Whoa for $15 a month I only get a Legends car and an over weight MX5 copy? I'm also alarmed that there are only 7 tracks at launch, given the split of oval and road courses and typical real world tracks having less combinations it looks like they will be far far less variety than LFS.
The only thing that really interested me was the Radical at Lime Rock or Virginia seeing as that is something that LFS doesn't even touch bases on.
I'm a bit concerned that you're going to be expecting more than can be delivered. Whatever amazing things are going into this sim from the back-end, it still has to run on a normal home PC.
When you consider the number of people with decent PCs who sat and watched their PCs choke on LFS at the new higher poly SO City with a gridfull of hi-poly FBM at the release of Patch Y, you surely have to realise that there is still a fine line that a sim developer has to walk.
Between the "profile of the asphalt and adjacent curbing, including road camber, cracks, undulations and patches, all with millimeter precision" and "a simulation so exact that it can help professionals search for tenths of a second per lap" demands, I genuinely believe that something has to give. Whatever it is that gives is either going to be your home PC or the sim itself. Surely?
Tbh you couldn't be more wrong with that statement. Everyone who likes simracing and likes it for the reasons of motorsports and racing alikeness will defenately like racing for the same reasons. (Probably, as it is hard to tell if anyone will like iracing when it is actually released :tilt. Still, to say there is no overlap is just plain silly.
Surely there are different groups inside LFS, drifters, cruisers, casual gamers, racers and motorsport enthusiasts but to say none of those groups is interested in iracing or to willing to buy to try it is just nonsense. It feels like you're saying it is better to put your head in the bushes, close your eyes and cover your ears and wait for the evil iracing to go away and leave us be. Maybe LFS is just the sim to pass time before something serious comes along?
There is defenately overlap, not maybe awful lot because LFS crowd is not really the HC sim racers and realism addicts but there is still overlap, I bet my neighbors balls for it. If anything, iracing is the most promising title in the last decade and while it may fail painfully, there seems to be more hope than in anything else since, well, maybe GPL.
Maybe there isn't any overlap with LFS and nkpro or with LFS and rf? There is and there will be with iracing too simply because iracing is still a racing sim and there will be overlap with every racing sim.
I'd wager that quite a few members of this community will be part of the upcoming iRacing beta expansion, so we'll probably be getting some thinly-veiled NDA-skirting feedback pretty soon.
I was really referring principally to the demographics. LFS has had very little up-take in the States, and the shortfall is very visible on the LFS hosts/racers graph. It's very difficult to get a race in LFS at 3am UK time, which is peak racing time across the US. iRacing's servers are all state-side and the content we've seen screenshots of so far are very US-oriented. They're intent on appealing to real racing drivers, but I'm far from getting the impression they're targetting European TCCs etc. iRacing is very specifically taking up an un/under-tapped US market, it seems to me.
Well, what's a "decent" PC in your view? At this point, anything without a dual-core CPU is not decent any more. But wait, LFS only supports a single core. Adding multicore support would take about a month (I didn't read it from Scawen directly, but from someone quoting him), but it would distract from other things and thus deemed unimportant. (Sure, making the program run faster and use more of the available computing resources is unimportant :shrug.
Obviously I don't know how well written/optimized LFS's graphics engine is, but I suspect it's not stellar . And FBM is high-poly only by LFS standards. So I wouldn't use it as a benchmark for what to expect from iRacing. LFS embodies a certain vision, which affects the technical side of things.
That was years ago and before all the legal ramblings. Given that they were largely recruiting from the N2003 community (in fact ownership of N2003 was a pre-requisite IIRC) I doubt that everyone would have kept quite when everything blew up. I think we are seeing a few non-LFSers with low post counts and a history of almost always LFS vs. discussion appearing though which is only to be expected.
Quite honestly, you talked yourself in a complete circle and got nowhere with that. iRacing say "we expect that the average home PC currently available in stores will be sufficient. Upgrading to a mid-range, dedicated 3D video card will probably be recommended." Are you saying that iRacing has multi-core/multi-processor support, then? Are you saying that the hi-poly-by-LFS-standards FBM is nothing compared to the poly count you'll find in the iRacing cars? Sorry.. what was your point?
This is true of all technology and I think that is precisely why people are regarding iRacing with a very cynical eye. What vision are they embodying?
People are interested in LFS and GPL still, because, in very different ways, they embody a vision that one might describe as noble: the enthusiastic, informed, and dedicated amateur. They stand for independance of vision, outside an overly stratified and demarcated professionalism.
iRental so far reeks of moneyed privilege, and the sort of politicised professionalism that is at the root of most people's mistrust of, for example, the FIA...
1) Please demonstrate the "circle", my weak mind is too dim to see it
2) Again, I don't know what's "average" to you. Desktop PC prices (in the US) range from about $350 to multi thousands. But look here, this is about as average as one can get: http://www.dell.com/content/pr ... ;cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Only the cheapest of the cheap Dell desktops has a single core Celeron. The next model going for $549 (that's the price of ONE VIDEOCARD for enthusiasts) has a dual-core Pentium.
I am saying exactly what I said in my previous post:
Singlecore stopped being a standard for "average" PCs a while ago, you are obviously behind on computer industry news. A game made in 2008 can only be NOT optimized for multicore if:
1) It's coded by 1 person who is just buried in work (Scawen)
2) The technical director is a moron.
3) It's a flash game or something, where even 1 core is overkill.
iRacing is not coded by 1 overworked person, and hopefully whoever is in charge of engine development wasn't a moron. If it does not have multicore support, I'll be very surprised.
If you compare FBM to any car from any modern (2007-2008) racing game, you will see that it's nothing special in terms of poly counts. Calling it "high-poly" is definitely overcomplimenting it. It's adequate, nothing more.
I am saying that
I am saying that with several competent people working on graphics engine, you can have the game look better than LFS, run faster than LFS, and still have the same or more processing resources for physics/AI/user interface (by utilizing the potential of multicore CPUs, capabilities of modern GPUs, etc.) Obviously it's not a given, and none of us tested iRacing yet. But it's very possible, and one could hope for the best, instead of endlessly bitching about a competing game that could potentially beat LFS at its own field. Hence I said "damage control" in my first post.
nihil,
as I said, I don't find $15/mo to "reek of moneyed privilege" as far as a hardcore race simmer is considered (i.e. people with triple-monitor setups and expensive FF wheels). Let's just agree to disagree on this then. I'll be able to say more about their vision when the game is released. As for LFS, I showed my support by getting S2 -- I like underdog developers as much as anyone else.
Lots of people are still running single core computers, I've just upgraded from a 5 year old (2.8 ghz P4, ATI 9600 Pro) computer that played every sim and all the Source engine games fine at 1600x1200 (with the exception of every SimBin title). Personally I consider spending £600 on a PC a luxury and when I think about it most of my friends are still using single core machines, I very much doubt that the majority of the population have dual core computers and iRacing is not trying to target the typical gamer. From what I've found in the past the American oval racers typically had vastly inferior computers to the European GTR and LFS communities, when I stopped racing N2003 seriously there were still a couple of people racing with Windows 98 machines. Having seen the mess that nK left with people not being able to play it I'd have thought that iRacing should be aiming for good frame rates on a basic first gen dual core and playable frame rates on a high end single core.
We're not endlessly bitching, just having a similar discussion that's being had all over the sim racing world. A lot of us got very excited about nK, pre-ordered it and were bitterly disappointed partly because we couldn't race it properly but mainly because it has just been abandoned with so much potential. For this reason a lot of us will be cautious of buying then trying.
This is what I don't get, you obviously haven't got your moneys worth out of LFS (going on your online stats), so why did you buy LFS? The Devs run LFS as a business they earn their living out of it and I think the price they charge is very reasonable for what they produce, however, I played the S1 demo extensively and TBH although I liked bits of it thought that it wasn't worth my money, I never paid for it on the basis it might be good someday or to support the Devs for putting time and effort into it, I waited until I was happy and bought S2 and have been extremely happy with it. There was a similar argument put across on the ARCA forum, with many people seemingly happy to pay for it without seeing anything to support the developers and unable to understand why others wouldn't do the same, admittedly that is a highly censored forum so I don't know if that's the genuine feeling or not.
Okay, I'll be really honest right now and say that I'm not at all inspired by the screenshots that iRacing are putting out. Given that this is a first-release in 2008, and as you say there's a whole team of people dedicated to industriously developing the graphics side of things, frankly it looks like pants. Or maybe you're just assuming a bit too much about the resources that iRacing are throwing at this. I can only call it as I see it, though, and if these screenshots are anything to go by, this is not good use of a DX9/10 engine.
I don't actually get the impression that Scawen is overworked or overburdened by development in LFS, by the way. I very much get the impression that he's very happily doing what he set out to do, in exactly the way he set out to do it. I think you have a faulty idea of what LFS development is, tbh. I also think you seriously underestimate the optimisations in LFS regarding graphics. I think the very fact that LFS runs on lower spec machines is in fact great testimony to the exceptional attention to detail given to graphical optimisations in LFS.
A very hi-poly model of a car for a racing simulator is nothing to brag about. More of an embarassment, in fact. The mission is to create a visually pleasing and/or accurate representation with as few polys as possible. That's optimisation. Just as a .25Bn point cloud doesn't impress anyone who's ever ventured into animated 3D graphics development (not that I have, but if you find an honest one, s/he'll tell you).
An average PC is actually quantifiable, and has nothing to do with what you or I consider to be an average home PC. An average home PC averaged over the lifespan of the unit, which I believe right now is around the 3 year mark, puts the modal average PC at single core. Not that there is anything anywhere to suggest that iRacing will support multicore. If it doesn't, I have a feeling that it is you who will be more disappointed than me in the product.
[edit] Just realised they said "average... available in stores" which probably puts it at dual core, but with 1Gb RAM on a Vista machine.. which is still going to be slower than my AMD3000+ w/6800GT
I think that old horse has been flogged to death, quite honestly. Nobody here is posting in oposition of iRacing because they're secretly worried that it might challenge or undermine LFS. To make that argument for leverage is just feeble.
I really don't want to argue about this any longer. I think I demonstrated well enough that dual core computers nowadays are affordable and what you consider standard -- at least here in the US. The majority of people buying a new computer in 2008 will buy a dual core. $550 is about 300 pounds if I'm not mistaken. For some it may be a luxury, but computer gaming is a hobby just like any other and demands investments. If someone can't afford it, well tough.
2) I agree that buying that trying is a bad idea. I don't like the fact that you have to pay for iRacing demo. Still, if they get it right, it will be a big milestone in simracing, just like GPL and NR2003.
3) If you think I'm dissatisfied with LFS, you are wrong. I didn't play online a lot because I used a pad and didn't want to bump into people due to control imprecision. It has been a couple of weeks since I got a G25, but I just don't have much time to play right now. I probably got 50x more singleplayer time than multiplayer, though, so it's not like I neglect LFS
SamH,
the "as low-poly as possible" changes as time progresses and as computers become more powerful. If you want proper damage and individual details breaking off (e.g. wheels) you need higher modeling fidelity.
As for avg. PC, see above. The iRacing team made no promises about an avg 3-yr old pc.
Their quote that you posted IMHO is. But I really don't want to continue with the multicore discussion.
.25 Bn point clowd is a data sample from which the actual model will be built. The actual model will not have to include all sample points. A very primitive example:
* * * . . . . * * *
translates to *3 .4 *3. It could also be *345 .1289 *123, instead of kilobytes of actual symbols. There are lots of clever tricks to retain 99% of a 3D scan with much lower number of points. Especially if it's a race track surface, which is mostly even with only localized areas of complex geometry. AFAIK they never said that actual in-game models will use billions of vertices -- now you are just putting words in their mouth, making them look stupid.
EDIT: I don't need to ask anyone in 3D graphics -- I am in 3D graphics.
That's still going on the assumption that the everyone happens to have just gone out and bought a new computer, the average PC of today is in reality always going to be a lot faster than the average PCs people are using. So saying an average new computer is a bit misleading and all I hope is that computer performance doesn't cut the already small market, which in fairness was never a problem with Papy products (with the exception of GPL).
As for the graphics, they just look like N2003 with very high detail models and a general increase in shininess except for the late models that seem to be very matte, nothing wrong it that for me but it's still playing with LFS and N2003 rather than next gen titles in the graphics department, whilst for me GPL visuals will do suffice if that is the level they're going to be at for the next couple of years I don't think they'll help its cause seeing as Blimey/SimBin and possibly ISI have all got new graphics engines in the works I don't think being the prettiest sim should be an iRacing marketing strategy.
LOL dudes no! *I* am not making assumptions. The quote from iRacing team clearly says:
"we expect that the average home PC currently available in stores will be sufficient. Upgrading to a mid-range, dedicated 3D video card will probably be recommended."
Coincidentally, that ^ happens to be dualcore.
EDIT: as for looking the prettiest, I think a lot of the modeling went into internal parts, which could indicate a detailed damage model. http://iracing.com/technology_modeling.htm
E.g. a panel would fall off and you will see the corresponding structural elements bent/broken. Is it necessary? Is the deformable tyre animation in LFS necessary? IMHO yes to both. (On another forum, someone said "I never see the tyres while I race, I don't care if they deform").
I agree with you that the average new PC is dual core and that is what iRacing have said but the way most people have read it is that it's the average PC, which is a very different thing.
It just begs the question though why haven't we heard about it? If they're this close to release it really seems the marketing is a bit of a mess to me, they've bored us to death with this scanning technology that I think will make bugger all difference seeing as the actual layouts, let alone individual bumps will be out of date by the time it's released and no help to anybody unless they plan to permanently keep rescanning the same limited choice of tracks, couldn't they just have used a little artistic license gone on a track day and maybe done a track walk noting the obvious features at each track and got a result sufficiently close that nobody would ever notice the difference? We still haven't heard of any core changes over N2003 other than (from the way it's put at least) a new tire model. If they had a party trick like realistic damage modeling wouldn't we have heard about it by now?
Not to mention the collossal guff between "will run on" and "is optimized for". LFS will run on an average new PC. Wait, better still, LFS will run on a high-end new 4x4-core PC! Woot! MUCH better than iRacing's average dual-core!
Basically.. it's a nonsense. The only thing that we know is that we know precisely diddly, except for a fairly ambiguous gobful of marketing pitch. I totally agree with ajp on the complete irrelevence of millimetre accuracy on something as variable, year-on-year, as an asphalt surface. Even if they do find a way to get .25Bn points-worth of drivable surface into a home PC, it's still only a snapshot in history. Cool though I think it may be, it will have lost its relevence or accuracy for the real racing driver, improving his times, by the time it comes to market.
Nobody has mentioned the weather, have they? The weather has to be there, to make the promise come true. And it'll have to be an extraordinary weather model too. The differences made to the track by differing levels of humidity, direct sunlight, indirect/ambient sunlight (shaded by grandstands and trees etc)
I can't wait to see the weather model, actually. I'm ready with my $20 just to see that
Good point. Maybe there'll be a surprise announcement, or maybe it will be a huge flop. As I said, I'm merely hoping for the best. I only got into simracing recently, so I'm interested to watch the scene develop. Might seem weird to some people who have been in this for ages, seen it all, and developed strong loyalties.
I think we all are. But some of us are a bit more life-experienced than others, and some of us are a bit more familiar with the flowery talk of marketing departments and how poorly they so often translate to the reality. After the nKP debacle, we don't take anything said by sim developers to be the truth until we see it for ourselves.. and as in life in general, when something seems too good to be true, it genuinely usually is. But we still live in hope.
There was an initial testing request several years ago when the project was still under the First name. Lots of people from the N2003 community had applied for testing. At the same time several mods were being developed for N2003, First decided to put a stop to this, although reputedly it didn't actually own the rights to N2003. It got all rather nasty but IIRC the one modder who was defiant gave in as soon as it got to court. The official stance was that they were worried about being liable for trademark breaches for modifications to the game that they had tentative at best ties with, which was widely regarded as complete bullshit (ISI seem happy to sell a product with the intention for it to be modified) and there was a strong suggestion that they had been planning to release something much sooner and without a radical change to the underlying engine and felt threatened by these mods, which were mostly had a lot more time and a better finish to them than the typical ISI mods.
At the time there was a large backlash and widespread threats of boycotting First. Nobody I knew ever heard from First, which promptly changed its name to iRacing and went quiet for several years, presumably with the intention of being able to reinvent itself and censor out this bit of its history, which it seems to have managed to do.
Trust me, I'm well aware of all that was going on back then.
I took part in that first beta (more properly termed an alpha) back in the summer of 2005. It was mainly a test of the league system, running a slightly modified version of NR2003, and the league racing was very good and very clean. They made it quite clear that the physics engine we were running was nothing like what we'd be getting when the game was released.
The upcoming beta test is of something like a release candidate, so it should give everyone a much more accurate view of what the sim will actually be like.
The video clips were nice to see. The single seater part was a bit disapointing (I understood that it was old footage) but the stock cars looked nice. Not jaw dropping but nice, abit bright and slightly cartoony but still good. Noticed some steering lag there too. The physics looked promising though, from what you can see from short videos .
Hope that iracing online system works with Opera too
. Still, to say there is no overlap is just plain silly. 
LOL dudes no! *I* am not making assumptions. The quote from iRacing team clearly says:
