Not that LFS ain't looking good as it is, but i still hate to see people with such crappy pc's. Seems almost impossible to have nowadays. Why does someone possible have a P4 at 2.6Ghz while using an onboard videocard while u can grab some decent GFX-card for a bargain and framerates go up like 10x if not more. Are you just nuts? or anti-"anything-decent"
It can't be true people like you are actually slowing down graphical progression, but it still shocks me to see how much people have not even a half decent PC. Money is really not the problem, maybe lack of knowledge is. I tend to even buy some decent stuff to keep framerates at least around 60FPS, like i did in times of Quake2 when Voodoo2 cards where top-of-the-line, got 6 of em to be able play on three PC's with SLI setups so we could play 3-3 matches with our neighbours, wonderful time that was. To have your favourite game run smooth as silk is like the best thing there is. How can you possible enjoy LFS at 20FPS while less then 50 Euro's change that to a bearable 60FPS. I played LFS for some years on a ATi Radeon 9700, at 1600x1200 4x AA 4x AF at over 60FPS. Those things cost like 10 euro's nowadays.
It seems so totally nuts to me. And to even use that crappy PC as an argument to not update any graphics makes me quite mad actually. Where would we be if we allowed everything to be playable on 486's. We would have some 2D LFS at the moment.
To show how basic LFS's graphics is, i now play this game at around 350FPS at 1650x1080 16xAA 16xAF, thats just insanely over the top framerates which could be used for some decent reflections and lightning. Where's the sun in LFS? where is selfshadowing, or the basic things of al...l MULTILAYERED TEXTURES!?! DX8 is not the problem, it can hanlde much more sophisticated things then we see in LFS. Check Quake3, thats an OpenGL game, but it's GFX abilities show whats possible in DX8. If we could just add multilayered textures we could make much better surfaces, the plain 2D textures are like prehistoric nowadays. Besides most of the more advanced pixel-shader effects can actually make the game run more smooth. In it's current state it actually renders quite ineffective. Polycount is not really a problem, i like the way the models look, apart from some cars that could be updated (which is what happens as we speak). But to be able to add normal maps to generate more depth and grooves on bodywork (like Doom3, still openGL but which shows what's possible with DX8). Make things look round and reflect light well and seems to have little depth details while actually they are low-poly meshes combined with a depthmap of a higher resolution model. This allows for lower stress on GPU/CPU but the effects are really nice looking. The whole thing is not about having LFS look like GRID (which actually looks quite nice in my opinion) but to at least add some decent bumpmapping, lights and reflection. Nothing is strange about asphalt reflecting sunlight, having a real sun which automatically makes day/night changes possible. Having a real rearview mirror which calculates the image from the users point of view. (Now it's like we have a camera on the back of our cars and the mirrors are displaying their feed as if the mirrors are displays) Ever played Race07, thats what mirrors should look like.
I'm not a big fan of blooming and motionblur, but the main problem with those effects is that they are not used well in most of the "fancy games". They could add very nice atmospheric effects which are not unreal at all, even through the eyes we experience bloom and corona effects due to light reflection and distortion of our own eyes. Having overbright is not a bad thing either and HDR is a nice way to compensate for the lack of contrast on displays compared to real-life situations. But it's all used over the top, for years effects are used that way in like every situation. Otherwise it could go by unnoticed, and since effects seem to sell they overexaggerate it all the time to show-off what videocards are able to do. We barely see effects used in a more subtle way where they are almost unseen but do add depth and atmosphere to the whole image. Every CG film or 3D renders use these kind of stuff to make things look very real. Without them everything remains flat. But i would say lightning is the first thing that has to change radically and can easily make LFS look so much more realistic.
What i dislike the most at this moment, is that there are just 2 stages of shadow, no-shadow and just shadow. Add shadow from a building and add shadows from the car and you end up with having now shadow at all which makes the car look like it's floating. Two shadows should add up to a darker shadow. Maybe there's a simple solution to make it look a bit better. Add an extra blob type shadow underneath every car, and leave the rest as it is. These are actually a simple form of the calculated realtime shadow and remains a static gradient alpha map so it's not a heavy load at all. I think this should look very good on Southcity locations and maybe it's really simple to implement. Although I forsee problems already which LFS has with the alpha-maps not being able to show another alpha layer through itself. So skidmarks will dissapear at the boundaries of the car. (ugh...)
I do not request everything i talk about, they are just some pointers to what's possile whithout making a game like LFS unplayable on lower-end pc's. They could also be optional GFX settings so no harm done at all. Afterall LFS needs to get a little better then it is now GFX wise or the whole thing could fall apart.
Like this, everyone I show my simulator with LFS on it and they all need to say how awful and outdated it looks. I think it looks rather good though with all high-res textures and it seems more natural looking. But it kind of scares me how other people can judge a game so easily by it's graphics as if it's total crap in the first place not even being impressed by physics and other stuff thats more important. Well, i think they just aren't ready for simulation and are more of the NFS-type crowd but it still hurts my feelings in some ways since it seems i'm the only one around liking LFS. I really love LFS in the depth of my heart and spend ages on making it look a tad better. It deserves to be seen in a more positive kind of way i think and GFX is what will make this possible. As we all know, GFX sells.
