So it doesn't work really, does it? My camera isn't drunk, and my fps isn't low. Oh wait, I bought my version.
So it doesn't work really, does it? I can see all the road and "things". Ever thought about paying for your software?
But you didn't buy it. What are you complaining about again?
Is there a f*cking echo in here? You didn't buy it, so you've no right to complain about how it's not worth buying. And if you knew anything about GTA4 or PCs then you'd know that it's CPU limited, and all the HD4870s in the world won't help.
Couldn't agree more.
Some people have no concept of right or wrong. They've always pirated their software, so the concept of paying for anything is totally alien. I can sort of understand why it happens when you look at the likes of EA, who shamelessly and cynically trot out yearly updates of all their franchises with little more than some new textures and a single new feature or two, charge full whack for them, then repeat next year. Or amateurs and hobbysists that use professional software but wouldn't be in the market to afford the hundreds or thousands of pounds it costs to buy. But then we have Rockstar, who for all their technical problems with GTAIV PC (although they are supporting the title and communicating with the users on forums), have produced groundbreaking games with the series and are the kind of developer that should be supported on the PC... yet saddeningly you still get the idiots like Tomba.
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Yeah, cos of course you were planning on buying it once you'd downloaded a version that "finally works". Leeching scum.
And people complain that Rockstar seems in no rush to make PC games these days.
GTA4 requires both Rockstar Social Club and GFWL to be installed in order to run, even though you can play it offline. I very much doubt it's just a case of editing the registry - apparently the first few cracked versions on the internet fell into Rockstar's booby traps.
@ G!nho - 8800GT.
If you've got an nVidia, it's just very badly optimised.
If you've got ATi, it's taking the piss.
Well the GFWL and Social Club thingies were a bit of a pain. I spent a little while registering for everything, then some more time preparing my pc with latest drivers, directx, net framework, etc, and then finally installed GTA4.
First I got the MMA10 error but after reading the workaround on gtaforums I fired up GTA4 and it's run fine. Admittedly the graphics options are all towards the low end, which is sorta what I expected from my mid-range system (E8400, 8800GT), but it looks good enough for me.
Love the way the cars bounce and wallow over the bumps and kerbs, and crumple in the right places when you smack into the usual things - street lights, trashcans, people, phone boxes, etc.
Rather annoyed I can't use my joypad for the driving though.
First I got the MMA10 error but after reading the workaround on gtaforums I fired up GTA4 and it's run fine. Admittedly the graphics options are all towards the low end, which is sorta what I expected from my mid-range system (E8400, 8800GT), but it looks good enough for me.
Love the way the cars bounce and wallow over the bumps and kerbs, and crumple in the right places when you smack into the usual things - street lights, trashcans, people, phone boxes, etc.
Rather annoyed I can't use my joypad for the driving though.
Having read through the pc-specific section at gtaforums.com, GTA4-PC seems only one thing: an unmitigated disaster. Obviously you only ever hear the negative issues - people tend not to post if everything's running smoothly, but go mental if there are serious issues.
And a whole lotta people are going mental.
I've not got my copy yet so can't speak from personal experience. But from reading gtaf, there are problems everywhere. People are reporting that no joypads work except the "official" XBox 360 controller, that you need to sign in to GFWL even to save single player games, that basic graphics options are missing such as AA (not surprising it wasn't included given the appalling performance people are having without AA), the Rockstar Social Club application is producing fatal errors, and of course the serious, massive performance problems on all sorts of rigs with either ATi or nViia (although it seems much worse with ATi)... it's baffling that a developer as respected as Rockstar can and will cock it up like this. Simply baffling.
And a whole lotta people are going mental.
I've not got my copy yet so can't speak from personal experience. But from reading gtaf, there are problems everywhere. People are reporting that no joypads work except the "official" XBox 360 controller, that you need to sign in to GFWL even to save single player games, that basic graphics options are missing such as AA (not surprising it wasn't included given the appalling performance people are having without AA), the Rockstar Social Club application is producing fatal errors, and of course the serious, massive performance problems on all sorts of rigs with either ATi or nViia (although it seems much worse with ATi)... it's baffling that a developer as respected as Rockstar can and will cock it up like this. Simply baffling.
From what I can gather, it's not the evil version of Securom favoured by EA. It doesn't limit your installations, Securom doesn't slow your entire computer to a crawl like StarForce does, and yes you need to activate your installation once, and need the disk in the drive to play it. Activation is no big deal, it's perfectly reasonable. Keeping the disk in the drive is a niggle but it's bloody obvious why they do it - to stop people lending the disk to their friend who installs it and can play it without needing the disk. Of course it can be cracked which prompts some people to complain about them screwing the legitimate buyers, but that's a bit like saying there's no point locking your car doors because someone can smash the window.
The kind of plain restrictive, awkward DRM used on EA's Spore is a totally different matter, however...
I'm afraid I have to disagree. I also witnessed what gezmoor describes, on Race1 on Friday night/early Saturday morning.
Although I was near the front of the pack, after the first lap many people started voting to restart. This carried on for a lap or two with always just too few to pass the vote. Then they started typing "restart" or "SHIFT + R!" into their chat boxes. I was aware the field had become quite strung out, although I hadn't noticed any single pile-up. Eventually the vote was passed and the race was restarted for no obvious reason other than my suspicion that a few people were driving too carelessly on the first lap and as a result were at the back of the field instead of their usual position towards the front.
It's a crash-n-restart mentality that generic public servers are susceptible to, and that CTRA was a refuge from by providing structure and control to the races. If the mentality is starting to appear on CTRA now, it needs to be stamped out immediately imho before it gains traction as "expected behaviour".
Rules about mid-race joining or immobile cars on their roof do work for their relevant scenarios, but don't cover this situation at all.
The only other time I've regularly seen mass voting is when a rallycross track gets selected. Everytime I've been on a server that changes to rallyx, either nearly everyone leaves, or everyone votes to end. And for good reason - I don't think there's that many who want 28 laps of a Fern Bay rallyx circuit on Race1 which quickly resembles a destruction derby. In fact the rallyx servers seem so unpopular that I'm struggling to understand why they're kept in the circuit rotation list.
Quite possibly. If you're lucky, your mobo will have a BIOS update available which will enable support for the 45nm processors. If not, then you'll need a new mobo to use one of the aforementioned 45nm CPUs.
But one minute the supporters of immigration, asylum seekers etc are saying that the poor souls are only coming here to improve their quality of life.
Norway and Switzerland have amongst the highest quality of life in the world - higher than the US and UK by most international measures.
But now you're admitting that the immigration is only for the "economic opportunity" - i.e. the money?
Being a British subject with a British passport usually does the trick for most people...
That'd be neat. There's loads of photography competitions on, err, photography message boards but often the standard is just so high and they take it so seriously that it's probably litle fun and has little appeal to the more casual/opportunist photographer.
Which is what I class myself as after the past couple of months, having barely taken any pictures at all - been totally lacking in ideas, inspiration or motivation. A fairly light hearted photog comp might be the ticket - just as long as the usual uber-fake HDR images are prohibited.
A lovely sentiment, I'm sure. Unfortunately it fails to accomodate the rather critical fact that not everyone is interested in improving themselves. Some people just aren't capable, others are just too thick.
If they want to be treated like humans, violent criminals should have acted like humans in the first place. But if they acted like animals, then they should be treated as such.
(Obviously there's a big disparity in the harshness of punishment that is deserving of minor or non-violent crimes compared to violent assault, robbery, murder, etc)
I hope not - I find it more of a distraction than anything else. Maybe if it was optional then it would be a good addition.
No.
Demo servers have more restricted numbers of players. CTRA servers exceed this.
Demo servers have more restricted numbers of players. CTRA servers exceed this.
It's exactly the same company - Vauxhall is just the British name for Opel. And I don't think any of them are made in a marquee.Regarding the explanations as to why Americans like the type of vehicles produced by the "big three", we're not seeing anything new here. But as usual, the defense of it which is very much about "the American way" is sounding dangerously close to whining that "it's our right to do it!"
So, you want to haul an 8000lb camper around with you? Tough. Get a smaller one, especially one that doesn't weigh as much as a small house.
Wanna tow a boat, despite fuel prices climbing and the prospect of those making the big pickups going bankrupt? Well then leave it in the water - it's where boats belong, not on the road.
The thing is, although the US is a lot more rural than the UK is and I doubt there's many folk here who need to sling a deer in the back of their car, it's not like people can't tow things over here. The difference is that when an American thinks "towing torque", he thinks, "I need a big V8 with a slushmatic box". When someone over here needs towing torque, they get a 3-3.5 litre turbodiesel in something a lot more space and weight efficient than a massive pickup. If we need to tow an 8000lb trailer, we can do, just a bit slower and not as conveniently.
And that's the crux of the matter - the vehicles that Ford, GM and Chrysler have relied upon (the things that turn a comfortable profit like pickups and SUVs) aren't necessities. They're items of pure convenience, and when the going gets tough, they're the first things to be struck off people's shopping lists. And with their astounding lack of foresight (did they really think oil prices would never increase, or that people would always have enough money to buy a vehicle twice the size of what they need?), they've realised they simply don't have anything else to offer. Not talking about fancy hybrids or electric or hydrogen power, just an alternative to the pickup or SUV.
I suppose the greatest irony is that if Ford, GM and Chrysler survive, their only choice is to start copying the Japanese manufacturers that so shamelessly used to copy the Western manufacturers in the '60s and '70s.
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Very well said. I agree with all of it, except one bit - they shouldn't be bought out by the govt. As mrodgers says, people aren't going to suddenly start buying cars again once the govt has rescued them. The companies are fundamentally flawed.
It's difficult to find any sympathy whatsoever for the Big Three. Look at the tat they've been producing for the last 15 years, and compare it to the rest of the world, especially the Japanese giants, and it looks antiquated. Look at Ford, relying on churning out millions of cheap but badly made, enormous F-150s with even more enormous engines. I don't even know what GM manages to peddle these days, and Chrysler has been in trouble for some time now.
It's obvious to the outsider, with no connections to Detroit or even the US, that although the big three introduce new model years every, well, year (duh!), they don't do anything new. They just change stuff, and that's what they've been doing for the past decades or two. I could go on, but I'd just continue repeating what Sam said.
Lovely shot, nonetheless.
Can tell you live out in the sticks - if I tried a photo like that I'd just get an orange glow! 
Regarding the discussion over improved physics vs. improved content - I have to ask the obvious question. Why not both? Most of us here know that Eric develops the models and textures, Scawen codes things. Obviously anything Eric makes needs to be coded in by Scawen, but I'm assuming that coding in a new car or track is an established procedure, and not something that requires many, many hours of painstaking research before a single thing is coded such as improving tyre physics or introducing new features such as engine or brake heat.
I play LFS occasionally, but currently the lure isn't there. When I get on track, it's because I've nothing better to do, not because there's some burning urge to play LFS. The things that put me off are the silly setups that you need to be competitive (i.e. locked diff), the slidey nature of the tyres, the lack of more advanced features like more comprehensive damage model, engine temperature with damageable radiators, and the lack of new content.
Some of the current content is evidently new, and some of it clearly much older and doesn't compare. The issue is just how long we've been driving with the current content. Improved simulation features are of course needed, but to give LFS a real shot in the arm, they need to come with a new track also.
I play LFS occasionally, but currently the lure isn't there. When I get on track, it's because I've nothing better to do, not because there's some burning urge to play LFS. The things that put me off are the silly setups that you need to be competitive (i.e. locked diff), the slidey nature of the tyres, the lack of more advanced features like more comprehensive damage model, engine temperature with damageable radiators, and the lack of new content.
Some of the current content is evidently new, and some of it clearly much older and doesn't compare. The issue is just how long we've been driving with the current content. Improved simulation features are of course needed, but to give LFS a real shot in the arm, they need to come with a new track also.
In terms of the bodywork, I think the 2009-spec car is a vast improvement. The 2008 cars look a mess - just a sea of surfaces, mini wings, chimneys, and diffusers.
The tall, narrow rear wing looks odd but I understand why they've done it. Hopefully it'll work well with the wide, low front wing to help cars follow each other more closely.
The tall, narrow rear wing looks odd but I understand why they've done it. Hopefully it'll work well with the wide, low front wing to help cars follow each other more closely.
Number 2 is the weakest shot for me, but it's all relative because they're all good shots with great PP, and I really like the first and last ones. Lovely.
Tell me about it. Short days, drizzle, wind, low cloud - the only time it's clear is if I'm at work.
Looks like great fun - thanks for the video.
As previously mentioned though, the real Raceabout looks tiny - a real compact, nimble car. Whereas the LFS version looks enormous in comparison. What gives?
As previously mentioned though, the real Raceabout looks tiny - a real compact, nimble car. Whereas the LFS version looks enormous in comparison. What gives?
Yes. What's your point, and how is it a response to mine?
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