New Guy - Should I Get RF2?

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Ef123

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I have about 4-5 years of simracing experience and I have played iracing, lfs, assetto corsa, netkar pro and a few others. mostly ac these days.

so I had tried demo before and wasnt convinced at all. year ago I think. this time I tried again. its at least better but still interface is really bad. I had absolutely hated skipping through 15 different skins of a same car. its been changed now thank god but still has some remnants of it. anyways, thats not a big deal.

graphics are bad, but still that doesnt stop the game from sweating my pc. and its not physics calculations as I can see, because it was my gpu which was getting bottlenecked. arent the graphics optimized well?

about physics, I have felt front end of the car better than iracing, lfs and ac (g27), but the overall ffb? overall was better than lfs and iracing but not necessarily than ac. in fact at one point it became distracting because there were too many inputs. and it felt like there was a thin layer of ice or some slidy surface between tyres and road that makes the car slide all the time. (tested OW renault) there wasn't that sticky feeling you get when you drive in a track. (tested the other new car.)

about pricing, I had sent them an email, but didnt get any answer. I was asking about why would I have to pay more than 2x of the price to be able to play it online. as I heard mp is already dead apart from league racing. lfs offers free lifetime online demo so it should not be about costs. so why is this simple service so expensive?

to be honest I havent had a single positive feeling about this so far, the only thing makes me want to buy this is the fact that they make sims for some f1 teams and dont wanna miss out on something similar. are they just good at producing one single environment and one single car and deteriorate in physics quality when they try to add other kind of physics into it? as someone who will forever have passion of racing I think I should get because of that f1 reason, but without any positive opinion its hard to. I wouldnt like to buy and never touch it again.

so my question is, should I buy it? or just wait if they could make rf3 better and just buy rf3 when its out? is that even going to happen?
 
Welcome,

difficult to answer your question as you tried the demo and you were not convinced at all. Might be that the product just isn't for you, as everybody has his/her own expectations.

Personaly I would recommend the lifetime option as you won't have to bother with anything anymore in the future incase you get it. It is just there and downloads everything automaticly, so basicly as with any other Steam product. See the online fee as an alternative for DLCs in other games. So incase you got every DLC in AC, you are actually on the same pricing level.

FFB is one of the strongest points in rF2 though, even with a DFGT it is top notch but it might be, that you need to get used to it as it is fairly different from all the products you have experience with. It gets the raw input from the suspension and the steering rack, so you can't adjust any sliders for breaking feeling etc, but only the overal strenght and the minimum input for slow speed corners where there is less force on the steering rack and suspension, thus it feels light. So in rF2 the FFB gets light for example when you lock up the tyres and doesn't start rattling or anything. Someone could argue what is more realistic, but I personaly prefere the raw input as you only feel something that is physicaly happening. This also leads to the point, that the car setup has big impact on FFB, especialy stuff like camber and caster settings, or springs and ARB's and even the fuel load. That the car feels slidy propably has something to do with the fact, that your tyres are not warmed up, that there is not enough rubber and the general characteristics of high downforce cars in low speed corners, where the wings have basicly zero effect. Now add over 500 horse power to that and you get an idea why the car generates no grip.

Ofcourse I would recommend you to get it, as it has a lot of nice features that you will only notice once you get more into it. It is very technical though, offers quite alot of stuff and there is alot to discover and learn. I think some features are really well done, as the whole racing part inlc. real road, start, pitlane controll, extensive flag rules with safety cars and full course yellows, DRS, fuel mixture, pitstops and on the fly strategy for them, really damn good AI (best in the business I would say), 24 hour cycle, life weather plugin, knowckout qualy, good netcode, full control for raceweekends incl. start times, time scale and timed races etc. , oval racing and much much more. I got to say from all the games that I played, it has the best mod management system together with steam workshop. I could go on an on for what it offers, but it's hard to explain. It just has alot of stuff that many other products don't have. And I think for the fact, that it doesn't look the best, it just works best and the gfx part is acceptable for me, even a beauty on it's own in certain conditions and situations. To put it simple: I am more busy with racing, than staring at beatiful surroundings. But rF2 is far away from being ugly or anything.

I for myself just discovered the historic F3 cars. They are absolutely fantastic, they are relatively easy to drive, look and sound immersive, but maybe that's just me :D. That race teams use it should tell you something aswell. Incase you are not up to dealing with setups or sandbox games in general though, this might just not be your cup of tea. But I hope it helps you to see some different fascinating sites of this product, that many people don't think about or oversee at first glance. :)
 
If you are not happy about the physics you shouldn't buy obviously, rF2 is bit like a proof of concept physics simulator. It doesn't have post-processing effects which makes the graphics more "raw". ISI tracks are still very detailed, more detailed than most of competition actually, which will take a lot of GPU power, it's just that you are not seeing the post-processing fx (some of which is fake anyway). Anway, you can get the non-lifetime for very cheap and go year-by-year with multiplayer, which as you already mentioned is pretty dead apart from leagues. For 30€ (even if only offline) it's cheap, also there's a sale for -40% at this moment.
 
The main drawback is - as youre speaking of graphics - it is more hardware-demanding than others.
So question: what GPU you have? Are you willing to upgrade? (Edit: check "unedited screenshots"-thread in this forum)

From a raw physics and "feeling" aspect, rF2 is unbeatable. But you need stable FPS. (forget it until you have at least 60 ctrl+F for check)
"Slidy" feeling in open wheeler (in this case) may come from too less rubber on the track (Real-Road feature, similar as in iracing), so set realroad to 2x or so, let some AI drive and
have normal grip.

Development-wise you shouldn´t expect much in the near future (but propably some time after that).

As a simracing-fan there´s no way to live without rF2 imo, as long as you want AI or league-racing.
 
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Pricing during Steam summer sale is as good as it gets. Heck, I bought AC a couple days ago on the Steam summer sale because the price was right even though I'll seldom play it because it doesn't have the racing features I like.

FFB is what you make of it. Depends totally on what your taste is, your equipment, and your skills at achieving what you like. IMHO, a Logitech is a poor tool for experiencing rF2 as you'll only get weak FFB if you configure rF2 to avoid clipping (I had a G25 up until last year).

Graphics... AC pretty graphics can be achieved in rF2 provided you're not using post effects filters in AC. Optimization depends on what you're looking for; people often don't understand that the tire dynamics are totally tied to the graphics in rF2, so sidewall flexing and bounce and flat spots and tire wear and contact patch are simulated both physically & graphically in realtime and that's no small feat!

"Online is dead" totally depends on your time zone and what type of pick-up racing you enjoy. European time zones are strongest and USA west coast evening through Australian morning is weakest. Scheduled league racing is definitely available; some leagues even allow unregistered drop-ins.
 
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hitm4k3r said:
Welcome
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the slidy feeling wasn't like it was going to go away with anything about setup. it somehow felt like thats how the game was. then i ran some AI at 15x a few laps. still felt it, but it was better and actually had some fun trying to do challenging laps to improve my best time :)

and about updating, if i buy the cheaper option and out of online services, does steam not update it automatically?

stonec said:
If you are not happy about the physics you shouldn't buy obviously, rF2 is bit like a proof of concept physics simulator. It doesn't have post-processing effects which makes the graphics more "raw". ISI tracks are still very detailed, more detailed than most of competition actually, which will take a lot of GPU power, it's just that you are not seeing the post-processing fx (some of which is fake anyway). Anway, you can get the non-lifetime for very cheap and go year-by-year with multiplayer, which as you already mentioned is pretty dead apart from leagues. For 30€ (even if only offline) it's cheap, also there's a sale for -40% at this moment.
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I thought even if you purchase the yearly sub, you get a year of online services, only to renew it next year. or will it be offline from the get go? or do I have to buy the offline first, then a yearly sub right after? that would be bad.

peterchen said:
The main drawback is - as youre speaking of graphics - it is more hardware-demanding than others.
So question: what GPU you have? Are you willing to upgrade? (Edit: check "unedited screenshots"-thread in this forum)
Click to expand...

I get stable 60 with mediocre settings. yes that demand on my gpu surprised me because in front of me was something looked like quite an old game.

is there no "optimum grip" option to start the session with in the full version?

Emery said:
Pricing during Steam summer sale is as good as it gets. Heck, I bought AC a couple days ago on the Steam summer sale because the price was right even though I'll seldom play it because it doesn't have the racing features I like.

FFB is what you make of it. Depends totally on what your taste is, your equipment, and your skills at achieving what you like. IMHO, a Logitech is a poor tool for experiencing rF2 as you'll only get weak FFB if you configure rF2 to avoid clipping (I had a G25 up until last year).

Graphics... AC pretty graphics can be achieved in rF2 provided you're not using post effects filters in AC. Optimization depends on what you're looking for; people often don't understand that the tire dynamics are totally tied to the graphics in rF2, so sidewall flexing and bounce and flat spots and tire wear and contact patch are simulated both physically & graphically in realtime and that's no small feat!
Click to expand...

avoiding clipping, are you talking about ffb smoothing? actually I raised it to 20'ish and it felt smoother and better.

I am not using pp in ac, but with same hardware, ac will demand less and look better while rf would look worse and demand more. thats why I thought graphics werent well optimized. I dont care much about graphics as long as it looks OK. what I was wondering was optimization.
 
In response to the OP, when Rf2 is on, it is simply amazing. Certain cars just feel SO believable. Unfortunately there are a lot of other mods that are terrible and of poor quality. The AI in rf2 is the best I have encountered which is nice when you live on the West Coast of NA. What is really cool as well is that you can add AI cars in an online race while you wait for others to join.

You do have some valid points though. For me, online during the week is dead and it sucks.

The pricing model as you pointed out, is laughable. They pride themselves on no paid dlc...yet want to charge an annual fee just to have online capability. Wtf is that?

The game is extremely demanding on gpu and I agree it is nowhere near as nice as AC in that aspect.

Bottom line, if you love sims, this is a must have. The Steam sale makes it a no brainer, and depending on your favorite cars to drive, you may spend hours at a time on this game. Night racing is epic, rain racing is imperfect, damage modelling is decent, gearbox is a major flaw...but this game comes closest to what I have experienced on a road.
 
peterchen said:
From a raw physics and "feeling" aspect, rF2 is unbeatable.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree here. I spent 2 hours the other day in the Formula Renault training for league. Jumped over to the v10 in Automobilista and it felt miles better. Very detailed physics coming from the FFB, it just felt so real. Honestly I wouldn't be the first to say that, fanboy crap aside.

Ef123 if you're into open wheelers try Automobilista. Best on the market at moment for pure driving expericence. Just set the sparse grid to x4 if you have nvidia and it looks amazing.

If you are a racing sim fan you should definitely get rf2 and find a league you'll like. Spend some hours learning the physics and you will enjoy.
 
It is rare that I ever see someone change their mind or their opinion on a forum, usually we all just want to hear confirmations about what we think. Our mind is already made up, and it takes an incredibly open minded person to change that for real.

If you have driven the demo a while back, and have now driven the current demo and it still doesn't satisfy your wants, then you probably should look elsewhere.
There isn't something that is "missing" in the demo as such, so it's not like the whole sim will change or anything. Maybe try the demo in a few months, see if you feel it's changed and is worth your money. That's all you can really do

I find performance pretty equal between AC and rf2 on my system, but one looks better than the other, and one drives better than the other.

In an ideal world, you would have both if both were interesting and fun for you, that way you can drive whatever you fancy. Some times I want to drive an exotic car in a sim, around some popular name tracks, other times I want to sit down and get into the nitty gritty of car setup over a weekend event, and get immersed.

Feel is something that is pretty vague in a sim, there is very little "feel" you can get through a wheel and a monitor, and all of it is laggy feedback. Furthermore I think that AC gets its feel through a heavily loaded wheel at all speeds, whereas rf2 gives you a dynamic range of ffb. It works well if you have a really powerful wheel, not so well if you don't.
What you should do is try and see how fast you are going and then correlate that in your head with the feedback you receive. I would see people complain about wheelspin and ice feeling, but all it takes is an actual look at the speedo to see the speeds being done are huge through the corner, not to mention how hard the car is accelerating and picking up speed when they hit the throttle.
 
Reads to me that RF2 isn't for you, your after the look and canned FFB on a cheap wheel and a game that is for free. Wont get that here. If you want to simulate racing and driving its the game for you. Don't know why people who are serious about online racing are not using leagues anyway ?? I have all the game s and my system and hardware taken into account its RF2 for mine hands down. "The pricing model as you pointed out, is laughable. They pride themselves on no paid dlc...yet want to charge an annual fee just to have online capability. Wtf is that? " I also don't get this type of thought?? you buy the game all inclusive ,all official content and 99% free mods all updates and lifetime unlimited online use OR you opt for cheaper versions with limited online . pretty bloody simple to me.
 
I think that what kind of physics and ffb someone prefers is hardware dependent thing.

With g27 I prefered AC over RF2 (didn't try GameStockCar).
With Thrustmaster TX i prefered RF2 and GameStockCar over AC.
Now with osw wheel rf2 has the most immersive physics and ffb imo.

In RF2 with g27 and lots of smoothing you don't wheel all that is going on with the physics and the limited dynamic range of g27 also is problem with RF2.
 
bwana said:
Reads to me that RF2 isn't for you, your after the look and canned FFB on a cheap wheel and a game that is for free. Wont get that here. If you want to simulate racing and driving its the game for you. Don't know why people who are serious about online racing are not using leagues anyway ?? I have all the game s and my system and hardware taken into account its RF2 for mine hands down. "The pricing model as you pointed out, is laughable. They pride themselves on no paid dlc...yet want to charge an annual fee just to have online capability. Wtf is that? " I also don't get this type of thought?? you buy the game all inclusive ,all official content and 99% free mods all updates and lifetime unlimited online use OR you opt for cheaper versions with limited online . pretty bloody simple to me.
Click to expand...

Canned FFB? Which decade are you from? Your last point is a good one, you literally get what you pay for as far as online goes, but the whole "well if you don't like rF2 you're not a real sim driver" viewpoint is as closed-minded as trying a different sim and not liking it because it's different.

Be thankful rF2 has a demo, if you don't like it then don't get the game, but keep coming back and trying the demo. You might find it grows on you. Until then don't bother.
 
The 5th Lazza was driving AC a few days ago and in default everything and rumble strips grass etc felt very canned to me but that's my feel. All JMHO so shouldn't mean squat to anyone else so elitist? Nup. If OP asks a question like that( in that manner ) then don't be surprised by blunt objective answers..
 
Sorry, posted after a long week and my tone was all wrong. But the FFB in pretty much any game from the last 10 years isn't 'canned' (in the literal sense), and your observations on AC really just show that something different to what you're used to will feel wrong.

You don't need an expensive wheel for rF2 to feel good, but for sure the logitechs and similar will generally feel a bit weak and the newer ones are unnecessarily loud with the high frequency FFB. But, smoothing around 20 will start to take out a lot of the feel you should be looking for, and the OP doesn't know what FFB clipping is (not a crime; you don't know anything until you find out), so they either need to spend more time getting used to it and learning how to make the wheel feel better or just accept this isn't what they're looking for at the moment.

Given the non-FFB observations, I'd be inclined to suggest the latter.
 
All good mate, l guess its just the different games FFB. techniques. 20 smoothing ??? Yep l kind of switched off then. Time certainly needs to be spent understanding, took me forever to get a FFB wheel as l didn't believe it could possibly be anything near reality...
 
There are plenty of canned effects in FFB in all titles, rF2 is probably the least guilty of this tho. calculating FFB with nothing canned would take so much computing power you couldnt compute anything else than just FFB as its related to everything that is in anyway related to your tires, which is everything.
AC has a huge amout of canned FFB effects, many of them possible to switch off in their settings. But many you cant get rid of. Common problem for sims is that once you go very slowly, the physics calculations tend to have too many decimanl numbers too close to 0, and the floating points cannot hold that much info, errors start to occur.. every sim deals with this differendly but the most conventional way is to switch to differend FFB physics when going below certain speed, say 20kmh. in AC this is VERY apparent and i even remember in one of their patches in changelog sometihng like - added damping effect to the steering wheel in low speeds.. this is canned increasing FFB resistance when you go slowly. I dont know how does rF2 deal with it but there is absolutely no observable difference or transition, in AC there is.
This is not just about how much computing power you want to dedicate to FFB, its also about the coders skills and mainly also how is your physics model already realistic, as you simply need to have lots of things to produce realistic uncanned FFB, rubber compound, sideway stiffness, air pressures, steering geometry, steering ratios, weight distribution and to that related aero, many many many more... you cant have these in FFB uncanned if you dont calculate this in your physics.. and AC keep evolving and improving but they simply dont have many of these features. ISI has been developing this engine for like 10+ years.. that makes their engine outdated, but also at the same thing filled with complex and sophisticated features
 
I don't get this rF2-has-an-outdated engine sentiment tbh. Why is something outdated that has been developed for the last 10 years or even more? Would be the same like saying that ArmA III is outdated, just because the roots of this engine go back to Operation Flashpoint. If anything, this should tell you that those software packages are pretty fleshed out and advanced.
 
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