There are several aspects of the graphics engine that should be optimized. But we are not asking for perfection. On the other hand, 2 things are incredibly poorly optimized, and for me it is innaceptable, really : 1) Essential optimization of the rain. 2) Day/night cycle (low sun, sunset/sunrise and night). Just that. If they could invest in doing that, that would be great.
Tbh, I can't pull out a source for the first point right now. But from what I gathered throughout the years they stopped developing AC1 due to the fact that it became more and more time consuming with the ever growing amount of cars to get the tire model updates done. I am pretty sure if you aswked one of the responsible devs you would get a similar answer and there is nothing questionable about it. Kunos isn't a very big team either. About the transparancy of development: I think it's pretty obvious that streamlined and focused content, improvements to the graphics engine, the UI together with the competition system coupled with some general bug fixing has been their main focus for the last couple of years and the last big interview and roadmaps don't show anything that would make believe something else. What people interprete or wish for is again a compeltely different story. They don't give deadlines anymore for the fact that it's the first thing that people will whine about when a deadline isn't met. Eventhough they were pretty good with meeting their last deadlines. And yep, they hired a PR person. Again for obvious reasons. Just to put that into prespective, one of the latest main complaints has been that the forum isn't used enough and that the devs communicate too much via Discord and that they don't answer every forum post. Now guess what, now you have a guy like Paul Jeffrey doing what was requested by the community. It doesn't matter what they do, they will never please everyone. It's quite simple. It's allways easier to hold something agianst people when they don't deliver something compared to what they allready achieved.
I never said it would disrupt physics, I just said that there was in my opinion LARGER urgent to manage than allowing players to use a simulation with hardware that has absolutely nothing to do with a simulation...why not touchpad or Nintendo Switch's nunchuk while we're at it? I found it incredible that we're asking for this when there's, as this post says, really better things to do with development time.
That's very much how it sounded in this thread, and is why I answered the way I did: If it's just a matter of development time, sure. But don't make it something else later.
I see. In fact, I was responding to someone who had mentioned GamePads and I was taking advantage of the fact that when I had talked about it in another subject, I had been turned on when all I was saying was that I found it abnormal to ask for an improvement for a hardware that has absolutely nothing to do with a simulation. I must also say that I'm a bit of an extremist on the subject, I don't understand for example that we don't impose the cockpit view in rFactor 2, when I see streamers using the back view or the roof view, I feel like crying. iRacing is the only simulation I know that enforces cockpit view.
That's fair enough, but in this case the person definitely mentioned physics in relation to gamepads, so that's how I interpreted it. (not that I agree with your view on people using gamepads, but I'm totally happy to let you have your opinion on it)
Like me. Everyone not using cockpit view is arcade gamer for me. No matter how fast, can not accept this.
Seeing builds some people have with nose or bonnet cam, this is a bold statement . Rain doesn't necessarily need optimization, it needs a revamp, as it currently looks like a blown engine rather than water. As for day/night, I have driven and streamed at the same time in high settings and triple screens all 24 hours of a 24 hour race in Denmark. This was with a 1080. I can't really say anything about low end hardware though, but even the 1080 is considered old already.
Commentator extraordinaire Lewis McGlade races on roof cam and has won championships doing so. People shouldn't hate the player but hate the game XD
Guys I fast forwarded through this video and watched some segments. I saw a tweaked setup go 0.7 sec faster than a default setup and get called a "Hacked Setup". Did I miss something? If not, is it news that you can improve on a default setup by 0.7 sec over a 119 sec lap?
I did the same test as in video, and I can run default with 1.58.5, hack 1.58.3. I gain 0.2 in first corner where default has understeer . Afterwards, its a bit gain here and a bit loss there due to way more agressive set. Note that he run AI in background, so grip may have increased for hack run. I can not confirm tc1 is stable, Its undrivable. I need at least 3, better 4. My breakpoints must be also earlier what make me think i drive another sim.
I believe no one suggested that devs should answer every forum post. And yes, it's extremely rare to see response from devs on official forum. I didn't know Paul is doing that. Haven't noticed it, but I no longer spend much time on rF2 forums.
Besides the looks, rain and nightime do cost 15-30 fps, depending on the settings you´re running... To be fair i haven´t really seen any other sim do better; even ams2 takes a hit under those conditions nothing wrong with that though
Thats offtopic, but whatever. Bonnet cam hinders you though. Gives better view, but pushing veiw point further up front makes it more difficult and slower to react to yaw motion of a car.
Consider where the sim is coming from. It was and still is regarded as a sim with great physics. But it was always a niche platform compared to other sims (simming already being a niche to begin with). Because it looked a bit unappealing. Improving graphics is really just a step needed to make it easier to buy new entrants. The UI was also archaic. Same with the competition system which is one of rF2's main points of critique (also something which Ermin regarded in the past so ok). S397 is literally giving people what they asked for and also what is their best investment. Physics is literally the last thing rF2 has to worry about right now. Not to say that just because we got a UI update and new official content, doesn't mean they're not working on physics and improving on it with each car. But there's clearly line in what S397 is doing and they've made fundamental changes to the sims infrastructure we'll pluck the fruits of in the future. If you look for a "hack" you'll find one because it's a sim. It's not strange to gain .7 seconds with a setup. For competitive simracing it's always a sport to find time in the setup. Doesn't mean that once you find something that's fast you found something that is "broken". Doesn't mean that knowing hacks makes you faster than someone whose genuinely a better driver due to talent or practice. Every time someone was faster than me it is due to them being a better driver, not because they knew something I don't. At least, I'm not seeing it. It is easy to say that the physics are broken comparing yourself to someone dedicated to one sim when you want to race on all of them. It's easy to call something "broken" out of humility when you're driving in one of the top leagues. And it's easy to blame your lack of talent or practice on an external problem. Physics will never be perfect compared to real-life. Maybe when we reach a technological simularity. Not saying that it shouldn't be a sims ambition to get as close and to continue developing the physics. Just saying that a one on one similarity with real-life won't ever be achieved. The point is that it is supposed to give you a believable and immersive experience and it does just that for a lot of people. Real-life engineers can use their knowledge for the better on the platform. Becoming a better driver is very enjoyable when you put the time into it (and when you gain from doing so). We have telemetry that we use in a very similar way to real-life. We can take inspiration from real-life motorsport. We can use similar strategies. I don't know what more people want? There's a point where repeating and highlighting the same issues on end goes from feedback to becoming complaints if we don't continue to highlight the positives enough. And let's be honest, it's more about preference than anything anyway. Even with the graphics it's not S397's ambition to make the game "look like ACC" or iRacing. It's about putting a platform on the market that has its own character both in the community, the graphics but also the physics.