I've prettymuch stopped playing rFactor.. just not good enough for me anymore. I reinstalled NR2003 and have some fun with it every now and then, but I basically just play LFS now. I want new tracks! :P
Hehe, i think i know what your saying.
It is VERY good....just hardly in an ideal state for online play for a lot of people, which is very disappointing for an online sim.
The GPC league is getting more and more people joining each week, and there are very few problems with the racing there.
I think it's just to much of a strain on slightly older systems.
I never had any problem with the online side of things, but my system prevents me from playing on the addon tracks as they are just too FPS intensive.
Hopefully 1.03 should sort the online fps problem out and more pickup racing will start to take place.
If anyone thinks LFS development is too slow, you ain't seen nothing when compared to nKPro It's bloody frustrating.
It sucks offline for me too. Starts out OK but after a few minutes it bogs down to slideshow frame rates - I'm assuming due to the nature of the problem that it's software (something leaking somewhere or some other crufty memory management) rather than my hardware.
I also think the tracks are pretty dull in general. I think Newbury's got one exciting corner, and that's the only exciting corner in the sim. I tried the Monaco and Silverstone ports but they're just too ugly for public consumption.
All that said, nK-P is a sim I'd like to like, but I just can't until it gets significantly better.
For a while Racer was all that I drove, but... Christ, where do you start with the list of problems?
I'll probably never even try NKPro unless my financial status magically becomes 'solvent' and I can afford decent hardware, but if erratic online play and mediocre circuits are all that everyone is bitching about... Just consider yourselves lucky.
Its a shame, because I really like Racer's open and cross platform potential. So long as it remains marooned on RSC however, I won't be bothering with it. The whimsical development pace isn't so much of a problem to me - I quite admire that kind of amateurishness (amateur, in my dictionary, is not a term of abuse) - but I think there is a problem with its attempt to find an all-encompassing driving system.
Race cars just aren't that interesting to drive in Racer. It simulates road cars quite well, but the available parameters just don't seem to gel and provide 'feel' when pushed to extremes. I think this is a problem for all simulators (its been mentioned in another thread that the GTRs in LFS just don't have the same quality of feel that the road cars have, that they are missing something)
There's an assumption that if you can simulate physical laws, then these processes will be translatable to all kinds of vehicles. It sounds logical but I haven't yet seen this to be the case. It may just be that current technology doesn't yet provide the 'resolution' to embrace all circumstances, or it may be that, since simulation is nothing more than a form of representation, then different circumstances demand different forms of representation.
For the moment, specialisation just seems to mean a better drive.
Ohh, I've never heard anyone report that problem,before that's an odd one.
As for the "too ugly for public consumption" well..I'm speechless. Not the most beautiful conversions I've ever seen,not exactly cutting edge certainly, but nowhere near as bad as your making them out to be.
They certainly weren't too ugly for public consumption when they were in GP4, and they look a whole lot better now.
I'm still a diehard nascar 2003 player, mostly road course racing though. I own/run a site dedicated to track making for it and thats what really keeps me interested, I really enjoy that part.
You should have been more precise with the Options.
Under "NASCAR", alot of people think you might mean the EA Sports "NASCAR" Game, but others might think you mean the "NASCAR" Racing Simulation by Papyrus which is still used today from Professionell NASCAR drivers as a Training Tool.
Actually this might only be on the add-on tracks I tried. Can't remember if it happens on the official tracks because the last time I installed nK-P it was just to try the add-ons, and that's when I noticed it. I haven't touched the official tracks since the first week of release.
Monaco, for example; everything looked pastel, and there were no shadows IIRC. It was like Monaco caught in the first moments of an overhead nuclear blast. Rather spooky! Maybe just sorting the lighting out would make the colours look nicer, I don't know.
Have you d/loaded the latest conversion (from GP4) montreal circuit?
Very bright lights, no colour saturation, another overhead thermonuclear explosion. Really hurts the eyes, it's so bright and washed-out. Pity.
And what about Nascar Heat, and especially mods for it. That sim keeps me just as busy as LFS does. And it's a heck of a lot better than anything coming from EA