PC Racing Sims

assassin_ie

What is the best racing game on pc at the mo? are there any that come close to GranTurismo? Also what would be the best f1 game?

tuxy

assassin_ie wrote:

any that come close to GranTurismo?

well gran turismo is an arcade game not a racing sim so if thats what you realy like stick with consoles as you probably wont find good arcade games like that on the pc

i found http://www.liveforspeed.net/ to be a very good sim but you need a sheering wheel to realy enjoy it

i dont know anything about f1 racing sims sorry

Gryzor

assassin_ie wrote:

What is the best racing game on pc at the mo? are there any that come close to GranTurismo? Also what would be the best f1 game?

nothing on the PC like Grand Turismo (GT 2 was the last one i really played)....i was a big fan of it too.....theres alot of sims for the PC...u generally have to put in alot of time to get good at them....For pure enjoyment for little time invesment GT was the business....ToCA Race Driver 2 is the only thing PC game i've seen that resembles GT...not half as good though...

my 2 cents..

ButcherOfNog

The PC tends to have more specialised racing games, they're proper sims that you really need a force feedback wheel and pedals to get full enjoyment out of them. It takes time to learn how to drive them, as the best examples have real world physics models. Most of the newer ones have enough 'driving aids' to just jump in and have fun if thats what you want. You'll miss out on alot of satisfaction tho by doing that. Buying a game like GTR, learning the tracks and cars, then entering an online championship, thats where the fun really is.

The big PC racing titles also tend to have alot of modifications released for them, so you're not only getting one game, grab EA's F1 Challenge for instance and you've a host of mods free to download for it, you can drive many different F1 seasons, sports cars, touring cars, prototypes, you name it theres full mods out there for them.

To answer your question, this year the big one will probably be GTR, just about to be released over here in the next few days.

tuxy

gtr does look interesting
http://www.10tacle.com/gtr-game/

BlueShaun

www.racesimcentral.com is a good site, likewise www.bhmotorsports.com

the best f1 sim at the moment is f1 challenge as mentioned above, grab the rh 2004 mod from emacf1.com.

I compete at www.formula-simracing.com the boards there should be usefull.

but on the question of best sim, GPL is the king, its 6 years old now, but the physics model is amazing still.


Shaun

Dcully

GPL and Nascar 2003 from Papyrus and GTR from Simbin are widely regarded as the best.
As mentioned get yourself F1 Challenge for some amazing mods [there is literally hundreds].
GPL is still amazing,checkout the demo for proof.
Nascar 2003 has an updated version of the GPL physics engine ,its mods are superb,TPTCC,Trans am,and released only few days ago the amazing GTP mod.
http://www.redlinedevelopments.com/

But to me atleast GTR just shades it for the best racing sim ever.
I have the German version for months now with translation patch added,as do many here on boards sims and it is just brilliant.
As mentioned live for sped is class,as is richard burns rally.
The list goes on for PC racing sims.
Once you play any of the above you will see and understand how gran turismo or indeed any console racers are poor by comparison.
Console racers can be fun but are far too arcadey to me and i loose interest very rapidly.

As mentioned above racesimcentral is the hub of all things racing on your PC,recently they passed the 60,000 members point.

ButcherOfNog

BlueShaun wrote:

GPL is the king, its 6 years old now, but the physics model is amazing still.

/me bows to the #1 Irish GPLRank player

SouperComputer

list:

Live for speed (handy enough to get to grips with, good online community) free demo available at www.liveforspeed.net with lots of online action.

GPL: excellent, takes a long time to learn and forget about using keys or joypads

Richard Burns Rally: The rally equiv of GPL IMHO

Nascar 2003, even if you dont like the series in real life its a challenging game with a wealth of online activity

GTR

thats basically the creme da la creme.

Worth a mention:

Netkar, eracer

BlueShaun

How could i forget live for Speed?!?
as mentioned above its excellent, and getting better.

The reason for its excellence is its playability for those of us living in timbuk2, on laggy modems. i just hope the faster cars in s2 dont mess that up!

whiskeyman

What about the Geoff Crammond Grand Prix series?
I played Grand Prix 2 for years, using the hundreds of free ad-ons.
Grand prix 3 was amazing.
Grand prix 4 was released a couple of years ago... but my PC is too old for it!
It's still probably the best around in terms of physics and A1 ( and fanbase... so many amazing utilities / downloads etc..)
The EA sports series were hopeless for these.

BlueShaun

the Grand prix series might have seemed good in the 90s, but playing gp3 or gp4 now just makes my blood boil
There are some behaviours which are completely non physical, the controller support is STILL terrible.
A word on the tracks. In some places the GPx series are incredible! works of fiction that is....
i have over 7 gigs of onboard video here.....to say the reality and the game does not correlate is an understatement.

I say non physical. I have been involved in wind tunnel testing of f1 cars during my studies, so i have some pretty accurate data(from a 2002 car, but hey!) on the aero map, and i *know* gp3 and gp4 blatently misrepresent this.
They have taken basic data, and smoothed the edges to make it *nice* to drive :mad:

Sorry for the rant, just makes my blood boil. :cool:
Shaun

SouperComputer

gp1 was ahead of its time: 2,3 & 4 are a joke. they dont even come close to any of the other sims in terms of physic realisim.

shame really, micrprose really dropped the ball. I remember playing gp4 with assistance turned off (as if there is another way!) you could litterally put on full lock on the high speed bends and get around the corner. The physics are just pathetic by modern standrds.

in real life you would most likely understeer like a turd off the track. Real "boy racer" nearly as bad as Ridge Racer AKA skang racer.



@ whiskeyman if you get a chance pick up a copy of GPL, it only 5 sterling: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11049&item=8175850255&rd=1

youll need to get some patches and mods for it. Once you play it I assure you you wil wonder why GP4 is even on your HD!

smokingman

Don't know what you're talking about dude, GP4 rocks!!
...Got it set up with steering wheel, pedals, and every mod (trustworthy ones) you can get for it.

Been tweaking the setups and already have the 2005 season skins with all the drivers acting almost like they did in the Aussie GP.

Physics are spot on and won't have a word said against it!!!

BlueShaun

gotta agree with souper, the slip angles at which the "tyres" work in gp4 are incredible. "latforce=angle*constant, now lets go to the pub, job done...."

Dcully

It is widely known that the GP series including GP4 are no where near the top of the league.
The best F1 sim/game out there is F1 challenge.
Smoking man ,your talking bout wheel setups etc,
remember your on a sim forum where wheel setups are second nature to the guys here and absolutely essential.
No offence man but if you think the physics are spot on you have been so far left behing its untrue m8.
Try any of the games mentioned above and you will soon bin your GP4 like we all have done many moons ago
I invite anyone round to my place to take a look at and play some real sims

SouperComputer

smokingman wrote:

Don't know what you're talking about dude, GP4 rocks!!
...Got it set up with steering wheel, pedals, and every mod (trustworthy ones) you can get for it.

Been tweaking the setups and already have the 2005 season skins with all the drivers acting almost like they did in the Aussie GP.

Physics are spot on and won't have a word said against it!!!

jeeze, id love to know what you driven that has the physics characterisics of GP4. You're obviously joking!

Play GPL for a week, then you'll have a platform for a discussion. Its funny how many people who havn't tried the likes of GPL GTR or LFS and stil insist that GT GPx, even TOCA (LOL) is a sim. Always gives me a chuckle. Or better still, the ones that try GPL and cant even get out of the pits without crashing and come to the conclusion that its crap.

BlueShaun

Smoking...i just added a big bag o setups to another thread...give gpl a (proper) go and reassess your situation.

smokingman

BlueShaun wrote:

Smoking...i just added a big bag o setups to another thread...give gpl a (proper) go and reassess your situation.

Right so, I'll give it a lash......

I've put so much time and effort into tweaking GP4 though (8.5 Gig on the hard drive at this stage) that it's going to take a while to get into GPL...still tho, I'm always up for a challenge.

Tel me more about GPL tho, believe it or not, I've never played it...
I know there's cars and tracks from the old golden ages of F1 (are there cars from before it was F1 e.g. <1950?), is the original Nurburgring in there? What about the likes of Detroit or Dallas? Are there many mods for it and are any of them especially cool?

Dcully

The best way to get GPl up to speed is download the 2004 demo.
This has all the best and latest graphic updatesand various patches.
Install it then grab yourself a copy of GPL then just copy the tracks folder from your GPL disc to the demo folder and you now have a fully up to date GPL.
Then just download the track graphics updates and your in sim heaven.
Also get yourself a copy of GTR,it will blow your mind.
I have the german version for months but the UK version is released on the 11th of this month i think.

ButcherOfNog

The original Nurburg Ring is in the standard GPL track list, theres 461 GPL tracks in the Track Database so there should be something to suit you

BlueShaun

Good idea Dcully, except i dont think vroc accepts the game in that form

Smoking, be carefull with the throttle, it will shock and horrify you how little grip there is. I say this...i tried gpl again yesterday and had a torrid time :-)

GPL is based on the 1967 F1 season, yes it was F1 then. The cars the year before had 1.5 litre engines, and changed to 3 litre, upping to power to over 400bhp. The tyres were all weather, and were so hard that they lasted several races. The cars are flat on the bottom, round on top, so they actually make lift at speed!

Start with Watkins Glen or Monza, then progress to tracks like silverstone.

One tip, if the car is spinning on the brakes, leave the balance where it is...adjust it by playing with the throttle :-)

SouperComputer

checkout here: http://www.gpllinks.org/

dont bother using any setups for a while, it will only add to the confusion! Run on standard settings.

Youl have to sync you gearchanges with throttle otherwise you'll destroy the engine. Ie lift when you change

also, the 1965 mod is pretty good. 1.5l engines so less power, its all about momentum. races in the 65 format are usually closer.

Dcully

Good idea Dcully, except i dont think vroc accepts the game in that form

It works fine for me on VROC m8.

BlueShaun

Thats a surprise, i know a few people who have had problems.
I have my gpl install as a tarball on a cd, its been accumulating addons etc for years :-)

Dcully

Yep m8,i had 20 gig of GPL stuff before i had to re-install windows and didnt get a chance to back up these downloads
LOL i was on 64k isdn back then too.

SouperComputer

bless me father for I have sinned, my folder is a meagre 900mb!

BlueShaun

mine is 1.6gb, but i stripped out all the fictional tracks a while back, and had a purge of all replays (4gb of replays haha).
Forgot to backup my PB replays, back then i had them all on schubis

Update on my return to GPL, cant get under 1.04.7 at watkins