Quote from rabidmaddog :

Precisely. So should I really tweak my BIOS and other settings to possibly make Rfactor happy and likely screw up the flawless performance of 30 of my other games and applications? I don't think so. As I said, I think Rfactor needs more testing and more work. I am not saying it won't work on a different machine. I hope it does work well for others. It simply was a nightmare for me and many others.

if you did want to try it again the way that i sorted out the "goofy" steering was to reduce the graphics draw ahead to 0 (using riva tuner or equivelant). i think because controller inputs relate directly to the graphics engine or something odd like that!? this made the sim far more responsive for me and didnt adversely affect any other games as far as i know.

Just an FYI

Quote from Platinum pete :

if you did want to try it again the way that i sorted out the "goofy" steering was to reduce the graphics draw ahead to 0 (using riva tuner or equivelant). i think because controller inputs relate directly to the graphics engine or something odd like that!? this made the sim far more responsive for me and didnt adversely affect any other games as far as i know.

Just an FYI

rFactor runs sweet on my machine. I didn't have to re-configure anything, and what your talking about above is "Frames Rendered Ahead" which by default Nvidia sets to 3 but can cause stutters in some applications, so Nvidia advises setting this to 2 or even 0. This can be set by installing and running Coolbits, which is a little app that lets you OC your Nvidia card. As for rFactor, it took me away from LFS. I got tired of low speed corner spinning that LFS was known for. Although I will say this, after patch U, I have NOT experienced it and have been running LFS a little more, but I'm stuck on the McLarens in rFactor.

Quote from mrodgers :

So, you are saying I shouldn't judge GTL because the best I can get is 10 FPS at 800x600x16 running with DX7, no AA/AF, no other cars on track and all ingame options set at minimum, yet LFS I can run 1152x864x32 with 4xAA/4xAF and all options set at maximum at 50 FPS, sometimes 70-80 FPS depending on number of racers?

Well can you realy say if the game is good or bad if you can't even play it? Sure the hardware requirement's are higher, but, IMHO the game is fine. Should I judge LFS if I play it online with GPRS?

Quote from askoff :

Well can you realy say if the game is good or bad if you can't even play it? Sure the hardware requirement's are higher, but, IMHO the game is fine. Should I judge LFS if I play it online with GPRS?

In my opinion, yes I can say it is good or bad. My PC is 4 months old. I'm not the CEO of a corporation, just a simple hourly production employee trying to make it in this age today while allowing my wife to stay home and raise our kids ourselves rather than send them somewhere else for 8-10-12 hours a day. If those who program the software make you go out and purchase the absolute top of the line PC to play it, then in my opinion, it is crap.

My 5 yr old daughter plays S2 0.5Q on a freakin Celeron 667 MHz networked to my PC against me in the GTi and at around 35 FPS! Yet, GTL isn't able to run on an Athalon 64 3500?

Quote from mrodgers :

In my opinion, yes I can say it is good or bad. My PC is 4 months old. I'm not the CEO of a corporation, just a simple hourly production employee trying to make it in this age today while allowing my wife to stay home and raise our kids ourselves rather than send them somewhere else for 8-10-12 hours a day. If those who program the software make you go out and purchase the absolute top of the line PC to play it, then in my opinion, it is crap.

My 5 yr old daughter plays S2 0.5Q on a freakin Celeron 667 MHz networked to my PC against me in the GTi and at around 35 FPS! Yet, GTL isn't able to run on an Athalon 64 3500?

My three years old PC (P4 2,5GHz) with GF6600GT works quite well with GTL. Your CPU should be almost two times faster than mine so if you don't have realy crapy display card I suggest you to check if there's a problem with your computer or setting in GTL.

Quote from Pain-less :

rFactor runs sweet on my machine. I didn't have to re-configure anything, and what your talking about above is "Frames Rendered Ahead" which by default Nvidia sets to 3 but can cause stutters in some applications, so Nvidia advises setting this to 2 or even 0. This can be set by installing and running Coolbits, which is a little app that lets you OC your Nvidia card. As for rFactor, it took me away from LFS. I got tired of low speed corner spinning that LFS was known for. Although I will say this, after patch U, I have NOT experienced it and have been running LFS a little more, but I'm stuck on the McLarens in rFactor.

you are more accurate than i was in explaining that, thats for sure.

the point i was trying to make was that before i did the frame renders ahead thingy i had some serious control lag and general unresponsiveness with Rfactor. the change made it far more controllable and it now feels infinitely better. dont know why this is but its fact in my case

Ouch, I played rFactor yesterday, and I've already got my money back. Sorry to say it, but it was a waste of an hour.

Quote from Hatemaker :

Ouch, I played rFactor yesterday, and I've already got my money back. Sorry to say it, but it was a waste of an hour.

gave it a proper test then?

It's often the first impression that counts.

My first impressions were
LFS: blew my socks off
nKPro: the ok to nice driving was completely annihilated by the crap rest
rFactor: made me cringe

My current licenses are
LFS: S3
nKP: none (demo)
rF: none

See any correlation?

True. the rfactor demo just didnt grab me, but it can't be that bad lots of people like it.

I guess I wont be buying another sim untill iracing release. Its nice that
lfs has seen off so many pretenders
But it would be good for it to have something better than it in the wild and better for us.

I still say an hour is not enough.:eclipseeh

lfs: I like this but back to nascar2003! (in 2003 )
rfactor: meh its alright
nkpro: lol I'll come back in a year.

Gotta admit it's a nice model - nicer than the LFS one in many ways. I don't know what the exact limitations of the LFS 3D engine are, but despite rFactors cartoony graphics and floaty cars they do have a versatile engine.

The suspension is nice, and the little details, such as the pitot tube and extra aerials are very nice. Oh, and the rear wing 'vents' too. I'm not a fan of the horrid winglets on the front wing, but they have them in real life, so I can't complain, but aesthetically our front wing is nicer. Also, notice the T-camera (with a different 'texture' on the end), the nose cam, the grooved 3D tyres (rather than a texture), holes for the suspension, strain gauges on the rear wishbones, and the titanium ends on the front pushrods.

I really really hope that Eric sits down and makes every one of the LFS cars as stunningly accurate as that rFactor model, within the limitations of the LFS engine. I'd pay extra for it Hell, I'll buy Eric a really big box of chocolates if he can stuff like this out for the next patch

I posted a few weeks ago, but now we have a new version of LFS.

I own both. rFactor and LFS and played both much longer than 1 hour or 1 day or 1 week Offline as well as online.

I still like rFactor at least as much as LFS.

It is kind of annoying, that after months of waiting and another physics update (a direct tyre physics update) there are still major problems (for me) with physics in LFS.

I don't want to talk about how results are produced. LFS has a really great approach by trying to calculate everything. rFactor does some tricks with reading tables. (one big reason for supporting LFS in my oppinion for fans of physics)

But what counts in first place for most players is the result, isn't it? If a simulation simulates something as real as possible, I don't care how it does it. I want to play the result ...

First of the very often described floating feeling of cars.
If I play LFS for a while and switch to rFactor it feels strange for the first few minutes.
BUT it is also the other way around. I even feel more of a sweeping car in LFS, because it doesn't have as many bumps as rFactor I think. You get the impression of flying a few milimeters above the ground. At least for the first few minutes.

But thats not a real point to me.

All racing cars in LFS are really great. And I really think this. All the Formula cars, all the GTR cars. They drive really as I would imagine them to drive. But I didn't drive any of them in real life.
I drove some karts a bit, but it is nowhere near a real car judging by feeling. Perhabs a bit of a small formula car in some way. I would imagine driving formula 1 cars is more similar to carts than to street cars

What I did drive a lot of kilometers are street cars. Mostly FWD, but I drive regulary a RWD car with 180hp. My own car is 150 hp FWD.

And there is the problem. They drive more like rFactor. They feel like a lot more grip. And I am talking about Patch U, which made it a bit better.

The RWD cars still are strange in my oppinion. I don't know if it is a thing about physics, setups or missing electronics. But if a real BMW for example would oversteer that much if you just push it a bit, there would be a lot more accidents.
Millions of unexperienced and partly bad drivers drive RWD cars in real life. And boy, in some real life situations they will floor the throttle. e.g. if they have to join traffic on a highway or taking a 90° corner on their lane.

A lot of them will push the throttle out of a corner if they want to join traffic on the highway.
And a RWD car is very very stable in all of these situations. Deactivate ESP and a modern BMW will still understeer a lot in most situations. You have to be really violent with steering, throttle to really get it to oversteer. At least to get it to oversteer as much as in LFS.

In rFactor you can drive moderate and oversteer won't be a real issue. Like in real life it isn't necessary to know how to countersteer properly.
If you push it, oversteer may happen. If you really push it, oversteer WILL happen.

And there is a weakness of rFactor. You CAN catch slides. But after a certain angle of drifting, physics seem to give up. So I agree about the oversteering problem in rFactor. At some point it gets impossible to catch the drift.
But to that point it is much more drivable and feels much more realistic to me in comparison to real driving.

And I like street cars most like the FZ50, RAC, XF GT or GT Turbo or GTI.

Another thing which is definitly a PHYSICS ISSUE of LFS is wheelspin. In all of the cars its best to start full throttle. You are even able to do the best ranking in Acceleration lesson just with a keyboard. I managed a 7.09 in GTI Acceleration lesson with my keyboard.
Thats a really big issue which should at least in LFS also influence the rest of driving experience on the track.

In all real race series there are huge starter differences. Some cars manage to get several positions ahead. In LFS starts are really boring until the first corner.
All cars start equally because of the arcade signal (in rFactor its more of a simulation and you may react freely to the signal)
And then all cars start as quick as the others. They can just get an advantage by slipstream or another setup. Not by a good driver ...

On the other hand rFactor has a small clutch issue and unrealistic weak brakes on street cars. Both can be modified by yourself in the hdv files. I corrected that myself for me
But I can't correct the "catching slides at high angles" problem. Its really a ISI physics thing, which should be corrected. If you drive well you won't need to get a drift at that angle ... you should react quick enough. So it doesn't matter as much, as constantly countersteering in LFS.

Enough Hopefully someone reads it. Have fun, have to go for now.

Quote from RIP2004 :

...

a) try bobs road going setups (dunno if he has updated them for s/t/u yet) those make the cars as understeery as a normal road car ... its a setup issue not a tyres issue (at least not entirely)
and you can easily kick the tail out in most road cars irl if you overpower the rear wheels
b) the gti doesnt have half enough torque to spin the wheels enough be lose significant amouts of acceleration (but ive told you at least twice already so i guess this atmept will be in vain as well)

Quote from Shotglass :

a) try bobs road going setups (dunno if he has updated them for s/t/u yet) those make the cars as understeery as a normal road car ... its a setup issue not a tyres issue (at least not entirely)
and you can easily kick the tail out in most road cars irl if you overpower the rear wheels
b) the gti doesnt have half enough torque to spin the wheels enough be lose significant amouts of acceleration (but ive told you at least twice already so i guess this atmept will be in vain as well)

Yeah, good points shotglass.

I don't comprehend the ranting about oversteer after the latest patch...

Everyone knew it before the patch, but it's like night & day now.

Even with default setups, all the cars push like mad if you only slightly push them. Even the GTT/LX6 understeer into corners like crazy unless you set them up NOT to, or push them hard enough to bite you back. I'm sure someone will correct me, but I can't see this being very unrealistic. What IS unrealistic, is a car that corner like on rails, and then very suddenly decide that all hell has broken loose and you can't recover no matter what. illepall

And AGAIN, with the GTi wheelspin. Man, why can't people look at the whole situation's variables instead of saying "X is inherantly unrealistic" when in fact, X is only unrealistic in some conditions.

Take the FX0 - Rev it to 9000RPM & get some boost, then drop the clutch. GUESS WHAT - Doesn't get up & go as fast as if you drop it from a breif rev to 4000RPM does it? In fact, SOME (little) wheel spin is better than none at all even IRL.

It's pretty rare that I now actually spin out in a FZ5 or RA, maybe twice or three times a night, and they does have a lot of grip and it's possible to be very aggressive with the turn in as well.

Quote from Shotglass :

a) try bobs road going setups (dunno if he has updated them for s/t/u yet) those make the cars as understeery as a normal road car ... its a setup issue not a tyres issue (at least not entirely)
and you can easily kick the tail out in most road cars irl if you overpower the rear wheels
b) the gti doesnt have half enough torque to spin the wheels enough be lose significant amouts of acceleration (but ive told you at least twice already so i guess this atmept will be in vain as well)

a) bobs road going setups didn't change much about oversteer. At least the ones I tried with last version. They just made the suspension soft and ride heigth high. The ones, which really changed the situation were the ones by Nils.
But I'll look for new Setups with version U. I said that it could be the setup ... we'll see. But there is nearly no real car, which behaves like RAC or FZ50. At least no road legal car for usual customers.

b) And I told you at least twice, that there IS a lot of wheelspin. Engine Rev is at 8000 rpm. There is no blue graphic after start, so clutch is fully engaged.
Car speed is from 0 to 50 kph, whereas engine rev is at 8000 all the time. So there is a speed difference between wheels and car of about 50 kph getting lower.

But it is the same with the FZ50. You won't get (really) better results, with less throttle. Switch to automatic gear change, if you want realistic tests. Otherwise you will change situation by other shifting revs.

You see that situation with every car in LFS. I can do dozens of demonstrating videos on that issue. In real life there is a huge difference between a good and a bad starter. You will even notice it in a GTI like car.
In rFactor there is also a huge difference.
I think its also an issue in the problem, that a GTR car like the FZ50 is better off than the formula 1 car ...

I don't understand why a lot of people talk about differences, but can't show them. I bet, you don't even try really ...
Show me a time of GTI a lot better than 7.09.
Or show me huge differences with other cars with more torque. I really want to see that ...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Can I just add that the high revs might not be just wheelspin, but the autoclutch staying on a bit.

He already said the "blue graphic" is gone so clutch is fully engaged...

I often get better starts than the pack using a clutch pedal.

One other thing about the road-going cars in LFS is that you don't drive them the way you drive road-going cars in real life situations. In LFS I'm nearly always foot-to-the-floor and trying to take corners as quickly as possible. When was the last time you absolutely floored your street car for an entire 1000+ yard straight, or did 60-70mph through a decreasing radius corner? Furthermore, are your street cars tuned to do so?

I feel like it's pretty easy to wrongly criticise the street cars for not handling like your street car, when the conditions under which they operate are entirely different.

Wheelspinpart look here:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=125021#post125021

Well handling is a bit subjective. Its all about a certain feeling. Everyone has a different one. So who knows how a real XF GT e.g. would handle

I floor my cars often and I often drive corners quick enough to make the ESP cut of all throttle and stabilize the car. My former FWD car had no ESP and understeered in those situations.
I also have to change my tires after just 2 years

Cars are not tuned in any way.

Cars won't react exactly as mine, because they are different. But I feel them much more similar to the road going ones in rFactor.

Objective : it is very difficult to drive quick in a slalom or a lap, without having to counter steer the RWD cars in LFS. Even the low powered XF GT is oversteering a lot.

I totally share the opinion of Niels, who made those "road going" setups by using different tires in front and in the back :

Quote from Niels_at_home :

My opinion on LFS was that there where some big tyre issues from the first demo S1 to S2 alpha. There where some improvements but compared to the size of the problem not much fundamentally changed.

This new patch is again 'some improvement', mostly now that the roadcars have a bit more straight line grip than lateral grip. The grip loss / sudden break away problem is still very much there, just slightly less often as with the slightly longitudinally grippier tyres it takes a bit more power or wild driving to get them to spin. But once they spin.. you spin.. There is still no way you can do a slalom even 'only a bit wild' without having loads of oversteer to catch.

Road tyres are still cooked at 100c too, which seems to indicate their 'peak' of 'good grip' is much smaller than what would seem to be realistic.

At this rate sadly, I don't think LFS will become truly superbly realistic until S6.. I do think its less 'wrong' than ISI and I'm certainly not sure that NKpro is 'better' than the lot. So its 2006 and GPL despite doing far less physics things still does the main things less bad than todays sims.

I do applaud the effort and hope the 'official F1 car' will make the devs a wel deserved load of extra orders and $.

Quote from RIP2004 :

a) bobs road going setups didn't change much about oversteer. At least the ones I tried with last version. They just made the suspension soft and ride heigth high. The ones, which really changed the situation were the ones by Nils.
But I'll look for new Setups with version U. I said that it could be the setup ... we'll see. But there is nearly no real car, which behaves like RAC or FZ50. At least no road legal car for usual customers.

do you seriously think that if you plunge your foot down in a car with the pwoer to weight of the lfr class that the rear end will stack in check ? cause if you do you should consider returning your drivers license

Quote :

b) And I told you at least twice, that there IS a lot of wheelspin. Engine Rev is at 8000 rpm. There is no blue graphic after start, so clutch is fully engaged.
Car speed is from 0 to 50 kph, whereas engine rev is at 8000 all the time. So there is a speed difference between wheels and car of about 50 kph getting lower.

have you checked with an raf analyzer that the wheels actually spin at that speed and that the clutch isnt slipping ?

Quote :

I think its also an issue in the problem, that a GTR car like the FZ50 is better off than the formula 1 car

twice the load on wider tyres ... guess which car is better of the line ?

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

When was the last time you absolutely floored your street car for an entire 1000+ yard straight

every day ? its a 60 hp punto though

Quote :

or did 60-70mph through a decreasing radius corner? Furthermore, are your street cars tuned to do so?

hmmm also every other day on my way home (its a one way road with good visibility)
and round those corners at the limits of the puntos traction it feels a hell of a lot like a gti or an uf1 (probably the reason why those two are the only cars i really feel at home in lfs)

Quote from RIP2004 :

I posted a few weeks ago, but now we have a new version of LFS.

I own both. rFactor and LFS and played both much longer than 1 hour or 1 day or 1 week Offline as well as online.

I still like rFactor at least as much as LFS.

It is kind of annoying, that after months of waiting and another physics update (a direct tyre physics update) there are still major problems (for me) with physics in LFS.

I don't want to talk about how results are produced. LFS has a really great approach by trying to calculate everything. rFactor does some tricks with reading tables. (one big reason for supporting LFS in my oppinion for fans of physics)

But what counts in first place for most players is the result, isn't it? If a simulation simulates something as real as possible, I don't care how it does it. I want to play the result ...

First of the very often described floating feeling of cars.
If I play LFS for a while and switch to rFactor it feels strange for the first few minutes.
BUT it is also the other way around. I even feel more of a sweeping car in LFS, because it doesn't have as many bumps as rFactor I think. You get the impression of flying a few milimeters above the ground. At least for the first few minutes.

But thats not a real point to me.

All racing cars in LFS are really great. And I really think this. All the Formula cars, all the GTR cars. They drive really as I would imagine them to drive. But I didn't drive any of them in real life.
I drove some karts a bit, but it is nowhere near a real car judging by feeling. Perhabs a bit of a small formula car in some way. I would imagine driving formula 1 cars is more similar to carts than to street cars

What I did drive a lot of kilometers are street cars. Mostly FWD, but I drive regulary a RWD car with 180hp. My own car is 150 hp FWD.

And there is the problem. They drive more like rFactor. They feel like a lot more grip. And I am talking about Patch U, which made it a bit better.

The RWD cars still are strange in my oppinion. I don't know if it is a thing about physics, setups or missing electronics. But if a real BMW for example would oversteer that much if you just push it a bit, there would be a lot more accidents.
Millions of unexperienced and partly bad drivers drive RWD cars in real life. And boy, in some real life situations they will floor the throttle. e.g. if they have to join traffic on a highway or taking a 90° corner on their lane.

A lot of them will push the throttle out of a corner if they want to join traffic on the highway.
And a RWD car is very very stable in all of these situations. Deactivate ESP and a modern BMW will still understeer a lot in most situations. You have to be really violent with steering, throttle to really get it to oversteer. At least to get it to oversteer as much as in LFS.

In rFactor you can drive moderate and oversteer won't be a real issue. Like in real life it isn't necessary to know how to countersteer properly.
If you push it, oversteer may happen. If you really push it, oversteer WILL happen.

And there is a weakness of rFactor. You CAN catch slides. But after a certain angle of drifting, physics seem to give up. So I agree about the oversteering problem in rFactor. At some point it gets impossible to catch the drift.
But to that point it is much more drivable and feels much more realistic to me in comparison to real driving.

And I like street cars most like the FZ50, RAC, XF GT or GT Turbo or GTI.

Another thing which is definitly a PHYSICS ISSUE of LFS is wheelspin. In all of the cars its best to start full throttle. You are even able to do the best ranking in Acceleration lesson just with a keyboard. I managed a 7.09 in GTI Acceleration lesson with my keyboard.
Thats a really big issue which should at least in LFS also influence the rest of driving experience on the track.

In all real race series there are huge starter differences. Some cars manage to get several positions ahead. In LFS starts are really boring until the first corner.
All cars start equally because of the arcade signal (in rFactor its more of a simulation and you may react freely to the signal)
And then all cars start as quick as the others. They can just get an advantage by slipstream or another setup. Not by a good driver ...

On the other hand rFactor has a small clutch issue and unrealistic weak brakes on street cars. Both can be modified by yourself in the hdv files. I corrected that myself for me
But I can't correct the "catching slides at high angles" problem. Its really a ISI physics thing, which should be corrected. If you drive well you won't need to get a drift at that angle ... you should react quick enough. So it doesn't matter as much, as constantly countersteering in LFS.

Enough Hopefully someone reads it. Have fun, have to go for now.

I agree 100% with everything you said.. I think the patch U helped a LOT- I mean for me it was a big change.. but yes the cars without down force that are RWD are still a problem, and in some respects even the GTR cars have the same problem as before but not nearly as bad. It's like if they keep improving it, over time it may be perfect someday... I hope. I still enjoy LFS though, it has an authentic feel that is very fun to try to control.


In rF I also feel the same exact problems you are describing.. I also have a problem with the way rF does FF.. LFS is 100x better in that regard..

I think the things you are talking about are subtle, and not everyone will be able to pick up on them, and if that is the case they might just think you are crazy. Don't worry, many people know exactly what you mean.

@shotglass :

Well, I do think that you can drive a 140 hp RWD car without that much power oversteer, even if it doesn't weigh that much. eg. a Mazda MX5. Its much easier to control than the XF GT.

The FZ50 is comparable to a Porsche. And a lot of old people drive Porsche. It propably will step out if you really floor it in a corner. But you can put an unexperienced driver in a Porsche and let him drive around a track.
In most cases he won't crash it
Even if he is young and not as scared as old people.

If you put an unexperienced driver in an FZ50 in LFS, he certainly will spin out in first or second corner, even if he drives careful and doesn't try to be fast ...

But as I said I am not really sure about it. I just think its more like in rFactor, where you only have to be a good driver if you really push the car in the corner. Then it will step out. Not as fast as in LFS.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=125133#post125133

Look there for raf analyser wheelspin. There is a lot of wheelspin going on at the start in a FZ50.

I do think, a formula 1 car will start better because it has a TC which helps. Most GTR cars haven't got a TC (like in LFS).
So in real life a GTR car will lose from the start against a formula 1 car with TC setup.

@BWX : Thanks
I know, that a lot of people experience the wheel spin problem and see it. I am not the only one

Quote :

Most GTR cars haven't got a TC

Not sure where GTR fits, but FIA allows TC in GT1 class. A lot of super touring class races allow stability control (individual wheel braking) as well.

The 2006 Z06 Corvette has both TC (ECU) and stability (braking) control. For racing, TC is often disabled, since the stability control does a better job if the driver isn't too heavy on the throttle.

This Sundays Top Gear should be showing the Z06, which got a 1:22.4 on it's test track, just behind the 911 GT3 RSR, and ahead of many exotics like the Murcielago, Gallardo, 911 GT3 (non-race version).

As far as comparing LFS to other racing sims, I rarely play online, but I do follow what games one of the top sim racing teams play, most members play more than one racing sim, mostly because this is where I went to get setups and replays for GPL and NR2003.

http://www.teamredline.co.uk

LFS - one member, Aki Räsänen, AKA "Lefty".
GPL - two members
NR2003 and basic mods - three members
GTP (mod for NR2003) - two members
F1C - two members
Toca race driver 2 - one member

NFS series - zero members (although I like these games).

From what I've read, the "experts" consider NR2003's physics to be the most accurate, not just ovals, but all the road courses available for download and the various mods, like the Trans-Am and GTP mods. Actual Nascar racers rate NR2003 as pretty good, espeically the trucks.

GPL seems to be next on the list, in spite of it's age.

After this, I don't think there's any general agreement among the race sim fans / experts.

Obviously there's LFS, and rFactor, as mentioned in this thread. Plus GTR, GTLegends, F1C and it's mods. GTR / GTLegends includes some real race drivers on it's staff, but I don't know how well this has helped the games. Then again, EA hired a Toyota Atlantic series race driver to assist with NFS:Underground 1, then probably dumped most of his inputs to make the game more arcadish.

rFactor is sort of a cheat though. The developers made a basic game with fantasy cars and tracks, knowing that others would create add-on cars and tracks based on real ones. Not exactly fair, but it's become popular.