that's what i am trying to say.

[ChristijaNL]

Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it :)
aceracer

F12 mate.If u wanna know track there is a litle trick: type /w pb. It will show u ur personal best and the track your on. ( this is when ur on track, not in box) so maybe telling u stuff u allrdy know :p

Damage can be seen pressing F10.

Good post.

[Foropsico]

No, this is not another flame war
I really like your post.:thumb:

1) the phyisics model and realism, the most important aspect of any racing sim.
Thats right. :thumb:

Which does not mean it's necessarily more realistic, at least not for all cars! If you look at many highly tuned modern day race cars, especially F1 and high end touring car racers, you will notice that they are not driven with any visible oversteer. Bar very few instances (I remember David Coulthard (of all people, lol) coming out of the last chicane at Monza sideways and catching the drift) modern race cars have "snap oversteer". They are sucked to the ground by aerodynamics to such an extent that it creates the same effect like these rubbery suction heads: Either they are sucked firmly to the surface (in this case the road) or once they lose adherence, they're gone. And there's no way to recover your rear end once it's stepped out. Now I've heard many racing drivers make this analogy. And this to the best of my knowledge is correctly simulated in rFactor.
Good point, I think rfactor F1 behaves really acurate in this point.:thumb:
You say is a tire problem? LFS dont have aero groun efect i think:scratchch
Yes LFS should have a more fine limite between lossing the grip and rolling.:nod:

[Niels Heusinkveld]

I quite agree with most that's been said.. Simracing could have evolved better / faster as George said.. LFS gives you decent content; everything works, works pretty well and looks pretty well. With rFactor you get very poor physics at the best of times, and tracks that seem to be Sports Car GT conversions. There is a LOT... but also a lot of very low quality / buggy stuff. I am finding out that the ISI physics engine can be reasonable though, but not with any of the mods I've tried. And releasing a sim as a 'mod' platform with just TXT files and 300 variables to edit should be considered a crime.. :)

Until there is a breakthrough sim, perhaps iRacing, I get my fixes with a mix of LFS / GPL and even rFactor..

[Fischfix]

i still don't have an rFactor license and just played the demo (allthough i am lately getting interested in the several nascar mods) i think drifting is possible in rF

watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvsBwAPoNSc

[George Kuyumji]

I just checked to see if Dale Earnhardt Juniors NASCAR Racing 2003 Website is indeed still there....

Turns out he has his own Online Sim Racing league :headbang:

[JTbo]

i still don't have an rFactor license and just played the demo (allthough i am lately getting interested in the several nascar mods) i think drifting is possible in rF

watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvsBwAPoNSc

Sure drifting is possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzatFthomaE

It is actually possible with default ZR car with M type engine and LSD to some degree, when you set steering to something that older wheels have, 270-290 degrees, it is then quite much what I believe ISI has aimed for.

There is lot of mis beliefs from ISI engine and lot of different views to this subject, I think I have found reasons to many different arguments, but I'm not going to repeat everything too many times, I just say keep minds open, learn and observe, what we first see is what really is final truth.

I did post to RSC more about online of these two and how I feel what is largest thing that has kept me away from rFactor online playing, it is difficult having two threads now, can't be bothered to copy all text here either, but hard to discuss in two forums, or maybe I'm just lazy old bugger.

[MauroDiaz]

Forums are for discussion, they tend to attract people with opposing views. If you don't like hearing people disagree then a forum is probably not the sort of place you should hang out.

Hey man, you usually post good stuff... which means that you know what I'm talking about... To disagree with one's idea is one thing... very different from critisizing the reason for the posting... stuff like "post this in your own blog! not on this discussion forum"... like teaching people what "discussion" means....

Funny to see this kind of thing when the longer thread on this section is on that moron who hacked the forum... plos... phloss... or something like that...

Argh!.. anyway.. .sry again.. just my frustration... as promised... back to read-only mode... Cheers

[thisnameistaken]

Hey don't mind me, post all you like, I don't care. :p

You're right in a way, but it's just that people misinterpret text quite often, it's harder to have a reasonable conversation with someone when it's not face-to-face.

That and the fact that some people are dickheads, but c'est la vie... :D

[keithano]

For me this is a good post thro. First I'd like to clarify myself I don't have rFactor, and only played LFS for around a month. I'm still new to LFS, but not games, especially simulation games.

I'll just take this post as a review for both games, but not a discussion for me, coz I know nothing more than u guys. However, personally I think that the most attractive point from rFactor is their mods, and what people can drive a real car in a real track, of which you can never experience this in LFS (at least at this moment or coming few years).

I've played racing games for years, TOCA, NFS, GT series(PS/PS2), much more that I can't remember. In the first time, I am addicted to LFS, but my DFP right a way to enjoy this simulator( personally I dun really treat it as a game ). I'm a racer in real life, kart-racing, and also tried formula, etc. I love racing, and what LFS can give me is the feeling. Nothing is perfect, so do LFS and rFactor. There are still much more rooms for them to improve, maybe in a slow way, but we will wait and see, won't we? Just because we all here love racing. Right?

Cheers.

keithano

[Moonclaw]

Having played gtr2 online numerous times, I have to comment on LFS' joining to servers.

Example: You feel like having a race, load server list ok, notice there's a server with two free racer slots, click on it and join. Now, you're getting ready to start racing while in a mood that you could enjoy it a lot, "a player is disconnecting" what the... ok, another try. Click on ok first, then start joining again, loading track etc. "a player is connecting" !!! "#¤#"¤. Hit that green button really hard and try joining again, and hope a player isn't doing anything. "Server is full/a player is disconnecting/a player is connecting/a player is." and you're ready to summon demons and ritually sacrifice your pc.

Similar case to above happened to me 5 attempts in row with either player disconnecting or connecting and finally server full.

I never have had anything like that happen in any of the 50+ multiplayer games I have played or tried, so I think LFS is quite "special".

[AndroidXP]

stuff like "post this in your own blog! not on this discussion forum"... like teaching people what "discussion" means....
You know that I only wrote this because the topic poster started this thread with "no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again"? :really:

[MauroDiaz]

Hey don't mind me, post all you like, I don't care. :p

You're right in a way, but it's just that people misinterpret text quite often, it's harder to have a reasonable conversation with someone when it's not face-to-face.

That and the fact that some people are dickheads, but c'est la vie... :D

Fully agree!.... it's just that some people should understand that this community grows continuosly... which is desireable (isn't it?)... Every now and then new/unfrequent members will bring old topics... and discuss repetitive things.... That is when people that have been around for a while should not make them shy... If threads are not great or new.... ignore it!... if they talk plain crap, then burn them...

I am responsible for a making a lot of sim racing fans get to know lfs and buy it (here in Brazil, in Canada, in the US...) I also wish to invite them to the forums as well, you know... but I cannot do that when not even I (member for a few years) feel part of it... sometimes this community looks like a closed group that want to get rid of new people.... Not healthy at all in my opinion...

I will probably be blamed for posting off topic :)

Just wanted to state that I agree with you... and that people could be a little more relaxed... that was all...

See you

[MauroDiaz]

You know that I only wrote this because the topic poster started this thread with "no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again"? :really:

Fair enough... I didn't mean to be harsh... sorry for that.

[Linsen]

Fully agree!.... it's just that some people should understand that this community grows continuosly... which is desireable (isn't it?)... Every now and then new/unfrequent members will bring old topics... and discuss repetitive things.... That is when people that have been around for a while should not make them shy... If threads are not great or new.... ignore it!... if they talk plain crap, then burn them...
I generally agree with that. However, I do think that redundancy has reached an all time high recently. I usually didn't get annoyed by the occasional repetitive posting, but it has come to a point where I really have to force myself to try and see it as a good sign of a growing community -- it's hard sometimes, though.

Anyway, that's OT, of course and doesn't even fully apply to this thread, as we haven't had a rFactor vs. LFS discussion for quite some time I believe ;).

[JTbo]

Anyway, that's OT, of course and doesn't even fully apply to this thread, as we haven't had a rFactor vs. LFS discussion for quite some time I believe ;).

I really don't see this as another rFactor vs. LFS thread sure could end up to that, but why it would have to?

But why you like from what you like and what it is that you like? :D

[Iron]

Similar case to above happened to me 5 attempts in row with either player disconnecting or connecting and finally server full.

I never have had anything like that happen in any of the 50+ multiplayer games I have played or tried, so I think LFS is quite "special".

Haha yeah, when I first saw this in lfs I thought WTF? But the best part was when I wanted to leave a server, clicked the button, and got the msg: "can't leave, a player is connecting". :D I thought what the hell, I can't even leave a bloody server because someone else is connecting, the netcode must be crap. I was surprised that I didn't see anyone mention this yet here on the forums during these several months I've been lurking here (or I just didn't notice perhaps). By now, I've learned to live with it, it doesn't happen that often after all, I guess it's just a limitation of the netcode. :shrug:

[JTbo]

Haha yeah, when I first saw this in lfs I thought WTF? But the best part was when I wanted to leave a server, clicked the button, and got the msg: "can't leave, a player is connecting". :D I thought what the hell, I can't even leave a bloody server because someone else is connecting, the netcode must be crap. I was surprised that I didn't see anyone mention this yet here on the forums during these several months I've been lurking here (or I just didn't notice perhaps). By now, I've learned to live with it, it doesn't happen that often after all, I guess it's just a limitation of the netcode. :shrug:

In 5 years I have got maybe one or two of those messages, maybe I'm just lucky, but such things have not happened to me :shrug:

[sgt.flippy]

It never really annoyed me for some reason. I don't have much experience playing online games, so maybe it was my lack of experience. I never hated the message, I only got stressed out when I got the message "too many clicks".

O/T: I got into the group after all (I guess :tilt:)

[Funnybear]

Don't forget that LFS is NOT A FINISHED PRODUCT. Most, if not all of the issues you raised are know about and will be sorted at some point in the near future. Rfactor (As far as I know) is a finished product.

LFS has a long way to go and I think that if you read through some of the bug reports, improvement sudgestions and post that Lord Scawen has posted on the subject you will find that most things are/will be addressed.

As for Rfactor. Never played it, wouldn't know.

[PLAYLIFE]

LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...



Opininion is not fact. Fullstop.

[DeKo]

It never really annoyed me for some reason. I don't have much experience playing online games, so maybe it was my lack of experience. I never hated the message, I only got stressed out when I got the message "too many clicks".

O/T: I got into the group after all (I guess :tilt:)

yeah, the too many clicks is what really annoys me. the others dont bother me at all.

[tinvek]

confesion time

although ive played rfactor demo and not got on with it i did re dowload and patch it the other night and was going to buy it!!!

however when i clicked the purchase link the screen came up saying that the publisher didnt support this game yet !!??!!


could this have been a sign from above ?

[axus]

confesion time

although ive played rfactor demo and not got on with it i did re dowload and patch it the other night and was going to buy it!!!

however when i clicked the purchase link the screen came up saying that the publisher didnt support this game yet !!??!!


could this have been a sign from above ?

Probably. Just don't do it man. :p

[Foropsico]

Fully agree!.... it's just that some people should understand that this community grows continuosly... which is desireable (isn't it?)... Every now and then new/unfrequent members will bring old topics... and discuss repetitive things.... That is when people that have been around for a while should not make them shy... If threads are not great or new.... ignore it!... if they talk plain crap, then burn them...

I am responsible for a making a lot of sim racing fans get to know lfs and buy it (here in Brazil, in Canada, in the US...) I also wish to invite them to the forums as well, you know... but I cannot do that when not even I (member for a few years) feel part of it... sometimes this community looks like a closed group that want to get rid of new people.... Not healthy at all in my opinion...

I will probably be blamed for posting off topic :)

Just wanted to state that I agree with you... and that people could be a little more relaxed... that was all...

See you
Mauro, i think there are a lot of people here who are so fanatics of the game that cant tolerate some one criticize LFS. So when you said "i think there is a problem with..." they start to say "another post of..", "i dont think so"... I cant understand that, because, if they like the game, would be better be more critics so the game could be improved and be so much better.

[BBO@BSR]

..So this thread is what I "like" about both of these games and why I get frustrated about little details ..

I think the problem is that you "didn't know enough" about some things of LFS. Which is normal if you didn't race as long as some of the old guys who already started with the first demo of LFS years ago. But the longer you use LFS the more you'll find out and the happier it'll make you :)

Some small tips/hints/remarks to some points that maybe also frustrate you but they are already there or simple to explain:


In LFS you connect and all you ever do is race!
Well this depends on what you (want to) do. If you want a quick race just for fun then it's fine but you can also join leagues where you have to do qualifying sessions or can practise etc. (and where it makes sense).



4) Connecting to a race: There has to be a way to implement what's best from both games here, come on. In rFactor I can't connect to a server when a race is on. So from the few populated servers, half get eliminated because the race is on. Silly! Let me at least connect, go to the pits, set up my car and I'll be ready when the next race (erh, practise session) starts! But don't shut people out.

In LFS it's the other extreme: People connect straight into races. So while you're on the lead lap, some monkey who just joined rolls out of the pits and straight into your racing line. Or is on cold tyres and doesn't move over. That's also silly! There has to be a compromise here.

LFS already provides everything the server admin needs/want. You can disable mid-race joining etc. (but most server admins don't do it. Reason i.e.: New joining drivers often came onto a server and then start practise the track or check how much fuel the car needs for a lap, check there setup etc. behind the field for the rest of the ongoing race whithout making any trouble.

People who just enter a server and destroy a race by joining an ongoing race and driving into the middle of the racing pack are usually very new to LFS, have no common sense and often get banned from servers if they do it more then once.



In LFS there first few times I had no idea where I was. ....
Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it :)

You should first take a look at the server you join, in the server list, it's all there. Click for example on the "?" in the server list before you join a server. Or check the little dots under the car abbreviations etc.
The truth is when you learn the long/short track names (i.e AS4R=Aston Historic reverse etc.) it will also help you much :D

When you are on the server press F12 key there you can also see how many laps the race has, if you have to pit or not etc.



5) Pitboard/Damage/Repair

In LFS I never know what state my car is in. What's broken and should I repair it during the pitstop?
Use the F9, F10, F11, F12 keys. You see your tires, damage, fuel burn/lap etc there and you can also change things there during the race before you enter the pits.


6) How come in LFS my car flies 30 feet into the air and spins 45 times before landing as a complete wreck when I hit some barriers at a given angle at 30 mph? There must be something wrong there, no need to be a real life pilot to know that :)

That's normal in a lot of racing games. The first time I tested for example GTR2, I touched the curb a bit hard and my car was catapulted straight into the air for half a minute.
If you don't want to have it in LFS, just race without hitting any barriers :) (no flights and I bet you also get faster laptimes with it :smileypul) tbh in the earlier versions of LFS you had much more things like this and things like little contact between 2 cars and big accidents/spinning around but it's getting better from one update to another.



10) Content/Modability
rFactor:
Opening their source code to the mod community has added neverending quality content to this sim.
Hmm if you say so. For me it's more like 95% of the mods are crap and from time to time you got something useful - like in 95% of any moddable game.


I do not undertsand why the LFS devs do not want to grant this to their audience. It takes nothing away from how brilliant LFS is, ...
There have been many discussions about this on RSC forums and here. A lot (I don't know if the most) of us longer LFS users think, that exactly this will happen: An endless wave of dumb mods will come up, then every server runs his own car and track and whatever mods and you won't be able to quickly jump into the car for a ride, no you first have to search/find the right mod, install it, (damn not this version, it's outdated, DL another 245MB etc.). Like I experienced in a lot of other racing games over the last years.

And then a lot of people would complain about LFS crashes etc. but it's maybe crashing because the mod was not good etc.

The other but most important thing is LFS is still unfinished. It just doesn't make sense to open it for modding right now. But when S3 it will be finished then we maybe get the abbility to mod LFS. The devs didn't say they'll never release things/tools for it, didn't they ;-)

:schwitz:Enough for today.

If you search a bit here in the forum and follow some discussions (there are still some usefull threads next to the (for me boring) "what colour do you like" stuff then you'll understand a lot more about LFS, find out more cool features of the game etc. Just spend some time with reading. It's worth it.

I hope this was also a bit helpfull for you.

[JTbo]

There have been many discussions about this on RSC forums and here. A lot (I don't know if the most) of us longer LFS users think, that exactly this will happen: An endless wave of dumb mods will come up, then every server runs his own car and track and whatever mods and you won't be able to quickly jump into the car for a ride, no you first have to search/find the right mod, install it, (damn not this version, it's outdated, DL another 245MB etc.). Like I experienced in a lot of other racing games over the last years.


That is just one way to make game moddable, it don't need to be such chaos, all it takes is bit of planning and designing.

Many thinks that automatically moddable game means that there is lot of searching needed to find correct version and weird mismatch errors are everyday trouble, but it does not have to be so, there are countless methods how this can be made to work better than any other game has ever got it done before.

[Fischfix]

That is just one way to make game moddable, it don't need to be such chaos, all it takes is bit of planning and designing.

Many thinks that automatically moddable game means that there is lot of searching needed to find correct version and weird mismatch errors are everyday trouble, but it does not have to be so, there are countless methods how this can be made to work better than any other game has ever got it done before.

exactly (however i don't think car-mods are usefull at the moment because of the unfinished damage and aero-model) however some people have lots of time to do these kind of stuff twice or more times :razz:

[aceracer]

Thanks BBO, that was helpful indeed and makes sense.

Just one disagreement: Even if there is a lot of rubbish mods,the ones which are great are briliant and personally I have a great number of those. To name but a few: 1979 GP Season, Porsche Carrera Cup, Meganes, Historic Rally Cars, BMW M3 GTR, Lamgorhini Gallardo, Zonda, Aussie V8s, and then the posssibility to race them on any track imaginable, many of which are absolutely stunning (Nordschleife). This really does make my race pilot heart beat faster... :)

aceracer

[Samor]

'LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...'

personally i play alot of offline racing... also people that lose internet connection may be looking to race, but can only race offline

I practice a lot offline... LFS' AI's currently a bit* weak, though (probably not adjusted to the improved car handling?)

*I'm just being nice ;)

Nice V.R. avatar, by the way :)


LFS already provides everything the server admin needs/want. You can disable mid-race joining etc. (but most server admins don't do it. Reason i.e.: New joining drivers often came onto a server and then start practise the track or check how much fuel the car needs for a lap, check there setup etc. behind the field for the rest of the ongoing race whithout making any trouble.

People who just enter a server and destroy a race by joining an ongoing race and driving into the middle of the racing pack are usually very new to LFS, have no common sense and often get banned from servers if they do it more then once.

(which is why demo servers are so bad :p )
But I agree, when you join mid-race, it should be no problem to practice a bit while not bugging people who were mid-race.

And while LFS has no mods, it does have the custom car skins, which is fun because everyone can join in the fun (no super skills needed) and it doesn't conflict with the playability of the game.

[tristancliffe]

Thanks BBO, that was helpful indeed and makes sense.

Just one disagreement: Even if there is a lot of rubbish mods,the ones which are great are briliant and personally I have a great number of those. To name but a few: 1979 GP Season, Porsche Carrera Cup, Meganes, Historic Rally Cars, BMW M3 GTR, Lamgorhini Gallardo, Zonda, Aussie V8s, and then the posssibility to race them on any track imaginable, many of which are absolutely stunning (Nordschleife). This really does make my race pilot heart beat faster... :)

aceracer

I haven't yet tried the 1979 mod, but I've heard it's terrible. The Meganes are a JOKE, and the Porsches have been made so they are as unlike a Porsche to drive as anything before it. Even Outrun in 1988 was a more realistic Porsche experience, and that was a Testicleroaster.

[JTbo]

I haven't yet tried the 1979 mod, but I've heard it's terrible. The Meganes are a JOKE, and the Porsches have been made so they are as unlike a Porsche to drive as anything before it. Even Outrun in 1988 was a more realistic Porsche experience, and that was a Testicleroaster.

Porsches had Great graphics, Great sound, and FRONT engine :really:

Meganes, again great graphics + sound, physics are however again rather interesting ones, even real racer of this series has helped them and even he says car feels realistic it does not mean it can't be wrong, surely there is many things wrong.

None of these are however completely rubbish, teams have done lot of work to get mods as good as they can, but when there is hundreds of parameters to be learned and generally you need to be at least automotive engineer to understand some of them, it surely effects quality of mod.

My Ferrari 430 don't pull insane Gs at corners, but I made quite few tweaks to it, still not happy to it however, would need to research ton of data to get it closer to real, however I don't have so much time for that and I'm sure this is also issue with many modders, some then decide to take 'looks and sounds pretty, let's make physics bit simpler way' route and majority of those who download mod post 'OMG best mod forevah' and rate all mod areas to be 5 stars even car won't get even puncture of tire or even engine is at roof of car, so do you blame modders or clients from this?

If there would be good tools, then situations might be different, I have created my own tools for some stuff, Dave Purdy has done some great job too with easy engine editor, but some complete modding tools that are easy to use and that would have calculation of many hard stuff (like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?) ISI would sell it for 20-30€, that would be what is needed.

I never want to see LFS modding done so that you look some numbers from text file and then try to guess right values, oh no, they should make it so that there is editor, where you place things like engine etc to your model by dragging it to place with mouse and give weights, then tool calculates those inertia values for example, same with suspension, you just choose type and drag points etc.
Well, I tell already too much, I don't like to reveal all of what would be my idea of LFS modding, but when I get my planning done I give it to devs and they can then throw it out from window or use it when time comes. I have predicted that it is around 6 years still so I guess I have plenty of time to plan this ;)

[Shotglass]

None of these are however completely rubbish, teams have done lot of work to get mods as good as they can, but when there is hundreds of parameters to be learned and generally you need to be at least automotive engineer to understand some of them, it surely effects quality of mod.

from what ive gathered all of them have tyre physics that are _WAY_ off and at least according to niels the 79 mod has some very peculiar suspension geometries
if i got it right he basically said that they must have pulled these values from wherever theyve pulled them and never even bothered to look at them in a 3d model or else they would have had to notice something wasnt right

like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?

if im not mistaken its simply the moment of inertia which anybody with the least bit of understanding about mechanics should be able to calculate (its just a sum for christs sake)
admitedly there probably isnt near enough data available for most cars to produce an accurate number but at least a reasonably close educated guess should be easily achievable
(it obviously follows from this arguement that any simulation of a fantasy car will allways be a lot closer to the real thing than any representation of a real car)

[JTbo]

from what ive gathered all of them have tyre physics that are _WAY_ off and at least according to niels the 79 mod has some very peculiar suspension geometries
if i got it right he basically said that they must have pulled these values from wherever theyve pulled them and never even bothered to look at them in a 3d model or else they would have had to notice something wasnt right

if im not mistaken its simply the moment of inertia which anybody with the least bit of understanding about mechanics should be able to calculate (its just a sum for christs sake)
admitedly there probably isnt near enough data available for most cars to produce an accurate number but at least a reasonably close educated guess should be easily achievable
(it obviously follows from this arguement that any simulation of a fantasy car will allways be a lot closer to the real thing than any representation of a real car)

Making suspension is not easiest tasks, I can't even imagine anyone getting it even close without looking 3D, also to make it look right does not mean that it works right, because of certain limitations and this is true mostly with other than two a-arms top of each other as that is only thing that engine really has meant to be used, other types are more or less emulation.

Inertia of car, you just made me spent few mins searching this (http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=126658) and this (http://forum.rscnet.org/showpost.php?p=1732292&postcount=31) also this (http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=94984) is something required to read.
Some modders can do it, some don't, some even don't have idea what inertia is.
Anyway data is perhaps not problem, at least I have not found it to be problem with my work, bit of dimensions and weights is what is needed.

How fantasy can be real if real is more fantasy than fantasy, isn't all our mods eventually just fantasy of real, right I better leave that to someone else :schwitz::D

Problem is that there is n+1 14-16 years old kids that do mods, do you really think they understand inertia and suspension geometry or tire dynamics? I think editor needs to be such simple that you don't need to have too much of insight of car engineering to make mod.

[Shotglass]

Problem is that there is n+1 14-16 years old kids that do mods, do you really think they understand inertia and suspension geometry or tire dynamics? I think editor needs to be such simple that you don't need to have too much of insight of car engineering to make mod.

right find but wrong conclusion ... typical isi modders (simbin) should just give up on modding and do something they understand how to (not vehicle dynamics)

[frokki]

some complete modding tools that are easy to use and that would have calculation of many hard stuff (like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?) ISI would sell it for 20-30€, that would be what is needed.This may be the worst troll of the year, but I think they are after the rest of your money with 2-n more sloppy games with the same sloppy engine, until they release anything more.

[JTbo]

right find but wrong conclusion ... typical isi modders (simbin) should just give up on modding and do something they understand how to (not vehicle dynamics)

LOL, that too, but with simple use editor at least they would have chance to do something even closely right. Of course simple to use editor does not mean you are limited to that, of course there have to be manual input option to parameters.

Frokki, you may be right or wrong, I really can't tell what will happen in future, but we can safely say that our opinion from game engine differs somewhat and that is fine by me, not everyone have to like from everything ;)

[aceracer]

Hmm, I can agree that there are tings wrong and that there is rubbish out there. However look at simracing.cz. These uys are a group of hardcore sim fans and developers. They have spent months working with the real teams and drivers of BMW Challenge and Skoda Cup. Countless hours of many many talented individuals have gone ito these mods. This has nothing to do with 14 year old playing with numbers, this is almost at professional level with endless dedication, a labout of love.

Now to say that this and comparable stuff is all simply wrong and rubbish and worthless I find somewhat arrogant. I would never dare say that I understand more about how a car should behave than these people and I think this applies to 99% of the people on these boards.

So maybe there is too much hype and average mods get rave ratings. This does not mean that there is some outstanding work being done by a lot of people who understand leagues more about car bahviour than most people here... after all most of us are just gamers sitting in front of our Pcs...

aceracer

[JTbo]

There is lot of great work done for sure and it would be hard for me to call anything really rubbish.

GTR for example is one professional product that is worse than V8 supercars in terms of physics, what I have seen from GTR2 data same could be said from that too. As far as I understand they did worked with real teams too, but it still ended up bit funny, why I can't say why reason that they are bit funny is that there is some parameters that are not correctly put into engine.

Because one thing affects another it is easy to get lost and adjust wrong setting to get certain behavior of car to certain situation, problems arises when you are then in other situation with car. Also personal views and controller settings etc. are causing certain bias. It is really not too easy to make mod, someone may think that it is just putting right values to right places, but it does not work that way, first of all you can't get all numbers from anywhere, so you need to either calculate them or adjust by feeling, now if you adjust by feeling and later someone founds more data of that then it is again error in mod.

Biggest problem has been tires and debate about these continues still, there are different preferences what should be real and until something has been flawlessly proved to be right debate goes on.

I did stopped counting hours used to learn stuff needed to learn to get mod done even close to right after 1000, and it is still going to be at least that much that I need to learn before I understand all aspects well, but when learning these things I have found that mods that get great ratings are not so good in physics. Of course it can be that I have learned things wrong, but I doubt that, sure some errors there must be, but I try to cross check everything I learn even it is very hard sometimes when you can't find even single good source of information that can be understood without being engineer, my math is not strong, I'm car guy, not science guy :D

[Funnybear]

Reading the last couple of posts has made me revisit my views on why I think the basic premise behind LFS in not using real cars is so good. With things like Rfactor and GTR the cars are real, you can't help but compare them to the real thing. And untill you have a perfect physics simulation you will never get a true representation of these cars. There is only so much kicks you can get from 'driving' a Lambo around Nordshcliefe before you realise that you will never know how the car really drives unless your rich enough to go out and buy one. And if that was the case you probable wouldn't be trying to drive it Rfactor becuase it would piss you offf to much.


No. LFS's arguable best attribute is that it does not use real cars (Other than them ones). And in doing that means that the guys can concentrate on getting the physics right first and foremost for the basic vehicle platforms. The fact that all of LFS's cars are not nessesarily easy to drive and have quirks and foibles is what makes it all the more real.

[JTbo]

Funnybear is kind of right, I don't drive rFactor much as I always end up examining and tweaking physics to get them right :razz:

[Ian.H]

Don't forget that LFS is NOT A FINISHED PRODUCT. Most, if not all of the issues you raised are know about and will be sorted at some point in the near future. Rfactor (As far as I know) is a finished product.

LFS has a long way to go and I think that if you read through some of the bug reports, improvement sudgestions and post that Lord Scawen has posted on the subject you will find that most things are/will be addressed.

As for Rfactor. Never played it, wouldn't know.

rFactor _claims_ to be a finished product and I've spent the last 12-18 months either making cars or tracks for it and from my experience, it's _far_ from finished and this thread (http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=282053) at RSC pretty much sums things up to a T... and just glad now that I've lost all interest in rF.

I never listened when people slated ISI before, I only started with F1C and had some fun playing it (for 9 months before rF was released) but damn, their support is a friggin joke! Sure, I got some help on a few modding things when I had to ask, but that came about through absolutely no modding documentation at all and with such an open platform, that's inexcusable but when you get a response such in the thread linked above, well, I'm pretty much lost for words tbh. ISI are nothing but a 2-bit joke.. somewhere on par with micro$oft :shrug:

I only wanted AI that was the same as in 1.070 (ie: actually usable) but alas, they seriously don't have a clue.



Regards,

Ian

[Foropsico]

No. LFS's arguable best attribute is that it does not use real cars (Other than them ones). And in doing that means that the guys can concentrate on getting the physics right first and foremost for the basic vehicle platforms. The fact that all of LFS's cars are not nessesarily easy to drive and have quirks and foibles is what makes it all the more real.

I really cant understand your point of view. Using real cars is not a guarantee to have a great physics of course. But, if you want the most detailed physics you can have, then you have to copy a real car in a real track and get help from real race car drivers and engineers. It is just logic, any car have diferent behaviour in any track. You have to imitate the reality. LFS have a fantastic physics, in fact many cars are based on real cars. I dont know how much devs has driving and consulting real race car drivers. I think rfactor has a great F1 physics, better than BF1 i´ve tried in a friend house, but we need a F1 driver to confirm that. You cant make a game realistic based in fantasy.

[AndroidXP]

It might just be me, but I think asking race drivers is pretty pointless, because they most likely have no idea of tyre physics and the mathematical workings of a simulation either. Rather you see some of them give games like GTR/2 an "this is uber realistic" rating because they simply don't know better (and/or are paid to do so).

Mechanics and tyre engineers and whatever are probably a better choice regarding the theory, race drivers themselves only if they are very very much into computer simulations and know what the whole thing is about. Can they share valuable experiences? Yes. Can they evaluate a sims correctness regarding the physics model? Seriously, who are you trying to kid?

[joen]

But, if you want the most detailed physics you can have, then you have to copy a real car in a real track and get help from real race car drivers and engineers.

But then you would strive for the most accurate simulated handling for THAT particular car. If you want to copy a real life car's handling you could just "simply" manipulate it by reading data from some tables. I am not saying LFS' physics are 100% accurate, but physics are universal. Real life cars and tracks are not necessary to create a convincing physics model.


It is just logic, any car have diferent behaviour in any track. You have to imitate the reality.

But realistic does not equal reality perse.

I think rfactor has a great F1 physics, better than BF1 i´ve tried in a friend house, but we need a F1 driver to confirm that.

So if you need an F1 driver to determine which one is more realistic, how can you say rFactor has the best F1 physics?


You cant make a game realistic based in fantasy.
I strongly disagree.

[Shotglass]

even it is very hard sometimes when you can't find even single good source of information that can be understood without being engineer, my math is not strong, I'm car guy, not science guy :D

no offense to you and your mod (you seem to be one of the "good" guys that actually bother to educate themself) but therein lies the actual problem
tbh most rf modders (and the race car drivers they use for referal how great their mods are) seem to have no clue about physics and are somewhere between incapeable and uninterested in educating themself on the very thing they try to replicate in a sim

which is also the reason why i like todds scawens and pricordes work all that much
i dont know eithers educational background but from reading their posts i get the feeling that all of them are physics geeks that are genuinely interested in physics and have the knowledge base needed to understand the material the engineering community throws at them to get it implemented in their sims
oh and todd release that sim of yours already will ya :)

[bbman]

But then you would strive for the most accurate simulated handling for THAT particular car. If you want to copy a real life car's handling you could just "simply" manipulate it by reading data from some tables. I am not saying LFS' physics are 100% accurate, but physics are universal. Real life cars and tracks are not necessary to create a convincing physics model.

And that is exactly the point why LfS is so far ahead... Normally, you'd define the values of how a certain car reacts in a certain situation... So you'd create specific physics for this one car, which is just wrong on every level... LfS has universal physics for all cars, and the attributes those cars have define how a certain car reacts in a certain situation, now THAT's simulating...

[Foropsico]

But then you would strive for the most accurate simulated handling for THAT particular car. If you want to copy a real life car's handling you could just "simply" manipulate it by reading data from some tables. I am not saying LFS' physics are 100% accurate, but physics are universal. Real life cars and tracks are not necessary to create a convincing physics model.
I dont think that LFS has a complete and perfect physics simulation engine of the real world. just a limitated one, so you have to achieve some behaviours in some especific way.

But realistic does not equal reality perse.
You must imitate the real world as far as you can.

So if you need an F1 driver to determine which one is more realistic, how can you say rFactor has the best F1 physics?
Well, i have been driving real formula renault cars. You need a race car driver smart enoght to tell you how racing a particular car feels. Neider an engineer can do that.

And that is exactly the point why LfS is so far ahead... Normally, you'd define the values of how a certain car reacts in a certain situation... So you'd create specific physics for this one car, which is just wrong on every level... LfS has universal physics for all cars, and the attributes those cars have define how a certain car reacts in a certain situation, now THAT's simulating...

You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

[Boris Lozac]

You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

That has nothing to do with physics of LFS, that is collision bug, and it is a multiplayer thing, it will be fixed eventually, but nothing to do with physics.

[Ball Bearing Turbo]

Well, i have been driving real formula renault cars. You need a race car driver smart enoght to tell you how racing a particular car feels. Neider an engineer can do that.

I tend to disagree. It doesn't matter how it feels, it matters how it handles objectively - and that's what a sim should aim for. Recreating the feeling of a particular car is not necessarily the goal (although it's often, but not always, likely to be a side effect) but rather recreating the physical reactions mathematically, regardless of how it feels. It's going to feel different on a PC, and fudging it to make it feel the same as RL is a big mistake because it won't likely be "true" because of that discrepancy. Which is exactly why engineers are handy!

You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

Noone ever said "every aspect of real world physics" :rolleyes:. I'm pretty sure most people here are talking about tire (tyre, whatever) physics.

The pylon physics suck too!

[Fischfix]

we all have to make our minds clear, that these simulators are games. you'll never be able to simulate 100% real life. it's like if you say something like: "i have to go to jail because i draw that card, THAT IS NOT REALISTIC" when playing Monopoly. it is a ****ing game *g*

so we have to live with the issues and bugs as they are given. if you are able to bumpdraft in one game and not in real live, then GO and BUMP your ASS OFF. i don't think anyone who is able to drive the bf1 in lfs is able to do at least 250m in real life with this car. so if you say: this game or that game is more realistic i think this is like: yeah LFS is 0.451% realism compared to real life and rFactor is like 0.450% realism compared to real life. it's virtual.

so even if you have the perfect simulation. it is still nothing more then a simulation. you can't simulate real life (until the holodeck from startrek is reality and the anti-harm mode is off and even then...)

so i think every gamedeveloper should focus on making the game the most fun and thrill as possible. i mean what would this game be if you really get hurt when crashing, when you really have to pay for damaged car parts and so on and so on....

games are games (even though some are more realistic) but it's still a game. no-one wants a simulation that barely anyone is able to drive (like it would be for lots of people who never drove a real car because of their age)

even if you have a tripplehead display with 3d glasses and clutch, or even a gforce-seat. it is still a game. (i know there is some incredible good force seats, but who has the money for something like that).

i mean "game" not as a bad thing. football is also a game (and they make lots of money there *g*)

even if you say: "i am the best lfs / rfactor driver in the world" you might have the best opportunities in real life racing such as good eye-hand coordination, good memorization of tracks, patience, passion, patience and more patience. but it is two shoes to drive in a save seat in your warm home or with 280km/h 50cm behind another car or with 180 through a wood where you do not even know whats coming after the next turn unless your copilot is telling you something like "3rd, left 90 over jump, outside"

i know lots of drivers use computer games to learn tracks, practice eye-hand coordination (Villneuve, Ernhard Jr., Klien,...)

ok... what did i want to say? ah it's too early now :)

[aceracer]

Ok, I agree with many of the things said above. And yes, it's just a game, or just a sim :) But some are more "realistic" than others, as in representing car behaviour more or less like it would in real life.

However, those who say that race drivers have no clue: The only person who know what a BMW M3 GTR does when you hurl it into the first corner at Barcelona downshifting from 6th to 2nd is the guy who does it: the pilot.

None of the people on this board, me included, will even know what it feels like. Will ever know how the car twitches, when it feels loose, when it gains drive out of the corner etc. The only person who knows this is the pilot who¡s done this in real life.

So we can all talk all day about which sim is best. And you can say all day long that the last person you would ask is the pilot cos he has no clues about sims. Yet he's the only one who can tell you: Yes, this is more or less like the car bahaves in real life, cos he's the only one who knows.

And yes, the engineers can look at the datasheets and replicate everything 1''% and get the same data analysis out of the sim as out of the real life sheets .. but if the pilot says: That's not how it reacted two weeks ago at the track then you can develop and engineer all year long: It's not how it behaves, fullstop.

As for LFS and real cars: It's a licensing issue, if you look at the cars, many have a vey close resemblance with real life counterparts, you would just have to stick the company logo on it. And they handle how we would expect these cars to handle. So they are in fact simulations of real cars, they just don't have the brand name stuck all over it.

And personally I think that's just fine, they race great and they feel great .. but then, what do I nkow, I've never raced anything but karts in my life...

aceracer

[Shotglass]

I dont think that LFS has a complete and perfect physics simulation engine of the real world. just a limitated one, so you have to achieve some behaviours in some especific way.

you will have to simplify parts of the phyiscs engine a lot but you should never go as far as to write "individual physics" (the term doesnt even make sense) for each car

Well, i have been driving real formula renault cars. You need a race car driver smart enoght to tell you how racing a particular car feels. Neider an engineer can do that.

what bbt said

You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

you wont find any true lfs supporter who will claim that lfs is perfect but most of us will tell you that its far closer to reality than anything isi was able to come up with thus far
and yes lfs has holes in its engine which do cause glitches ... but as far as im concerned they do show that lfs really is math based for the most part which can lead to glitches as opposed to table based approaches which by their very nature cant glitch

i don't think anyone who is able to drive the bf1 in lfs is able to do at least 250m in real life with this car.

youre way off on this one
a modern f1 car is one of the best cars with some of the stickiest tyres youll find anywhere on the planet equiped with an electronic nanny so you dont mess up ... it should be one of the easiest cars to drive (tiff commented that it is indeed very easy to drive when he had a go in a modern f1)

so even if you have the perfect simulation. it is still nothing more then a simulation. you can't simulate real life (until the holodeck from startrek is reality and the anti-harm mode is off and even then...)

its not supposed to simulate real life its supposed to simulate physics

games are games (even though some are more realistic) but it's still a game. no-one wants a simulation that barely anyone is able to drive (like it would be for lots of people who never drove a real car because of their age)

ill quote todd who quotes someone else on this:
as simulators get more realistic they should become easier to drive

[JJ72]

Well one thing I know for sure that is benefitial using fictional cars is that....you can manupulate the performance of the car and get leveled competition. If you are fixed to a set of real performance values, the difference between cars will be rather large. (although car balancing is rather bad in LFS so far it's an ideal that is possible to work on.)

About the point of racing simulations should simulate real world as far as we can, I am not so sure. I am now exploring the world of flight simulations, and it's a rather inspring experience because every serious aircraft they made are accurate not only physically, but also historically, they even find perioded pilots who has experience in that particular plane to review the physics, and it seems the portion of real pilots playing flight sim is quite some higher than the portion of race driver playing racing sims. The meaning of immersion in flight sims, that every switch, every bolts and nuts has to be exactly correct is quite attractive. starting an aircraft from cold is a occasion, so is the actual flying experience.

It's rather different in racing sims however, I own a copy of GT legends because or the amazing lineup of cars, in terms of graphic and sound it does a notable job in recreating the real vehicles, but still, when out on a track, trying to do a fast lap, all of these doesn't seems too important, whether the ignition switch work, whether labels on the dashboard are correct as it is, racing simulation is much more about the actual driving, it occupies your senses so much that the physical aspect is more more important then the rest, as long as the visuals and audio are not so bad in a way that they carry you away from the experience.

Same goes to the cars, whether it has the exact torque curve as a real car or not isn't that much of an importance, as long as it is realistic according to the law of physics. Even if you make a car in LFS, which suspension hard points and wheel dimension is different from any other car in reality, it wouldn't matter and thus stand out as unrealistic, because the inner working is sound, I might even say this is a real car but a real car that has yet been produced, because on paper it's possible to design and manufacture a car with such stats.

That's my point on why real life reference helps creating a realistic simulation, however depiction of the actual object itself is not. And I think as long as you have a good physics engine, it will be rather easy to inject real life datas and create "real" cars.

Think about it, when F1 designers start a new car, they start with concepts base on engineering principles that they know is sound, they do not start base on the old numbers of previous cars and reverse engineer it, because they already know how that part of physics works. Their new car, is basically designed out of fastasy, experiemented in virtual reality and then built in real life, most of the time the end product will behave very close to what is simulated, up to that point it's all down to engineers and their maths, rather then what the driver feels. The driver feedback in the end is just a final check on the actual outcome conceived from a mental point of view, very important for the result, but a driver cannot design a car because the information pool he draws from is different from the engineers.

That's alright in real life because physics is a constant, but in sim racing, how can a real world racing driver tell whether it's the fault of the physics engine, or the data that goes into engine that creates the problem? The driver can tell whether the car reacts correctly under a turn in - throttle lift scenario, but he cannot possibly know whether it's the setup, the parameters, the physics engine, or even the input controllers, and because they don't spend hours a day messing with a sim in different combos, they cannot cross check and unlike us, knows the flaw in the physics models.

[Electrik Kar]

Recreating the feeling of a particular car is not necessarily the goal (although it's often, but not always, likely to be a side effect) but rather recreating the physical reactions mathematically, regardless of how it feels. It's going to feel different on a PC, and fudging it to make it feel the same as RL is a big mistake because it won't likely be "true" because of that discrepancy.

Some good posts here/differences of opinion as to what should constitute a good sim. Regarding above statement, I wonder how practical this approach is, given current technological restrictions. I've read that it's pretty impossible to just input correct physical values of various RL data and expect that your virtual car will behave in the same way, because in reality there are so many other small variables interacting with and influencing these forces which are not being calculated and which cannot be calculated due to the hardware limitations/whatever. I'm not a physicist/engineer so I cannot comment any further, it's just that I wonder about this purist approach- the idea that if you've the correct data, in theory it should all just work the way it's supposed to. At some point, if you want your simulation to be believable, to feel right, to behave realistically, you're going to have to fudge some variables here and there because no matter how good the data is, it's not representative of the full spectrum of forces which are operating within the real world.

LFS/Rf may be perfect simulations of themselves, but if physics is universal, and understood, then why is it so hard to get something working properly inside a computer? Probably because you're inputting only part of the story.

[joen]

I dont think that LFS has a complete and perfect physics simulation engine of the real world. just a limitated one, so you have to achieve some behaviours in some especific way.

I explicitely said LFS' physics are not 100% accurate, yet you try to convince me of the same.


You must imitate the real world as far as you can.
Imitating the real world (meaning existing real tracks and cars) is not necessary to make a game realistic, because like I said realistic and reality are not the same thing. GT4 has tons of real cars and tracks. How realistic is that to you?


Well, i have been driving real formula renault cars. You need a race car driver smart enoght to tell you how racing a particular car feels. Neider an engineer can do that.

Yet, a Formula Renault is hardly comparable to a Formula 1 car.


You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.
Once again, you choose to ignore what I said. No, I did not say LFS physics are complete and 100% accurate. Reasons for this being that LFS is not finished, and like already pointed out by others, it simply is not possible to create a sim that imitates every aspect of real world physics. Well, maybe it would be possbile but us LFS players would need supercomputers to be able to play it.
I never said LFS is perfect but neither is any other sim. I think LFS has chosen the only correct route and that is to use a pure physics model with no faked and canned effects like other sims do.

But, let's agree to disagree here.

[frokki]

1) Why do ISI sim fans always raise this argument that real drivers have said that WTCC ISI GTR2 COPY VOL 7 tRactor RACE feels 100% real?

2) Why don't real racing drivers ever say anything about LFS? Does it suck so bad?

3) When some of the drivers also feel arcade games like WRC, Colin McRae Rally and Gran Turismo realistic, do their arguments have any value when judging simulators?

[AeoIus]

When I was driving in S1 LFS felt realistic.
With S2 it felt more realistic and each physics patch improves LFS in a way that again feels more realistic (up till now :P).

So as far as I'm concerned something 'feeling' realistic has to be taken with a grain of salt. I just didn't know better until after the next patch arrived and I could compare.

LFS has normal road cars which I drive about 60.000km a year, so me telling you that an LFS roadcar is realistic in behaviour should have more value as a 'racer' telling you a race car is feeling realistic if he only drives it 5.000km a year.

Luckily I'm not telling anybody roadcars are realistic so we can stop right there. And yes I've driven my car to the limit where it was publicly safe to do so :smileypul and probably to a simillar amount of corners as a racer does.

[tristancliffe]

S1 was realistic in, say, 80% of situations. Just a bit too easy to start and recover from slides. S2 is realistic in, say, 90% of situations, and thus is an improvement without making S1 suddenly unrealistic.

Then (and please consider this is my opinion) you see GTR/GTR2/GTL which is realistic in about 60% of situations, rFactor (65%), nKP (75 - 85%) and GT4 (30%).

So, yes it's all relative, not only with each other, but also in time. F1GP was easily the most realistic driving game back in 1992, but was probably realistic in just 15% of situations (straight lines and maybe braking). However, at the time, our ideas of what realism a computer can achieve were a lot lower. On the same token, now I've experienced the highs (and lows) of LFS, I can safely say that ISI is backwards technology (for me).

[col]

...I'm not a physicist/engineer so I cannot comment any further, it's just that I wonder about this purist approach- the idea that if you've the correct data, in theory it should all just work the way it's supposed to. At some point, if you want your simulation to be believable, to feel right, to behave realistically, you're going to have to fudge some variables here and there because no matter how good the data is, it's not representative of the full spectrum of forces which are operating within the real world...

What you say is partly true, but you have to understand that there is more than one way to use the data.

If your simulation works by storing loads of data for all normal contitions, then reading from that data as those conditions arise, any time an unusual contition arises that you don't have accurate detailed data for, you will have to fudge it, and it will seem awkward and unrealistic to the user....
The more data you have, the better it gets, but you will never have enough data for every eventuality..

The other approach is to use the data as a development tool... you look at the data, then design a mathematical model... you then run the model using the same conditions that generated the data... you look at the output of the model and compare it to the original data... you tweak the model... and repeat the process each time bringing the output of your model closer to the real data.
The beauty of this approach is that if your model workd for situations that are 'known' it is very likely that it will also work for situations for which you have no detailed accurate data.
Any time more data becomes available that highlights flaws in your model, you can repeat the iterative tweaking and testing of your model in order to bring its output closer to the 'output' from reality.

This second way is more difficult and requires a deeper more creative use of maths and physics, but ultimately it will produce a more natural feel because the simulated environment is always true to itself.

I'll leave it to you to work out which sim uses which approach ;)

[George Kuyumji]

Well one thing I know for sure that is benefitial using fictional cars is that....you can manupulate the performance of the car and get leveled competition. If you are fixed to a set of real performance values, the difference between cars will be rather large. (although car balancing is rather bad in LFS so far it's an ideal that is possible to work on.)

About the point of racing simulations should simulate real world as far as we can, I am not so sure. I am now exploring the world of flight simulations, and it's a rather inspring experience because every serious aircraft they made are accurate not only physically, but also historically, they even find perioded pilots who has experience in that particular plane to review the physics, and it seems the portion of real pilots playing flight sim is quite some higher than the portion of race driver playing racing sims. The meaning of immersion in flight sims, that every switch, every bolts and nuts has to be exactly correct is quite attractive. starting an aircraft from cold is a occasion, so is the actual flying experience.

It's rather different in racing sims however, I own a copy of GT legends because or the amazing lineup of cars, in terms of graphic and sound it does a notable job in recreating the real vehicles, but still, when out on a track, trying to do a fast lap, all of these doesn't seems too important, whether the ignition switch work, whether labels on the dashboard are correct as it is, racing simulation is much more about the actual driving, it occupies your senses so much that the physical aspect is more more important then the rest, as long as the visuals and audio are not so bad in a way that they carry you away from the experience.

Same goes to the cars, whether it has the exact torque curve as a real car or not isn't that much of an importance, as long as it is realistic according to the law of physics. Even if you make a car in LFS, which suspension hard points and wheel dimension is different from any other car in reality, it wouldn't matter and thus stand out as unrealistic, because the inner working is sound, I might even say this is a real car but a real car that has yet been produced, because on paper it's possible to design and manufacture a car with such stats.

That's my point on why real life reference helps creating a realistic simulation, however depiction of the actual object itself is not. And I think as long as you have a good physics engine, it will be rather easy to inject real life datas and create "real" cars.

Think about it, when F1 designers start a new car, they start with concepts base on engineering principles that they know is sound, they do not start base on the old numbers of previous cars and reverse engineer it, because they already know how that part of physics works. Their new car, is basically designed out of fastasy, experiemented in virtual reality and then built in real life, most of the time the end product will behave very close to what is simulated, up to that point it's all down to engineers and their maths, rather then what the driver feels. The driver feedback in the end is just a final check on the actual outcome conceived from a mental point of view, very important for the result, but a driver cannot design a car because the information pool he draws from is different from the engineers.

That's alright in real life because physics is a constant, but in sim racing, how can a real world racing driver tell whether it's the fault of the physics engine, or the data that goes into engine that creates the problem? The driver can tell whether the car reacts correctly under a turn in - throttle lift scenario, but he cannot possibly know whether it's the setup, the parameters, the physics engine, or even the input controllers, and because they don't spend hours a day messing with a sim in different combos, they cannot cross check and unlike us, knows the flaw in the physics models.

Yes its kind of a shock isnt it? How the Flight Simulators have advanced and improved in all areas, while we Sim Racers still got stuck somewhere in the 90s. You should check out some Payware Updates for Flight Sims, every button, every switch is working and simulated, everything real Pilots have to deal with is just amazingly good Simulated.

Back to the Point about why real Race Drivers comments about a Sim have to be taken not too seriously. I try to explain it better.

I have driven Formula cars and have spoken to F1 Drivers, while real Race car drivers know exactly how there cars behave, they dont know what can and should be simulated, how far have Simulations advanced? How good is a Sim compared to a other?
The real Race drivers just dont know, thats why there comments about Sims cannot be taken to seriously, unless they have driven thousands of laps in different Sims, tweaked and setted up the Wheel and the Sim correctly. Most real drivers have not done this, thats why Alexander Wurz for example thought the best Simulation is on the Nintendo 64. If I show Alexander Wurz Grand Prix 3 from Crammond he would probably change his mind and say something along the lines of GP3 is the most realistic F1 Simulation. Just because he has no experience in Racing Simulations.

And you also have to take into consideration that alot of drivers dont really care about what they are saying about a Computer Game, if there Manager says, "were going to make a Advertisement for this Racing Game", the driver is not going to argue around and just comment positively about it. Just take a look at Dale Earnhardt Junior, the Man has his very own NASCAR Racing Online league, he is a regular Sim Racer of Papyrus NASCAR Racing 2003 Sim, yet, he makes advertisement for the Electronic Arts NASCAR Game, because his Management tells him so.

[Whitmore]

You are confusing driver endorsement with driver input. This isn't about whether a driver is judging which is the best sim but a driver giving feedback to improve a sim. Check out Alx Danielsson's review of NetKar Pro in ASS magazine if you don't believe a race driver can provide useful feedback.

[George Kuyumji]

You are confusing driver endorsement with driver input. This isn't about whether a driver is judging which is the best sim but a driver giving feedback to improve a sim. Check out Alx Danielsson's review of NetKar Pro in ASS magazine if you don't believe a race driver can provide useful feedback.

Theres no confusion in that regard. The point I was tryieng to make is that any input of a real Race car driver or comments about a Sim should not be taken to seriously in nearly all cases. I dont know about Alex Danielssons Review of netkar Pro, I have driven F2000 cars myself and regard netkarPro a very good Simulation of it. But the truth is that most if not nearly all regular real Race car drivers have not spend thousands of laps and a intense time configuring, experiencing and testing a number of different Sims for a long period of time. So there opinions is limited not by there knowledge about the real car, but by the limited knowledge about different Simulations in general.
That Danielssons might be a regular Sim Racer and a regular real Race Car driver, but that would be the exception of what is going on with every new Race Sim or Game, you will always find a real Race Driver say the Physics of that particular Game are top notch and that he has helped improving the Physics. It is infact hard to find any Racing Game without some Marketing Bla Bla from a real Race driver.

[JTbo]

How sim feels is an illusion, we enjoy illusion of driving a car.

Then there is certain aspects we can measure, take time etc. we can get good simulation only if these match.

Feeling is then addition to top, caused how steering and pedals movement information is being used and what kind force feedback is, along with all chrome and bling create feeling, but also part of feeling is how car reacts in virtual world.

But you never will get same feeling out from sim as you do in reallife. And I really hope that nobody is not using momo and complaining about realism, that would be quite silly when you would have 0.67 turns from lock to lock :D

I really don't care how race cars are, I have not much experience from them and no interest to them either, for me these games really has now only few cars, I have lost all interest to race cars.

Oh and that is true, only sim racer that races cars can really tell if sim is working right or not, setting up controls to be realistic as possible for example is a task that is taking bit more skill than average racer Joe has from sims.

Tristan, can you really give only number for rFactor and all of it's mods? I feel that some mods are closer than others so will be quite hard to tell what number should be, problem is that one mod that does almost all things worse than others can be better than any in one single thing.

I have had intention to do small test track to car park and do same to rFactor too so some measurements could be done, but never have got around to it, I'm just too lazy :razz: Other point is that it does not interest me very much, because I'm mostly happy how LFS handles now and I'm happy that I have rF where I can make things I like, so can't complain really.

However, I got really disappointed that I could not make my flying monkeys to really fly in rF, they just hop a bit, would need some proper propulsion device :D

[Electrik Kar]

I could not make my flying monkeys to really fly in rF, they just hop a bit

Can we see a video please? :nod::D

[Foropsico]

Some good posts here/differences of opinion as to what should constitute a good sim. Regarding above statement, I wonder how practical this approach is, given current technological restrictions. I've read that it's pretty impossible to just input correct physical values of various RL data and expect that your virtual car will behave in the same way, because in reality there are so many other small variables interacting with and influencing these forces which are not being calculated and which cannot be calculated due to the hardware limitations/whatever. I'm not a physicist/engineer so I cannot comment any further, it's just that I wonder about this purist approach- the idea that if you've the correct data, in theory it should all just work the way it's supposed to. At some point, if you want your simulation to be believable, to feel right, to behave realistically, you're going to have to fudge some variables here and there because no matter how good the data is, it's not representative of the full spectrum of forces which are operating within the real world.

LFS/Rf may be perfect simulations of themselves, but if physics is universal, and understood, then why is it so hard to get something working properly inside a computer? Probably because you're inputting only part of the story.

Yes, thats exactly what i was saying.

You are confusing driver endorsement with driver input. This isn't about whether a driver is judging which is the best sim but a driver giving feedback to improve a sim. Check out Alx Danielsson's review of NetKar Pro in ASS magazine if you don't believe a race driver can provide useful feedback.

You get the point.

Is good to see some people understand this and not defending LFS like a
fanatic.

[joen]

Is good to see some people understand this and not defending LFS like a
fanatic.

Sigh. There we go again, once again people who just believe the route LFS has chosen is the better way are labeled as a fanatic/fanboy. Waste of time.

[George Kuyumji]

Is good to see some people understand this and not defending LFS like a
fanatic.

And who defends LFS "like a Fanatic"? :really:

[joen]

Defending LFS like a fanatic/fanboy would be like "nanana, no matter what you say I'm not receptive to your reasoning, LFS is teh bestest anyway no matter what you say". I have not seen anyone act like this, people give motivations for their points of view.

You on the other hand give very little motivation and just say in order to simulate physics, real life cars MUST be imitated. Period.
You label people not agreeing with you as being unable to comprehend.
Good luck in life.

[Dajmin]

Defending LFS like a fanatic/fanboy would be like "nanana, no matter what you say I'm not receptive to your reasoning, LFS is teh bestest anyway no matter what you say".
Sadly, I have seen people responding that way, mainly just when it's related to rF though. And thankfully not so much recently. Perhaps the people who used to do it either grew up or got banned.

[Whitmore]

But the truth is that most if not nearly all regular real Race car drivers have not spend thousands of laps and a intense time configuring, experiencing and testing a number of different Sims for a long period of time. So there opinions is limited not by there knowledge about the real car, but by the limited knowledge about different Simulations in general.

A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input :)

[JTbo]

A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input :)

Problem is when he has no experience from sims he does not see what is causing different behavior, he is then saying how it feels and what he feels is really twisted presentation of what sim really does, now when they adjust sim based to this they make it work well for that particular system setup and for those settings instead of basing their adjustments to real facts, this causes problem of sim to behave unrealistic.

How it feels has nothing to do how real it is, feeling is just illusion to give immersion, or something like that.
Simulating is just making things happen according to facts and rules.

That is how I see it, we really need to separate these two things.

[tristancliffe]

I reinstalled rF yesterday, and played in the Sauber (bleh), the F3s (tee hee) and now the 1979 mod (woah).

Anyone care to direct me to a mod that is like a real car? I think part of the problem is my ini files, so I've eventually managed to find some controller settings recommended for the G25 on RSC (took ages), and it's a bit better, but still lacking.

Been driving for about an hour in it today, and so far none of the 'cars' have felt like cars.

[George Kuyumji]

A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input :)

The point is how can he compare the car in the Sim to reality when he doesnt know much about Sims? He cant. Simple Example: Take a real Dodge Viper driver who has no experience in Sims, and let him test Viper Racing, he may very well consider the suspension movements and weight transfer of the car to be "good" or "very good", when maybe they are poor compared to other Sims. But how should he know if he doesnt know other Sims? It is actually very logical that real life drivers cannot improve or comment on Sims very good when they have only little experience in Sims, which is the case with most real drivers. It is essential for the real driver to have experience in Sims to give useful feedback on it.

[Shotglass]

Some good posts here/differences of opinion as to what should constitute a good sim. Regarding above statement, I wonder how practical this approach is, given current technological restrictions. I've read that it's pretty impossible to just input correct physical values of various RL data and expect that your virtual car will behave in the same way, because in reality there are so many other small variables interacting with and influencing these forces which are not being calculated and which cannot be calculated due to the hardware limitations/whatever. I'm not a physicist/engineer so I cannot comment any further, it's just that I wonder about this purist approach- the idea that if you've the correct data, in theory it should all just work the way it's supposed to. At some point, if you want your simulation to be believable, to feel right, to behave realistically, you're going to have to fudge some variables here and there because no matter how good the data is, it's not representative of the full spectrum of forces which are operating within the real world.

In general what your saying holds true of course. But the problem is with how you fudge those physics and what effect you´re trying to achieve by it.
Let´s take aero for example. Obviously no current hardware is able to run a full fluid dynamics calculation 2000 times each second, so you´re forced to somewhat fudge the aero physics in your sim.
The ISI approach seems to be to not bother much with it and to fudge most of the aero physics into the tyres slip angle curves, which causes the infamous snappiness and undriftability of ISI sims, even at speeds where the aero has no sizeable effect on the cars handling.
LFS goes a totally different route by trying to get the tyres to behave as correctly as possible and then putting some fudged aero physics simulation on top of. The current largely underdeveloped state of those is what ironically causes the exact opposite of how ISI sims behave, ie you´re able to drift an f1 at speeds where any yaw should cause the wings to stall, the tyre loads to drop into nothingness and the car to swap ends.
Apparently neither one is correct.
Thats not the end of it however. LFS' tyre physics are now at a point where they´re reasonably correct for most of the time. If you were to take LFS in its current state and let it run on a quantum computer some 40 years from now and replaced the aero phyics by an all out real time CFD calculation you´d have a sim which has tyres that behave more or less correctly with very good aero on top of it. If you did the same thing with GTR2 you´d have an even bigger mess than the game is in its current state as you´ll effectively double the snappiness of the cars.

Personally i will always go with sims that take the correct physics aproach simply because thats the meaning of simulation as opposed to immtation.

[keiran]

A real driver does not need to have experience of driving different sims to give useful feedback on the sim they are developing. All he has to do is compare that one sim to reality. As I said before, you are confusing endorsement with development input :)

Of course a real driver needs exerience in other sims to give useful feedback. Okay he can still give feedback on certain things but you need something to give you an idea of what is currently achievable. Anyone who has driven anything around a race track will tell you that sitting at your computer with a plastic wheel is boring in comparison, due to the lack of G-Forces and the risk factor that gives you a buzz.

Look back through the years of racing simulations. F1GP was awesome in its time, so why don't we still think that now? Because a new crop of games appeared on the scene? :nod:

We all compare things relativley to what we know. There is a point where you have to say it's still a game (how does a real driver who has never played sims before know where that mark is?), as no racing simulation will ever come close to simulating the real thing until they figure out a way to simulate the real G-Forces on your body.

Let me point out I'm not saying a driver who has raced the car he is giving feedback on is totally useless without trying other sims. What I'm saying it's hard to get past that, "This is only a game" feeling. Giving someone a taster of what is currently available allows them to build a picture in there head to realise what's possible.

Keiran

[Foropsico]

Defending LFS like a fanatic/fanboy would be like "nanana, no matter what you say I'm not receptive to your reasoning, LFS is teh bestest anyway no matter what you say". I have not seen anyone act like this, people give motivations for their points of view.

Well, giving an ilogic reasoning is the same. Do you think is logic saying: "GT4 has tons of real cars and tracks. How realistic is that to you?" "so LFS is better because it doesnt have real cars and tracks". GT4 is a sh**** because its devs, not because it has real cars and tracks.

This doesnt help to improve LFS.
But i didnt give any name, so if you felt identified with my words, is up to you.

How it feels has nothing to do how real it is, feeling is just illusion to give immersion, or something like that.
Simulating is just making things happen according to facts and rules.
Thats the only important thing in a simrace, numbers are for engineering purpose, simrace is about feeling. Of course, is a better aprouch to make a physics model than just a code who move your forcefeedback like you want. But this is just about feelings.

I propose a challenge, drive rfactor F1, take turns faster as you can, dont push the throttle, then push the throttle (dont slide the tires, drive without aids), do the same with rfactor. If you know how a real race car feels, you will notice that LFS has a physics bug there.

[JJ72]

And who defends LFS "like a Fanatic"? :really:
Many people go to the LFS forum and make long posts just to tease the fanboy among us show their face, cause they tend to get a good laugh from it. :tilt:

[joen]

Well, giving an ilogic reasoning is the same. Do you think is logic saying: "GT4 has tons of real cars and tracks. How realistic is that to you?" "so LFS is better because it doesnt have real cars and tracks". GT4 is a sh**** because its devs, not because it has real cars and tracks.


You sure have a way with rehashing what people say, then adding your conclusion to it (and even putting that in quotation marks!) and implying that's what people have said. This is a perfect example of it.


This doesnt help to improve LFS.
Oh, is that what you're trying to do here? A newbie that just registered this month, doesn't know S2 and seems to think he has "the vision". Give me a break.


But i didnt give any name, so if you felt identified with my words, is up to you.Who said I was speaking and/or defending for myself? You made a comment in general about people not being able to understand your undeniable truth, thus making them fanatics, and I responded to that trolling statement. So that's you drawing your own conclusions again.

Anyway, enough of this.

[keiran]

Thats the only important thing in a simrace, numbers are for engineering purpose, simrace is about feeling. Of course, is a better aprouch to make a physics model than just a code who move your forcefeedback like you want. But this is just about feelings.

Without numbers no racing sim would exist...


I propose a challenge, drive rfactor F1, take turns faster as you can, dont push the throttle, then push the throttle (dont slide the tires, drive without aids), do the same with rfactor. If you know how a real race car feels, you will notice that LFS has a physics bug there.

Yes and how would you know about LFS BMW sauber... :rolleyes:

Anyway, rFs BMW Sauber suffers the same fate as most rF cars. Start sliding and that's it, the grip disappears and no matter how much counter-steering you throw at it, the thing still spins as if you were steering in the wrong direction to catch it. That is a huge mistake in the slip curves from what JTbo seems to have managed... I also can't understand your point either... If you were to suddenly let off the throttle when the car was fully loaded around a fast turn, you'd most likely come out the other end backwards in real life...

[bbman]

You think LFS has a physics engine thats imitate every aspect of the real world physics? If thats true, why when you crash, cars fly 20 meters in the air? I think LFS is not so perfect.

No, I'm talking about physics being applied universally to everything rather than car-specific... Because it's far more "real", because it's right...

[JTbo]

That is a huge mistake in the slip curves from what JTbo seems to have managed... I also can't understand your point either... If you were to suddenly let off the throttle when the car was fully loaded around a fast turn, you'd most likely come out the other end backwards in real life...

I can't understand quite fully that, but anyway.
I think that I have not managed to accomplish much anything yet, just few experiments that has shown promising possibilities, maybe some day I can get overall behavior to be what I seek, but I can tell that current result of my experiments is not perfect tire, there is some potential that shows that engine itself can do much better than how it has been used, but those are rather bad tires actually :D

[keiran]

I can't understand quite fully that, but anyway.
I think that I have not managed to accomplish much anything yet, just few experiments that has shown promising possibilities, maybe some day I can get overall behavior to be what I seek, but I can tell that current result of my experiments is not perfect tire, there is some potential that shows that engine itself can do much better than how it has been used, but those are rather bad tires actually :D

Juding from what you've said I think you have understood me fine :)

The majority of mods and the deafult content of rF seems to have problems in the tyre department resutling in a horrible driving experience when you step over the limit IMO. I'd rather have the LFS way which seems to be a little too controlable at large angles than not being able to slide much at all. From the video I've seen of your work so far you seem to have managed to get rF to slide more naturally.

[Foropsico]

Yes and how would you know about LFS BMW sauber... :rolleyes:

I see, you disqualify people without a reason. I have been playing BF1 many times on a friend house and i have been driving real formula race cars so i can tell you how a sim behaves pretty quick. And i would buy the S2 when i have the money because i love most aspects of LFS (specialy demo cars but not so much high power cars) but i think there are other aspects that needs to be corrected.

Anyway, rFs BMW Sauber suffers the same fate as most rF cars. Start sliding and that's it, the grip disappears and no matter how much counter-steering you throw at it, the thing still spins as if you were steering in the wrong direction to catch it. That is a huge mistake in the slip curves from what JTbo seems to have managed...
This is interesting. A real formula race car behaves like that. The car have so much grip until you loss the car, then you cant recover it easily. You describe this in excelent way (because i am spanish). You cant drift with an F1. The reason is that tires start sliding and burning (tires are very soft) so they loss grip, the car is very hard to control without good grip (i am not engineer). This is for me one of the most serious bugs in LFS. This is OK on demo cars (normal cars), but not in race cars.

I also can't understand your point either... If you were to suddenly let off the throttle when the car was fully loaded around a fast turn, you'd most likely come out the other end backwards in real life... I just saying, test the behaviour of the cars, is diferent and for me F1 is more acurate in rfactor, but other cars are more acurate in LFS.

I want to tell you something. When i used to race real formulas, i get some interesting behaviours of a real car when i push the car to the limit. I remember when i entered in a turn faster than i can and i was scared, so i turn the steering so much and the car just go straight to the grass without turning at least a little bit and the steering wheel go so soft that feels like if the car was on the air flying, this happened when tires burn. Normal cars doesnt have this behaviour. I dont see a simrace with this behaviour correctly achieved.

[JTbo]

Juding from what you've said I think you have understood me fine :)

The majority of mods and the deafult content of rF seems to have problems in the tyre department resutling in a horrible driving experience when you step over the limit IMO. I'd rather have the LFS way which seems to be a little too controlable at large angles than not being able to slide much at all. From the video I've seen of your work so far you seem to have managed to get rF to slide more naturally.

Yes, reason for this too much slide syndrome is that after 10-12 degrees slip angle slip curve drops very fast over 20% and then keeps dropping so that there is over 30% less at 90 degrees. Slip curve is not absolutely grip, but is used to modify grip, there is other very important parameters too and that is just one piece of puzzle.

But when you take wheel that turns only that 0.67 rotations from lock to lock, those default tires feel quite good, however you should not be able to lost any slide with such wheel and thus it is false good feeling, imo. Now it is easy then to say that something feels too easy if using such wheel, but trying with 900 degrees gives completely different feeling, very hard to catch.
This is big change we have seen when these wheels with 900 degree possibilities did came in and I'm sure huge amount of issues are something around these different controllers.

[Fischfix]

if it comes to controllers, we are no way near reality. the padels don't feel like in a real car, the wheel is too small comared to a real car. gear shifting is still a joke (unless you have some boutique parts...)


i don't think realism is that important in online gaming. most important thing is, to have fun no matter if the one game lacks of realism in damage and the other lacks on tyre simulation.

greatest experience with online gameing is the interaction with other people and not with a stupid or predictable AI.

BUT if you can do a donut in a front wheel drive, then it's a NO GO :)

[Boris Lozac]

if it comes to controllers, we are no way near reality

When you think about this, it is not entirely true.
The materials are different, but the action you do with the real wheel and the PC wheel are the same.
I am talking about racing now, and the situations where you don't have to turn your wheel more than 270 degrees. So, i don't count countersteering, drifting etc, because it is very hard to reproduce the same effects and forces that real wheel gives you in that situation.
So, you are driving at normal racing speeds, going in ideal racing line, without sudden movements. So, the things you would feel in real life, are the things you feel in LFS too, it's just that you hold a plastic wheel, with FF motors, that is connected to the desk, instead of the steering columng, BUT, the FF motors have enough power to reproduce the same amount of force that a real wheel would give you. Ok, it's not exactly the same, but when i tried the G25, and it's two FF motors, the effect was very very similiar to a real car.
So, it's not that different after all.. :shrug:

[JTbo]

When you think about this, it is not entirely true.
The materials are different, but the action you do with the real wheel and the PC wheel are the same.
I am talking about racing now, and the situations where you don't have to turn your wheel more than 270 degrees. So, i don't count countersteering, drifting etc, because it is very hard to reproduce the same effects and forces that real wheel gives you in that situation.
So, you are driving at normal racing speeds, going in ideal racing line, without sudden movements. So, the things you would feel in real life, are the things you feel in LFS too, it's just that you hold a plastic wheel, with FF motors, that is connected to the desk, instead of the steering columng, BUT, the FF motors have enough power to reproduce the same amount of force that a real wheel would give you. Ok, it's not exactly the same, but when i tried the G25, and it's two FF motors, the effect was very very similiar to a real car.
So, it's not that different after all.. :shrug:

If you use wheel with 270 degrees, you would need to use steering lock of 9 degrees in street car to get similar range of steering that you have in use.

270 degrees = 0.75 turns lock to lock and if we estimate road car to have fast steering with 3 turns lock to lock and to have 36 degrees of steering angle we get that 0.75 turns is 9 degrees of lock.

It is not about forces, but how much easier it is to catch tail for example, when you have ultra fast steering.

[Boris Lozac]

It is not about forces, but how much easier it is to catch tail for example, when you have ultra fast steering.

Well, ok, but you could modify a car to have this kind of lock and steering.
Or you could forget about 270 degrees, i was just using that because my Momo has it. Take DFP or G25 for example, and than tell me what is so different to the real wheel, and why we could never compare sims with real life. It really IS comparable, as i explained in previous post, you are not getting any other extra feedback from a real car, than you do with G25(again not taking countersteering and drifting in count).
You are doing everything you do with the real steering wheel, aren't you? and the feedback is pretty much similiar, isn't it?
But than again, every car has a different steering wheel, and every one of them behaves differently, some give better feeling for the driver, some less, but let's say that you find a car with a wheel that behaves similiarly to G25.. what don't you get with G25, that you do with the real wheel?
People are underestimating sims and PC steering wheels.

[JTbo]

What you see is very different, small display at front of you gives quite small window to game world, what it was 25-30 degrees that it covers? Anyway you miss lot of information again, awareness of direction car is going is much better IRL, even with 3 monitors it is quite small area that it covers.

Even with G25 or DFP at 900 degrees mode you still have very very fast steering 2.5 turns from lock to lock, street cars have usually much more, my car has 4.8 turns from lock to lock, rather impossible to make it feel perfectly right, either too easy or then tires won't turn enough to keep same angle in drift.
Also if I set my DFP to feel enough heavy like real car it will be that damn heavy also when moving, also it will become so slow that driving becomes impossible, have to keep forces almost off to get even little like real steering, real steering don't have lag or if it has car will fail MOT :D

Then feeling in you arse, that is rather important, who has really good motion simulator at home? This and sound will give more information than steering.

Also at least with DFP forces are far from real, also wheel is so sluggishly slow that even I can feel it, here G25 I hear is much better, but I doubt very much that if it is like real steering of car, sure it gives you information, a lot, but still far from real.

Also what you hear all little pieces of information there is very far from real, sound equipment alone limits this greatly and no single sim has convinced me with sounds, there sure is lot of information but very different from real life. LFS engine sounds are rather good in how they respond to throttle but sound itself needs of course work, tire sounds are like hammer compared to precision instrument.

You can't really focus only to driving around, sim needs to handle also situations where you are about to loose control and when you loose control, also drifting, if sim can't do these it is not very good, imo.

If controller does makes these other situations too easy it should be noticed, why to make sim work not right if user has controller that is not right, is sim even a sim if there is false simulation to get feeling right with some controller that is not capable to turn enough? (all pc wheels) I think sim have to simulate things right and users should know what causes too easy behavior.

Changing steering lock is dirty hack around problem, currently only one we do have that does not cost house and kids, it is as good as setting fov to 30 degrees. It is cheating to use more fov as it is cheating and not realistic to use more steering lock, but still I do both, because I like to enjoy from game ;)

[Boris Lozac]

I never said anything about other aspects that separates the sim from real world :), i only said that steering feel is very similiar to real life.
And as i see, you haven't tried G25. BELIEVE ME, it's a different world compared to Momo and DFP. I was shocked really, how good it feels, like the wheel is connected with the steering column, and that i have tires somewhere behind a desk. I was about to cry :tilt: when i saw how better and more real it is compared to my Momo, that i bought just months ago, so i didn't had the hart to buy G25 that soon..

Anyway, yes, the steering degree is still not like in real life, but very close.
Driving a FWD car, within normal limits, like you would in RL, maybe bit more agressively, you have very similiar feeling like in a real car.
Those two FF motors in G25 really give you some serious force, very, very real force.

[JJ72]

Even with G25 or DFP at 900 degrees mode you still have very very fast steering 2.5 turns from lock to lock, street cars have usually much more, my car has 4.8 turns from lock to lock, rather impossible to make it feel perfectly right, either too easy or then tires won't turn enough to keep same angle in drift.

You'll get 2.5 turns on a Honda S2000 or a alfa romeo, I can't really understand why street car needs so much lock, indeed if you want to prepare a track car you would surely want to install a quicker steering rack.

[JTbo]

You'll get 2.5 turns on a Honda S2000 or a alfa romeo, I can't really understand why street car needs so much lock, indeed if you want to prepare a track car you would surely want to install a quicker steering rack.

Sure, you can fit also fiber hood, remove back seat and install roll cage etc.

But point is that when your PC wheel has less turns than car you are sim driving you can't complain sim being too easy as you will have huge help from super fast steering, like with momo or when using for example 480 degrees with dfp or G25.

[JJ72]

sorry, how do you know how many turns the car we are sim driving are supposed to have?

judging from the virtual dummy in the cockpit the cars in LFS has really really little lock indeed.

[AndroidXP]

sorry, how do you know how many turns the car we are sim driving are supposed to have?

judging from the virtual dummy in the cockpit the cars in LFS has really really little lock indeed.
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Cars#Car_Steering_Wheel_Lock_Angles

[EeekiE]

Collision detection when hitting a barrier is different to calculating the cars dynamics when driving it.

It will currently pong the car into oblivion because that's the only way it can use the energy it's been given. The mesh that makes up the car has no spring/torsion/tensile properties at the moment so the whole thing acts like a rigid body, so it's like dropping a pool ball on a tiled floor. It will bounce.

But I'd sooner this, which shows a unified consistant physical world, than an easy line of code to stop it happening. I'd rather it be solved completely indirectly when the damage model of the car is finished, than a line of code to explicitly stop the scenario from occuring, which would be easy, but one step away from "simulation". Which is what it's all about.

[migf1]

Good read, with some very interesting and informative posts! But at the end it all comes down to one thing guys, fun!

IMHO there's no need to struggle to find or prove which sim is more or less realistic, simply because most of us have no clue what the point of reference is. It gets even funnier if you consider that if, say, we ask M.Schumacher and Kimi to give us feedback on the behavior of an F1 car, the same F1 car, most probably they'll tell us different stories. That's because they have different point of views, different driving styles, different line of experience, etc, etc.

So, what really matters (at least to me) is what sim I have the most fun with. And guess what, I have fun with more than one sim <img>

I've been racing sims since the days of Geoff Cramond's GP2 and I honestly beleive that this quest for the more realistic sim is good mostly for makrketing purposes, but it has no answer. It lyes in the category of those "to be or not to be?" or "who's created first, the hen or the egg?" type of questions! <img>

Something that feels totally realistic to me, who have only driven road cars, most probably feels like total crap to a dedicated racing driver (who btw rarely drives road cars). Totally different points of reference! And things get much more confusing with sims like LFS and rF that include many different types of vehicles (I own them both)!

If I may comment on some semi-objective things about the two sims, I would say that LFS is better in physics, ffb and online, while rF is better in graphics, sound and (of course) modding.

Compared to rF, the two things that really bother me in LFS is the lack of real tracks (I don't really care about real cars... I've explained above why :)) and the generally slower feeling of speed. All in all, I think rF is much more immersive than LFS, but I am mostly racing LFS (now, how contradictive is that? <img>).

[Boris Lozac]

Sure, you can fit also fiber hood, remove back seat and install roll cage etc.

But point is that when your PC wheel has less turns than car you are sim driving you can't complain sim being too easy as you will have huge help from super fast steering, like with momo or when using for example 480 degrees with dfp or G25.

Yes, that's true, but the point i was trying to make is, that a good PC steering wheel like G25, or those more expensive wheels, can give you a a prety much the same feeling like you are getting in a real car, in normal driving circumstances. I don't know did any of you tried those really expensive wheels, but i saw a clip from some Japanese PC wheel, where the returns itself from a countersteer fast like a real car. I was shocked. So even proper drfiting is possible with that kind of wheel.
G25 is enough for 70, 80 % of driving situations, so people really can't say that this is a GAME that we are playing, that we have to face with that, etc, etc.. Wrong. We only lack G forces(and no, not even Force Dynamics can't replicate that, because it is trowing you back and forth, i would trow up after 30 minutes i bet) and we lack the fear, the smels, all kind of sounds from real life, BUT, you can learn to face with that, and really drive a sim car like a real car.
When my brother watch me driving LFS, he say that i tend to move my body in corners, and really get myself into it :), i don't notice that, but he says that i am reacting like in a real car, like i'm moving my body as i am feeling some G forces, but that's because of the immersion i get from LFS, it's FF feel, and that feel that i am really connected to the car.

[Blade21]

The only down side for me with LFS is when the car comes lose, if you correct it, it isn't usually the best option but to just leave the car going straight which is not realistic. But once you get the hang of it its fine.
The other one is damage. Open wheel, real life if you'd make contact, your wings would fly off etc, on LFS they just bend like a front bumper would.
Then the crashes. When ever someone crashes I just piss myself laughing, I can't help it, the crashes are so over the top and funny. I can see why so many people crash...
Other then that I have never had so much fun online gaming. LFS has introuduced me to online gaming and other then what I mentioned above, it's great. Not that they are bad, just that is the only areas really where LFS tends to drift slightly from reality.

[BuddhaBing]

Collision detection when hitting a barrier is different to calculating the cars dynamics when driving it.

It will currently pong the car into oblivion because that's the only way it can use the energy it's been given. The mesh that makes up the car has no spring/torsion/tensile properties at the moment so the whole thing acts like a rigid body, so it's like dropping a pool ball on a tiled floor. It will bounce.

If collision elasticity is the problem, it's a relatively straightforward fix and shouldn't involve any special case coding. All that would be required is to set the coefficient of restitution (CoR) to a lower value. A CoR of 1.0 results in a perfectly elastic collision while 0.0 results in a perfectly inelastic collision. Given that cars are highly deformable and have crumple zones and a lot of empty space, I imagine the CoR would be relatively low.

However, I'm not convinced that the root cause of the problem is as simple as the elasticity of the colliding objects, since the energy state of the car and barrier post-collision often seems to be higher than it was pre-collision.

[Woz]

If collision elasticity is the problem, it's a relatively straightforward fix and shouldn't involve any special case coding. All that would be required is to set the coefficient of restitution (CoR) to a lower value. A CoR of 1.0 results in a perfectly elastic collision while 0.0 results in a perfectly inelastic collision. Given that cars are highly deformable and have crumple zones and a lot of empty space, I imagine they would have a relatively low CoR.

However, I'm not convinced that the root cause of the problem is as simple as the elasticity of the colliding objects, since the energy state of the car and barrier post-collision often seems to be higher than it was pre-collision.

Yes there are other issues at play here, such as lag jumps etc. If a cars position is corrected such that part of it now appears "inside" another car that is seen as an impact of HUGE levels and boom... we have pinball table cars. You only see this effect online, no offine as car positions are accurate all the time.

[Woz]

For me, most "sims" out there a fine while you have grip, what shows the difference between them is what happens once you go beyond grip. The trouble with the ISI engine (and others to be fair) is that when you step outside of grip things start to fall apart.

That is the joy of LFS for me. No its not 100% accurate but in the LFS world things are repeatable and consistent all of the time no matter how you push it. When something goes wrong you can think about the cause and know what mistake you made. That more than makes up for it.

There is talk of racing drivers saying this and that sim are as real as it gets but in the end of the day 99.9999% of the time you have to realise they have been PAID to add their endorsment to the product in the same way that famous people in the related fields have been asked to endorse products in the past and will be asked to do it in the future.

[EeekiE]

The narrow phase collision detection will be allowing geometry to intersect each other too much, and will be getting a high reaction velocity reading returned. But that doesn't affect handling physics.

[bubbles]

I own both games, all I can say is both games are good, especialy if your from australia you can dowload all local tracks for Rfactor v8factor.

And you really can't complain, there really isn't much money invested in car sims compared to flight sims.

Just my 2 cents

[GHOSTRACER1]

[/URL]http://ak47rulez.extra.hu/rf_subaru_final.wmv (http://ak47rulez.extra.hu/rf_subaru_final.wmv)

:D

[URL]http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=RFR%3A%2020%20Years%20of%20Rally

[BuddhaBing]

http://ak47rulez.extra.hu/rf_subaru_final.wmv

Nice. That's the first time I've seen a car in rFactor that looks and behaves convincingly like a real car. It's even got suspension that seems to work! Shame about the tracks though.

If I'm not mistaken, that mod is by the same mod team that has created some of the best mods for Richard Burns Rally.

[JTbo]

Nice. That's the first time I've seen a car in rFactor that looks and behaves convincingly like a real car. It's even got suspension that seems to work! Shame about the tracks though.

Ah, but then you have missed few video clips from few of these threads ;)

[GHOSTRACER1]

http://ak47rulez.extra.hu/rf_subaru_final.wmv

:D

http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=RFR%3A%2020%20Years%20of%20Rally

No stupid comments from the usual RF detractors,i can understand why........:)

[BuddhaBing]

No stupid comments from the usual RF detractors,i can understand why........:)

Yes, congratulations are in order; when this mod is eventually released, rFactor may finally have a car that actually behaves like a car. I can see why you must be almost giddy with excitement!

[JTbo]

Yes, congratulations are in order; when this mod is eventually released, rFactor may finally have a car that actually behaves like a car. I can see why you must be almost giddy with excitement!

Maybe, don't hold your breath, video has fake sounds at beginning, action can be taken also from best parts and driving can be done so that it looks much better than it really is.
Can be really good, but what I saw in video did not make me convinced. Have seen better :D

[chunkyracer]

Unfortunately, I don´t think they would be so good, as they are in RBR...

[Boris Lozac]

Unfortunately, I don´t think they would be so good, as they are in RBR...

Of course it can't. It would have to be some magical INI file to change all the things that are wrong in rF/ISI...

[JTbo]

I don't understand praise of RBR, it gives nice feeling because narrow roads and so on,surely physics are quite nice for arcade game too, but car just don't act like real car, specially those tires are very odd.

All it has is feeling that is great, do any real tests and you find out how it is not even near to level of LFS. However driving fast on gravel is giving very correct scary feeling, it is good game sure.

[Boris Lozac]

surely physics are quite nice for arcade game too

Wo, wo, wo.. :really:
Have you even drove RBR long enough to say such thing?
It is really on par with LFS, RBR and arcade are words that just doesn't go together. :really:

[JTbo]

Wo, wo, wo.. :really:
Have you even drove RBR long enough to say such thing?
It is really on par with LFS, RBR and arcade are words that just doesn't go together. :really:

Sorry if I did upset or anything, was not intention but as it was developed for console and converted to pc and how data is used in it I can't help thinking that it is arcade game ;)

If that RBR rank site (http://www.swedishsimracers.com/rbr/) would work I would put up my stats here, but as it does not work I can't show my stats, anyway name is same here as it is in there, if it happen to work later.

Been playing RBR from day 1 when it came, it is great fun, just too addicting I must say. Haven't played much of it for long time as need to focus only few to have time for something else than computers. If stats would work there would be dates when I have submitted times.

Specially in slow speed car seems to be floating instead of going on wheels, still far best what rally games have shown, but really far from LFS, imo.

Also it does not simulate things as LFS, for example engine model they made was complex, but no any computer would run that in real time so they generated data with heavy simulation and game uses this data, unlike some say that there would be proper realtime calculation going on, there is not.
In LFS there is rather simple engine model, but it does run in real time, having for example turbo model, in RBR there was turbo lights but could you really say that it acted like real spinning turbo?

[Boris Lozac]

Sorry if I did upset or anything, was not intention but as it was developed for console and converted to pc and how data is used in it I can't help thinking that it is arcade game ;)

No, no, it didn't upseted me :) but i was kinda surprised hearing you mention arcade and RBR together, and couldn't help but think that you haven't drove it enough for that kind of statement.
It is by no means an arcade game. I don't know how well it simulates certain things, and yes, i believe and feel that LFS is more advanced, but the thing is, in RBR i do and aply same things i do in LFS. Everything is working logically, and everything happens with a reason, just like in LFS. I can switch beatween RBR and LFS with no problem, because they both feel so natural and real.

[JTbo]

I'm missing weight transfer pretty much from RBR, it works in LFS and I can get it to work right in rFactor, but in RBR car does not respond to weight transfer such way, in slow speeds car seem to be behaving also very differently from real thing. But it gives rather good illusion of real driving, however there always is something in physics that lets down.

Physics of it seem to be simpler than rFactor or LFS in some way. So I have trouble understanding why almost everyone praises it to be as good as LFS, but maybe I'm just missing something from it, don't know.

Anyway car in that video from rFactor rally mod looks like to be behaving lot like car in RBR, something is off somewhat.

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta29R-rTBrQ) is some video, near end there is ford and car gets bad jump there, now for me that looks really odd behavior, that is similar what I'm having trouble with, if you do how is intended everything seem to be nice and ok, but when you do something differently it seem to have problems. If I just cruise trough stage car feels really odd, not at all like it feels when pushing it and when you look outside it runs not very naturally when just cruising slowly trough stage.

[Boris Lozac]

I'm missing weight transfer pretty much from RBR, it works in LFS and I can get it to work right in rFactor, but in RBR car does not respond to weight transfer such way, in slow speeds car seem to be behaving also very differently from real thing.

Well, perhaps it's the fact that steering wheels in Rally cars are very light, and thus giving you less info than LFS? They have to be easy to turn, because, if you watched some in car rally videos, you can see how fast they are turning their wheels. It has to be light, because otherwise, their hands would hurt like hell after the stage.
I have couple of in-car WRC videos that lasts like 15 minutes(full stage, non stop in car view) and i can tell you one thing, the car movement, the steering reactions, everything looks just like in RBR. The way the car reacts to bumps, jumps, it's redicoulously similiar to RBR.

[askoff]

Also it does not simulate things as LFS, for example engine model they made was complex, but no any computer would run that in real time so they generated data with heavy simulation and game uses this data, unlike some say that there would be proper realtime calculation going on, there is not.
Can you say which is better? I sure can't say if RBR engine model is better or worse than LFS.
In LFS there is rather simple engine model, but it does run in real time, having for example turbo model, in RBR there was turbo lights but could you really say that it acted like real spinning turbo?
Can you say if turbo in RBR is not acting like real WRC car turbo?