The online racing simulator

Poll : Most realistic:

Live For Speed alpha
633
Need For Speed Underground 2
438
Richard Burns Rally
183
None of them are really realistic.
84
Grand Prix Legends (2004)
70
NASCAR Racing 2003
68
R-Factor
56
The Papyrus games
49
GTR2
43
The ISI games
13
Quote from atlantian :haven't you visited crashing servers or run into the plastic traffic barriers?

Not sure about you, but hitting a barrier and going 500 feet in the air flipping isn't very realistic...
Quote from deggis :What then?

(For that amount of money, I don't think you could even afford G25 after buying 3 monitors and all the other stuff.)

Given the fact your other option is an arcade machine I guess your not worried about space so 3 CRTs is fine (should get 3 21" screens for under £30). An old car seat is free. A bit of time making a frame (again I assume most people serious enough to consider an arcade machine would be prepared to put sometime in). Pick up some kind of better second hand wheel option (I got DFP/Frex for £50) a high quality set of pedals (£180) and a shifter (£60) and you've still got £430 to spend on a PC.
Unless you have played RBR, you shouldn't be allowed to vote on this
Quote from ajp71 :I don't think there's any sim that can really claim to have done anything other than a torque curve generated by a look up table or generic maths function though as you can get away with it pretty convincingly.

Yeah it's an argument for bragging rights more than anything. A programmer's goal is to produce an experience of some sort but how they do it is completely irrelevant. There are always shortcuts and cheats, because without them no software would ever run. I've no doubt that Scawen is a genius with code, but I'd bet money on there being a few cheats in there.

For a very simple example, I was recently working on a 2D game which required an object to fire and fall, as if thrown from a catapult. I could have coded a physics system to control this, but when a simple animation technique produces exactly the same result with almost no CPU overhead, I'll do it that way. The user doesn't know or care how it was done, so there's nothing to gain from doing it the complicated way.
I admit I haven't tried any RBR modding. It seems the engine simulation fell victim to their release deadline then. I guess the same happened to cockpits and non-Subaru engine sounds.
The two most realistic racing sims in my opinion have to be Race07 and RBR
If "immersion" is included in the term "realistic", then GTR2 runs very high in my sims list (it even tops it form time to time, depending on my mood). If not, then LFS tops GTR2 hands down.

In other words, for me LFS is better in physics and force-feedback, and GTR2 is better in the immersion part (gfx, sound, real cars & tracks, ai and championship modes).

RBR and nKpro stand high in my list too!

PS. I didn't vote
Nr2003 and RBR.... to some degree NKP
But it's NR2003 and LFS who are realistic and fun in Multiplayer
Quote from AndroidXP :Race07 = ISI/SimBin game, using the same crappy physics engine.

Ahh I see. I think saying the physics engine is crap is taking it a little too far personally. In absolute terms it can't be that far wrong after all you turn the wheel etc the car goes round the track, you push the go button and the car goes quicker; brake and the car stops; go in to a corner too fast and you'll run wide etc etc. Obviously the basics are right. I'm sure the engine isn't nearly as accurate as in LFS (what game is??), but saying it's crap is just an exageration IMO. If you want to take the absolute position that any driving sim that has any element of unrealistic car physics is "crap" then you will have to say that all driving sims, including LFS, have crap physics engines, (ie LFS has one of the poorest collision physics IMO).
I tried Race07, it is good, not as realistic than LFS. But it is good racing sim/game. Well ok, it could be, if that one of the worst FFB's wouldn't be there ruining it. It just feels weird, when you get car in slide steering starts immediately feel sticky and you can't really do fast correct movements because of it.

LFS and RBR are two best sims I have yet played. GTL is very good too, only that it's FFB sucks a bit too. NR2003 is great too, but I'm not really interested of NASCAR and ovals. But it was great with Ferrari 330 mod in Isle of Man. I'm not sure but one bad thing is that atleast with G25 I feel very annoying steering lag and it turned me off from this game.

After all I didn't vote, at least not yet because all these sims (even ISI ones) have their advantages and disadvantages.
Quote from gezmoor :(ie LFS has one of the poorest collision physics IMO).

LFS has the best car to car collision model I've ever seen in a sim, no other sim allows car to car contact in the same way.
Quote from ajp71 :LFS has the best car to car collision model I've ever seen in a sim, no other sim allows car to car contact in the same way.

There's still no doubt it could be a lot better though. Especially when lag enters the equation.
Quote from BigPeBe :I tried Race07, it is good, not as realistic than LFS. But it is good racing sim/game. Well ok, it could be, if that one of the worst FFB's wouldn't be there ruining it. It just feels weird, when you get car in slide steering starts immediately feel sticky and you can't really do fast correct movements because of it.

LFS and RBR are two best sims I have yet played. GTL is very good too, only that it's FFB sucks a bit too. NR2003 is great too, but I'm not really interested of NASCAR and ovals. But it was great with Ferrari 330 mod in Isle of Man. I'm not sure but one bad thing is that atleast with G25 I feel very annoying steering lag and it turned me off from this game.

After all I didn't vote, at least not yet because all these sims (even ISI ones) have their advantages and disadvantages.

Exactly. If you were to sit in one of those cars in real life thats how it would feel - realism
a guaranteed fun thread!

The only scary thing is when people limit their views to one sim only. Saying one ''is the best'' while not being open to the others tends to become a religous bashing of everything not 'your sim'.. (Hey Tristan ;P)

In reality its impossible to compare properly because of too many factors. The physics engine itself will be very important, but the data you feed into it as well.

There is probably something to say for LFS, RBR, Nkpro and ISI sims, though ISI makes a poor show mostly because the games that use this physics engine have no clue how to use it / what values and curves are realistic.

ISI bashing used to be my hobby until I started to realize its not all bad when you enter proper numbers.. Who knows, LFS might not be made up of perfect numbers so it could improve even without a touch of source code!

Hard to tell really..
Quote from Klutch :Not sure about you, but hitting a barrier and going 500 feet in the air flipping isn't very realistic...

well he said that it's not good until LFS can simulate getting air, well, hitting the barriers is one way

btw, have you tried Cross Racing Championship 2005?
http://www.gamershell.com/download_9378.shtml
it claims everything that SHOULD be in a sim

and let me get this straight...
these games are the only demo worth sims on the market right now...
NR2003
RBR
NetKarPro
LFS
GPL
right?
Quote from ajassat :Exactly. If you were to sit in one of those cars in real life thats how it would feel - realism

Nope, when car starts sliding steering doesn't get sticky and hard to turn. Front wheels try to go where car is going, like in LFS.

You're saying that Race07 is realistic, but it's not.
Nfs is the SO most realistic game EVER! I have NEVER seen ANYTHING like that! :O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I lai'd.
I think the poll results will be not the accurate of poll's because were on the LFS Forum so ppl will say LFS. Although I deffinetly agree LFS is the best!
The attached video is a nice sim too btw! (sorry its zipped into a.. RAR..)
Attached files
ferrari1lq.rar - 1.5 MB - 214 views
I have or have had just about every racing game released for the PC in the last 12 years. I recently had to reformat my hard drive. The only games I bothered to reinstall are RBR, netKar PRO and LFS.
Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :The attached video is a nice sim too btw! (sorry its zipped into a.. RAR..)

Nice video, Niels. Is that from the GTL for rFactor project that you're working on? That's one mod that will definitely make me reinstall rFactor when it's released.
I miss "Dodge 'em" for the good ol' Atari 2600!

Most realistic racing simulator?
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