I agree about Fern Bay.. i gotta say, that i hate that track, unfortunatelly.. It just looks kinda unreal and cartoonish..
Those curbs, they drive my crazy(not the red and white ones).. They are made from what material??
I hate the fact that you have to atack those curbs and those chicanes in really unreal way, the way you would never drive like that in real life, because of serious damage to your car...
And it is too yellow-ish, and that mix with those railroad sections, i don't know, i really hate to race there..
As for Blackwood, Blackwood is great.. especially Blackwood REV which is 10 times better than ordinary Blackwood. It's a blast in XFG, XRT, and i believe in other cars too..

Quote from RichardTowler :

If LFS was that good, it would be the most popular racing sim ever, but its not.

You honestly equate 'good' with 'popular' ?

Quote from Woz :

From where I stand I think that if LFS is modable it would kill off all ISI powered sims quickly.

It would probably have a very negative effect on LFS actually IMO. LFS's main strengths (almost without question) are some aspects of it's physics engine and its pickup racing system. If you went down the mod line you'd likely end up with either the rF mismatch/wrong versions etc. route or the fairly dismal alternative of using a torrent type system like DR tries to, that would result in huge loading times

Obviously the devs would have to be mad to acknowledge the fact that people have modded there game with unlicensed cars and ilegal conversions so an official download system would be out of the question.

It would mean that the racing would mostly be done in leagues and TBH in large grid organized racing when proper sessions, instant in depth results/laptime analysis, and large grids are far more important than features such as auto skin downloading, in sim apps or a central statistics server LFS is pretty hopeless compared to ISI/N2003, read max grid 20 vs 42+

Possibly a better way of doing this kind of thing would be keep pursuing licensed small scale cars/tracks and then the devs having a team of modders who could then create the content for them to include in the next incompatible patch, it could allow LFS's content to increase at a much much faster rate without causing mismatches and frustration and critically could allow very strict quality control.


Now after loosing its unique selling point LFS is basically just a clone of rF with some improvements to the physics and better force feedback. That's not a problem you ask, well can you imagine the LFS sound engine replicating anywhere near as accurate sounds as sampled systems when you start posing it with all kinds of radical deviations from the standard 4 pot/flat plane V8/boxer engines it's managed to produce so far? Couple that with the fact that there is so much hostility to LFS from other sim racers, due to bloody mindedness and stupidity from both sides I really couldn't see a moddable LFS being a good idea any time soon. Not to mention of course as soon as you make a sim moddable any significant updates to the physics pretty much stop, because a lot of what makes LFS so 'right' is the fact that there's nobody filling in a text file without much of a clue what they're doing, I suspect there are still large chunks of the LFS physics model that are effectively spreadsheet entries, although thankfully not something as fundamental as the tire model...

Quote from Woz :

Why do people keep saying other sims are more popular as all I see do not back this up.

Exactly. All this talk about LFS being the underdog of simracing and other sims being more popular ignore the fact that LFS has the most active racers of all sims. Sales is not the same thing as active racers and I haven't seen any hard statistics about sales of other sims anyway.

No idea who has the more active racers as LFS is the only sim community in one place that's a good thing in a sense as other sims are split around in different places, a lot of people assume the rFactor/GTR/GTL/GPL community is entirely on RSC which is far from the truth. What does seem true though is that LFS is not integrated with these other communities.

Quote from ajp71 :

If you went down the mod line you'd likely end up with either the rF mismatch/wrong versions etc. route or the fairly dismal alternative of using a torrent type system like DR tries to, that would result in huge loading times

I don't think LFS would be limited to choosing between a non-system and a poor system. BitTorrent is a great technology for distributing huge files by creating a huge network of unreliable sources, not so good for small files on a small network.

Let's say Scawen adds a file-not-found check to the update distribution system, triggered by the game not being able to find a file (or a file being "OOS") LFS would ask if you'd like to download the file and ask the master server where to find this file. Great for a broken installation. Add multiple source downloading and source broadcasting, dedicated servers (being servers) could notify the master server saying they're ready to serve the following list of files/packages, and/or that these files are available at location x.

Add a custom track to a dedicated server, set it up for distributing the file along with one or more sources on the web and clients could probably download the new content at very decent speeds without ridiculous delays before transfers start. A very generic update / repair system for the game turns into a decent "mod" distribution system with Scavier unable to control the contents and thus not "selling" unlicensed content. The system would still work if the master server was given to the community, if/when service and support is dropped for LFS.

Technology aside, obviously i want more tracks. If i had an amazing car in real life i'd want to drive it at many locations. Same thing.

Quote from axus :

Richard, but without realistic physics the whole notion of a racing sim falls apart.

LFS is a physical model which means that even if it isn't all that accurate sometimes, it still feels like one solid piece.

Read between the lines. The physics in LFS isn't done yet, so it's not the most realistic. He mentioned that some of the cars are "awful", a reference to the physics of LFS not translating well to some of the cars in LFS.

IMO, I don't care how a game's physics is implemented, it's the results that count, not the method. Personally, I think including tables is a good idea because it makes it easier to keep up with changes in technology in suspensions, tire design, different cars. This is assuming that developers can obtain real world data.

One of the more important issues is how a car behaves when the limits are exceeded. GTR had an issue with snap oversteer at low speed, but GTR2 has fixed this. Older versions of LFS were terrible at dealing with this, either the tranny or the tire model resulted in sudden oversteer and a big loss in grip at the rear end.

For all racing sims, IMO, there needs to be some compensation for the lack of feel. My only real track time (other than just pushing my real car to the limits and beyond on a very large nearby parking lot) has been with indoor go-karts. Fast laps are achieved when they are constantly drifting through the turns, and sometimes oversteer is deliberately used in tight turns to orient the kart for corner exit. I can feel the g forces and the tires slipping.

In a racing sim, there is no feel, so the audio and/or force feedback should be changed from reality to give a player some feedback that the car is near the limits, at the limits, or beyond the limits. Although not realistic, GTRs approach where the force feedback goes away when at the limits was one way to accomplish this. This happens a bit in real life with some cars, so it's more of an exaggerated effect. Sound is the way it's usually done, with exaggerated tire sounds.

Quote from Richard :

next best thing

I think part of this is the newness of racing sims has worn off, and the thrill is gone. The amount of time I spend with each new game or mod is decreasing over time. I'm simply spending more time doing other non-racing sim things now.

Great discussion and many valid points, from all sides

I've been an avid fan of simracing for at least 10 years.

Who's the champ?
Perhaps GTR2 - rFactor has more physics parameters than LFS and GPL etc.
Well this is not important for me in how I judge or perceive who the best is.
Less is more they say and I believe this is especially true in car simulation.
Not saying I wouldn’t mind having 100% accurate physics.
But I don't think that it’s ever going to happen, simply because it’s not necessary.

In a real car you might feel, or sense if you like, 250 parameters?
But in virtual reality you'll only sense, perhaps 50 parameters?
So what's the point of creating noise that even cats and dogs couldn't hear?
I'm just trying to make an example so you can understand my point better, in regards to the argument that some sim's are better because they have more "real" parameters than others, so never mind the figures.

So the way I see it 50 parameters can be just as real as the 500 parameter codes.
Everything I wrote above only implies to the perception on how it feels to drive the car.

Mechanical wear, fuel consumption and whatnot are also important parts of the code in a good simulator but they are not initially important to the perception of driving.

If we want to argue about who's got the best feel, then some parts of the code must be left out in the equation.

The ISI engine is probably the best there is, on paper that is.
I believe the best simulator ever created is RBR...


I got GTR2 - rFactor - Race - GPL - LFS - RBR and many others installed and I drive them all, and for different reasons.
LFS - GPL - RBR are the games that give the best sensation of speed and illusion of being behind the wheel and its not about how the cockpit looks, that’s just a bonus.
They just feel more real to me than any ISI powered game and I've bought every game they've made so far. illepall

My Fifth Gear Jeremy Clarkson imaginary test would be something like this.
I jump inside the virtual cockpit and sum up my first impression.
Is it 2D or 3D, looks real or not, how does the car sound.
Are the instruments real or just paint and so forth.

Well all this are just visuals and don't mean a thing to ME if the car feels nothing like its real counterpart or better, like a physical object in a virtual world.

And this is where ISI games fail my test.
When the car starts rolling I don't feel as if the tyres are in contact with the road surface, it feels kind of floating. With or without FF on.

With GPL you can stop the car on a near level section of the track with more downhill to come, like kyalami just after the pit lane.
(I’m not talking about at the start of the race. I think you got some kind brake aid on then to keep the car from rolling forwards.)

Put the car into neutral gear and start revving the engine.
You'll see the body on the car start to role from side to side.
The vibration of the engine will after a while make the car move forwards, unless of coerce it’s completely flat where you stand.
As the car goes downhill it picks up speed in a believable way according to laws of physics and you can clearly see the instruments are in perfect sync too.
Now turn the wheel from side to side and see how extremely accurate your analog steering and pedal inputs are handled by the game.
LFS does this is a convincing manner too.

This experiment can easily be replicate with a real car.
In my opinion this is a crucial part of the physics code and what all sim's should be able to do as minimum.

One of the biggest flaws with ISI games are the way they deal with analog devices.
The code has been in development since the first game TOCA and that game was initial built for consoles and digital devices like hand controlers.
I'm not 100% sure about this or how to explain it, but I think they are in someway converting the analog input into digital and then filter it so that it resembles analog.

I believe this is partly why “we” get that floaty feeling.
Our minds are fantastic quick to adapt so it’s not a big problem.
It works fine when you get used to it. But it’s very easy to feel the lack of precision when I go from an ISI powered game to a game that’s built to support analog devices first and foremost.

I like them all but for different reasons.
Some have great graphics, great sounds, great physics etc, none of them has it all.
So whatever floats your boat is great.

Forgot perhaps to answerer the question.. GPL vs LFS
Well I think they are both great apples and bannanas and compair very well in some ways.

In short I love them both.

As I said once before in another sim comparison thread, LFS physics have the
most cohesive overall consistent feel. If I were a pure sim racer I'd probably
choose LFS as #1.

GPL's setting is flat out cool and its immersion is still impressive despite its age,
so if I were a pure sim racer I'd probably choose GPL as #2.

However, I RL race too.

rFactor, when within the confines of low slips angles and small magnitude
of mistakes driving, does indeed respond more like my RL racing than LFS
(once your brain adapts to the inferior FF of rFactor). The subtle little things
one does in RL working the tires at low slip angles seems to work better in
rFactor than LFS.

For high slip angles and bigger mistakes rFactor falls apart as compared to LFS.
LFS is the better physics whole.

However, as I said, I race RL and I use sims to practice. So I actually spend
much more time in rFactor (mainly rF3, F-Sum, and FIS) than LFS. I have more
'fun' in LFS. I get better practice in rFactor.

The ultimate sim still seems so far off. GPL, rFactor, LFS, NKP, DR, are all still
so incomplete in physics. I have driven them all, and honestly I think LFS is the
closest to being complete, but where it is short is where it hurts my practice the
most.