Nope - best looking sim yet in my opinion. rFactor, GTR, GTR2, Netkar all look a bit rubbish. GPL is nice in some ways, as is NR2003. Netkar is the closest of the ugly ones, and has some really nice graphical touches, but overall looks fake and artificial. ISI sims have always been more about audiovisual bling than simulation, but always look awful (without exception). RBR doesn't look real either.
So yes, I think LFS looks closest to reality at the moment.
Depends on the refresh rate of your monitor. Doesn't matter how many hundreds of frames per second a rig is generating if the display is only getting updated at 60/75/100 Hz.
Dirt looking GOOD? Everytime I see it, I always think I have to make an appointment with my eye doctor... Those morons had to put in such amounts of bloom it looks like some fisheye forgot to put on his glasses... :rolleyes:
Forza seems to look quite nice though, but I've never seen it directly...
In my oppinion, lfs should have a DX8 and DX9 version, bit like the Valve Source engine (Half life2, Css etc) which can use about 4 different DX versions.
I think the plan is to really concentrate on graphics for S3, and get everything working as intended for S2, with some graphical updates as well.
What I love about LFS is how smooth it is. For me just having a smooth display really improves the graphics, because a stuttering screen isn't realistic, and can simply wreck a race. nkPro stuttered badly on my machine, no matter what settings I chose, and so did rFactor (Dx9 games). I think it's actually a kind of testament to how well coded LFS is when you're able to throw high-res texture after high-res texture into the game and discern no visible slow down. Of course that's also due to the simpler gfx platform of DX8, and I agree with Becky, Dajmin, Tristan and others that there are really good benefits with sticking with DX8 atleast into S3.
Where I think LFS is starting to really show it's age is in the modeling. Hills which should be smoother/more rounded are currently jutting and square. I would give up all fancy superficial graphical add ons like HDR/motion-blur for big improvements in the modelling of tracks/cars/interiors, and more textural details overall- like 1-3 extra textures for walls and barriers as an example, to lessen the repeating effect.
Also I love Eric's modeled trees but I don't really like the simpler X shaped (from above) trees. I know that trees shouldn't be a priority in a racing game, but I would be really happy to see some improvements there, as I'm a bit of a nature lover at heart.
I don't understand why you all want a new DirectX support. It will take ages to implement it. This time will be more usefull spent in physic improvement, dual core exploitation, aerodynamic modelisation and so on.
Scawen already told it.
If you want a nice looking in lfs there is a solution.
Download the hires pack from Destroem or Electrik Kar . Change some dds and use hires textures for cars. Then turn on Antialiaising and Anisotropic filter and that's it. LFS will look so much nicer without dropping too much fps. So the fun and smoothness of the online game will not suffer.
In every game they made choises. A nice looking render engine or an acurate physique behavior. I'd rather prefere that lfs go on on the actual choice they made wich is not the eye-candy's one. We already have so many gooood looking games like Dirt (nice looking, poor driving), NFS (nice looking, realy realy poor driving), ...
To convince you a little bit more, try to find the old LFS, before the new rendering engine. You'll see that they were major improvements already done.
An finaly, take some screen's of each game and compare them together. Wich look the more realistic? Is it NFS? Don't think so. Dirt? Lol, you're joking.
I'm bit suspicious... think how long the non-graphical feature list (=what people mostly expects/hopes) is for S3, total graphical revamp doesn't happen in couple of days if you have to do 100+ other features, especially regarding LFS' relatively slow developement pace...
Right now the biggest graphical revamp LFS could get is dumping the low-res textures.
I'm also surprised how many people does not use any FSAA/AF, LFS is one of those games where it makes really huge difference. I have 4 years old specs and I still use 4xFSAA...
Well, since you highlighted my text I should follow up with a disclaimer pointing out that of course I have no idea what the plan is with the graphics- I just made an assumption based loosely on things said by Scawen long ago, probably too long ago now - I won't even bother trying to pull the quote up.
Would certainly like LFS to eventually get to the point where it includes visual aspects similar to Forza2.
I had a go at it a couple of days ago (I'm sure the 7' projection was a part of the wow factor), and I was impressed... variations in track texture (greased up / rubbered up) highlighted depending on the sun; subtle bloom, slight camera re-focus during replays... just a lot of little nice touches that added up to a great visual experince (bar the lack of cockpits).
Secondary though to the progress on physics of course! :-)
For the sake of dreaming I had a chance to play GT HD on PS3 last weekend and all I can say is....wow.
The look of it is great. No silly blurring, no unrealistic candy....just beautiful.
Now just imagine LFS physics and GTHD looks......it gives me grown up feelings
Seems as though static screens don't do that game any justice, as it looks pretty unimpressive (in the shots I've seen) when still. I still believe you though...
But looks pretty cool in replay mode, especially at a distance (helicopter view). The hand-held cameras are a nice touch too. Physics seem a bit coarser than LFS physics. LFS makes up for a lot of missing graphical things by having mostly great physics, which lends a unique air of realism to the game, imo.
I would however be pretty surprised if this were true
It does have blurring. And it is silly. I don't know how the game can decide where the player's eyes focuses on. The whole idea is just so retarted. Looks nice on photomode shots but you can do better job in photoshop in 15 mins.
As much as I hate the whole GT franchise because of the BS marketing, just seeing the latest GT5: Prologue screens from E3, I must say the car models are incredible. I'm glad, GT5 being a huge title and all, it hasn't jumped on the "bloom" sled - that's one thing that makes instantly any game look like crap. Or at least highly unrealistic.
By out of the box, car models are really lousy looking with lo-res textures but the addon mod cars are extremely detailed, easily better than in most commercial games.
Deggis, I haven't noticed any bluring or "speed" induced things while I played it. It wasn't for a long time but it just looked like racing software should look these days.
And GT5 models look more like renders then a bloody game. Props to the people who are putting their time into it (and getting paid a hell of a lot of money for it)
The computer standard level is rising in the whole world, to bad that people who has the better computer has to wait for the others to do an upgrade and to help evolving new greater graphics on games by having better components.
LFS would be so much better with better graphics, I just love LFS as it is, but the graphics starts to feel a little 90's. But if the graphic improvments would take effect on the great simulator I dont think they should upgrade it.
Having 768mb in graphic memory, duo core, and 2gb in ram with sata 2 harddrives in raid 0 just dont have a meaning without games with good graphics..but the sad truth is, there are no good games with good graphics.
I'm really against this upgrade-upgrade-upgrade ideology that today's programmers are feeding. It has to be stopped, consuming is bad thing, so is getting new computer every 3 years to be able to do even some basic web browsing.
I think LFS has been great there that you don't need to upgrade every time when new version comes out.
It is really sad to see how people think it is normal and acceptable to need to upgrade for all new versions of software.
