The FOX didn't, but the FO8 already had a chassis manufacturer's plate (and various dash buttons), so not really a nod towards nKP, but rather just a general improvement and a further nod towards realism. nKP may have been a trigger for cockpit improvements, although it may also just have been a move to keep the existing single seaters up to the standards of the new BF1.
LFS already has an ignition/starter button (can be mapped to a wheel button if you really want to run the profiler), which although currently only useful if you run out of fuel but manage to coast to the pits, it isn't a huge step to have to start the car in the pits/garage. I quite like starting the cars in nKP, and although I hate having to use the mouse to click on wheel/dash buttons when I've got perfectly lifelike buttons on my wheel, it's probably only a matter of time before the starter can be easily mapped to the wheel.
There are a few realism things which would be nice to see in LFS (removing the auto throttle cut on upshift would be nice, especially if engine damage was possible - although the downside is that it would probably lead to more frequent cleaning of the DFP pedal pots!), but I think LFS already has a nice balance between being a hardcore sim and being accessible and great for online racing.
Last edited by Rob76, .
DFP is a fine wheel, and I would recommend it as the best mass market wheel. The large rotation is handled perfectly in LFS. Set the game controller to 720 degrees and LFS to 720 degrees and no matter which car you drive, the steering lock of the DFP is correct. You get used to the 'set and forget' nature of the setup in LFS, despite the huge range of cars, so it's amazing how annoying the lack of support for this in nKP is, especially as you can't alt-tab out of nKP to make adjustments. (OT: It's amazing how many little things in LFS are done so thoroughly well it highlights the shortcomings of other products).
I went from the Wingman Formula Force (original red one) which was smooth, precise and quiet. It had very delicate FF due to being cable driven rather than gears and had nice gear paddles. It's two main let downs were the short travel pedals (although they never had problems) and the very low steering lock (approx 180 degrees). It offered years of reliable use and was perfect for single seater sims such as GPL - it still works like new but I mothballed it as I wanted longer travel pedals and larger rotation.
The DFP by contrast is noisy (although once I have my headphones on I don't notice) and the gears do mean the FF is not as subtle as the WFF, but the wheel does feel indestructible. The very small gear shift paddles (more like switches) feel odd at first, but it only takes an hour or two to get totally used to them. The pedals are (compared to the WFF) pretty good, offering much finer control due to the longer travel. I have both the original design (small blue pots like the MOMO) and the new design (larger metal pots). I've had to take both apart to clean the pots as they got noisy/spiky, but the new design is much sturdier. The beauty of the pedal bars in LFS is that you can see when you're having pedal problems allowing you to stop and sort them out before causing too much mayhem online!
Current prices here in the US are around $100, so 60-70 quid sounds right, and considering how much I paid for my trusty Wingman Formula Force back in 1999 (and the various shite wheels I had before that), it's a bargain.
I went from the Wingman Formula Force (original red one) which was smooth, precise and quiet. It had very delicate FF due to being cable driven rather than gears and had nice gear paddles. It's two main let downs were the short travel pedals (although they never had problems) and the very low steering lock (approx 180 degrees). It offered years of reliable use and was perfect for single seater sims such as GPL - it still works like new but I mothballed it as I wanted longer travel pedals and larger rotation.
The DFP by contrast is noisy (although once I have my headphones on I don't notice) and the gears do mean the FF is not as subtle as the WFF, but the wheel does feel indestructible. The very small gear shift paddles (more like switches) feel odd at first, but it only takes an hour or two to get totally used to them. The pedals are (compared to the WFF) pretty good, offering much finer control due to the longer travel. I have both the original design (small blue pots like the MOMO) and the new design (larger metal pots). I've had to take both apart to clean the pots as they got noisy/spiky, but the new design is much sturdier. The beauty of the pedal bars in LFS is that you can see when you're having pedal problems allowing you to stop and sort them out before causing too much mayhem online!
Current prices here in the US are around $100, so 60-70 quid sounds right, and considering how much I paid for my trusty Wingman Formula Force back in 1999 (and the various shite wheels I had before that), it's a bargain.
I guess with the exploits being posted and his time being wasted on fixing the licensing bug, it's probably a good decision.
I've been enjoying nKP offline. Yes it's buggy, but it will improve. If Kunos can spend time on improving multiplayer fps and stability, then I'm happy enough with offline being free. I paid because I wanted to race people online, and was very disapointed with the muliplayer side (lets face it, it's total shit at the moment) so this post from Kunos has been the best news since the release.
For the meantime LFS will keep providing the online racing (it's smoothness is almost surprising after suffering a few hours of nKP online) but the cockpits and dashboards have never looked so in need of updates as they do now. rFactor's terrible cockpits/dashboards made LFS seem great, but I think nKP has moved my expectations. Shame the online experience didn't do the same....
I agree. Online, it isn't just the fps that drops, it becomes a lot more laggy/jerky in general, with the other cars (with pings in the 100s) skitting around. Everyone (except those with NASA computers) sees a fps drop in LFS when there's lots of other cars on screen, but it doesn't usually affect things too badly. In nKP when online everything gets very laggy even when the fps drops to only the low 30s. 30fps should still be fairly smooth, as can be seen in the replay mode (where my replays are locked at 30fps (possibly for video making reasons??). With an Athlon 4400 X2 and two 7800GTX in SLI config nKP online performs terribly - I can only imagine how bad it is for those with 'recomended spec' PCs.
nKP for me offline is actually silky smooth, with only a few heavily details sections of tracks where the fps drops into the 50s (I run Vsync at 60Hz). When I do get a solid 60fps, it is smoother than LFS running at 60fps.
I'll give nKP another go offline now they've released at least the lobby fix, but I think I'll be testing it mostly offline. So far, I've quite enjoyed it offline and the physics certainly have me convinced far more than rF ever did (although rF's netcode beats nKP by a long way). There's a few odd feedback issues (what's the vibration through corners?) and it seems far too easy to flat spot a tyre so bad it feels like I've buckled a wheel. Also the autoclutch system is a pain to get used to - I keep thinking my wheel's paddle microswitch is playing up it misses the upchange so frequently, but hopefully that's just a case of fine tuning the clutch timings.
I'm far from writing nKP off but I really hope there are vast improvements to the netcode and online fps, or it's life will be short.
EDIT: Small fps improvement online by ensuring 'boost windows priority' is selected under the options. The sound is also improved by reducing latency to 50ms. Still stutters when online though.
Last edited by Rob76, .
Fantastic news ! :hyper:
So nKP has until the patch is released to win me over, and then I'll be lost to LFS for months :eclipsee_
They'd better hurry up and fix that MP....
So nKP has until the patch is released to win me over, and then I'll be lost to LFS for months :eclipsee_
They'd better hurry up and fix that MP....
I think it's the nature of the multiplayer 'online simulator' that makes the dropping of support after one year tough. For a product like GTR you pays your money and get no promise of further updates, which is fine as they make all updates that affect compatibilty free of charge until they stop all support. Then they move on to the next version (GTR2) and everyone knows they will have to pay again. With a product like nKP and LFS, where the product is an ongoing project (at least for the forseeable future) it makes sense to only charge at defined product update stages or versions, rather than a strict subscription style time limit. If the not wanting to be tied into supporting anything beyond a year is the main concern for the devs, then a simple clause that the future of development is not guranteed or that you only get updates for your version level (e.g. 1.x) would cover that.
Last edited by Rob76, .
I have bought already, and when I pre-ordered there was no mention of it being a 1 year 'subscription'.
I knew the planned content when I bought, so I'd be happy enough if my purchase only got me that content + bug fixes, but if my copy becomes incompatible with other v1.x users in one years time without fronting more cash, it seems a rip off, especially if the current release isn't considerably improved very quickly.
nFP, although far more ambitious than early LFS releases, feels much further from being finished than any release of LFS that they ever asked money for. Both projects are similar in apporach to development, and I support it fully in principal, but I just feel the nKP developer has asked for more upfront, delivered less to both those who pay and those who want to evaluate a demo and the 1 year limit seems to be a bit much. It will probably hurt them in short term sales just so they can cash in one year from now from those who have supported the project and stuck with it.
Last edited by Rob76, .
It's not the paying for a certain level of content that seems wrong, but the way the time is specified in such a buggy initial release of an ongoing product in desperate need of development. If you buy it one year from now, is it going to cost more than the current 36 euro? If so, it's going to be a very expensive product in a few years time. If not, it would be much better to adopt a v1.x, v2.x, etc. policy rather than a time based scheme where upgrading from v.1.x costs less than buying v2.x outright.
Having to buy the latest version every year just to ensure you have the current version (and ensure MP compatibility) seems more like a subscription scheme, and would only seem right once the product is much more 'finished'. It's shit for the clock to be running for those who pay now just to effectively be beta testers and help fix the software. nKP shows a lot of promise, but it's in danger of not attracting enough people early due to the payment policy. It probably explains why they didn't go down the multiplayer demo route, as more people might think they might wait until the product is closer to being finished before paying for the full thing and their year of compatibility.
It's certainly making LFS S1 and S2 look very cheap. Let's face it, if you had S1, you're getting 100% discount of the S1 price towards S2.
From the nKPro site:
"3. Buy your netKar PRO v1.0 licence now to unlock your software. You'll get 1 year of free software updates and additional contents, documentation and support."
That's a bit of a kick in the teeth for those who adopt nKP early and help them work through the bugs. I much prefer the LFS approach where you buy a specific stage or version, however long it takes to get it right. nKP is a long way from being a finished product (not that I have a huge problem with that) but to be expected to pay for further updates 1 year from now stinks.
"3. Buy your netKar PRO v1.0 licence now to unlock your software. You'll get 1 year of free software updates and additional contents, documentation and support."
That's a bit of a kick in the teeth for those who adopt nKP early and help them work through the bugs. I much prefer the LFS approach where you buy a specific stage or version, however long it takes to get it right. nKP is a long way from being a finished product (not that I have a huge problem with that) but to be expected to pay for further updates 1 year from now stinks.
My online laptimes aren't saved in my personal bests, but my 'track day' ones are.
Managed to finally connect to a server - not exactly sure of the magic reason why this one worked but it was one that was just in practice rather than race or qualifying. Anyway, it was very, very very shit. The FPS was way below offline and was much more jerky, even when there was only one or two cars onscreen. The ping of the other cars ranged from a 'jumpy' 140-200 to a timewarping 1000+.
Offline it's much smoother, with only certain sections of track dipping into the 50 fps region (running at 1920x1200) but online it's regularly running down into the low 30 fps region. Just to check, I lowered the resolution (1280x800) but the frame rates were the same, so is it just the code? So far, I don't think LFS has anything to worry about from nKP on the online racing front.
I don't think I'll be away from LFS for too long, unless there's a pretty serious patch for nKP sometime soon.....
Anyway, I'm 4 hours past my bedtime and I need to go to work in 4 hours
I haven't yet managed to get past the 'Server is not responding' message, and I tried practically all the listed servers several times.
I'm hoping it's a port issue, but I've never had an issue with any other online game (when I'm not hosting), especially once I'd allowed Windows firewall to let things through.
I have Windows XP x64 and so have .NET 2.0 (x64). Hope it's not an issue with that??
Are the pings really as high as reported in the server list or are the units not the standard ms? More than a little worrying if they are, and could be the cause of the unresponsive servers.
Offline I've been having some fun with the F1600 and F1800. Although I have gear shift issues with these two (i.e. sometimes it takes multiple paddle clicks to shift up), they are harder (and more rewarding) than the F2000 and Ftarget. Seem to flat spot the tyres very easily though.
NKP seems to have promise, but it's making every version of LFS ever released look like the most polished product ever. Not sure the curret version of NKP deserves even alpha status let alone v1.0.
For me it's running smoother than LFS
Now I know what Kimi felt like at the Nurburgring last year - it's sooo easy to flat spot these tyres...
I'm having fun at the moment, but I think it needs a huge amount of work to threaten LFS, but I'm liking it far more than rFactor (but is that hard?)
My LCD didn't work until I activated the program so it was no longer in demo mode
As Fissichella got past, Button was only loosing 5th place (3 points) not 4th. Also, as Barrichello gained a spot, the team only lost 2 constructors points.
I think Honda's approach is to aim for the elusive victory rather than be serious WDC contenders, and so are willing to gamble giving up 3 points to start in Imola without a 10 place grid penalty. They have typically gone well at Imola, and probably feel their chances are good, especially if they can get to the bottom of the tyre temp issue.
The team admitted that Button's race engineer gave the call ' don't cross the line', but Button has said he wouldn't make it across the line anyway. I imagine the engine was causing a fair bit of friction, so unless he could get neutral he might have lost the momentum anyway. Maybe the transmission began to seize too.
Renault's Pat Symonds has apparently said he would have made the same call, and Renault are in a more serious position in terms of chasing the championship.
Like you, Button might not have wanted to sit around in a burning car for longer than he needed either
Totally agree. I often find myself drifitng off in some of the longer articles...It often still feels as though it's 'sponsored by ISI', with all of the ISI based products over hyped with little constructive critism of their shortcomings.
It's still often a good source for some news as they have access to sims before the release, but I'll probably take any enthusiastic review with a pinch of salt, after I was so completley sucked in by the review of rFactor.
At least Lienz was free, but their hype still amazes me. It just isn't anywhere near as good as they say.....
The 'West Brothers Talk' was seemingly a poor April Fools joke.
Seen this posted somewhere else with all the obligatory "Should have stuck with 'F3' " and "Did he miss a 'Shift' and lose 'Ctrl' " type jokes....
...Lets 'Esc' the misery and jump right to the 'End'
...Lets 'Esc' the misery and jump right to the 'End'
I wonder if you can get mowed down in the pitlane
It might start a whole new breed of wreckers, diving in front of cars....I've pre-paid - quite happy to support another project with a similar goal as LFS. It sounds like a good step towards sim racing simulating a real racing weekend/event, where mistakes and tyre use have real implications to your overall success.
It'd be good if the 'Doom' mode allows you to go round to another driver's garage and give them a piece of your mind, after they've taken you out on the first lap :chairs:
I've now managed to add a few custom 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions in the windows display settings, and then LFS picks these up. As they weren't officially supported by the monitor it is a case of trial and error, with a couple of PC lockup/crashes being the worst symtom.
I was a little cautious at first, as my previous experience of setting unsupported resolutions with my old CRT was a nasty flickering and loud clicking noise from the monitor, that only stopped when I hit the power switch.
The resolutions I've added that worked were 960x600, 1152x720 and 1280x800 at 60Hz. 1024x640 and a few other odd resolutions crashed the computer.
1152x720 and 1280x800 seem to be the sweet spot to keep the frame rate at 60 (except at starts) and maintain a nice crisp display.
My monitor is the ACER AL2416W, so if anyone else has this widescreen LCD, it does support resolutions not listed by the manufacturer.
I was a little cautious at first, as my previous experience of setting unsupported resolutions with my old CRT was a nasty flickering and loud clicking noise from the monitor, that only stopped when I hit the power switch.
The resolutions I've added that worked were 960x600, 1152x720 and 1280x800 at 60Hz. 1024x640 and a few other odd resolutions crashed the computer.
1152x720 and 1280x800 seem to be the sweet spot to keep the frame rate at 60 (except at starts) and maintain a nice crisp display.
My monitor is the ACER AL2416W, so if anyone else has this widescreen LCD, it does support resolutions not listed by the manufacturer.
If the money is an issue then my answer is definitely don't bother. None of the mods have made me think rFactor was worth buying as a mod platform, which is what it is as the standard content is pretty ropey. Even the 'official' Lienz mod is actually quite bad. I would best describe Lienz as hovercrafts with Sega rally graphics. It also has very noticeable popup, even with graphics settings on max.
You already have GTR and GTL, which are better graphically and 'feel' better, despite also using the ISI engine.
If F3 cars are your thing, I'd stick with LFS's FOX and hold out for nKpro, which looks promising.
If money is no object, then (given how much I've used it), rFactor would be a 'maybe' at best. I've tried going back to it each time a new mod or major patch was released and each time it's failed to convince me. The F3 mod was OK for a while, and Lime Rock Park is always good for a blast, but for a convincing immersive experience, LFS beats it hands down.
As for finding online games, rF is usually worse than LFS for finding a well populated race online. Despite some people's complaints (here in the USA) about LFS's lack of players, I can usually find a good race in LFS, even if it's not with a car or track combo of choice. As more mods are released for rF I think the players are spread more thinly, which is not a problem for LFS.
In short, my advice is save your cash....
You already have GTR and GTL, which are better graphically and 'feel' better, despite also using the ISI engine.
If F3 cars are your thing, I'd stick with LFS's FOX and hold out for nKpro, which looks promising.
If money is no object, then (given how much I've used it), rFactor would be a 'maybe' at best. I've tried going back to it each time a new mod or major patch was released and each time it's failed to convince me. The F3 mod was OK for a while, and Lime Rock Park is always good for a blast, but for a convincing immersive experience, LFS beats it hands down.
As for finding online games, rF is usually worse than LFS for finding a well populated race online. Despite some people's complaints (here in the USA) about LFS's lack of players, I can usually find a good race in LFS, even if it's not with a car or track combo of choice. As more mods are released for rF I think the players are spread more thinly, which is not a problem for LFS.
In short, my advice is save your cash....
Maybe Toca3 is more your thing, but you won't see any of us there
Well I'm not surprised, with that piss you Aussie's call beer
According to www.autosport.com, it's back on:
An A1 GP spokesperson told autosport.com: "We initially believed that the work required for Laguna Seca would be not achieved in time, causing us to inform the teams of our decision to cancel.
"However, after further meetings with circuit officials we have been assured that the necessary work will be done and we have chosen to push ahead with plans for the race."
An A1 GP spokesperson told autosport.com: "We initially believed that the work required for Laguna Seca would be not achieved in time, causing us to inform the teams of our decision to cancel.
"However, after further meetings with circuit officials we have been assured that the necessary work will be done and we have chosen to push ahead with plans for the race."
I voted for option three, but...
I think it may be good if an S1 and Demo user could be able to play S2 mpr replays offline. This would give them a glimpse of what they are missing, a chance to 'ride' in the cars and see the tracks without the problem of them using server bandwidth. This might get a few people who are currently content with the demo to actually cough up for an S2 license.
I think it may be good if an S1 and Demo user could be able to play S2 mpr replays offline. This would give them a glimpse of what they are missing, a chance to 'ride' in the cars and see the tracks without the problem of them using server bandwidth. This might get a few people who are currently content with the demo to actually cough up for an S2 license.
This is so true. I bought rFactor based in some part to the gushing review in ASS, especially as they did not release a demo of the full release of rFactor. Autosimsport still talk about rFactor, GTR and GTL as if the physics are actually pretty good
illepall so I hope their review of the nKP beta is actually slightly more realistic. It certainly sounds very impressive, but so did rF....FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG