The online racing simulator

Poll : Most realistic:

Live For Speed alpha
633
Need For Speed Underground 2
438
Richard Burns Rally
183
None of them are really realistic.
84
Grand Prix Legends (2004)
70
NASCAR Racing 2003
68
R-Factor
56
The Papyrus games
49
GTR2
43
The ISI games
13
Quote from adulterated :
You should of seen the group/community that used to gather around the F355 Challenge arcade game for 1 on 1 races competing for fast lap times to place their initials on the high score table. Without incidents niether. But it's good that most of these children don't know about that game. Otherwise it could come to blows since a few people almost came to blows for knocking into other one in that game. Ahhhh, just like the real life where pro drivers fight over being bumped. Love it.

A lot of people love the gt series too, many more times the number that like lfs, and you won't find much respect for that here (with many good reasons). Popularity doesn't mean much at all when it comes to actual realism.
oh... what about the arcade machines that polyphony digital placed in their Dev center lobby to exhibit the new GT5? those seem fun, doesn't it, adulterated?
Can we try and keep things civil here so the thread can be left open?
Quote from Bob Smith :Can we try and keep things civil here so the thread can be left open?

~95% of us are trying to.
Quote from adulterated :Exactly popularity dosen't mean jack it's all about the driving model.

For those that think Race Drivin and F355 Challenge are not good physics models you probably couldn't drive the damn thing let alone drive hard in real life.

so once again, give us some solid data, either from a reviewer or from the devs...
And just to drive another nail right through your arguments adulterated, I looked up the hardware in the F355 Challenge arcade machine. It's a Sega NAOMI board (or rather 3, one for each screen) which is basically the Dreamcast hardware with more system/graphics/sound memory.

Can you explain to me how this hardware is supposed to be more powerful than my Quad Core computer? You said it yourself (watch out, I'm going to use my reading and comprehension skills to dig up a quote from one of your posts)
Quote from adulterated :Your console or PC isn't anywhere near as powerful as the prehistoric arcade machine. It's one main reason why these games can't be emulated even with a quad or dual core.

EDIT: Sorry, Bob.
whow, there, what did he say?

unlike whatever you believe in,Adulterated... computer technology improves linearly there is no such thing as a negative slope on that graph... because the best would only get better...
Quote from tristancliffe :Handling - not like a real car, either at low or high speeds, and the tyre modelling is appalling, even with months of work on the curves. It is flawed at the most basic level.

Yes the tire model is never going to be correct but there are issues with the LFS tire model that Scawen recognises, I don't feel LFS has got tires completely correct, yet, for now the ISI approach, which is basically unchanged from SCGT is only slightly worse than the LFS result if all the numbers are plumbed in correctly. Finding exactly what to put in requires modeling them which no body seems to understand. With the same amount of effort both systems can produce results that will be 'good enough' for the this generation of sims. With hours and hours of work people have finally got some reasonable results out of the ISI engine, but these people have been modding it for the best part of a decade, and the vast majority of people are simply not able to understand it however pretty they can make things look.

Quote :
Sound - Sounds GREAT for 30 seconds. Then you realise you hear the same sample all the time, and can hear different samples fading in and out. Doesn't help your driving.

Agreed, although the best sampled sounds (GPLSO comes to mind here) can blow you away and sound so much better than the current synthesised solutions. Having said that it requires:

A car/engine with something a bit spine tingling about its sound (production 4s need not apply).
Good samples, without background crap and loads of them.
Really good use of them, GPLSO is a really complex program in itself simply playing and fading them in any random order isn't good enough.
Lots and lots of time setting them up and adjusting them, it shouldn't be any quicker than systhesising in the long run.
A car that is driven and delivers its sound in a definite on and off manner.

Quote :
Graphics - More cartoony than Finding Nemo, and needs a great computer to get acceptable frame rates.

There's no reason it can't look good, far better than LFS in fact you just need a car and track combination that both look good. There are lots of detailed models but very few people actually seem to understand shaders and almost every screenshot is edited, badly.

Quote :
Menus - Slow and blingy. Ideal for teenagers.

Netcode - Slow, laggy, buggy and no better than Crammond's GP2 really

Absolutely agree even if you manage to connect to a server you'll soon cry at the fact you can beat a full field from the back of the grid in a car and combo you've never driven, the rF pick up racers are like particularly crappy AI.

Quote from The Moose :No NetKar Pro in the poll?

Don't worry, it's just loading (or maybe lagging...)

Quote from adulterated :You never played the arcade version? I found a Hard Drivin arcade cabinet in good condition but it's only Hard Drivin, the first incarnation, better to try to find a Race Drivin if you got the cash for one. Since you live in the US use your TAX REBATE to buy you an arcade unit.

Please tell me you have these things lying around your house For £750 you could now realistically have a PC, 3 monitor setup and high quality hardware (ie. not a G25).

When did you last actually play 355 Challenge, maybe it's a case of forgetting how bad it was? I found I was guilty of this big time when somebody convinced me to go and play FarCry again after I reckoned the graphics were better than Crysis
Quote from adulterated :For those that think Race Drivin and F355 Challenge are not good physics models you probably couldn't drive the damn thing let alone drive hard in real life.

Well look - they got a decade of difference between them and you must concede that F355 is arguably more complex than Race Drivin' in the vehicle dynamics at least.

Parts of the Hard Drivin' driving model might of been designed by people who's name is well placed in the automotive industry's bibliographies but that doesn't mean that they were as accurate as they would of liked them to be for a number of reasons, first and foremost: technological limitations of the time.

You see what they had to build in order to try and run that game at a decent level for the time and those machines are woefully underpowered when compared to modern home computers.

But really - if you like them and prefer them over anything else, then good for you just don't expect the whole world to agree.
actually, would you guys say GPL is better or LFS is better? GPL seems more complex then LFS, but there is just a slight problem with the traction modeling...
Until lfs can simulate cars catching air, it wont come close to nr2003
I think the Papyrus sims were by far the best.

When a Winston Cup driver could literally set a car up based on the setup he was using at the track, set the temp and wind, and run a times in the sim all around a tenth to 2 tenths what he was running in the car on the track...that says alot.

I have no "official" record to give of that, other than Dale Jr had NR2002 in his motorhome and we talked about it one day (week-long garage passes are nice things to have). It was at dover in 2003. He said he uses it all week long to practice, and has even used to to try new things in the setup to give him an idea of what to work with Eury Jr the next day in practice...

Now, not saying that other sims aren't as good, but thats the only one I have some "from the horses mouth" data on... He uses Thomas Super Wheels as well...
Quote from RMachucaA :Until lfs can simulate cars catching air, it wont come close to nr2003

haven't you visited crashing servers or run into the plastic traffic barriers?
Quote from atlantian :actually, would you guys say GPL is better or LFS is better? GPL seems more complex then LFS, but there is just a slight problem with the traction modeling...

GPL is far simpler than LFS, it just does everything so much better than the majority of the competition. IIRC there were only about 125 variables changed for the '65 cars, simulating very different cars to the '67 cars. In rF you have that many variables for each part of the car, most people don't know what they do or what they need to be set to, including ISI. The result is a far simpler simulation with less stuff stuck onto it but the core very well refined. LFS has taken this philosophy as well, I'm sure if we had the extra bolt on features that have been added to the SCGT engine over the years then we wouldn't have the basics right.
Quote from ajp71 :GPL is far simpler than LFS, it just does everything so much better than the majority of the competition. IIRC there were only about 125 variables changed for the '65 cars, simulating very different cars to the '67 cars. In rF you have that many variables for each part of the car, most people don't know what they do or what they need to be set to, including ISI. The result is a far simpler simulation with less stuff stuck onto it but the core very well refined. LFS has taken this philosophy as well, I'm sure if we had the extra bolt on features that have been added to the SCGT engine over the years then we wouldn't have the basics right.

what about the engine simulation of GPL
Quote from atlantian :what about the engine simulation of GPL

I imagine it's very simple. It does have modeling of oil and water temperatures and pressure and doesn't take abuse like the LFS model will still happily do. I don't think there's any sim that can really claim to have done anything other than a torque curve generated by a look up table or generic maths function though as you can get away with it pretty convincingly.
Quote from ajp71 :I imagine it's very simple. It does have modeling of oil and water temperatures and pressure and doesn't take abuse like the LFS model will still happily do. I don't think there's any sim that can really claim to have done anything other than a torque curve generated by a look up table or generic maths function though as you can get away with it pretty convincingly.

and the wheels falling off..
As long as it's "vaporware" and not released yet, iRacing can claim their sim to be is the best. It will be the most expensive racing game ever (monthly + component fees).

Also Todd Wasson's work in progress experiment could be a candidate for best sim ever, but there's only one player who plays it (Todd Wasson).
Quote from JeffR :As long as it's "vaporware" and not released yet, iRacing can claim their sim to be is the best. It will be the most expensive racing game ever (monthly + component fees).

Also Todd Wasson's work in progress experiment could be a candidate for best sim ever, but there's only one player who plays it (Todd Wasson).

how about i release the most expensive and realistic "sim" yet?

i have 2 tracks, you can have any car you want, but you have to buy the car yourself, pay for the gas, tires, and damages on your vehicle!!! but you need to drive between tracks if you want to change tracks...

but the bonus is that... it's so realistic that you can FEEL the damage!
Where can i download it atlantian? I asked google but he told me something about life 1.0 wich i can't find anywhere
Quote from shadow2kx :Where can i download it atlantian? I asked google but he told me something about life 1.0 wich i can't find anywhere

oh, yeah, forgot to mention, you are restricted to tracks that are in your local vicinity, it downloads pretty fast, depending on your situation... if you have the car you want... then just go into ur garage and drive to the local track.

just forward the echeck payment to:
[email protected]
lol @ NFS being realistic
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(deggis) DELETED by deggis
Quote from ajp71 :For £750 you could now realistically have a PC, 3 monitor setup and high quality hardware (ie. not a G25).

What then?

(For that amount of money, I don't think you could even afford G25 after buying 3 monitors and all the other stuff.)
I voted for LFS, GPL and RBR. They all entertain me well, and they "right" if you understand what i mean.

NFS has 59 votes.......

Oh how i wish you made it possible for us to see who voted for NFS, then i would skin them all alive.
I did.

Most realistic racing simulator?
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