Look, I just thought the poll would be a bit of fun, bias yes, but still some fun. And to some extent it is!
I seriously hope the NFS votes are jokes though!
All I'm saying is I've been here for one day and it seems 50% of this forum seem to have the mentality that posting here is some kind of macho penis-measuring competition. It AINT! And if it was, I'd probably win!
Have been on this forum for one day and couldn't agree more.
What's the fuggen go here guys? It's not a dick-measuring competition all right!!
Just chill out and be nice.
And yes, I agree drifting is silly. Asking for "tuned cars" and drift tracks or whatever is like going onto a Need For Speed forum and posting threads about converting it into a high-fidelity racing simulator.
Thanks Gnomie - well I have those things set to "hardware controlled" in the Nvidia display panel.
And it's not another task. Through trial I have discovered that the frame-rate just drops at the same point on the track, but at the point there is nothing special happening. E.g. at one instance you might have a full view of the track with 8 cars in view and it's running at 50FPS. 20m down the road, the view is almost identical but it starts stuttering at 15-18FPS, even though there is no more complicated visuals etc. If I watch the AI doing laps as a spectator it happens in the same spots every time.
There's a lot of needless abuse flying around on this forum.
Sim-drivers are in some ways just like real drivers I suppose. Think they know it all, are the best at everything and have no qualms about labelling everyone a "fuggen idiot" while they're safe in their car or behind their computer. Different story when you actually come face to face with them.
What's the abuse for guys? Chill out and relax. Don't take it so seriously.
Well, you're trying to see how fast you can make the car go... it's basic yes, but there is actually a point. I don't know what drifting is trying to achieve at all!
How on earth does one become a pro "drifter"?
All of those things have very clearly defined goals. I still don't know what is the goal of drifting. It's getting a racing car and making it go slowly and eating the tyres and the only reason I can fathom so far is "it's fun". Which is fair enough, but I'm just trying to ascertain if there is something more to it, or is it just for a shits and giggles?
I believe you that to "drift like a pro", whatever that means, might be difficult. But I still don't know why you'd want to master this seemingly useless talent, except because it's funny to do it!
However, I agree sliding around is fun for a bit of light-hearted mucking about - but for how long? Ten minutes? There are people who seem to take it really seriously! I could have sworn I saw a "drifting" race on television before I left for Ireland! And it seems on YouTube there's some professional "drifting racers" in Japan! If it's just a bit of fun driving a car sideways, how can they be professionals? And how can they "race"? Anyone who decided to drive properly would lap them all! Is there any practical benefit to it? Because it seems to me the worst way you could choose to drive on a racing track - slow, dangerous and killing your tyres/car.
I like to have a car that's a little bit loose - a tiny bit of sliding here and there just to rotate the car into the corner neatly, but what I'm talking about is a barely perceptible slip compared to "drift racing" which seems ... just odd.
I'm not trying to be condescending, I really just don't understand the fascination or popularity at all.
Browsing these forums, it seems to be really popular! I can't imagine why it would appeal to sim-racing enthusiasts. Certainly is pretty low on my motoring "to do" list, but I don't know too much about it.
As far as I understand, it's maybe the slowest way to corner and couldn't be too healthy for the car either (let alone burning the tyres)!
I see it on youtube too ... what's with these guys? Why would you want to drive a car slowly and dangerously and rip your tyres to shreds? Okay ... so I suppose it could be fun for a while. But apart from that, are there any practical reasons? Or is it just a glorified burnout?
Serious question, I don't know much about it, I'm not trying to wind anyone up.
Google "Grand Prix Legends 2004", the demo version is a free download. To make it the full version, all you need to do is copy the original tracks (also freely downloadable) into the tracks directory.
No racing sim enthusiast should be without it! The first and still one of (the?) best.
NR2003 is good fun too if you don't mind oval tracks. I don't.
The graphics, surely, you can't fault!! They're beautiful - much better than LFS and run twice as smoothly too (for me anyway). The sound also I think is very good.
The physics ... well, maybe I am not so qualified to comment in that department, but they're good enough to immerse me in any case! I must admit, LFS does have "something" about it that just makes it feel more "real", but it's nothing I can put my finger on ... I can't find any obvious major faults with the physics in GTR2....
Driving a road car on the street isn't very similar to driving a racing car on a track, don't worry!
Actually, even driving a road car on a track!
Most serious speeding accidents on the road are caused by people who think they could drive a racing car, and think they can drive on the road like it was a racing track. They usually find out they're wrong the hard way.
As an experiment, I just ran a spectator-race with a full field (can only put 12) cars with everything on full.
The frame rate averaged probably around 45, however at times it would stutter badly for 1-2 second and drop down to 18. I can't pick exactly when or why it is doing this, as often the full field is visible and it's running at 45 fps, but then suddenly drops to 20 fps for a second or two without any obvious rhyme or reason.
Anyway, so I decided to fiddle with the graphics and see if I could get it to run smoother. I did the following.
Z-Buffer Depth to 16 from 24
Shadow type to low res from high res
Sky to 16bit from 32bit
Car and helmet skins to compressed from full.
Now it runs even worse!! Dropping down to 9FPS at times!!