Hi everyone, I'd like to share my first impressions on RF2. I purchased rFactor 2 lifetime license about a month ago. I didn't know what I was going to buy. I hadn't seen any gameplay videos. I didn't even know there was a "sim" category of racing games. I just felt I'd give it a go. At least I could get my money back. Have been fond of racing games forever, but only bought my first steering wheel (DFGT) about 3 months ago, with which I played GP4 (yes), then Shift 2 Unleashed and F1 2011. After my very first session with RF2, I thought "why did I spend 80 dollars on this crap?". Not even a minute after the start of that session, I was flying 20 meters high in the air, with my car spinning like crazy, just because I hit some fence at 80 km/h. I remember thinking that RF2 was probably half-finished or something. Let's just say it wasn't a good start. It's a month in now. My life is ruined HOLY CRAP! I've been playing RF2 every goddamn night or two for hours straight until 2/3 AM. Massive sleep deprivation ahead. I warned you. RF2 is just brilliant, really. It's spartan, yes. But it's just amazing. The tires, the road that is "alive", the weather. Ever tried racing ad Mid Ohio after 6:00pm? Absolutely fantastic! A few combinations that shine for me are the T5s at Sebring or Nordschleife, EVE F1s at Brianza or Monaco '60s, FR35s at Malaysia, but I could go on. Any GP79 car, especially Alfa Romeo, or Senna 1988, my god. Absolutely gorgeous to drive! Took me 3 weeks to understand how to tweak the FFB the way I like on my wheel, but then... Nothing comes this close to real driving for me. Real fun. A few weeks in, I felt the urge to try the other competitor simracers. Started with iRacing. Good quality but seriously the business model is crazy. I have to pay 19$ for one car? WTF? RaceRoom is good as well, but again, content must be bought. I prefer the RF2 model. (I'm really waiting to try Assetto Corsa now) Now, let's talk about problems I experienced and/or things I'd like to see improved. == Community content == Community content has a huge variation in quality level. ISI tracks are generally very good IMO. Community... some tracks suck a bit, and this also adversely affects the graphics. See below. Some tracks are real gems, like Sebring. As I said already, community factor wins for me. == Graphics quality == Although graphics quality is good, all the major competitors are doing just as good or better in this regard. RaceRoom gfx quality is really good, and compared with same hardware, I get higher frame rates with RR than with RF2. Note that I'm not a FPS fanatic, if I get 40-50 FPS I'm good, I get a good response from the wheel, car motion and graphics. HDR is nice to have on, but usually it slows down 4-5 FPS. Another thing I noticed is that FPS vary a lot depending on the track. ISI tracks are usually much better and faster, while some community tracks make things much slower. == Graphics quality 2: Rain rendition == I appreciate rain weather in RF2, it's good, but guys, look at what Codemasters have done in F1 series (f.ex. F1 2011). Wet weather graphics there is absolutely stunning with no slow downs in frame rate. Please do something about it! == Graphics quality 3: Smoke == Smoke effects from tires and engine are actually OK, maybe a bit simple (IIRC), but at least they don't slow down the game. That actually happens with RaceRoom, where the game stutters like hell when some smoke appears on screen. RF2 wins here, hands down. == Funny collisions == Sometimes you get these funny incidents: a car hits a wall or fence at 50-80 km/h and jumps 20m high in the sky, spinning like a rocket. AFAIK, that is a known problem, but it really needs to be fixed. == Mod system == Could be better, and I struggled to understand it for a while, but I got the hang of it now, and it makes sense. Still it would be great to have ISI manage a central website where community can push mods, so we don't have to go to all sorts of random websites to download community content. == Pit stops == I like the "spartan" approach to pits, that's ok, BUT please there has to be at least some simple crew doing something. iRacing is way better in this regard. I understand you're probably finishing this aspect of the game. I hope. Just a flashing red arrow is not enough == Dusk/night transition == It's just too fast In half a lap it can go from dusk to completely dark starry night. You need to slow that down 10-20x. == Conclusions == I think that's all I can remember for now. I wanted to write a 5 minutes post, and this took me almost an hour. Keep up the great work! I really really enjoy RF2 and I would buy it again a thousand times. Now if only I could get some more sleep...
Good post, thanks for that. iRacing business model is, I think very good. Buying a circuit or car every now and then and taking advantage of the sales on membership etc it really isn't expensive and it is easily the best racing simulator on the market.
== Dusk/night transition == Go to "RACE SETTINGS". At option called "TIME SCALE" you change to "normal" or "X2". Or you already do that?
It should really depend on the time of year and how far from the equator the track is. I know. That's not very helpful. I agree with the iracing business model comment; I dropped the game years ago because it's such a money pit.
Nice but I'd say from my experience with race room I wouldn't think its in the same class. The track modeling in RR is well below content by ISI or our top modders and even way below code masters which is where many of the modded tracks in rf2 are from lol. Their game model is very strange and its trying to copy I racing in that sense but its a long way behind iracings content which at least is of a high enough standard they can just about justify the costing. Though I prefer the rf2 physics model over I racing but I haven't driven it in a while and when I had it for 3 months it didn't do much for me so I barely drove it anyway. Nice tracks but the driving model didn't convince me though it is very good for racing online in terms of public pick up racing compared to all others around ATM. AC looks promising but the .99 test really hasn't convinced me in any way, some nice graphics but driving I am a little unimpressed with that car and track. I will buy it for sure as its pretty good but as is not blowing rf2 away by any stretch. I haven't tried pcars but going by many other views it still is just a shift 2 evolution. RF2 is also an evolution of the old ISI engine but in terms of physics and ffb when properly configured for your setup it is very convincing for me and the best I have tried so far. RF2 is getting a little better physics wise and for me ahead of the conpetition, each update is getting better recently and this is the main thing for me and driving sims. I wish it had everything with all the bells and whistles already but compared to the current sims available I will take rf2 for this physics ffb reason alone over all the others.
Yes, you're right. It's probably that. Thanks! BTW, some options I see in RF2 I have no idea what they mean. Surely there is a manual somewhere, right?
Good point and something I would like to see developed, Yesterday I tried to package a mod with the single track inclusive and everything worked ok.... the track was downloadable from the get mod function in the lobby but it took like 20 minutes for a 50mb track.
That could be great but also means a lot of effort for moderators to avoid publishing of "copy pasted" content. For that reason I guess that would be a big no no.
This is why we need the option in the dedicated server to redirect the game client to a fast file hosting site to download the mod from. It would then bring more people in to the online racing as they would not have to close the game to go find all the files needed to join.
" Have been fond of racing games forever, but only bought my first steering wheel (DFGT) about 3 months ago, with which I played GP4 (yes), then Shift 2 Unleashed and F1 2011. " All to this and you can offer so much critique and knowledge, you should be helpijg develop with such an insight
Not helpful. Receiving comments and critique from new racers with limited to no experience with simulators and wheels is really much better than those with vast chasms of knowledge and experience as yourself. They bring a fresh perspective to the game and sometimes spot things others overlook. Besides, wasn't there a driver a few years back who only raced with a joystick and blew away everyone on the track? A German I believe?
Thanx cosimo for your review. And welcome to the forum btw ! I've been playing rF2 for months now, and so my view of it is based on changes made in every new build. So it's interesting and refreshing to read from someone who just started to play it. You mention a lot of things like, graphics, mod system ... and what do you think about the FFB, the tires, grip levels, 'connection to the track' feel sorta speak .. (compared to the other games you tried) ? Oh and the car sounds ? I've seen, or felt it improve gradually, but I 'd love to know how you experience it.
Thanks! That is interesting, because that's where I think RF2 shines. FFB in particular. "Connection to the track" you say. Yes, I think you can definitely connect to the track when racing with EVE F1 on Brianza 10K over the bankings (old "parabolica"). That is definitely one of the most exhilarating experiences. How does that compare with the other games? Well. I think every game is different. When I picked up RF2, I totally forgot everything else. I came back after 2-3 weeks and played Shift 2 Unleashed again, and it felt really weird, like not realistic at all (FFB and track/tires I mean), while before RF2 I thought S2U was really realistic ;-) You know, RF2 shifts your idea of real. I still think Codemasters F1 2011 is quite good in that regard actually (FFB and drive feeling), but I haven't done any long races with it, so I don't know how well tires are modeled. Where F1 really is top-notch is that TV-look of its graphics (I mentioned the rain rendering, which is absolutely stunning for me). The problem with F1 is that it's just F1, while with RF2 you can drive Nordschleife if you feel like it, or ovals, or anything really. Much more rewarding and fun IMO. For this reason I've been considering to buy rFactor1 too, because of the sheer amount of mods available. How would rF1 compare to rF2 if you tried both? RF2 varies a lot in this regard. Personally I'm not 100% happy with Formula ISI and Marussia sounds. They sound the same, and not very realistic. OTOH the Senna 1988 McLaren is amazing. Most other cars are good, say T5, Clio, BT20/EVE. FR35 I don't like much, but this is most of all personal impressions, because I don't know how a real FR35 sounds like
Btw, the 1988mclaren is actually completely wrong because the turbo cars from that era didn't actually sound very dramatic, less rpm and huge turbo, so not extremely loud either. The sound for that mod is taken from a 1989-1993 car. Plus, people should not talk about driving the mod (not saying they shouldn't drive it - we're adults and we do what we want to do anyways) because the mod is stolen, converted without permission.
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/7103-Download-All-locations-(torrent) http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/11575-Vehicle-Torrent The difference in road feeling is huge, but some of rf1 mods are awesome especially the historic stuff. Interesting to try rf1 though if you haven't already.
