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PC Racing Sims

A

amar212

Member
Has anyone seen this? :D

Original post from con360 on GTPlanet.

Apparently, this is the cover of the CD edition of the NetKar Pro for the UK:

nkpro_pc.jpg
Click to expand...

...and this is the official GT5 promo-shot from 2010:

FORD_Ford_GT40markIVRaceCar_011-640x360.jpg


Spot the difference :))

Also, special pun-fact: get the slogan of the NetKar Pro on that package:

"NetKar Pro is an absolute steal"

LOL

Sorry if already covered (pun again) :))
 
S

Spookie

Member
Man after looking at the gifs for iRacings Bathurst track I though I'd give it a look to see how much it would cost to race the RUFs.

It's roughly £80. I quite literally laughed out loud at the price. :(

I'd kill for a reasonably priced online racing sim.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
Depends how you look at it I suppose.

If a new iRacing member wanted to race in the Ruf Cup for a whole season, assuming all 12 tracks in the schedule are not part of the included pack, even by doing it the cheapest way - taking advantage of a half-price year membership, buying the 12 tracks and the car at once for 20% off - I think it would come to around £123. It seems nuts when you look at it like that, and it would be a risky move to go that route. They might hate it, particularly if they've clambered up the ladder very quickly to be eligible for the series but are lacking experience in the sim and are starting in the bottom split all the time. Best to enjoy the base stuff for a while and build the track collection slowly, along with experience and iRating. Spread over several seasons, the costs don't seem that crazy after a while.

After three seasons of racing the Skip (which provided the most competitive, respectful racing I've ever seen on a weekly basis, so money well-spent imo), I already have 9 of the 12 tracks to race in the Ruf Cup if I wanted to, so the perceived cost from my perspective would be about £7 for the car. And as I try to ensure my participation credits are maxed, I don't expect to spend more than £20 or £30 per year on iRacing from now on (that includes both the membership fee and the occasional piece of new content).
 
S

Spookie

Member
Pazuzu9 said:
Depends how you look at it I suppose.
Click to expand...

Well when you put it that way you're basically suggesting that I play a league I have no interest in, spending MORE money then buying the RUF down the line. It doesn't really solve my issue with iRacings pricing, infact it makes it worse! They have now what 60 odd tracks and there still isn't a discount on the older content? You wouldn't find this anywhere else but in the archaic racing sim community, no wonder it's so insular when the barrier to entry is set with these silly hoops. :/

If they were to introduce a season pass, for example: You pay £20 for a 'licence' for these tracks for the length of this season getting access to the next a week in advance. Or, hell, even the entire extent of the season. While it still would be expensive compared to basically everything else on the market, it would make it much more appealing. I can't justify £80-120 when I'm the only one of my friends interested in sim racing. I've got other games to buy and at the end of the day.
 
M

Morzak

Member
Big Takeover said:
I don't think I've ever driven a track that's held so many secrets. Almost every corner has a nuance, and it takes a long time to work out them out. Even the "easy" corners like the first and last ones can be tricky.

The downhill section really invites you to over-drive it, but you've got to stay disciplined and concentrate on getting good exits. The last one in particular begs you to charge through the kink, and then bury it at the bottom. What you should be doing is dragging some brake through the kink, stay to the right over near the wall, turn in late, and punch it down and out of the corner. Like a lot of places on the track, exit speed pays massive dividends. That's why you should stay away from a lot of the curbing too. That fraction of a second gained by cutting a bit of curbing isn't worth being late on the power, and giving up speed down the straights.

It is difficult for sure though. Just keep chipping away at it, and build up your knowledge. I'm hoping to get my first race of the week in tonight, but I've heard they've been wreck-fests. Even in practice, there are people all over the lot.
[/IMG]
Click to expand...

Damn After putting in a pretty big amount of time I'm still not really confident, but at least I slowly feel able to string together some laps and that is in the slow Specracer...... Will probably be able to get a Race in on Thursday, but I don't think I will even come close to a decently good pace..... And I hate the first corner just doesn't feel right. Thanks to the Time needed at bathurst I will not have enough time in the Skippy to get a decent pace at Watkins...

I have to agree with Spookie the pricing is bad... especially considering that you only buy access to it and pay a monthly fee..... They really need competition, but as it stands now it is by far the best online experience out there.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
Spookie said:
Well when you put it that way you're basically suggesting that I play a league I have no interest in, spending MORE money then buying the RUF down the line. It doesn't really solve my issue with iRacings pricing, infact it makes it worse!
Click to expand...
I wasn't aiming my comments at your situation, it was more of a general approach to the service that makes sense to me, and how I'd 'pitch' it to potential new members. In your case it boils down to the approach that you're willing to take. The idea of 'playing a league I have no interest in' is a concept I find hard to understand. Every league on the service has the potential to be as rewarding as any other. But if you're convinced that only the Ruf series will do, then that is your decision, and that decision comes at a high entry price. There's not much they can do about that (aside from your season pass idea, which I will get to in a moment). My view is that value = fun, and there are several series that should be relevant to a road racer's interests - you are artificially restricting yourself (and therefore reducing the potential 'value' you can get from the service) if you believe the fun is locked away in one series.

They have now what 60 odd tracks and there still isn't a discount on the older content? You wouldn't find this anywhere else but in the archaic racing sim community, no wonder it's so insular when the barrier to entry is set with these silly hoops. :/
Click to expand...
Discounting 'older' tracks doesn't make sense unless the track is not being used in regular rotation in the leagues and has been effectively abandoned. If it's still in regular rotation, then there is no reason why you'd be having less fun in your race just because it's older. The schedules for each series are well thought-out, and they try to keep all the tracks active. The actual age of the tracks in reality doesn't correlate to the length of time they have been available on iRacing, so the very idea of 'older' tracks deserving a discount is a strange one. You're buying a licence to visit the track, and it's up to iRacing to keep them up to date both in terms of layout and visual quality (which admittedly they are very slow at doing). I know Lime Rock and Silverstone will be seeing such updates at some point (and probably a few others) and you won't be expected to pay any more for this.

If they were to introduce a season pass, for example: You pay £20 for a 'licence' for these tracks for the length of this season getting access to the next a week in advance. Or, hell, even the entire extent of the season. While it still would be expensive compared to basically everything else on the market, it would make it much more appealing. I can't justify £80-120 when I'm the only one of my friends interested in sim racing. I've got other games to buy and at the end of the day.
Click to expand...
It's an interesting idea, but I have a feeling that it could end up making them less money. Everything that you pay for in iRacing is already just a licence, so what you're suggesting is basically 'make it cheaper'. If it worked out that buying a season pass four times a year was cheaper than buying all the tracks that were being rotated through those four seasons, every member with a small track collection and looking to move forward to just one series would do that, and they'd make less money and haven't achieved anything.

Would it attract new members? I think there would be an initial boost if they advertised it well enough - I can imagine people jumping in on a free trial and paying for a season pass to a series they're not really ready for, and many of them would be discouraged and not last beyond one season. But it would work for some (like yourself), and if it did result in a permanent bump in membership figures, that would cost them more money to support the higher loads... so even then I'm not sure if they'd gain much from it if some of these members are now paying less for stuff.
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
marvelharvey said:
As someone who works inside the dinosaur that is the Japanese games industry, where everything is still modelled by hand, I'm incredibly jealous of those amazing tools.
Click to expand...

Heh, at least they have high standards for things done by hand. Time be damned of course. They'll right the ship. They've got to right the ship. You've got nappies that need buying!

I'd imagine the ability to laser scan tracks was probably the seed for the the entire service. I'm sure they put a tremendous amount of effort into those tools initially, and over the years. Six months per track from start to finish seems like a fairly reasonable number for a company with less than 50 employees. The bottleneck, as always, being the art. It's the quality they get at the end of that six months that most impresses me.

It's been interesting seeing more and more sims do laser scanned tracks, yet you can tell there's that little bit of definition that isn't present in comparison to an iRacing track model. It's those tools, if not the commitment to make everything as accurate as possible. It comes across very clearly in-game too. You drive someplace like Oulton with it's constant ups and downs and funky cambers everywhere, and it doesn't look or feel like a track you could get anywhere else.
 
S

seattle6418

Member
I might be missing out on great things with iRacing, but i hate their pricing model, i can´t have access to a demo or trial, i don´t know how well my PC will run, and i don´t know if i´m going to like it.

Too much money to see if i like it or not. It´s still the one sim i´ve only watched on videos.
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
seattle6418 said:
I might be missing out on great things with iRacing, but i hate their pricing model, i can´t have access to a demo or trial, i don´t know how well my PC will run, and i don´t know if i´m going to like it.

Too much money to see if i like it or not. It´s still the one sim i´ve only watched on videos.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the Cadillac promo looks to finally be dead, and the only other promotion they're running right now seems to be 50% off new memberships. Six bucks to try it for one month (or 3/$15) shouldn't be a show stopper though. If you're not down with that, just wait until they do a free month promo.

Be sure to cancel your account at the end of the month before they auto-charge you. That is unless you want to charged of course.
 
S

Spookie

Member
Pazuzu9 said:
I wasn't aiming my comments at your situation, it was more of a general approach to the service that makes sense to me, and how I'd 'pitch' it to potential new members.
Click to expand...

Don't take this the wrong way but I've argued the toss too many times with iRacing uses about value and prices, I don't fancy going through it again. My post was merely blowing off steam at the costs. The game simply isn't appealing enough and I don't want to go through the mental gymnastics to have justify spending both a monthly subscription and buying content. Then to top it off, if I ever want to stop playing it's all taken away from me.

As someone looking from the outside in, that makes absolutely no fucking sense no matter how you spin it. If they ever were to look at the pricing system I'd be first on the boat. But until that day I guess I'm stuck against bots, which fucking sucks. :(
 
D

disap.ed

Member
Big Takeover said:
It's been interesting seeing more and more sims do laser scanned tracks, yet you can tell there's that little bit of definition that isn't present in comparison to an iRacing track model. It's those tools, if not the commitment to make everything as accurate as possible. It comes across very clearly in-game too. You drive someplace like Oulton with it's constant ups and downs and funky cambers everywhere, and it doesn't look or feel like a track you could get anywhere else.
Click to expand...

I am pretty curious how the pCARS Oulton Park will compare to it, they are working on it atm.
 
S

Spookie

Member
disap.ed said:
I am pretty curious how the pCARS Oulton Park will compare to it, they are working on it atm.
Click to expand...

I can't wait for this, I live about 30 minutes from this track and will be bring my Dad, as his birthday prezzie, to the British GT. So I'll be interested to see how it compares to what I see. :D
 
J

Juicy Bob

Member
Man, the way the WTCC is shaping up this season makes me wish there was a game coming to play along with.

Race 07 is great, but I'm a little over it after this long.
 
S

Spookie

Member
So I've been going through my Cc debt trying to sort things out. I've just realised I've been paying for iRacing for a year, don't I look like a cunt? :(

Hey at least the new tyre model is a HUGE improvement for the Mazda and spec racer. Now it's piqued my interest.

Shit. ;(
 
TJP

TJP

Member
Tom Haake (ex-ISR host & current CXC Simulations employee) has posted on Reddit on several occasions asking what people may want in a new racing sim show. He has made no promises but if he could get something together and perhaps lure Shawn Cole back into reporting, it would be well worth watching.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
TJP said:
Tom Haake (ex-ISR host & current CXC Simulations employee) has posted on Reddit on several occasions asking what people may want in a new racing sim show. He has made no promises but if he could get something together and perhaps lure Shawn Cole back into reporting, it would be well worth watching.
Click to expand...
Tits.


I'm sorry, what?
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
Spookie said:
So I've been going through my Cc debt trying to sort things out. I've just realised I've been paying for iRacing for a year, don't I look like a cunt? :(

Hey at least the new tyre model is a HUGE improvement for the Mazda and spec racer. Now it's piqued my interest.

Shit. ;(
Click to expand...
keikaku.jpg
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
Spookie said:
So I've been going through my Cc debt trying to sort things out. I've just realised I've been paying for iRacing for a year, don't I look like a cunt? :(

Hey at least the new tyre model is a HUGE improvement for the Mazda and spec racer. Now it's piqued my interest.

Shit. ;(
Click to expand...

iRacing; so inexpensive, you don't even realize you're paying for it.
I KID!!!!

NTM5 is a game changer. No question.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
It appears Thrustmaster have given me a new base for my T500. It's not one I've seen before, and it has no version number on the sticker (either that is how replacements are labelled or that's how they come out of the factory now).

The 'Thrustmaster' lettering on the front is now moulded plastic, rather than a silver transfer. The Mode, L3 and R3 buttons have longer travel and don't click like the old ones:

yg9.jpg


There is no hole in the middle part of the cover for the fan, instead it's breathing through the vent on the left:

zg9.jpg


And now there are much bigger vents just below the top lip on both sides...

1g9.jpg


The fan is much quieter... although I'll give that some time - some of them tend to only show their true colours after a few weeks.

The paddles feel completely different. The click is much quieter, which is nice, but there's less resistance too... and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

But most importantly (the reason why I sent it back), the annoying clicking in the rotation is not there. Success! But what I wasn't expecting is that it feels significantly better all round in terms of feedback. Perhaps it's just that new feeling of not being broken-in, but I was prepared for that - it's not the first time I've had an exchanged T500. I am familiar with how they feel out of the box. This is a different feeling, so I wouldn't be surprised if they've done something to the internals. It feels smoother and stronger.

Anyway, first impressions are good, hopefully this one will go the distance.
 
W

Watevaman

Member
That's the same model I got from the GT5 branded box from Microcenter. Guess I lucked out with a "newer" model even though it's not in the GT6 box.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
Interesting. Does it also have no version number on the underside?

Amazon had so much old stock, it was bullshit. V.2s for days. When I finally gave up and ordered from OCUK, they only had V.4s, when V.5s had been sighted for at least a year.

I guess this one feels better because it's the first I've handled that hasn't sat in a box for more than two years since it left the factory.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
how is rFactor generally? Took my son to a place called 'race hut' last week for a birthday party, and they have 16 PCs setup in a network with wheels and race seats, and they raced for an hour. He had a ton of fun (and came second!). They do drop in sessions and also memberships - wondering if that might be something worth exploring, I don't have space for a proper setup in my house.
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
@Paz Score!

I was hoping they'd just send you a new one. Yeah, that's the latest version. Same as the Microcenter wheels, and the reboxed (blue) ones. If you disassembled it you'd see the fan is now mounted vertically for more efficient air flow.

I've got one too, and it's great. Registers next to nothing on min_force tests, no notchiness at all.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
Big Takeover said:
@Paz Score!

I was hoping they'd just send you a new one. Yeah, that's the latest version. Same as the Microcenter wheels, and the reboxed (blue) ones. If you disassembled it you'd see the fan is now mounted vertically for more efficient air flow.

I've got one too, and it's great. Registers next to nothing on min_force tests, no notchiness at all.
Click to expand...
Sounds promising! Will give it a proper run later.

mrklaw said:
how is rFactor generally? Took my son to a place called 'race hut' last week for a birthday party, and they have 16 PCs setup in a network with wheels and race seats, and they raced for an hour. He had a ton of fun (and came second!). They do drop in sessions and also memberships - wondering if that might be something worth exploring, I don't have space for a proper setup in my house.
Click to expand...
rFactor is the most-modded sim, so it has a huge number of car and tracks. But they vary in quality significantly. In terms of physics it's up there with the best, but only if used correctly. In terms of visuals it's showing its age, but it means you don't need anything powerful to run it, and if you do have something powerful, you can max it and have a very crisp image and a super-high framerate. The interface is appalling, there are plenty of quirks to getting it set up with your hardware correctly, and the installation/management of mods is very old-school.

But if you were asking about setting up a LAN... I have no idea.
 
M

marvelharvey

Member
mrklaw said:
how is rFactor generally?
Click to expand...
+Possibly most accurate physics simulator (the F1 teams use ISI's physics engine)
+Excellent excellent tyre model
+An ever evolving track surface (starts off green, then the track rubbers in, marbles build up, then rain can wash it all away)
+Some of the best AI I've raced with (I often find myself three abreast in braking zones without contact)
+A wide variety of circuits (flat and short, hilly and long, short and flowing, tight and technical etc)
+A wide selection of race cars; low powered open wheelers, F1s, historic formulas, touring cars, prototypes, classic Le Mans, hot hatches, GT2/GT3 etc

-not the prettiest of game by a long way
-even worse if you've an AMD card (half the fps compared similar level nVidia cards)
-a user interface from 1997
-awful mod managing system (close rF2, scout the internet for mod, download, unrar, put in correct folder, open up mod manager, find the file - possibly with a different name than the downloaded file, install, close manager, reopen rF2)

In conclusion: the best and most accurate racing experience available, but you'll have to wade through clunky UI and jump through hoops to get mods working.

If you want something that's easy to use, beautiful but still has a great physics engine, then Assetto Corsa is the better choice. The only downsides being, it's still in quite early in development, has limited track selection, poor AI and is missing some important features... all of which will be corrected over the next few months/years.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
This TradingPaints thing isn't working... it looks like I'm stuck with your NeoGAF scheme! I can't apply anything else, to any car, nor can I remove that one scheme...
 
S

Spookie

Member
Big Takeover said:
iRacing; so inexpensive, you don't even realize you're paying for it.
I KID!!!!

NTM5 is a game changer. No question.
Click to expand...

Well... I've just been told I've got all my holiday pay coming to me in the form of 8 payments over the next two months, which would be able to fund me for three years. That's if I don't put all of that in to a bike I might consider it, because at the end of the day, it's money I don't need to do anything sensible with.

That, and I did use my $10 credit to buy Bathurst. :E
 
TJP

TJP

Member
marvelharvey said:
-even worse if you've an AMD card (half the fps compared similar level nVidia cards
Click to expand...
Tim Weatley has posted on the rF2 forums that Nvidia have worked with ISI - at ISI's request - to help with performance optimisation. Tim also mentioned that Nvidia are happy to help all developers no matter the size of the project. Sadly no such help was forthcoming from ATI despite requests from ISI.

I believe SMS are getting the same level of support from Nvidia with pCARS too.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
TJP said:
Tim Weatley has posted on the rF2 forums that Nvidia have worked with ISI - at ISI's request - to help with performance optimisation. Tim also mentioned that Nvidia are happy to help all developers no matter the size of the project. Sadly no such help was forthcoming from ATI despite requests from ISI.

I believe SMS are getting the same level of support from Nvidia with pCARS too.
Click to expand...
:/
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
Pazuzu9 said:
This TradingPaints thing isn't working... it looks like I'm stuck with your NeoGAF scheme! I can't apply anything else, to any car, nor can I remove that one scheme...
Click to expand...

Just according to keikaku.

Weird.. Sometimes I have to restart the applet to get any custom paints to show up (mine included), but I don't think I've ever seen it get stuck on one skin.

Spookie said:
That, and I did use my $10 credit to buy Bathurst. :E
Click to expand...

That's the spirit :) Buy a bike though!

marvelharvey said:
This was brought up on the AMD forums and the response was basically…

-what's an rFactor2?
-ISI are just shit programmers
-DX9? :O
Click to expand...

Heh, predictable. Ah well.

I had a little laugh when I saw you bought a 780 to replace an AMD card. I knew you had reached wits end. rF2 has had very poor performance on Radeons from literally day one. It's been maddening.
 
B

Big Takeover

Member
marvelharvey said:
GSC2013ers, do you know if any kart tracks have been released by modders? That game needs more kart tracks :)
Click to expand...

I haven't seen too many kart tracks, no. I took a cursory glance at NoGrip, and saw nothing. The M3challenge site has a couple. One appears to be a Simraceway rip which looks terrible. The other an rF conversion which looks fairly decent.

The forthcoming update will have the (fictional) Floripa kart track. There's also a utility on Race Department that allows for karts on regular tracks.

marvelharvey said:
No nappies for my son this month, but he understands…
Click to expand...

Ha, what a cutie. I can tell he's impressed by that smoke not halving the frame rate ;-)
 
TJP

TJP

Member
Shaneus said:
:/
Click to expand...
Nvidia tends to cop a lot of shit here on NeoGAF; perhaps some of the disdain is justified (I don't know about the evil deeds Nvidia have done) but reading the post from Tim on the rF2 forums plus reading about the support for pCARS makes me happy that I've always used Nvidia GPU's.

In other news NFS: Rivals was just updated with a 450MB patch....and nothing is fixed. Rivals still has frame rate issues in the larger towns despite being arbitrarily locked at 30fps, disappearing road textures and a complete lack of decent AA all of which is brilliant coding for an engine designed for the PC but at least the new Jaguar and Ferrari DLC will work flawlessly.

Back to Assetto Corsa, GSC, rF2 and RRE...
 
S

Shaneus

Member
TJP said:
Nvidia tends to cop a lot of shit here on NeoGAF; perhaps some of the disdain is justified (I don't know about the evil deeds Nvidia have done) but reading the post from Tim on the rF2 forums plus reading about the support for pCARS makes me happy that I've always used Nvidia GPU's.
Click to expand...
My heart is still thoroughly with ATI/AMD and I've seen the performance of some of their brand-spankers, but I honestly can't rely on them for compatibility in the slightest. CFX is a crapshoot at best and there's almost always something that needs to be tweaked to get (insert game name here) running properly.

TJP said:
In other news NFS: Rivals was just updated with a 450MB patch....and nothing is fixed. Rivals still has frame rate issues in the larger towns despite being arbitrarily locked at 30fps, disappearing road textures and a complete lack of decent AA all of which is brilliant coding for an engine designed for the PC but at least the new Jaguar and Ferrari DLC will work flawlessly.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the same patch they released for Most Wanted.
 
TJP

TJP

Member
Shaneus said:
My heart is still thoroughly with ATI/AMD and I've seen the performance of some of their brand-spankers, but I honestly can't rely on them for compatibility in the slightest. CFX is a crapshoot at best and there's almost always something that needs to be tweaked to get (insert game name here) running properly.
Click to expand...
I think very nearly everyone cheers for an underdog and ATI certainly qualify as an underdog. We need competition in both CPU and GPU areas so I hope ATI continue to be a viable and strong alternative. When I upgraded my GTX 570 I considered buying an ATI GPU but didn't; my brother in law won a 7970 in an Internode comp a while back (updating from a Nvidia GPU) and couldn't be happier; he's had zero issues with drivers.

Shaneus said:
Sounds like the same patch they released for Most Wanted.
Click to expand...
EA wonder why their name is synonymous with dogshit - there are a load of never to be fixed bugs and issues in Most Wanted and it looks as if Rivals will continue the 'we ain't fixing our fuckups' trend. I guess PC gamers should be thankful we are getting all of the DLC packs our console gaming cousins receive.
 
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