The caterham mod for rFactor is quite special. I checked how it works and it uses tyre lateral force curves which almost stay flat beyond the grip limit (after 12 degrees slip angle).

And this reproduces a lot better what happens in transient state above the grip limit: you can for a brief moment ask more from the tyres than what they are supposed to give, and this is enough to keep control.

When the transient behavior of tyres is not modeled, it seems to me the only thing to do is to use tyre curves which almost stay flat after the top instead of decreasing quickly. Like this mod does.

I suppose LFS either has flatter tyre curves than rFactor usually uses, or models tyre transient behavior.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

Gimme a break. It's easily classifiable as a simulator ... well, okay, some of the mods are not so great. But if you stick to the highly rated mods, it's almost as authentic feeling as LFS, which is pretty high praise. To be honest - and I know this is going to draw some critisis - but I think with a good mod, rFactor feels more authentic than the grand daddy of them all: Grand Prix Legends. That game still suffered a bit too much from the "driving on ice" and "harder is better" problems of the first driving "sims".

I didn't say some Rfactor mods weren't very close to LFS, I didn't say anything! As you said, some Rfactor mods I have tried do come pretty close to LFS, but not quite imo, and there you have another problem: modding! (Or, more specifically, lots of modding, most of it bad.) I won't go into detail, the problems have been covered millions of times... Still, as Ikaponthus said, I doubt any one of us can really tell which is more authentic and realistic, but I maintain that Rfactor doesn't give that connection between you and the car. LFS isn't perfect, but I believe it is better. Hard to convey that into a 2 sentence post!

I love a bit of GPL, pity it doesn't seem to work on my computer.

5haz: "Rfactor is good once you take a year or two to set it up properly, LFS is good right out of the box. The quality of LFS is also fairly consistant, unlike Rfactor! But then Rfactor has a lot nore variety when it comes to cars/ tracks. But most Rfactor mods are virtually undrivable." +1.

Remember, as I said, I'm not saying Rfactor isn't fun, and I'm not saying that you can't/it is wrong to enjoy it more, I'm saying it doesn't feel as realistic. Oh, and I retract my 'not a simulator' comment.

Quote from Juls :

The caterham mod for rFactor is quite special. I checked how it works and it uses tyre lateral force curves which almost stay flat beyond the grip limit (after 12 degrees slip angle).

And this reproduces a lot better what happens in transient state above the grip limit: you can for a brief moment ask more from the tyres than what they are supposed to give, and this is enough to keep control.

When the transient behavior of tyres is not modeled, it seems to me the only thing to do is to use tyre curves which almost stay flat after the top instead of decreasing quickly. Like this mod does.

I suppose LFS either has flatter tyre curves than rFactor usually uses, or models tyre transient behavior.

Hmmm ... apart from the very first sentance and the word "tyre", I could barely understand the rest of this post....

Anyway, glad someone seems to have a more technical idea of what goes into making a good racing sim. For me I just judge on how "real" it feels.

Regarding the caterharm mod: that's pretty much the point of this thread, although a lot of people are missing it. I prefer LFS to rFactor, all things weighed up. But what I'm saying is rFactor is much better than most people give it credit for, especially when using a good mod. For example, compare the caterhams in both games. They're extremely similar to drive once they are setup the same.

Today I'm going to do the reverse of what I did yesterday: I'll get the "default" setup from LFS and put it into rFactor and see how close that is...

What he means is when traction levels drop quite a bit after peak slip, you get the uncounterable spin effect if you go past the limit... With every degree angle you're over the limit the traction falls more, causing more angle and so on... GTR was legendary for this behaviour, GTR2 had it too as far as I know...

Problem is many modders still believe this to be true, only a handful like Niels show how it should be done, and the success of their mods speak for themselves...

Quote from bbman :

What he means is when traction levels drop quite a bit after peak slip, you get the uncounterable spin effect if you go past the limit... With every degree angle you're over the limit the traction falls more, causing more angle and so on... GTR was legendary for this behaviour, GTR2 had it too as far as I know...

Problem is many modders still believe this to be true, only a handful like Niels show how it should be done, and the success of their mods speak for themselves...

That makes sense, thanks for the explanation. I guess that refers to the "driving on ice" feeling that I was describing earlier on that the early racing "sims" suffered from.

I'd also say that NR2003 and GPL suffered a bit from that problem too. Although the GPL physics have the peculiar trait that if you get the car sideways around a corner, all you have to do is hold the steering wheel dead straight and hold the throttle half open, and the car would go into a perfect controlled drift. I highly doubt that's very realistic, but it's good fun.

After doing comparisons on all three games last night, I think GTR2 is by far the worst for this problem. The car feels too stable and tight to start with, but if you manage to get it slipping a little bit, there's no recovering! Or it's unrealisticly difficult in any case.

The funny thing is , I play all of these sims and I am slow in all of them. iRacing right now is my favorite, followed by LFS. I don't mind the pricing, especially since I made my family give me gift cards for Christmas. It won't take much for me to swing back to LFS just give me the DANG vw and I'll be a racin.

i liked rfactor but its slow on my pc, id consider buying but its a hassle for online downloading gigs of addons...

Quote from Ikaponthus :

I can't tell for sure - and nobody here can, whether they think so or not - which game is the more authentic and realistic.

Uhh? I am not gonna say my opinion is the correct one, and I don't blame you for doubting the opinions of others... as many people really don't have the experience of really driving a car in real life as they do in LFS...

But why is it not possible for ANYONE to tell which is more realistic? Its not like were judging art here, or its a matter of taste. They are trying to imitate a real life thing. The way a car reacts to driver input is not a matter of opinion. One of the games is closer accurately representing real life. Why would it be impossible for someone who has adequate experience to make that distinction?

Quote from RedCoupe :

Uhh? I am not gonna say my opinion is the correct one, and I don't blame you for doubting the opinions of others... as many people really don't have the experience of really driving a car in real life as they do in LFS...

But why is it not possible for ANYONE to tell which is more realistic? Its not like were judging art here, or its a matter of taste. They are trying to imitate a real life thing. The way a car reacts to driver input is not a matter of opinion. One of the games is closer accurately representing real life. Why would it be impossible for someone who has adequate experience to make that distinction?

I would tend to agree. When you get right down to it, you get an opinion. Maybe an educated and experienced opinion, but still an opinion.

There are just too many variables to be able to make direct comparisons between a sim and the real world. Getting the exact same car, same weight, a tire model that reflects the actual tires used, ambient temperatures, tarmac condition and wear, humidity, etc, etc.

I think some of the worst recommendations I have seen come from real world racers who don't spend much or any time using racing simulators. A sim is just too removed from reality for a comparison for them. People who are attuned to how sims work and also have some real track experience will generally give you a better comparison. But even then, by nature, it can only be a limited comparison or in other words, just an opinion.

I have track experience. My opinion is that LFS does a better job overall in simulating car physics and, importantly, visual and physical (Force Feedback) feedback as to what the car is doing. However, and this is a big caveat, I don't push on the real track like I do in LFS. In LFS, I am right on the limit or over the limit all the damn time. On the real track, I get close to the limit most of the time and rarely go over the limit. Cars/Tires behave very differently under the limit compared to on the limit as compared to over the limit. So even my opinion has limitations and I can only go so far with my opinion of simulator realism before I overstep my experience.

As a side note, I mostly see people equate realism with visual/graphical things. In other words, if the picture on the screen looks more real to them, then the sim is more real. Even when speaking of physics and tire behavior, I have found that many people are still influenced by how things look as opposed to how things behave.

iRacing seems a tad better than rFactor for physics. However, even worse than rFactor, iRacing makes me feel like I am driving a Wacky Racer or something. In the Solstice, it feels like the hood of the car is detached from everything else and is just bucking around. No real car has the hood come up in your face when you accelerate like that... even if you have a soft suspension.

Quote from Hallen :

As a side note, I mostly see people equate realism with visual/graphical things. In other words, if the picture on the screen looks more real to them, then the sim is more real. Even when speaking of physics and tire behavior, I have found that many people are still influenced by how things look as opposed to how things behave.

Part of the simulation is immersion, and looks help with that immensly. It would be hard to believe you were in a car, no matter how good the physics are, if the cars looked like boxes and the track and grass were just black and green mats.

Thats said, there is nothing better than running triple monitors, with full force feedback and a good sound system for immersion

I've had rFactor for over a year, and even with Niels' Vette I can't get it set up right. I spend more time trying to set up my **** steering than I do racing, eventually I just turn it off.

If it weren't for the 'Ring, I'd have uninstalled it months ago.

Rfactor does really look bad. Most of the tracks in Rfactor are just plain flat, and they just don't look good somehow.
And it doesn't even feel like you're driving a car. It feels like you're turning around 1 point.
Not much good can be said about the FFB either. I've tried multiple settings for my G25, but they just didn't feel right.
The variety of Rfactor brings too much problems, as the mod makers just don't take any time to make something good. Specially in terms of tracks. Yes, some mods may be good, but most of them are plain bad.

And LFS is still only in Alpha(!) There's still so much that can still be improved and implented. Even if it does take a long while, there will eventually be perfection (hopefully)

Yes, LFS is my choice.

What I wouldn't give for Nordschleife in LFS, lol.

I've tried various sims, iRacing included for a few months and I always come back to LFS. iRacing doesn't really have much over LFS apart from RL tracks. Could not get into rFactor... it felt.... weird...

I'd prefer LFS over anything at the moment, but you never know, we might get something later on that craps over LFS. I just can't see it happening for a long while

Quote from RedCoupe :

Uhh? I am not gonna say my opinion is the correct one, and I don't blame you for doubting the opinions of others... as many people really don't have the experience of really driving a car in real life as they do in LFS...

But why is it not possible for ANYONE to tell which is more realistic? Its not like were judging art here, or its a matter of taste. They are trying to imitate a real life thing. The way a car reacts to driver input is not a matter of opinion. One of the games is closer accurately representing real life. Why would it be impossible for someone who has adequate experience to make that distinction?

That's a fair enough point.

Good post here. I'd like to make a few comments...

Quote from Hallen :

I would tend to agree. When you get right down to it, you get an opinion. Maybe an educated and experienced opinion, but still an opinion.

... that was kind of the point of the original statement, "nobody can tell for sure" - it's all just a personal opinion.

Quote :

However, and this is a big caveat, I don't push on the real track like I do in LFS. In LFS, I am right on the limit or over the limit all the damn time. On the real track, I get close to the limit most of the time and rarely go over the limit. Cars/Tires behave very differently under the limit compared to on the limit as compared to over the limit. So even my opinion has limitations and I can only go so far with my opinion of simulator realism before I overstep my experience.

This is an interesting point and part of the reason I am always pushing for a realistic damage model. The major difference here is that in a sim you are driving with zero-fear. In the real world, you're concerned about damaging the car, not only so you can finish the race, but also because you're concerned about the financial cost about fixing the car. And that's all not mentioning the concern one has for their own personal safety.

In a "sim" like LFS or rFactor, you can practically ping-pong off the walls at 150km/ph with little or no effect on the car and certainly no threat to your personal safety.

Even if you don't make the conscious decision to "slow down" in real life, I'm sure this is the reason why you're not driving on the limits so much. You are reaching your "instinctual limit" for safety before the car is reacing it's limit on the track. In a sim there is no such concerns. Especially a "sim" with a virtually non-existent damage model.

....well that's what I guess is happening anyway....

Quote :

As a side note, I mostly see people equate realism with visual/graphical things. In other words, if the picture on the screen looks more real to them, then the sim is more real. Even when speaking of physics and tire behavior, I have found that many people are still influenced by how things look as opposed to how things behave.

I don't know about that. I think most proper "sim racers" think more in terms of physics than graphics. Maybe your average 14yo Gran Turismo fan would judge the game by graphics.

Quote :

iRacing seems a tad better than rFactor for physics. However, even worse than rFactor, iRacing makes me feel like I am driving a Wacky Racer or something. In the Solstice, it feels like the hood of the car is detached from everything else and is just bucking around. No real car has the hood come up in your face when you accelerate like that... even if you have a soft suspension.

I'd be interested to have a go. I've always wondered how a sim-racing game would go if it simulated the visual G-Force effects on the driver's head. Consider it may not be the bonnet moving up, but the drivers head moving down. I'd say that sort of effect would be more usefull simulating lateral forces in the corners. I was concentrating on it the other day, and my head/field of vision moves around more in day-to-day traffic than it does in most racing sims, and this adds loads to the unwanted "driving on ice" feel that most racing sims suffer from (due to a lack of feedback regarding G-Forces). The drivers head would rotate ("tilt" the screen) as well as move laterally left and right, and this movement would be stronger the higher G's are being pulled. It's just an idea, I have no clue if it would really work very well. But it's all about "feedback", in any way possible, which is of course the point you touched on earlier.

PS - yes I am aware that some sims do similate a tiny bit of head movement. But compared to real life, even general commuting to work and back, it's negligible amount and offers no real feeback.

Quote from RedCoupe :

Uhh? I am not gonna say my opinion is the correct one, and I don't blame you for doubting the opinions of others... as many people really don't have the experience of really driving a car in real life as they do in LFS...

But why is it not possible for ANYONE to tell which is more realistic? Its not like were judging art here, or its a matter of taste. They are trying to imitate a real life thing. The way a car reacts to driver input is not a matter of opinion. One of the games is closer accurately representing real life. Why would it be impossible for someone who has adequate experience to make that distinction?

yes but there is nothing bd about a game that is not 10 percent acurate
surley the point of a racing game/sim is to experiance race cars that most people will never have the chance to drive, so what if it grips a bit more than the real thing for most cars knowone playing can tell the differance

Quote from Ikaponthus :

I've always wondered how a sim-racing game would go if it simulated the visual G-Force effects on the driver's head.

You do know that LFS has those settings? I generally have it mostly off because, to me, it detracts from the realism.

When in the real car, your head is moving around, but the way your eyes react, etc, it is really difficult to make a sim behave the right way. iRacing likes to move the car around you a lot. LFS actually does move the driver's eye position with the resultant effect of everything moving around.

iRacing is correct in an odd sort of way because your eye will naturally lock onto something in the distance and you will perceive that the car is moving around but the world isn't. LFS moves the drivers point of view which forces your eye to find something to lock onto on the screen. But, since we don't have depth perception and we can't easily move our head to keep things in view (you can with a TrackIR, but it is somewhat difficult to learn), things are not really natural.

There are few ways to do this type of thing effectively in sims. It is an inherent limitation of current technology. Just my opinion. I know others feel differently about this kind of thing.

Quote from Hallen :

You do know that LFS has those settings? I generally have it mostly off because, to me, it detracts from the realism.

When in the real car, your head is moving around, but the way your eyes react, etc, it is really difficult to make a sim behave the right way. iRacing likes to move the car around you a lot. LFS actually does move the driver's eye position with the resultant effect of everything moving around.

iRacing is correct in an odd sort of way because your eye will naturally lock onto something in the distance and you will perceive that the car is moving around but the world isn't. LFS moves the drivers point of view which forces your eye to find something to lock onto on the screen. But, since we don't have depth perception and we can't easily move our head to keep things in view (you can with a TrackIR, but it is somewhat difficult to learn), things are not really natural.

There are few ways to do this type of thing effectively in sims. It is an inherent limitation of current technology. Just my opinion. I know others feel differently about this kind of thing.

Yeah, you make some interesting points there.

What we're really talking about is trying to get some kind of feedback on G-Forces, which is crucially important while driving, but virtually impossible to simulate on a computer.

I sometimes wonder if there would be any possible way to "simulate" the G-Forces for a driving sim cheaply, but I think it's a pipe dream. I can't imagine any way, short of a full cage with some kind of hydraulic setup, which would just be too expensive for most people, not to mention taking up too much space.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

I sometimes wonder if there would be any possible way to "simulate" the G-Forces for a driving sim cheaply, but I think it's a pipe dream. I can't imagine any way

Neural jack? Quite cyberpunk-ish and a bug in the firmware could have serious consequences

Quote from 5haz :

Rfactor is good once you take a year or two to set it up properly, LFS is good right out of the box.

Hi, it's nice to read some reasonably sorted-out statement, anyway...

Quote :

Have you ever tried Neils Corvette mod and the HistoriX mod, clearly not. Trying a demo for 5 minutes doesn't really give you a good impression of Rfactor,

While that may be right I just cannot hold back and write this simple comment:
Why then do the rfactor-developers even send out a demo-version, if it doesn't provide an honest chance to get into the feeling and to specifically discover the sim-potential of that "game"??

The answer I give myself on that one is just this: They are already happy enough with their sales-figures, so they do not care to give the experienced sim-racer a good enough "hook" so he/she'll get's drawn in and effortlessly/instantly takes a bite.
So, sadly, I'll have to say: "no - thank you."

--> And yes, I tried the demo like 2/3 times with some time in-between and it never improved in that department, at all. Let alone the user-interface which is just plain counter-intuitive compared to LFS! Wasn't any fun for me right from the first intro-screen!

Quote :

Anyway, Rfactor 2 is supposedly in development, and they better have sorted out the physics.

Well, I'll be happy to give it's demo a chance when it's ready (and at that time one of my computers still proofs fast enough for it).

As for i-Racing: Money talks. Enough said.

...or maybe not: I recon it would have been quite easy for the lfs-guys to achieve a stable S-2 at the end of 2006 if they had been given that kind of speculative investment as loan that i-racing has already used up for their development and licensing costs. I don't whish them any bad luck but for me I say:
"no - thank you." An (online) demo with their physics would be the least to expect when wanting all of my little spare money!

on a side note: it's late here and I just got a glimpse at about half of the first page of this thread, so please don't slap me for not reflecting on anything further on and/or directly above my message.

i got rfactor demo and for somereason love the night racing!!!, and i cant join ONE server beacause of all the addons needed...

To enjoy rFactor, you must
1) Use a good mod. A good mod must have correct suspensions and tyres. The HistorX, Caterham and Corvette mods are good. The stock ISI cars are rubbish.

2) Use RealFeel with these mods. You should only need to tweak 1 number per mod, which is a max steering force value like that in the GPL config file.

3) Turn off all the vibration crap in the stock FFB by setting FFB level to low.

Then it becomes quite playable, only that the mod tracks from different authors aren't consistent in quality/features/color tuning.

Quote from DrBen :

Why then do the rfactor-developers even send out a demo-version, if it doesn't provide an honest chance to get into the feeling and to specifically discover the sim-potential of that "game"??

Since the cars that come with the demo are crap... I'm just as puzzled. They have very peculiar design logics IMO, or else why would they bother to build a super complex FFB system that would be destined to fail?

I guess I'll be the firt to say that the ISI rFactor cars aren't that bad at all.

I don't know what people are going on about. They're much more realistic than the cars in pretty much any other racing "sim" apart from LFS. Certainly more realistic than the cars in GTR2 anyway.

I even think the rFactor stock-cars are more realistic than those in NR2003, with the exception of the damage model. Yeah go and flame away. But "hard" doesn't mean "real". I'm the first to admit the obvious: I've never really driven a NASCAR. But with what experience I do have driving, racing and watching racing (whatever that counts for), I think that the ISI stockcar in rFactor feels more realistic than those in the much vaunted Papyrus sim.

To me LFS intuatively feels the most authentic, but rFactor isn't as far behind as most people seem to think.

I have tried many car/driving simulator games but I like only these:

Live For Speed
Gran Turismo 1-4 and 5P
Burnout 3: Takedown
TrackMania Nations
Need For Speed II SE

Of Course, LFS is Number #1 with Gran Turismo for me .
Burnout 3 and TMN are just for fun
One of the greatest Need For Speed games EVER! II and II SE.
New NFS Sucks greatly but this one, NFSIISE is one for me =)

But back on main: LFS vs rFactor = 96 - 4

Quote :

And LFS is still only in Alpha(!)

that's actually kinda dumb... i mean, if the game is being played by the public, it's hardly an alpha, nor a beta... you can consider it a beta if you go by google's definition, but they got it wrong too...

lfs needs a rename.

edit: for the record, i saw what scawen said we'd need to bring s2 out of alpha, and from the list he posted, we're only half way there.