I think there is a chance you might be wrong. "keep your pecker up" means "cheer up" for a reason, and I think it might have something to do with wood peckers...
It's dead easy to use and maintain an entirely seperate engine if they wanted too. It just needs to return the same basic values and to be called in the same way. Provided these two things are done, then it is entirely feasable to have two entirely seperate physics engines.
In fact LFS itself has 2 totaly seperate car physics engines already! One for the driven and nearest 3 cars, and one for cars that are further away which uses less calculations, as such fidelity of movement in things like body roll is not required on a car that is further away.
Looks Ok, not jaw-dropping.
Makes you realise how important small details like shadows truly are in the art of making a car appear to be sat on the road, though. Oh, and how silly it is to be able to see a rearward view in the side-mirrors of other cars.
Whilst imperfect this trick is an efficient method of maintaining immersion. To render a correct reflection would be a significant performance hit as it requires rendering a viewport for each visible mirror from the correct angle.
Putting in a blank image destroys immersion, putting in the active players rear view means no extra rendering has to be done and it shows an angle that is more or less right. For the odd moment you see another cars mirrors it makes no odds that the angle isn't perfect as you dont study the mirror, but if you dont put anything on the mirror of other cars and leave it blank, then the immersion factor is totally destroyed. You'd soon be moaning that 'black mirrors look wrong'.
When I first spotted this in LFS I was impressed at the simplicity and ellegence of the method.
What does "real time reflections" mean? To me, it implies environment rendering. That's not shown in the screenshot, though. There appears to be a reflection of the road surface, but quite a bit of it is in the wrong place. Since that's obviously quite misleading, I'm wondering what else is. Reads like vapourware to me.
The shown angle isn't even remotely right. A static texture of the windows and maybe a hint of helmet would be much better. Once I thought about it and realised how wrong the shown angle is, it actually started having the opposite effect, destroying the immersion for me every time I notice it.
i bought race via steam, I feel I wasted 45 dollars of hard earned money, since its release the price dropped to 10-15 bucks, which considering the game is not even 6 months old is really a shame.
I definitely won't buy anything ISI/simbin related until I gave it a good 3-4 months thought and tested the demo. the only problem is that simbins demo's aren'T a good representation of the final product. I wish all demos were like LFS's.
about the Lizard engine: I think it will just be a graphically improved ISI engine, the cars still won't feel like being on the road at all. but I would be very happy I were to be proved wrong.
however GTR2 still has no starforce protection, it has securom I believe. and I can burn DVD's fine ever since people complained about starforce a lot as well, I had no trouble with it whatsoever.
As I said in RSC some time ago (link) I think that simbin is going for the sami-arcade ways. A bit more realistic codemaster alike product would fit perfectly into their scheme of things.
I can't see myself getting anymore interested about simbin's products, for the first 5 hours it is nice and all (oh, nice tracks and cars!) but then it just dies...
screenie looks pretty, but all the stuff they mention on the right is nothing new to any race simulation.
I hope SimBin can think of something, the ISI physics left much to be desired. Not saying it was total crap but there are little things that I feel are missing. I am not holding my breath on anything from SimBin.
I like the idea of steam, shame it takes forever to get it running and even then I have issues.
Haha yeah =) Thats how I see it too =)
BTW you know when the announcment is coming Hyperactive?
Hmm, must say something about the topic too
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Basically all I want from the next ISI/simbin product that it would feel better. That is the main job as I see it
That physics feature list is funny in a away, that all those mentioned in it should be quite self-explanatory, like "Graphics engine supports 32 bit colours", no shit.
Oh, come on now, if this picture was Eric's teaser for LFS, you'll be drolling here..
Gotta say that it looks good on that screenshot, but in motion every ISI/simbin/blimey titlle so far looks over saturated and totally unrealistic..
We gotta wait and see, and off course, if it really looks like that in motion and all, it means nothing if they still simulate hovercrafts instead of cars..
Forgot to add that I'm lookin foward more on that Blimey's unnamed Ferrari project. They have license covering Ferrari cars from the 40's... Something like NFS5: Porsche Unleashed with an engine NOT based on ISI would be just perfect But then it might just turn out to be something totally opposite.
none but im not crapping my pants in excitement about the next overuse of shinyness either
doubt it
imho graphics have been getting worse for quite a while now and id rather see them drop raterizers for good rather than trying to make everything look "pretty" with shiny shaders
theyve allready admitted to using parts of the isi engine
I edited out the obvious and ISI stuff and look what was left:
Somethings may already be in the ISI engine but it certainly seems there's nothing substansial listed in the physics or even a statement that any of it is new.
Blimey and Simbin split after GTR2. The Ferrari project is by Blimey games (GTR, GTL, GTR2). The Lizard engine is by Simbin (GTR, GTL, GTR2, RACE). RACE seemed to be a U turn in trying (but failing) to do a proper simulation to going for a semi-sim, which isn't promising for the new engine.
Mm, never read that interview so I had missed that. Had to find it, it was in December issue. Suspicious, they say everything is scatch-built but then "suspension and some other aspects" are from ISI code
i dont know if anyone else has mentioned it, but in RACE 07 there planning a few more different types of racing, Radicals, F3000 and FBMW. interesting to see how they tackle single seaters for the first time...
I think I'll just go get another coffee! 
people complained about starforce a lot as well, I had no trouble with it whatsoever.
