Are sims too "realistic" to produce life-like driving?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by PearceYaussy, Oct 28, 2015.

  1. PearceYaussy

    PearceYaussy Registered

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    rF2 surely has the most advanced physics model in the market, but in all honesty, how realistic is it? Is it TOO realistic? I can quote Gregger Huttu saying at Road Atlanta "Surprisingly, the real car is much easier to handle than in the sim" (referring to iRacing, which to me is easier to drive than rF2) and I have heard others say the same thing. Every time I take a curve full speed on the road (yes, I'm an occasional speeder, are you really surprised? :p) I tense up and expect to have to make all these crazy slide corrections, but then the car simply just turns. No crazy alien reflexes needed. Like it's on rails compared to a sim. Oh my did I miss my calling... :(

    Anywayyyy, call me crazy, but car physics are very often overdone in sims (my dad who is a lead software engineer and racing enthusiast with a genius IQ agrees with me) and sometimes I wonder if something like Forza Motorsport is closer to real life driving than these "sims". Assetto Corsa (which some say "isn't a sim") and Forza Motorsport 3 are as close as I can get to what I feel in a real car. rF2 just feels over the top sometimes. Do you see these guys sideways in every corner?

    Maybe it's only me. Do I have no idea what I'm talking about?
     
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  2. bwana

    bwana Registered

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    depending on what you drive IRL to the limit and your perception of the limit to be. Is Huttu pushing the IRL car to its limit at Atlanta or to his limit , may be 2 very very different things.
     
  3. Guineapiggy

    Guineapiggy Registered

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    You'll always be lacking certain stimuli from a sim that you get in real life. The excess adrenaline, all the smallest details of full 360 vision, vibration, sound and feedback, g-forces and so on that can give you important information. Slightly heavier steering means your inputs will be less jerky and, obviously, rFactor2 and its fellows are missing a number of features such as aero flex which means you need to take off some downforce to achieve expected top speeds and lose out on grip in fast turns. There's also the lag factor that, even at 60FPS and zero frame queue puts you a slight amount behind the actual action. Aspects like pedal weight and travel are usually way off for most wheel/pedal sets and so on. That aside it's always likely that details in a sim will err on obvious rather than subtle when there's ambiguity about how intense an issue or dynamic should be.

    Still, there is that odd element to RF2 that it's noticeably harder to control than its contemporaries and sims that have come before. RF1, NetKar, Richard Burns Rally, iRacing, LFS and their ilk never gave me as much trouble as rFactor 2 does. The difficulty has been lessened with recent patches but it's still awkward.
     
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  4. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    When you remove the physical aspects of driving a car some of them become really easy, especially the modern ones. Like... I saw once a LMP2 engineer saying these cars have a TC that adjusts itself for each corner in a track via GPS, this is crazy. Had to drive, sure, it has nice g forces, but in front of the screen of a PC how hard it can be for real?
     
  5. Esteve Rueda

    Esteve Rueda Registered

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    G forces, vision, "the feeling in your ass"... all this make driving way easier than in sims, because you feel where the car limit is, and where is the limiti between safe driving and danger for your own integrity, and the car itself. In real world I'm sure Huttu never pushed as hard as in iR, dancing in the limit of grip, smashing down his throttle pedal as everybody can do in a sim.

    All this stuff make real driving easier than sim. If a sim has the "same" physics than real life, will always be way harder than real life, just because of lack of LOTS of information and lack of danger.
     
  6. Golanv

    Golanv Registered

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    Short answer: No... in general sim vs RL, are sims harder if you ignore the physical demand of RL driving (g forces, steering torque etc...)?: Yes.

    Long answer: All about the tools you use to play sims with. More you have crap that creates the effects of RL driving, more you get to life like experience.
    iRacing is not easier than rF2 for me. iRacing has the problem of not making sense in all situations with the information it gives me, rF2 does this much better, hence makes my natural reaction most likely to be the correct response to what the sim is trying to tell me.
     
  7. Esteve Rueda

    Esteve Rueda Registered

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    This is what happens when drivers want to have fun with their cars :eek: and do not really care about tires and stuff. Look at dry clips, not wet.



    Bonus:


    PS: in the video you posted there are perfect examples of crazy slides...

    Bonus 2, from same race, look the entire footage and enjoy the fight with their cars, slide fest, even in race conditions:

    (jump at 1:39 is awesome, or slide correction at high speed at 4:18)
     
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  8. Saabjock

    Saabjock Registered

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    All sims....whether cars or planes are going to present some minor factor that's different.
    Some aspects are always going to be more difficult....some easier
    It's just the nature of the beast.
    My job involves flying the HondaJet simulator...everyday.
    As part of my pre-flight duties, I take off from Greensboro on full motion each morning, couple the autopilot and test flight characteristics and systems prior to capturing the Glideslope and landing.
    Though extremely minute, they're always slight differences some of the test pilots detect.
    The software engineers then go back and tweak them to match.
    Some say the airplane is a bit easier...some say the sim.
    Cars and racing sims are no different.
    Bottom-line.... if you gain anything useful from the driving duties which can be applied to the real world then you ARE in simulation.
     
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  9. P.S.R.

    P.S.R. Registered

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    Are sims too "realistic" to produce life-like driving?

    I don't understand the OP's point about sideways in every corner. Are you saying they are sideways in every corner or rF2 is sideways in every corner? And what of it? Depends on how you drive unless you are saying you HAVE to drive sideways in rF2 to go as fast asp possible or what are you saying for crying out loud?

    Also, the answer to the question in subject line is "yes" but is still far more life-like than dumbing it down like other sims. More and more people are beginning to describe rF2 as feeling more like driving a real car than anything else. Hell even F1 racer it whatever his name is who moderates VirtualRcade is saying it and that is saying something but go on and have fun with your troll thread anyway 9_9
     
  10. Old Hat

    Old Hat Registered

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    Greger Huttu's comment was a long time ago. That was the iRacing Old Tire model which was scary even on a slow warm-up lap, in fact especially when going slow, e.g. side by side at 10 mph down the Cork Screw, Laguna, was about the scariest thing in the sim. :) The fact that you can adapt to that nonsense doesn't make it desirable IMO.

    I do believe some sims are over-reactive. And reaction and sensitivity are quite different things. A small lock up in straight line braking might lose time in real life but it probably shouldn't leave you on the other side of the road pointing the wrong way! Similarly, a bit of wheel spin shouldn't have the car snap-yawing all over the place. If the real Cobra was like rF2's, the average person driving on an unfamiliar stretch of road would bin the car over the first unexpected bump. (And to save time, if you post a vid of someone binning a Cobra, I'll probably just tell you he was showing off and not accelerating smoothly and responsibly.) It might be fun in a game moving all over the place when you can do lots of laps and anticipate the oversteer, but I don't think it's real and you wouldn't want it in real life on an unfamiliar surface, it'd be too bloody dangerous.

    The reason my preferred sim is AC is that the rotational inertia of the cars isn't seemingly overwhelmed by small events at the tyres nor small nudges from AI cars. You lose time, but the car doesn't act like it's hit an oil slick. I remember Richard Towler saying the iRacing NTM was too easy, and he seems to think AC is the best thing since sliced bread. But neither Huttu nor any of the other aliens appreciating AC will stop certain people saying AC is simcade. Which kind of calibrates their judgment I'd have thought....
     
  11. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    Like GPL, some people said it was "like driving on ice".........no sense of throttle control. lol p

    ----------------


    Put all the physics in all sims to make realistic feeling for 10,000hp Top Fuel or just a 6 second Pro Stock.

    Nothing comes even remotely close. ;)

    Simulate chassis flex , wheelie bars, wrinkling slicks and Lenco shift alone and you would win me. lol :)


    ---------------

    rF2 goes beyond anything I have driven for simulating inertia.

    In other sims the primary feel of this for me comes from FFB, with rF2 it is so different, hard to explain.

    Like I said 10th time now if you want a indication of what I mean take the Historic F1 ( Lotus49/Wingless Eve ) in each sim to Historic Italy and induce under-steer on the entry into Variante Ascari ( the fast left hander )

    Then try getting all cars into a "tank slapper" drive down main straight weaving side to side ever increasing gradually till the limits come.

    Then try a full throttle launch off start line with wheel spin whilst shifting.

    Try a controlled donuts / burnout in each and the feeling of inertia from "flicks"

    Like night and day for me.

    Relatively minor details yes, but very telling.
     
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  12. Skan

    Skan Registered

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  13. PearceYaussy

    PearceYaussy Registered

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    Exactly. And people who say the new iRacing model is too easy are used to these "over-reactive" sims. The one exception in rF2 is the URD EGT mod. People say it's "too grippy" and "too easy" but I think it feels more real than any other mod we have, including ISI cars.
     
  14. PearceYaussy

    PearceYaussy Registered

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    GPL is very old, keep that in mind. I still enjoy it from time to time, but the physics do feel very "faked", in a way, and you definitely didn't see those guys sliding at 30+deg angles through every curve like you can in gpl lol. But for a sim that came out in 1998 it's still amazing.
     
  15. PearceYaussy

    PearceYaussy Registered

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    That's the problem. Data can be wrong...
     
  16. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    GPL was broken in low speed, that's been proven over and over.

    That said, I formatted my PC last night and GPL is one of the just 4 games I have installed...........
     
  17. peevee

    peevee Registered

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    Exactly what is fast IRL and what is fast in a sim are two different things.

    When you are going for a lap record or PB on a virtual track in (say) a GT3 car sure there are some sensations (emotional, adrenalin etc) do the same IRL life with same GT3 car and same track then you will experience the emotions, adrenalin etc amped a 1000 times. Add in the hectic physical forces, immense noise, heat of the cockpit, tight strapping and then throw in the fact you can die and there is no reset button to repair your wrecked car in real life and I think that explains the difference.

    In other words IMO it is highly unlikely the average sim driver (who sits on his wooden desk or fancy rig at home in his shorts and T-shirt pretending to race cars) will ever go anywhere near as fast in the real world as he drives in a sim...
     
  18. Euskotracks

    Euskotracks Registered

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    How can being a too realistic sim make it different from reality?
    It seems clear that people will give any kind of absurd explanations to satisfy their egos.

    Enviado desde mi GT-I9505 mediante Tapatalk
     
  19. bwana

    bwana Registered

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    That's my point.
    :)

    as for the URD mod being most realistic I don't quite think so(IMHO), in RL with all aids TC, ABS etc enabled a Porsche can still get very loose on you ,have those features enabled in the URD pooch and its not happening and that's driving like a lunatic with disregard for financial and physical repercussions in a sim
     
  20. Minibull

    Minibull Member

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    I agree, it's kinda like looking at combat soldiers and then looking at video games of combat soldiers...does a US Marine act like the US Marine I play in COD? lol

    For me it's the only way anything in our virtual environments can be explained. You have no fear at all, no sense of speed in comparison, no danger, no physical property, all those thing you mentioned which all have a massive bearing on your driving.

    Huttu, at the very top of simracing wasn't at the very top of his IRL laps I remember seeing years ago. Does that not immediately put a different perspective on how these experiences should be seen?
     

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