The online racing simulator
Rfactor vs LFS
(1872 posts, started )
Quote from Blowtus :depth of field is one of the biggest things lacking in most pc graphics - adding it via photoshop is a pretty massive change

yes and i dont ever want to see it forced onto me ... i dont want a developer to decide for me which depth im focusing my eyes at ... we already have that exact same problem with water in games

Quote from MAGGOT :the Porsche Carrera Cup mod from GSMF is another great one.

you mean the one with the front engined 911 ?
Quote from Gabkicks :some people say its up to preference on wether rfactor has better graphics than lfs... but if you've seen the 2005f1 mod... you'd have to be a pitiful fanboy to continue say LFS looks better. overall, rfactor has much better graphics. i posted unedited screenshots. http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=211183#post211183.

I'm no pitiful fanboy, but believe me, compared to LFS, rFactor looks really awful on my PC. Races with other cars are quite impossible.

On other news:

PLAYLIFE raced today (alone) on Mount Panorama, Laguna Seca, Elkhart Lake, Brands Hatch and Nordchleife... with the help of rFactor:banana:
Taking the above advice, I purchased yesterday GTR2. I'm going to give it a month to impress me and see how it goes.

The first thing I will say is how much it's taken for granted that LFS actually.... "works". I'd forgotten how much QC issues there are with big companies. And how "small" LFS is on my HDD. I seem to have it up and running OK, and most of the time it works pretty good. There is some random "Cut the FPS down to 10-15 for no good reason" phenomenon happening, so I'm going to try updating my video drivers etc and see how it goes.

My copy came with GTL as well, which I installed - but could not play because it DID NOT COME WITH A CD KEY :doh:. As if StarFarce is not bad enough, what is the point of having a CD Key anyway. Luckily GTR2 is wisely devoid of StarFarce. This forced me to navigate questionable websites to locate a key for my BOUGHT copy of GTL, which is offputting. The GTL site says "the cd key is printed on the install CD/DVD", which it clearly is NOT on my copy for some strange reason.

However, the purpose of this expenditure was to give GTR2 a chance, specifically with the Doug Arno "better physics" patch that came with this month's ASS. I'll save any comments I have in comparison of the two for a while until I really put GTR2 through the paces and give it a fair shot.
Quote from AndroidXP :The famous quote

Way off topic, and sorry to pick on you, AndroidXP, but the word is 'quotation'! I've read it at least three times in this thread and I've finally snapped! 'Quote' is the verb, 'quotation' is the noun!
Quote from StewartFisher :Way off topic, and sorry to pick on you, AndroidXP, but the word is 'quotation'! I've read it at least three times in this thread and I've finally snapped! 'Quote' is the verb, 'quotation' is the noun!

I know several dictionaries that say that both quote and quotation are correct.
(One indicates it is colloquial, all others state it as perfectly correct. Only wikipedia claims it to be wrong.)

Vain
Quote from BWX232 :That's the thing.. it wasn't heavily chopped.. I have the game.. besides the fake blurring in that pic.. that is how good it looks - some mods are extremely highly detailed. That along with rFactor's DX9 lighting produces amazing results. That is one if it's strong points.

Edited pics are fun to make but what the F was the point of showing a photoshopped screenshot? Of course to make it look better than it is. Don't even try to deny that... that's exactly why game publishers and developers love Photoshop too.
deggis, the thing is, thats pretty much how the game looks.
Adding focal blur + hot air disortion != "pretty much how the game looks"

Don't get me wrong here, it looks rather good on those screens, but displaying both these added effects in realtime and in that quality in the game itself would be a HUGE graphical step, so these effects are far from minor. If you want to compare game graphics, you either take undoctored screens, or you don't bother comparing at all.
i posted unedited screenshots. i dunno why bwx didnt...
Yes, I know, but you were responding to deggis who was responding to BWX who posted edited ones
Actually go check- I posted a non edited one I took on my own PC too.
Nobody's complaining about the non-edited ones...
Quote from AndroidXP :Nobody's complaining about the non-edited ones...

Lookind at your avatar - dude, that's not how LFS looks at all !!

I suspect you've been photoshopping the image sequence...














:haha:
Nonono, that's a preview of cell-shaded S3.
The ASS article made me download the current rFactor demo and have a look for myself.

First of all the default settings of rFactor are really a disgrace: wtf should my steering be speed sensitive? Why is the dfp preset set to 360°? Why does the Sauber steering wheel only turn 260°?

Well anyway after sorting these things out I went to the track. The first thing I noticed is that, as expected, the car was undrivable without TC. It wasn't quite as bad as I had expected in terms of instability but in the first two gears you really have no chance to catch the car using opposite lock.

Then I put on medium TC and I found that driving was actually quite fun. Still a bit hard but what I noticed is that driving on real tracks is really a very enjoyable thing to do for me, and, as I have often stated, is one of the major shortcomings of LFS.

Another feature I liked was the auto-FPS setting, which adjusts graphics detail to keep a decent frame-rate. Of course LFS doesn't need this but it was a hell of a lot better than Simbin games, which variate from 10 to 100 fps in a single lap.

Then I started LFS to compare. I turned off the TC and and went to Blackwood. As expected I felt more in control of the car and it wasn't quite as hard to catch slides but the main impression I had was that rFactor and LFS were a lot more similar than I would have thought. One thing I tried were the Alonso style slides that he does on warm-up laps or on start-finish on the last lap of Suzuka. In both games it was not easy and the car would get out of control after a couple of left-right maneuvers. Of course I don't believe that I have Fernando's car control but I was still surprised how similar LFS and rFactor reacted.

All in all I would say that LFS is more believable to me though. It is slightly easier than rFactor and considering how seldom it is for F1 drivers to lose control of their cars (even n00bs like Vettel) I think this is more realistic.

And the ASS article was not very convincing. Examples:

Quote from ASS :ISI’s BMW, in particular, is much more
‘critical’ to drive, and the data confirms what we ‘felt’ was he
case: That the ISI BMW is far more nervous than its LFS twin.

Since when do F1 cars look nervous?

Quote from ASS :… it offers more grip, and, subjectively of
course, it responds more like what our imagination thinks a
800BHP 600kg racing single seater would do in real-life.

Too subjective to be of any value.

Quote from ASS :For instance, both cars seem to offer way too much
grip—3.5 lateral G at 183km/h seems, at least to us, to be
a little optimistic. But we may be wrong.

Either you have data to compare or you don't. This statement is pointless.

Another interesting quote in ASS was that of Doug Arnao, a person who is well respected by the ISI/RSC/ASS crowd, who states that he thinks the rFactor F1 tyres have too much grip drop-off with slip angle, as Todd Wasson and others have been telling us for ages.
3.5g's at 183kmh, with what, max downforce? Video below mentions 4 g's at 160mph.

There's always the CTDP 2005 F1 mod for rFactor:

A sub 5:30 run at Norschliefe:
rfrnrd2005f1.wmv

Tv view of AI's racing / bumping each other:
rfr2005f1.wmv

The real thing, David Coulthard in a 2002 F1 McLaren. Pulls 4g's at 160mph. Also seems to take the curbs much smoother that most cars in racing sims do.
spaf1.wmv
Quote from J.B. :Why is the dfp preset set to 360°? Why does the Sauber steering wheel only turn 260°?

Afaik the visual wheel (in the cockpit) in ISI games always turns something 240°, in every car. Even if you played with full 900° mode. Stupid and confusing.
Quote from JeffR :There's always the CTDP 2005 F1 mod for rFactor:

A sub 5:30 run at Norschliefe:
rfrnrd2005f1.wmv

Hmmm I can't help but pointing out, that the version of Nordschliefe you've got there is just horribly wrong in numerous corners. Almost looks like an old GPL conversion blended with something else. Really odd looking in a lot of places.

Oh and you could be faster I bet, lap needs more rythym
Quote from deggis :Afaik the visual wheel (in the cockpit) in ISI games always turns something 240°, in every car. Even if you played with full 900° mode. Stupid and confusing.

Wrong. it's adjustable.
It's adjustable now, in the latest patch.
It was adjustable before too- it's just easier now. (more global)
But you mean only in rFactor? But I meant GTL/GTR2 too. Obviously I haven't noticed it in the latest rFactor version then.
Quote from Tweaker :Hmmm I can't help but pointing out, that the version of Nordschliefe you've got there is just horribly wrong in numerous corners. Almost looks like an old GPL conversion blended with something else. Really odd looking in a lot of places.

Oh and you could be faster I bet, lap needs more rythym

That's because it is a GPL convert with added bits :P
Quote from deggis :But you mean only in rFactor? But I meant GTL/GTR2 too. Obviously I haven't noticed it in the latest rFactor version then.

I never had GTL (Starforce).. but yes you can adjust it in GTR2 - I never had GTR1 either but it's all the same engine basically.
From where exactly you can adjust it then? From some .plr file? Because I don't see anything related to that in the ingame options, or then I really need to go to an eye specialist.

Rfactor vs LFS
(1872 posts, started )
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