New Guy - Should I Get RF2?

[bwana]

I don't get this rF2-has-an-outdated engine sentiment tbh. Why is something outdated that has been developed for the last 10 years or even more? Would be the same like saying that ArmA III is outdated, just because the roots of this engine go back to Operation Flashpoint.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.

Agreed , I think developing is the keyword here.

 

[Ef123]

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.

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.

I am not here just to have a talk, I am seriously thinking about getting this game. if i wanted my opinions to be confirmed I'd not open this thread on rfactor forum. I dont think feel is that vague. let alone in sim where wheel gives you extra information, you can feel the difference in two cars just by watching the drivers onboard. eeven f1 drivers are using simulators and I remember rosberg's interview him saying its just the same, same forces, same feeling etc.

no that ice layer feeling isnt about ffb being different. it just how the car feels and drives. I could notice that difference just by watching someone drive both sims.

I think g27 is quite a powerful wheel and its good enough. after all, it is few years newer than rfactor's engine.

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.

the games I played aren't free, and g27 isnt a "cheap" wheel. it was the best wheel for a long time after rf was out and many people have used it with rf. wouldnt blame the wheel back then as there were no better. but now suddenly its g27's fault. i dont agree.

leagues take planning and timing, and you might retire on the first lap. so casual racing is better for me. but of course I could try.

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.

I dont think you can keep developing the same thing and just keep it up to date. there are many things in an engine that you cannot change and these areas get old no matter how much you update the rest. otherwise microsoft wouldnt keep jumping from dx9 to 10 to 12 etc. there are effects you just cant produce with dx9 and need an overhaul and newly written code.

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.

realistic feeling is important for me. when I am driving a car i dont feel the kerb on the wheel so it does not matter if rf is making it directly come from the tyres. it is not what I would feel in reality so to me its pretty much same canned effect too. I havent felt that transition in ac (not that I looked for it) but in rf at low speeds there is no ffb and its not realistic. arent sims expected to be as realistic as possible? on low speeds ac's "canned effect" does a better job making it more realistic than rf's just tyres ffb.

Do I not know what is clipping? well i thought it was special to g27, that noise you get over the kerbs. I dont think i got a power issue. g27 is strong enough and i am not even using it on 100% power.

 

[Lazza]

Do I not know what is clipping? well i thought it was special to g27, that noise you get over the kerbs. I dont think i got a power issue. g27 is strong enough and i am not even using it on 100% power.

FFB clipping is when you reach 100% of what the wheel is willing to output, which means you don't feel any stronger forces because there's nowhere left to go. You can avoid it by reducing the FFB strength, but that means all forces are now weaker than they were before.

You might think the G27 is 'strong enough', but it maxes out at 2.5Nm of torque. The weaker end of cars in rF2 hit 100% output at a calculated torque of 11-13Nm; the 'F1 style' car will max out at around 25Nm. Some higher end wheels you could buy right now can go very close to producing that sort of force.

Your reduced 2.5Nm wheel, in an open wheeler car at low speed, will probably be producing something like 0.8Nm in an effort to simulate 8Nm. rF2 scales the forces linearly, so that when you're at speed with 2 tons of downforce and the wheel weights up you can feel it (now 2.5Nm instead of 0.8), but it's nothing like the 20-30Nm a real driver would experience.

A game built for wheels like the G27 will increase the low forces so those weaker wheels give you more feedback, but that will make a 'proper' sim wheel nearly undriveable. rF2 has some configurability in this area by the way, you can change the 'Steering Torque Sensitivity' to increase (or decrease, if you wish) the lower forces relative to the higher forces.

You've mentioned the 'rfactor engine' and seem to have dated it, probably 2005 or so. rF2 uses higher resolution track meshes, faster FFB output rates, a totally different method for FFB, and while the engine as a whole is a continuation of the same engine rF1 used it's been developed in many areas in pretty radical ways, including the tyres which also impact on FFB.

 

[Ef123]

FFB clipping is when you reach 100% of what the wheel is willing to output, which means you don't feel any stronger forces because there's nowhere left to go. You can avoid it by reducing the FFB strength, but that means all forces are now weaker than they were before.

You might think the G27 is 'strong enough', but it maxes out at 2.5Nm of torque. The weaker end of cars in rF2 hit 100% output at a calculated torque of 11-13Nm; the 'F1 style' car will max out at around 25Nm. Some higher end wheels you could buy right now can go very close to producing that sort of force.

Your reduced 2.5Nm wheel, in an open wheeler car at low speed, will probably be producing something like 0.8Nm in an effort to simulate 8Nm. rF2 scales the forces linearly, so that when you're at speed with 2 tons of downforce and the wheel weights up you can feel it (now 2.5Nm instead of 0.8), but it's nothing like the 20-30Nm a real driver would experience.

I've been to trackdays and used different cars. I could comfortably say the only thing that g27 couldnt match is a go-kart. because its simply direct with no help.

F1 has power steering technology. so it depends on which driver wants how heavy wheel. and I dont think its anywhere near 25nm because they need to focus on going fast rather than wrestling with the wheel. more powerful wheel will only drain the driver more, make him need more muscles and more fluid and eventually be heavier(grams count in f1) and he wont be focusing on the race. he wont be turning the wheel as quickly and easily as he wants. So I think in every race car there is an effort to make the wheel lighter. where did you get these numbers from?

 

[MikeeCZ]

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.

ARMA III runs on RV engine which is also badly outdated. Your example actually kinda proved my point, but i would have to go into depths of explaining why lets just say that the old core is very difficult to work with when its written on old versions of C++ and everything is tangled together in so inconvenient way that you fix one thing but break another. Every old gameegnine has this issue.

 

[Lazza]

The little reading I've done suggests road cars generally produce around 5Nm at the wheel. Googling just now found someone logging their FSAE car with a peak of 30Nm and a steady state cornering force closer to 11-12.

I know I ignored power steering, unfortunately so does rF2. Anyway, 2.5Nm won't cut it if you're simulating a race car, and they aren't (and certainly weren't, in the past!) all fitted with power steering. Hopefully I've at least cleared up what FFB clipping is.

 

[Euskotracks]

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 fully disagree about the low speed stuff. Saying that FFB cannot be correctly simulated at low speeds is simply ridiculous. What you claim would apply to the full low speed physics simulation, and not only FFB!

Usually canned things are the ones that might give problems at some point of the simulation range. I am not an expert of how rF2 FFB work.
I would think that if anything is switched off at low speed, that would be a canned effect not working properly in the low part of speed range.

Enviado desde mi ONE A2001 mediante Tapatalk

 

[hitm4k3r]

ARMA III runs on RV engine which is also badly outdated. Your example actually kinda proved my point, but i would have to go into depths of explaining why lets just say that the old core is very difficult to work with when its written on old versions of C++ and everything is tangled together in so inconvenient way that you fix one thing but break another. Every old gameegnine has this issue.

How does my example prove your point? Just because that something is difficult to work with doesn't mean that it is outdated. A game engine and it's core can be changed and enhanced if you have access to the source code. Thatswhy iRacing switched to a new DX version, rF2 switched to 64bit support etc. It is all down to the point what a developer wants to achieve with an engine. So far I don't see an alternative for ArmA or rF2 and they are the most up to date engines you can get in terms of all areas and not just graphics processing in their market, or can you point be to alternatives?.

That said, every new engine has it's own quirks and problems, so you have no guarantee that you won't brake stuff there, when you fix something else.

I follow the development of Squad, a military shooter on UE4 wich is bascily the goto engine for new games. They have alot of problems getting vehicles to work properly, wich makes UE4 far less advanced in some areas, where the ArmA engine just blows out those average engines (physics calculations in different areas like balistics, penetration of materials etc., AI and pathfinding, volumentric cloud system, physical water and much more).

People need to get rid of the mind set, that new is allways better. Functionality is much more important.

 

[Minibull]

How does my example prove your point? Just because that something is difficult to work with doesn't mean that it is outdated. A game engine and it's core can be changed and enhanced if you have access to the source code. Thatswhy iRacing switched to a new DX version, rF2 switched to 64bit support etc. It is all down to the point what a developer wants to achieve with an engine. So far I don't see an alternative for ArmA or rF2 and they are the most up to date engines you can get in terms of all areas and not just graphics processing in their market, or can you point be to alternatives?.

That said, every new engine has it's own quirks and problems, so you have no guarantee that you won't brake stuff there, when you fix something else.

I follow the development of Squad, a military shooter on UE4 wich is bascily the goto engine for new games. They have alot of problems getting vehicles to work properly, wich makes UE4 far less advanced in some areas, where the ArmA engine just blows out those average engines (physics calculations in different areas like balistics, penetration of materials etc., AI and pathfinding, volumentric cloud system, physical water and much more).

People need to get rid of the mind set, that new is always better. Functionality is much more important.

And the same things have been said for Bethesda and their Creation engine. Obsidian who made Fallout NV said that no other engine would work as well in the settings they use, with the goals they have in regards to a persistent open world, with lots of dynamic interactions and scripting along with modability, etc. And they just keep updating it, and improving it. It may be based on the old Gamebryo engine, but it fulfills their criteria really well, and has been improved so much since that old engine.
But people still say "Old gamebryo engine sucks, Bethesda need to write a new engine, rah rah".

Even with rF1 to rF2 there have been some major changes with the sim itself. Weather, rubber, physics systems, ffb systems, and yes, graphics/lighting. It would take some massive money and time for a company to scrap their old engine completely and start fresh each time they make a release. That would be a stupid way to progress.

 

[peterchen]

A graphics engine can be outdated. rF2´s long evolved, highly advanced physics engine can´t (by now).
To say something like this is simply rubbish. Agree: newer means nothing!

Modern F1 cars may have power steering. What about a F1 from 1974?
Something like this is also simulated in rF2.

Sorry to say, but to think a G27 is more or less the end of the road and "does everything" is just ridicoulus ignorant.
You still didn´t answerd the hardware-question. What´s up there?

 

[MikeeCZ]

You guys didnt get my meaning, but fair enough. All i was trying to say is that old engines have lots of good, the bad and the ugly. New engines tend to be more up to date, but less developed for the specific needs, which is in my opinion why ACs physics are not sophisticated enough yet, but they are getting there, and they are getting there quickly.
You wouldnt know my meaning if you didnt try to make any content for all these engines, i know what hassle it is to make content for RV engine, for isiMotor, but also for modern engines like Cryengine and Unity, there are lots things to cover so there is no point, plus this is badly off topic anyway.
i love rF2, i dont like AC, but huge part of the reason why is because of the dev teams, not the product themselfs, Kunos is boasting about AC using words like ultimate, perfection etc where ISI is very objective and dont money leach. So even despite the fact that i find rF2 physics far superior, even if the two were identical i would still stick with rF2. Gives me feeling that i am supporting a team that deserves my support

 

[Will Mazeo]

rF2 is the best sim out there, this I have no doubt (I spend much more time in AMS tho). But at the same time it is an interesting case of every time I start it I feel it is really really something that could and should be a lot more than what it is now so it's a bit disappointing, but not the sim itself, the disappointment is more towards ISI. Don't get me wrong, I love ISI.

So should you get it? Of course. Even with that the sim is still good. Get some URD cars and have a lot of fun

 

[boblevieux]

I've been to trackdays and used different cars. I could comfortably say the only thing that g27 couldnt match is a go-kart. because its simply direct with no help.

F1 has power steering technology. so it depends on which driver wants how heavy wheel. and I dont think its anywhere near 25nm because they need to focus on going fast rather than wrestling with the wheel. more powerful wheel will only drain the driver more, make him need more muscles and more fluid and eventually be heavier(grams count in f1) and he wont be focusing on the race. he wont be turning the wheel as quickly and easily as he wants. So I think in every race car there is an effort to make the wheel lighter. where did you get these numbers from?

Read this about a F3 at Barcelone (not the heaviest steering track)
http://repository.tudelft.nl/view/ir/uuid:4cb0dc14-0ca0-4296-be74-51d0fd752fc5/
About Indy cars
http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a18270/you-think-driving-an-indy-car-is-easy/

 

[Ef123]

A graphics engine can be outdated. rF2´s long evolved, highly advanced physics engine can´t (by now).
To say something like this is simply rubbish. Agree: newer means nothing!

Sorry to say, but to think a G27 is more or less the end of the road and "does everything" is just ridicoulus ignorant.
You still didn´t answerd the hardware-question. What´s up there?

of course it can be!

actually, thinking that you could keep updating same engine to keep it up to date is what is ridiculously ignorant. we naturally have much better technology and understanding of physics than we had 10 years ago. the programs and hardware we use are much more advanced. and some of the unalterable parts of rf engine has to have been written with that old knowledge and technology. if rf team came up with new engine plan for rf3 would you say no just keep upgrading the old because its "highly advanced"?


I told you I get stable 60 fps with mediocre settings. why is brand of my gpu that important to you? it sounds like you are looking for things to blame. and it seems that can be anything but the game itself.

about g27, I didn't say "end of the road" I said its good enough to bring most of what rfactor ffb offers.

in 5 years time the wheels you deem "best" now will be toys. then a guy will come in not liking rf's feedback with today's best wheels. what are you gonna blame then? wheel again?

the only thing g27 misses is belt driven system and a bit of power. nothing more.

 

[bwana]

Nothing more? except accurate responsiveness and realistic torque, essential components in simulation hardware

 

[MarcG]

of course it can be!

actually, thinking that you could keep updating same engine to keep it up to date is what is ridiculously ignorant. we naturally have much better technology and understanding of physics than we had 10 years ago. the programs and hardware we use are much more advanced. and some of the unalterable parts of rf engine has to have been written with that old knowledge and technology. if rf team came up with new engine plan for rf3 would you say no just keep upgrading the old because its "highly advanced"?


I told you I get stable 60 fps with mediocre settings. why is brand of my gpu that important to you? it sounds like you are looking for things to blame. and it seems that can be anything but the game itself.

about g27, I didn't say "end of the road" I said its good enough to bring most of what rfactor ffb offers.

in 5 years time the wheels you deem "best" now will be toys. then a guy will come in not liking rf's feedback with today's best wheels. what are you gonna blame then? wheel again?

the only thing g27 misses is belt driven system and a bit of power. nothing more.

the engine hasn't stood still for 10+ years, it's called continuous development, that is continuously updating the code to take advantage of the latest tech and knowledge. A "new" engine itself would've been worked on for years beforehand, you don't just write it up one day and release a game the next.

Anyway to answer your original question; if you like racing Sims then buying RF2 is a no brainer, although it seems you only came here to argue against everyone's opinions.

 

[Ef123]

the only thing g27 misses is belt driven system and a bit of power. nothing more.

Nothing more? except accurate responsiveness and realistic torque, essential components in simulation hardware

realistic torque = a bit of power
"accurate responsiveness" = belt driven system

so you pretty much said the same thing.

the engine hasn't stood still for 10+ years, it's called continuous development, that is continuously updating the code to take advantage of the latest tech and knowledge. A "new" engine itself would've been worked on for years beforehand, you don't just write it up one day and release a game the next.

Anyway to answer your original question; if you like racing Sims then buying RF2 is a no brainer, although it seems you only came here to argue against everyone's opinions.

considerably big chunks of it stood still for that long. and thats the point.

I didn't "come here to argue". I came here to listen to legitimate reasons as to why I should buy this one. that doesnt mean I would immediately accept every one sided opinion and some ridiculous arguments. the first thing you would expect to see on a rf2 forum is "rf2 is the best sim" I need more than that.

I saw some guy here saying rf nord is better than ac's laserscanned nord, I just saw one of the guy who answered me here also wrote on steam "if you wanna crash others buy ac, if you want real sim buy rf2" what is that, really? why so hostile and one sided? ac is at least on the same level if not better with its much newer engine from people who have a lot of experience and who have made one of the best tyre models in sim history with nkp. but i still see here even in this simple thread unnecessarily bashing of ac. to be honest in ac forum nobody cares about that. if you believe in the quality of the product you play, you wouldnt need to bash other sims unnecessarily.

 

[MarcG]

considerably big chunks of it stood still for that long. and thats the point.

And how can you possibly know that without owning the title? Please explain what chunks exactly stood still, thanks.

I won't give you "RF2 is the best sim ever" because I don't own them all, I own quite a few and I regard RF2 as one of the very best, hence why I recommend you buy it.

 

[Minibull]

Hah, exactly as I thought OP...

 

[hitm4k3r]

the only thing g27 misses is belt driven system and a bit of power. nothing more.



realistic torque = a bit of power
"accurate responsiveness" = belt driven system

so you pretty much said the same thing.



considerably big chunks of it stood still for that long. and thats the point.

I didn't "come here to argue". I came here to listen to legitimate reasons as to why I should buy this one. that doesnt mean I would immediately accept every one sided opinion and some ridiculous arguments. the first thing you would expect to see on a rf2 forum is "rf2 is the best sim" I need more than that.

I saw some guy here saying rf nord is better than ac's laserscanned nord, I just saw one of the guy who answered me here also wrote on steam "if you wanna crash others buy ac, if you want real sim buy rf2" what is that, really? why so hostile and one sided? ac is at least on the same level if not better with its much newer engine from people who have a lot of experience and who have made one of the best tyre models in sim history with nkp. but i still see here even in this simple thread unnecessarily bashing of ac. to be honest in ac forum nobody cares about that. if you believe in the quality of the product you play, you wouldnt need to bash other sims unnecessarily.

I think nobody here is saying, that AC is rubbish or anything. I own it and I really like certain aspects of it, but it has some short comings at simulating things, atleast for my personal use. Little example: I really like the Lotus72 on Zandvort, so I decided to make a race weekend with full race lenght as it was back in 74/75. Granted that the track was a bit different back in 74', it is total nonesense that you have to refuel halfway through the race. If anything , the track was alot faster, so naturaly fuel usage would be higher. Then I have to drive with autopilot into the pitlane to click through a cumbersome pitmenu. And I won't even mention the AI that constantly tries to kill you without any positional awareness. I know some people give a f*ck about stuff like that and I don't want to tell you what you should like or not, but this is my experience with the game. You have a full GT3 car set, yet you can't simulate any timed races with proper pitstops and safety car, let alone jump starts. Stuff like that annoys me to no end: the material is there, but the simulation falls short pretty damn fast. It is fun for some time, but I don't spend too much time with it tbh.

I can have a proper 1966 Monaco Race with the BT20 in rFactor 2 and get perfectly immersed. Want to drive the 2013 forumula season with all cars and tracks, simulating all aspects? You won't find that somewhere else.

Anyway, you wanted to hear some opinions, yet you start to argue though you don't own the product, wich I find a bit wierd. Why the hell is developing an engine for 10+ years ignorant? It is called sustainability and I wish more people would appreciate it, not only in sim racing but in general. Development of rF2 didn't stand still for the past 10 years. If you want to believe that, do so. The question is wether you want to educate yourself to learn more about the product and have a proper conversation to reflect on pros and cons or wether you just want to argue for the sake of it.

Btw: the G27 is a toy wheel, as is my DFGT. No way you will simulate real forces of a racing car. Not even a F3 or anything else in this sim. Race drivers have to be athlets for a reason. There is a pretty cool vid of Niels Heusinkveld driving the Lotus97 with high end hardware. This should give you a slight inside of what it takes and even this is far away from the real forces in such a car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-IChA-NIeY

Now add to that the Gforces and the general forces on the body especialy from the bumps, several hundred gear shifts in h-pattern per race, the constant risk of being killed and to be concetrated all the time and you get an idea, what an effort it was to drive such a race car not only from the physical standpoint but also mentaly, on the limit for allmost two hours. You will never get that in your living room with a G27.
Many people underestimate it. Monaco 66 was a 100 lap race btw (314 km against 260 today), so there you go