rFactor 2 feedback after 744 hours of game time

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by zi99y, Apr 25, 2020.

  1. zi99y

    zi99y Registered

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    Last year I dropped a load of cash on what was for me, a serious PC upgrade. The major driver was to achieve a decent experience in my favourite simracing games using the Rift CV1, and rFactor 2 was at the top of the list. I now have a Ryzen 3600X, RTX 2020 with fast RAM, decent PSU etc. Long story short, I've spent more time tweaking than I have racing and the performance has never really been acceptable to me in rFactor 2.

    Somewhere I read that some people had managed to solve some of the problems I was having by reinstalling Windows, so I decided to try the same. I thought it might be worth providing some feedback on the "vanilla" install that I have just finished. Everything installed on a fresh install of Windows 10 from Steam (over 100Gb of workshop content) onto a brand new Samsung 970 EVO nvme drive.

    I enabled the public beta soon after installing to enable the new UI, and after trying with SteamVR I installed the OpenOVR replacement, which does improve things greatly.

    Side Mirrors

    I was convinced that I had modified a file somewhere which causes all the wing mirrors to be pointing the wrong direction - turns out even the official GT3 DLC cars all have this problem out of the box both in VR and on flat screen, before any modifications were made. Fixing is a MASSIVE pain because you have to hold the keys for quite a while to adjust each mirror, and then it only saves it for that specific car and livery, so you have to do this a LOT. Really disappointed here.

    VR glitching in menus

    This was the big one I was reinstalling for. Various options in the menu cause each VR display to freeze at a different state, like half the screen gets cut off and it really is painful to look at. Sometimes it only lasts a few seconds, sometimes more. Taking off the headset or closing your eyes is far from practical and is incredibly frustrating.

    Online server loading

    When you want to customise a race it forces a refresh of your favourite online servers. One seems to be favourite by default so EVERY time you want to customize your offline race the aforementioned VR glitching occurs while you wait for it to refresh. Painful.

    Car showroom

    Amazingly the car showroom does not display on a fresh install, it just shows very dark and is hard to see. After some research I found that returning to the old UI, and selecting the showroom in the options, returning to the public beta, it works.

    HUD

    The default HUD in game is pretty nasty. In VR the depth of the hud is very awkward to focus on against the car dashboard, so I like to use a workshop HUD designed for VR. Wait. Where can I change it? Oh, like the showroom there is no way to do it without going to the old UI and changing it there.

    Heat haze circles

    I've been here before, magic circles at the rear of all the cars! Resolved with a simple INI file tweak. Seems to affect some of the official content too! Why is this a problem in a fresh install? Should be the most simple thing for S397 to sort but they haven't done it for some reason.

    The above are just some of the obvious things that I think should not be happening at this late stage in the day for S397. I really thought my hacked around install was to blame, but sadly I didn't really get much improvement from a fresh install. There are other annoyances like clicking on the favourite server (in an attempt to un-favourite it) starts downloading content with no way to cancel, which can take ages to complete. The exit button is placed where the "start race" button was / should be. Other "back" buttons seem to be placed in unintuitive locations, I could go on.

    Performance wise, I've got things to work almost acceptably in most racing scenarios, but there are always frames being dropped and it's something I feel I just have to live with. I've used the settings from a post in the VR thread which work better than anything I've managed to get myself, but still when I hit the Nordschleife in the Senna, it can become a bumpy ride!

    So finally my game started crashing, and right now I'm at a point where it doesn't seem to want to load, and I've no idea why, I'm sure I'll get it working again after some messing around. Reminds me of random failures with online racing I've had in the past. It has prompted me to submit this post and feedback my experience to S397 in a vain hope that they might solve some of the more basic, and in theory simpler things.

    BTW Steam says I have 744 hours logged in rFactor 2, and it's my most played game of all of them. I have loved the good times with it, but I fear I may not have many more what with the competition hotting up. Guys, I love what you're doing, but you really need to do more of it. I know all about technical debt and software development very well, being a mature dev myself, but something has to be done if this is going to shape up into the game that it's aiming to be.
     
  2. Mibrandt

    Mibrandt Registered

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    They are not here mate - you gotta go to discord or social media :)
     
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  3. Karsten Hvidberg

    Karsten Hvidberg Registered

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    Completely agree, unf.
    Only little light left in the dark is the online competitive stuff being put in place.
    If that would work easily and with official races throughout the day I think there could be hope.
    But it needs to happen. And with the new UI having taken several years and in a very unfinished state, my hopes are not high any longer..
    Hopefully s397 will pull some magic tricks...
     
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  4. zi99y

    zi99y Registered

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    Yeah I kinda felt like this post would be futile, but after seeing fresh publicity in the video that was published I thought just maybe they could be receptive to some clear straightforward feedback. Looks like it will fall on deaf ears. If they don't check their own forum that's a shame for them.

    I'm sad that I'm close to giving up on my favourite game.
     
  5. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Quite a few things you've mentioned are certainly on the 'known' list, and if they aren't fixed on the first release candidate it's only a matter of time (how long? Who knows...)

    One correction:

    It's really not late. I understand the frustration and impatience, we all feel that, but we're not at the end of the line here. That's something the recent dev-talk video underscored - this is a long term project, always has been, and will be for the future too. It won't die if these things aren't all fixed in 3 months, so of course if you can't take it anymore (not being sarcastic here - sometimes it just gets too much and you really should/need to do something else so it stops getting to you) go away for a while and check back after another update or two to see how things are.

    I would also bet that at least one of the staff will see this thread and make a note of anything they haven't noted previously. They may not answer, but that doesn't mean they haven't read it.
     
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  6. zi99y

    zi99y Registered

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    Yeah agreed. My rF2 "career" has been littered with breaks of this nature lol! Feeling a bit sore having spent so much time trying to make it work well and the product moving forward at a snails pace.

    Genuinely worried that if others feel the same as me - and consequently stop buying the DLC as it gets released - then S397 will have missed the boat and will not be able to continue working on it. I honestly bought some of the paid content more to support development than because I wanted them...
     
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  7. mantasisg

    mantasisg Registered

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    Congrats on having good time with rF2 and also bearing with its "things". I have a lot of hours by now, and IMO this title constantly gets better with each hour in it the more you know, and the more you understand, and also as you pick your way through content. Additionally S397 is also improving it, some modders keeps sharing something awesome. There is such a crazy lot of stuff that could and should get better in rF2, but I wouldn't expect anything instantly (instantly means in next upcoming two years).
     
  8. Remco Majoor

    Remco Majoor Registered

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    It's almost the end of the month, so lets see how the release candidate will be for the new UI
     
  9. mantasisg

    mantasisg Registered

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    Yeah less than a week. And also maybe Portland + updated Silverstone ? I also wish for decent Silverstone improvement, but don't expect. There are a lot of content updates from S397 that are some tiny tiny tweaks instead of something that could be considered as decent update, well.... we will see. Although this is probably off topic, it looks like indeed this topic is about UI.
     
  10. Karsten Hvidberg

    Karsten Hvidberg Registered

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    Not sure if you're kidding by the end statement, but that is exactly the single biggest problem.
    2 years is a long time if that is what they will take to fix.
    6 years ago rf2 ffb was the best, bar none, no contest.
    Other studios are working hard and improving this aspect and they are almost there. Some are already better under certain conditions on certain classes of cars now.
    Everything else is getting bettered by all competitors as well.
    In 2 years most other titles might have as good or better physics as well as ffb.
    Then what is left?
    If they have the competitive system in place in 2 years, I'm afraid the others will too, on top of them also improving in all other aspects.
    The train has come and gone.
    It's great for us end users but for studio 397 it is a hugely missed opportunity unless they REALLY kick it in gear, in some way.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2020
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  11. CIP060

    CIP060 Registered

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    upload_2020-4-26_18-49-18.png
    1143 HOUR
     
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  12. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    It counts with the launcher open, so let's not have an hours contest.
     
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  13. Paul McC

    Paul McC Registered

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    I feel your pain and have made a thread about my struggles with getting it to run on a much, much lower spec out of date PC, here's a link to the thread: https://forum.studio-397.com/index....-a-potato-gtx750ti-2g-4g-of-system-ram.65820/
    I watched the recent video on development of RF2 to and the guy from S397 manages to use more words to say nothing than a politician could. I love this sim to but holy heck is AMS2 development showing up RF2's RF2's in comparison if it had a face would look like a smacked arse!
     

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