When I'm playing LFS I am feeling like playing small plastic toys around plastic track with plastic trees and so on. Everything is shiny, clear, bright. Crash sounds like throwing the carton box from the table <tump>. Engine sounds like an electric one from my chooo-chooo Fleishman <bzzzz>. When I have an accident at 200 kmh I have only a small deformation like the car was made with clay. It even has black someting instead of bottom texture like toys often do. The asphalt is clear all around. No sand on it, no grass, no debrits. The windshield is perfectly transparent.

... there is nothing mettalic, heavy or deadly in here. Even though physics are accurate I can not have a feeling I am controlling a thousand something kg vehicle but a small tiny toy.


I downloaded Grand Prix Legends demo. Even though track was not so detailed as Blackwood I had a real feeling i was driving a car. Things like dirty mirrors, powerfull engine gang and inscriptions on tyres convinced me about it. That small details. And they are missing in LFS.

What do you think?

What I think?
Try S2. There's a whole lot more cars that are totally different from your 3 demo cars, then come back and rethink.

i think that you should buy grand prix legends, or forget those details and buy lfs full version, which is the best sim out there imho.

i agree... LFS is by far the best sim out.. and one must not forget that it is still in the second development stage and is still an alpha so for what it is its bloody stunning.

and u say lfs has no grass on asphalt? does grass usually grow on asphalt??

and u say it doesnt feel like ur driving a thousand kg vehicle? does GPL really give you that.. i remember GPL being not very realistic either.. it was good for what it was and a very succesfull sim but it is very old now.

mad

I think someone's just taking a crap on LFS...

Quote from himself :

When I'm playing LFS I am feeling like playing small plastic toys around plastic track with plastic trees and so on. Everything is shiny, clear, bright. Crash sounds like throwing the carton box from the table <tump>. Engine sounds like an electric one from my chooo-chooo Fleishman <bzzzz>. When I have an accident at 200 kmh I have only a small deformation like the car was made with clay. It even has black someting instead of bottom texture like toys often do. The asphalt is clear all around. No sand on it, no grass, no debrits. The windshield is perfectly transparent.

... there is nothing mettalic, heavy or deadly in here. Even though physics are accurate I can not have a feeling I am controlling a thousand something kg vehicle but a small tiny toy.


I downloaded Grand Prix Legends demo. Even though track was not so detailed as Blackwood I had a real feeling i was driving a car. Things like dirty mirrors, powerfull engine gang and inscriptions on tyres convinced me about it. That small details. And they are missing in LFS.

What do you think?

I think you didn't played LFS enough to equitable judge about it. But when i first played it years ago i also thought it was crap. But then i got nice setups and saw what is possible when you train hard and have a feeling for driving.

My Advise:
Get the full version, come back and try to beat some of the fast guys and soon you notice that LFS is the real challenge.

I don't care about nice gfx or great sounds but i like to race a real sim and the physics in LFS is something no other sim can give you atm.



btw i've never seen an alpha version of a game running so rock stable like LFS does.

i think you need to remember that LFS is just past halfway of being completed (actually.. not even halfway really.. because S2 full isnt even released)

i dont agree. its totally happy hippos to me.

Quote from KiDCoDEa :

i dont agree. its totally happy hippos to me.

lol!

Ok. Maybe I didn't write my thouhts clearly.

Don't misunderstand me. I love LFS. I has been playing it for about half a year now ( yeah I now - demo - I should buy the full etc. ) and I don't think I would stop. I want to buy full ver. asap (what is not so soon since i don't have job now :shrug but .....

... the feeling that I'm driving something different than a car is quite strong for me. I pay much attention to details 'cause they are the essence of gfx-audio in games. One detail can change everything. One detail can make "Oh that's just like in real car. cool!!"-feeling. Like those damn dirty mirrors. Or reflection of interior in windshield in RBRally. Or just the real looking texture - which are missing in LFS most of the time.

This does not mean I don't like games without fancy shiny blinkin' gfx (Fallout roolz), but I am a visual-person if you know what I mean.

I was just wondering if anyone else has simillar feelings.


Btw. gpl had a patch released and there is a new (2004) demo that does not look old at all. Look at BHmotorsports for it.

Those details are cool to have, but are they really that important? I mean i think we should (the devs) worry first about the physics,weather effects and stuff like that them those effects. Well its cool to have those effects, would be cool to have them but since lfs its a bit over 50% done we have bigger issues to think about.

Personally, I love the graphics of LFS, the grass, the asphalt, the curbs, etc. To me, anything else I've seen just looks fake. The colors are oversaturated, the track surface too clean and perfect, the curbs too clean, everything just looks brand spankin new and never used. I would like to see the cars, windshield, mirrors getting dirty in LFS as well as dirt being thrown on the track, but it is only alpha in it's second stage.

The eye and ear candy isn't what draws me in to racing LFS. It's the rest of the package. The way the engine and force feedback tells exactly what is happening with the car rather than being an effect played because the car does something. Also, the visual g-force effects of the car bouncing over curbs and bumps, the head turn thing, and other stuff is what draws me into the game.

I've never played GPL, but have NR2002/2003, so I imagine GPL was as excellent back then as I've heard. I've never tried RBR either, so, NR2003 is the only other sim I can really relate to and say that it is close to LFS as the best sim. Only, they simulate two totally different types of racing and both excel in their own corners.

What he said . . . . LFS isn't about bells and whistles at the moment. They are coming later. Right now it's the physics and the game model that matters and boy does it matter.

Patience young padowan driver. Good things to them come that wait, hmm?

It all squares down to this: the more time and money spent on making the graphics engine with the newest shaders is automatically reduced from designing and polishing gameplay, which in the end, is the essence and lifeblood of any game that lasts on the market more than 2 months.

I think LFS has Natural looking graphics especially if you can crank up the AA and AF, I play on 1600x1200 with 6aa and 16af and to me it looks stunning, sure there's no fancy DX9 effects and theres still a lot of room for subtle graphical enhancments like windscreen dirt and the odd splatted fly or 3 but apart from that I'm more than happy with LFS's graphics and I'm also playing games like project gotham 3 on the xbox 360 as well as rFactor, GTR, richard burns and GPL and LFS holds its own against them.

As for handling. You really need to try the full game as you will most certainly feel like you're wrestling with a beast of a car when you're cornering at 150 mph in the GTR cars.

As I said, I own and play most of the other sims regularly and LFS for me still has it's own unique appeal which is lacking in other games, just as rF and GTR have their own unique qualities.

If I could only have one though it would probably be LFS for no other reason than the ability to jump online any time night or day and find a busy server as I love multiplayer racing, even though I end up in the back of the pack

Can I ask what control method you (the original poster) are using?.

If you are using anything other than a FFB wheel, then yes, I would agree with you, without that the ingame gravity feels light compared to other sims.
If you are using an FFB wheel, then I disagree, LFS feels as heavy and as real as the rest of them, even better than most.

Dan,

LFS definitely lacks a lot of sound effects and that's why the cars don't create the surrounding of a real car. I can understand that.

Vain

Yep i totally understand where himself is coming from ..

those are all valid points, but hey, lfs is still in development ...

have some faith

Quote from himself :

When I'm playing LFS I am feeling like playing small plastic toys around plastic track with plastic trees and so on. Everything is shiny, clear, bright. Crash sounds like throwing the carton box from the table <tump>. Engine sounds like an electric one from my chooo-chooo Fleishman <bzzzz>. When I have an accident at 200 kmh I have only a small deformation like the car was made with clay. It even has black someting instead of bottom texture like toys often do. The asphalt is clear all around. No sand on it, no grass, no debrits. The windshield is perfectly transparent.

... there is nothing mettalic, heavy or deadly in here. Even though physics are accurate I can not have a feeling I am controlling a thousand something kg vehicle but a small tiny toy.


I downloaded Grand Prix Legends demo. Even though track was not so detailed as Blackwood I had a real feeling i was driving a car. Things like dirty mirrors, powerfull engine gang and inscriptions on tyres convinced me about it. That small details. And they are missing in LFS.

What do you think?

<smartass>You're just too slow if you have time to notice those missing details... </smartass>

No, to be honest, we all know that graphics detail could be better, but I think, that visuals should be the last thing to work on...

Yep, there are some things missing, but i think you have hardly the time to notice it if your driving a race.

Yeah I know LFS is under development and gfx details are supposed to come up in S3.

I am using non-FFb wheel.

I am not saying the gravity is low. I mean I can not think about "shiny, clay-deformative model with stupid noises while crashing and flying all around the place when hit" in game as a heavy, deadly car. My brain just can not transform that image-sound mixture into a car in my imagination.

The flying around everywhere is a known issue that will be rectified in coming releases. Remember mate, Rfactor; GTL; GP; they are all fully released games from large production houses. They concentrate on pretty things to make up for the lack of any real substance. This current ALPHA stage of LFS is showing everyone that LFS has the robust internal skeleton of a true Simulator of racing conditions. I am sure that the Devs will want to put oodles of prettyness and aural pleasure into LFS but from their point of view, if it detracts from the 'simulation' or produces false information (Which is much the case with the Aural soundtrack. Most Sims using genearic effects to produce engine noise etc.) then it won't be in the product. But they also understand that, the gaming industry being the fickle beast that it is, people will not always recognise a work of art when they see it and that they will need to put on the glowy showy bits and bobs to attract a wider audience.

But still, this is not a finished gameworld. It will not have 'dem bit you want on it just yet. But you will get them bit by bit. Just be patient.

yeah you have some strong points there.

For me the most striking one is :

Why the hell glass is completly transparent ????
(im talkin about "from inside" view of course )

its a basic feature to implement, that will give a better feeling of being inside that damn car. Its easy to implement and every modern graphic card will handle such stuff without problem. simple as that

How do you know it's simple? Ever seen Scawen's code? What if LFS doesn't use the graphics card stuff to do it? Would you really want CPU cycles to be taken up with dirt processing?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for dirt on the windscreen. But it's the way you anounce it must be done and it'll be easy that bugs me. These things will be added, just be patient. I mean, surely we want skid marks first?

Quote from Dupson :

yeah you have some strong points there.

For me the most striking one is :

Why the hell glass is completly transparent ????
(im talkin about "from inside" view of course )

its a basic feature to implement, that will give a better feeling of being inside that damn car. Its easy to implement and every modern graphic card will handle such stuff without problem. simple as that

You can change the glass with a DDS editor. People have changed the window tint's colors even.

Next attempt to make LFS look bad? It just doesn't happen.