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>).

Quote from JTbo :

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.

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.

Quote from 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.

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.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

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.

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.

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.

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

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



http://www.rfactorcentral.com/ ... 2020%20Years%20of%20Rally

Quote from GHOSTRACER1 :

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.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

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

Quote from GHOSTRACER1 :

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



http://www.rfactorcentral.com/ ... 2020%20Years%20of%20Rally

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

Quote from GHOSTRACER1 :

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!

Quote from BuddhaBing :

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

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

Quote from chunkyracer :

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...

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.

Quote from JTbo :

surely physics are quite nice for arcade game too

Wo, wo, wo..
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.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Wo, wo, wo..
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.

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 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?

Quote from JTbo :

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.

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 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.

Quote from 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.

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.

Quote from JTbo :

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.

Quote :

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?