PC1 False advertising

[Björn Spindel]

I've seen many evangelists and perhaps even the developers themselves refer to Project C.A.R.S. as a "sim" or "simulator". Normally this term is used to describe software that tries to mimic reality. There is nothing wrong with arcade racers so why not just call the game by its real name and stop trying to advertise it as something it's not? There's no shame in admitting that Project C.A.R.S. doesn't try to be realistic. There's a big market for this type of game, even bigger so than for the niche sims, so please stop trying to fool people and aim for your target audience instead.

 

[Kazumi]

I agree with the above post. The main problem from my point of view though is that a 10% deviation from "real data" (I'd rather say real-ish data because even cars that don't exist in real life can work - same as companies test cars they didn't actually build yet) can potentially cause unforeseeable problems. And that's just by changing 1 or 2 parameters according to ones "feel" (and since feel is subjective it isn't even constant)

I don't think that's how SimBin did work though. Of course it could be they kinda use best case "in doubt", which normally is not a bad strategy at least if you have limited development time.

For you, the subjective "racing driver experience" is the most important. I respect that.

Kalniel, I see more people frustrated over unwinnable races against the AI in eye-candy racing games such as S2U than I see people frustrated over the likes of FVA or Race Room 2.

Mhh, good point. It actually in many games doesn't feel rewarding at all to get a 2nd or 3rd place. I'm not talking about the disappointment directly after the race. It makes you feel like you didn't achieve anything, and you can repeat the offline races as often as you want. In game design that's a tough challenge. How to motivate people without punishing them? Shift tried that with giving points for everything... I think that kind of mini rewards work, if executed properly.

 

[Chronus]

Again I think we're more in agreement than it sounds - your examples of Namco and EA are examples I'd point to as not ones interested in the driving experience - they clearly have some other goal - cheap thrills, wowy explosions or whatever, which impacts on the modelling in such a way that it does not behave as you would expect or respond to your inputs the way a racing car would respond to a racing driver, so you have neither accurate physics nor a racing driver experience.

Well, their intention is to reach a wide audience through something they believe appeals to that audience: "intense, authentic racing experience". That is their professed motto, and that is what their marketing depts. sell. How they go about doing it, sadly, is most lacking.

I am fairly confident (though now lacking either a source or as accurate a memory as I used to) that the reason tyre physics were added to games like GTR:Evo is precisely because that helped create a better driver experience - things behave more like you expect, your inputs have more realistic outcomes, and the exaggerated movement helps make up for missing senses. I am sceptical that the tyre parameters were chosen a priori, or even with absolute reference to real data, but instead once the model was adapted they were adjusted until such a point that it 'felt' right and realistic.

We have to go back to the beginning of the godfather or racing simulations - Dave Kaemmer.

His intention was always to have a racing sim that effectively replicated the behaviour of racing cars. For that reason, he worked at several levels on the physics engine - from aerodynamics to tires.

All the way through GPL and beyond, computers were simply not fast enough to cope with the complexity of a wide scope simulation, encompassing everything from chassis to aerodynamics, engine and tires. So, he concentrated mostly on tires and an era where aerodynamics were not that important.

With faster computers they could model more areas of car physics.

ISI's creation encompasses everything. isiMotor2 (the basis for rFactor, GTL, GTR2, Race07/GTR Evo) has everything we could wish for - maybe not perfect, but very very powerful. Tire physics are just one aspect of pMotor2.

You don't add tire physics to the likes of rFactor or GTR Evo. Tire physics are a vital part of the entire physics engine, and a physics engine (whether that of a space sim, a flight sim or a racing sim) exists to simulate the physics of the real world for an intended target.

I'd say where you and I differ is the starting point.

You believe "tyre physics were added to games like GTR:Evo [...]because that helped create a better driver experience".

I believe the very reason for simulations to exist is solely because they simulate some aspect of the real world. You study that aspect and model it as accurately as possible - thus, a simulation is born.

We're both probably after good, realistic racing games. But you want something a bit different: a good racing experience, whereas I'm more interested in accomplishing the original goal of simulations. I suspect not everybody is after this and most people will tend towards your vision of racing simulations.

The other significant gain is for marketing - if you say your game has modelled tyre physics it's another check box in the feature comparison list that enthusiasts look for. Some people will like that for its own sake or the sake of making the game more realistic, others will like it for the hope that it helps recreate the driving experience better.

To be honest, there are 3 ways of looking at this issue, for 3 types of people:
- the usual thrill seeker, he cares more about having a good time than in racing properly. Having fun for the sake of it is the goal.

- the casual fan of racing sims, probably also the non hardcore simracer. He wants to simulate the atmosphere of racing in many of its vectors - inside the cockpit, the environment surrounding it, the colours and sounds, the lighting, the stands filled with people, probably good looking girls on the grid, probably a career mode. A stringent obedience to physical principles is not absolutely necessary for this simracer.

- the hardcore type. How the car reacts, the choices of setups, learning to drive as a racing driver, crashing and continuing to improve, the competition per se - above all, car behaviour is the one aspect that matters

Nothing wrong in belonging to any of these.

Different companies will cater for any or the 2 topmost types.

Also, it seems certain that the last type is the one that will be less advantageous from a financial point of view.

And, kalniel, gotta say, good discussion thus far.

 

[Nathan Robinson]

I agree with you somewhat Chronus. I dont like when we start grouping people though because any of us out there could belong to 2 or three of those groups alltogther. Just because I enjoy arcade racing one day, doesnt mean I'm not going to want to practice for hours for a league race the next. That's part of the problem with all the flame wars about pcars lately, people want to divide it into groups. We then get this "if you like pcars than you must not like real sims" nonsense. There are lots of people out there just like me that will drive anything with wheels.

 

[Chronus]

Make no mistake, I think and always have for the past 12 years or so, first with flight sims (this sim vs that sim) and these 5 or 6 years with racing sims, these "mine is better than yours" discussions are absurd and nothing more than noise.

I have seen GPLers attack rFers, seen rFers attack GTR2ers, seen GTR2ers attack Race07ers, LFSers being attacked and attacking others, seen iRacers attack all others and now others attack pCARSers and pCARSers attack all others.

Absurd. This is not about religious wars like someone said, this is pure and simple about peer mentality and belonging to a group leading to attacking people who are or think different.

Absurd because, in the end, most serious simracers enjoy the same things: good virtual racing.

I mentioned those groups in terms of, probably, what dev companies and publishers think the target audience may be. As I said, nothing wrong in trying to have fun or enjoying photorealistic graphics - different people, different pizza flavours.

Pizza and sims...Go figure.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

No I don't think that at all - it's not a two-way relationship. A 'realistic' car driving model is very difficult to drive fast, that's why there are professionals. That doesn't mean that a difficult game is therefore realistic though.

Yes, but at what point does a sim racer with 1000's of hrs practice become a professional?

When I judge a sim, I do so with my G27 as a guide, and I know to some degree I'm selling some of these sims a but short as G27 has it's limits, but for example, when I drive something as hairy as Simbin retro 1970 Camaro, I have to ensure that I drive as professionally as possible to ensure it doesn't spin let alone produce a decent time.

That's a great car to apply the Jackie Stewart monaco method, however, I've owned 1970's muscle cars with 308GM, 330stroker, 307/350 heavily worked Chev engines in 1400-1500kg cars, and I drove these cars as a 18-25yr old up and down various mountains in my area with NO KNOWLEDGE of racing technique, yet not once went off road despite thrashing these things with huge brake fading around mountains, LOL.

When you consider that a race car can have less weight, near perfect weight distribution, custom built/modified chassis, race brakes, tyres and suspension, you'd wanna believe these thing have grip, of course, if you're as rough as hell on the brakes or on corner entry, then you should suffer, but with good road positioning, and careful use of brake, throttle and gbox, one would assume that arm chair experts with 20 000+ laps under their belts should be able to control these things.

 

[William Levesque]

I find that no matter the sim, all cars are VERY easy to drive when you're not going championship fast

It's the last stretch that makes it difficult !

 

[David Ignjatovic]

I am fairly confident (though now lacking either a source or as accurate a memory as I used to) that the reason tyre physics were added to games like GTR:Evo is precisely because that helped create a better driver experience - things behave more like you expect, your inputs have more realistic outcomes, and the exaggerated movement helps make up for missing senses. .

It's the same deal with you and some of the rf2 nutters at ISI.
By the sounds of it, you want a mathematics simulator, ie, perfect physics numbers.
Me, I want a driving/racing simulation and don't care what numbers they use as long as it translates into a combo of real life car behaviour and believability.

Also, you don't seem to accept that we're discussing consumer simulations, as such, we should be able to get good value from consumer grade equipment and the simulating part should be relative to processing power, IOW, as time marches forward, sims should get better by every criteria, but it's probably the case that even if we had a 100% model of any aspect of racing simulating, the diff between 95% and 100% might be a few degrees in feel, but many generations of processing power.

 

[kalniel]

It's the same deal with you and some of the rf2 nutters at ISI.
By the sounds of it, you want a mathematics simulator, ie, perfect physics numbers.
Me, I want a driving/racing simulation and don't care what numbers they use as long as it translates into a combo of real life car behaviour and believability.

Also, you don't seem to accept that we're discussing consumer simulations, as such, we should be able to get good value from consumer grade equipment and the simulating part should be relative to processing power, IOW, as time marches forward, sims should get better by every criteria, but it's probably the case that even if we had a 100% model of any aspect of racing simulating, the diff between 95% and 100% might be a few degrees in feel, but many generations of processing power.

Really? If you read my posts and come to that conclusion then I'm doing a very bad job of communicating, apologies. Are you sure you haven't accidentally mixed up something I quoted as something I said?

 

[David Ignjatovic]

Really? If you read my posts and come to that conclusion then I'm doing a very bad job of communicating, apologies. Are you sure you haven't accidentally mixed up something I quoted as something I said?

Quite possible, I'll go back and read it again.

edit, my bad!!!

 

[Kenny Paton]

Keep this going guys, it's really interesting reading.

 

[Chronus]

[...]you want a mathematics simulator, ie, perfect physics numbers.
Me, I want a driving/racing simulation and don't care what numbers they use as long as it translates into a combo of real life car behaviour and believability.

I understand this point of view too. And, to some extent, agree with it. And curiously, what you put above marries with what kalniel said.

Kalniel is saying he can live with less physics accuracy if the effort for a super-accurate simulation is applied to other areas.

You don't care about numbers or "perfect physics numbers" or a "mathematics simulator", as long as you have realistic car behaviour and it's believable.

I see both your POVs and agree to some extent, mainly because, as I have said in the past, it is all about the math. You can arrive at the same level of accuracy/believability with different models. There is no single model that can explain tires and predict their behaviour - different ideas, different approaches may yield (actually do) similar results.

All is fine then.

 

[glowtape]

By the sounds of it, you want a mathematics simulator, ie, perfect physics numbers.
Me, I want a driving/racing simulation and don't care what numbers they use as long as it translates into a combo of real life car behaviour and believability.

You'd think that one would want their "real life" car behavior and believability to be grounded in "real life" values. It makes more sense to try to simulate the actual thing, because it'll result in pretty approximate values to begin with. I don't see how hammering Mickey Mouse physics into a certain shape to try to get to certain behavior would help. If at all, you'll be ending up with a lot of edge cases where everything goes haywire.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

Mickey Mouse physics into a certain shape to try to get to certain behavior would help. If at all, you'll be ending up with a lot of edge cases where everything goes haywire.

Whatever it takes to best mimic real world car behaviour via consumer grade equipment is what I'm in favour of, if that means the lotto numbers, then so be it.
Look at GSC Camaro, the digital samurai sword of sim racing cars, and then compare it to rf2's tail happy Nissan GTR.....hey, thanks to me only driving 1970's muscle cars I'm alive today, but if I drove the rf2 GTR, I'd be dead within a few laps.

ISI clearly know how to build open wheelers, as the F2/3 and F3.5 are some of the best sim cars, and I'm still bemused that more people aren't driving the 3.5 after the physics update, ie, if you could drive Race07 F3000, surely you can drive this one and get treated to better FFB.

 

[glowtape]

Haven't driven the rF2 GT-R, but I'm positive this almost has to do with that the game's probably using Nissan's suspension geometry and engine specs, but doesn't simulate HICAS and the electronic rear diff.

I mean, if you have a suspension geometry that relies on active management, you don't get good performance out of it in a game that doesn't do that.

 

[Chronus]

David, can you confirm that rF2 is modelling the Nissan GT-R (and not the Skyline models R34)?

If it is the GT-R R35, then this car doesn't have the HICAS or the SUPER-HICAS, but only the ATTESA (E-TS version).

The HICAS and the ATTESA are different systems. The former is a four wheel/rear wheel steering system, the latter is a four wheel drive (used by the R32 up to the R34 and even before them).

So, whatever may be affecting the GT-R is not related to the rear wheel steering at all.

Maybe it is just a matter of time until ISI finalizes the suspension and tire modelling (still ongoing, I have been told), and then fine tuning via physics calibration will produce the results you are expecting.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

David, can you confirm that rF2 is modelling the Nissan GT-R (and not the Skyline models R34)?
.

No idea on that, and perhaps they'll eventually do something with it, but it's odd that's it's still not fixed, that said, some at ISI forums think it's perfectly fine, but I have a hard time buying into that.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

You don't care about numbers or "perfect physics numbers" or a "mathematics simulator", as long as you have realistic car behaviour and it's believable.

In an ideal sense, I think that'd be best, but as I tried to explain, based on my 1970's aussie muscle car ownership{owned heaps, drove heaps of other people's} Simbins 74 Corvette from the retro pack is more realistic, but the wayward and controllable 70 Camaro is still a blast to drive as long as one can accept the slightly exaggerated handling.

Obviously I want most cars to be more realistic than "fun" focused, but a few here or there won't hurt, plus, even if we accept that the 70 Camaro is exaggerated, it's still very precise and controllable and the synchronization of wheel and pedals is impressive, but I can't say the same for most of pcars cars, they're hard to make sense of.

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

David, can you confirm that rF2 is modelling the Nissan GT-R (and not the Skyline models R34)?

rF2 is simulating the FIA-GT1 spec R35, which is rear-wheel drive only.

 

[glowtape]

David, can you confirm that rF2 is modelling the Nissan GT-R (and not the Skyline models R34)?

If it is the GT-R R35, then this car doesn't have the HICAS or the SUPER-HICAS, but only the ATTESA (E-TS version).

The GT-R in rF2 is the GT1 version. It has a V8 without turbo and only RWD.

 

[Chronus]

Thanks people for the info.

The GT1 does not even have the ATTESA system, as per FIA regulations. So, no HICAS, SUPER-HICAS or ATTESA, which means the problem may not be the suspension, ISI will sooner or later understand there is a problem and correct it.

It would be interesting to compare AC, pCARS and rF2 for the exact same car. That would be hugely interesting.