I find the LFS curbs more slippery than those in GTR2. Atleast, you've gotta be slightly careful when you're going over them. In GTR2, I don't think I've discerned any difference between the tarmac and the curb in terms of grip.
The green criss-cross runoff at Blackwood though seems quite grippy.
I don't think netKar is that difficult. Have you been through the era where you had 5 choices of flight-sims at any time? Flight-sims have much steeper learning curve than any race sim ever, but people managed just fine. Ok, not so fine since that genre is currently more dead than sim racing. But clicking a few (2) buttons to start a car isn't that much more difficult.
I also hope netKar gets its deserved polish because the foundation seems really good. Who knows, I might get it when that darned patch eventually comes out LOL!
Indeed the Toca's (aka RaceDriver) are really bad. It's like stirring that G25 through molasses in a vain attempt to steer a boat. Not even NFS is that unresponsive/filtered/damped whatever. I guess they couldn't decide if they wanted a pivot physics or a 4-point one.
But they do have decent graphics which runs super fast!
Regarding curbs: a video of a McLaren F1, driven by David Coulthard in 2002 at Spa, and a 2003 Ferrari (not sure of driver) at Monza using the curbing. On a side note, regarding "realisim", the cars viewed in replays of various racing games never seem to truly duplicate the responses of real cars. To me, it's mostly suspension movment, and how the cars drift (for the ones that do drift). I'm not sure if it's the cars, the tracks, or some other factor, but although racing games are close, they just don't look "right", something is just missing. I think this is why Simbin made the comment that these are racing games, not simulations.
They're flat kerbs that can be driven on, not like the more aggressive ones that are not normally driven on, like the ones at Blackwood. Fern Bay has even more aggressive kerbs that can still be driven on without any real penalty. There is no way that the Fern Bay Club and Green chicanes would be driven like they are IRL.
The kerbs at Monza are more aggressive than the ones at Spa but still no way near as aggressive as the ones at Blackwood.
I've never tried nkpro but have always been curious about it as namie had a lot to like about it (although not enough to devote time with it over lfs). I obviously then can't comment much on it but I happened to visit the forum at rsc and read the thread about what people love about nkpro and it was all stuff that I can get in lfs already, seemingly to a standard as good or better, without all the problems.
My vote goes to Richard Burns Rally, and second goes to LFS.
1.) RBR is what made me want to buy a steering wheel set, and when I started playing with my logitech formula force gp, it just became SO alive, and then there was the czesh plugin for online competition, than there were new cars (really awesome ones) so I played RBR for a long time, and it needed constant training. Then there came the n4 and s1600, which brought rbr in to a new level of sim-racing, the game has survived for quite a few years now only on its fan-base, new mods , updates etc, and they are very high quality. The only drawback are the tracks :/ you just want more ! and the new tracks that are coming now ar not on par with the original ones, but RBR is the best bargain sim-racing game, I mean, you get SOOOO much for so little. RBR is a different level of sim-racing, it is fun, when it is taking seriously, and I think, that a steering wheel set is a must to enjoy this one.
2.) LFS is the common racers sim-racer, cauz it is as I see by the number of people playing, very enjoyable with keyboard/mouse, which is surprising.. LFS shines through with the multiplayer and its levels of difficulty, from an golf to a firebreathing gtr. LFS is not complete yet, it has its cons, but it is very enjoyable, and offers much fun at not very high cost or gear needed.
3.) pretty much GTR/RACE....and the others
I played the nKpro demo and i think it is very good and very realistic although it does have problems, specificly online where not many play ATM which should be one of the best aspects of any racing sim, LFS is still 1 of the best sims but i think nKpro will be very close to LFS in the future.
Oh and about rFactor, i think it sucks piss !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^^
Aggressive kerbs like we have on a lot of LFS tracks are realistic. The very flat kerbs found at most modern F1 tracks have been made much less aggressive to pander to the demands of teams who can't cope with bumpy challenging circuits. IIRC a few years ago there were even complaints from teams about anti-cutting markers at Spa breaking front wings
Some tracks like Pau and the 'ring have kerbs that would (and do) simply destroy suspensions if you try and drive on them like you can the kerbs at Fern Bay, look at the number of DNFs from suspension failure in a typical F3 race at Pau.
Lots of tracks have kerbs somewhere in between the F1 circuits and the extreme kerbs of older circuits. Generally kerbs are getting less aggressive, which is a bit of a shame really as there's nothing wrong with having to drive on the prescribed racing circuit rather than all the rumble strips.
Except that because of mistakes made by drivers or being forced off track by another driver causes the cars to be severly damages if the curbs are too "aggressive". If it was your money paying to repair the cars would you want "aggressive curbs"?
Worse yet is the issue that a damaged car could go out of control and cause a crash with other cars. The car builders and the drivers want safe tracks.
Big, aggressive kerbs are no less safe (except for bikes, when they can nasty things to riders' hips), just make it easier. It's pandering to the big money series.