The very idea of having people judge rF2 based only on YouTube videos is ridiculous. Yet many do. I guess a little critical thinking is out of the question? I'm still laughing after having seen the poster on VR who comments and spreads poison on every rF2 graphics related post, yet doesn't even own the sim.
I'll give my thoughts as someone that has been sitting on the fence for a long time (actually just registered here) so that, maybe, you can all understand a different POV. And if this long post works as "feeback" (of any sort) for the ISI devs as well, then all for the better. First, regarding the "press", namely BSR and VR news sites (or "blogs", as I prefer to call them). As been said here, I too think they're based around material that goes on personal preferences of their respective owners. Obviously, what is more trendy and popular is what gets a wider audience, more visitors, views on articles and comments, so... it became as it is, with some titles getting much bigger bias in detriment to others. I think it's visible for all to see that AC is benefiting, PCars too at certain extent, and RF2 like other worthy titles are being a little prejudiced in that regard, IMO. My personal problem with this is, in the end, it's seen as free advertisement for various titles, and it's a shame because these "news sites" can shape a little the tendencies and preferences among those that are more susceptible to marketing ("herd mentality", etc). Second, regarding the mentioned "haters" and the fanboy base (non-related to the quoted post in OT but mentioned here). I think we should all be honest with each other and realize that every game has its own fanboys. RF2 is no different. Now and then, there's this defensive stance with an almost comical arrogance, with arguments around "RF2 is the most hardcore" or "every other sim now is just looks over substance for the kids". While we're all sure that sort of stuff comes from a minority, it isn't giving RF2 or its community a better name. Third, "the struggling rF2 product". For this, I'll write the following as someone that honestly feels has given enough chances to ISI. I've bought every single ISI racing game in the past 15 years, raced them offline, online (pub and league racing) and modded the heck of every single one of them. Along the way I've introduced friends to the games and hobby, many of them still around to this day for league racing, others into modding. Same for SimBin titles which run on ISImotor2. I still do. I love(d) those racing simulation titles. I even see insignificant errors for past things mentioned in ISI's own website (for instances, that SBDT's GTR2002 was made for F1C 99-02, which is not true - it was made for F1-2002). RF2 was, so far, a disaster for me. I had the highest expectations but it just ran like dog poo in my PC. I tried different GPU drivers, different CPU, RAM and GPU overclocking values, even tried stock speeds and non-native screen resolutions. Same bad performance, with every updated demo and even a full pirated copy (build 770) that I went for out of dispair, before deciding on a purchase. I'm not proud to admit that, but there you go. It still ran the exact same (i.e, pretty bad). I went online looking for answers and it seems it's the same for everyone in my position (four year old PC hardware), especially for those on AMD/ATI. I went to friends with latest high-spec PCs to see for myself what I'm missing with RF2 at such conditions and, honestly, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense IMHO. I'm not going to pay for a game, plus additional account membership, in such conditions. I'm also not going to invest upwards of 800,00 euros on a PC upgrade for something that, with all honesty, doesn't look, feel, or sound, like the kind of step up I would demand after spending that kind of money. Even modding has been somewhat scarse in RF2... an ISI title. That alone should say something, one would think. There's also one thing I sense missing in here, hardly noticed - people did want to get into RF2 ever since it came out as "open beta" in January 2012 (before that even). If they didn't stick with it, or if they went to other titles (or back to what they ran before) could be related to the fact that, if you jump from RF1, GTR2, GSC or Race'07, the graphics of RF2 are not that better (actually can be sometimes worse). And, while we can say the RF2 experience is not about the graphics, that it's the more advanced simulator (etc), the truth is that those ISImotor2 based race-sims are still pretty good options today, even when compared. So, in the end, it's very hard to justify the costly investment on a (total?) PC upgrade that RF2 pretty much requires (for someone like me with an older PC) when the game does not deliver in a sort of equivalent measure after that investment, when compared to its older simblings which, at the end of the day, still run fine and dandy. So, for the reasons pointed, and IMHO, the real situation seems to be one where people are skipping RF2 altogheter, either by keeping their dedication to older ISImotor2 games (because they are still good today) or by slowly migrating to the other modern competitors such as AC, PCars, R3E or Iracing (because -at least visually- they can deliver a more significant pronounced "step up" after investment on newer PC components). I write this with disapointment because I'm currently not interested in AC, PCars, R3E or iRacing. I was interested in RF2. I'm happy for those satisfied with RF2 as it is, even if I'm not. But its userbase (and modding) isn't exactly growing. It does seem I'm not alone thinking it hasn't met the expectations it provoqued when presented - hence the "struggling rF2 product" mentions you see around, including on "the press". It's not a matter of better marketing (a good product will meet its customers by its own right, I always thought), IMHO it's its own issues that are limiting its user base and, with that, harming itself, benefiting the competiticion. Last but not least, if ISI wants to invest in substance over graphics, I'm totally fine with that (actually big applause) as many others that have been on the side fence for years will probably tell you as well. But at least make it accessible to more people by making it optimized and lighter on hardware - as the older ISI games were once known to be - because right now it's anything but.
Gotta love the "I'm bothered by graphics but my true concern is ISI's child abuse" statements and other statement from heroes out to save the ISI company, sim racing and next the world itself. ISI is going to be fine and so are you although world hunger may still exist even with your brilliant consulting. To ISI, please keep doing what you are doing. That is the only way we have what we have now in the amazing rF2 and future improvements. I really like Tim's videos a lot because they are personal and do the job of showing what we are getting and we will see more detail, etc. on our own screens when released. The last thing we need is ISI getting distracted with phantom issues. No one will disagree that rF2 is a major player even among ignorant non-drivers so even pretend sim racers know about it and will move up to it when they are ready to get serious.
If they were able to make it "lighter on hardware" from the start, I bet my nuts that they would have already done it. The issue is that more complex simulations equal in more computing power required. The gratification or convincing behaviour that come from older products, despite how good they can appear, is due to tweaks and workaround. Those that want things to work based on actual simulation instead of refined approximations, accept the price that this choice bring with it. Despite the fact that RF1 on my system can run at +200 FPS, and RF2 less than half that with low details, I still prefer to run RF2 than RF1, because of the two, is the only one able to make me happy, even if I'm a mediocre driver.
Trump. "I have it fairly easy in this, I don't read 'news' sites, I don't watch video 'reviews', don't do social media, heck, I hardly check my own email such tranquillity " Reminds me of me. I even don't have any face..., tw.... or unnecessary google or messenger accounts, the data collectors and social competence wrecker of nowadays.
It sounds like you have a long history in simracing. I'm amazed you're just now registering on the forums. Goes to show that not all simracers hangout on the internet all the time. Anyways, I hate to break it to you but it is what it is. You just can't run a modern sim with very old hardware. None of them. I used to have an HD5770 and with the right settings I could run rF2 at a solid 60fps and it did look better than rF1. I also tried AC and pCARS on that old card. AC would run on that card and stay over 60fps but only on very low settings and didn't look any better than rF2. pCARS wouldn't get over 45fps for me even with everything turned all the way down but the input lag was out of this world. The workaround for that was to use MSI Afterburner or DXStory to cap the framerate to 30fps and only after that was the lag low enough to be able to stay on track. But I refuse to drive a sim at 30fps. I now have a GTX770 and all of these titles can run maxed out and stay over 60fps. rF2 looks dramatically better than rF1. Your friend with the high end hardware must not have had everything max if you don't think it looked much better than rF1. I'm not sure when you last tried rF2 but you should give the latest demo a shot today. It's improved a lot performance wise and AMD finally got around to threading their drivers so AMD cards got a very massive boost in performance. So if you try rF2 again, be sure to get the latest AMD drivers first. The different between the nonthreaded drivers is massive. I agree with you that hardware reqs are probably the biggest setback. I've said it a bunch of times on these forums, probably even in this thread that simracers are gamers. They don't constantly keep up with the latest and greatest new GPU. They are only interested in driving. They aren't that concerned about the GFX. But rF1 would run 400fps maxed out even on 4 year old hardware so they are wanting the same to be true on rF2. The game has come a long way though in the performance department. I'm afraid older builds and the massively slow AMD performance on the old drivers gave rF2 a bad wrap.
The performance hit in rF2 isn't due to CPU though. It's the GPU that is the bottleneck. Do this test. Run rF1 with VSync on and set to 60, that way it isn't running crazy high rates. Now do a single player session with 0 AI. Now do the same test in rF2... also with VSync on and set to 60. Also with 0 AI. Now compare the CPU usage between the two. rF2 is only marginally higher than rF1. I agree with you though. I would take rF2 at 60fps, even with minimum settings, over rF1 with max settings and 200+fps. My monitor only runs 60hz anyways so anything over 60fps is just wasted heat anyways. It's all about the physics improvements for me.
This x 1.000.000 Why would a pirated copy run better than the demo or a legal copy....? The claim that the userbase and modding community isn't growing... Where are you getting this from? I see more and more high quality mods, or older mods getting updated up to great standards, each week. I almost can't keep up testing all the new content that's at our hands for free. I just have to have a folder on my desktop called "rF2 mods test", with various subfolders, or else I look track. So yeah, the modding community is growing, immensely, day by day. Not all is top notch, I give you that, but more and more content is being brought up to rF2 standards. Content that I in the past found to be utter garbage, suddenly turns up in an updated version that just kicks my a**. Amazing times, these. Also I see new "faces" and new names every day making positive comments about rF2. More and more people get attracted to it, and those people are often folks who want the deep and rich experience that rF2 will give them. Sure, "word might be out" that rF2 isn't exactly an graphical evolution (who needs that in a sim anyway ) but word is also out that rF2 has the superior sim racing physics and ffb. Some will be put off by the visual side of things, but more will be drawn in because of the physics/ffb. Things are generally looking very bright. And no, the modders didn't all go to AC, just because the modding-forums are booming over there. It mainly consists of a couple of "modders" who make awful trash conversions. I've nearly given up on downloading AC mods, because man... at this point it's mostly a waste of time. I'm sad though that you're having a tough time with rF2.
Wow DucFreak, I just clicked on your PC specs and I see you have an HD5770... The exact same card I used to have. I had no problems at all running rF2 with medium settings at 1920x1080 and always staying above 60fps. And that was before the newer threaded drivers were released. I see you're OC'ing your card too which I wasn't even bothering with.
I had a HD 5750 Vapor, a little, reliable and performing card too. But I used lower resolution and not AA to boost performances and have around 90 / 100 FPS on average
I don't understand the remark about the pirate-vs-legal copy performance ("pirated copy run better than demo or legal copy"... WTH?). The purpose of the pirated copy was to look for the full content, see if it's worth it, to test it. Not just to see if it's to my liking, but if there was cars/track combinations that were less demanding to hardware, as often is the case for any racing sim/game. The one I tried was up-to-date for its time (build 770) and it ran pretty much the same as the Demo as well (yes, ran poor). It answered some questions regarding performance of RF2's content for my PC, and I'm gratefull I could test that. Please send me over those links for the gazillion of top quality RF2 mods, while I can't run the game as it's intended, I'm still curious to follow the progress also on that area. I just had a look at the RF2 modding section and, tbh, I'm get a lukewarm reaction at most, considering that RF2 has been in development since 2009 and out for public for almost three years now (as beta or not). Some few very good mods available and being completed, but I honestly don't see where is the RF2 modding community growing?
I still find in interesting that it runs poor for you on the exact same card that ran fine for me. And now another user a few posts above is also reporting 60fps+ on an even slower card in the same series (HD5750). I think rather than writing off rF2 you should put a little effort into figuring out why your system isn't performing as well as others with the same or less hardware. And as I said in my other post, with the current state of your system you will not have any better luck with AC or pCARS. So either you're stuck with rF1 or you're going to need to put in a little effort. But to expect a game to advance in GFX without having more demand on hardware is sort of a dream land.
I build gaming PC's as hobby (sometimes paid) so I'm well aware that my PC is far from cutting edge, even back in its day. My current PC is made from parts that I could replace after some things went bad (blame overclocking greed... my fault, I too got a *kaputz* experience result). FWIW, I can run just fine game titles like ArmaII-CO, Falcon BMS, SKyrim (+HQ tex/poly mods), so long as I cut down on AA ammount (keep on 2x or avoid supersampling). Racing sims like GTR2 (and P&G), GTL and RF1 run here with full details and 25+ cars on any given track at over 120fps (have to cap the game at 120fps so I don't fry the GPU), 2xSSAA (+FXAA ultra as complement) and 16xAF. All of this in native res of 1920x1080. I did try the latest RF2 Demo, and while I'm not expecting stellar performance (for obvious reasons) it does not work nearly as expected (quite difficult to keep 60fps at native resolution), even at lower resolutions and lowest settings and 2xMSAA (which I did not feel comfortable with). I'm not interested in hotlapping or showcasing the game with pretty screenshots. I want to race with it, especially online. That usually means a healthy grid, with good framerates being necessary for ideal conditions, as we all know it. That looks impossible with my PC specs, no matter if matching/surpassing those recommended by ISI. I did what I found enough testing to come to certain conclusions. First on my own PC. Reducing the resolution seems to keep my GPU fairly stressed, while the CPU cores are not getting that much of a hit, whatever resolution. Therefore I can not buy the argument of "more complex simulations equal in more computing power required", it's not what is happening here as far as I can see. FWIW, I've also never seen any other ISI based with this problem at its release. I've also ran similar tests when I was with RF2 running at friend's PC (Intel i7-3770K, 16GB DDR3 RAM and R9 290x 4GB GPU). While it ran more than decent for myself (heh... surprising would be the opposite), my friend there was complaining about the overall performance of RF2 with his GPU (R9 290x isn't exactly weak), in relation to other demanding games he runs, such as DCS, P3D and ArmaIII, along with other racing games/sims like iRacing and PCars. RF2 seems extremely hungry on the GPU for odd reasons, and especially biased towards Nvidia GPUs, as noone seems to be complaining with upwards of GTX760s. All in all, I presume something is crippling the performance of RF2, and still not sure if it has something to do with lighting/shadows system and/or "RealRoad" (track meshes? I don't know). It just doesn't make sense for this game to be this heavy on GPU. Whatever the case, I'm not able to run the game as it is, but I'm glad plenty can and seem commited to it - it means there's hope things may improve later.
