Have Your Say: Are Graphics Important?

[Craig Dunkley]

failed, yeah right, sold close to 3 times as many copies as Assetto Corsa, and some 45 times as many sold copies that Automobilista, .. yeah what a failure compared to successful AMS ... omg people

take the personal feelings away from saying things about something being failure

if AMS really only sold 35k copies, that's what I would called failure from a developer point of view

and @Nibiru Cataclysm made another very good point ..

You seem to be focusing solely on the financial point of view and deciding on "how many copies" a game has sold as to it being a winner or not ..

Pcars may have cost up to 50 times the amount of money a title like AMS cost to produce, of course we will never know, so how can you make a comment like "failure from a developer point of view"

 

[Patrik Marek]

Until you know what their confidential internal sales targets and projections were you can't comment on whether the amount of sales were a success or failure.

I disagree , if they met or didn't meet their numbers doesn't make it successful

if you ask general Joe that likes racing games about Automobilista, he will probably never have heard of it .. that's my point

and if it was more high-end looking game, I'm pretty sure it would be way more known and sold more copies, .. graphics sells, screenshots sells, youtube videos sells

As I said earlier, number of people for whom physics is the priority is small compared to how many people play car games , which is why if people want to make money, graphics is imo something they should get done right first !

surely, that doesn't make those games good games, which I never said it does!
but there's a reason why there are so many new games looking absolutelly amazing, becasue if they didn't, people won't buy them, since the gameplay isn't often that great these days

 

[Kari Kranck]

Usually no time for watching landscape. Physics and feedback from controls and FPS are more important for sim racing. Dont care how good looking sexy trees or grass is. tarmac quality and paint is more important, because have to watch it endless hours..
developers do miracles with they budget, when they also think what kind of hardware people have and willing to pay. and they sims/games are cheap.

 

[Patrik Marek]

and @Nibiru Cataclysm made another very good point ..

You seem to be focusing solely on the financial point of view and deciding on "how many copies" a game has sold as to it being a winner or not ..

Pcars may have cost up to 50 times the amount of money a title like AMS cost to produce, of course we will never know, so how can you make a comment like "failure from a developer point of view"

I'm not trying to make any point about winner game, I'm just backing up my claims that graphics is very important to majority of people

yes, AMS would have cost much less to develop that's fair point

 

[Kevin Bradley]

The answer to this question lies so much in where your personal threshold/acceptance/tolerance is. For some physics is everything. For others, below average visuals are an absolute immersion killer. That's the point - everyone expects different things.

For me personally, physics matter the most. Graphics and sounds are the next priority and as long as they are passable then I don't mind too much. I still play gtr2 and race 07 and when I'm doing so I'm not in the heat of a race cursing the lack of modern shaders and the fact there's no post processing effects or whatever.

That being said, a developer releasing a new sim racing title in 2017 with gtr2 level graphics would obviously get laughed out of town and rightly so.

To sum up, I think it all goes back to my first point that it all depends which features you value the most as an individual and what your personal expectations are for a aim racing title.

All my opinion obviously - others may disagree

 

[WOKOWEN1]

Graphics are not important if all the rest fails! I am not talking about Project Cars because I dont consider it to be good in Graphics. Project Cars only has good graphics on vehicles and road surface but the landscape and animation are very cartoonish. I am still waiting for a game with good and realistic graphics to be released. So far the best overall realistic experience is Richard Burns Rally, despite its age.

 

[Jimlaad43]

My flatmate prefers Assetto Corsa over Automobilista because it has better graphics.

I like them both because they have great driving physics and I've had some fantastic fun racing on them on RD. Realistic graphics are a nice bonus, but not necessary. As long as they're close it's fine.

 

[guidofoc]

I think graphics and eye candy are good and i want moar! As long as I can play my sim at 90 fps on my potato PC

It's the final "package" that counts: driving experience, features, graphics, moddability, HW requirements, price.. etc. I think the games on the market at the moment have different combinations and you can see the results: PCars sold more than the rest and this is where graphics help, sales! But AC (with less copies sold) gets more people playing it, which is also a success in terms of "package". Rfactor 2 and Raceroom are hanging on but no breakthrough, AMS is still for an "elite" of purists.
http://steamcharts.com/cmp/244210,234630,365960,211500#3m

 

[delpinsky]

We are in 2017, so it's no time anymore to say: physics only are important.
Multicore CPUs, Superpowerful Graphics cards. No more excuses, now graphics are as important as physics. The aim is to reach a true to life photorealistic look of the sims. We can do it with our tech.
And let's not forget the audio department...

 

[Chobonator]

100% of the time playing the game, I'm looking at it, so yes, very much yes.

Clean, immersive, the least aliasing possible.

I think if Raceroom were updated to a more modern engine and used more natural colours, it would be very hard to beat. Dirt 4 at the right time of day with deep shadows can look amazing too.

Project Cars has some ghastly stuff all around, and I don't understand how it's treated as a graphical powerhouse. Shimmering trees, aliasing, bad shadows, terrible 3D assets at Le Mans, for example. PC2 better look cleaner than that.

I don't play Automobilista any more, but I can't stay away from rFactor 2. It will never look amazing, but it still manages to surprise me from time to time. That physics engine deserves a much nicer graphics engine.

 

[M-Bimmer]

Who will say no to eye Candy...but if the physics suck then i skip the candy.

 

[Steve Bird]

They are when I spend 650 quid on a graphics card There's no real excuse not to implement good graphics in a PC sim nowadays. I fully understand that the developers need to cater for every spec of PC to enable them to generate the highest amount of sales but this should be done via settings, which allow lower spec machines to run it with half decent graphics and then the highest spec machines can run it with the true eye candy. However, this is only if the same time and effort is put into the physics part of the sim. Like I said earlier I have spent 1000's on my triple screen rig and sometimes feel let down by developers who feel like laclustre graphics is okay as long as the physics are good. rFactor 2 recently went DX11 and for me that has been an fantastic improvement in looks and FPS but it should have been like from the start, but it looked 8-10 years old when it was released which I would think put a lot of people off.

 

[Jose Borges]

I'd say visual effects are important. I like a good shadow effect and the sun beam before sunset but driving is the most important. I feel like rf2 will get better with better graphics and optimization because it intensifies immersion. I'd say that if graphics arent that noticeable during gameplay than they're spot on. iRaing hasn't got the most sophisticated graphics engine but i think it does the best job all around while PCARS would be the best but it's a big chunck of your gameplay experience. I hope this makes sense...

 

[Sortsylic]

I think developers should make more graphics more immersive, not just cinematic and "beautiful".
I really like things like splashes of water on the windshield in Dirt 2 (not sim, I know) and things like that.
I like rubber pieces on the track in rFactor 2. I like dirty cars and wheels in Assetto Corsa after being off-track. It would be awesome if road surface changed in AC depending on the Old/Dusty/Green slider.

 

[Terry Rock]

This.....

'Graphics' is too broad a term.
Visual detail and quality are important, but that's not just graphics.
It's textures, objects, assets, animations and everything that builds the visual experience.

Automobilista is a classic example.
Some guys complain about dated graphics.
I personally love the look of it out the cockpit window...more importantly, when I drive out of the pit box with the bulk of its cars, they're 'believable'. That's way more important than looking like PCARS.
One of the most important aspects of any circuit, is the ability to see and know what the track is doing.
As long as I can identify that aspect and pick out up-coming apex to corners, I'm happy.
As somebody here once said; "I'll take a 'brainy' woman who does everything well and can hold my interest, over a gorgeous bimbo you play with and put away in an hour..
You can have more.. and a better overall experience with one, over the other.

 

[Shadowoff]

Good graphics are useless when the physics are sh*t. Example: Forza or Gran Turismo. Looks really great but... Well, lets say the physics arent "on point"

 

[Andy_J]

I don't play Automobilista any more, but I can't stay away from rFactor 2. It will never look amazing, but it still manages to surprise me from time to time. That physics engine deserves a much nicer graphics engine.

I love the graphics in RF2 and I still use the DX9 version at the moment.

 

[holihon2012]

I play on my mid-end laptop, Automobilista is the best for me which doesnot require too much hardware, and its graphics are good enough (or say very good). I'd rather developers to spend money on better physics, more detailed sounds, road surface, weather, dirt and smoke, etc., but not on "shining" graphics. What I want most is the high level communication with the driving conditions, using the limited simulation equipments.

 

[Fabrice Bourguignon]

1. The most important in a Simu is the physic. The evidence, still playing Project cars here ?

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Yes, but never more important than physics and FFB. Or even close.

Also, sound gets too little attention. I rather take sounds like RaceRoom or Automobilista with slightly dated graphics, than top tier graphics with cars that sound like vacuum cleaners.

Sound is 50% of the audiovisual package, most racing game developers (and players) seem to put like 10% attention to sound and 90% to graphics. Don't get it.