What's with people not caring about looks?

I dont get it when people say "its a Sim and it doesnt matter what it looks like" ? of course it matters ,if it didnt matter why are ywe playing on HD of even UHD screens .
Why wouldnt you want it to look as real as it feels .
I mean i love rF2 , the way the FFB translates the car getting light over crests or the weight transfer as i dance the car through The Porsche curves and sometimes i even do like the way the shadows come through on the dash , but come on why cant we have both the best car physics as well as the best graphics ?
With today's GPU - CPU's i think we have just about enough processing power to have rF2 with the textures of something like Watchdogs 2 or Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands or dare i even say Forza .
I was watching a Mate play Watchdogs 2 today and was blown away with the realism of the streets/trees and buildings looked . I even found myself standing right up next to the 4K screen just staring at the texture .
And today i downloaded Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands and set that up in 4K and , well thats pretty impressive also .
So again just putting it out there that while we as Sim races love to race why can't we have something that looks as good as it feels ? I know the guys who make these Sims know what they are doing , just drive the UF 2000 and its evident , so why cant they add some really awesome textures ?
I have no idea how to make a Sim/Game , so really am just asking , why?
I know im going to cop some hate for this but i need to find an answer .

 

The worst thing about this "crowd" is that they end up being an extra obstacle to an already complicated game that is rF2. New people get interested and they are told to go back to their "arcade games" whenever they ask about graphics or details or why some things are so complicated (like server hosting, etc), some people in this community just needs to grow up.

 

Well, sim racing is very small niche compared to more mainstream games. Because of that, the amount of money that can be put into making a sim is much smaller compared to AAA games. For sim racers, physics are usually more important thing than graphics, so they would like that most of the resources would be used to the physics development. And they see the money put into graphics improvements is out from the physics development. Thought improving graphics might make game more popular and that way pull more money in than what it costs, so i don't think it's a bad thing. Also i think rf2 physics already pretty good. But in the end i propably will never see the craphics improvements my self because i tend to use low settings to maximize fps.

 

I agree , the Physic are amazing at the moment . Most of the vanilla content i love to drive as well as a lot of the Mods .
I just bought a new wheel aNd it made a huge difference to laps , going from a Fanatec GT2 to a CSW v2 , wow and if you where to look at my Steam library you would see "I LOVE MY RACING SIMS , So physics are important to me !
I see alot of the graphics as i play at 4K maxed out on a 55'' screen about 55'' away .lol

 

Depends on how it is done, you have a game like GTAV, P CARS or even Assetto, they all can look good and perform well on the lowest settings, obviously they all got a bigger budget but just an example that it is possible.

 

Im not entirely sure AC looks much , if any better than rF2 .
Just my opinion

 

I think it´s the same reason why too many people here claimed that "rF2 update-rate and content release are just fine" at a time
when ISI pushed rF2 downhill with full force due to a catastrophic development policy.
This people with rose-tinted glasses on, seem to think "For me it is just fine,- why should it be another way?" and don´t realise
that they are not alone on this world.

However, it makes also no sense to open a thread every week debating about graphics at a time when the biggest graphical change for rF2 is right around the corner.

That said, even with this DX11 change rF2 won´t have suddenly the graphical fidelity of a pcars or any modern open world game.
For that it is needed to jump on a whole new engine like R3E does with Unreal-engine 4 now.
Not knowing what S397 will be able to achieve in the next few months, but I fear right now that rF2 never will become what we hoped for when it was announced for the first time. If I where boss of S397 I would have gone the radical way to build a whole new rF3.
Na, maybe pcars 2 will be what we all waiting for

 

Creating a sim is not as easy as creating your top notch physics engine and cramping your top notch graphics engine on top of it - it's all a matter of balancing your ressources, especialy with limited manpower and hardware. The games you mentioned don't have as demanding physics calculations as let's say rF2, so the ressources are spend elsewhere for stuff like environmental effects where ressources in rF2 are first spend on complex vehicle physics (player and AI). I think the possibility that you see a progress in the tire model departement is higher than some environmental effects, though some of them would be pretty neat. The tire calculations in rF2 aren't all running in realtime for example as that would be too demanding for todays hardware specs let alone AI running the same physics as the player. I think, sometimes people are completely underestimating how much on the edge we are with todays racing sims in terms of what our hardware is able to process. Just look at the CPU load when the rF2 tires are at work

I wouldn't say that people don't care for looks in rF2. Sure there are a few people who don't give anything about graphics and that's something that you have to accept aswell as a valid opinion as people demanding graphics improvements. The tendency is that most people welcome improvements in any area of the sim from my impression. I haven't read a single comment from someone saying "stop improving the graphics". What might give you the impression though is that people have different priorities and voicing their concerns.

I for one don't think that rF2 looks that ugly as some people say, but that's just my own POV. The UI update, more updates regarding track and ambient temperatures aswell as wind simulation are the kind of stuff that is pretty far up in my personal wishlist as that's stuff in the UI allready but not hooked up in the sim. Something that I would really like to see for example are punctures or complete tire failures, proper hybrid and KERS simulation and stuff like that. That's all stuff that is under the hood that you won't notice at first glance. Nevertheless I look forward to DX11 and the overall improvements. A smooth gameplay experience is as important as the physics and it all has to work together in a coherent fassion.

 

rF2 has about 30 different cars and tracks, updating all those with new textures would probably be a project of several years. AFAIK Wildlands uses 4K textures. 4K textures will approximately double the download size of each car and track, so it doesn't make much sense when 95% don't have a 4K monitor. 4K textures are the reason some games on Steam now approach 100 GB in size.

 

Graphically rf2 has more problems than just how it looks. It is not that the graphical quality is worse than with the competitors but there are lots of things with graphics that are hurting rf2. One is the total lack of any kind of guidelines or even basic guides how to take the best benefit of the already included graphical features. As such rf2 modding especially is all about copying stuff from other people and if you copy something from someone else you also copy their mistakes. Not only does this make it impossible for people to learn how to do things but it stagnates the whole graphical development of rf2 when people don't grow to learn how maximise the potential of rf2.

Other issue is that rf2 content creation is incredibly slow and takes much much more effort to create the basic things compared to other games. Doing something in rf2 tends to take about 10x as much time as it takes in other games even if the actual mesh creation takes about the same. And it doesn't help that rf2 puts all that extra work on the modeller where other games allow you to spread the load because not everything needs to be done in 3d software. But in the end all that extra time goes into getting the model from 3d software into the game. This makes it annoying to work with rf2 because you need to put 10x effort into making something that in the end can only look half as good as the other titles.

It remains to be seen whether 397 can change the course. I'm hopeful but we have not seen anything yet because not time has passed. The tidbits we have so far sound nice and so far there is no reason to doubt them. But considering some of the fundamental issues rf2 graphically has from modding perspective I think it is a huge task. Any improvements are of course welcome but under the hood the issues are imho far deeper than just how modest rf2 looks in screenshots.

 

If you want a comparison, rF2 is more like Arma 3 than Watchdogs 2.

 

When i'm in the cockpit,i forget graphics so don't really care but what i really would like is goods sounds.
For me good sounds give way better impression to be in the car than graphics who anyway even in AC and R3E etc are not more real than rf2,just little more flattering for eyes.
By example,i really don't take pleasure with the gt500 because the sound is really really bad.

 

What's with people who don't like NASCAR?!

 

I'm both a sounds person and graphics. But I will say this, I race stock cars and indy cars mostly I love the sound of the stock cars the indy cars need some work. Graphically, with my old graphics card rf2 looked very grainy for lack of a better word but with my new card it looks 100X better. Is it on par with iracing? No... But I also don't think it's as bad or as dated as some make it out to be.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Not sure I've heard anyone say graphics don't matter. Prioritized less, yes.

 

lol.
I haven't heard it but have definitely read it.

 

I played rF1 for awhile then stopped, flight simming was my thing. After 3 years or so I picked up rF2 and couldn't believe it looked worse then some of the rF1 mods I had 3 years earlier, even now it doesn't look as good as AMS.
I made a comment on the RD forums about it and in the first 2 responses I was told graphics are only a small part of rF2. I even had a few people tell me it looks more realistic then the other sims out. I guess life is dull and dreary with a hint of cartoon to some, must be interesting! Since I prefer single player and realism I eventually learned to cope, the dynamics are unrivaled as well as the AI and 45 to 90 minute races with the AI is nearly impossible to find in other sims. I am however pretty picky when it comes to MODs and pass on most.
Personally R3e has the most complete package as far as looks, sound and immersion. Sadly it falls short for a good single player experience. If you look at the Steam MP stats Project Cars is always the most played it also looks beautiful and right or wrong it attracts people more than physics. The graphics even have a way to make many of its followers believe its a sim. I Imagine if rF2 looked that good but retained its heart and soul it would be the Sim to own.

 

It's crazy to see P CARS daily peak players still being that "high" (for a racing game) despite all the bugs it had.
If the correct investments were done on rF2 years ago it would dominate. rF2 with those looks (but please options to turn off the overdone stuff) and some official licenses would kick butts. I believe it may be too late for that tho (considering the needed changes will take a while), time will tell, I hope for the best from S397 and wish them good luck

 

pCars looks pretty nice, just all the shimmering even at 4k ruins it for me.
I try to get as close to real life as possible in every way i can with what i have, so graphics definitely helps with immersion.
I can't imagine looking out my cars windscreen and seeing life look like AMS or have lines shimmer like pCars.
I just can't stop playing rF2 and hope for a visual orgasm.
3D grass would be a good start.

 

Never had the shimmer in PCars, although I uninstalled it a while back so who knows, they always messed something up with each patch. I guess graphics can be a personal taste, if I put rF2's Interlagos next to AMS's I take AMS but throw in Digga's Interlagos and it goes back. Moving to Dx11 should help a great deal with the 'thin' look, just sort out the lighting and shaders, hope that the track mod guys get into it, maybe make modding a little easier! And bam just like that rF2 is competing with the current DX11 sims.
Ahh look at that still have half a beer left