To add my opinion, I disagree/need to expand upon DriverN1's comments, isamu. I find the AI much better than before. I've had plenty of close races, especially around Monaco, with the AI aggression on the default setting. There have been times where I thought I was being pushed around by AI cars, but reviewing replays has generally shown it to be a mistake on my part i.e. moving across the path of AI etc, or a general racing incident. The AI give good racing room to human-driven cars, but are capable of driving close to each other in a reliable and realistic fashion (none of that ridiculous and constant side-by-side action that many rF1 tracks were plagued with). Likewise, the random/flickering braking of rF1 is gone (as far as I can see), too - thank goodness. The only issue I've encountered is getting around the first lap of Spa with a large pack of cars. The AI do have a tendency to clash in the first few and later high-speed corners, but I'm sure this can be improved upon with time. I think the work by ISI on the AI racing line system has paid off. Overall, I'm impressed.
Completely agree. I have been primarily running the F2s at Spa and it is without doubt the best AI experience ever. The F1s can have a bit of issue with greater closing speeds, especially if the AI slow down on corner entry. The first few corners can be tough but then again they are in real world racing too! A tweak or two here might be welcome though.
Really liked the rubber buildup and weather. Could use some more sophistication, but it's still nice. Hay bales, all the ambient track noises etc. Car sounds good for everything except the engines not so much. Concerned about the graphics holding up over time. Ok now, but the bar is being raised by many sim makers. Looks good on Youtube, but in game not as impressive and I'm maxed on every setting. New mod approach is better. FFB was good except on rumble strips. Needs tweaking. Damage needs work. AI has some issues, but pretty good. Overall an improvement on rFactor 1. Looking forward to watching the progress through the beta stage.
yep totally agree with that, I've had a blast this evening racing in the Meganes around the North Loop at Malaysia, 100% Strength & Aggresion and rarely did I get "Rammed". I did get spun out a couple of times (which since ISI have confirmed its been looked at) but overall I've thoroughly enjoyed the races I've had, the AI certainly have grown up since rF1. I think the main problem from reading these forums and others is that people are looking for the flaws in the AI instead of looking at the good points, as soon as they find a flaw its "oh its just like rF1" when it could be the fault of that Human...like this evening I braked early and got rammed as I would expect to be by any Human on an online server!! Also theres more factors to take into consideration, the Rubber Build up, weather, talent files of the AI (which I've yet to look into) to name but a few, if an AI car ran into the side of me at the start of a race on a Green track I'd be inclined to blame the lack of grip...not the AI Ramming...should the AI be affected by that in the first place of course!
FFB:it's good, but it's not comparable to Nektar Pro Force Feedback...not even close. Graphics:i hope it gets optimized at least, i have a 6870 and with shadows off, hdr off, reflections off and wind - crowdsoff, i get like 30-50 fps. We're still talking directx 9, but i have to admit , graphics looks still good..we just want more frames. Mods:1960 is cool but it's ruined by the force feedback, i'm not talking about the rattling and rumble...cause i'm sure this will be changed. You just don't feel the car enough...nektar still on another level, you can feel the wheels on the road there. Megane:cool, ffb works better, but still. Renault: mod is broken.
On the DX9 thing: pCARS looks gorgeous in DX11, but it looks almost identical in DX9. There would be little benefit from upgrading to DX11, pCARS level graphics is still firmly in DX9 territory.
DX10 or 11 isn't so much about the look, it's about the performance. There's quite a few reasons why a DX10 code base will run faster than DX9 pushing the same pixels. Is anybody seriously going to play this on XP or with a DX9 card? The last DX9 card I owned was an X1900XT. We are going back in time here gentlemen. DX10 level operating systems have been out for over half a decade. I just don't understand the reasoning why ISI would choose DX9 at this point. Don't get me wrong I'm just about happy with the visuals once the bugs are ironed out, but why sacrifice free performance and nicer code? So much of the engine can be reused and rightly so, but it's time to ditch DX9 already. Sadly it's too late for rF2 to be a DX10 native game. We can only hope that in a year or so after release we get a patch that completely replaces the renderer (obviously with a fallback for the 2 people who are still on XP) - and that's only going to happen if the ISI graphics code monkeys decide they need a live DX10+ project to test their skills on before making their next product. Obviously the most important legacy code to update was the physics. Nobody is arguing with that. Once that's done and out the door though, how about a nice DX10 performance renderer, followed up later by some extra shiny effects - like HBAO, colour bleeding, real-time reflections on cars, improved particle effects, object motion blur, improved AA. Things that won't affect existing mods, and can be trickled out over a series of updates. Improvements like that creates new customers. They see the product getting better long after fans have already bought it and they think you're going to keep doing that so they buy it too. An hour of driving later and they're hooked anyway.
I love it so far but, my GF9600 GT will not run enought fps and detail to really enjoy it. To get playable frame rates I have to dissable and reduce most of the settings and then lose what makes it graphically great. I am going to buy a GF GTX560 which will cure that, plus I use my PC for 3D and photos. After that I will let you know for sure how I like it....
Who cares what MS supports? How is that relevant to people who play rFactor2? /edit, I think I sounded a little harsh there, but I don't mean to. I just don't see the relevance of MS supporting XP and present day gamers who play 3D games.
You're overlooking the fact that many sim racers aren't really gamers. Plenty out there don't play anything apart from sims. And I know several that don't want to upgrade to 7 because they really don't have a need for the new capabilities it provides yet, and want to keep everything as light and simple as they can.
Here's a good reason right here: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/1056-Minimum-Recommended-System-Specs-for-rFactor-2
I'm a big time sim racing guy and also a gamer. The main reason why I haven't got 3 screens is because I also play too many other games and 3 screens would just be a pain in the arse for me. ISI can't and shouldn't build software for old technology in my opinion.
Since this is the 'Initial Impressions' thread, I feel the need to share this... I just started getting a little giddy checking out my track with the sunrise coming over the hills, the sun reflecting on the road, and turning around to see the moon setting in the West. It's amazing how much just adding a moving sun and moon add to the realism. And I've only just begun! I know I'm totally being a dork right now... Back to your discussion about DirectX versions!
It's relevant in some ways, XP supports DX9, XP is mature, XP is available in 32/64 bit versions, many PC-Games today are still released in DX9 because of xbox.
it's looking good, i'm still getting to grips with it and the gui, I know it's beta, but can we still ask for stuff, i don't mind being told, "yes we have already done that it's just not in the beta" or "if you select this you will see it". i'd like to see deadzones for the pedals, i normally use deadzones on the pedals so my feet can feel then before moving them, sort of like taking up the slack on a throttle cable or taking up any play in a brake pedal assembly. cheers gogs edit: i see i just needed to set the min for the pedals the standard 32 sec rfactor countdown is not going to be long enough to allow the game to sync. getting abot 50 fps at monaco
So I go to the "Me Likee" button to spread some love for BobDobbs and up pops a Clippy-like message that says, "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to BobDobbs again." My questions is: Why? If I think he's being helpful and informative, why am I being muzzled? --Guy Fawkes
Case in point: the new Formula 3 Pro mod for rFactor 1, here: http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=FORMULA 3 PRO They completely revamped the UI...for the better, IMO; particularly, the car setup menu(s). I could argue with the graphics, per se, but the layout is straightforward and logical, if not as intuitive as, say, the iPhone. See also Stephen Few's "Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data," here: http://www.amazon.com/Information-D...=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326902290&sr=1-3 and Ed Tufte's immortal "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information," here: http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Displa...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326902290&sr=1-2 and call me in the morning.
A really welcome addition to the graphical options would be two resolution sizes, one for the display and one for the 3D render. ARMA 2 has this. It will allow us to either supersample to increase quality, or use a lower render resolution for more performance. Also it need not affect 2D HUD elements.