No, this is not another flame war, no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again. Let me make this clear from the start: I own both rFactor and LFS, licensed copies, and I think they are both stunning. And I wouldn't want to be without either of them. Each one does a lot of things right. Actually I believe that if we take the best of the two and iron out the very few things both are not so good at we will have the perfect racing sim with no need to look anywhere else again. Why are we so blessed? 
So this thread is what I "like" about both of these games and why I get frustrated about little details with both of them (never enough not to think how extremely good they both are). I hope the resulting conversation can slo help the devs of both games make them better. I will post this on both LFS and rFactor boards.
1) the phyisics model and realism, the most important aspect of any racing sim.
This is where opinions differ the most and where most discussions start, where fans of either game knock each other. My opinion: Both are incredibly good, both have some obvious shortcomings. But let me make this very clear: None are so incorrect that even a hardcore supporter of either camp could resonably say the other is so much worse.
Lets start with rFactor which seems to get most of the bashing from LFS fans here: Yes, there are some serious "snap oversteer" and "driftability" questions here. I will get into a little more detail below.
However there are a number of mods which have been created with the datasheets of real world racing teams, have been test driven by the pilots themselves. These pilots affirm that the experience is as close and as "real" as it gets if racing in front of your PC. They affirm that they have learnt things in the sim which they could take to the track and implement in real life in terms of handling on a particular track and car setup. Now this is an amazing testament for "mods" created by dedicated race fans. Incredible stuff! And it also means that the physics engine and realism can't be that far off! On the contrary, spot on in many cases.
I think much of the criticism come from the lack of driftability of touring cars in rFactor. I agree, it's driven me nut's too, as I tried to create setups for my cars which allow for "naturally controllable drifts" and I have found it extremely difficult. It is possible, but not as "natural" as it should be. LFS does an immense job here and drifting around with the RWD cars is awesome fun!
Which does not mean it's necessarily more realistic, at least not for all cars! If you look at many highly tuned modern day race cars, especially F1 and high end touring car racers, you will notice that they are not driven with any visible oversteer. Bar very few instances (I remember David Coulthard (of all people, lol) coming out of the last chicane at Monza sideways and catching the drift) modern race cars have "snap oversteer". They are sucked to the ground by aerodynamics to such an extent that it creates the same effect like these rubbery suction heads: Either they are sucked firmly to the surface (in this case the road) or once they lose adherence, they're gone. And there's no way to recover your rear end once it's stepped out. Now I've heard many racing drivers make this analogy. And this to the best of my knowledge is correctly simulated in rFactor.
However, and I fully agree with the LFS crowd here, there is a major problem with snap oversteer in cars which should not have it. And LFS simulates this brilliantly. Take a BMW M3 for example, rear wheel drive, fairly soft setup compared to a throroughbread race car, yet a drift is really difficult to catch. Comparable cars in LFS are a joy to throw around and their behaviour is simulated more accurately.
Having said that, I am catching drifts with high powered race cars in LFS which I would have no hope in catching in a real car, so maybe LFS is even too forgiving here. Fun, yes, completely realistic, maybe not. Many say it is to do with the "grip curve" of the tyre model. It is too steep in rFactor so that the line between recovery and losing the rear is too fine. Which to me makes sense, and would then also mean that it's tweakable in both sims.
On the other hand I find that in some cases the handling in rFactor is more direct, more aggressive and faster. I find it sometimes gives me more immersion in the game as I get a lot more stressed and have to make a lot more corrections at the wheel while LFS often feels somewhat slower and limousine-like. I often feel faster in rFactor and more on the edge of the limits... whether it's then more realistic or not I hoestly cannot say.
But then we sit in front of our PCs with plastic steering wheels which (in most cases) have at most a 240º rotation, this surely must affect the handling of the cars in such a way that we really cannot tell how accurate or not the simulation in any particular case is. We'll have to trust real life race pilots, and they detect and incredible amount of accuracy in both sims but also some flaws, in both!
Conclusion: Both amazing, both as accurate as it gets, LFS somewhat less frustrating in some instances and more fun while rFactor sometimes thrills me more and gives me sweatier palms (in some cases also of fruntration).
2) Netplay: Both sims have amazing netcode. I have often read that LFS has the best netcode in the industry. Frankly, I haven't experienced this. I think what is meant is that LFS can be played fine with a 56k modem, while probably no other sim can. And this really is amazing!
I do have to say however, on my ADSL line rFactor plays more cleanly. The first time I connected I couldn't believe it: There was no difference whatsoever between offline and online. No jitter, no cars jumping about, no back and forth, nothing. As if they were bots. I was amazed, I'd never seen anything like it. And I still believe it's the smoothest netplay I've ever experienced in any game. I'm not sure how they do it, but ping does not seem to matter. I have a guy in front of me with ping 180 and I sit right on his bumper and nothing happens, we both run along smoothly ... for laps ... simply incredible! In LFS I've had my share of lag crashes.
In LFS you may be able to play with a modem, but I get quite a few jitters, lag collisions, cars jumping about or cars disappearing.
Now having said that, I play a LOT more LFS online racing than rFactor (because of issues I will address later in this post) but frankly, on a broadband connection I've never had a better experience.
3) Multiplayer: I play most of my online racing with LFS. Why? It's simply so much fun, competitve, varied and there's a good game on most times a day. So what is it in rFactor that keeps my away if in general I enjoy the game so much?
I'm not sure what rFactor hosts are thinking when they specify 1 hour practice session!! And what people are thinking who never vote to advance to the next session. Bottom line: In rFactor you actually never get to race other people! All you ever do is sit in practice session lapping on your own and wait for the time to pass. If you're lucky in 1 hour you get to have two races. And then at the first corner some bum takes you out, you go through another half hour practise session until the next race where you get taken out again. How stupid is that?? I really don't understand it.
In LFS you connect and all you ever do is race! In an hour I do between 5 - 10 races depending on circuit and number of laps. And when the race ends people vote for the next to start. And if they don't it will start again automatically in no time (in most cases)
Now I'm not even against practice and qualifying, on the cotrary, I enjoy it. But please: 1 hour practice, another 30 mins quali, for a five lap race? That's just silly. And it is the main reason why I do not play rFactor online anymore at all. And I do 90% of my racing online, which is now LFS. I want to race, not sit around and look at my pitboard. (and believe me, this is not a rant after a bad night I had, I have played rFactor online extensively for weeks, and it was always the same, on many many servers)
4) Connecting to a race: There has to be a way to implement what's best from both games here, come on. In rFactor I can't connect to a server when a race is on. So from the few populated servers, half get eliminated because the race is on. Silly! Let me at least connect, go to the pits, set up my car and I'll be ready when the next race (erh, practise session) starts! But don't shut people out.
In LFS it's the other extreme: People connect straight into races. So while you're on the lead lap, some monkey who just joined rolls out of the pits and straight into your racing line. Or is on cold tyres and doesn't move over. That's also silly! There has to be a compromise here.
In rFactor I feel much more immersed in the race weekend. I see my car in the pits and when I'm done I drive out of the pits. I always feel either on the track or in the pits. In LFS there first few times I had no idea where I was. So my car is in the pits but I can't actually do anything here. Ah, I have to hit escape first. But then I'm taken completely out of the context. When I connect I can "join" or go to the "garage". No, I should join and land right in the garage, and then when I'm ready drive out of the garage. And when I joined a race I didn't even know I was in the race.
Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it
5) Pitboard/Damage/Repair
In LFS I never know what state my car is in. What's broken and should I repair it during the pitstop? In rFactor I can consult this at any time during the race and take these decisions. Actually the whole flipping through the LCD screen with all info on race, standings and state of your car I really enjoy in rFactor and miss in LFS.
6) How come in LFS my car flies 30 feet into the air and spins 45 times before landing as a complete wreck when I hit some barriers at a given angle at 30 mph? There must be something wrong there, no need to be a real life pilot to know that
7) Force Feedback:
Many people knock rFactor FF for being simply bad and inaccurate. Homestly I can't really argue with that. I find both rFactor and LFS perfectly driveable. What I do notice is thast LFS seems much smoother. For example when I cross tramlines on some tracks I it, and in rFactor my wheel would rattle and shake. Same with some rumble strips. And maybe LFS gives more accurate information about what your ar really does, even if in this smoother maner. I find I can drive fine with both and I know there are people with more detailed knowledge about this. So I'll stop here with my non expert opinions on this topic
8) Load times
Biiig plus for LFS: This is also what I also enjoyed so much about Quake 3. You are in there almost immediately. This saved me literally hours when for example configuring my steering wheel. I spent hours on this alone with rFactor while I breezed through it in LFS.
When I get the itch to race I'm connected and in the pits before I had time to lock my wheel to the desk. I love that!
9) Menus/Guis
Big minus for both: Frankly I found both confusing at the start but as time goes by I guess you get used to their oddities. But I can imagine beginners being thrown out by both, lol
10) Content/Modability
I think ISI have done a very smart thing here. No real racer can tell me that it's not absolutely thrilling to take the 1979 F1 Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve and throw it around the legenday Nordschleife. It makes every race fans heart beat higher, no matter how much of a FFS fanboy you are. Now look at all the cars and tracks available for rFactor, or look at just the ones which are absolutely stunning. More than I will ever have the free time to try! And simply mind blowing.
Opening their source code to the mod community has added neverending quality content to this sim.
I do not undertsand why the LFS devs do not want to grant this to their audience. It takes nothing away from how brilliant LFS is, but it does mean that I cannot do without rFactor, that's for sure. I do not want to miss out on this...
11) AI/Offline racing
I'm not too bothered about this, I do most of my racing online and this review is about the multiplayer games. However a quick mention: I have had some enjoyable races with some of the rFactor cars on some tracks, not too shabby at all. Abismal on other tracks with different cars,so it's a bit hit and miss. Choose your mod and difficulty level right and you can have some fun.
LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...
Conclusion:
Right, this has been long, I'll keep this short. I love both. I would cry tears of joy if I had an rFactor with the playability, online gaming drift physics of LFS. I would be similarly emotional about a LFS with as much top quality content in terms of tracks and cars as rFactor.
For now, I'll take the best of both worlds in the hope that some day both combine.
aceracer
So this thread is what I "like" about both of these games and why I get frustrated about little details with both of them (never enough not to think how extremely good they both are). I hope the resulting conversation can slo help the devs of both games make them better. I will post this on both LFS and rFactor boards.
1) the phyisics model and realism, the most important aspect of any racing sim.
This is where opinions differ the most and where most discussions start, where fans of either game knock each other. My opinion: Both are incredibly good, both have some obvious shortcomings. But let me make this very clear: None are so incorrect that even a hardcore supporter of either camp could resonably say the other is so much worse.
Lets start with rFactor which seems to get most of the bashing from LFS fans here: Yes, there are some serious "snap oversteer" and "driftability" questions here. I will get into a little more detail below.
However there are a number of mods which have been created with the datasheets of real world racing teams, have been test driven by the pilots themselves. These pilots affirm that the experience is as close and as "real" as it gets if racing in front of your PC. They affirm that they have learnt things in the sim which they could take to the track and implement in real life in terms of handling on a particular track and car setup. Now this is an amazing testament for "mods" created by dedicated race fans. Incredible stuff! And it also means that the physics engine and realism can't be that far off! On the contrary, spot on in many cases.
I think much of the criticism come from the lack of driftability of touring cars in rFactor. I agree, it's driven me nut's too, as I tried to create setups for my cars which allow for "naturally controllable drifts" and I have found it extremely difficult. It is possible, but not as "natural" as it should be. LFS does an immense job here and drifting around with the RWD cars is awesome fun!
Which does not mean it's necessarily more realistic, at least not for all cars! If you look at many highly tuned modern day race cars, especially F1 and high end touring car racers, you will notice that they are not driven with any visible oversteer. Bar very few instances (I remember David Coulthard (of all people, lol) coming out of the last chicane at Monza sideways and catching the drift) modern race cars have "snap oversteer". They are sucked to the ground by aerodynamics to such an extent that it creates the same effect like these rubbery suction heads: Either they are sucked firmly to the surface (in this case the road) or once they lose adherence, they're gone. And there's no way to recover your rear end once it's stepped out. Now I've heard many racing drivers make this analogy. And this to the best of my knowledge is correctly simulated in rFactor.
However, and I fully agree with the LFS crowd here, there is a major problem with snap oversteer in cars which should not have it. And LFS simulates this brilliantly. Take a BMW M3 for example, rear wheel drive, fairly soft setup compared to a throroughbread race car, yet a drift is really difficult to catch. Comparable cars in LFS are a joy to throw around and their behaviour is simulated more accurately.
Having said that, I am catching drifts with high powered race cars in LFS which I would have no hope in catching in a real car, so maybe LFS is even too forgiving here. Fun, yes, completely realistic, maybe not. Many say it is to do with the "grip curve" of the tyre model. It is too steep in rFactor so that the line between recovery and losing the rear is too fine. Which to me makes sense, and would then also mean that it's tweakable in both sims.
On the other hand I find that in some cases the handling in rFactor is more direct, more aggressive and faster. I find it sometimes gives me more immersion in the game as I get a lot more stressed and have to make a lot more corrections at the wheel while LFS often feels somewhat slower and limousine-like. I often feel faster in rFactor and more on the edge of the limits... whether it's then more realistic or not I hoestly cannot say.
But then we sit in front of our PCs with plastic steering wheels which (in most cases) have at most a 240º rotation, this surely must affect the handling of the cars in such a way that we really cannot tell how accurate or not the simulation in any particular case is. We'll have to trust real life race pilots, and they detect and incredible amount of accuracy in both sims but also some flaws, in both!
Conclusion: Both amazing, both as accurate as it gets, LFS somewhat less frustrating in some instances and more fun while rFactor sometimes thrills me more and gives me sweatier palms (in some cases also of fruntration).
2) Netplay: Both sims have amazing netcode. I have often read that LFS has the best netcode in the industry. Frankly, I haven't experienced this. I think what is meant is that LFS can be played fine with a 56k modem, while probably no other sim can. And this really is amazing!
I do have to say however, on my ADSL line rFactor plays more cleanly. The first time I connected I couldn't believe it: There was no difference whatsoever between offline and online. No jitter, no cars jumping about, no back and forth, nothing. As if they were bots. I was amazed, I'd never seen anything like it. And I still believe it's the smoothest netplay I've ever experienced in any game. I'm not sure how they do it, but ping does not seem to matter. I have a guy in front of me with ping 180 and I sit right on his bumper and nothing happens, we both run along smoothly ... for laps ... simply incredible! In LFS I've had my share of lag crashes.
In LFS you may be able to play with a modem, but I get quite a few jitters, lag collisions, cars jumping about or cars disappearing.
Now having said that, I play a LOT more LFS online racing than rFactor (because of issues I will address later in this post) but frankly, on a broadband connection I've never had a better experience.
3) Multiplayer: I play most of my online racing with LFS. Why? It's simply so much fun, competitve, varied and there's a good game on most times a day. So what is it in rFactor that keeps my away if in general I enjoy the game so much?
I'm not sure what rFactor hosts are thinking when they specify 1 hour practice session!! And what people are thinking who never vote to advance to the next session. Bottom line: In rFactor you actually never get to race other people! All you ever do is sit in practice session lapping on your own and wait for the time to pass. If you're lucky in 1 hour you get to have two races. And then at the first corner some bum takes you out, you go through another half hour practise session until the next race where you get taken out again. How stupid is that?? I really don't understand it.
In LFS you connect and all you ever do is race! In an hour I do between 5 - 10 races depending on circuit and number of laps. And when the race ends people vote for the next to start. And if they don't it will start again automatically in no time (in most cases)
Now I'm not even against practice and qualifying, on the cotrary, I enjoy it. But please: 1 hour practice, another 30 mins quali, for a five lap race? That's just silly. And it is the main reason why I do not play rFactor online anymore at all. And I do 90% of my racing online, which is now LFS. I want to race, not sit around and look at my pitboard. (and believe me, this is not a rant after a bad night I had, I have played rFactor online extensively for weeks, and it was always the same, on many many servers)
4) Connecting to a race: There has to be a way to implement what's best from both games here, come on. In rFactor I can't connect to a server when a race is on. So from the few populated servers, half get eliminated because the race is on. Silly! Let me at least connect, go to the pits, set up my car and I'll be ready when the next race (erh, practise session) starts! But don't shut people out.
In LFS it's the other extreme: People connect straight into races. So while you're on the lead lap, some monkey who just joined rolls out of the pits and straight into your racing line. Or is on cold tyres and doesn't move over. That's also silly! There has to be a compromise here.
In rFactor I feel much more immersed in the race weekend. I see my car in the pits and when I'm done I drive out of the pits. I always feel either on the track or in the pits. In LFS there first few times I had no idea where I was. So my car is in the pits but I can't actually do anything here. Ah, I have to hit escape first. But then I'm taken completely out of the context. When I connect I can "join" or go to the "garage". No, I should join and land right in the garage, and then when I'm ready drive out of the garage. And when I joined a race I didn't even know I was in the race.
Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it
5) Pitboard/Damage/Repair
In LFS I never know what state my car is in. What's broken and should I repair it during the pitstop? In rFactor I can consult this at any time during the race and take these decisions. Actually the whole flipping through the LCD screen with all info on race, standings and state of your car I really enjoy in rFactor and miss in LFS.
6) How come in LFS my car flies 30 feet into the air and spins 45 times before landing as a complete wreck when I hit some barriers at a given angle at 30 mph? There must be something wrong there, no need to be a real life pilot to know that
7) Force Feedback:
Many people knock rFactor FF for being simply bad and inaccurate. Homestly I can't really argue with that. I find both rFactor and LFS perfectly driveable. What I do notice is thast LFS seems much smoother. For example when I cross tramlines on some tracks I it, and in rFactor my wheel would rattle and shake. Same with some rumble strips. And maybe LFS gives more accurate information about what your ar really does, even if in this smoother maner. I find I can drive fine with both and I know there are people with more detailed knowledge about this. So I'll stop here with my non expert opinions on this topic
8) Load times
Biiig plus for LFS: This is also what I also enjoyed so much about Quake 3. You are in there almost immediately. This saved me literally hours when for example configuring my steering wheel. I spent hours on this alone with rFactor while I breezed through it in LFS.
When I get the itch to race I'm connected and in the pits before I had time to lock my wheel to the desk. I love that!
9) Menus/Guis
Big minus for both: Frankly I found both confusing at the start but as time goes by I guess you get used to their oddities. But I can imagine beginners being thrown out by both, lol
10) Content/Modability
I think ISI have done a very smart thing here. No real racer can tell me that it's not absolutely thrilling to take the 1979 F1 Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve and throw it around the legenday Nordschleife. It makes every race fans heart beat higher, no matter how much of a FFS fanboy you are. Now look at all the cars and tracks available for rFactor, or look at just the ones which are absolutely stunning. More than I will ever have the free time to try! And simply mind blowing.
Opening their source code to the mod community has added neverending quality content to this sim.
I do not undertsand why the LFS devs do not want to grant this to their audience. It takes nothing away from how brilliant LFS is, but it does mean that I cannot do without rFactor, that's for sure. I do not want to miss out on this...
11) AI/Offline racing
I'm not too bothered about this, I do most of my racing online and this review is about the multiplayer games. However a quick mention: I have had some enjoyable races with some of the rFactor cars on some tracks, not too shabby at all. Abismal on other tracks with different cars,so it's a bit hit and miss. Choose your mod and difficulty level right and you can have some fun.
LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...
Conclusion:
Right, this has been long, I'll keep this short. I love both. I would cry tears of joy if I had an rFactor with the playability, online gaming drift physics of LFS. I would be similarly emotional about a LFS with as much top quality content in terms of tracks and cars as rFactor.
For now, I'll take the best of both worlds in the hope that some day both combine.
aceracer
I don't even read this because I probably already know what's in it. Both games seem great (I only have LFS), and there is really no point in discussing these two. They're rivals, both with there pros and cons, both have their community. This kind of thread has come up more than once, and I always wonder why anyone would write such a long text, probably knowing it won't make a difference and a big chance it'll get locked because it did end up in a flame war.
). Anyway, road tyres are hardly affected by temperature at all until they hit some insane temperature. Temperature effect is apparently exaggerated in LFS for road tyres a lot.
