I read over at RSC that the LCD is not operational in the demo. Don't know if that's true but I haven't found a way of turning on the LCD display.

I'm getting used to the sound now. Like LFS, it's informative rather than immersive.

The car handling feels pretty good. This is greatly enhanced by the force feedback which is excellent.

There are a few really nice touches, such as the visor and mirrors becoming grimy over time. Not sure if there is a way to clean the visor though.

Overall, my impressions are improving with every lap I run but I'm not yet convinced that it's worth buying. My main concerns are still performance, controller lag and the awful TrackIR support.

It also desperately needs a manual!

Have tested a bit.
First thought: Crap, but I think pros can judge it a little bit better.

But it don't get the slogan "Just drive" on the homepage.
Perhaps it's meant ironically.

I still can't get it too start even after doing whats been said to work. I also don't get that Green light in one of the screenshots

Maybe I've got a flat battery wheres the charger lol

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Renku - how did you get those out-of-the-cockpit camera views?

Press R. Haven't figured a way back to the cockpit unfortunately.

yes lol manual would be handy, under help it has offline manual and online but none are working...

dont understand why they when for such a crappy interface, lfs is so user friendly but this is just silly. I know it says netkar PRO but camon!!!!!

also performance wise with textures at max wquality and res at 1280x960x32 with 4 aa and 4 af it runs fine tho with the replay camera it is a bit jerky prob running at around 20fps.....

my pc is a athlon xp 2600+ thurerbread
a7n8x board asus
radeon9800 pro
1 gig ram

4 years old pc

seems to run ok tho

mad

definitely not buying it, gfx is about the only thing that i liked, FF has terrible knocking, im afraid itll damage something, i hope this isnt general, sound is as said terrible and imo worse than lfs, i thought this was supposed to have 2 sound engines, maybe not in demo but the only sample is the starter, this all feels very unfinished and a little txt file with some general keys and settings explained wouldnt hurt, there is a help directory but with a html with no help?
just some keys i found: L cleans the visor and F3 gives tv cam.

Those getting knocking, try changing tires.

Quote :

go to track, in the setup, section TIRES, change the tires with MOUNT FRONT / MOUNT REAR...

I'm a complete n00b to netKar, having never before played it. First impressions:

Interface looks like a 5-min job in VB, the sort of thing I would have done in secondary school. Ingame FFB slider always reset itself to 100% even after changing it and clicking OK (or w/e it was), I had to go to the controller's own profiler to change FFB.

Audio settings didn't want to change either, my Windows volume is full so it blasted me damn well near to being deaf. I toned down the audio master all the way to the lowest possible setting and it didn't change a thing so had to change windows vol which is annoying.

Having spent 10 mins wondering why controller setup didn't change I realised I actually have to click to save the settings unlike in LFS where it's instant. The lack of manuals is worrying at this point since they're clearly needed. At least creating a player went fine!

I eventually managed to get to the pits and wondered how in the devil's name do I start this dang machine, took me another 10 mins to figure out I can actually click the buttons with the mouse. Having clicked several various combinations I found the right ones (top 2 switches on the left) and this is the point where the sounds first did my ears.

I don't have a clutch pedal so button clutch it is, I was pleasantly surprised at stalling 5 metres from the pits, finally a feature I liked. A few more moments tweaking the FFB to a reasonable level and I was off to my first ever netKar lap. I noticed the considerable steering lag immediately, the on-screen wheel is behind by quite a bit, having said that I think it's only a graphics issue as the car was doing more or less what I was doing, when I was doing it.

Shifting is very unresponsive and very difficult to guess when it actually has shifted, when I figured out that fast shifts aren't possible things started to go better. Lift off the gas, press in the clutch, shift, release the clutch and step on the throttle, but in slow succession .

Being able to go a bit faster I promptly understeered straight off the road in turn 1 and in the chicane spun as the default brake balance was a bit too hardcore for me. Tweaked that and it was now much more driveable. I found the FFB to be unresponsive in normal race driving, with the exception of flat-spotting and the difference in handling with used tires. Props for that because it feels better than in LFS currently. Maybe my FFB settings were a bit off but I thought the feedback was a bit naff. Also had a hard time knowing when I was sliding and when not, although not hearing the tire squeals didn't help.

Ah yes, did I mention I had to put all graphics options to minimum and run at 800x600x16 (@85Hz) to get decent FPS. The shaders and stuff really killed my PC and increased controller lag substantially.

Test Rig
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton) FSB 333 MHz
512 MB Dual-DDR RAM
nForce2 motherboard chipset
128 MB 8x AGP nV Geforce FX 5200
Logitech MOMO Racing Pro
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2

So yeah, could be better but maybe with a few more tweaks I'll get into it.

**Edit:
Replays, each one is saved in a temporary file and can be permanently saved by exiting the track and selecting 'Replay> Save last replay'. Pressing F4 brings up a replay HUD but I see no controls as such, including increasing and decreasing the replay speed. If the features are there, tell us how to use them! If not, I'm not impressed.

Quote from Barroso :

... and F3 gives tv cam.

Ah, it is F3 isn't it. R has a similar function but presing it repeatedly does not allow you to return to cockpit view...guess it's buggy.

It still won't start

Some more impressions: I can't run it on max details (textures) because in pits it's giving me less than 1 fps. As soon as I (somehow) manage to move away from the pit area, the fps suddenly jump to a decent and playable level. It's probably just my old GF4Ti4200 (64 MB RAM) which is not able to cope with the amounts of detail. But then, I don't know... shouldn't be THAT laggy. Probably even overheating problems? Didn't have problems for years, not even with Half-Life 2...
After some more testing I can't really say anything more positive on the engine sounds. I can't really tell which tone matches which amount of revs (unlike in LFS) and without either a rev indicator or speedo it's almost impossible to tell what's going on with the car.
Yes, I'm on demo and indeed, I've not been able to switch on the hud...
Another point making it lack in feedback is the skid sounds. I find it hard to tell when the tires are on or over their limit. So basically I was cought by surprise when the car stepped out.

I've also noticed a continous clicking sound playing once I clicked on of the buttons in the setup menu. It wouldn't go away and the game crashed shortly afterwards.
Another game crash happened when I intentionally hit a wall hard. I suddenly found myself dropping out of the track and falling into infinity. There was no way to bring the menu back up, had to kill the task.

Overall, NKP really feels unfinished. After all THIS is what I would expect from an Alpha Version. You actually get the feeling that you're lucky if something works as it should.
LFS, at it's current stage, is clearly is a different animal. It's light years away in terms of user friendliness, compatibility, driver/car feedback and of course "bug-freeness"

However, I can see potential in NKP. The handling overall is not too bad, I just haven't really gotten used to it. Still, NKP just give me roughly 40-50% of the feedback I get from LFS. Which is not enough to really master a car... :/
I won't be buying it anytime soon. Waiting for a seriously improved demo and might consider it then.

its F3 to change the views

once outside 'TV' cam
twice, outside zoomed TV cam
third time, back inside

Quote from ajp71 :

It still won't start

Ok, look at the wheel, now look to the left of it and you will see a vertical row of three switches. Flip the top-most one. Then press and hold the second one until the engine starts.

Quote from Gabkicks :

is there a way to turn the lcd display on?

My LCD didn't work until I activated the program so it was no longer in demo mode

:hihi:

Quote from MrSkill :

But it don't get the slogan "Just drive" on the homepage.

maybe they're even being sarcastic... "just drive (if you can dig through the jungle of options and random crashes)"

Solved out the FF thing i guess, it's ok, just a bit massive. But still I found it sucky that they didn't enable the HUD on demo.

ive heard from a mate that if you set the gear up button and clutch button to the same key it shifts... havent tried it myself tho as i have just put my wheel away....

do you need a wheel for this to work or even a joy stick?

My first impressions of this: http://forum.rscnet.org/showpo ... =2974592&postcount=65

I am not all that thrilled to be honest, I expected it to be a bit more then what I have in front of me here. I can only imagine what LFS would be like if it had better cockpits and graphics, that is just about the only thing it needs to top it all off. Netkar for me is just graphics and loads of other eye candy, the main focus doesn't feel it has been on physics for me (since it doesn't feel all that different from namie).

Oh btw could someone post a "good" clean lap around the demo track in the demo car please? I'd be interested to see how fast _fast_ is in this game

can some one post a pic of the HUD actually working? just curious what info is displayed..

cheers

mad

OK WTF. The game's FF was working fine, but now when I go and do a new test on the track, the FF is shaking wildly on the straights. Not cool!!!

I cant seem to decide if rFactor is better then nkPro or vice versa, theres so many things wrong with the game e.g. Theres no feel for speed. The only thing that impressed me was the visor getting dirty WOOHOO. Guess im sticking with LFS.

[edit]

lol, cant believe so many people are strugling just to turn the car on, it ONLY took me 10 mins to figure out.
Tweaker you need to go to tires in pits and do mount\remount again.

Quote from Rob76 :

My LCD didn't work until I activated the program so it was no longer in demo mode

So us demo users can't see what gear we're in? What kind of sense does that make? This combined with the impossible..ness (It's a word... now.) of the shifting annoys me to no end. I have no idea what gear I'm in until I suddenly manage to put it in reverse or something, and spin, and crash, and die... This is certainly not selling me a license, that's for sure.

nope, demo people cant see the LCD which is kinda pointless... because .. you dont know.... welll... a LOT of stuff that we should know, like.. RPM.. how fast we're going.. what gear we are in.. how much gas we have, .. the list goes on