On that system I really don't think you know what "all those fancy fake looking affects" (paraphrasing) really look like when maxed out at high resolution at a playable framerate. It looks no more fake than LFS's bland outdated DX7 GFX. Actually it looks more realistic to me, because light really reflects off slick asphalt, but in LFS it doesn't, for example.
That really is not LFS's main problem though, it is mostly the horrible sound (that could be much better with a few adjustments IMO) and the fact that there are so few tracks to run on, and so few cars to run with. There needs to me more content, period. I don't know how you guys can race on the same tracks over and over and over for years and years. There should be a complete new track on a regular basis. LFS has many good things going for it, but some parts are so stagnant, it is just painful.
I just got a G25 though, and LFS has pretty good FF, so I'll play it again until I get tired of the same old cars and tracks that were being raced 3 years ago, and then move on to something else till the next LFS update. It just gets so boring with so few tracks.
LFS is kinda old, but its always fresh and exciting, I don't think I ever felt bored playing LFS for 3 years.
It only gets better and better when I met more friends, improved my driving, bought myself better controllers... more to come from Scavier, this is too good! :d
True, on my system. But that doesn't mean I haven't seen videos and screenshots of other games at maxed out high resolution as well as LFS screenies and videos at high resolution. LFS just looks more natural instead of all colorful and shiney. My opinion, of course.
Heck, I've seen videos of NR2003 that looked pretty darn close to watching a race on TV. That was the demo of I think the 2006 AI edit at Daytona. Increadible watching 43 AI cars running around 3 wide in a 2 second difference from 1st to 43rd.
Videos and screenshots from EA racing games, GTR/GTL, rFactor, NetKar, all just look way too shiney, colorful, and perfect to me. Ie, the "eye-candy".
I agree Mike, NR2003 looks amazingly realistic, especially with the supposed "illegal" NR2005 mod, its sweet racing at Daytona with said AI, and I learnt the difference compared to no Modded AI today driving on the mac, it was so boring.
Don`t you think, that it is you, young people, that craves entertainment 24 hours a day. You can`t watch a music video, without 500 different clips in it. If you have to watch a whole second at the same thing, you get bored !?
I must warn for a great part of ironi, in the above
Mmm, I don't think LFS is becoming old in anyway, sure some people may say the graphics and sounds etc aren't exactly breaking the mould, but one of the real selling point for LFS is its community. I've taken a look around so many sim forums and servers and they just lack that kind of sophistication, helpfulness and activity we have going on around here...
Everytime I try a new sim I become more and more disappointed, how can they get it so wrong when there's this sim that's getting it so right?
I like these kind of open question threads, it can get a pretty decent conversation going....
LFS isn't getting old. It's still growing into itself. The way LFS looks and sounds at present betrays what it actually is. My first impression of LFS was that it looked very 'indie'. Then I started driving the car and... I couldn't stop driving the car! I'm not really interested in the graphics versus gameplay debate because I actually think that both are important... for a sim anyway. After all you're trying to model reality, simulate reality. A new title like Gotham Racing for the Xbox 360 looks fantastic (compare the way the two games showcase a city environment), but at heart it's a pretty simple arcade racer, the driving experience is unsatisfactory, and old. The driving experience in LFS is beyond anything I've experienced before (even without a wheel)- but the graphics do look kind of dated. So, LFS is getting old- when measured against the yardstick of graphics. But from the perspective of the driving model, it's very much still cutting edge.
I hope Victor and Eric can grow up the graphics sometime...
Despite its age, I like the realistic colours in LFS way more than the cartoon colours and looks of the ISI Sims for example. LFS Graphics are very clean, smooth and I rate it among the very best in the Genre with NR03 and netkarPro.
But the cockpits in LFS need a overhaul soon, at the moment the tracks look so much better than the cockpits, but I heard they are working on that.
ISI stuff is whats really getting old, slightly updating there same old Physic Engine from 10 years ago, and then rfactor, it's just awful.
NR03, LFS, GPL, Richard Burns Rally, and netkarPro are the best stuff in our Sim Genre IMHO.
Nk pro looks pretty much gorgeous until you try to drive it. It is like a night and day difference between playability and eye-candy. You can only have one...
I disagree about only being able to have one. The important thing is to find a good balance as far as graphics are concerned. nK is very unbalanced in that department. Besides that I don't think it's all because it has pretty graphics, as a lot of people have fps problems with fast PC's and low quality settings. It's a matter of sloppy unefficient coding I think.
I think LFS looks pretty good, but mainly some of the texturing is subpar. I use some HQ textures like brake discs and it makes it much nicer with little effort and no FPS loss.
So I think that could be improved. And surely the graphics engine will have to be updated in the future. And I have all faith in the dev team that they won't go overboard and put in all sorts of funky effects. They know how to make it look good and realistic.
if this was being sarcastic im sorry, otherwise they would still feck it up... this is why i NORMALY dislike these big companys BLOCKBUSTER games...
yes in a ideal world it would be posible but in this day and age were everyone is so friggin money hungry its near impossible for these big companys to do it let me explain...
lets take LFS basicly a group of guys get together and decide to design/produce a race sim, first thing to note is what they are setting out to do...
now i was not at the table when LFS was spawned but i bet "the most realistic race sim" flew across the table a few times, but the key here is SIMPLICITY!!!!!, they decided on what they wanted to produce and went at it, and i dont think they have even come close to what they WANT to acheive, ok its toned down a bit, there is more to it obviously but these BIG multi millon £/$ companys are sliiiiiiighty more complicated.....
before a game is drawn up there are several seperate buisiness at work before a line of code is writen, just to prove this take a look at the back of a box of say a EA game and just see how many company logo's are on there, i bet there are at least 4 or 5.... but for this example we will take just two...
1. development/(they actualy make the game and make there money from that)
2.production/sales (totaly different company but they make money from the game by the sales....
we have taken just 2 here but there are many more within this cycle, but before the dev company starts they want big sales so they pull in a big production/sales company, they sit down and discuss what the game will be, problem is these 2 different companys have completly different ideas on what will sell, the dev company may well want to put this and that into the game package but time is money with these companys so threre goes that idea, then the sales company has its own reasearch department that get tons of data on what sells games, cut a long story short we have several buisiness wanting to make a quick buck as fast as possible and there own ideas on how to acheive just that.. before you know it you have a awsome looking box, killer screenies and bam sales hitt the roof everyone is happy but the gamers after 3 weeks when they find out its a pile or horse droppings...
its the way the world is now i dont like it but hey i carnt change it, there wasw a time when jaguar was made by jaguar and lambo made by lambo now??? its all money no one care's what tripe is turned out as long as there is big $$$ at the end..
now small dev groups like this are a godsend if you ask me, they know what they want to do and they do it, and then sell it, SIMPLE! so in the buisiness world i would say BIG is not always the best way to go, just think only a small % of that 50/60 quid you just spent on that EA game goes to the actual dev company the rest is going in "other dirrections"...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
some have said "yea but the sound aint as good as it could be!" or " the cockpitts are not as good as they could be" i would agree 100% with these comments and the devs know it but some of you are forgeting one verry important issue, and that is THE DEVS ARE WORKING TO MAKE THESE AREA'S BETTER, stupid statment? well maybe but you buy a game off the shelf THATS WHAT YA GET! your lucky to get a patch that fixes BIG bugs like netcode crash or say big grafix crash problems, if they do knock out a big patch... (extra content) they very cleverly call it a ADDON witch means spending another £60 to carryon playing the same game... basicly they make the game sell it to some sucker and say "thats us thx for ya money im off thats all ya getting.."
LFS gave us s1 then S2 and in the future s3 now inbetween these we have IMO had some great patches, ..
this is where the downside come is with the smaller company's, manpower and time and hard cash to throw at the project, so we have to wait a little longer to get things updated or revamped, and IMO its a small price to pay, personly i dont feel like ive just brought a great sim i feel like ive brought INTO a great sim, i like talking with the comunity about how the game HAS AND WILL EVOLVE its awsome, the only games i play regular are games of this nature i play LFS and WW2OL and upon-till about 5 weeks back planeshift, all produced by small dev teams WWIIOL is a little larger but the system is still near enough the same....
last thing is this BALLANCE people are going on about and again i fully agree as i mentioned in my previouse post you have only so many "CREDITS" to use,
most big companys use 80% of these in the gfx department, LFS has found that ballance IMO, and again they deserve a medal for just that, WWIIOL had its arse ripped out for its DATED grafix which they was and still are but it offers so mutch more than that...
plus WWIIOL nearly flopped when it was released it was so bad but i was there from the start and for the players that belived this could be somthing special it grew and with more money coming in and time its evolved into just that, LFS had a way better start and thats why i believe what i said in my first post, if the devs continue the way they are LFS will be the PINICALE and a alltime classic....
I dunno I like the "dated" graphics. It gives the game a unique style.
not the same ol shiny crap that has mis managed reflections and resource hogging texture details that aren't seen and don't really look that good when you actually do notice them. Besides, cars that clean are usually indicators of a disturbed mind in real life.
I also like the fact that the road cars have road car interiors and not some stupid cage. I drive a real car in real life, not a race car. The race guages in Nascar 2K3 just confuses the hell out of me. I'd rather have something I can identify with instead. (maybe have optional interiors in future versions?)
The only problem I have with the graphics is the wheels. I really wish we had a better selection of those. I know I know, that's not what most people mean by "dated" graphics, but if the wheels look boring with DX-9 shaders, would they look any better with DX-...50? I didn't think so.
Also, about three years ago, I was making a skin for S-1, I was on Fern Green I think. I saw what looked like two girls in one piece bikinis on the other side of the guard rail and I thought that would really make a cool screen shot if I could incorporate the two "girls" into the picture.
when I made the corner and hit shift-u to make the screen shot, I was totally horrified that those two "girls" were really a couple of bald guys with razor stubble in those bikinis.... Man, I was traumatized.
I posted about this shocking discovery. Scawen replied that these characters are like randomly generated or something... They really need to fix that.
But I really think overall the graphics are just plain perfect. and more realistic than what I've seen.
Old.... How many other titles that are three years old get played as much as LFS and how many of them still sell after three years?
So wouldn't a game that is old, yet still has people playing it and new ones buying it be a good thing?
NR03 is a Simulator mate, with things like Hardcore Mode, Forced Cockpit View Options and the like, thanks God it does not have fancy looking interiorers or a bunch of Display Options just to fancy the Gamers. A Stockcar is Simulated and thats how it looks.
Would it really bother you that much if your interior was modeled like that of a real race car, yet mine was to have a red leather dash board, chrome trim and a little dog who's head bobbles? It's not like it would make me go faster...
BTW, I haver never raced in a real race car, but I have done graphics for them and applied them to the real car... If you ask me, the average race car interior could stand some improvements.
LOL a 500 mile race in an interior like that? LOL like being in jail or something.
And those seats! Have you ever sat in one? LOL a friend of mine had a car that was missing the passenger seat, you had to sit on a milk crate. That milk crate was more comfortable.
Actually, the interiors of Nascar are really done very good. too good. I don't know what any of that is so I just ignore it. But it's not like I have time to pay attention anyways flying thru the 'ring in a Plymouth Superbird
Oh come on, Road Car interiors in a Race Car, how awkward is that? No thanks, I think 99% of NR03 Drivers would disagree with you. Even the LFS guys are working of getting rid of the Road Car interiors in the GTR cars, its just awkward as it is, and thats why they have to be changed to recreate the real look
Yes I have seat and raced in a real Race car, I think the Race car seats are very comfortable. They are very tight, and the seatbelts strap you to the seat very strongly. You feel like you cannot move any cm to any direction, but it feels good somehow.
Thats why I also do Sim Racing in a real SPARCO Seat, just feels far better than a Office chair.
When your in a NR03 league Race, and there are very realistic NR03 leagues, like ESCORS, by the way also check out there Virtual Money System, where you sign contracts, earn money and loose money if you damage your car for example, when you Race in such a league you usually have long Races, so you have to always check out whats going on with the car, the wind and the temperature, the tires, in NASCAR everything changes constantly, so you always keep an eye on the Gauges, in my last Daytona Race I had huge Problems with the Water Temperature and Oil Pressure, as soon as the Water reached a critical Temperature I avoided driving closely behind the car infront and took some fresh air for the engine so it cooled down a bit, otherwise the engine would have overheated as even the warning lights went on. So if you dont watch the Gauges in long Races, you have no chance. They are very important in serious League Racing. If you wouldnt have a water Temp Gauge you couldnt decide how much Tape you put on the Grill at all.
Gee George, that's all good and all except for one thing, I could care less about league racing. If you want all that, then you should have it I guess,
but I don't. I like the typical 5 -10 lap pick up game style races. I like making my own car skins and I would like to make my own interiors. And I really think that if the other guy has so much of a problem with what the inside of MY car looks like, then they probably have waay more serious issues they should be dealing with instead of playing a video game. illepall
And one thing that really turned me off to NASCAR online is pretty much what you just described. They take it waay too serious. Anal retentive racing is just not my cup of tea. And I think that mindset is one of the leading factors in what kills online play for some of those other titles.
I mean yeah, there should be a hyper critical racing league in LFS for those that want it. It gives the chance for someone whose always wanted to race in a real environment but can't for whatever reason ($$$) the ability to do so - sort of.
But what if you just wanna cruise the tracks, listen to win amp and relax?
Do you really need a cage for that?
Hell, half the time I play LFS, I'm usually drinking a beer or two or three at the same time.
And besides, I think my car's interior should suit ME. Not somebody else that didn't even buy my license for me. Not somebody that thinks that
their idea of playing LFS is the only way everyone else should be doing.
And I damn sure don't think every server online should be a private 50 lap mega race with no mid-join like what they do with NK3.
oh and about car seats, For LFS i have used a car seat that came from a Chevy Camaro and a projection screen to play. it was cool and all, but the best experience I got from a seat in LFS was using a swiveling glider rocking chair. it reacted really good with the effects of the FF wheel.
It was like racing in a pick up truck, but the way it bounced and swayed during the course of gameplay really made it the best chair I have used. Too bad the welds on the chair finally broke......
illepall
