Quote from dadge :

...not often this happens on lfs forums.

Not often this happens in life in general my friend.

Quote from jonny dank :

well speaking of over heating....i just found out my fan is broken but my comp. never told me so this could have been happening for a month now will i nice new fan fix my problem and is there any permenant damage that could have been done? thanks a bunch

Exactly which fan is knackered? If it's the CPU fan then you might be lucky, with down-throttling and a good thermal grease (if that's what you have) a CPU can survive quite a bashing. If it's the GPU fan then a damaged core will nearly always result in noticeable artifacts in games after a short time of being played. Or is it a case fan?

The first thing I always say to people with any PC performance problems is make sure everything is running at stock speeds/voltages; some games simply do not like OCing.

If you are running stock speeds (CPU/GPU/RAM) then as stry90dis has said, monitor your temps with ATI Tool or Ntune (both good enough for monitoring) and maybe run some CPU/GPU tests while keeping an eye on temps.

Also check CPU/GPU fans and heatsinks.

Quote from Migz :

...i just hope nfs makes a realistic driving sim XD

EA - the developers/publishers of NFS in case you didn't know - are only interested in making vast quantities of cash. If they can continue making millions each and every year with pathetic, substandard games then they will. EA cater for the masses (i.e. the console kiddies) who generally don't partake in sim racing.

EA, and any other mass production gaming company, will never entertain the idea of a decent niche game, they simply wouldn't make enough money. All they care about is world gaming domination, hence the reason they are still trying to buy out every developer worth buying. Once they have that, the quality of their games will continue to drop, as they have done in recent years.

Forget NFS - or any game from EA - becoming a real sim, it isn't happening, ever. And to be honest, if they tried making a sim racer they would fail miserably.

@ OP:

As some have said here already, I don't think LFS is at top, not as a whole anyway. For online sim racing I'll say yes, LFS is outstanding and it's tyre model is equally great. This alone doesn't make it the be all and end all for me personally. I still enjoy GTR2 with it's plethora of track/car mods, especially the F1 2008 v1.4 mod which, as I've said more than once, is bloody amazing and to be honest makes LFS' F1 department feel plain and boring in comparison.

Regarding iRacing: I've only just realised it existed and it doesn't do it for me, a monthly fee and no real control over my game isn't for me.

I will be taking a look at GTR Evolution which should be out in the next few months. Say what you like about SimBin's games but if you fancy a bit of single player action - and I frequently do - then LFS isn't anywhere near good enough. Gran Turismo is infamous for it's terrible AI but LFS is in a league of it's own with what must be the worst AI in any racing game, ever.

Heh, some funny posts here, mostly the infantile ones being the funniest. Rather than have an ongoing debate between, what looks to be, adults and kids, why don't we all just stick to two basic premises...

1. If nitro-assisted acceleration, cornering akin to a monorail and the needlessness for brakes interest you and you feel the need to light up the road beneath you with a fancy pink bulb and stick half of Halfords on your car then may I suggest something like Need for Speed.

2. If realistic physics, near as damn-it feedback and a superb tyre model sound interesting and the thought of adding pieces of chicken wire, MDF and discarded ice cream tubs to your bodywork make you cringe, then may I suggest something like Live for Speed.

Oh and to those who believe they're being flamed by us sheep, just remember: these are LFS forums, the vast majority of people here are no doubt more interested in LFS, not NFS. So no, sheep we are not, LFS fans we are.

Ta

Last edited by CardinalStorm, Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:24.

I'm surprised the OP even bothered with this; if he appreciated LFS for what it is - a top-notch sim racer - then he would know the ONLY similarity between LFS and NFS are the words 'for' and 'speed'.

I don't know anyone over the age of twenty-five who enjoys "blinging" their car up. From my experience, once people grow up the vast majority find plastic add-ons, mad paintwork, vinyls and neon lights bloody ridiculous.

I'm quite certain that all the people I race with in my team are over twenty-five, the average age is probably nearer thirty-five, possibly more. We enjoy racing as adults do. NFS, although fun for a couple of hours, is ultimately a kids game where "doing your car up" completely outweighs the actual driving side of the game, which incidentally is a joke.

Just my opinion....nothing more.

My posts contain the odd hyperbole, of course I'll still play GTR2 (I have almost unlimited track/car mods and Nordschleife in the '08 F1 Ferrari really is that good) - and I'll always love a decent FPS and any God of War game - but my point is: I think LFS will end up being my main racing sim of choice. Which considering I've been a huge fan of Simbin's games since GTR and didn't think much of the basic LFS demo, is quite a statement.

I've played loads of racers over the years, from arcade games like NFS and Burnout to the more serious Richard Burns Rally and Geoff Crammond's GP4. But none came close to the enjoyment and intense feel that GTR / GT Legends / GTR2 gave me....until now.

Quote from deggis :

If you don't know how bad the sound was about 1½ years ago, checkout this.....

Hmm, yes not good, and yes there is still plenty of room for improvement but I do prefer the majority of engine noises in LFS, maybe it's purely due to a change, who knows.

Last edited by CardinalStorm, Sun, 8 Jun 2008 08:48.

Quote from deggis :

Did I got that right, GTR2 sounds bad compared to LFS? Interesting comment. Usually it's totally the opposite and sound has always been generally regarded the worst area of LFS, altough much less since the sound patch in March '07 which improved sounds a lot.

I'm not saying that the LFS engines sound more realistic - they don't - and GTR2 has some excellent transmission whine effects, but I personally think the LFS engines sound more powerful and throaty, whereas a lot of the cars in GTR2, albeit highly tuned GT cars, sound slightly synthetic and don't give me the impression that I'm in control of a racing beast.

I agree with Becky Rose about the 3rd party tracks in GTR2; racing around Nordschleife in the new F1 2008 cars is breathtaking (I managed a 5:40 btw) and the extra effects DirectX 9 allow for are nice, but ultimately it's all about the racing itself and LFS, with it's smooth online play, wrecker free races, outstanding physics and feedback on the G25, amongst many other goodies, make it the best racing sim there is, as long as you don't want to race the AI........

Yeah Dirt may look nice but the handling is pure and simple arcade. The only rally game that I found to be "real" is Richard Burns Rally.

I played GT5 prologue for a bit and for a console game it's not bad but the PC sims always shine through. If you like the P&G mod for GTR2 then GT Legends is a must, although the cars do tend to feel detached from the track somewhat.

But when all is said and done I haven't played any racing sim (and I've played most) that come close to LFS; the tyre physics are simply amazing.

LOL, alright you two, you're making me feel like I've wasted 18 months of my gaming life!

....don't tell me, I have.

Quote from Christopher Raemisch :

Every time someone connected the game would jump and it was hard to get good races in with everyone lagging.

Tell me about it, the lag has never improved, and since running Vista GTR2 crashes/freezes randomly. LFS runs completely smooth off and online and I've not had one crash.

Quote from Christopher Raemisch :

...but the engines sounded flat to me..

Yep, compared to the engines in LFS GTR2's sound terrible.

I'm really impressed with the guys who've made LFS, they've done themselves proud.

Fortunately I've got a powerful rig, performance isn't my problem. I just think that the enbseries bloom mod looks a bit naff on LFS. It's not a dedicated LFS mod and it shows. I've tried various enbseries configs and although some are OK, none really work that well, neither do they on GTR2.

I suppose it's a case of each to their own.

I've been enjoying GTR2 since it's release and I loved GT Legends - I've been playing both on my 360 controller and I've got to a high standard. When I tried the LFS demo it didn't really impress me, it felt better than rFactor but GTR2 already did that for me.

Now I've returned to the wheel - with my new G25 c/w Gameracer Elite - I've realised that LFS is bloody amazing. The feedback on the G25 is superb and with all the bells and whistle mods installed LFS looks very nice. With what seems like better physics overall and no wreckers (not that I've seen so far) online I'm starting to think I may never play GTR2 again.

Yeah the AI in LFS is pathetic but as a whole I think it's the best racing sim available. Are there any here who left GTR2 for LFS?

Hmm, they look pretty good, although I'm not a big fan of bloom. It looks OK in some games - namely arcade racers like NFS which are totally unrealistic anyway.

I think proper HDR looks great, but I doubt we'll be seeing that kind of thing in LFS for some time.